Silas Plays Support And So Can You!

Update: Traps guide updated with i19 build, various corrections made to several guides. Melee guide is also done, link in sig.

Silas, you might want to update (in your traps guide) that it doesn't suck anymore to be a defender, because of Scorpion Shield, since you can switch sides now to get it.

Great guides, I really enjoy reading them and my Traps Corrupter is one of my favourite 50.

Good point ty, fixed. I've also updated the update list (har) which I hadn't updated with all the various fixes and build updates I've made in the past few weeks.

Oops.

Teamed with a thermal last night who clearly hadn't read your guides. Hopefully he sees this in here and corrects his many failings.

So I've updated the Cold, Kin, Therm and Sonic guides for the AoE buff change. Hooray.

The curious or merely masochistic may be interested to know my Empathy Defender hit 50 and I am now working on an Emp guide. Guides will be written for Time Manipulation and Poison eventually too.

Emberly, Heh, one can only hope

Empathy guide is in progress. ohhhhhh nooooooo

I tried to roll an emp last night but there was no Silasguide for it so I deleted it, thanks Silas!

So what's your opinion of Time Manipulation? Because I really liked it on Beta, and want to not suck.

I am waiting for Time to come on live. So far I have tried all of support sets either on defenders or corruptors (some on both) also have Fortunata and I don't know what new defender or corruptor to make.
Time and poison are going to be my new projects when new issue come (and I really did enjoyed time/fire defender on beta).

I'm waiting for empath guide, because I am sure that you will tell people not to be heal bots but play even empath as offender ( I play all my support alts as offenders and still my teammates have all shields or SB all the time if I am on buffer*).


*except scrapper or some other soloist that decided to solo on the other part of map far away from others

See, I -haven't -tried many Support sets.

I have a level 27 Dark/DP Defender, a level 14 Ill/Kin Troller, and a Fort.

Pretty much everything else is defunct melee. And a Dominator, who is fun as long as I have a brute around.

I want to try something new! And come i21, I want to roll a 'Fender or Corr, because Fenders are getting FIRE and Corrs are available blueside.

X: Empathy

Oh god, an Empathy guide. Fortunately for the neckbearded among us, I refer to Empathy the support set, not the ability to understand the feelings of another. Empathy is a support set with totally bitchin’ buffs and some heals (and also a rez!), empathy is a cornerstone in any real human relationship.

No, your love pillow doesn’t count, no matter how well you think it understands you.

So, Empathy with a capital E! Not like the entertainment news channel, which is much like your fanfiction in that no one cares about it.

And thus:

Why Empathy is Awesome and you wanna play dat emp:

• Most importantly, the buffs. They’re stupidly good. Even with Controller mods. Or they would be with Corruptor mods. Sadly, it is not to be. We have to settle for Pain Dom. Which is also nice, but the younger sister of Empathy. Smaller boobs, less experience, you know how it is.
  
  
• Or maybe you don’t?
  
  
• Doesn’t matter.
  
  
• So back to those buffs. One is IMO the most powerful single target buff in the game by a significant margin. Another is probably the second most powerful single target buff in the game and can be maintained on several people.
  
  
• Big ol’ +regen and +recovery auras which both buff you, hooray.
  
  
• AoE/self heal for when you get punched in the head. Yes, when, not if. If you’re an Emp and you never get aggro, you’re a bad Emp. More on this later though.
  
  
• Speaking of heals, generic ally heal for playing health bar whackamole. Great at lower levels, still desirable later on but generally second fiddle to the buffing.
  
  
• Another single target ally heal which in the hands of a Defender can be the most powerful heal in the game. *cough* whiiiiiich doesn’t require enemies. Shut up Dark Regen, we know you’re buff as sin.

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Healing Aura: PBAoE heal, nice and simple Slotting Recommendation: What’s most important is that you max out the healing on it. Decent end redux is good too, recharge to taste. This and Heal Other recharge pretty quickly at base so you don’t need to worry about the recharge so much. I’d recommend Doctored Wounds or Panaceas. They both give recharge bonuses which are awesome for Empathy. Panaceas give better set bonuses overall, but DW gives a heal bonus earlier and is much cheaper. How to Use: For healing yourself and/or several allies at once. Good for healing up people after a nasty AoE hit (y helo thar Keyes Trial). Don’t put it on auto. Not even on the Keyes Trial. The AoE on it is decently large but try and get a feel for it nevertheless so you can position yourself to hit as many people as needed with it.

