Praetorian Zone Events, Badges, and Healers

Originally Posted by EarthWyrm But I do understand that there is an internet rule that any bad idea must be presented by someone at least twice a year to remind everyone who hasn't already read every previous thread on the topic precisely why the idea is bad.

Wonderful arguement! It had me thinking. I had a concept once. A bouncer, who when he got drunk THOUGHT he had super powers. As such, I built him to be a WP tank. But he couldn't do superspeed, superjump, fly or teleport. Slow as molasses in January, UNTIL I found a jet pack!

If the concept of your character caused you to only take the first power of your secondary powerset, then, I'd say, no, you're not wrong. It's your toon, build it the way you want it. However, expect to WANT to change it somehow, and expect to find workarounds: The tank is going to team up a lot with a radiation debuffer, for example. The controller is going to buy a lot of blue and green inspirations.

This, however, should not stop them from playing the game. And if the game for them is achieving level 50, then they should be able to do so, with only one secondary power. If the game for them is running PvP, they are going to get knocked down a lot, but they will win a few, and they will still have fun. If the game for them is running AE mishs, go for it. You can create your own, and there won't be a problem. If the game for them is creating incarnates, well, get on large leagues, and your shortcomings won't matter as much. But if your game is badge-hunting, that's a different story. There is one badge, that you may have problems with. If you have only one secondary power, you'll be okay, even then, AS LONG AS YOU DONT HAVE ONE SPECIFIC PRIMARY POWERSET. What is different about that powerset? It has no attack powers.

Originally Posted by EarthWyrm But I do understand that there is an internet rule that any bad idea must be presented by someone at least twice a year to remind everyone who hasn't already read every previous thread on the topic precisely why the idea is bad.

As stated up-thread, the problem you're having is that while you are participating, you aren't breaking the 'threshold' of participation for the next reward table because you aren't attacking enough. Everything above talks about you helping others - which is fine and DOES ADD to the level of participation you've received. But the fact of the matter is that the system in place to measure your participation is going to count the added damage the people you buff/heal/rez for their participation ranking, you get your 'points' for the buffing and heals. More damage output from you on top of your buffbotting will enable you to the next tier of reward tree.

This isn't a "my build is right, yours is wrong" opinion by other players, this is the underlying reward mechanics at work.

Straw-man. That's not what he said at all. There's a difference between "Any AT can heal" and "all characters must have heals".

What is being pointed out is that, even for Emp Defenders, healing/buffing is not the end-all, be-all for team functionality and having that as the sole focus with little-to-no regard towards attacks is commonly frowned upon by a sizable number of players to the point to where it has become a bit of a joke.

As Aurora Girl said, QFT:

Given the proliferation of participation gates of rewards for more recent content, I get the impression that the devs don't want it to be like that either.

If Healbot Extraordinaire is the concept you're married to and you're enjoying it, rock on with your bad self. However, don't expect others to be as married to it as well and certainly don't expect the underlying system to be.

Best wishes on earning the badge.

Would a Scrapper, Brute or Stalker who just took their first secondary power be "wrong"? I mean they aren't Tankers so they shouldn't need to worry about taking damage right? What about a Dominator who skipped all of their attacks? Or a Mastermind who didn't bother with their support powers?

As someone once said in the defender forum: you have a primary set and a secondary set, not a primary set and an unnecessary set.

Yes, you can build a character that completely neglects one of their powersets but that doesn't make it a balanced character. the game is balanced around the idea that characters have two powersets and are using both of them. Power Pools exist to allow character to round out their build and take powers their AT can't otherwise have but they aren't intended as a replacement for actual powerset powers.

Speaking for myself I tend to think that if you can't find four powers that you like in each of your sets you should probably select different sets.

Trick Arrow has Oil Slick Arrow, Force Field has Repulsion Bomb, Storm Summoning has Tornado and Lightning Storm, Radiation Emission has Fallout and Traps has Trip Mine (it also has Time Bomb but we don't talk about that). So overall 5 out of 13 Defender primaries have something I would class as an attack (using the rough definition of "I'd slot it for damage").

OSA, Repulsion Bomb and Tornado are useful for reasons other than damage they both also deal damage that is on a par with the AoEs in Defender secondaries while Lightning Storm and Trip Mine are basically pure attacks (yes, they deal knockback but the main reason to use them is for damage, both sets have better options for enemy positioning). Fallout is comparable to a Nuke.

