City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Best Healer autopower

Adeon Hawkwood

By Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-04-24 19:01 in Player Questions

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arbegla View Post
My extra 50 points of damage isn't going to turn a tide, but my 25% def buff will. That's my point. I know that the best way i can contribute to the group isn't by spamming my attacks, its by making everyone else into demi gods and keeping the squishys from being squished. If i have time to use my attacks between buffing, then great, i'll use them. But if i don't, then i won't, as my buffs are far more valuable then my attacks are to the teams survival.
It's way more than 50. Will Domination is 70.85 before enhancements, meaning if you slot it up, it's 140-ish. Subdue is 47 before enhancements. TK Blast is 55 before enhancements, Psionic Lance (your snipe) is 99.77 before. If you aren't slotting your powers, they're not that great, but if you actually slot for damage, they're good.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Back Alley Brawler
Did you just use "casual gamer" and "purpled-out warshade" in the same sentence?
Apostrophe guidelines.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by ArcticFahx View Post
It's way more than 50. Will Domination is 70.85 before enhancements, meaning if you slot it up, it's 140-ish. Subdue is 47 before enhancements. TK Blast is 55 before enhancements, Psionic Lance (your snipe) is 99.77 before. If you aren't slotting your powers, they're not that great, but if you actually slot for damage, they're good.
I stand corrected, my emp's attacks are as follows:

Mental blast: 79.73
TK Blast: 130.75
Subdue: 105.24
Will dom: 156.27

All four of them are slotted with 4 thunder strikes, which gives 88.07% dam, 68.90% acc, 42.40 end reduct, and 42.40 recharge. I can form a complete attack chain by just spamming those four powers over and over again.

Now, lets look at my weakest blaster, my DP/Dev:

Pistols: 141.37
Dual Wield: 186.6
Executioner's Shot: 299.7

All of those attacks are slotted exactly the same, with 6 thunder strikes, giving them 101.47% dam, 68.9% acc/rech/end reduction.

That's before counting Vigilance Or defiance. Which is more valuable? the Defender's damage numbers, or the blasters? This is also not counting fortitude, or any other buffs that blaster may get, that obviously my emp would not.

That's my point. Defender damage is so low, its really not going to make much of a different, especially when a blaster literally out damages the highest damaging attack a defender has, with its t2 blast that it can use while mez'ed.

Its not worth skimping out on my buffs to use my attacks when the AT next to me is dishing out double my damage in the same time frame. I might as well boost their damage more, and keep them alive, instead of trying to deal damage.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by ColonelKomphort View Post
Would it be better to autopower Healing Aura, or Clear Mind.

Now, personally, I prefer HA, because it affects everyone. CM only affects 1 person. And personally, I'd rather be healed and held, than not healed and not held.

My current style of play is to autopower HA, and use CM as I can. I also autofollow the tank.

So the other day, I was playing my healer, and I asked a simple question of my teammates: Would it be better to autopower Healing Aura, or Clear Mind. Boy, the responses I got!


"Why don't you push buttons instead?"

I do, but if I have an autopower, why not use it. You use yours, don't you?

"I would rather you didn't rely on autopower."

I'm not relying on it; I have five different healing powers, I do not rely on any one of them.

"Nobody's gonna be near enough to you"

I also have Heal Other, with a range enhancement.

"Why do you have Aim, you only have one Ranged attack?"

What difference does that make? Good for you, you were able to view my ID info. It's still my character to build. Neither power, of which was in the origbinal question.

"Why not autopower Hasten"

Recharge is too long.

"Are you Prixy? Same SG, same manner of playing."

I have been playing this game for 6 years, and I can assure you that my method of playing was developed independantly from Prixy's or any other players.

"See, he's on autofollow, just like Prixy!"

I'm right here, just fpllowing the tank, who the star said to follow.

"You'll die if you do that"

Maybe, but I got HA on autopower, and, well, dying is a part of the game. Let me worry about that.

And so forth, but no one ever answered the question. Finally, I was told, "We can continue laughing at you, or we can solve the problem," and I was kicked off the team.

So, can somebody tell me what is the thing that I am doing wrong, get it out here, now, and let me know, Which is better? Autopowering HA, or autopowering CM.
*heh*
Pull the other one, it's got bells.

(i'm guessing it was a slow day at the office and not enough people have been reading the Defender forums lately to make this worth posting there?)

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i make stuff...

