Well if your going for a im healing and buffing only me build, theyres only 3 things you need which are healing aura, recovery aura and regeneration aura. Although having these 3 powers can make you character somewhat uber at times (for about 2mins when theyre are running and not recharging) it pritty much tells you if your going for a heal me only powers build then maybe empathy is not for you. as for a im a team freindly build, which is the point of being an empath (sad but true most empaths suck solo) then your pritty much taking all the powers since theyre all pritty essential for empaths. Ranking the powers in terms of importance in my opinion are Clear mind, both RA's, Fort, AB, Heal other + abosorb pain and then in last place healing aura which is a you have to take it any way power.
Btw i apologise if my grammer be off, its beeen a long day and ive been drinking. 
The problem I'm having is that I thought Empathy would be useful as a pick-and-choose secondary. And I want -every- power from the primary. That, together with the Fitness pool and a travel power pool is starting to cut down on choices.
He's definitely intended for team play, I'm not just wanting powers to use on myself.. I just like having a self heal for when it goes wrong - but then, I'm a controller - so expecting me to be an awesome healing/buffing machine is a bit of a mistake for a team to make anyhow ;-) I'm all about the tearing your mind apart so you just stand the screaming.
spidermonster.
Well although all the emp powers are great you could look at a few things that could be dropped. I'd advise you to go for either Absorb Pain or Heal Other as it's always handy to ahve the ability to help out whomever is alphaering on the team a little bit as you said your not a dedicated healer one of the two would be good dropping the other.
If your going to run the risk of getting alot of aggro then leaving out AB in favour of heal other would be good. I think for the sort of toon your going for you 'can' miss out Clear Mind and even potentially fortitude.
If your going to be commited to your main powers and holding back the damage/holds then keeping up these buffs on larger teams may casue problems in your attack chain and imo can be skipped
(before a shout is made this in no way is a comment undervalueing there usefulness 
)
both the auras will be great as a self buff and for the team around you and due to the long recharge they shouldn't effect your main mind duties as activation of these will be low.
AB is a great buff and once again will not need to be applied on as frequent a basis as fort/CM.
So overall if you had to squeeze out soem powers from your secondry to do the job you want I'd say:
CM
Fort
Heal Other/ Absorb Pain (One of)
but hey thats just my thoughts 
And don't forget RAs. Especially Recovery one. Because even after Stamina you will find it usefull.
You are right about Mind set, i can't leave a single power out unlike other Controller sets. Empath mind trollers more team dependent than my current one (Mind/Rad). On the higher levels you will face more robots, but luckily most robots vulnerable to confuse.
Good luck with your hero. If you need a hand just send tell. My global is @Knightly.
Cheers
Trust me when i say you want to keep clear mind, not too usefull for the lower lv's but for the later level's youll be needing it a lot since a lot of your future team mates will not always have a mez protection power and youll be going up againts the likes of Carnies (holds, dissorents) Malta (uber stuns with a few minor holds throw'n in there) Rikti (more holds 
with sleeps too), Arachnos (all manor of mez effects there but most annoying are the blood widow smoke grenades), CoT (although theyre not as bad as the rest) and then on top of all those youve got to worry about all those AV's and EB's at the end of the game.
Yay no hang over for me 
It was the clear mind that stopped me from making my toon mind/kin as clear mind happens to be a mind control power and therefore my toon became mind/emp.
id say heal other, cm, fort, recovery aura are the 4 main basics but i still feel guilty leaving out the rest cept res and maybe ap.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
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id say heal other, cm, fort, recovery aura are the 4 main basics but i still feel guilty leaving out the rest cept res and maybe ap.
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What about Regen aura? i dont know about you but power boosted RA means i wont have to focus too much on healing my team mates for a while since they now have an uber regen rate (granted it makes them more reckless at times but thats alright since Regen aura is awesome)
are all seeing the same Mind pool? alot of powers in there I cant see a use for ><
Quote:
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Originally Posted by VoodooGirl
[*]Watching out for the Spinning Disco Portal of D00M!*
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i prefer mezz protection on my controller cos if she cant control her own mind thats not good. I do have power boosted RA on my empath atm and it is very nice but not actually needed so concept wins to me and i may even go psychic mastery for concept again.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
As I have a level 33 Mind Control/Empathy controller, I think I can share my build and my findings so far.