Additionally, Sleet, Caltrops, Gale and Freezing Rain all deal damage but none of them deal enough to really be worth enhancing so I don't count them (althoguh YMMV).

I think you misunderstood me.

I, personally, do think someone who neglects either of their powersets (unintentionally or no) is silly.

Originally Posted by EarthWyrm But I do understand that there is an internet rule that any bad idea must be presented by someone at least twice a year to remind everyone who hasn't already read every previous thread on the topic precisely why the idea is bad.

No. Actually it isn't.

No. I said "any idiot could do this".

This does not, by extension, make you an idiot or mean that I'm implying you're an idiot. Thicker skin and a less contentious attitude please.

Yes. Yes, it's me. And I don't seem to have issues with the participation metrics for some reason.

Sorry. The "I'm playing a different powerset" argument doesn't work.

I have Emp characters too. I take more than one attack from my secondary. And, again, I don't have problems attaining badges in events that include the participation metric.

Sorry. But it's commonly accepted here that people who try to pigeon hole other players into singular categories like "healer" and expect them to essentially do nothing else in the game simply don't understand that the game is quite a bit broader than that. Moreover, it rewards people who aren't caught up in the Healer, DPS, Aggro trinity mentality.

I'm not going to soften my opinion of people who still react this way (because they aren't actually "thinking") and then insist that the game conform to THEIR interpretation of the "holy trinity".

In short. "I calls 'em like I sees 'em!"

Again. And what happens when you're in a group that doesn't REQUIRE your sort of "help". You just sit back and leech XP/Inf/Prestige/Rewards? Like you're "due" for it because you helped someone else out in a completely different situation at some nebulous point in the past?

Yeahno.

As you level up, you'll notice it happening more and more as builds get more self-sufficient. So you'll, what? Sit around, thumb rectally inserted, going "I did my job, this is my reward"?

Are you going to camp the door too?

You "ride it out"?

And on four level-old missions? Please.

Then it says something about the people you're playing with.

Again, even adding a couple percent to firepower is killing enemies that much faster.

Sitting back with your hands in your pockets going "You don't need me" or spamming unneeded powers isn't contributing.

It doesn't make sense for you to solo because it's much easier for you to level up when everyone else is doing the actual work for you on a team right? That's what you're actually saying.

And if they don't need the buffs and heals, you keep spamming them anyhow to pretend like you're actually doing something when what's actually happening can be summed up in one word.

Leeching.

I didn't say you weren't contributing. I said you're not "fully contributing" to the team.

• The more damage the enemy takes, the faster they die.
• The faster they die, the fewer attacks they make.
• The fewer attacks they make, the fewer land and do damage.
• When less damage is taken the need for healing is less.

You're so caught up in treating the symptom, that you're not treating the problem.

Most decent teams don't require such constant healing that they need to fall back into "protect the healer so we don't die" mode. And, as I've been saying, in this game, it isn't needed.

Sorry, but an Empathy defender isn't a healer either. It is primarily a buff set (5 of the powers in the set are buffs, not heals) with a rez and three heals in lieu of enemy debuffs.

You, additionally, have an entire secondary that you've essentially ignored.

I say again. This game has no "healer" AT. Only people who don't understand that a "healer" build of existing ATs (or the introduction of a "healer" AT) would be of only marginal use. As your case so aptly demonstrates.

And you have stats to back this up right?

No. I'm saying that while healing can be a valuable part of an arsenal of powers, healing and buffing to the exclusion of all else (a buffbot) is of marginal real utility.

Before or after I stopped laughing in their face?

Also, isn't this, essentially, the argument you're giving me with your "pure healer"?

No. FACT. Powers like Dispersion Bubble (and healing auras) require little to no actual monitoring. Ally bubbles (and Emp buffs) don't get spammed continually. CM is of some use because it can be stacked. But you don't go spamming that all the time either.

Again. I ask you, what do you SPECIFICALLY. When your allies require no healing and you've already got a layer of buffs on them, what do you do with that other 90+% of your time in a mission?


But you're not contributing as much as someone who's actually helping them kill the enemies.

Healing is the last, and therefore least dependable form of "mitigation" in the game. Technically it's not "mitigation" at all. No incoming damage was "mitigated". You're simply spackling over it.

The best damage mitigation in the game is to kill the enemy before they can do damage.
The next best way is to prevent them from actually doing damage (controls, defense, etc).
The next best is to reduce incoming damage (resistance, Absorb, etc).
After that, about all you can do is heal up (healing/regen).