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arbegla View Post
Which is more valuable? the Defender's damage numbers, or the blasters?
We're not talking about your defender's damage vs your blaster. You can only bring one of them to the team at a time. Which means that the question you should be asking is "Which is more valuable? the Blaster's damage numbers (which are 0 because the defender is sitting there being a healbot but couldn't keep up to the damage), or the Blaster and Defender's damage numbers combined (oh, and every now and then the Defender's gonna stop blasting to keep the Blaster healed and/or buffed, but neither is gonna die because of the mass damage the two combined are pumping out)?"

Seriously, do you think that the "Green Machine" portion of Repeat Offenders (Green Machine is a bunch of Emp/(Whatever) defenders that slaughter everything, if you didn't know) achieves the success levels they do by sitting there doing nothing but buffing each other? Or by one doing all the blasting while the other seven buff the one? No. They buff each other, then shoot things.

And as has been said before: Your defender's blasts carry some impressive debuffs (unless you're Archery, then you just get more damage). Not only that, but they use defender modifiers, so they bring MORE debuff than the equivalent blasts being used by a blaster.

Let's look at it another way. Would you want a SS/WP brute that took every power in his primary and only HPT, Fast Healing, Strength of Will, and Resurgence, and spammed every power in the primary every time they came up and put Hand Clap on auto? Would you consider this a useful character? If not, then why would you consider a defender that did the same thing useful? And a buffbot with any heal or buff on auto and four attacks that you refuse to use is the same as the ******* brute I just described*.

*No real characters were described in the example brute. I hope.

@Roderick

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arbegla View Post
That's before counting Vigilance Or defiance. Which is more valuable? the Defender's damage numbers, or the blasters?
The answer is "The greater amount of damage, which is achieved by both the Blaster AND defender using their attacks."

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Roderick View Post
We're not talking about your defender's damage vs your blaster. You can only bring one of them to the team at a time. Which means that the question you should be asking is "Which is more valuable? the Blaster's damage numbers (which are 0 because the defender is sitting there being a healbot but couldn't keep up to the damage), or the Blaster and Defender's damage numbers combined (oh, and every now and then the Defender's gonna stop blasting to keep the Blaster healed and/or buffed, but neither is gonna die because of the mass damage the two combined are pumping out)?"

Seriously, do you think that the "Green Machine" portion of Repeat Offenders (Green Machine is a bunch of Emp/(Whatever) defenders that slaughter everything, if you didn't know) achieves the success levels they do by sitting there doing nothing but buffing each other? Or by one doing all the blasting while the other seven buff the one? No. They buff each other, then shoot things.

And as has been said before: Your defender's blasts carry some impressive debuffs (unless you're Archery, then you just get more damage). Not only that, but they use defender modifiers, so they bring MORE debuff than the equivalent blasts being used by a blaster.

Let's look at it another way. Would you want a SS/WP brute that took every power in his primary and only HPT, Fast Healing, Strength of Will, and Resurgence, and spammed every power in the primary every time they came up and put Hand Clap on auto? Would you consider this a useful character? If not, then why would you consider a defender that did the same thing useful? And a buffbot with any heal or buff on auto and four attacks that you refuse to use is the same as the ******* brute I just described*.

*No real characters were described in the example brute. I hope.
Your misreading. I never said i NEVER use my attacks, just that they are low priority. The green machine (which i know of) works because they sustain the buffs as well as damage. They buff each other, then streamroll, and keep the buffs up as they go. Without said buffs, they wouldn't be half as impressive as they are.

Thats what i do. I buff first, blast later. Never said to not use your attacks, just that buffs should take priority over them, as the buffs will contribute more then your blasts will.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill View Post
The answer is "The greater amount of damage, which is achieved by both the Blaster AND defender using their attacks."
That is only true if the defender is doing more then 31.25% of the damage of the blaster. If they aren't, then the fortitude buff is providing more overall damage then the defenders blasts would.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arbegla View Post
Thats what i do. I buff first, blast later. Never said to not use your attacks, just that buffs should take priority over them, as the buffs will contribute more then your blasts will.
Sorry, since you're the only person in the thread that's posted multiple times on the same side of the discussion as the OP, I seem to have mixed up some of your posts with theirs - which definitely DO exhibit the mannerisms I described.

If you actively buff and blast, then I have no issue with your play style. I just got you mixed up with someone I do have an issue with. Again, my apologies.

@Roderick

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arbegla View Post
That is only true if the defender is doing more then 31.25% of the base damage of the blaster. If they aren't, then the fortitude buff is providing more overall damage then the defenders blasts would.
Fixed. And they probably are, especially when you take into account that putting Fort on the blaster only preempts ONE attack.

