Doomguide2005

It's not a poor performer without IO's or at least it's not that simple and straightforward. It is fact that high recharge is extremely effective at making Empathy very strong. Anyone who has experienced a full, post level 32, GM team on SOs only can tell you just how effective they become and in no small degree 170% global recharge is responsible for that fact (perma Hasten + AB). Then top it off with soft-capped defense, hard capped regen and silly amounts of end etc, etc.. and that's one very effective team on just SOs. But I do think Empathy 'suffers' from being very team oriented buffing set where several of their important buffs are single target AND all those buffs are in very direct competition with IOs set bonuses and what they can provide a build. You want defense, IOs provide. You want no endurance issues, IO's provide. You want recharge IO's provide. You want to strike your target, IO's provide. You want more regeneration, IO's provide. And it all comes to a head in the endgame where IO's and Incarnate abilities can turn characters into tank mages. At that point Empathy is left with "how do you buff a tank mage". Edit: A: You buff resistance which IO sets don't do well (although more recent special IO's have dented that)and debuff their foes. Neither of which Empathy can do. Thermal and Pain do and that accounts for some of their increased popularity as 'healing sets'

The main reason I would not favor a toggle version of CM is I would be unable to stack the protection. Currently if I want a character to be unaffected by Rommy's stun on rez or by Ghost Widow's hold that's doable I can stack up enough CM to do. A toggle presumably wouldn't allow that. I'm also a bit baffled by the desire to place additional/more mez resistance in the power. I don't have any reason to think it's a bad idea but what would it accomplish? The protection is more than enough typically and if needed is readily stackable to boot. And I need to go back and read about power usage "mechanics" As I understood it it's not so much a combo system but more like defiance in blaster. Use any power or subset of powers in any manner or order to buff other powers in Empathy. And what @America's Angeljust said in many respects. Most of Empathy's issues are end game related and many of these changes will barely dent this.

I'll start by saying I very much like the idea of some sort of mechanic for using your powers. But I don't want to encourage or create issues with other players for spamming my powers either. More than a few forum posts (not so much on HC, but definitely on Live) of players complaining about Emps with their HA on Auto either on teams or standing in the AH etc.. I'm no code writer so unsure how difficult it would be to ensure that any mechanic for using your heals occurs for healing allies that actually need the heal. Same concern is why I stated +8 end might be a bit much to give back on using HA. No desire for that to become an end positive net gain for the Emp (thus encouraging spamming HA).

Very much what Nemu said about CM. It's a casualty owing to a few things I think. First is a sort of end game tunnel vision. While many of us exemp, often with some frequency, as a whole builds are generally posted and discussed at level 50. Perhaps the build is discussed as exemplar friendly or for only at 50+ but the one posted and primarily discussed is at 50. Second the prevalence of high and softcap defenses reduced the frequency of need (if not the importance) and then of course there's Clarion. And last it seems like there's been an increase in support sets with an AoE mez protection. The most recent being Trick Arrow and the changes to EMP Arrow.

Not so sure. CoD lists the summon range as 0.0 ft, while listing the lightning bolts it uses as 100 ft. You would think adding range enhancement would make the CJ technique unnecessary (you could just cast it directly over the mob) if in fact it was enhancing the summoning range. The trick would be to get the storm to aggro onto a target more than 100 ft away. Edit: to test it that is by getting LS to aggro and fire on something over 100 ft away

Thanks, I haven't been ingame for a year do to a dead computer and was only back for about 5 months before it up and died on me ☹ No Mids and memories getting old again. So the best way to improve the "cycle" time would be to reduce the animation time since recharge is more than sufficient already.

Simply upping the notoriety by level will top out at about +6. After that purple patch and other game functions will basically mean even if the team could survive the team would take a very long time to kill even a single minion. And numbers faced when you're talking a team that's crushing existing content isn't really any harder. If they can survive and defeat 20 they can likely do so endlessly. That is +4/×12 or +4/×30 are essentially the same difficulty. A team full of folks capable of solo vs +4/×8 are not going to be much more challenged by increased numbers except by the rendering capabilities of the players equipment. If each grabbed their share that's well over 100 foes (aggro limit is 17×8, before pets etc., etc.). Now if you want difficult at +4/×8 you can find it, folks as a whole just avoid it. But at best this is just peripheral to a "how to buff Empathy" discussion in a any case.