I say again, there is no "healer" AT in the game.

As to power sets.

You heal. Lots of sets heal. All ATs can heal with the addition of ancillary power sets, temp powers and Incarnate powers.

You can rez. Same thing goes for my argument about many power sets and all ATs being able to do this.

You can grant some status status protection. Other power sets can do this as well.

You buff defense, damage and ToHit. Again, there are several defender primaries that do so. also, other ATs can do this as well.

You can buff Recovery. Other sets can do this, other ATs (well outside of controllers and Corruptors), not so much.

You can buff regen. There's several other sets that boost regen.

You can boost End and Recharge. Again, other sets can do this. Many better than you and sooner.

So your comment about "no other AT or powerset" being able to do what you do is demonstrably false.

Empathy simply happens to be all buff/heal at the expense of enemy debuffs.



No, they're equally important. But you're essentially buffing/healing to the exclusion of attacking. You're the one who's forgotten that they're equally important.

Nowhere does it say you must do so to the total exclusion of all else.
You've added that spin yourself.

And this is why you're having the issues you do.


This is why I said "basic expectation".
Not "required by the rules".

While it's harder, you can (and have) STILL come up with totally gimped builds in this game.

This game is about more than chocolate and vanilla. This is basically a smorgasboard. You've opted to get a chocolate and vanilla sundae from the the desert bar and are bemoaning the fact that you didn't get any ham, vegetables, bread, pastaor even a Coke.

The fact that you're given an entire secondary THAT YOU ARE REQUIRED TO ACTUALLY TAKE A POWER FROM DURING CHARACTER CREATION should indicate to you that, yeah, attacks are a Good Thing To Have™ in this game. Even for a VERY support-oriented build.

No. But that's how you're playing and the message you're conveying in your post. That killing enemies is "my teammate's problem, not mine".

Right. But that's ALL you're contributing. You have the ability to contribute MORE. You've just opted NOT to do that.

Again with the "I am a mastermind and they are my minions" mentality.

Sorry. NO. Doing damage to the enemy is EVERYONE'S job. Not just the tank/scrapper/blaster/troller/etc. And if you're spamming all your buffs all the time in lieu of attacking, you're wasting Endurance and not contributing anything additional.

Rocking aura on people who don't need heals is not contributing anything.
Spamming non-stacking buffs on allies is not contributing anything.
Waiting around to rez someone who may or may not fall over dead is not contributing anything.

If that's all someone is doing, they are not contributing most of the time and thus, are only marginally better than a door sitter.

I don't "dislike" "pure healer" empaths. I simply have little to no use for them as their players don't understand the game well enough to see that such builds are only marginally useful in a very small swath of content level ranges and utterly pointless for the rest of the time.

If you're standing around waiting for a chance to be useful, you've already failed.

If you're standing around faking usefulness as a way to avoid ACTUALLY being useful where it counts, you've already failed.

I'm not saying your build is "wrong". I'm saying that, outside of the aforementioned narrow swath of content, it isn't as useful as someone who wasn't so monofocused on a single in-game mechanic.

If I had a choice between a Thermal who'd gone light on their heals and buffs and your "pure healer" Emp, I'd take the thermal any day of the week. Because they'd be trying to earn their place instead of simply being escorted through missions because they can put up Big Green Numbers from three powers taken in the first 4-8 levels.

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

The problem is, you're demanding that the game reward you the same as any other character for artificially hobbling yourself.

If you want to hobble yourself, tweak task force conditions or PVP.

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

Whoops yeah sorry, I had only been skimming the thread and mis-interpreted your post, sorry about that .

Cold: Sleet
Radiation: Fallout
Sonic: Liquefy
Storm: Gale, Freezing Rain, Tornado, Lightning Storm
Traps: Caltrops, Acid Mortar, Seeker Drones, Trip Mine, Time Bomb
Trick Arrow: Acid Arrow, Oil Slick Arrow

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

I also operate pretty much the same as Aggelakis. We can see when someone's endurance drops, but unless you know the powers, you can't see someone's recharge rate. Additionally for me, if AB pops up and no one needs endurance, I'll pop it on anyone who has a power set that I know has long recharge powers, most commonly Controllers and to a lesser degree, Dominators (who seem more likely to push recharge to get perma-dom), in order to get those AoE mezzes up faster.

