Looking for help with a Empathy/Dual Pistols build please!

Greetings.

I am completely new to the Defender class, and was hoping for a bit of help. I want to create a main healer, now I realize healers work a bit differently then WoW (which I am used to), but was thinking of getting DP for secondary powerset for concept reasons, however I'd be wiling to go the way of archery or assault rifle instead.

What I'm interested in knowing is if any of these combinations are any use at all for a group (as this toon will be geared mainly towards grouping). And if so which powers would be absolutely necessary, and which are absolutely skippable.

Finally I been hearing people talk about how controller is almost as good a healer... What shall I do!?

Thanks in Advance.
- Noobiesaur

Controllers are generally better team support.
They offer crowd control and support powers like healing, buffs and debuffs.

Defenders are more of a "combat medic" with support (healing, debuffs and buffs) and a side of decent damage that shouldn't be ignored.

Support in CoH is much more than healing. The buffs and debuffs tend to be pretty powerful compared to a lot of other games. Team with one Force Field Defender and the whole team takes very little damage. One Sonic Defender can make the whole team twice as tough and do 60% more damage. And neither of them heal at all.

These support powers enhance a team big-time, but are not needed - you can get through most of the game without having a support character, and definiely dont need a dedicated support. Its possible to do your job as a supporter to the max and attack at the same time.

So:

1) If you want to try damage and support, go Defender.
2) If you want a more team oriented support, go Controller.
3) If you really wnat a support Defender, go Dark Blast for extra -To Hit in your blasts, or Sonic Blast for -res to help your team defeat things faster.
4) If you do go Empathy, take the buffs. Fortitude is a must have.

Better yet, experiment. This game was made with alts in mind, rather than playing one main and sticking with it.

Ok from what you said DrMike it definately sounds like I'm going with defender. "Combat Medic" sounds like just the thing I'm after, but that brings me back to the secondaries. I was aiming for DP, but read some complaints about it in the blaster forums. Is it crap for Defs? In that case I could be willing to go fo AR or Archery. Any thoughts regarding this would be much appreciated.

Dual Pistols works best for Defenders out of all archetypes.
Blasters do more damage obviously (about 50% to 100% more) but the debuffs associated with the alternative ammo types like -Dam are better for Defenders.

I'm not a big fan of Archery because it has no secondary effects. It really shines with Rain of Arrows, which comes at 38 for Defenders, so its long road for your first character.
Some of the same can be said about Assault Rifle - it has little to no secondary effects to take adavntage of the good multipliers defenders get for them.

Give Emp/Dual Pistols a try - its probably best out of the three. Its certainly not a bad place to start for a team support/offence character.

If you're not totally sold on Empathy, I'd give Dark Miasma a look - that was my first Defender and its very powerful healing and debuffing set that keeps teams very safe.

Thanks again DrMike. Certainly sounds like DP is gonna be my secondary power. You mention Dark Miasma as an alternative healing powerset, so now I'm curious. How do the different healing powersets stand out from one another, and which one is generally considered the best, and why?

Thanks again.

A quick run down of the support sets. They're pretty well balanced by now, so no-one stick out as the best or worse. Have a look through the guides stickied at the top of the forum for more details.


(btw Calling them healing sets will draw the Healer Police out - in brief Defenders do much more than heal, and that isn't always recognised. )


Empathy: Heals, and has long recharge buffs that give godly boosts to your favourite temamates. Requires thinking as to who you buff and when. Poor solo-er

Dark Miasma: All rounder that debuffs enemies damage and accuracy, has a good AoE combat heal that requires an enemy to hit, and good control. Greta solo and on teams.

Rad Emission: A bit like dark Miasma, a toolbox debuff/buff/heal set. Best powers require using an enemy as an anchor to radiate the debuff, so you can get annoyed if teammates kill your anchor. Best powers come early. Good soloer.

Kinetics: fast, unsafe seat of the pants set. Boosts team damage and speed. Big AoE heal that requires an enemy, but little else in terms of safety. Buffs are short lived, and can get very frantic if you try to keep everyone Speed Boosted.

Storm: Chaotic knockback, requires some skill to play without annoying teammates. Powerful toolbox set once you master it. Good soloer.

Force Field: Makes your team unkillable once it matures. Does very little else though. Laid back. Buff the team every 4 minutes and blast in between. No heals, doesn't need them.
You get a big bubble that gives you and your team mez protection.

Sonic Resonance: Makes the team tougher and the enemies softer. Laid back like Force Fields. No heal. Big anti-mez bubble like FF. Poor soloer.

Cold Domination: Similar to Force Fields but with better tools and slightly less defence. Very good against big hard targets apparently. No heal.

Traps: Toolbox set. Gets a anti-mez bubble pet (Force Field generator.) No heal but a +Regen stationary pet. Longish recharges on some powers, so you're doing a fair bit of thinking. Good soloer.

Trick Arrows: No heal, debuffs, may be a bit underpowered in some areas, especially team safety. The best powers come late in the set and have long recharges, so you tend to approach each fight a bit differently.

Apart from Empathy, most sets scale smoothly to full teams of 8.

If your concept is a "Combat Medic" and your leaning toward a Tech origin, you could also consider Trap/Dual Pistols or even Traps/Assault Rifle.

You would not have a direct heal, but Triage Beacon is a great form of layered protection when combined with the excellent defense granted by Force Field Generator.

The biggest downside to Traps seems to be keeping up with a fast-moving team. Solo and on normal teams, you will have a whole bag of tricks to "support" your team. And with Dual Pistols and Assault rifle you get "crashless" Nukes to make your own damage contribution quite fun.

If your concept is more of a super-powered healer (not Tech origin), then Empathy, Kinetics, Dark Miasma and Radiation all offer heals that support the other "defender" powers. Dark and Rad can solo much better than Empathy and Kinetics (if that kind of thing is important to you).

My Emp/DP is 50 now and it works fine.

DP is best on defenders because the debuffs are strongest there. You also have the benefit that you can really focus on damage with your attacks, since they have the weapon based inherent accuracy bonus and the debuffs are not enhanceable.

The only downsides are redraw+fortitude and reactive heals+long animation powers.

Alright. You've all been a tremendous help, so thanks to all of you.

In the end I opted for the EMP/DP powersets, I'm lvl 11 and having a lot of fun, BUT! ... Being new at this game all the DP powers seem pretty good to me lol, so if anyone could tell me which are pretty useless (despite appearing otherwise) I'd be mighty grateful.

Thanks again