Noticed something.

Iv noticed something thats been a huge topical debate in mainly the Defender Forum.However it can apply here to the Controller Forum as well.

EMP players.Otherwise know as Empathy or Healers have been the main topic of these 2 Archtypes.

Everything from Defenders shouldnt have attacks, to Controllers shouldnt take Empathy, its just full of fail, to getting upset at the player who has Empathy when you die.

I personally have dodged this power set like the plague.Mainly because I dont want to be responsible to the wellfare of a entire team, when its not on my entire shoulders to begin with.

Iv seen other players blame a EMP for there dying, when that same player decides that the EMP is there personal 911 when they want to tank a 8 man team mission on there Blaster.I dont find that fun or within the bounds of common sense to blame the Empathy for there Stupidity.

I acctually like the Empathy Power Set, but iv avoided it until now.I would like to make a Empathy Controller, or Defender, I have yet to decide which id perfer.Its leaning towards Controller to be honest.

I want to aviod Ice Control, since I have a Ice/Cold build.Any recomendations?

Yep. Illusion/Empathy. Invisibility lets you get around and heal without being seen. Phantom Army and Deceive lets you pull foes away from teammates. Illusion gives you single target control, damage and confuse, plus the AoE distraction from PA and control from Spectral Terror. The Illusion set lets you be an effective controller, and still use your buffing and healing powers. (Notice I said buffing first.) You can solo if you want, but build for a team player.

Frankly, Emp is far from the best secondary for an Illusion controller, but Illusion may be the best primary for a */Emp Controller.

Generally, you don't see many huge debates here. When we disagree we all do it pretty civilly. It also helps to have a few very knowledgeable members like Local.

Anyway, a second consideration if you find Illusion off-putting is Mind Control. The aggro free controls in Confuse, Mass Hypnosis, and Mass Confusion let you shed some of the heat for those times when you need to focus on the empath side of things.

My first suggestion is Illusion / Empathy also. You can be subtle and heal without ever being seen. You can summon Phantom army and deceive enemies. It is a great combo.

Lewis

Plant/Emp is another good combo, because like Illusion and Mind it works from range. You shed aggro by confusing the lot of them and then summoning Creepers in their midst. Then use the AOE and single target mezzes, buffing whenever the buffs come back up (I fire my AOE buffs without warning in the middle of combat, close to as many people as possible) and healing when needed.

My Plant/Emp is a beast on teams. And I skipped the Rez and Absorb Pain. Don't need them.

i can agree that illusion and mind are 2 awesome choices for an emp troller. personally id go with mind just because its a less common and generally underrated powerset. plus you could even stack stealth + stealth IO to get the same feel of illusion's superior invis.

I have a baby Ill/Emp controller, who did a Synapse the other week. I have to say, once I got Fortitude (during the TF) I ended up using VERY few heals from then on out. Between the control you can get from Illusion, and the excellent buff for the two biggest agro magnets, everything ran very smoothly.

Brittany Fears is a lot of fun -I very much recommend Illusion/Emp if you want an Empath.

The controller boards don't tend to engage in the EMP debate because our secondary is rarely what we're relying on most. Generally it's agreed that if you are playing well, it's the buffs from the Empathy set that shine the most for us, not the heals, because good use of controls should negate most needs for healing, and the buffs seem to negate the rest.

There's very little angst on the subject. Speed Boost from /Kin on the other hand will get you some epic debate.

For what it's worth, my very first 50 ever was an illusion/empathy controller. I loved the jack-of-all-trades feeling with her. You need buffs? Distractions? Locking down the enemy? Pseudo-tanking? Gotcha covered!

Hello, my Main is an Earth / Empath and hell i love this Toon so much.
At getting Quicksand the Fun starts as this Avvsome (autohit ) -25 % defense helps any team at any lvl so much.
Its an Toon vvho is loved at any teams because of his great Troller Abilitys and his nice Buffs.
I slotted on Empathy only the Buffs, the rest mainly go vvith 1 or max tvvo Slots.
And i vvas able to vvork as *lol* Mainhealer on an nice ITF.

As an good earth, heals are rarely needed , just keep the tank buffed vvith the reggen singlebuff, or the team vvith the reggen AE. All Scrappers and Blasters love the Damage Buff.
Also Solo hes an Beast. Buffed Stony is nice to have, the Earth Epic make damage like Hell, thanks to earth - defense your Attacks alvvays hits and at Endboss just the reggenaura on and youree fine against anything.

Grettings Braddack

I have a wonderful Illusion/empathy, too. Just like Castle.

Plant/emp also rocks, seeds of confusion is just that good.

I like emp too.....putting heal aura on auto, pick someone and hit F...... its got to be the best secondary in the game and lots of people play it!

Three concerns when pairing the Empathy set:
1) You really want to take just about all the powers. OK, you can make cases for skipping Absorb Pain and maybe Regeneration Aura. But really, at least 7 of the powers are things every teammate will expect Empaths to have. As a result, I would want to pair it with a set where I can skip, or at least delay, a lot of the powers.

2) Empaths lean toward being very busy during combat. (Well, assuming they're needed of course.) Contrast this with a set like Sonic, where the buffs and toggles get activated before combat starts. So I would pair it with a set that's effective without being busy.

3) Empathy uses buffs and heals. If you are a pet controller and ever find yourself soloing, it would be nice if your pet could benefit from those buffs.

