Does your secondary REALLY matter as an Empath?

I know of one person on Virtue who has an Emp/Eng Defender. Has only the base attack, unslotted. Picked up the Medicine pool, leadership I believe... More or less to be a 'Pure Healer', which she's quite effective at.

More or less one of those 'concept' builds.

The answer to any question regarding selection of Defender secondaries is almost always going to be, "Just pick Sonic," for me.

Even if you pick ONLY the T1 power and just throw in a single Accuracy SO, it'll still be a sweet -Res debuff to be used on bosses, EBs, and AVs. If you give the set some love, you'll be able to turn enemy defense into mush when you aren't healing.

I'm going to go back on what I said earlier in this thread.

Empathy is special, but not in the way new players think. What makes Empathy special are its quirks:

• 9 out of 9 powers are clicks. No toggles, no autos.
• 9 out of 9 powers are self-targeting or ally-targeting. No enemy or location targeted powers.
• Low level powers are more situational than high level powers.

• 9 clicks: Hasten and recharge bonuses are your new BFF.
• 9 self/ally targets: Shift-1~8, a set of ally targeting keybinds similar to Tab/ShiftTab/CtrlTab, and the ability to switch rapidly between ally and enemy targeting is essential. Left click targeting won't cut it.
• Low level situational powers: Don't play the same at level 50 as you did at level 2.

I agree, especially regarding the lack of enemy targeting powers. Empathy is unique in that it is the only Buff set in the game just like Trick Arrow is the only Debuff set. All of the other sets combine Buffs and Debuffs.

Since healing and buffing from an emp defender are less necessary, in general, later in the game as opposed to early on, I think that's a good reason to take more attacks. You could always respec into more attacks later in the game, of course. At the higher levels, you'll find yourself having much more time to attack. On my lvl 50 emp/arch defender, I always used my attacks in addition to healing and buffing...but in the later stages of the game, I'd often be on teams that didn't need much healing or buffing and I could just fire away attacks for the most part.

The funny thing about the "healbots" or whatever you want to call them, they rarely ever use CM or Fort. If you're not going to take any attacks, then you better be using ALL of your primaries. I can't tell you how many times I ended up with a 2nd emp on the team and I'd keep getting mezzed. I'm keeping 7 people, including the other emp, on CM at all times (while still using all of my attacks) and they can't even keep just me on CM. You'd think after three times of "zzz" or "CM please" that they'd figure it out but usually it would require a tell practically begging them to please keep CM on me and I'll handle CM for the rest of the team, lol. Same with Fort. I'm keeping Fort on 3 people at all times and they don't even use it. Or better yet, we enter the mission, they put CM and Fort on the Tank (the person who needs either of them least) one time and that's their only use of CM or Fort for the rest of the mission, haha.

At the lower levels, if you properly use CM and Fort, your teammates will love you. Plus, you'll need to spend less time healing because those squishies will take less damage since they are getting mezzed less and have boosts to their defense.

You can even give melee types the option to turn off crappy mez protection toggles (Wet Ice, ahem) to save on endurance and attack moar.

Unless I know my melee teammates, I usually CM everyone initially. I've played every AT...well, all but Stalkers, and things happen. Sometimes you overextend your END and a toggle drops. Sometimes enough mezzes actually burn through your defenses. Sometimes you accidentally hit the wrong button. It's life. Honestly, it's usually easier to simply keep CM up on everyone than to pick through the 8-person team. Now, if they make it AoE, it would be golden!

Dreaming: When I can get my +460% recharge and make my RA's perma, I will be happy. ;-)

I think it matters. Not as much as if it were an Empath controller, but still matters. Often enough you'll find your team doing fine without heals or with the buffs alone. What will you do then? Stand still, doing nada?

I'd grab a secondary that could add either more survivability or help out with damage. Or anything that fits a concept, really. I can't imagine myself playing any sort of Defender without using blasts.