?? The recharge is listed as 15 sec for AP at least in the CoD database. And the recharge on HO is 4 sec which doesn't really mean much for a high recharge build since that is going to be less than the animation time of HO. What my memories are fuzzy on is does the animation need to complete before you can recast or does it cut the animation short?

Actually Absorb Pain unless CoD v2.0 is incorrect, has the same cast time, animation time, and animation time before effect as HO. The only significant difference is end cost, and the larger base heal of AP (plus, of course, those debuffs). I can't use internet outside of this phone if someone wants to verify the cast time etc. of AP.

Yeah feel like it took me a half hour at least. I had been on a team as a sidekick for one of those really distant door missions. The team was about 12th or 13th. I was 6th. The team finished the mission, exited and promptly, as teams sometimes do, disbanded. Two choices take the suicide train to the AP hospital or use my newest power and Hover. Straight up I went then followed the Red River back to the AP gate and straight down. Was only mildly *cough* concerned there'd be some flying threat being still rather new to the game 😛.

Specifically which buffs? I'm not necessarily against them but some of the buffs without nerfing some other aspect are serious amounts of power creep and in many cases doesn't really change Empathy's "dead" status when it comes to endgame issues. Enabling Fortitude to buff defense, to hit and damage for more folks already softcapped and able to hit +4 foes does what to bring up Emps game? Adds 31.5% damage and ... . Clear Mind well I like that one but again replaced by Clarion and even without Clarion softcap mean many mezzes just dont take place cause they dont land. Basically many of the changes make Empathy more powerful in the portions of the game where they already perform relatively strongly early to mid game. While they look pretty on paper I'm not sure how much stronger it really makes the set in endgame content. Even with the purple patch that's why debuffs and their sets seem more desirable because many buff sets are supplying more of what is generally much less needed.

And more thoughts: Clear Mind -> I like the idea of adding some Psi resistance and maybe even defense to the power. The Sleep Resistance is odd when looking at the fact the other mezzes aren't resisted. But since it's fairly easy to place on 7+ it's largely moot unless the recharge is changed to counter any buffs to make it much harder to keep up on a team. I generally, for example, keep it doubled on the non mez protected and add 1 to most armor sets while fighting Rommy so the Stun can be ignored by everyone (presuming Clarion isn't flying every where.) The only other potential added buff would be To Hit Debuff resistance. Fortitude -> the suggested buffs are too much I'm thinking. It's very potent as is buffing 3 very important aspects of any character by significant amount. Buffing to the extent suggested and you may as well make it an AoE buff. I can very easily maintain it on 4, with focus 6 as is. And that's assuming none of the stronger recharge buffs are on me. The suggestion would make that child's play to do. The Auras -> Strong no to any attempt to make perma. Especially when combined with other changes ... just a big no. No end problems for anyone anytime, multiple teammates approaching or exceeding toggle IH levels worth of regeneration. As is my cool down is often under 30 sec particularly with any outside buffs. Remember Nuke crashes ... this was how GM made child's play of nuke crashes -> AB + Recovery Aura (often multiple on a GM team) = near instantly full end bars and not uncommonly without any toggle drops that's what +1200% recovery will do for you. AB + RA is a base unenhanced recovery of +1000% As for the whole "Gather" vs combat buffs vs other. I buff in combat, on the fly, while being sure to catch anyone whose blue bar for whatever reason is sagging. What if the Aura lingered for a time on the Empath giving folks who wanted the buff a chance to catch it. Move into the Aura and get the buff with the Aura lingering for 5 or 10 seconds, perhaps the strength tapering down till vanishing after that time? Adrenaline Boost -> Perhaps the single strongest buff in the game. See above changing this to cover more than 1 teammate full time is massive power creep without some serious nerfs to accompany it, again especially with other above changes involved.

Thoughts : Healing Aura -> the +End effect is interesting idea. The amount needs some further thought or refinement I'm thinking. 8 strikes me as too much. Heal Other -> I'm with Greycat on this one. The most important value here is animation time before effect (.833 sec). Guess I'm not against it but convince me I need it to truly improve the set. Personally I'd buff the base amount of heal or perhaps the radius of HA before buffing the recharge and animation times. The idea of ignoring terrain I'm also not so enamored by. It's part of the challenge of Empathy, repositioning to acquire your teammates for both buffs and healing. I'm all for making powers more team friendly but I'm also not in favor of encouraging poor teaming habits. A very fine line with a lot of subjective grey all around I'll grant. Absorb Pain -> the first Empathy power I never take especially on the primary build. I get the desire to make the power name and its function match up but I try not to get too hung up on that sort of thing. Not sure what to think about making it an Absorb. Either it adds effective health with an Absorb shield over and above health ... in which case I might be encouraged to precast it on everyone or there's minimal difference between it being an Absorb vs Heal if the target is substantially damaged. Resurrect -> the second power I almost never take. The power needs a really serious reason to be picked with all the options currently available. A power choice is way more valuable used for something else currently. Only strong motivations other than utility can really justify taking it (theme, roleplay). Not sure buffing the range, reduced end cost etc., would convince me to not just pass a wakie and buff them up quick. Bed calls back later.