Going through the controller sets then:
Earth seems like a great combo. You can skip both Immobs and use Quicksand, and also skip Salt Crystals. You put down Quicksand and Earthquake or Volcanic Gasses at the beginning of combat and you're free to heal/buff during. And Stoney with a little defense from Fort and some healing backup can easily handle tanking alpha strikes, assuming you can talk him into going.

Fire is OK, you can skip Ring, Smoke, and Bonfire easily. Hot Feet encourages you to be in combat, good for convenient Aura healing. But I don't love it, the control comes more from targeted effects than placed ones. (Which means more reliance on touchup via Char.) Also, Adrenaline Boost or Fort on an Imp is only about 1/3 as effective as it would be on a single pet. (Fort you can cover all 3 with recharge at least.)

Gravity I don't think is a good combination. Yeah you can skip some of it, specifically Dimension Shift, one of the Immobs, and one of the 2 attacks. But It's very single-target. And you can't heal Sing.

Ice, well you said you don't want Ice. But Ice is pretty good with Empathy. Ice Slick and stand around with Arctic Air while you do the Empath thing. Jack's a good target for buffs. Flash Freeze and an Immob are skippable.

Illusion is OK. Skip GI or SI. Either PA or Spectral Terror are good placed effects. My concern is that Spectral Wounds, Blind, and Deceive are all single target, which again means busy combat. And Phantasm can get buffed and healed but Fortitude doesn't do anything for Phantom Army. That's a reason I'd pair Illusion with a debuff set, because that way PA's damage is getting increased.

Mind is a weak but workable combo to me. It uses targeted AOEs not placed effects or toggles, but has enough to cover that single-target patches won't be all that necessary. Of course that means you probably don't skip much. There's no pet to benefit from your buffs when you're soloing though. It does seem a good character concept match with Empathy, I'll give it that.

Plant seems good. You can skip Spirit Tree, Spore Burst, and one of the immobs. Seets of Confusion is always a great opener, and Carrion Creepers or Vines are alternately good too. Fly Trap loves your buffs as much as any pet will.

So optimal choice IMHO for controller pairing is Earth/Empathy. Here's how it plays: typical pickup team, where everyone stands around looking at each other between groups like they don't want to be first to attack. You stand behind a box or corner just within range of the next spawn. Put down Quicksand and Earthquake, controlling the group without ever risking line of sight to get shot. Then your teammates see the fighting started and go attack. You step out from behind cover and are free to heal them up, reapply Fortitude/Clear Mind, or throw a Fossilize at a troublemaker.

Plant, Ice, Fire, and Illusion would be my next picks, in that order.

If you want to go with a defender, maybe pick something without weapon draw thus to keep power activation as fast as possible and thus be ready to heal on a moment's notice. I'd probably take one that's more single-target focused than AOE heavy, just because an Empathy defender doesn't want too much aggro on themselves.

For what it's worth I have a 50 Empath/Psi defender and a 42 Ice/Empath controller, and I've always been pretty happy with both.

ILL/EMP is awesome and my first 50 level was just that. Some of the things I love about the combo include...

1) Superior Inv aside from a Stalker's Hide this is the best Stealth in game and very little out there can detect you even when you are standing in their face. When you add Confuse this allows you to easily slip inside a mission and confuse an entire mob (I am speaking soloing now BTW) and then assist them in beating each other up. I have completed entiure missions this way without taking a single HP of damage. ONE NOTE: Take Recall Friend and you become the draling of any TF since you can speed things along.

2) The three Auras of Empathy. Solo or teaming no other powerset provides the caster with this much protection. Thermal is great and has good buffs but like many other buff sets the only person on the team that CAN'T benefit from those buffs is THE CONTROLLER casting them.

3) Fort/CM .. later game these are your bread and butter so Enhance them for maximum effect and recharge. CM is easy it recovers so quick you don't need much of anything but with Fort I always put 2 recharge reductions in there and can use it about every 30 seconds.

4) Phantom Army and Phantasm these are your BIG damage dealers until you hit epics and pick up more (if you decide to go that way). Nice thing about PA is they are basically indestructable. Okay they only last a short time but you don't need to worry about buffiung or healing them while tyhey are out dealing damage. Nothing can hurt them so turn them loose and watch the carnage. Phantasm is your body guard and will take aggro. It's fake also manages to confuse your enemy into attacking the WRONG miniuon while you, the Actualy Phantasm and you Army are damaging them.

5) Heal other .. The Healing Aura is nice and makes everyone feel good as green numbers flash overhead but Heal Other is my go to power if a Tank or whatever has taken on more than they can handle. It recovers quickly and heals for more than twice what the Aura will provide. It has good range too so you can even stand back and heal the team with the Aura while keeping the Tank at full strength with your single person heal. I never take Absob Pain.. don't need it so i use that slot elsewhere. I do take Rez but if i do my job right it's rare that i ever need it.

I soloed with my Ill/Emp all the way to level 50 and while a lot of people avoid battling Malta I purposely did thoise arcs. Sappers and Gunslingers confuse really easy and go from being a major pain to your best buddies .. as they defeat everything else in the room bnefore you unleash on them with Phantasm and PA.

My highest level Controller to date was a Mind/Empathy. I was aiming for total support in that I would have the best controls, combined with the best buffs and best heals. It was actually quite fun.

I have also leveled an Ice/Empathy and enjoyed it as well. Empathy as a secondary has a lot going for it, especially since Controllers now have "containment" to assist in their solo-ing needs.

But if I were to ever try Empathy on a controller again, it would probably be Earth/Empathy.
Just the thought of having something to put Fortitude on while solo makes me smile. And I would bet "buffed-up Stoney" is quite a sight to see in action.