Showoff Healers and Busiest Server

This is the literal truth. My first defender was an Empath because when I was new to the game I didn't get the whole buff/debuff thing. But floating green numbers were easy to comprehend.

I started happily teaming and leveling and getting lots of "nice heals!" comments. As I was still learning the game I didn't multitask very well. It was all I could do to keep an eye on everyone's health bars in the team window. So I would typically be so busy that all I would do was heal, along with using the Emp buffs. But almost never any blasting.

Then a real life friend invited me to run some missions sidekicked into his level 45ish team. I remember being shocked... they were steamrolling mission after mission and didn't need healing. I would throw out these little token top-off heals but really they weren't needed. I used my pew-pew-pew blast powers but I hadn't focused on slotting those so they were pretty anemic. I felt useless. My friend was playing a Rad defender and he was using these big green glowie auras that did something but I didn't know what.

That was when I started to learn about debuffing. It was a very educational evening!

Just remember, you can't truly be considered an 'uber healor' unless you also take the entire Medicine pool to max out your healing ability. Now, you may need to make some sacrifices in your power selections to do this. Best not to take any of your secondary attacks beyond the first required one. That way you won't be wasting any time attacking when you could be firing off those sweet, sweet heals.

Objection, Your Honor!

Well, in creating my second-ever character - an empath, I made exactly that 'mistake' (choosing the electric secondary), but I also quickly learned how to turn it into an advantage. Sapping the enemy's endurance dry and keeping it dry can put them effectively out of action similarly to a controller power. Oft unnoticed (and underrated, imo) is the jiggly-zapped animation they go through (or you go through when you're endurance is zapped clean) that effectively puts them out of combat for an entire round, mitigating any potential damage they may cause although they still have hit points. I still clearly recall neutralizing Mary McComber this way while the team dished out the buffed red-bar damage to finally take her out. In short, every power set has its strengths and weaknesses and the secret as a good player is to make the most of the unique strengths and capabilities they have.

Ten Times the Victor.

I wasn't making fun of Elec Blast, I was making fun of how all the newb/noob empaths always seem to choose emp/elec. I did. A friend I got into the game did. And it seems like if I team with a bad emp, they're most likely emp/elec (not to say that emp/elec are the most likely to be bad or anything).

Actually, that doesn't. It's just an animation that's played on them if they're not playing anything else (fight some Mu and you'll see yourself going through it... and you can still interrupt it by moving or using a power). Likely, she was already held.

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

Originally Posted by ShadowNate ;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!

If you are experiencing this problem, don't you think that everyone else is too?

Then it looks like you have that part covered.

Farming isn't the job of a super hero or super villain.

Recruit and do normal missions.
I do and I get full teams to do them.
Usually at least one person on the team is excited about finding a non-AE team.
Usually at least a couple of people don't know how to get to the zone where the mission is but I am willing to help them get to the mission and usually the rest of the team is willing to help as well.

I used to love the Hollows, but I ran there so much before police missions came out that I burned out on it. I've been recently thinking how cool that zone is and how I miss going there.
However, getting around the Hallows can be a challenge, and often teams want to keep the momentum going and the zone often is hard to transverse at the levels that it was built for.
Once i16 drops and I can buy a raptor pack in the Shadow Shard with my low level characters, I'll be more interested in going to the Hallows instead of working to get enough police missions done early enough in Kings Row to get a raptor pack.

Welcome back.

Since you have been gone quite a number of rude players have joined our friendly little community of do-gooders and helpful villains. It is unfortunate, but it is the case.

The best thing that I have found to do is to put these individuals on ignore both in-game and in the forums. The in-game ignore list is, however, dreadfully small. Once it is full, people that were ignored due to their behavior get kicked out of the ignore list each time a new player is added.

For this reason, I also suggest using your options to set "showing stars" to on and use the "Add Notes" function to rate people that are obnoxious with one star. This way you can see that there is a star over their head and know that they are someone that you want to avoid contact with.
You can't see the stars while recruiting unless you "Add Notes" to check everyone that you are attempting to recruit, but this will allow you to see a problem ahead of time once a team has assembled - and, honestly, I've only run into a player on a team that I have given a bad rating to once since the "Add Notes" feature was added and the individual proved they deserved the rating and were kicked by the team by the leader.

There are still friendly helpful people out there.

BTW, the /help channel - though it is still called [Help] - is accessed by /hc message. It appears that some "new" players were confused because /help did not bring up the help menu which is still easily accessible through the menu options.

Ok, I'd like to clarify this for my own benefit. I understand that if the enemy has endurance remaining, they will continue to fire as usual without any delay in their attacks or powers. However, if they are completely drained, aren't they down for the time it takes for them to recover at least enough endurance to activate the next power they throw? And if they are hit again with another electrical blast prior to recovering this endurance, they are still not able to throw their next power until they reach a certain minimum endurance threshhold? I clearly recall being able to keep a number of enemy effectively out of action for short time spans this way, including Mary McComber, at least until they recovered enough endurance to carry out their next action. Perhaps, though, you're right, there were other effects on them (such as a hold) that also cause a pause in their actions. I can say with almost virtual certainty, though, that a barrage of endurance reduction on one enemy slows down or disrupts, if not completely cuts off, their usual attack cycle.

Don�t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. - R.W. Emerson

I am the tagging queen of the forums. I'm on a quest to make them useful, and I tag every new post in most of the "information" sub forums. As a result, I see many, many of the tags other people people add.

It seems there is a large segement of folks that think that adding random or obviously inappropiate to the thread topic tags is just fun. Other use them for some passive agressive anonymous snark. My advice would be to just click on the ones that look like they might be useful, and ignore the rest.