MIND NOVA
1- Levitate
1- Healing Aura
2- Dominate
4- Mesmerize
6- Confuse
8- Hover
10- Heal Other
12- Mass Hypnosis
14- Fly
16- Clear Mind
18- Total Domination
20- Fortitude
22- Hasten
24- Telekinesis
26- Terrify
28- Recovery Aura
30- Resurrect
32- Mass Confusion
35- Regeneration Aura
38- Adrenalin Boost
41- Indomitable Will
44- Mental Blast
47- Psionic Tornado
49- Mind Over Body
A few clarifications:
1- Yes, no Fitness pool. That was a much thought and weighted decision because I had it and didn't want to cripple my character. Finally I had the guts to do it and respecced out of Fitness (which allowed me to pick two extra Empathy powers and Hasten). Never looked back since and not missing it either. More on this below.
2- All primary Mind Control powers, even telekinesis. Let me tell youthat, at least in my experience (YMMV), ALL those poweers are great and ALL have uses and NONE is "highly situational". With all those powers you are the über-controller and you have quite good damage also. Below I will discuss a few tactics I use.
3- My chose of Epic pool is for character concept reasons. I imagne other pools can be very good too, but I am aming for a telepath/telekinetic character (a la Fenix of the X-Men) and I exlain the healing powers as psychically boosting adrenaline or endorfines production in the teammates for the auras and the heals, or clear mind as a mental shield. Also, fly and hover are easy to justify as a use of the telekinetic powers.
4- A lot of people will say that Telekinesis has no use in PvE and should be skipped. I am afraid I don't agree: a good herding tank can bring you a lot of enemies to a corner, you can pin them to the wall and let the AoE party begin with all the safety. Also, TK is a hold, so sets up containment for double damage. And also stacks with dominate and total domination (it is a hold).
5- Levitate and Mesmerize accept Ranged damage IO sets and should be heavily slotted for damage. Terrorize is a great AoE (deep cone) damage power.
6- You are good solo with this build: good damage and a lot of control for extra safety. Also, self healing. Probably with this build you are one of the safest soloers there is. Anyway, in teams you are gold: four of AoE holds (Total domination, Mass hypnosis, Terrify and Mass Confusion... hey, it also completely keeps foes from attacking your team, so it is a "hold").
7- With 5 slots, most of your primary powers are great. For AoEs I go 3xAcc/Mezz/Rech + 2xAcc/Rech. You can add a Mezz enhancement (Hold, Sleep, Confuse...) later if you want. Or and end reduction. The most important aspects (Accuracy, recharge) are ED "maximized" yet.
Several things to bear in mind to be abe to PASS ON FITNESS POOL with this build.
A- A lot of IO sets offer +recovery as the first set bonus (two enhancements slotted). As you can more or less easily stack a lot of +recovery little bonus with this build without doing less-than efficient slotting decisions, you can get as high as +17.5% recovery (stamina one slotted would be +33%) even WITHOUT the highly coveted Miracle and Numina special IOs (+15% and +10% recovery, respectively). If you can even get those, you are gold. If you want info on how I have slotted them, feel free to ask.
B- This build runs no toggles (except Mind Over Body at 49... wich I am not even certain I will pick). This means no continuous endurance wasting.
C- Most of your heavy end use will come with your attack chain solo: dominate > levitate > mesmerize (I will discuss that below with other tactics). You should slot at least one Endurance Reduction in those.
D- Recovery aura affects you as well. Triple slotted for recharge plus hasten and it is up again pretty fast. You can chew a blue insp from time to time if you want, though I have found I rarely need them, even solo.
A few STRATEGIES.
A- Before the team engages the enemy, buff your teammates (Clear Mind for the ones that have no mezz protection if needed, Fortitude for the lowest level damage dealers, Recovery Aura...)
B- During combat, use primarily your control. The better way to keep your mates alive is that enemies can't even deal damage bacuse they are held, slept, terrorized, confused or stomped against the ceiling. You can heal if needed, of course, but having healing aura in auto-fire is, IMHO, a stupidity.
