Doomguide2005

O.o League is liable make you incandescent for doing so.

Yup, the Rad hits Reichsman with LR and toggles, the Cold with Benumb, HL and Sleet and everyone else chucks a dagger then tears into him. And no plan hasn't got its flaws or survives contact 😜

To be more specific the -resist floor is capped for all ATs at -300%. So the best case is to hit the damage cap (varies by AT) and floor their resistance at -300%. Not likely to happen unless you design the team to do just that (like a Kin and a bunch of Sonic/Sonic characters). Not difficult per se but in a random PuG not too likely either. And on the damage side procs don't count against the AT's damage cap either so hit the damage cap, add proc damage then boost it with resistance debuffs up to -300%. Reminds me of one of the last projects my friends and I started (and never completed). A bunch of Fire/Sonic controllers teamed. A whole mess of crazed fire imps running amok with several Disruption Fields etc.. All we'd have needed was the Kin

Yes end cost is really low (0.52), essentially free. Cast time and time before effect though are pretty much identical to HO and HA. I can see the end cost as attractive but (big but) if my Regen Aura is running my Recovery Aura is as well basically trivializing end cost anyway and if Regen Aura is down those downsides can get ugly if you're under attack. But like I said above may come down to playstyle. No advantage in range either. Edit: AP recharge 15 sec, HO at 4 sec and HA at 8 sec. Edit 2: and of course there's all the levels where you can have AP and not have Regen Aura available. Potentially a spread of 24 levels.

Is it just the size of the Heal? What makes it attractive to those that do take and use it? Edit: low endurance cost?

You wouldn't really need much change in the recharge of the Auras to reach perma state. 240 second recharge would easily become perma on an IO build. Most of my builds are sitting around 130 seconds or so as I recall (about 30 to 40 sec gap in coverage). 99% of late game builds can handle ~ 30 sec of no outside endurance support in 99% of content. Now at low levels pre IO that would be very helpful.

This.^ If you haven't got the dps and/or no regen debuffs then chuck away but otherwise use LR (or other -regen powers)

As others are pointing out it's rare these days to announce. That said I don't imagine it would bother most folks either if you do so as long as you're prompt using it and aren't bothered by half the team just continuing to do their thing. The changes to when Stamina/Fitness is available plus IOs making it vastly easier to maintain a healthy blue bar plus nukes that dont crash etc., etc. have all contributed to the need for individuals and teams to gather for Recovery Aura buffs to be greatly reduced as our collective end bars don't tend to get ravished the way they used to. I to just find a midpoint that'll include some of few blue bars that are struggling and get the most characters.

May be a playstyle thing too. My Emps can be very aggressive especially while their Auras are up and getting smacked is almost a certainty on most PuGs. I use inspires, mez, teammates and if available epic shields but to date rarely come anywhere near the softcap when it comes to mitigation except on specific purpose builds (typically I build for recharge). Being unable to heal would be risky, and even moreso if Regen Aura was down or dropped while unable to heal.

Hence the absorb shield thought ... and it was a 'crazy idea' but fair enough. It's just one of two powers I almost never take on my Empaths (the other being Resurrect). If HO plus HA, Fort and Regen Aura aren't keeping them upright AP just means I'm more likely to join them as I can't heal myself either. PS: FYI Mutation gives rather substantial bonuses to the target dead ally.

Or the damage taken went to the Empath (rather than a large heal with downsides) or was an AoE (toggle?) that transferred some of the incoming damage taken by Allies. Either idea with some sort of absorb shield on the Empath.

Yeah, these are the 2 powers (plus Absorb Pain) that I'd see as most likely to benefit from 'modernization' without overly disrupting Empathy's overall power, balance and theme.

Nevermind me, being an idiot mostly making your point ... 🤪 About the only thing to add is you really don't need 8 or IOs or sets. At 4 or 5 characters you can start to overwhelm foes reliably even at +4/×8. 4 GM Empaths are at or ridiculously close to the softcap, endless endurance, ~+220% damage etc..

