Judging by the overwhelming response I's say no one is going to reply lol
Give it an hour or two...
Some empaths have short attention spans when there aren't any big red numbers floating about! 
I'd imagine Psi and Sonic would be the two cookie cutter ones, but I've not got a high level empath.
Sonic would generally be the most damaging secondary due to all the -resistance debuffs.
First time I've seen the post... sometimes you do actually have to wait before someone will respond 
Anyway, with regard to secondary's for defenders it does depend what you want to do. Go back through a few of the threads in the defender section and you will come across debates on empath playstyle. If you want to go for an Empath that concentrates a lot on buffing and looking after the team then to be honest it doesn't matter which secondary you pick as you may find you end up with 1 or maybe 2 powers from your secondary and not much else.
A lot of the secondarys that are available for defenders offer some utility powers that can be used defensivly... disorients, sleeps, holds, debuffs etc Personally I've played an Empath/Dark, which I liked a lot. It has a group immobilize and the powers debuff the enemy which can be quite useful.
I wouldn't really say that any defender secondary is that *much* better than any other for an empath tho and I'd say stick with dark...
Dark is usually a good choice, however due to the cones it can bring alot of agro, which a buffing emp wouldn't want. I'd stick to ST attacks if thats your playstyle. Psi has lots of utility as does sonic, which has a great sleep cone and ST stun.
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year's bitter loving must remain
~Edna St. Vincent Millay
Cool thank you :-)
May stick with my dark then
If you don't want to be able to deal damage, take dark. If you do, take psi or sonic.
my empath is /rad blast...
and i hate it. if i could re-choose my secondary i would. naively when i was first playing i thought that rad's defence reduction would be great... but, lo and behold, i'll be damned if it's ever made a noticeable difference to any bad guys i've fought, in PvE or PvP.
with a different secondary i MAY still enjoy my empath.. but although being a buff bot is fun for a few lvls.. it soon gets old and you want to do something useful. Psi and dark would be my main choices as they have useful side effects, even though the post-ED damage is pretty darned poor.
Psi! Psi! Psi!
Has great damage.. because eventually when you reach the higher levels you'll want to kill lots of things instead of waiting for someone to loose a sliver of life
Psi Tornado!! Woo!!
[ QUOTE ]
i thought that rad's defence reduction would be great... but, lo and behold, i'll be damned if it's ever made a noticeable difference to any bad guys i've fought, in PvE or PvP.
[/ QUOTE ]
Which attacks did you choose? Irradiate does a whopping -37.5% Defense to Target for 10 seconds. Cosmic Burst does a similar debuff that lasts a little longer and also stuns but is single target.
Octavian Vanguard
@ohmsEU and @ohms 2
Badging character: Bimble on the Union server, Badgehunter.com and City Info Tracker.
Despite the pretty long animation, Cosmic Burst is bloody excellent now they've buffed the range on it actually, although admittedly I do have one or two HOs in it on my Kin/Rad.
Good damage, defence debuff, stun, reasonable range, and it looks great too.
While Irradiate is also brilliant for Defence Debuff (and I do love it on my Kinetic, and slot it for Defence Debuff) it can pull a lot of aggro, sometimes needs careful use in teams that maybe don't have aggro locked down that solidly.
Having said that, while I love Radiation Blast for Kinetics, it really meshes excellently with the primary, I'm not 100% convinced it works as well with Empathy.
oh, i've had every attack in the set at one point or another. but i'd much rather have a power which does a tangible debuff, such as slow or end drain.. where you can SEE them running at a crawl or watch their endurance drop. thats just me i guess..
cosmic burst is the best power in the set now. it meshes well with some of the epics, and the disorient is handy. BUT that's the only reason i like it, for the disorient.
once upon a time (when my empath got to 50) rad's nuke was awesome.. 5* dam 1* end red. drop nuke and then use dark consumption (epic) on anything that survived and u'd have full end again, and 90% of the mob would be dead. the bosses would be held and the rest of team could finish them off quicky.. although, those were also the days when you could get perma-hasten and perma-RA. when you could heal a GA'd stone tank from red to full health with one hit of AP, and when AV's names were suffixed with 'Leader'.
aaaah the good old days *looks nostalgic*
sorry, i think i digressed somewhat there...
Any tips on picking a secondary powerset for a empath defender? I have a emp/dark at lvl 4, not sure if I should stick with it though, Ill be primarily healing