Doomguide2005

Have to get the builds on my computer to get a good look. Leveling one right now, they're about 30th as recall

Short answer: No I wouldn't bother Long answer: On Live my main was Claws/SR and my badge hunter. The choice ended up far more useful for healing an ally (and working towards the badges). Eventually it morphed into set mules for +max health and regen bonuses. On HC I didn't bother as I took Rebirth and that is a much larger heal ... and more often than not I use it to heal others such as after Shadow Cyst goes boom or when things are trying to go sideways for the team with lots of colorful teammates showing. While leveling maybe more useful than inspires, maybe. In the end game not so much. More important to hit those defense caps, get DDR to 95+ and talking from mitigation pov to get +max health and regen on the build. Rarely do any Scrappers or Brutes I team with exceed the health or regen numbers on the current version of my main. I am likely sacrificing some dps but outside of Hardmode her durability is top notch and only dies when I'm being stupid.

I would be doing something similar. Depending on how strongly you needed or wanted the set bonuses from Hecatomb you could likely red line the damage in 3 slots then use Golgi or a similar 3 slots of a heal set to essentially max both damage, heal and recharge iirc (it's been a while since Live when I ran this pairing as a Brute on Live)

@Shemulator To add to what Snarky has said about stuns I'll add that the now START (former p2w) vendor offers relatively cheap Stun Grenades which I've found quite useful for upping survival for support characters and are available from the get go. And they'll stack with things like Dark Pit or Thunder Clap much earlier than waiting for Oppressive Gloom. And of course would also open up your choice of Mastery/Epic pool. If you plan on Hover or Fly I've found Air Superiority an excellent choice for melee. The knock is a given if the target isn't protected. I can often keep a boss permanently knocked while I whittle their health down. Hasten I'd consider a near 100% choice on an Empath. Empathy's powers thrive on recharge. Likewise I'm a big believer in support characters and using Leadership. I would say Dark Blast is very much a heavily range oriented set. Only the Nuke is PBAoE and only three of Empathy's powers are PBAoE (and like all of Empathy effect only your allies). Those 3 being Healing Aura, Recovery Aura and RegenAura. And Resurrect while technically a ranged power is only 15ft. I would personally be looking for Gloom, Moonbeam, Tenebrous Tentacles, Nightfall, Torrent and Black Star. Dark Pit is a stronger choice for solo work (or combined with a steady diet of Stun Grenades) or any time you see teammates laying down stuns. Life Drain should be totally skippable for what hope are obvious reasons. Empathy - I would consider all but two powers as basically must haves on your typical build. The other two, Resurrect and Absorb Pain I'd consider player preference and choice. Resurrect is bland Rez. It's just as easy to use a temp power or pass a wakie and ready Clear Mind plus your other buffs than use Resurrect. As to Absorb Pain there's considerable debate surrounding its use. It's a very large heal and can be used at range to get a teammate back to health which combined with Heal Other gives you two very strong heals. So where's the debate coming from? The downside of AP is it hits the Empath with ~125 special damage, a 100% heal resistance debuff and 100% regen debuff for 20 seconds (all unresistable). If you have aggro from some source(s) you're definitely risking death as your ability to heal or be healed is basically non-existent for 20 seconds. Either be ready to break LoS or hope whoever is holding aggro keeps it (unless that's you 😳). Unfortunately the Mids of my Defender build from Live of Empathy/Dark Blast did not survive the post Sunset to the HC Sunrise and I haven't yet remade the build from Live.

I hadn't even mentally correlated in my old brain this sort of appearance. I'd heard of GMs showing on several occasions in this manner. Notably at the end of CoV beta in Mercy where our characters got to dogpiled several members of the Freedom Phalanx. And as I understand it after a certain moment when Howling Twilight and a Hami Bloom brought an invisibly watching Admin out to exclaim "you did what?!!"

The time on Live that I personally saw a GM enter a mission was after we filed a ticket because we couldn't complete a defeat all in a TF mission (mob stuck in terrain). They appeared as a Police Drone. We all buffed up and they moved the mob out ... and it got obliterated.

Two words I'm told i should say or ask about "Emergent properties"

Chat GPT and similar AI are as awful at it as they currently are. It's only going to improve. Just think about how long they've existed and what the original outputs looked like. There's material out there now that the vast majority of folks won't even notice is AI generated when they look at it and many of them couldn't pick out the 'fake' even if told one was AI generated. You kind of missed the point though it wouldn't surprise me if that was deliberate. I think you had the post highlighting all the bits of unimaginative writing up thread. Well those various phrases are unimaginative crud commonly known as tropes and virtually all human writing is full of them which is why there's a word for it. Sure Chat GPT writes like a poorly plagiarizing high schooler at the moment. But that's just in the current state, it was only a short bit of time ago when it would have barely passed muster as a poorly plagiarizing kindergartner. And I've no idea how skilled at writing prompts FFFF is either.

