Full Support/Healer Build

I am new to CoH and decided to roll a Healer (Full Support) as I usually enjoy this class in every mmorpg. I read through a few pages but didn't come across a Healer guide or help with which spells are useful and how I should slot my enhancements. I am not interested in dealing damage hence the full support. If anyone can point me into the right direction that would be great.
I was reading through some skills such as;
Fortitude - when grouping which archetype would benefit from this buff?
Recovery/Regeneration Aura - when should these be used? In-between fights when people's health/mana is low or is it a buff I can use at the start of the mission whilst all their bars are full?

Please excuse my English, it isn't my first language.
Thank-you for reading and taking time-out to reply.

welcome to the game!

first of all this game doesnt really have a pure healing class, as defenders, corrs, trollers, and masterminds can all get a heal set

defenders and trollers can get empathy which has the powers you mentioned, and stuff like fortitude is usually used on the lead tank or brute, or on avg teams anyone really. as for the RAs (regen and recov auras), its usually best to use them before a fight or during a fight as they arent much help when not fighting

the alternate to empathy is used by corruptors and masterminds which is called pain domination which is very similar to empathy but meant more for villains, it has similar stuff to empathy in terms of heals, but its buff powers are world of pain and has a debuff, anguishing cry, and a toggle for +regen (or on a corr it does ticks of heal instead of +regen which is the mastermind version)

empathy and pain dom cant do everything though, and there are many many other team buffing sets that are just as helpful

A defensive support empath works in the early levels, but later on when almost everyone has a good understanding of their character, heals won't be needed very often. With this in mind, it's a good idea to take a few powers from your secondary.

Heals should be slotted with 3 heals, 3 recharges or 2 recharge 1 endurance reduction.

Fortitude - slot 3 defense, 3 recharge. Use this on tanks and scrappers early on, squishies later level, or just use it on whoever seems to take a lot of aggro.

Clear mind - slot 1 or 2 recharges. Keep this on people without mez protection, basically the ATs without a personal survivability set.

Auras - slot 3 recharge, 2 endmod/heal, 1 end reduction. Use this in battle when people are losing hp and endurance. Using it before combat usually wastes its duration since most people are just mentally slow.

Adrenalin boost - 3 recharge, 2 heal, 1 endmod. Use this on incompetent tanks or blasters with nukes or anybody with huge endurance issues.

Also, make sure to take hasten and the leadership toggles, and slot stamina early.

Although I would EXTREMELY urge you against playing a "full support" toon, I will say that you are going about it wrong. Defenders are not the best at what I think you are looking for. I would say a controller better fits what you want.

As a defender, your idea of support doesn't include your entire secondary set. That means as far as your plan goes, 8 of your main powers won't be used. However, if you use a controller, you can still get your heals and buffs from your secondary set, and use your primary to limit the amount of damage coming in.

If you want to really protect your team, I would say a MindControl/Empathy defender will work well for someone who just purchased the game and wants to play support. Mind control will make your enemies unable to attack your team, and empathy will allow you to heal them up and make them stronger for when the enemies do attack. Mind control will also make it easier for you to solo, as they have an AoE sleep power, which makes none of the enemies in a group able to attack until you attack them (wake them up). Note, that this power works best solo, as ally AoEs can and will wake them all up at once, thus nullifying the power. But it does have a lot of other team friendly controls, that power just helps for when you can't find one.

Seriously though, as a defender who wants to play "pure" support, you are only playing half of a defender, and are not contributing to the team very well, but as a controller with the same goals, you will do quite well.

Ahh, I didn't know Controllers could also heal. I thought with playing a full support healer I wouldn't have time nor the mana to damage mobs.
Do Controllers heal less than a Defender or are they balanced?
Thanks again all the replies are much help.

I wonder how long this can stay civil.

As to the ignoring the secondary comments. I've played this game for a very long time. I recently wanted a new challenge. So I created an Empathy/Energy Defender. At level 30ish I still only have one attack. (Not counting Brawl or Vet abilities).
I had this planned all the way to 50 to not take another attack. It is a concept, peace loving kind of character. I have only been on PUGs so far. To date I've never had anyone complain.
Oddly enough it is the busiest I've ever been with a character. I do nothing but heal and maintain buffs on everyone.
There are occasions when things are going well and we are steam rolling through a mission that I will use my one attack.
So not being what a defender can be? Maybe. But I'm having fun, and to date so is everyone I've been teamed with.
The nice thing about CoX is that you can play it how you want and usually be successful.
(BTW, I've not replanned things since they announced Fitness as inherent. I'm not sure if I can avoid taking any more attacks now; assuming I respec that is.)

