Could Empathy get a little Healing?

[Abysmalyxia]

tl;Dr Suggestions to create a more solo-able and proactive empathy set via amending the clear mind, fortitude, and absorb pain powers as well as the Empathy auras while still keeping the cottage in mind.

 

Empathy needs help. It's a playset designed for a different game. Remember back in the day when people would play "dedicated healers"? I do. Those were terrible days.

Truth is most people woke up to the realization that healing is the least efficient form of damage mitigation, really only especially useful when everything else has failed and not even necessarily then.

But there's another part of empathy that people rarely pay attention to due to old ways of thinking: Soloing.

 

Everyone and every play set can solo to varying degrees. Every playset is now built with the expectation that people will both solo and team and do so at their leisure.

But not the empathy playset. To the contrary Empathy is the only power set who has 6 out of 9 abilities that are entirely useless when solo. No other powerset suffers from this level of drawback.

 

Amend these powers:

 

• Healing Aura: Toggle that heals those near the caster. Is improved by clear mind, recovery aura, and regeneration aura.
• Absorb Pain: When cast at a teammate the effect is normal. When cast at an enemy acts as a high mag confuse. Additionally your Healing Aura gains a minor absorbtion effect.
• Clear Mind: When you take this ability, in addition to receiving the standard Clear Mind ability you improve your Healing Aura. The Healing Aura toggle becomes a Toggle Bubble in the same vein as Force Field with the added functionality that it provides defense and resistance vs. Psionics, as well as it's current benefit against status effects. The Clear Mind effect is improved by Fortitude. Does not stack with itself.
• Fortitude: Stays the same numerically but is a toggle that targets the Empath. Additionally when you take this power the beneficiaries of your Clear Mind targeted ability receive the benefits of Fortitude as well.
• Recovery/Regeneration Auras: Their overall effectiveness will be reduced but they become auto powers. Simply standing near the Empath at any given time increases your recovery and regeration. Additionally adds a recovery/regeneration component to your Healing Aura toggle. This means that if you take these auras without taking healing Aura you will still recover and regenerate faster than normal but if you take all three your Regeneration and recovery would be the same as if you took all three in the game normally.

 

 

So, what does this actually mean in game terms? The Empath gains a significant degree of survivability that isn't exclusively dependent on Healing Aura. Empathy become less explicitly buffbotty and more aura oriented. Empathy becomes much more able to solo effectively.

 

The goal is to make the set wider, not taller. Meaning no individual power is exceptionally stronger numerically than it already is but instead expands who benefits from the power (typically this means the Empath) or expands it's functionality (such as the confuse added to absorb pain).

 

Finally it turns the Healing Aura into a sort of Voltron power that improves as the Empath does. I was hesitant to do this but the reality is that for every Empath other than Empathy Defenders this is a required power and few and far between are the empathy Defenders who skip this power entirely.

Edited May 7, 2020 by Abysmalyxia

[Greycat]

You mention soloability. I tend to be perfectly happy with my Emps solo, specifically *because* of those "can't affect me" powers - it lets me dip into other powers I might not otherwise take to buff up offense or whatnot.

 

As far as the changes? I'd hate to have healing aura be a toggle, period. I can use it when needed. If I want a toggle heal, I'll run Pain Domination. (Honestly, most of the time when I read these suggestions that come up for Empathy, the first thing that comes to mind is "You actually want to play pain domination." 🙂  It's got a different focus. )

 

Absorb Pain is... interesting. It already invokes a cost on the empath (*you* can't be healed for a time after using it, but it's a large ST heal.) I do like the idea of it granting some Absorb to HA (honestly, might as well put HO in there as a beneficiary too, in general.) I'm not sure if the "click an enemy and they're confused" thing would be good or bad... I'd hate to get the attention of something because of a misclick.

 

RAs to auras... I don't think I'd like, personally. While teaming, to me, this would chain you to the "biggest clump." RIght now, I can fire them off, and if I see someone lagging (maybe fighting a rearguard action on an ambush,) run over and assist quickly. It sounds like you're sacrificing team utility for soloing. But that's just me.

[Psyonico]

Empaths can't solo?

 

Sorry for the poor quality, it was screen capped 11 years ago before 1080 was a thing (also before they changed difficulties to be what they are now)

[Greycat]

1 hour ago, Psyonico said:

Empaths can't solo?

 

Sorry for the poor quality, it was screen capped 11 years ago before 1080 was a thing (also before they changed difficulties to be what they are now)

Ahh, Repeat offenders. And the Green Machines. Always Fun.

[Kismette]

Here as well, this was recorder before the new rules.

 

I got this build from the forum... the one with 3000+ builds.  So I'm pretty sure there are better builds out there that aren't being shared.  Long story short, Empaths CAN solo.

