Just started

So, as the title says, I just started a Defender. I am relatively new to the game, haven't gotten anything past 20 so far.

Right now my Defender is lvl 10 and is Empathy/Dark Blaster.

I have 4 slots in my Healing Aura and Heal Other skills, 3 in Absorb Pain and the default on the rez skill. I chose flight as my Secondary Power Pool set since I figured it'd be ok as a survivability type thing.

So basically, I'm just looking for advice on things I can do, or if I'm doing something wrong, how to fix it and so on. Any advice is welcome as I plan on sticking with this character since I've been a healer in just about every other MMO I've ever played.

Thanks for your time. -Syn

Ok, the first, and most important, thing to realize about Defenders is that they do NOT play the same way as healers in other MMOs. There are two major differences. The first is that a Defender is expected to take and use their attack powers including slotting them for damage. Yes, Defenders do less damage than other ATs but in a team situation a Defender who contributes damage and support is more useful than a Defender who just supports.

The second difference is that the healing powers in Empathy are not the most important powers in the set. They are very useful, especially before you reach the late 20s but as you get to higher levels you'll notice that people need less healing (at least on good teams) and the buffs that Empathy provides are important to achieving that.

At level 12 you'll get access to a power called Fortitude, personally I would say this is the most important power in an Empath's arsenal. It provides a very strong offensive and defensive buff to a teammate has a base recharge of 60 seconds and a duration of 120 seconds. So you can keep it constantly on two people with no slotting and with good slotting can potentially keep it on 4 at a time.

Regarding Dark Blast, the important powers to pick up are (IMHO) Dark Blast, Gloom, Dark Pit, Tenebrous Tentacles and Nightfall. I'd skip Moonbeam (I find the activation time on snipes makes them inefficient to use) and Torrent (the damage is sub-par and while knockback is sometimes handy it's not really critical). Life Drain is useful if you solo a lot although less important on a team and Blackstar is a personal choice (it's a nice power, some people don't mind the crash and some people hate it).

Dark Pit, Tenebrous Tentacles and Nightfall are your primary team support powers in Dark Blast. Dark Pit will stun most of the minions in the spawn which is a good way to reduce the amount of damage the team takes. Tenebrous Tentacles and Nightfall are primarily damage powers but the immobilize form TT and the to hit debuff both provide will also help reduce the damage the team takes. The only advice I'd give regarding TT is try to let the enemies bunch up a bit around the melee guys (if any) on the team before using it otherwise you're making things harder for them.

Before I forget, one pool that is worth picking up for everyone (but especially Defenders) is Leadership. It provides a set of 3 toggle powers that buff your entire team (including yourself). The numbers aren't huge but they are stackable and they do make a difference. The only thing is they are endurance hogs so be a bit cautious taking them until you are comfortable managing your endurance. My general recommendation for order would be Assault first, then Tactics and finally Maneuvers (if you feel comfortable with all three running).

Other than that welcome to the game.

I would agree with Adeon. I would also point out some other pertinent aspects. Let's say you decide, hey my damage is never going to be blaster scale. In fact the disparity between blaster attacks increases in margin over defenders as the levels go up. You still have a very useful secondary, in your empath's case: dark blast aka debuff my foe's chance to hit.

To hit debuff from a defender secondary does more than just marginal debuffing. With your cones, you can apply the debuff to multiple targets. That might get your gears rolling. Enhancing for damage is good for soloing especially, but maybe a bigger emphasis to recharge rate in something like tenebrous tentacles worth be worth noting.

With proper utilization of debuffs, defenders have shown repeatedly that less healing is needed. Then you can focus on your empathy buffs even more. I wouldn't skip a power in empathy. Some would tell you Absorb Pain comes with too high a cost by preventing yourself from being healed for a time span, but nothing pulls a tank from the brink of defeat to full health like a well-timed absorb pain.

If you worry about not knowing who to use your blasts on, I suggest you target through either a scrapper or a blaster. Your blast won't ever exceed the threat of the damage dealer bringing too much aggro to yourself. Blasters would very much appreciate lessening the chance for return fire.

First off, Welcome to the Game !

Having played Empathy a little bit, I can give you alot more feedback regarding it than Dark Blast (Which I have played, just not to level 50).

Empathy, of all the many Defender choices is one of the least capable of soloing. You CAN solo, but you are better off playing this toon as a "team-player". Pretty much my Empath only gets pulled out when my guild is doing a Task Force. I rarely solo with him anymore.

