Mini contentious rant (empaths)

[Zolgar]

These aren't people who are going for crazy and weird concepts knowing what they're getting into.  They're being ineffective out of ignorance and, pretty often, being toxic about it as well.  I've had my Rad/Sonic Defender kicked from a PUG on live because I never used my heal.  I didn't need to since it was a +0 mission team and hardly anyone took damage due to my tohit debuffs.  I've had a FF Defender on live kicked mid-mission because they realized I had no heals, only for me to watch them instantly wipe to the next spawn since they lost my buffs.  I've had teams panic when I brought a Sonic Resonance Defender because I didn't have the heals they were expecting and didn't tell me they wanted.  Hell, my Pain Dom Defender got yelled at for actually using her blasts by one person in recent times, which are Dark and slotted for -tohit, instead of using my heal.  ...when everyone was at full or close enough my toggle would top them off.

 

I've been pretty lucky avoiding that with my Rads, and my defender is super active with her attacks while my controller focuses on control, not support.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

I'll be honest, it makes me wonder where you guys find these players. The closest I've gotten to someone complaining about playstyle was a Tanker who quit a Citadel TF part way through because he got upset that we weren't waiting for him to get into the mission before starting. Honestly I think he was mostly upset that my Defender and one of the Blasters on the team were successfully Leoroy Jenkins'ing our way through the missions.

[Abraxus]

We all want our particular builds, whether they be damage, control, support, or a mixture of one or all of the above; to be the best they can be, even if it might not be absolutely necessary in all situations.  I find on large teams with a lot of damage, any damage I might do with my Emp/Psi defender is nothing more than a blip on the radar, while the heals/buffs are not as necessary because the team typically tears through most opposition so fast that hardly any damage is done to them.  So, I tend to feel a little redundant. 

 

However, on smaller teams, I find that the EMP skills have a lot more impact, and the damage I can do still really does not amount to anything significant.  I will probably take more from my secondary later on (he is currently only L20), but right now, he is still in what I consider the "building phase", where I am laying down the foundations for what he will become in his 30s, and 40s.  By the time he gets to 32, or so, he will have more from secondary.  But, right now, I see other things as more important. 

 

Of course, that is MY play style, with this character.  I don't expect everyone to agree, or emulate.  It's what I am doing, and what works for me, and the folks I play with most frequently.  So long as I am allowed to do so without undue criticism, everything is good!

 

[Locsmith]

This is a really weird thread.

These aren't people who are going for crazy and weird concepts knowing what they're getting into.  They're being ineffective out of ignorance and, pretty often, being toxic about it as well.  I've had my Rad/Sonic Defender kicked from a PUG on live because I never used my heal.  I didn't need to since it was a +0 mission team and hardly anyone took damage due to my tohit debuffs.  I've had a FF Defender on live kicked mid-mission because they realized I had no heals, only for me to watch them instantly wipe to the next spawn since they lost my buffs.  I've had teams panic when I brought a Sonic Resonance Defender because I didn't have the heals they were expecting and didn't tell me they wanted.  Hell, my Pain Dom Defender got yelled at for actually using her blasts by one person in recent times, which are Dark and slotted for -tohit, instead of using my heal.  ...when everyone was at full or close enough my toggle would top them off.

 

I’m glad you mentioned your FF defender.  I have an FF/Rad defender that I play a lot.  It takes a while to convince the team that I don’t need to heal because I a) shield them from most damage and b) decrease the enemy accuracy when I hit.  It’s hard to combat the “heelz pleez” mentality.

 

But I’m working on it one PUG at a time!

:D

[Myrmidon]

My SG just ran a Katie Hannon a couple of days ago and one of our PUGs was DocBot 2500. An Empath with only the base attack and all of the Medicine pool. The in-game banter with this character was so much fun that I would team with that player every single day.

[Rumors]

I'll be honest, it makes me wonder where you guys find these players. The closest I've gotten to someone complaining about playstyle was a Tanker who quit a Citadel TF part way through because he got upset that we weren't waiting for him to get into the mission before starting. Honestly I think he was mostly upset that my Defender and one of the Blasters on the team were successfully Leoroy Jenkins'ing our way through the missions.

 

Apparently the best way is to go back in time, make a Defender on Freedom, mark yourself as LFG, and take every blind invite that comes your way.  With a smaller playerbase that's  bit more hardcore and dedicated, it's gotten a lot less common in my current experience.  Even then on Live, it wasn't super common as long as you didn't take blind invites.

 

Or marked yourself as an Empath.  On Live, I had an Empath who I gave up on in the low 20s because every other groups had one or more people screaming at me for heals while they were on the other side of the map hitting the aggro cap.