@Roderick

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Roderick View Post
Sorry, since you're the only person in the thread that's posted multiple times on the same side of the discussion as the OP, I seem to have mixed up some of your posts with theirs - which definitely DO exhibit the mannerisms I described.

If you actively buff and blast, then I have no issue with your play style. I just got you mixed up with someone I do have an issue with. Again, my apologies.
Its fine. For the record, i think auto-executing Healing aura deserves a /kick unless its in a situation where its the only way to execute said power (i/e, lag areas, like mothership raids, and dog piling Marauder)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Roderick View Post
Fixed. And they probably are, especially when you take into account that putting Fort on the blaster only preempts ONE attack.
Forting 1 person would just replace 1 attack, but keeping an entire team Forted, is 6 or more, plus throwing CM, and AB and RAs around.

And, its not quite base. At base, Defenders do about (.65 defender ranged damage scale vs 1.125 blaster ranged damage scale = .57 damage of a blaster at range, and .55 defender melee damage scale vs 1.00 blaster melee damage scale = .55 damage of a blaster) so on average, defenders do about 55% the damage of a blaster on a full team (so no benefit from vigilance.

Now, blasters also have a higher damage cap then defenders, so when you factor in buffs, blasters will do much higher then just 45%. Depending on slotting, and buffs on the team, i can see a defender doing less then 1/3 the damage of a blaster pretty easily.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arbegla View Post
Your misreading. I never said i NEVER use my attacks, just that they are low priority. The green machine (which i know of) works because they sustain the buffs as well as damage. They buff each other, then streamroll, and keep the buffs up as they go. Without said buffs, they wouldn't be half as impressive as they are.

Thats what i do. I buff first, blast later. Never said to not use your attacks, just that buffs should take priority over them, as the buffs will contribute more then your blasts will.
And I think this is what you are misunderstanding. We aren't talking about the players that buff first and blast later. We're talking about the players that refuse to do anything but sit in the back and make no attempt to use their secondary sets, or worse deliberately gimp their characters by taking as few secondary powers as possible.

A lot of us don't care about how much damage a given defender can dish out as long as he's making an effort to try. And I'm one of the players that cuts people a lot of slack over power selection due to character concepts.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by ColonelKomphort View Post
Would it be better to autopower Healing Aura, or Clear Mind.
None of the above.

Putting Healing Aura on auto-fire is generally met with scorn and derision (as you experienced) because the person doing it is regard as, AT BEST, only marginally competent. My experience in-game generally supports this view.

I've seen people with Healing Aura on auto-fire run their END down to zero, rendering them useless. When this is pointed out to them, they insist auto-firing it is a good tactic despite the obvious evidence to the contrary.

The only time I put Healing Aura on auto-fire is in a mass combat situation since I can't see the hit point bars of the people not on my team and it's a safe bet someone near me is injured. Examples of mass combat would be Mothership raids, Hamidon raids and multiple teams fighting a Giant Monster. Even though the League system would allow you to see everyone's hit points, I think it's still a valid move in the Incarnate trials since there are generally an army of pets contributing damage.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Schismatrix View Post
*heh*
Pull the other one, it's got bells.

(i'm guessing it was a slow day at the office and not enough people have been reading the Defender forums lately to make this worth posting there?)
He may be a troll, but if so he's a troll who's also following through on it with actual gameplay. I was on the team he's talking about and he was every bit as bad as he's making it sound.

He was asked politely to participate more actively and use his buffs (his build has the entire Empathy set, his tier 1 blast and Aim, and the rest is pool powers, including the complete Medicine pool) and ignored it. He was then asked less politely to "actually push some buttons now and then", and continued to rock the aura while rarely ABing the team leader (who was on autofollow) and doing nothing else. Suggestions for how to actually contribute were made and rebuffed or ignored. He was then mildly taunted and kicked from the team.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arbegla View Post
That is only true if the defender is doing more then 31.25% of the damage of the blaster. If they aren't, then the fortitude buff is providing more overall damage then the defenders blasts would.
No, it's not "only true blah blah blah." It's basic addition.

You do damage.
The blaster does damage.
Together, you do defender+blaster damage.

Fort only takes a second to cast. Add your damage to theirs afterward. Your 70-100-150 points of damage added to what the blaster is doing are then 70-100-150 points of damage more than the blaster does on their own.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arbegla View Post
That's before counting Vigilance Or defiance. Which is more valuable? the Defender's damage numbers, or the blasters? This is also not counting fortitude, or any other buffs that blaster may get, that obviously my emp would not.
Completely irrelevant. The point is, do the damn damage. Heal if you REALLY must, and buff when convenient. The fact that a blaster will out-damage you is completely besides the point. MORE DAKKA! Period.

