Also does anyone know what IO sets would be best for my healing powers
doctours wounds or numinas? or any others
I would add a stealth IO to SS to lower your threat level rather than get concealment for PvE. Concealment maybe okay for PvP tho.
Medicine would be, generally, a total waste really.
Level it, see what will become useful with the people you play with as well as within concept.
Leaderships isn't necessary.
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.
Shannons advice to take Stealth to lower your threat level is certainly sound.
Re: your other questions... Numinas does offer a better percentage boost to your heal specs and offers juicier set bonuses as well, but the down-side is that It is at great cost. Pretty much the entire set of Numinas are very expensive and sought after.
I would recommend standard IOs until you can afford the Doctored Wounds set, and then If you really want to squeeze every possible ounce of juice out of potential heal numbers - then go for Numinas +heal increase (can be applied five times) It is two-percent over Doctored Wound's set bonus percentage increase I believe.
Oh, and if you are/have taken Leadership then Stamina (and health while you're at it) is necessary, you have better things to slot for as a pure Empath than end reductions.
Let me know what your secondary powerset is so that we can help further. 
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Shannons advice to take Stealth to lower your threat level is certainly sound.
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Don't think that's quite what he's getting at 
With heals, the trick is to aim for any heal set that's not as expensive as Numina's. Unless you're completely minted there's really not that much need for it, unless you can see it being played loads after 50. It just doesn't offer enough of an improvement to justify the vast expense, as Mother's Love says.
Concealment and medicine are both complete wastes of power choices; as Shannon rightly points out, a Celerity +stealth dropped into SS lowers your threat level more than stealth would. You'll want to leave SS running in combat to zip all over the place; nifty, as healing doesn't suppress movement.
Medicine is completely pointless; your three heals (if you skip Absorb Pain then we will take your defender away until you agree to be more responsible with it) offer more than enough healing power, and the emphasis skips at least partly towards your buffs in the later game anyway, so you'll find your heals used slightly less after about level 25.
If you want to run leadership toggles all the time, that's fine, but it's a heavy endurance drain.
Personally, I went with three travel pools on my empath (noob alert); SS for Hasten (VITAL) and stealth, Flight to keep away from melee-heavy nasties and for shard travel, and Leaping so I don't get held by AoE's every 3 seconds (after Acro+CJ it goes up to every 3.5 seconds; damnable sleep and stun). On top of that I grabbed Stamina, so I could actually run all that.
Empathy doesn't really need supplementation from pools to do what it does; aside from Hasten, everything else is garnish.
Final bit of advice; don't neglect your secondary. Take 2-3 solid attacks and a utility power, and slot them like you mean it.
DON'T eat muffins while I'm developing you.
Pants! Turkey Magnates! A man in a box! Rogue AI! Come one, come all, to arc ID 10107 - It's [i]'Not as long as some other arcs'[/i]!
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Don't think that's quite what he's getting at
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Ahh yes >.< - sorry blind skipped the SS bit.
Yes, If you're going to avoid mobs with SS that would be preferably, Still people underestimate stealth, Its really quite effective IF you haven't taken the speed pool. I've never needed hasten for any power in Empathy personally.
In my opinion 5 Doctored wounds will benefit you more than numinas.
Also i would put the celerity in sprint rather than ss or get the unbounded leap one if you can fit in cj since it is far more endurance efficient than sprint and will grant you immob protection.
I would say 5 sets of Doctored Wounds would do you good, a set in Heal Other, Healing Aura, Absorb Pain, Regeneration Aura and Adrenaline Boost. Maxes out on enhancing healing, and gives two SOs worth of end redux and three SOs worth of recharge reduction. Cheap, too. Set bonuses of +25% recharge and +20% healing will set you in good stead, also.
Hasten I would say is a must, to make it far easier to perma 4 or 5 Fortitudes, and have Regeneration Aura and Adrenaline Boost available as often as possible. Also gets Heal Other up much faster, which is good in tight spots.