This I haven't read the entirety of the thread yet but I had a friend on Live with his first character that spent so much time wandering around Outbreak that he had the badge for defeating Infected prior to entering AP. He had no clue to return to Coyote and how to get to AP until after he used his phone a friend option. He was new both to MMO's in general and CoH specifically.

If you want a quick idea if perma is even possible take the recharge divide by 5. If that value is less than its duration then it's possible. A good idea is a whole other question. Example, Empathy's Auras 500 second recharge, divide by 5 is 100 seconds. The duration of the Aura is 90 sec. Therefore even at the recharge cap (500%) you'll be 10 seconds shy.

"Gimme NAO! or I start yowling at least an hour earlier in the morning"

No, to be clear I am not keeping teammates at 50% or less health. What I'm saying is it doesn't matter if I (made up numbers) heal them from 200 health to 500 or 700 with HA or HO or from 200 to 1200 with AP with a single use of the power in question. Either way they are still up right and in the fight. It doesn't matter as long as they get back to essentially full health without dying. Again definitely not quite what I'm getting at though that last line does point at what I was getting at when I said I've never seen someone die where I know they would have lived if I had used AP instead. Either they survive after that initial burst of healing or they/I get overwhelmed and they don't. And from there more healing and or the effects of RegenAura and or Adrenaline Boost get them back to full health. But really I don't think there's any way to know especially in the heat of the moment. By old school I meant that back on Live up to when computer issues kept me from playing around i22 and starting here on HC my builds were very strongly focused on recharge. Reyna on Live had maybe a few percentage points of defense therefore if she found herself unable to heal for 20 seconds the idea she could ride it out would be a much greater stretch than my builds of today. Now she has defenses even if the focus is still largely on recharge. And given she would very definitely be in the middle of it due to her offender play style crossed with her blast set being unable to heal for 20 seconds would be suicidal. Well ... no. Reyna (/Rad blast) or Neuroststic (/Elec blast) are often right in the middle of the sh*t storm adjacent to the melee types as that's where SC and Irradiate get used while eyeballing the team window for buffs and healing. The idea that OG+Irradiate+Atomic Blast is likely to yield zero aggro is only happening with some decent aggro management by the Tanker or Brute. And no an offender Empath with those blast sets in particular is not sitting there just healing and drawing no aggro in the middle of all that while the team is at full health. So yes I'm going to use whatever tools I've got be it inspires, stun grenades, OG or the kitchen sink (Eye of Magus) to survive and when necessary blot out the storm and focus on keeping teammates buffed and healed despite what's occurring around me. Reyna can take on a couple bosses and expect them to get defeated >> OG+Cosmic Burst+AirSup+Irradiate+AirSup+CB+AirSup etc.. until downed. Stunned and knocked till defeated. And these days she'll often mix in p2w Stun Grenades, Soul Drain and the occasional Envenomed Dagger and her Atomic Blast which combines with a proc in AirSup to hold the occasional boss Now that sentiment i can get behind 100%. AP is at least worth checking out by this offender and see how IOs and p2w have altered things

@Frozen Burn I definitely appreciate the further input on AP. I can also see the great potential utility in a second ranged heal. But the key for me is ranged. I'm still fairly unconvinced that either HO fired in succession or HO/HA spammed will be be less effective than using AP. I've very rarely thought the difference would mean my target has fallen with HO while would have survived if I used AP instead. I don't truly need them, the target, at full health they are basically as effective at 50 health as 1000 or 3000 I just need them upright. Of course that's target singular not targets. Sometimes HO buys enough breathing time for them to hit an inspire or Dull Pain or even the relief/confidence to throw out a taunt as they know I've got them covered. As far as time spent getting to range of HA two thoughts >> chances are if it's the main aggro center chances are extremely good I'm already there, no movement needed. Second while using Evasive Maneuvers with additional +fly spd (swift, set bonuses) I'll cover pretty much any indoor and most outdoor maps very quickly at HO or AP distances and stop on a dime (no worries that I'll glide or stop out of range). Think the other factor here that plays into things is the whole i can't get healed, the heal debuff around AP. First this is potentially very old school thinking. My late game Empaths, in particular, have far more defense than the SO builds of old. I am far more likely to avoid getting hit and damaged especially fatally in the 20 seconds the debuff lasts than back when SOs and HOs were the top of the line. If I have that much aggro that I end up eating floor anyway chances are pretty good the combat has already gone towards team wipe rather strongly and the main aggro center is already dead before I can do anything else. And now I'm wondering if Incandescence and it's heal resistance debuff (unresistable) will break through AP's debuff enough so I can in fact get healed and RegenAura will effect me. Or if I'm totally misreading or misinterpreting the CoD and in game info. I've been very reluctant to delve into it much in game because of the Teleport aspect as generally porting folks around while they're alive goes into iffy territory without binds etc. which I have not set up.