If you decide that you would like to play "Solo" from time to time, and you enjoy a challenge, then by all means try it out. You have chosen one of the better secondaries to combo up with Empathy for "solo-ing". You should also consider using the dual builds feature in order to focus one of your builds for "Solo-ing" and focus your primary build for "teaming". Also, Empathy relies very Heavily on the secondary Powerset for it's survival, so you should utilize EVERY aspect of your blast set from this perspective. Enhance your debuffs as well as your damage. Enhance the recharge of powers like Dark Pit and Tentacles to enhance your survival.

Empathy gains a great amount of benefit from global recharge. It will make all your Buffs recharge faster and therefore more helpful to your team. You will not be seeing alot of global recharge until you start working on Invention Origin enhancements for your powers and getting "set bonuses", but prior to that time the Power "Hasten" will be a great help to your character (as well as slotting recharge in your key powers). I highly recommend taking "Hasten" from the Speed Pool ASAP and slotting it up with 3 recharge enhancements.

I am not a big fan of "Absorb Pain" and its the only Empathy power I do not have on my Team build. However, there are times when it could be really handy to have. For instance, against a really tough villain that your tank is fighting, AP would heal considerably more than Heal Other. Also, when more than one teammate is near death, it would be very handy to have a second "heal target". My character gets to watch people die in that situation sometimes because Heal Other is not recharged and my Heal Aura does not reach them. To each his own, but I will probably never take Absorb Pain unless some amazing kind of buff gets added to it, or my Guildmates tie me down and make me sign a blood contract.

My personal feeling about Empathy (even from Launch of this game) is that the Leadership pool is "Tailor-Made" for Empathy, and I have all 4 powers from that Pool. The reason I feel so strongly about this is that the better you "buff" your team, the less actual healing you will need to use in battle. Fortitude will buff Accuracy, Defense and Damage of the person that you place it on, and the greater the recharge in it (Fortitude) the more people on your team that you can buff. The leadership pool contains three toggles which, coincidentally buff; Accuracy, Defense and Damage for you and all nearby teammates. At level 50 and fully buffed, my "fortified teammates" that are standing near me are receiving nearly 30% defense. Then we have the little gem called Vengeance. When someone dies (and people will, even with the best Defenders) you target their corpse, pop Vengeance and buff you and your entire team for 2 minutes WITH ; Accuracy, Defense and Damage. See any patterns here ? Oh and you also gain protection from most status effects while buffed with Vengeance. Now if only someone could rezz that dead guy.... oh wait.... YOU Can !

Finally, because your secondary is Dark (unlike mine : Electric), you can synergize with your Ancillary pools in one of my favorite ways : Dark Mastery. Once you hit level 41, I highly reccommend taking Dark Mastery and using the combination of Oppressive Gloom plus Dark Pit. You will stun everything around you that you hit with these two AoE powers. Dark mastery ALSO gets you Soul Drain, which is an amazing way to increase your damage. I tried Dark Mastery on my Empath and I loved it, but without any powers which can Stun in my blast set (Electric), I barely scratched the surface of what Dark Mastery brings to the table for Empathy. You, on the other hand, will be able to take full advantage of Dark Mastery once you get to your 40s.

Thanks for all the replies. I have taken some of the dmg skills, I did pick up Moonbeam but I can always respec and get rid of it at some point. I haven't gotten access to the Tentacle skill yet but I'll be sure to grab those and I have gotten Fortitude and it's great, I didn't know it lasted 2 min and recharged in 1, I'll have to watch out for it next time and cast it on another person.

So right now, my Defender is lvl 15, has 5 slots in Healing Aura and Heal Other, 3 in Absorb Pain and Fortitude. What should I slot Dark Pit with? How many slots? I can work on that skill next. Anything else is appreciated. -Syn

I skipped Dark Pit on my dark/dark defender, but YMMV. It's not hopeless.

Imagine that you had two empathy defenders. One took only the heals, and the other took only the buffs. (Nevermind that you can't completely skip the heals, just imagine one of them is one-slotted and not on a bar.)

The buffer would be, BY FAR, the more effective and powerful character.

Keeping that in mind, don't ignore the healing, because it can be a really useful thing, but don't think it's your primary purpose, because it usually won't be as time goes on. This is a lot more true at 30 than at 10, though.

And just to warn you, there is a stigma attached to using the word 'healor' in the game, many players will assume that you 'Rock the aura' (put your AoE heal on auto and not do much of anything else) and pass you up for someone saying that they are a Emp/Dark Def lvlXX.

Welcome to CoX. It's kinda like Hotel California around here, you can check out but you can never leave.

The biggest mistake you can make OP is letting fortitude sit unused in your powertray.
It might be THE single greatest power in the game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow Ravenwolf My favorite combo is Faceplant/DebtCap with the TeamWipe Ancillary

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari Yeah, I like Blasters too.