Quote:
That's my point. Defender damage is so low, its really not going to make much of a different, especially when a blaster literally out damages the highest damaging attack a defender has, with its t2 blast that it can use while mez'ed.


This is about the TEAM killing things faster OVERALL.

Defenders and controllers bring other things to the team besides raw damage. But to focus on those factors at the expense of damage output is just as lazy as ignoring the secondaries in favor of straight damage.

Quote:
Its not worth skimping out on my buffs to use my attacks when the AT next to me is dishing out double my damage in the same time frame.
Yes! YES IT IS!


Quote:
I might as well boost their damage more, and keep them alive, instead of trying to deal damage.

You keep presenting this as a binary equation. Either or. It isn't. And if you can't both buff AND output damage, this is where we give you the LNR2PLAY award.


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arbegla View Post
And, its not quite base. At base, Defenders do about (.65 defender ranged damage scale vs 1.125 blaster ranged damage scale = .57 damage of a blaster at range, and .55 defender melee damage scale vs 1.00 blaster melee damage scale = .55 damage of a blaster) so on average, defenders do about 55% the damage of a blaster on a full team (so no benefit from vigilance.

Now, blasters also have a higher damage cap then defenders, so when you factor in buffs, blasters will do much higher then just 45%. Depending on slotting, and buffs on the team, i can see a defender doing less then 1/3 the damage of a blaster pretty easily.
None of this matters. If Fort gives a 31.25% damage buff, then it's 31.25% of the blaster's BASE damage. If the blaster uses an unslotted attack that deals 100 damage, he gets 31.25 points of damage added. If he uses the same attack with 100% damage slotted, Build Up in effect, and 50% damage from sets and buffs, it now does 350 points of damage. Add Fort to the latter, and it still only adds 31.25 points of damage.

Therefore, the defender's slotted, buffed up damage only has to equal 32% of the blaster's BASE damage in order to exceed the bonus that the blaster is getting. And by your numbers, a defender does 55% of the damage of a slotted, buffed blaster, so they would be doing far more than enough to make up the difference.

According to Red Tomax Fort lasts 120s and has a base recharge of 60s. Slotting to the ED cap for Recharge and adding 100% from other sources drops it to just over 20s. That's enough to keep it on 5 others permanently, or 6 others almost permanently. The cast time is 2.27s. That leaves 18s per cast cycle. Even if you fire Heal Other, Healing Aura, and Clear Mind once each in that cycle (7.4s total cast time), that leaves over 10 seconds to blast. The four attacks you listed take just under 6 seconds to fire all of. That leaves you 4 seconds per cycle for situational powers, and you've STILL personally done more damage than adding 16% (or less) to the blaster's damage output.

I'm not saying not to use the buffs. They are your primary purpose, after all. I'm just saying that you're either grossly overestimating the power of your buffs, or horribly underestimating the power of your attacks. I think it's the latter.

@Roderick

 

Posted

I can keep CM perma on the whole team (I don't, though; I CM reactively for the most part except for folks who NEED to not be mezzed: radiation emission, etc.), I can keep Fort perma on four people with some overlap (I haven't dipped much into +recharge), AB is a ways off from perma (again, not much +recharge; it matches the typical recharge for a crashy blaster nuke).

However, there's plenty of times I'm so busy on my empath (namesake, Aggelakis, on Justice) that sometimes I forget to buff my team.

OH GOD, THE HUMANITY! I'm only Forting three people instead of four! EGADS! Well, give us a few seconds to finish off this spawn, I'll Fort ya between the next.

WAIT!!! OMG WAIT!!! Someone's CM dropped off ... oh well, no one in the next spawn does any mez anyway, and by the time we get to the spawn after that, which may or may not have a mezzer, the Controller's AoE hold will be up again.

The only things I do keep a very close eye on are the RAs. Those buffs really, truly can make the difference between dying and not. Not counting the heals/AB (because AB for me is situational due to recharge), these are probably the biggest boons of the set. And for pretty much the entire duration of Regen Aura, I don't have to worry about people's health bars and can blast like a crazy person. (Because I am. Crazy.)

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Posted

You can play however you please but to be honest the sytle of play you describe is old and not used very often these days. Now for WHY...

