ok i have a few questions

i been realy bored on my claw/regen so i was hoping on making a alt well i want to make a pure supporter class u know a class with healing for raids and posabilby tping but i dnt know wat to pick and supporters out there can plz help i need power sets also just for a idea mainly

Playing any defender in a 'pure support' role is going to be unfulfilling for someone used to scrapping.

My two favorite defenders are my:
rad/rad and my sonic/sonic.

Both mix in buffs, debuffs and bring a decent set of attacks to the team.

Welcome to the game. I'm going to give you the Defender speech.

Unlike most MMO's, "pure healing" is not the best way to protect your team. The standard example I use is a Force Field defender. Most people find it really boring to play, but it can make your Blasters (for instance) ten times harder to kill. That is roughly the equivalent of healing them for ten times their entire HP bar, every fight.

At that point your team is basically limited by how fast they can output damage.

Now different Defenders do different things- Kinetics gives the team a lot more speed and endurance and damage, but not very much extra survivability. And the playstyle is totally different from Force Fields. But Rad is also totally different from both of those, and Empathy is different, and Storm doesn't play like anything else in the game.

If in doubt, it's hard to go wrong with a Rad/Sonic.

Lies! Hehe jk. OK here is my observation from the Empath Defender!

I have a Emp/AR Defender and I solo a lot and keep many MANY teams alive through Healing Aura alone. Sure I fire off a Recovery Aura at the start, but I'd be an idiot not to quite frankly. Take along with this TP/Stealth and Fitness Power pools and yer laughing.

I like the fact I can play this character as a support OR a self-healing Blaster!

So, there's my tuppence worth!

First off, welcome to the game. It's a whole 'nother world in here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Damiontech i want to make a pure supporter class u know a class with healing for raids and posabilby tping but i dnt know wat to pick and supporters out there can plz help i need power sets also just for a idea mainly

I'm guessing based on your terminology (Raid) that you're coming in from WoW. Best advice I can give you is to forget everything you learned. CoX doesn't use what's commonly referred to as the "Holy Trinity" of class synergy. Hell, we don't even use the term "class" (It's Archetypes or ATs for short). The game is a lot less rigid in its makeup (AKA easier) and you can find success without dedicated tanking, healing, or DPS. Just to reiterate, healing isn't king here.

Disclaimer: I'm speaking as someone who doesn't play Defenders. I'm a melee DPS kinda guy. So all the feedback and advice I give is grounded in my experiences with Defenders as team mates. I'll focus on sets that have healing as a partial focus since they'll feel more familiar to you off the bat.

You're asking about powersets so there's a lot of different options. As others have mentioned Empathy plays a bit to the more traditional MMORPG role in that it has some powerful heals. Those are supplemented by equally powerful ally buffs. The worst thing you can do as an Empathy Defender is neglect one aspect to focus solely on the other. The reason for this is because, at some point, one of them is going to fail. Either your buffs won't be enough to prevent damage or your team's gonna be taking so much damage across a wide enough spread that you won't be able to heal 'em fast enough.

Thermal is the other Defender primary that has heals as a focus of its gameplay. You get both a single target and a PBAoE heal. Now those aren't as good as Empathy's but they can do a decent bit to keep your team mates' health bars in the green. However, those heals alone are not gonna be enough. Thermal also gets ally buffs in the form of shields. These are gonna do the heavy lifting in terms of protecting your team. As a Thermal, keeping everyone shielded is gonna give you more bang for your buck than focusing only on keeping people's hit points topped off.

I'll let the actual Defenders advise you further as to the specifics of different sets. I do advise that you head over to the Player Guides section and read Silas' Plays Support and So Can You. It's a very succinct and well written guide that focuses on the support oriented powersets and how to use them effectively. Hope you have fun in the City of Heroes/Villains

Nitpick: There are only a handful of raids in this game to speak of. Hamidon Raids and Rikti Mothership Raids are the two major ones. Most of the others aren't raids in the traditional sense. They're zone wide events.

Well, id say you have a learning curve hurdle in front of you by comming to play a Defender from a Scrapper.

Heres a Big tip on selecting your Primary for the Defender.

DONT...... PICK....... EMPATHY!

You will be severly dissapointed, and as someone already pointed, bored of the set.Not just bored, but its a bad step in a diffrent direction when you choose to make a Defender after playing Scrappers.

Theres plenty of Hardy, and Rough Defender builds that come to mind, that would more fit a Scrapper players mantality.Mainly because it can offer the chance to make a fighting Defender, while still passing out passive Buffs and Debuffs for the entire teams survival.

I have a Sonic/Sonic Defender that I play commonly on Freedom.Not only does its attacks do more damage then many other Defender Secondaries, It drops the damage resistance of the bad guys you face.Allowing you, AND your team to hit harder.Granting them DPS.

Now for Sonic Primary, id have to say that many people will not play this set due to it being a +Resistance set and not a +Def% set.

Its a very potent set.