My new favorite redname is Moderator 08 who is also ebil.

However, the rest of the answer is spot on.

Not only should you pay attention to what people put in their team search when forming teams, what you place in yours will increase your invitations. If I was forming a team and saw "Emp/elec - looking for non-AE teams" I would assume I'm inviting a well rounded player that is looking to run regular content and I'd invite them to my mission team, Bonus points if there was something humorous in the message.

I think you're thinking about damage RECEIVED counting for credit on the damage badges, not heal badge credit. As far as I recall, you get full credit for ALL damage healed -- but only for actual damage healed. So to the original question, no, just hitting a 'heal' doesn't net you any credit unless you actually heal 1 HP (credit is equal to the exact heal benefit you delivered).

Ahhhh... you may be right. My P-wiki search fu must be weak, I couldn't find anything specific either way.

All I do know is that my kin and rad's will be doing the happy dance when i16 rolls out.

Don�t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. - R.W. Emerson

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=188554

Liberty has a very active global channel. If you did not want to run AE I guarantee you can find a non AE team by getting an invite to LB. I play at odd hours and there are normally 40+ people on the channel at 3 in the morning MST. If you can't find a non-AE team on Liberty, "yer doing it wrong"

I'm planning a plant/thermal. Being of blaster and scrapper background, the responsibility to my party being a defender entails is daunting. I'm more a "Targeting through [tank name] now" type.

I got invited onto LB by one of the Big Game Hunters but didn't know how to shut it off the display and everything was scrolling off before I could see anything so I turned it off, not knowing I couldn't turn it back on again.

Some of my favorite CoH was with the guy from BGH supergroup. The Paladin Clockwork and some golem thing, the pumpkinhead fighting the fat man...bad craziness. No xp, just badges...or merit...I don't recall which.

Which is exactly why I said I wasn't sure in my original post. Thanks for backing me up on the flip-flopping thing. I really wish they'd leave it alone. I don't know why it's been changed a few times. When I logged in last night it was

Last on...
...
...
second highest
first highest

That's the Empathy Healing Aura. It's actually not the most powerful healing aura in the game, but the more powerful ones need an enemy target and can't be spammed in the AE building. They also need an accuracy check, so while very powerful, they can miss when you need them most.

If you want to be a good Defender, don't worry about how powerful a heal is. Instead learn about the different Defender powers, how they work together, and how they work with the other powers in the game. A Defender with shields has no heals - that doesn't make the person any less of a Defender. Learn how the buffs and debuffs work and learn how to help people on your team. With a Kinetic heal, the heal aura is centered around your bad guy target and anyone needed a heal has to be near that target to get healed. If a Scrapper needs a heal, you may be able to target the Scrapper and heal him by hitting his target with your heal. With a Dark heal, the heal aura is centered around you and anyone needed a heal has to be near you to receive it. If you want to heal a Scrapper and you're far away, you need to get close to the Scrapper to make sure he gets healed. If you see that the team seems confused about how to work with you and your heals, you can let them know about which kind of Defender you are and how your heals work to their best advantage.

Remember, some Defenders don't even have a heal of any kind. That doesn't make them lesser Defenders. The best defense is to make sure your team doesn't take damage in the first place. Heals are great when you get into trouble, but so are some other powers available to a Defender - even your offensive ones. My Empathy Defender has Energy as a secondary set. I carry some blue inspirations in my tray so that if my team gets in a tight fight and is getting overwhelmed, I can run in and use Nova. Anything nearly dead will likely be finished off and anything not will likely get blown away from my team, giving them a few seconds to recover, use inspirations, get shields back up, etc. Using the blues quickly, I can fire off a heal to help mitigate the damage already taken, hit Vengeance on anyone dead, and resurrect someone.

To be a good Defender, know as much as you can about all the tools that are available to you and how they work with the tools everyone else brings to the table. That knowledge is more powerful than any heal in the game.

Indeed, this can be said for any archetype, including the Defender.

The heal you saw (Empathy > Healing Aura, Radiation Emission > Radiant Aura, Thermal Radiation > Warmth, and Pain Domination > Nullify Pain all have the same stats) is actually the weakest AoE heal in the game (unless you count Pain Domination > Soothing Aura, which is more like Heal Over Time). Healing in general is also the weakest form of team defense (since healing repairs damage, while other defensive powers stop the damage from ever occurring).

Powers which are much more useful to defend your team with:
Cold Domination > Ice Shield and Cold Domination > Glacial Shield
Dark Miasma > Darkest Night and Dark Miasma > Fearsome Stare
Empathy > Fortitude and Empathy > Regeneration Aura
Force Field > Deflection Shield and Force Field > Insulation Shield
Poison > Weaken and Poison > Noxious Gas
Radiation Emission > Radiation Infection and Radiation Emission > Enervating Field
Sonic Resonance > Sonic Barrier and Sonic Resonance > Sonic Haven
Storm Summoning > Freezing Rain and Storm Summoning > Hurricane
Thermal Radiation > Fire Shield and Thermal Radiation > Plasma Shield
Traps > Triage Beacon and Traps > Force Field Generator
Trick Arrow > Poison Gas Arrow and Trick Arrow > Oil Slick Arrow

None of that is to say that healing powers are bad, or that HA/RA/NP/Warmth are bad powers to have. In fact, if you're a Radiation Emission Corruptor or Controller, an Empathy Controller, or you have Thermal Radiation or Pain Domination, you're forced to take that AoE heal. It's just that claiming the heal you saw is "strong" is false, and healing is the last line of defense, not the first.