While I agree the word need gets thrown around a lot and is often rather hyperbolic I do think it's probably more accurate here when used to describe Fortitude particularly prior to late game play. And as you move to lower levels the more true it becomes. Now whether the games overall health 'needs' it I'm less sure that applies. With the described buff it would be very easy for an Empathy defender to keep the entire team covered 24-7 by level 13. That's not only the roughly equivalent defense buff as Cold or FF but adds substantial To Hit and Damage buffs on top that pretty much currently would require running both Tactics (×1) and Assault (×2) to match. Even a Green Machine team probably isn't running both Leadership toggles until the early to mid 20's.

I would love to have been a fly on the wall as they discussed which buffs would be changed to AoEs potentially effecting 255 targets rather than 1 target. What made Fortitude a no go vs Ice Shields, etc.. Was it the presence of the +damage mod? Seems unlikely it was the To Hit buff what with Tactics available (then again you have Assault). Recharge to duration, some combination of the above?

Thanks for the explanation.

Yes, @Glacier Peak all the effects of CM stack with all existing effects. I wouldn't object to the duration being extended, on the other hand the biggest real effect there is likely cutting its end cost effectively in half. Base recharge 4 sec duration 90 seconds casting on 7 teammates ~36 end (5.2 end per cast) taking about 15 seconds or so. I often double stack it across the team on an ITF so we can all just stay put thru Rommy's Resurrect stun. (doubled on those with no mez protection, single cast on armor sets with mez protection) Resurrect -> I'd love to see it buffed somehow. It seems to me it ought to be one of the best if not the best ally rez powers but ... not so much and I almost always skip it. Fortitude -> 6 ally's seems like a very random, pulled it out of my nether regions number. It also seems a very potent buff to the power as I can readily keep 4+ folks covered as is while getting all but scrapperlocked blasting. If I focus on casting it 6+ is doable. Adrenaline Boost -> the recharge buff would be sweet no doubt but too tired to do math to see how boosting recharge by 100% for 20 seconds out of every 90 would come out (as it's typically perma as is).

Got it, my brain didn't properly link her boss fight language with your addition as another end boss ability option. It would certainly be a strong incentive to bring support, particularly buffers. I've been on GM teams with nothing but red enhancements and empty slots still devastating the foes. The last time I did it was an ITF run on Live in fact, 6 of us.

I'd agree some modernization might be helpful. That said I don't want that modernization be made so as to lessen the benefit to everything prior to late and endgame content where it has often become City of Tankmages. Empathy is still very beneficial to teams prior to level 40 or so. The trick would be to modernize in a manner that helps in the 40+ while not diminishing the pre-40 content buff strength. I think to a degree this true of most buffing sets and powers. And the more the set relies on buffs the more of an issue it becomes competing with the ability to 'tankmage' through IOs and Incarnate abilities only worsen this problem. And why Empathy and Forcefield run into their late game desirability issue, they're both very buff focused sets.

The no enhancement option exists already. First It exists in the Oroborous settings as a choice. Second, unless you've used all your alternate builds you can always just use one of them sans slotting to do this. And "losing a level" sounds a lot like the ultimate timed mission as once you become -6 or -7 relative levels lower you aren't going to succeed, attack mechanics and purple patch say even if you can survive at that point your kill speed is essentially 'not happening' certainly not fast enough to prevent you from hitting say -30 levels etc.. Not when attacks that normally do 1000 damage are down to 150 or 80 before any foe damage resistance is accounted for (nevermind passive regen and active healing occurring). So how temporary and how long such a debuff lasts is extremely critical.

Reminds me when I was on a team shortly before issue 12. It was an open beta team. Started with 8 players, not sure how many stuck it out as our level 50 team was getting slapped silly at several points but the final map, final mission and AV ... oh my. Now they did change some things before it went Live. These days teams generally have few problems, certainly nothing like we had. We have Empaths soloing the thing at +4/×8 for crying out loud. That task force was and is the ITF. Knowledge and experience matter far more than we sometimes acknowledge. Is this game easy? Most certainly yes! but I think it's important to remember HC is loaded with veterans whose knowledge of the game are responsible for some of that 'easy' brokeness we experience. To a team of new players chunks of it might not quite reach City of Dark Souls but ... And yes you want some challenge by all accounts the 801.0 series should fit the bill. Starts relatively easy and steadily ramps up the challenge as you move through the series. 801.7 will likely stress a full Incarnate team and it proceeds up from there.