I run around with a Sonic Dispursion Bubble, thats as big as a FF players Large Bubble.All in side of it get a 23% Damage resistance Boost, then you add in the damage resistance buffs that last for 4 minutes per cast, adding another 45% damage resistance to ALL damages in 2 protection powers that last 4 total minutes.

Lets do the math.If someone stays in the Feild, and are buffed, they get a 68% recived damage DECREASE!Thats effectivly making everyone you protect Resistance Tank.

Then lets put what happens to a Scrapper, or a Tanker when you hit these powers onto them.

SR Scrapper now has 68% damage Resistance, on top of his 35-40% possibly Soft Capped.You just made that SR Scrapper into a fast moving Granite Tanker with full damage potential.

BUT WAIT!

THERES MORE!

You also have the ability to put up a Sonic Resonance Aura on a team mate of your choosing.Tank, Scrapper, Whatever they are, can get into a melee fight, and drop a entire mobs Damage Resistance by 30%.Then say you Howl at the mob, a wide moderate damage Cone from your Secondary.

OOPS!You just took them down another 20% Resistance for a total of 50%.They now take heafty damage, FROM EVERYONE!Inculding your self.

Now, it doesnt stop there.

Toughness iv been noticing grants 15% resistance to all damage to a Defender Class, but grants that 15% to smash/lethal only for other classes.(Unless its a error on the power description.)

Granting you, the Defender with another 23% resistance to damage on top of your Sonic Field.(assuming you gave it 3 SOs or resist)

So now you have 46 Damage resistance for your self, which effectivly just raised your Health bar by alot.

If you want to have the capability to fight, and pass out quick set it and forget it buffs, then this would be the combonation for you.

Also, Liquify, the level 32, tier 9 power of the Sonic Primary for a Defender.Its niiiiiiiice.

Emp is a good AT to learn buffing with. Everything's pretty straightforward: point, click, buff or position, click, aura buff

If you wanna do more for your team, you take a dark or rad. Then you're not only buffing but debuffing as well.

I went from emp to rad to dark.

dark took a little to get used to, but it's my favorite defender to play atm. The combo of buff/debuff is fantastic!

As far as I know, tough only increases resistance to all damage in PvP. In PvE it's only supposed to increase resistance to smashing/lethal. My guess is that it's a display bug, or you accidentally had the PvP info toggled on.

I would agree on not picking empathy. For a new player it really does gives a very limited view on what a defender's true capabilities are.

Sonic is one good choice, as has been suggested. It's not the most diverse set in terms of the types of buffs and debuffs it hands out (mostly just +res and -res, along with some anti-mez and liquefy), but it at least focuses on buffs and debuffs rather than healing. Only downside is that shielding the entire team every 4 minutes can be annoying for some people, and if you forget, people will probably gripe.

I think that dark miasma is another good choice. Dark has a large number of debuffs and controls to neuter enemy spawns, while also making them die faster and topping off any damage that leaks through with its heal. It can rez an entire team of allies at once, and even gets a sort of 'mini me' pet that backs up your abilities. Only real downside from the perspective of a new player is that you don't really get to experience the power of buffs.

Personally, though, I would recommend radiation emission. Rad has an even wider array of debuffs than dark, albeit without as much control, and also has a nice AoE buff that you don't have to spam on your teammates. It can also rez people (albeit one at a time), and also has a modest heal to back up its potent debuffs. It is a very nice all around primary that will get you used to a wide variety of defender abilities.

In terms of secondaries, I don't think the specific one you choose matters as much as simply actually using whatever secondary you do pick. Defenders certainly don't do as much damage as blasters, but that doesn't mean we can't contribute our part. Defenders can still toss out some AoEs to soften up the foes, or pick on a single target and keep him occupied until he goes down. As well, many blast sets have useful non-damage effects on the powers, from knockup, to -tohit, to slows, to -defense, to -resist, to mezzes, etc, etc. While these effects rarely need to be slotted for (it's usually a better idea to slot for damage, at least on powers which are primarily damage powers), they can still easily be felt. Dark blast's two AoEs, for example, can drop the tohit of a whole spawn by 15% or more even without any debuff slotting (while also rooting mobs in place). Many sets have single target controls, some have AoE soft controls. As long as you actually take, slot and use the good powers from whatever secondary you pick, the exact choice of secondary isn't too important, in my opinion. Pick whatever fits your theme or sounds the funnest. If you're unsure which powers in your chosen set are worthwhile or how to slot them, of course, you can still ask here.

Empathy's brilliant on small teams. It can be kind of annoying to play though since it requires constantly watching for powers to refresh to play well.

After 4 or 5 years of tweaking and balancing there are no powersets that are really badly inferior to all others in all circumstances. All powersets can be played badly or well.

If you're looking for a support character, I'd recommend a Controller. Defenders are more hybrid support and offence.

Illusion Control is a popular choice for pure support - you can use Superior Invisibility to avoid almost all aggro and then assist the team with control and whatever buff or debuff set you use.