 

[Yoru-hime]

1 hour ago, Psyonico said:

Empaths can't solo?

 

Sorry for the poor quality, it was screen capped 11 years ago before 1080 was a thing (also before they changed difficulties to be what they are now)

That could almost be rewritten to say:

 

"Who needs your Primary to Solo?" I think I counted two uses of Empathy through the 2 minutes of that I watched before boredom kicked in. The rest was a weak Energy Blaster juggling an enemy with Knockback while very slowly pecking him to death. And that was pretty much the correct way for that character to play it. Given the level, Regen Aura wasn't available so there wasn't anything else in the Empathy toolbox that would have been of any use in that encounter.

 

There are other Solo Empath/? posts, guides and videos out there, but they all come back to the same idea of working with one powerset pretty much tied behind your back. I don't think that Empathy is so overpowered in teams that it needs to be that weak solo to compensate somehow. It's more an artifact of design decisions that date all the way back to beta, before anyone knew what playing CoH would really be like.

 

I'm not sure that I'm sold on the OP's specific methods for getting there (seem kinda convoluted), but the end goal of making Empathy more functional without a team seems very reasonable.

[SwitchFade]

4 hours ago, Abysmalyxia said:

tl;Dr Suggestions to create a more solo-able and proactive empathy set via amending the clear mind, fortitude, and absorb pain powers as well as the Empathy auras while still keeping the cottage in mind.

 

Empathy needs help. It's a playset designed for a different game. Remember back in the day when people would play "dedicated healers"? I do. Those were terrible days.

Truth is most people woke up to the realization that healing is the least efficient form of damage mitigation, really only especially useful when everything else has failed and not even necessarily then.

But there's another part of empathy that people rarely pay attention to due to old ways of thinking: Soloing.

 

Everyone and every play set can solo to varying degrees. Every playset is now built with the expectation that people will both solo and team and do so at their leisure.

But not the empathy playset. To the contrary Empathy is the only power set who has 6 out of 9 abilities that are entirely useless when solo. No other powerset suffers from this level of drawback.

 

Amend these powers:

 

• Healing Aura: Toggle that heals those near the caster. Is improved by clear mind, recovery aura, and regeneration aura.
• Absorb Pain: When cast at a teammate the effect is normal. When cast at an enemy acts as a high mag confuse. Additionally your Healing Aura gains a minor absorbtion effect.
• Clear Mind: When you take this ability, in addition to receiving the standard Clear Mind ability you improve your Healing Aura. The Healing Aura toggle becomes a Toggle Bubble in the same vein as Force Field with the added functionality that it provides defense and resistance vs. Psionics, as well as it's current benefit against status effects. The Clear Mind effect is improved by Fortitude. Does not stack with itself.
• Fortitude: Stays the same numerically but is a toggle that targets the Empath. Additionally when you take this power the beneficiaries of your Clear Mind targeted ability receive the benefits of Fortitude as well.
• Recovery/Regeneration Auras: Their overall effectiveness will be reduced but they become auto powers. Simply standing near the Empath at any given time increases your recovery and regeration. Additionally adds a recovery/regeneration component to your Healing Aura toggle. This means that if you take these auras without taking healing Aura you will still recover and regenerate faster than normal but if you take all three your Regeneration and recovery would be the same as if you took all three in the game normally.

 

 

So, what does this actually mean in game terms? The Empath gains a significant degree of survivability that isn't exclusively dependent on Healing Aura. Empathy become less explicitly buffbotty and more aura oriented. Empathy becomes much more able to solo effectively.

 

The goal is to make the set wider, not taller. Meaning no individual power is exceptionally stronger numerically than it already is but instead expands who benefits from the power (typically this means the Empath) or expands it's functionality (such as the confuse added to absorb pain).

 

Finally it turns the Healing Aura into a sort of Voltron power that improves as the Empath does. I was hesitant to do this but the reality is that for every Empath other than Empathy Defenders this is a required power and few and far between are the empathy Defenders who skip this power entirely.

So, why does everything have to be soloable?

 

Conversely, should every set be equally team buffsauceable?

[MTeague]

4 hours ago, Psyonico said:

Empaths can't solo?

 

Sorry for the poor quality, it was screen capped 11 years ago before 1080 was a thing (also before they changed difficulties to be what they are now)

love it  🙂   in no small part because of the chain knockback serving the greater good.  gogo Energy Blast!

 

5 hours ago, Abysmalyxia said:

.....