You go right ahead be curmudgeonly. In my defense I only really have a strong thoroughly thought out backstory in my head for some of my alts. Others I've literally created just to see what X paired with Y is like and maybe a back story will be thought of much later. And everything in between those two extremes. And then I actually have to write it out ... and gaming time is far more precious these days between jobs and an 3 yr bundle of energy. 🥰 I'll try to do better.

So are you talking need to be very close but technically airborne or does the HCwiki and game description badly need rewriting?

@Barneysaurus and others through the thread pretty much sum it up perfectly. Empathy isn't dead. It has issues that most buffs and buff sets run into in endgame content and Incarnates add to these issues rather dramatically. You've got a lot of highly experienced veterans of the game running IO builds that are strongly self sufficient. They're built to hit what they attack, to attack pretty much non-stop without endurance issues, often with high if not softcapped defenses back by substantial resistances. Buffs by anyone become largely unneeded when teams consist of 8 tank-mages (or even 4 of 8). The Empathy set is essentially all buffs, many quite strong and versatile but they're trying to make a stronger tank-mage for content that doesn't really require it. It's not a problem unique to any AT (feeling unneeded) definitely an issue for support overall and tends to be worst on buff focused sets like Empathy.

My current favorite is an Electric/Fire. Maybe not the highest damage but a load of fun full of melee and PBAoEs attacks. And gravy if another sapper type happens to join the team. The character though that finally got me into blasters though was the classic Fire/Energy blaster way back on Live.

Combat Jumping --> +4000% Movement Control' +4000% Movement Friction Hover --> +10,000% Movement control, +10,000% Movement Friction Combine this with @Ukase's observations I'd say that they're effecting a very small base number. Edit: or both reach and exceed some hard cap.

You can also use City of Data v2.0. You can find links in the Tools, Utilities and Downloads section of the forums. I often have both the HCwiki and CoD v2.0 tabs open while looking at the HC forums.

Just avoid running with a FFoF team (Faithful Fans of Fallout) ... not sure the numbers can go that high 😜

I'll add to the chorus of anything Dark. Strong to hit debuffs combined many crowd control powers even when not on a controller version. It's a classic set that works well for both a more classic style of play or running with the newer "proc monster" offensive style. No teammate buffs to worry about. Cold is another strong debuff set that also offers team shields (bubbles) which with the changes making them AoE's don't require micromanaging for use in team settings.

Of putting the "vet/team lead" on follow "he'd get us there" to a deep distant Hollows door. Over that big boulder ... and into the Gultch. Man that Ogre is purple thinks my lvl 6 scrapper as the boulders flew. You'll be pleased to know my corpse stuck the landing! Or my now lvl 43 scrapper's super jump landing her outside her mission door in PI that was within sight of two things. The Portal Corp parking lot and a nice large mob of lvl 50 Nemesis Jaegers. Couldn't click the door fast enough. They certainly had a perverse tendency to place your mission doors deep, deep in the red zones. And I'm just unbalanced enough to miss it at times.

Varies by AT. Scrappers and Stalkers cap out at 3000% . Tankers and Brutes at 2500% and everyone else 2000% Edit: outside of powers I managed about 800 +max health bonuses (including the accolades) on my Claws/SR but that was prior to Sunset so no +max health IO was included in build. (~1339 upped to ~2120 health)

Well holy ... I really must get a functioning computer and *soon*

Well like I said above that should be very easy to test. Pain, as noted has an AoE Heal toggle, drop one in Soothing Aura and team up. And/or an Empaths Healing Aura. In theory the buffs should work down to lvl 7. Good lord 8 Pain, in particular, running that as a toggle if it works that way. Edits: Or an all Traps team ... that's potentially 16+ Panacea procs firing during a long fight ... *boggles*