I would recommend Concealment for Stealth, to lower your own threat level, and if you're taking Power Build Up from the Power Mastery epic pool, Grant Invisibility. With Fortitude and Grant Invisibility slotted for defense, if applied while Power Build Up's active, it's around a +44% defense boost to everything. That's pretty much the defense soft-cap. You can also fit 4 boosted Grant Invis under the duration of PBU, so can get 3 others with a good boost to defense on top of Fortitude.
Just one thing to keep in mind, is to pass over Tankers for Grant Invis, if you take it. Doesn't help much with attaining aggro. Grant Invis on everyone but the Tanker does go a long way to assisting them hold aggro, which is a bonus.
I would also advise staying a moderate distance away from the group at most times, so as to avoid the effects of AoE attacks, those with mez, in particular. The best way to use Healing Aura is to jump close to the teammates you want to use it on, fire it, jump immediately out.
I'd rather run Manuevers and save the spamming of grant invis on people. I like to have cast time available, have the Firetank eluded and visible. You can tank with Invis but, you must be a) way out in front of people b) Had time to off load some damage. I don't know bout you but some blasters like to be up my butt with their single target blapps rather than resort to range AoE which offers greater damage to group. However any power makes you flexible in some way whilst giving yourself limits in others. We all just have to choose our own.
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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Don't think that's quite what he's getting at
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Ahh yes >.< - sorry blind skipped the SS bit.
Yes, If you're going to avoid mobs with SS that would be preferably, Still people underestimate stealth, Its really quite effective IF you haven't taken the speed pool. I've never needed hasten for any power in Empathy personally.
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Haste + Intelligent buffing can reduce deaths. It's a foregone fact. However it's not a must have depending on how we all play. If no one ever died in your presence then I would agree that it wouldn't be that useful.
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.
Plenty have died whilst in my presence but it is rarely because a heal was not recharged yet.
That could be down to a)experience, b)luck or c)Ultimate Improved recharge bonuses for my build.
I'd wager hasten would be more of an asset if you were going to fight with your secondary as well instead of taking a purely support role.
Usually I would be caught using some other power when someone needs a heal. By forting as many as possible it's less likely that I would needed to of simply waited around to heal. Same with Regen Aura. They afford you more time to react. The more forted the less likely I'd have to Absorb pain....
But having said all that I do realize that the dynamics don't have to force anyone into needing to fort everyone. I usually prefer 3. Often there is 3 main aggroers that I don't want to have to spam heals on and people can play to have as many as 3 if not as little as 1. When they play to have 5 people needing fort up constantly I do wonder but this comes from someone who hates chasing after everyone and healing them.
..although I am close to an all support role I can get caught out in the action time of a casting a buff.
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.
Only pool i can suggest to an Empath (or any kind of rez + veng user set) is Recall Friend. Not a must have but good to have as i find it priceless when the right time comes.
I find it very useful for an Empath to have some means of keeping a nasty mob busy whilst you deal with your team's health bars "bugging out". Personally, this was a major contributing factor in my rolling a Illusion/Empath rather than a Mind/Empath or an Empath Defender (despite the somewhat "FoTM" perception of Ill/Empath... the other main reason was that Defender Power Boost is only up half as often as the Controller version).
I'd echo the above comments about Hasten (or lots of global recharge). Having four or five members of a team permanently Fort'ed works wonders. Particularly if you can Power-Boosted-Fort the main aggro culprit(s). It'll also help to get the two RAs and Adrenaline Boost (AKA "Nuking Blaster crack") up sooner.
It is possible, albeit very expensive, to get an Empath that has all the Empathy powers slotted up plus Power Boost, Hasten, loads of recharge, good mob control ability AND decent damage output. My own Illusion/Empathy build is one such example, but set me back over 800 million influence. If you're going for a pure support role, SOs plus Hasten, Power Boost and a decent set of allied-targetting binds will get you by just fine.
Being that this is the defender section, I found psychic mastery wonderful for calming things down but then you don't get to power boost anything for anyone on a STF or whatever when needed (even that's not always "needed").
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.
What kind of stuff are you looking to do is my question?
PVP healer, TF runner(Conceal, TP) or an all round build?
If it is an all round build I have one for you give me a shout in game and see what you think!?