C- I usually start on a large group of enemies with mass hypnosis quickly followed by Terrify (for containment double damage). I never try to ask my team to not use AoE damage after using Mass Hypnosis because... well, there is no point in it...
D- If Total Domination is up, I start with it followed by Terrify (again double damage) and quickly proceed to use Dominate on bosses.
E- Same as above with Mass Confusion and confuse. It has been long discussed and demonstrated that the use of Mass Confusion actually leads to BETTER experience gained over time because you can defeat enemies WAY FASTER.
F- Best single target attack chain (for damage and security) is dominate > levitate > mesmerize. This way, your two highest damage attacks get containment bonus AND the enemy ends the chain mezzed, so the next chain's dominate also gets containment bonus.
I would also wanted to add that, previous to Issue 9 I had this character sitting abandonded at level 22. She had the fitness pool and only two Empathy powers. One day, after reading a post on the boards, I logged in with her just to create a costume. Just before entring Icon I was invited to a team... I thought, "well, let' give her a go". I was very lucky, I got a costume recipe (draconic wings) which I sold for 24 million influence. The luckiest part was... I enjoyed playing with her, but not a lot, cause she was somewhat limited in options. The build was soooo tight that I thought I wouln't would be able to have all the powers I wanted previous to level 47 (which is quite pointless if you ask me). But after leaving Fitness pool out... a new world of possibilities opened!
Try the Fitness-less build if you have a respec available, you will not look back.
(But if you feel you have gimped your character, I don't want to be held responsible!)
I must say are you indeed brave inertia to have taken tk but not the fitness pool and going through your tactics it sounds rather sound, sadly as much as i want to go for a no fitness build my character is a pvp build and requires the fitness pool for unsurpressed movement and also needs stamina to keep up with the stress of constant tk useage.
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I must say are you indeed brave inertia to have taken tk but not the fitness pool and going through your tactics it sounds rather sound, sadly as much as i want to go for a no fitness build my character is a pvp build and requires the fitness pool for unsurpressed movement and also needs stamina to keep up with the stress of constant tk useage.
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Thanks for the brave part
I must say that I usually hover continuously during fights and the only time I see my endurance bar going down is when I forgot to turn off fly...
(I have a bind that alternates hover/fly with the fourth button of my mouse)
I try to use TK when I am under the effects of Recovery Aura or not having it on for very long, because I only have it one slotted for endurance reduction now (need two more slots there). I can imagine that, with constant TK use, you will need stamina IF you can't get your hands on a Miracle and an Numina's +recovery IOs.
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I can imagine that, with constant TK use, you will need stamina IF you can't get your hands on a Miracle and an Numina's +recovery IOs.
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They wont quite replace stamina with constant TK use and id be more inclined to put them IOs on other toons but still staminaless is still doable depending on how you slot. TK doesnt necessarily usually account for all your end consumption and just enough to get by between RAs is fine, although forethought on economic use of powers and team dynamics help all that.
I like leaderships assault and tactics on Mindcontrol cos its res to taunt placate confuse and fear and the tohit buff from tactics is a beauty considering minds inherent acc penalties and so will leave out the psionic blasts. Id actually love to hover, fly and group fly but mine is gonna finish as more mind control than telekinetic but if i can wing them in ill try.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
Personally I'd make sure you take Heal Other, Fort, CM and Recovery Aura. Preferably Regen Aura as well.
Thanks for the advice, all in the thread :-)
Since I'm going to be hopefully getting a good few levels this weekend, I'm going to head towards the 20s and see how he works out....then once I start getting some of the more nifty /Empathy buffs, I'll see how things work out with a view to getting a respec around 30 into a more streamlined build, taking on board the tips in this thread.
spidermonster.
On a slightly different note to the other thread about Mind/Empathy....
My main is on Defiant, so I'm going to use this weekend to level up my Mind/Empathy Controller that's in the teens on Union. I made him just to mess around, but enjoy the Mind powers I've got.
Empathy is really a nice addition, rather than a central part of the character - his focus is very much on the primary... so if I'm only going for a couple of powers from it - which ones would you reccomend? I'd like to keep Healing Aura (so I can heal myself) but which other one or two (for low-ish level play) I know that the buffs are the key if you're an empathy defender - but as a Control-heavy controller.... which few powers are a good choice?
spidermonster.