And there are some foes that will see through a Scrapper using Stealth that won't see a Stalker in Hide (Hidden). Snipers come to mind among other things. Hard Mode foes can have buffs to Perception which Hide but not Stealth will keep you unseen. Basically Hide has a much higher base Stealth than the Concealment power called Stealth

Yeah afaik to date it's the only 'exception' if you're looking at the values and not the wording of the name.

The -defense on a late game SR (owing to DDR) isn't likely to help much but might open some proc options and as mentioned useful while leveling or running exemplar to buff the effective defense a bit more towards caps. One thing many would consider a mistake is not slotting Siphon Life for damage something I have seen on several occasions on builds posted for getting help.

And just wait till she figures out just how offensive almost any support build can get from range or melee in CoX

I've often commented to my fellow D&D players that if you want to find the "gaps" in the rules turn a bunch of min-maxing, rules-lawyering, power gamers loose on the game. They'll find stuff just as crazy and far more "legit" that the most proficient of Munchkins.

nah properly built there's 8 of them (see above).

This. And the idea you can build a single most correct build for a given AT/Pairing and for any given team is absurd in the first place. Especially if not a static team. Even if one assumes you have the responsibility to build a given way to make another player 'happy' that almost certainly means that somewhere in the next few teams, if not the very next, your build won't be correct. My Claws/SR has totally different idea of what the perfect build(s) would be to join them than my Emp/Rad does. And I'd be willing to guess the ideal build to join my Emp/Rad is NOT what the majority of players out there would consider their ideal to maximize my fun. And the whole vice versa thing i.e. the likelyhood my characters build is the ideal for all 7 teammates is also highly unlikely. The only responsibility I have to my fellow players is not to be a douche. And clearly anything other than 8 Empaths is building wrong anyway. I mean what's not to love about a damage capped Nuke everywhere 5 seconds or so on a defense, to hit, recovery, regen, and possible resistance capped team not the most right ... 😘

Random thoughts Knockback/Knockdown. Mez These two things are almost always a weakness for anything at low levels. Anyone can get both if desired from the p2w vendor even mid task force. Plasmatic Taser and Stun Grenade especially the later in multiples can seriously mess them up. Add some team inspires to ensure they hit. I've been known to drop the p2w pets as well (both the PPD and a prestige pet useful to the group). Again you can acquire those while in TF. One of my Empaths could even add both a Shivan and a Vanguard Heavy to the p2w pets. Drop some team inspire buffs for those pets to further enhance their damage and to hit capabilities. Just stay alive ... complete suckage to drop all those pets and die before they even join the fight (yes been there done that in one particularly chaotic and pear shaped effort). A corner pull really helps ensure the pets get to engage before most of the team and you faceplant.

While sober. All bets off if not.

For reference here's the build I've been tinkering with. Reyna Morningdew EmpathyRadBlast Hvy Arm (v1.00 i27.6) - Defender (Empathy - Radiation Blast).mbd

Well I'm still very new to NA especially compared to Empathy but I've paired it with Symphony (to which I'm also fairly new) whose powers so far are also ranged. So mostly I hang back and the cone naturally covers more as the distance from the cones origin grows larger making targeting less necessary i'd guess. Perhaps as I get more into the various auras and the PBAoEs becomes part of the arsenal it'll develop into an issue, But one of my first Empaths was paired with Dark Blast and then Sonic both of which are strongly ranged outside the nuke (No Irradiate type power unlike my Emp/Rad ). I got fairly adept at moving out for Tentacles or Howl and in for other PBAoE's. That and a weakness I have as an Empath especially these days is I don't target by a bind/keyboard I click on the name in the team window and fire off the various buffs and healing via the number keys on the keyboard. That and my main above all is a Claws/SR scrapper so I'm very used to finding and using the 'F' to seek a target(s), well not so much seek but to follow after hitting 'R' for target nearest. Perhaps NA will push this old dog back into using keybinds again and or buying a mouse with a lot more extra keys to target teammates. I have a NA defender just found a shiney that pulled me away I'm guessing as they been sitting in the low teens for a while now. Paired it with Archery Blast so that may be part of the issue. I'm personally fairly meh on Archery. Love the look and idea of it but ... .