My healer is build for PVP and can run quick TF's as well.
@Durin Danark
For Standard missions and TF's (not inclusing STF) I would say that the most important powers to have IMO are :-
Recall Friend
Hasten + SS
Vengeance (Took Defence and Accuracy to get that)
Fortitude
Clear Mind (Mainly used on other Defs and Trolls on team)
AB (Blasters quick end fix)
I might even respec in Absorb Pain. never needed it b4, but it's a get outta jail free heal power.
A good defender attack chain is :-
Recall friend->Vengeance->Rez
But seriously if you want to be a pure empath then fine, but for me, as soon as team is buffed then I become a crazed attacking Fender. When RA's are dropped don't be surprised to see me in the middle of the mob letting go of NRG Nova. However, don't do this unless you have 2 small blues as a minimum and a tank/scranker to retake the aggro.
Main 50 & Badger Nine Claws Claws/Regen/Body
Other 50's Ph10x Brute Unjust Law Tanker Samantha Urai Scrapper Codename 1250 Scrapper
Cepheus Defender Nilus Scrapper Electro Field Blaster S.PONGE Tanker
When levelling my Empath to 50 (with no attacks) I went with Teleport, Speed, Leadership, and Flight. Not necessarily the most sensible of picks, this was just after I started. However, I learnt a number of things:
1) You can run the entirety of Leadership on a pure Empath with no Stamina.
2) Hasten is really, really useful on any buffing toons. More recharge = buffs are up more.
3) Recall friend is kinda useful at low levels to extract dead teammates, but not so much at higher levels and as you get to be a better player. People still appreciate a TP though, and can be useful for speed-running TFs.
4) If you're being knocked back, you can't heal people.
I stuck with the same set-up for a while before switching her to a SJ/SS build for zonal PvP. I miss having Hover and Fly, though - I liked being able to hover up a little out of the way of things while still keeping people in range for the AoE heal and Leadership buffs. I'll probably respec back, but also keep a knockback IO or two in somewhere.
Some form of stealth is nice, but I don't think any kind of necessity. If you're keeping SS, then yeah, a Celerity stealth IO in there could work, and saves you taking a pool and using more end. Even more worthwhile if you do grab Recall Friend for speed-running.
Medicine is one of the pools I'd say is useless on an Empath - it's there to add some abilities to sets that don't get heals. Empaths don't need this, as they have far, far better versions of these powers available innately.
I have recenntly swicthed from controller Empath to defender.
With a full IO'd build on my
Mind/Emp/Primal - Psienchantress
Had spent about 1.2 Billion on her, choosing Doctored Wound sets over numina in Heal Aura, Heal Other, Absorb Pain, Adrenalin Boost and Regeneration Aura, 2 Full purples sets in Power Blast and Terrify plus about 3 or 4 LotG +rech.
Pretty much wanted very strong heals and recharge.
However standard defenders healing more than i did with SO builds finally got the better of me and I am swapping the majority of my IO's into a Defender version.
I took Dark Blast as the variation in Attacks allows me to fit 5 full purple sets as well as everything else I had before, 0.3sec from permanent hasten now with 175% Recharge.
Anyhow, Pools I took...
[b]FLY[b/]
Hover (to accept a LotG +global recharge)
Fly (Birds eye view of the battlefield reduces the chance of "target Blocked" when you require that last min heal
[CONCEALMENT]
Stealth (coupled with Stealth IO you can heal from invisibility, don't attack and you don't break hide, this also accepts LotG +global recharge)
Grant invisibility (Gives +defense bonus to forted team members, allows you to create a whole team of ghosters, and this also accepts LotG +global recharge)
SPEED
Hasten (This is a no brainer)
FITNESS
Swift (Increases fly speed)
Health (Accepts Numina +regen +recover IO and Miracle +recovery)
Stamina (Again a no brainer, take it, don't think about it)
Hope this helped.
Donna
x
Consciousness: that annoying time between naps.
