If you want to compete with the top-level PvP teams, you need an empath. You will lose without one.
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Honestly though, unless there's specific rules against powersets/combinations (which I hate) how many teams seriously would go without an Empath, Thermal or Sonic?
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Nobody in their right mind.
If you are going to have a pick up tournament with random toons, you'd need to ban the strongest support toons or randomization would create unbalanced teams I think. Or make sure there is always one in the team.
The support toons skew the team pvp tbh in the way that you always need them.
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Honestly though, unless there's specific rules against powersets/combinations (which I hate) how many teams seriously would go without an Empath, Thermal or Sonic?
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Nobody in their right mind.
If you are going to have a pick up tournament with random toons, you'd need to ban the strongest support toons or randomization would create unbalanced teams I think. Or make sure there is always one in the team.
The support toons skew the team pvp tbh.
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it worked fine in 3vp
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it worked fine in 3vp
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I dont remember that tourney exactly, but iirc I was there. Was it the one of random toons picked for a team of 3? Then I can say that it didnt work ok. Certain people got booted from tourney due to bad luck in team makeup. Iirc I was one of the few blasters remaining in the tourney during the last stages. It was pure luck in who you got really.
edit: yeah looks like I remembered correctly, I got couple
pics from it. I got some graph card trouble back then.
Fights with empaths on both sides usually have low scores and there is no denying that having a good empath is better than being buffed all the time. At least with resistance or defense buffs you can wear them down over time. Against an empath you need large amounts of damage out put all in one go. A team that had buffs and could heal themselves, with possibly better regen thanks to IOs might be able to get away with no empath but then they would need to have invested lots of time and inf. Maybe there should be a villain version of S4. I'll join anything.
The thing about 3vP Hammer is that a lot of work went in to making sure that the random teams, whilst drawn randomly, weren't either too overpowered or too weak. Why do you think none of the Paragon Defenders got drawn in the same team on Defiant? I was playing my Empath for 3vP, and yes, I made a huge difference for my team, but if I remember right we did lose a match because we came against a team with a whole [censored] load of damage compared to ours which was support heavy.
Yeah I appreciate the effort that was done to ensure the balance of the teams. 3 person teams are somewhat ok I think. Also level 40 to avoid epic pools.
ps. extremus, I remember, check the pics I posted above 
3vp worked so well because i vetted the teams.
Yes, I drew them randomly, but once the draw was done I went over them and swapped players around so that (in my opinion) no one team was too strong or too weak.
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Fights with empaths on both sides usually have low scores and there is no denying that having a good empath is better than being buffed all the time. At least with resistance or defense buffs you can wear them down over time. Against an empath you need large amounts of damage out put all in one go. A team that had buffs and could heal themselves, with possibly better regen thanks to IOs might be able to get away with no empath but then they would need to have invested lots of time and inf. Maybe there should be a villain version of S4. I'll join anything.
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I meant that a situation where one side has empath and the other one doesnt, is not really balanced. Providing relatively even player skill levels.
Still 1 empath can't save a stupid blaster not kitting and running etc if the other team has loads of damage dealers. I didn't lose a single life in 3vp nor did elistan and if i remember correctly we were the only empaths who entered that.
Elerith was Extremus' empath if im not mistaken.
we were on union though
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I meant that a situation where one side has empath and the other one doesnt, is not really balanced. Providing relatively even player skill levels.
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not hard to overcome tho, u just have a pool of empaths and a pool of debuffers then for each match u either pick a debuffer for each team or a healer for each
kins,rads, sonics, stormies, bubblers count as debuffers?
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Elerith was Extremus' empath if im not mistaken.
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Yep, I was teamed with him against 3 Blasters for one match.
I thought my Illusion/Storm was gonna get sniped to pieces. I didn't die once thanks to the empaths back-up, it was frightening how effective it made me.
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Elerith was Extremus' empath if im not mistaken.
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Yep, I was teamed with him against 3 Blasters for one match.
I thought my Illusion/Storm was gonna get sniped to pieces. I didn't die once thanks to the empaths back-up, it was frightening how effective it made me.
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That was the match against Plight, right?