Uh, you do realize that the ParagonWiki is a player created, player controlled, and player updated resource, don't you? Petitioning won't do a thing and NCSoft/Paragon Studios have nothing to do with it. You can register with CoHTitan and edit the wiki yourself if you disagree with something. Of course, that doesn't stop someone else from changing anything you might write as well.

My guess is that you still took too long to get it done. You're participating... but not enough to the satisfaction of some unknown metric.

I'm also on record to the Devs over and over again that their 'fixes' to that metric are still broken. So, it most definitely is buggy.

All I can say is wait to you outlevel it so that you have access to 5+level powers and have lots of attack temp powers and temp pet powers with you. That should do it.

That's fine. I have no aversion to deliberately tanking my endurance to get AB cast on me.

Aggelakis speaks the truth. At least in spirit. The reason SOME Emps are so pathetic soloing is because SOME empaths take mostly their primary sets, and ignore their secondary to a large degree (not completely).
This is true only of some empaths. Some take an adequate attack chain, and frankenslot it, others slot for set bonuses.

Should the badge be awarded to you? Yes.

I would ask that you open your mind a bit here. None of us pay your sub. It's certainly not my place to tell you how to play, what powers to pick or any of that. However, the reason your toon is having trouble soloing/meeting the minimum participation is your play style.

I can see having something like a dominator's Domination on auto-fire, or Hasten, or Accelerate Metabolism.

But, playing an emp, I cannot fathom why you'd have an attack set to auto-fire. Maybe your heal aura, but not an attack.
I heartily recommend you park your toon for a bit and play a blaster.
Then, pick your emp back up and then look at your ...lack of attack.

Consider this - on a team of 8, you can probably get away with primarily buffing/healing. (though you should still finish off those kills with a sliver of health left.) I always made it a game of sorts to try and be a kill stealer. I love getting the kill shot with my emp.

But, in a duo, or a trio, you need to pull your weight. At higher levels, most savvy players love the buffs - but we don't "need" them. I'd much rather team with someone who can play solo as well as team. No, I really don't want to carry you just for your yummy buffs. My toon is built to solo - so that I'm not a burden to my teammates. (except for my
moodswings and such, lol)

Again, that's me, and I'm not at all typical. But, I recommend you at least consider selecting a decent attack chain from your secondary so that you can solo, albeit slowly, if you need to.

I am sympathetic to the issue you've had. I do applaud your "search-fu" in digging up Baryonx's old post. I do think you've shown a good bit of determination, and I sincerely hope you get it. In my mind, you have earned it.
Still, I think learning to play your secondary (more) would serve you well.

EVERY Defender primary powerset has at least one power that targets a foe: Cold Dom has Sleet, Dark Miasma has Howling Twilight, Force Field has Force Bolt, etc, etc, etc, all EXCEPT one.

I spoke with Budweiser recently about this very subject. He said that on any given night, in any given match, it's how you play, and the way your toon is equipped, that can have as much influence on the outcome of a match as the build can.

Here, I have to go with personal experience. I've never had a problem getting on a team or keeping up. Yes, I use my Lore pets as my damage dealers, but I haven't ever had someone kick me for someone else to take my spot on a league.

Never heard of Interrupt enhancements, huh.

Resuscitate is VERY useful. In cases of team wipes, I can tp and rez the whole team faster than any one team member can hosp and return. Reduce Recharges are wonderful for this purpose.

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

If you're still alive then it wasn't a team wipe. If you're getting that much use out of resuscitate then frankly you're not very good at keeping your teammates alive through healing or the team as a whole just plain sucks. Interrupt enhancements can't completely eliminate the chance of interrupt and don't do anything about the stupidly long cast times of the medicine heals. If you really want to be as helpful to team success as you can without using attacks then ditch the medicine pool and get leadership instead.

As far as your participation problems for the events my guess is that your teammates aren't taking enough damage for you get much credit for healing (overhealing won't get you any credit) and buffs can only take you so far.

Edit: I won't be making any more posts in this thread. I don't really care enough about how you choose to play to keep arguing.

To quote AG, a bit of hyperbole here: So what you are saying, is I should either not buff them, or buff myself. Remember, I AM doing some minor damage with my autoblast. But because I am buffing my teammate, he is doing a lot more damage. Conversely, since I can't buff myself, I am stuck doing my pinging. So maybe I should just stop buffing altogether.