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Heal Other: Ally heal oh goodness even simpler! Slotting Recommendation: same as Healing Aura, really. Heal being most important, some end redux too. How to Use: to heal allies, mostly. Heals for about twice as much as Healing Aura, has decent range, recharges and activates fast. I bind it to Q for fast access.

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Absorb Pain: strong ally heal, self moderate damage (special) Slotting Recommendation: This is a monstrously powerful heal. You can slot it similarly to Healing Aura or Heal Other, but IMO it doesn’t need it. A slot or two of healing is more than enough to make it a big enough heal for even Tanker healthbars. The end cost is negligible, because the main cost of this power is…in blood! Dun dun duuuuuun. Or hitpoints and regen, like, whatever, man. How to Use: When you need to do a massive heal and you need to do it right now. Heal Other is enough to keep people on their feet 99% of the time. Sometimes you need two single target heals right after one another. Or you need to bring someone with a lot of HP back up from low health right now. These are the times you need Absorb Pain. The special noted above is that it ganks your health regen and means you cannot be healed for 20seconds after using it. 20 seconds is a long time if stuff is mad at you. Be smart about how you use AP. Because danger lurks around every corner

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Resurrect: ally rez Slotting Recommendation: A single end reduction IO. It costs a fair chunk of endurance (26 at base) so you want to bring that down. It doesn’t really need recharge IMO since even though its somewhat long (3 minutes), people shouldn’t be dying more than once every 3 minutes. I’ve found global recharge and Hasten to be more than enough to bring it back up fast enough even when the poop is hitting the fan. Splut splut, poop joke. God, you guys are immature. How to Use: to rez people, funnily enough. They’ll be protected from XP debt for a minute and a half afterwards, not like XP debt matters though. Unlike Rise of the Phoenix from Thermal or a few of the self-rezzes from armor sets, it does not make the target untouchable. This means they can be beat right the **** down right after they rez. Hit ‘em with Fortitude right after to avoid this.

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Clear Mind: ally +res (Disorient, Hold, Sleep, Immobilize, Fear, Confuse) +perception Slotting Recommendation: Doesn’t really matter. I’d go with an end rdx or a range enhancer. It doesn’t cost a lot of endurance but what the hell else are you gonna put in there? The range enhancer would be just if you want it to have similar range to Heal Other. Personal preference. How to Use: Either proactively or reactively, depending on the situation. Ideally proactively. I wouldn’t recommend maintaining CM on the whole team all the time, because that’s totally stupid. First of all, most melee types won’t need it except for very rare occasions (more on that later). Secondly, not all mobs have mezzes. Most lategame mobs have a lot of mezzes, but its only a few who are nasty enough to require full time CM upkeep on the squishies. Mobs like Rikti, Malta, Arachnos and Rularuu. When fighting easier mobs like Council or Nemesis you can get away with using it reactively. Most of the mezzes won’t land anyway due to Fortitude, so when fighting mobs that don’t mez a lot I’d just hit people with it when you see a mez land on their buff bar or they call it.

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Fortitude: ally +def(all) +damage +tohit Slotting Recommendation: Membrane Hos are perfect for this power, since they'll enhance every enhanceable aspect of it. They can be pricey though. Enhancing the tohit is a nice benefit, but what's really important is maxing out the recharge and defense on it. So if you don't want to go with Membranes or want to use some other set, just make sure you get burly defense and recharge numbers. Frankenslot if you gotta. How to Use: This one depends. Fortitude can be used for two major purposes, to boost damage or survivability. The damage and tohit buffs are great to put on high damage characters, the defense can turn a squishy into a, uh, not squishy. Well still sorta squishy, but like SR squishy. Your first priority is trying to keep people alive though, so put Fort on the people who are taking a lot of damage first. If the healthbars are pretty stable, put Fort on the damage dealers. More on this later.

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Recovery Aura: PBAoE +recovery Slotting Recommendation: Maxed out recharge, good recovery. If you have to cut slots, this is one place you can do it since it gives a boatload of recovery at base. Getting it to recharge as fast as possible is what's really important. It'll give everyone hit by it far more endurance than they'll know what to do with in any case. How to Use: position yourself within range of as many teammates as possible, fire it off. Both this and Regen Aura have the same radius (25') as Healing Aura, so you can get to grips with how big it is by playing with HA.