Also This screenshot is great, I remember how [censored] off Nightbringer got on Columna because he couldn't kill me.
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Elerith was Extremus' empath if im not mistaken.
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Yep, I was teamed with him against 3 Blasters for one match.
I thought my Illusion/Storm was gonna get sniped to pieces. I didn't die once thanks to the empaths back-up, it was frightening how effective it made me.
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That was the match against Plight, right?
Also This screenshot is great, I remember how [censored] off Nightbringer got on Columna because he couldn't kill me.
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must have been imags fault 
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Elerith was Extremus' empath if im not mistaken.
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Yep, I was teamed with him against 3 Blasters for one match.
I thought my Illusion/Storm was gonna get sniped to pieces. I didn't die once thanks to the empaths back-up, it was frightening how effective it made me.
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That was the match against Plight, right?
Also This screenshot is great, I remember how [censored] off Nightbringer got on Columna because he couldn't kill me.
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must have been imags fault
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Imag may have gotten drunk and tried to chat up Anath, this is true.
Point is though, Empath's make such a massive difference in smaller teams (3vP) because they have Heals, ToHit and Defense buffs. In larger teams (Pentad or above) while still highly valuable, there's a bit more flexibility, especially if you're fighting without AT limits.
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Still 1 empath can't save a stupid blaster not kitting and running etc if the other team has loads of damage dealers. I didn't lose a single life in 3vp nor did elistan and if i remember correctly we were the only empaths who entered that.
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elistan didn't actually take part in a single match, it was his subs that stopped him from losing any lives.
Rest assured if I do it again there will be more severe penaltys for no-shows.
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Also This screenshot is great, I remember how [censored] off Nightbringer got on Columna because he couldn't kill me.
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I remember that in the first match I couldn't kill you, labeled your empath as the most difficult toon to kill in your team and proceeded to beat the scrapper down instead. Shadow Fury is my SG mate, pity that he was playing a DA scrapper, of all things.
ill be happy to play this one, got 4 different AT´s, tank, troller, blaster or fender.
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Also This screenshot is great, I remember how [censored] off Nightbringer got on Columna because he couldn't kill me.
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I remember that in the first match I couldn't kill you, labeled your empath as the most difficult toon to kill in your team and proceeded to beat the scrapper down instead. Shadow Fury is my SG mate, pity that he was playing a DA scrapper, of all things.
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Yeah, well, I'm very hard to kill on my Empath.
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Also This screenshot is great, I remember how [censored] off Nightbringer got on Columna because he couldn't kill me.
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I remember that in the first match I couldn't kill you, labeled your empath as the most difficult toon to kill in your team and proceeded to beat the scrapper down instead. Shadow Fury is my SG mate, pity that he was playing a DA scrapper, of all things.
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Yeah, well, I'm very hard to kill on my Empath.
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As is every decent empath
thePhilosopher Martial Arts/Regen/Fire Scrapper
theRegulator Empathy/Energy/Soul Defender
Total Inertia Ice Blast/Kinetics/Psy Corruptor
Total Inferno Ice Blast/Thermal/Leviathan Corruptor
There arent that many, tbh.
I think spiking is still a very valid tactic it seems in fact to be the basis of CoH pvp.
I dont think our margin of victory today would be as high as it was in some of our matches but the point I was making was back then and even now I dont think simply having an empath on the team is the most important tactic in team PvP its just a slightly easier way of balancing a team out, whereas our team was quite balanced and self reliant (I had concealment fly and phase and a tray of breakfree's, regens were still in god mode, tanks werent far behind, gatling was in a league of his own blapper-wise back then) we didnt group together, we swooped in for our kills sent tankers and scrappers in to tuant and distract while we moved in debuffed and spiked then split off again across the map meaning they couldnt chase us all.
Today teams are more focused and react to tactics quicker and a lot of the stuff we tried back then (the cherry bomb, the empulse opener, taking the fights to the skies) would have no chance of working today because we were essentially a team of what today would be considered dual builds. Against a well functioning balanced team with empathy + force fields or sonic I think wed have a challenge, but isnt that where the fun in PvP starts?