 

 

 

These days it's mostly been through radio-team PUGs in the 20s.  But I've only encountered a scant few toxic/useless players, like the one mentioned above or a like a Bots/FF MM who just kept their pets on aggressive, stayed a distance behind everyone, and stood there, not even running their bubble toggle even though they had the power nor giving commands to pets, leading them to stand around if he wasn't close enough to the enemies.

 

On live or now, it doesn't happen too terribly often to me, my above Empath aside.  But the instances are usually pretty memorable.  >.>

[Frunobulax]

So one time I was in a group and there was this player who was trying to help me but they were not doing so in the most efficient manner possible so I dropped group, deleted my character, uninstalled this game, formatted my pc, unplugged it, hit it with a sledgehammer, peed on it, then I left it in my house which I promptly burned down. I cleared the ruins with my bare hands and eventually grass grew back so I brought a calf, grazed her to maturity and then slaughtered and butchered her and made a roast beef sandwich that I gave to a stranger. After he ate it I punched him in the mouth, shouted DPS ONLY and hung myself. 

[Adeon Hawkwood]

That seems a little extreme to me, but you do you.

[justicebeliever]

So one time I was in a group and there was this player who was trying to help me but they were not doing so in the most efficient manner possible so I dropped group, deleted my character, uninstalled this game, formatted my pc, unplugged it, hit it with a sledgehammer, peed on it, then I left it in my house which I promptly burned down. I cleared the ruins with my bare hands and eventually grass grew back so I brought a calf, grazed her to maturity and then slaughtered and butchered her and made a roast beef sandwich that I gave to a stranger. After he ate it I punched him in the mouth, shouted DPS ONLY and hung myself.

 

ROFL!!!! +1 Inf...

 

But glad it was a grass fed cow...+1 one more for being organic!!!

[greenstalker]

Didn't read whole thread so not sure if this was mentioned.

 

Maybe because it was EU server or not but in defiant I only saw one or two pure heal empaths defenders and they did that for the concept. Most teams would look for am empath defender and most TF's wouldn't start without one Mind you this was around i5 or i6 back than some TF's would take 4 hours (mind you this was done by toons at the level of tf not with a whole part of 50's with full slots but with toons with either TO or DO in half slotted powers) or so to complete some SG's even put long ones like posi or synapse on hold after 2 hours to play it a day or two later with a scheduled program. I remember in our guild we would make a new toons and level up as a team usually 6 or 8 people would join and stay in team until at least hollows would be done, saturday 6 pm to 10 pm was reserved to playing those characters. In those teams even a pure heal empath would be accepted as long as there was one.

[mjrbuzz]

OK super thanks for the DocBot reference. That is me.

 

That one is motivated by an RP POV build. It is a Bot and it is built as a support "do no harm"  bot programing POV. Delivered with some tongue in cheek, ikea instructions meets pipboy kinda thing.

 

However in response to the OP here suggesting the build only brings

~and the empath just... stares.  ~ leadership totem that helps occasionally with fortitude and AB.

 

 

I rarely just stand around...but it can happen sometimes, team comp+mission difficulty determining mostly.

Mostly I'm keeping the team double buffed on clear mind and injection, fortitude every 30 seconds, that's 50% of the team at any given time(@2.5 min buff time per team member). As well RA+RA every 2.5 min(or as needed), and AB at 50% recharge time too.

My crews are juiced more than the Russians' Olympic teams.

 

 

So just say'n here.

Some builds may have some short comings/limitations. Maybe not every build is good for just every mission or team composition. But building a team can be less about focus on all member builds individually.

And instead be more focused on playing as a team, the group effort of working with what you have to work with.

 

 

 

Additionally, as we face the same missions/challenges here over and over again.

Instead of facing them in a mechanically safe bet consistency every time, we can change up how we choose to face the challenges. As a means to keeping them more interesting to face repeatedly.

[justicebeliever]

So just say'n here.

Some builds may have some short comings/limitations. Maybe not every build is good for just every mission or team composition. But building a team can be less about focus on all member builds individually.

And instead be more focused on playing as a team, the group effort of working with what you have to work with.

 

Additionally, as we face the same missions/challenges here over and over again.

Instead of facing them in a mechanically safe bet consistency every time, we can change up how we choose to face the challenges. As a means to keeping them more interesting to face repeatedly.

 

Love this post, +1 inf.

 

There really is a lot of redundancy, and it is one of the great joys of this game to land on a team that values team interactions more than smashing pixels.  Smashing pixels is fun, but it lacks that special spark of humanity that a team has.