Okay, as others have pointed out, if you're "merely" healing people, you're wasting a full 60 to 75% of your character's full potential.

For defenders you're providing four things:

1. Healing
2. Team Buffs
3. Foe Debuffs
4. Additional Damage

1. Healing
2. Team Buffs
3. Foe Debuffs
4. Additional Damage
5. Control

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

The closest thing you will get to "pure support" in this game are some varieties of low damage Controllers. My first 50 was an Ice/Thermal Controller, and "healer" is actually not a bad description of the role he plays sometimes. Of course he can do more than "just heal" but it depends a lot on the fight. He is not the most powerful character I've played but there are circumstances where he was flat out the best support character I've had too (mainly in all-boss missions that figured heavily in the early AE days but have since more or less been removed from the game; mezzes were unreliable due to boss level protection but slow andd knockdown worked beautifully).

IMO for buff-heavy play, Ice, Earth, or Electric Control mixed with Empathy, Thermal, Force Field, and maybe Cold (which has a fair amount of debuff) are top picks. Ice Control in particular has always struck me as a somewhat "gentle" feeling set. If you only plan to team you can pretty much go your whole career without any attacks at all, like my Ice/Therm and Ice/Rads did, only picking up their first and only attacks in the 40s. Unlike with Defenders pretty much no one will think to yell at you for not having taken attacks either (though you do want to pick up some mezz/disabler powers to occupy enemies with).

I'll mostly chime in with what others have said regarding the usefulness of a pure healer. That being said Defenders come in a wide variety of styles and some are definitely more support oriented than others. In general you still want to use both of your powersets but if you want a more support focused character than you can pick a secondary that enhances your defensive abilities. The blast sets that defenders get as secondaries all deal debuffs to some degree or another but some are definitely more defensive than others. The two best options there are probably Dark Blast and Ice Blast. Dark provides to hit debuffs with all of it's attacks so every time you attack you are making it harder for enemies to hit your team, it also provides a decent chunk of control. Ice Blast has speed and recharge debuffs, these aren't quite as useful as Darks debuffs but they do reduce incoming damage and Ice has several holds along with being able to use Ice Storm for area denial as well as damage which balances it out a bit.

Enemies in this game can hit very hard and an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and stopping the enemies from hurting your team is much more effective than scraping them up afterward.

Regarding Empathy the heals are the early powers in the set and they are useful at the lower levels. However as you get into the late 20s and the early 30s you'll notice that you need them a lot less (unless you join a really bad team). At that point melee characters have the slot and enhancements that they can handle a lot of the incoming damage without help there are exceptions like an Ice tank in a defense debuff heavy situation but for the most part they don't need a lot of help unless something goes wrong. Similar other support characters (Defenders, Controllers, Corruptors and Masterminds) have the slots and enhancements that they need to beef up their powers to be the primary form of team support. At this point the primary job of an Empath shifts from healing to using buffs (primarily fortitude) to ensure that healing isn't needed. With that in mind here's my general advice on buffing:

Clear Mind: If you've got the time to cast this on non-melee characters then it's worth doing but it's also reasonable to leave it until someone needs it. If you've got a Force Fielder, Sonic Resonance or Trapper on the team then they'll provide an area mez protection buff for everything except sleep so Clear Mind isn't that important although if you're facing enemies with sleeps it can be useful to toss it on the Sonic or FF character to stop them getting slept (which would cause the shield to temporarily drop) the Trapper doesn't matter as much though (since their shield is from a pet).

Fortitude: At lower levels you'll probably want to stick this on the Tank for the defense buff. At higher levels he shouldn't need it although if he's taking a lot of damage slap it on him anyway. If the team has a character with shields (Sonic Resonance, Force Field, Thermal Radiation, Cold Domination) it's worth slapping a Fortitude on them to bring their defenses up to par with the rest of the team. Other than that slap it on whatever character is taking damage or a high damage character (generally Scrappers, Brutes or Blasters). In general you should be able to keep it on up to 3 or 4 people at once depending on your build.

Recovery Aura & Regeneration Aura: These are team buffs so use them pretty much whenever they are up, the only exception being don't use them right after a fight ends, wait until the next group. Some Empaths like to call out a warning before using them so that people can gather up a bit but it's not essential. If you're on a team with multiple Empaths make sure to stagger them, having single auras up twice as often is much more useful than having double auras for the same amount of time.