No, but he IS saying that all character must have at least two damaging powers.

Thank you. I WILL earn it.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Okay, you come up with a better one, that is just as, or more comprehensive.

Followed immediately with

Fair enough. A little bit more open-mindedness please.

Okay, I get this, I guess. But let me present to your new open-mindedness a different perspective: What is Bullseye's power? Mr. Fantastic? Professor Xavier? What is Green Arrow's power? The Flash? Mr. Freeze? In the comic books, there are a lot of examples of "one-trick ponies," those heroes and villians who make their names on the fact that they can only do one thing, but they do it very, very well.

Trying to keep a thick skin...

No, First off, it rarely happens. Second, when it does, I am the first to speak up and say we need to raise the diff level. Third, at that point, I do have pets, temp powers, and my one attack power that I can use to help damage. Fourth, I have stealth, so I can stealth such a mish if possible, and finally, there's the insurance aspect. Im there "just in case" around the next corner is the AV that wipes the team.

Skin thinning a bit...

My toon IS level 50+3. So I have levelled just about all I am going to. Haven't noticed a difference. Most teams don't want to run a mish that has no element of danger associated with it, any more than I do. Raise the diff. And, no, I don't camp the door.

So you've never run a tank that had a blaster on the team that would take out whatever you target? or ran a blaster on a team that had a scrapper that critted every time he struck? It happens. What do you do? You contribute where and when you can, and thank the Guardians that you got on a good team. You don't blame your build for being bad.


Skin becoming pale...

I personally dont talk about the people I play with. Maybe you are different.


I never sit back with my hands in my pockets, or with my **** in my hands. I am beginning to wonder about the people YOU play with.


Skin beginning to become crack and bleed...

No, I actually said what I meant. I am already level 50, so it's not about levelling up for me. It's about the healing. And I try not to spam if it is not necessary. I said try, because I'm not denying it happens on occasion that I had to put Healing Aura on autopower, then forgot to take it off. I'm getting better about that. But, on the other hand, if Healing Aura was my autopower, it was for a good, GOOD reason.

A good point. But at least I'm helping.

Wow! I'm guessing on your teams, people never die. That's amazing. Someday, they'll just eliminate the debt system altogether.

Skin becoming transparent...

Sorry, "shorthand" is a language system used back in the olden days when people took dictation. See Mad Men. It's like using "ppl" for "people." I know there is no "Healer AT," I am only using the designation "healer" to mean the Build that I have created, and any other builds similar to it.

And you have stats to prove me wrong?

No, I don't have stats to back it up. I was making a point.

And yet the devs made a Primary powerset out of Empathy.

Let me tell you a story:

Once upon a time, I created a Tanker, but I wanted my tanker to have some firepower, so, my tanker had lots of secondary powers, and only a few primary powers. Someone finally woke me up one day by saying, "You're not doing what you are supposed to do, because you can't." I realized that there was a reason a tank's primary powers are defensive in nature. It allows a tank to be a tank. After that, I made sure my tank had his primary powers first, and then, and only then, did he have his secondary and pool powers.

My Emp Def is an Emp Def first and foremost. What goes on after that is the marginal real utility.

No, this is the arguement you are giving me with your "use your secondaries" arguement.


You must only buy insurance when you know you are going to have a wreck.

Fortitude
CM
Regeneration Aura
Heal Other

Check.

No other powerset has to do what an Empathy Defender powerset has to do.

It has to do whatever it is going to do on friendlies, not enemies, EXCLUSIVELY. Exclusively, that's the difference. Every other primary powerset has at least one Foe-targeted power.


Skin becoming transparent...

Come on, you said so yourself, that healing and buffing is contributing. "Totally gimped"? Not even.

Then so does every blaster who stands behind a tank, or every controller who stands behind a brute. If my teammate does not kill the enemy then it becomes my problem. Better to help him now than deal with it by myself then.

So every player who take Flight instead of Leadership is not contributing to their full potential?

Then why do people tell me, "don't worry about attacking, just spam those heals?" I (used to) hear it all the time.

Sending $50-100 a month to Geico doesn't contribute anything to the family budget. Until you get in a wreck.

Sorry, tank who can't get there before the blaster takes out the enemy, apparently, Hyperstrike says you've failed.

Sorry, mastermind who spends half the mish calling up his minions, and buffing them before going into battle, only to find the battle has been won, Hyperstrike says you've failed.