@Neiska You make some excellent points and categories. From my point of view I see a missing factor, perhaps two -> is the character predominantly built for solo or team play. And relatedly do you make frequent use of your alternate build options to handle different tasks (solo vs small team vs large team vs leagues, exemplar frequently, speed run TFs, etc).

My melee ATs yes, generally aimed for the softcap. But many of them were SR or defense sets to begin with. Funny to note my Main out of 150+ characters was a Claws/SR willing to jump into any mob often wasn't technically soft capped to AoE running at about 44%. Though she could and did turn on Maneuvers at times especially while teamed. My dozen or so Empathy defenders, half of them at 50+ none had much if any defense. The main 3 probably averaged maybe 3 to 5%. Recharge on the other hand very high ~200% global. That included one who solo'd plenty at "Invincible" and "Unyielding". Cosmic Burst, Air Superiority, my Auras (cd maybe 20 to 30 seconds), inspires and the occasional Eye of Magus for the win. Another did have a second build with capped Ranged defense intended to take on a 3 boss mob of level 54 Rikti (aka Scrapper challenge type rules). That was a pre Incarnate build. Other defenders and corruptors were similar and only Traps tended to hit near 32/33% defenses. Controllers, again focused on recharge. Mez i.e. control them before they could mez/hurt me motto. Some defenses, epic shields but the focus was never on defense (or even resistance). Stealth to allow the alpha strike after which they are controlled and cease to be a serious threat. So do I think a teaming support character needs to reach softcapped anything. No and might very well be the wrong emphasis for the build. Defenses are great but defense has never defeated anything directly or sometimes the best defense is a great offense, death is often the best debuff ... just watch out for those Fallout and Soul Drain users 😜

I'll let you know. My Main (of Mains) since created in i3 has used more than I can recall. Many of those were completely done on paper before Mids even existed (and before real numbers and combat attributes etc.). I believe the first one I translated into Mids was version 13 something, something. Some of those were merely on paper, some were actual respecs done via the contact in GC. Several of those were 'freespecs' given out after major changes in the game, others earned in the respec trial. All were precious as there were no respec recipes, no vet earned, no purchasable respecs only respec trials for the first time through each level range and the freespecs given out for major changes. She's been highly tweaked and due at least one more owing to new IO sets, new unique IOs and the like since her last major overhaul. Probably up around 20 of them or so. But she's at one end and especially since Mids came I had others at 50th that at Sunset had never undergone one. But most of my favorites had seen 2 or 3 by 50+ on average I'd guess. I had yet to do one on HC before the computer went and died, 2 of them at 50 (including the remake of my Main above). PS: in case it wasn't obvious builds/characters I really like are never finished but like the game itself, works in progress.

Part of the issue is not that end drain to zero is not bad news for mobs it's that it isn't any faster than simply straight up getting health to zero. Combine that with how critters recover endurance and it tends to be relatively ineffective particulary as a solo tactic. They do need and require endurance to use most their powers just like PCs (auto powers afaik all cost zero endurance to use, PC or NPC). The problem stems from the size of their endurance bars and how recovery works for everyone critters and players alike. Your character has 100 end an AV has 800 end. The result is each server tic the PC gains 'n' endurance while the AV recovers '8n'. So you gain 5 end. The AV, with everything else the same, gains 40 end. Now how many on your powers can you use with 5 end versus how many could you use with 40 endurance. That's the root of the problem not that critters do not need or use endurance for their powers. Take that same AV and drain them to zero and shut off or seriously debuff their recovery as well and they will stand around examining their navels until that server tic of end happens, they attack once, maybe twice flatlining their end bar again then resume examining their navels. A team of sapper builds can and will turn AVs into mewling kittens. It's just vastly harder to do solo especially since drain and recovery debuffs run smack into both AV resistances and the Purple Patch making it pretty rough vs a +4 AV. Go, go Shock Troopers and DWEF (Don't Whiz on the Electric Fence) SG's of the RO Network