"pure" healers + going rogue

I too would argue that emps aren't easy. I got slapped a lot of times when I tried my pick up lines on several in the last Defender-con... A few of them six slotted flurry too.

It still makes some sense since the buff shields, rings, bubbles are slotted with TOs and not SOs.

I would like to agree that emping is not easy when played to its full potential. That is all.

My biggest complaint with empathy (and pain domination) is that there's no fast way to target team mates. I am rather offense minded myself. I actively go after enemies, and my control setup makes it rather rough trying to target team members via mouse click. By the time I can grab the mouse, target the injured player, and heal them it is possibly too late. It's not as bad using single target heals with a mastermind. At least for the pets.

On a mastermind I can set up targeting binds that are easy to reach and remember for the henchmen. But what about for team members? I could do a similar bind setup, but the section I use for pet targeting only has 6 keys. My keyboard is a logitech G15 gamer keyboard. It has programmable macro keys. However those macro keys rarely get used due to being awkward to reach with my control setup. And there's only six of them. Yeah I can set up 3 sets of macros with it and switch between them. But that's adding another step to the process which would slow things down.

My biggest complaint with empaths I've teamed with tends to be the fact too many are 'pure healer' builds. Oft times skipping highly useful powers, or taking them but never using them. I've lost count of the empaths I've seen with the two RA auras, but never use them.

*shrug* I clarified my position but apparently need to do so again.

Things I do not think Empathy is:

• A simplistic set
• Easy to play well
• "for girls" Seriously, I don't even know what the hell that's about
• Far more easy to play well than other support sets

• Easier to play well than other support sets

Keeping Fort up on the right people is the main argument I'm seeing that makes Emps "hard to play." But, if you have the basic knowledge of what each AT does that is not an issue.

Adrenalin Boost? You can keep it up one person, that's really hard to do.

RA's? You jump in the middle of everyone while they're fighting to use them.

CM? You keep it up on those without mez protection.

Although you may say, some of this stuff may require to know the other players powersets. I know it may be tough to right click a name and click Info, but I believe with enough practice you'll be able to accomplish this task.

Now, there may be a lot of stuff you need to do as an Emp, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's hard to play. Now this isn't exclusive to Emps, but the only difficult part you may need to work on is anticipating when you need to heal somebody. Although, I think this is way more important in PvP because in PvE you'll have a little more leeway if you have a decent team.

I find the empath (disclosure: highest empath mid-20s, most other buff/debuff sets 40+) a little trickier than most of my defenders, mainly because of the target-switching and the different timers on the powers. I find it harder to get into a good offensive rhythm.

For a rad/dark something like RI - Tentacles - Dark Pit - EF - Nightfall, repeat cones til dead maybe firing off Radiant Aura when AoEs all recharging.
For a dark/rad Fearsome Stare - Tar Patch - unleash AoEs, maybe heal as needed between attacks, or stun troublesome Lt.
For FF (or Sonic Resonance), shield up and shoot, moving to encompass most in bubble.
Traps goes seekers - rush in - drop necessary traps - release AoEs.
Storm goes unleash stuff; don't take O2 Boost to avoid the dilemma of caring about, er, targeting teammates.

But on an empath, the irregular reappearance of Fort and CM (and needing to remember who gets what by touch), the targeting and re-targeting for individual buffs, the changing targets for offensive activity, because invariably the person you're targeting for heal/fort/CM isn't targeting the LT you need to mez, or the enemy that would be ideal for firing off your cone/AoE: all these make the empath--to me--among the most difficult of toons to play fully effectively. (I think the powerset itself, with the targeting and timing issues, and the fact that none of your primaries affect enemies, tends to push people toward pureness.)

I've found Kinetics and Cold to run into similar issues (I'm looking at you Increase Density), though I really enjoy Cold (probably because skipping Snowstorm and Frostworks reduce the difficulties).

Personally, I find my emps some of my most challenging alts. But I love them for it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ketch I could toss it on the other emp (who had better return the favor) so both of our auras are up faster.

*sigh* I haven't seen much of the 'defender handshake' for quite a while. I have been on way too many teams where another def/troller/cor completely ignores that I'm mezzed or getting pounded, even though I'm hollering in teamspeak. They're usually too busy chatting with the tank to notice.