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Regeneration Aura: PBAoE +regen Slotting Recommendation: Again, maxed recharge. Unlike Recovery Aura, IMO its also very important to max out the healing enhancement on this one, because of how drastically the +regen can affect people with high hp. Combined with Fortitude, huge amounts of damage are negated. How to Use: Exact same as Recovery Aura. gg laziness

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Adrenaline Boost: ally +regen +recharge +recovery +godmode awwww yissssss Slotting Recommendation: First priority, max out the recharge. Second priority, max out the healing. Endmod if you want, I've never bothered. How to Use: Put on whoever you want to turbocharge. The recharge boost on this is massive, twice as powerful as Speed Boost. It'll also give them the recovery to fuel it and huge regen to boot. Throwing it on whoever is leading the charges is generally a good idea, since the regen will help them absorb the alphas. If no one is taking any serious damage, throw it on a damage dealer (like with Fortitude). Use it! Seriously, Adrenaline Boost should never sit unused in your tray. It's a phenomenal buff, using it only for end bar crashes or whatever is nonsense.

How to Not Be Awful, the Empathening:

• Playing support and attacking are not mutually exclusive. Empaths who never attack are bad Empaths. Support takes priority, sure, but learning when you can attack and doing so is important too. Especially given the mods on Defender Blasts (sup, Sonic Blast).
  
  
• Knowing who to put Fortitude on can be tricky. Make it easier for yourself by getting loads of recharge so you can put it on as many people as possible. You want to be using Fortitude as soon as it recharges. Don't let the poor dear languish neglected in your tray.
  
  
• First priority is using it on people taking a lot of damage so the defense will help them. If no one is taking a lot of damage, you want to throw it on the people with high damage first. Blasters, Scrappers, and Dominators are all good targets due to their high base damage.
  
  
• Know when to use Absorb Pain. If everything is going as it should, you should almost never have to use it. I know, it seems silly to take a power that is useful so rarely. The vast majority of the time, HO spam will do the job. But sometimes HO won't be fast enough, no matter your recharge. For Master of TFs it can come in very handy. AP+HO is a very quick and very powerful healing combo. I've got HO bound to Q and AP bound to lshift+Q, so I can hit them in quick succession.
  
  
• Don't stack CM on people with mez protection. Outside of like, two exceptions, its stupid and a waste of time. Those exceptions being fighting Ghost Widow and Romulus. Stacking it on whoever is tanking GW can help them survive her haxhold and throwing it on melee people when Rom dies can ensure they don't have to evade the rez stun. If you've got time to spam CM like a cretin, you should be blasting instead. Kisses, Silas.
  
  
• Or at lower levels, when people don't have their mez protection yet. Circle of Thorns can also be really nasty with mez at lower levels, y helo thar Ruin Mage!
  
  
• Keybindings can save you a lot of time and energy. I bind Heal Other to q and Absorb Pain to shitt+q. That way I've got fast access to them since they're right next to my movement keys. Binding Follow to a key can also be helpful, so you can target someone for healing, hit the bind and zoom off in their direction rather than wasting time panning the camera round to find them to get in range.
  
  
• Given the large recovery buff on Adrenaline Boost, you can hit someone with it right after they've nuked or had a godmode crash to help them out. It's very helpful, but not helpful enough that you should save AB for these times. AB is too powerful a buff to have sitting around waiting to be used. A single endmod enhancement to this will ensure it overrides the recovery debuff from nukes and godmode crashes, if you can spare the slot.
  
  
• Stay mobile. Combat Jumping + Hurdle is fantastic. You'll often be the most vulnerable person on a team, since everyone else can get Fortitude, CM, heals, etc. Being quick on your feet and kiting a lot is important to keep yourself alive. Superspeed and a stealth IO also helps a lot. Allies can be much more easily healed than you, who has to rely on Healing/Regen Aura. Don't stand next to people with a lot of aggro so you stay clear of the Aoe effects.
  
  
• If you like to rock the aura, please follow these navigational instructions.
  
  
• Watch buff bars if you can. Not just to see when Fortitude/CM are expiring, but also to see incoming damage spikes. If you see the KO Blow icon appear on a squishies buff bar when you're fighting Statesman, you can target them and get ready to heal as soon as the damage hits.
  
  
• I've not really PvPed in a long time, but if you're into it, it can teach you a lot that can help you in PvE too. As an Empath a lot of people will want you dead, so you've gotta learn to evade well and support your team at the same time.
  
  
• You don't need IOs to be a good Emp. They can make you much more effective through higher recharge or more survivable through defense or +hp, but people were Emping well long before IOs. With just SOs you can still maintain Fortitude on 3 people reliably, 4 briefly.
  
