Are Emp Def the same as Contr /Emp?

the title says it all, is it as strong, and same numbers as the defenders?

alright, just wondering, just, i know when i heal as a Emp DEF, i can do a good job healing my team, and buffing, but i also would like to do other things if my team isnt in need of the healing..

Yes and no.

The heals and buffs of a /Emp Controller are weaker, but the leveraging of the primary makes the team survivable anyway.

Its important, in my opinion, to find other ways to contribute when running your Emp defender. When your team really clicks you're gonna find yourself healing less and less. In those situations you want to make sure to keep up on your buffs (Hasten really helps there) and then busy yourself with your secondary. /dark blast is a great one for that since you get tenebrous tentacles for cone aoe immob and nightfall for cone aoe damage, kinda a fun combo and adds some -acc to the targets which adds to the defense of your team. Alot of the defender secondarys have extra effects that really add up to damage mitigation that kinda balances out the part about us not doing as much damage as blasters. I've got a 50 Emp/Dark and he's alot of fun to play. I run my leadership toggles, buff up the team with empathy powers, (fort, adren boost, RA, etc) and use grant invis as well for some further defense boosting. But when thats all done and the team is really steamrolling you can just have fun and blast. I've run some /emp controllers too though and you can do a great job healing with them as well. Healing isn't nearly as important as the buffs and other forms of damage mitigation in this game, a good controller can almost make healing unneccessary really. There's be several situations where I'm on my emp defender and someone will bring along a mind/FF controller and im just twiddling my thumbs hoping someone gets hurt. Its times like that you better busy yourself with blasting/buffing or up the difficulty. Anyway, you can have alot of fun with either, try both out and see what ya like more, dont stress the healing. If the team is working well together you wont really have to do it much.

I have both.

A lvl 50 Fire/Emp/Fire troller. And a lvl 50 Emp/Sonic/Power defender.

For once, i find my defender more useful then my controller in a team. This normally isn't the case... IME that is. I have 3 kins, one of each flavor, and the controller, IMO, is the better of the 3 kins.

But with empathy, i found something intresting was happening with my controller. I could easly, and i mean easily keep a team alive throw just about anything. Then we'd get to an AV fight, and with the purple triangle of doom... I just kind of felt like i was a spectator at that point. I'd refresh buffs, spot heal, and let my imps attack him. I'd throw a fireball here and there... but that was it. I didn't like that.

So i rolled the Emp/Sonic. Now, i can keep the team alive, nearly as easily. (using the buffs often are the key to good empathy play, it frees you up to blast and control.) And when i get to an AV, i'm debuffing him a bit, doing damage, and keeping the team going. I feel like i contribute more. So I like the defender better. *shrug*