Adrenalin Boost: The best use of this buff is heavily debated . Some people prefer to use it on a damage dealer like a Scrapper, Brute or Blaster to allow them to use their AoEs a lot more (and in the case of a Blaster their nuke). The other approach is to use it on a support class that has very powerful abilities on long recharge times to allow them to use those abilities more frequently. If in doubt, spread it about and see who makes the best use of it . The one exception is if you team with another Empath I strongly recommend using it on them; two Empaths AB'ing each other get excellent uptime on their Auras and can keep double Fortitude on most or all of the team.

With that said, welcome to the game. If you want information the wiki is an excellent resource:
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Empathy

tl;dr: Empathy is a BUFFING powerset with heals in the set.

Hmm in that case I will try a Controller. I was checking through the Primary Power set though.. which set would work better or is it personal preference? I quite like the idea of Stone, Illusion, Ice or Mind. I would like to summon a pet that does dmg whilst I can sit back and heal/buff but would also like to mezz/trap foes from attacking players. I will take a look through the Controller forum and see what information I can find.

You might also want to consider some of the other defender primaries as well. If you like "healing," kinetics and dark miasma provide better group heals than empathy. Kinetics is also available over on controllers. It is a fast action power set whether you play it as a defender or controller. My first 50 was an illusion/kinetics troller; while it could be played as a support toon, make no mistake about it, that toon could/can kick butt and take names by itself. Dark miasma is a very, very underappreciated primary for defenders; for me, however, it is far and away my favorite defender primary. With that primary, the defender can act as a tank on a team. Seriously. It does sooo much debuffing and it has its own pet, dark servant (or fluffy) that just piles on incredible debuffs on top of what you can offer. I think about what dark miasma can do and it makes me pee myself a little.


Here is a great guide on dark miasma: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=127276

The thing to remember is every primary and secondary combo will be different in one way or another in general tactics. Attempting to replace Psychic Blast for Dual Pistols on my Emp/Psi wouldn't work. Even if the sets seem similar, there will be something slight different that may lean you towards a different strategy.

The important thing is to find combos that you enjoy, and generally once you hit 22 and get Single Origins Enhancements in your character, you'll be able to tell how that character will play, and at level 40+, your character will be mature enough to know how they'll be for current end game content.

I have a couple of these. Not quite *full* support, but mostly support. Emp/Sonic with the sonic control powers, and the first two blasts slotted, and an Ill/Emp. Both are built for staying invisible and not engaging the mobs too much, just helping out the tank. The Ill/Emp is a lot more effective, because of Phantom Army, the fear pet, and the hold. Phantasm doesn't hurt either.

But my Dark/Sonic defender is better than both, and contributes more overall. Full support/pure healer isn't really needed in the game, as you have been hearing, but it's not *wrong* to try it, especially since that will let you get used to a new game with a role you know you like. You're always free to respec into a more balanced build later, or roll an alt or ten. Or decide that you still like playing full support.

Who you use Fortitude on you learn over time. Anyone that starts taking damage once it wears off is a good one to keep it up on. Some tanks will benefit; some won't much notice it. Blasters and defenders tend to be where I put spare applications of it, and the occasional scrapper.

I'm a big fan of firing off Regen Aura unannounced in the middle of a fight, and Recovery Aura right after. The radius is big enough that you'll catch most people, and they'll learn to stay near, probably. I really hate people calling to gather to the empath for RAs and then wasting half of it getting to the next group.

There are a lot of suggestions in the previous posts, and I won't quibble with them. As many have said, there are a lot of ways to go about healing, supporting, buffing and contributing to the team's success. For example, my demon summoning/thermal mastermind is an extremely competent healer, buffer, debuffer and damage dealer. Demon summoning masterminds have a pet with a point blank range AoE heal that affects all allies, teammates or raid partners.

Get a feel for the style you like. There are many alternatives you can weed out just playing a few levels. Some combinations need a longer test drive to be fair to their strengths.

OK, I am going to say it. I am going to try and be polite, as well, since this a sensitive subject on this board: You can play whatever type of toon that you want, but in CoH, full support/healer builds just aren't necessary and are often viewed as excess baggage on a team if you aren't helping take down mobs. If you have fun playing a full support/healer toon, more power to you as above all else, this is a GAME and people should have FUN. Just be prepared for a lot of teams to kick you off of them if it is a PUG of experienced players. You simply can not heal back the damage as fast as it will come; you simply can't do it. The game isn't structured that way. Notice on empathy, the heals are the lowest level powers. The upper tier powers aren't heals, but buffs--buffs with long recharges. If you are waiting for your buffs to recharge before you do anything, people will think you are simply leeching xp and you will get kicked from teams.

Good luck, HAVE FUN, and enjoy the game; "character classes" are pretty in depth compared to other games so make sure to try other archetypes. You just might surprise yourself at what you might find fun.