  
• Powerboost is also really good for Empaths. Like, stupidly good. It turbocharges your heals and makes Fortitude monstrously powerful. With zero slotting in Fortitude and PB, you'll be giving people 29.8% defense and 37% tohit. For the record, that's equivalent to Scrapper SR (assuming all toggles+passives 2 slotted with level 50 Def Ios). With Fortitude 2 slotted for Defense, Pbed it gives 37% defense. Madness!

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What Goes Well with Empathy: Given that Empathy can often require split-second reactions to catch a falling healthbar, a blast (or control) set that has quick animations is very helpful. Keeping a full team buffed and in good health requires a fair amount of time investment, so ideally you want to pair Empathy with a set that doesn't require a lot of maintenance. For Controllers, Illusion is a great example. I personally went with Sonic Blast due to omgdebuffvalues, I mean, -20% resistance a blast? What in the hell is going on with that? It's nuts. You can stack 60-100% -res on a target just spamming Shriek and Scream. If you bring Screech into the mix you're reliably at 80-120% -resistance. For non totally broken sets, I'd recommend Ice or Fire. Okay, Fire is still a little broken, but not as broken as it is for Corruptors. Both have fast activating attacks that deal good damage, both have the advantage of the rain power which will do Blaster level damage. The problem is that you don't have any way to keep stuff in the rain. They're both end-heavy sets but that generally isn't a problem for Empathy due to Recovery Aura.

The Manner in Which Silas Conducts his Empathic Affairs:

Feast your eyes, peasants!

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Notes: Something I didn't cover in the screenshot is the placing of Absorb Pain and the rez. Basically, the former is bound and the latter doesn't get used so much so I don't mind moseying the mouse over there to hit it. Yes, I've got Vengeance. Ideally people won't die, but **** happens. When it does, Veng is an incredibly powerful buff that can keep the rest of the team/you alive to prevent things becoming a wipe. As far as Incarnate stuff goes, I went with Spiritual for my Alpha. Extra recharge and extra healing power = do want. Went Reactive for more damage and -res, Clarion Destiny for mez protection. Same as the rest of my builds, I've got the accolades. Demonic helps when thing are going down the toilet and the +hp/end accolades help shore up low Defender hp as well as increasing the benefit you get from Regen/Recovery Aura. Even though Power Boost is stupidly powerful for Empaths, I decided I wanted s/l softcap instead. Personal preference, really. I like the added survivability it gives me, I find slotted Fort to be plenty to keep people alive.

My Build:

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As for how it could be improved, there are a couple ways, mostly full reworkings of the build. Since Empathy doesn't really have any melee powers, going for ranged defense is a very viable route. I went with s/l because it doesn't require a lot of investment slot/power wise, so I had a lot of room to get stupid levels of recharge.

I considered going with 6 slots of Panaceas in HA/HO for the heal bonus, but decided against it. Couldn't find somewhere else to take the slots from and the proc is prohibitively expensive. Speaking of Panaceas, I personally went with them in HA/HO because they don't need recharge. Putting Panaceas in AB/RA isn't a good idea IMO, since the extra global recharge from the set compared to DW doesn't make up for the weak enhancement values. Meaning you'd need to dedicate a 6th slot for recharge.

Soooo. There is is, hope its of use to some of you. All feedback welcome

Acknowledgements:

I forgot this at first because I'm a terrible friend. Many thanks to Amy and Stray for looking over the guide and providing lots of helpful feedback

Good guide but I am still not rollin' no empath! (because I love myself too much)

One slight nit: you mention that adrenalin boost can negate nuke/etc recovery crashes, but don't suggest any endmod slotting. Many such crashes are -1000% recovery, so at base AB's 800% recovery isn't going to do the job. I personally like to put one endmod/x IO in there, which gets the recovery bonus just over 1000%. As you mention, it's certainly a fringe use of the power, but if you're going to suggest it as a possiblity I'd think you'd want to mention the slotting required for it to work.

You may want to add a special note for the Empaths that take the Medicine pool and just how mind blowingly stupid that is.

I considered it, but hoped that anyone actually reading a guide about how to play Empathy wouldn't be that stupid.

R..right?

I have seen Empaths with Aid Other, Stimulant, and Resuscitate. So yes, apparently people do need to be told not to waste three power picks on powers that are sucky versions of things you already have.

Hey Silas,

I was wondering what your thoughts on [burnout] are, and how useful it may be for support character? Like /traps and /time?

Update: Upon reflection I'm also gonna be adding SO/generic IO only builds to each guide. Should help people looking for a more basic slotting strategy.