In my opinion, the Doctored Wounds set gives a better boost than Numina's anyway, when you take into account the recharge boost. This is the build I just planned out for my Empath. With unlimited cash I could make it a bit better, but this has cost me well under 100 mil including salvage and crafting costs, but excluding the KB IOs, the 3 HOs and the LOTGs which I had already - no idea what they go for nowadays. Obviously I do have attacks so this probably isn't exactly what you're looking for - I might not use them much in bigger or more "dodgy" teams, but it's rare that I don't find I have a little time for attacking at all. If I were going to ditch the attacks for any reason, I'd still take the same power pools, but probably add in Superjump, Acrobatics, and Vengeance - maybe even Manouvers to get some more of those nice defence set bonuses.
Personally I don't value the concealment pool for PvE at all. I certainly wouldn't waste time as an Empath individually making everyone invisible when they'll only make themselves visible as soon as they attack anyway. Endurance really isn't much of an issue on an Empath, so running Superspeed or Sprint with a stealth IO to get full invis isn't a problem.
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/
[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]
Peppermint Icecream: Level 50 Mutation Defender
Primary Power Set: Empathy
Secondary Power Set: Ice Blast
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Power Mastery
Hero Profile:
Level 1: Healing Aura -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(3), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(3), Dct'dW-Heal(5), Dct'dW-Rchg(5), H'zdH-Heal/Rchg(7)
Level 1: Ice Bolt -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(7), Ruin-Acc/Dmg(9), Ruin-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(9), Ruin-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(11), Mael'Fry-Dmg/Rchg(46)
Level 2: Ice Blast -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(11), Ruin-Acc/Dmg(13), Ruin-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(13), Ruin-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(15), Mael'Fry-Dmg/Rchg(46)
Level 4: Heal Other -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(15), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(17), Dct'dW-Heal(17), Dct'dW-Rchg(19), H'zdH-Heal/Rchg(19)
Level 6: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 8: Clear Mind -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 10: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(21), RechRdx-I(23)
Level 12: Fortitude -- Krma-ResKB(A), LkGmblr-Rchg+(25), HO:Membr(25), HO:Membr(27), HO:Membr(27)
Level 14: Super Speed -- Run-I(A)
Level 16: Health -- Heal-I(A)
Level 18: Recovery Aura -- P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(23), Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(29), Efficacy-EndMod(29), RechRdx-I(34)
Level 20: Stamina -- Efficacy-EndMod(A), EndMod-I(21), Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(31)
Level 22: Freeze Ray -- NrncSD-Acc/Hold/Rchg(A), NrncSD-Acc/Rchg(31), NrncSD-EndRdx/Hold(33), G'Wdw-Acc/Rchg(33), G'Wdw-Acc/Hold/Rchg(33), G'Wdw-EndRdx/Hold(46)
Level 24: Combat Jumping -- Krma-ResKB(A), LkGmblr-Rchg+(31), Ksmt-Def/EndRdx(34)
Level 26: Regeneration Aura -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(34), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(36), Dct'dW-Heal(36), Dct'dW-Rchg(36), H'zdH-Heal/Rchg(37)
Level 28: Bitter Ice Blast -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(37), Ruin-Acc/Dmg(37), Ruin-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(39), Ruin-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(39), Mael'Fry-Dmg/Rchg(48)
Level 30: Resurrect -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 32: Adrenalin Boost -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(39), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(40), Dct'dW-Heal(48), Dct'dW-Rchg(48), H'zdH-Heal/Rchg(50)
Level 35: Frost Breath -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(40), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(40), Posi-Dmg/Rng(42), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(42)
Level 38: Aim -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(42), AdjTgt-ToHit/Rchg(43)
Level 41: Power Build Up -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(43), AdjTgt-ToHit/Rchg(43)
Level 44: Temp Invulnerability -- TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx(A), TtmC'tng-ResDam/Rchg(45), TtmC'tng-ResDam(45), ResDam-I(45)
Level 47: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 49: Tactics -- AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx(A), ToHit-I(50), ToHit-I(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Clrty-Stlth(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Vigilance
Okaii with an empathy defender, it is a pure empathy build with no offence.
What pool powers should I take
I have took so far super speed for travel
and leadership
should I take concealment or medicine?
anyone got any ideas?