Auto Heal is an END waste.. I am not saying you'll wind up with no end on Auto but if you walk in the door of a mission and put Healing Aura on Auto it's going off constantly and in many cases your team mates may already be at 100% health or as mentioned by others here.. No where near you. Why waste end you could be using to Fort or CM team mates or to use your attacks to help end a battle before anyone NEEDS heals?

Also at this point an EMP with Healing Aura set to Auto is viewed in one of two ways by a large number of players .. 1) You are a NOOB and need to learn how to play the game or 2) your too lazy or involved in other things (in Real Life) and are cruising on Auto and stealing XP, INF, etc. What can happen is you get a reputation and suddenly its hard to find teams. The other tactic you described where you put yourself on Follow and just blindly follow the Tank plays into the same attitude ( as #2). Now not only are you just running around healing constantly but you can't even be bothered to move your own character and just trial along behind the tank. Keep in mind I am not saying YOU do that but if people know you are doing those things some if not all will be thinking things like that.

Its really not a great idea to auto follow anyone. There will be times where that tank you are following makes a sharp turn in a building or especially in a COT Cave and suddenly your character is bashing its head against a wall trying to turn and follow. Some maps make this a very ineffective way to help your team. you did mention Heal others which is a very good solo heal but is also line of sight. If your trialing along behind that tank who has the most Hit Points of anyone on the team and in almost all cases the best defenses.. When the need arises to use Heal other to keep another team mate alive you may be out of position and now instead of heal you are using your rez.

If you constantly play with the same people and they know your style and have no problem with it.. Who cares? Do what you like but if you are like me and PUG a lot especially on TFs and Trials you may want to try a new approach or there will be team leaders that don't invite you and some that may even kick you from their team. I wanted to come on and give you some Semi Logical reasons for why you may want to change your style .. Not just rant.. "you suck don't do it that way" LOL Oh my NO ONE would ever say anything like that HERE!

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Posted

I'll never understand the "Follow the tank" mentality. When I'm playing my Plant/Emp the tank is generally the last person I worry about, they tend to be built well enough to hold their own.


My favourite buff target is always Warshades since I know firsthand how nice Regen and Recharge buffs are on them. After that Domis, Blasters, other Buffers and Corrupters are my main buff targets.

 

Posted

Quick reply here, I didn't read the entire thread, just skimmed it.

OP: The playstyle you describe yourself using is generally what is known as a BAD EMPATH.

There are many other things you could be doing that are more useful than following around the LAST person on the team that needs you healing them every few seconds.

You could be buffing people, you could be blasting, you could be telling a joke in team chat. ALL of those things would contribute more to the team than following the tank Rocking the Aura. Even telling a joke, in fact if you were on my team, I would RATHER you stand at the door and tell jokes than follow the tank around spamming Healing Aura.

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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
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Posted

The powers I tend to auto are those whose effects are (or can be made) permanent such as:

Hasten
Domination
Mind Link
Clarion (incarnate status protection buff t3 is perma)
Accelerate Metabolism

I'd kill to be able to set more than 1 thing on auto just cause I have an ill/rad (haste, accel AND clarion) and a dom (hasten, domination AND mind link).

While I don't intend to pick on any else's method of play I will will say i find it personally annoying, lazy and overall inefficient to leave healing aura on autofire. Hearing the activation over and over again... even when not fighting anything can be aggravating after awhile. Same for the visual effect. You're also wasting endurance spamming a power that is often doing NOTHING cause people are either out of range and/or you/your party aren't suffering any damage.

My advice... build your character to have enough recharge to make hasten perma and set hasten as your autofire. Thats what I did on my empath. It ensures my recharge rates are consistent and I always know when my Recovery and Regeneration Auras will be available. It also ensures consistent recharge on your other useful buffs like Fortitude and Adrenalin Boost not to mention any CC powers you might have (I am planning on taking dominate and mass hypnosis on my empath so she can supplement my dps with some crowd control when the buffs are out and heals arent needed. Hasten makes those CC's more readily available consistently.)

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Posted

I've an emp/rad and when teaming the only power I tend to put on auto is hasten. I find that I rarely use healing aura as the majority of heals I do are heal other, as it's specific towards who needs it, or occasionally absorb pain if I see a team mate redline. That aside it's CM, fort, and auras before joining in with my defense debuff stacked attacks.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill View Post
The answer is "The greater amount of damage, which is achieved by both the Blaster AND defender using their attacks."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Arbegla View Post
That is only true if the defender is doing more then 31.25% of the damage of the blaster. If they aren't, then the fortitude buff is providing more overall damage then the defenders blasts would.
I guess I don't understand this comment. Can't the Defender buff and blast?

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