Amend these powers:

 

• Healing Aura: Toggle that heals those near the caster. Is improved by clear mind, recovery aura, and regeneration aura.
• Absorb Pain: When cast at a teammate the effect is normal. When cast at an enemy acts as a high mag confuse. Additionally your Healing Aura gains a minor absorbtion effect.
• Clear Mind: When you take this ability, in addition to receiving the standard Clear Mind ability you improve your Healing Aura. The Healing Aura toggle becomes a Toggle Bubble in the same vein as Force Field with the added functionality that it provides defense and resistance vs. Psionics, as well as it's current benefit against status effects. The Clear Mind effect is improved by Fortitude. Does not stack with itself.
• Fortitude: Stays the same numerically but is a toggle that targets the Empath. Additionally when you take this power the beneficiaries of your Clear Mind targeted ability receive the benefits of Fortitude as well.
• Recovery/Regeneration Auras: Their overall effectiveness will be reduced but they become auto powers. Simply standing near the Empath at any given time increases your recovery and regeration. Additionally adds a recovery/regeneration component to your Healing Aura toggle. This means that if you take these auras without taking healing Aura you will still recover and regenerate faster than normal but if you take all three your Regeneration and recovery would be the same as if you took all three in the game normally.

....

 

I'm not convinced the proposed changes are needed.  I certainly don't like the idea of the auras becoming permanent toggles.   I like being able to buff and then the team can go where they will, without needing to stay on a leash to benefit.  

 

Confuses ARE my absolute favorite effect in the game, bar none.  So you have my interest with the suggestion of a "when cast on enemy, act as a confuse" option.

but thematically, I would say that could be Clear Mind (to act as Cloud Mind on a foe...).  Although I suppose a confuse with that low of a cooldown would be wildly OP.

 

I admit though, I don't use Absorb Pain.  Died quite enough in the old days to it, have felt no desire to even have it on tap.  If someone gets in over their head THAT MUCH, well, Darwin can teach them what I could not. 

Edited May 7, 2020 by MTeague

[Linea]

Empath Solo +4x8 ITF:

 

 

Emp/Sonic Thread:

 

I've also posted offensive empath builds in various discords.

 

Any changes to empathy should  be additive or optional, but not change the base for those players that like it and use it as-is.   Primarily because I'd hate to see Green Machine builds broken.   Green Machines can wreak havoc even on SO only builds. 

 

Otherwise, just design a completely new set.  That's probably the better route to go.

 

[AerialAssault]

Rendering down an entire support set to a bunch of toggles sure sounds like fun.

[Abysmalyxia]

2 hours ago, Yoru-hime said:

That could almost be rewritten to say:

 

"Who needs your Primary to Solo?" I think I counted two uses of Empathy through the 2 minutes of that I watched before boredom kicked in. The rest was a weak Energy Blaster juggling an enemy with Knockback while very slowly pecking him to death. And that was pretty much the correct way for that character to play it. Given the level, Regen Aura wasn't available so there wasn't anything else in the Empathy toolbox that would have been of any use in that encounter.

 

There are other Solo Empath/? posts, guides and videos out there, but they all come back to the same idea of working with one powerset pretty much tied behind your back. I don't think that Empathy is so overpowered in teams that it needs to be that weak solo to compensate somehow. It's more an artifact of design decisions that date all the way back to beta, before anyone knew what playing CoH would really be like.

 

I'm not sure that I'm sold on the OP's specific methods for getting there (seem kinda convoluted), but the end goal of making Empathy more functional without a team seems very reasonable.

Perhaps I can simplify.

Healing Aura becomes a healing toggle with an area roughly the same size as Force Field's Bubble. When you take the powers Clear Mind, Regeneration Aura, and Recovery Aura their functionality is added to Healing Aura. In essence your Healing Aura clears the mind, adds a regeneration buff, and a recovery buff when you have it active for everyone in the area. You're Voltroning Healing Aura.

 

Absorb Pain confuses its target when you target a foe.

 

Clear Mind is the same as it ever was, but is improved with Fortitude.

 

Fortitude changes significantly. When you take Fortitude you now have a toggle that benefits the Empath. However, when you cast Clear Mind on a teammate they gain the benefit of Fortitude for the duration their minds are clear. This ensures the Empath doesn't lose one of its best buffs, but benefits from it as well and also reduces "buff spam" required of the Empath.

 

Recovery and Regen Auras become auto powers with lesser effect. This is to ensure those Empathy Defenders who didn't take Regen/Recovery for whatever reason still have the opportunity to benefit from the abilities.

 

So why am I tripping over myself to maintain the functionality that currently exists? Because the goal, as much as possible, is to maintain the "Cottage" element that I know people will bring up.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Quote

 

Castle's original post has been lost to forum purges[1], but the rule, in summary, is this:

An existing power will not have its core functionality and purpose changed, though its strength may be altered and effects secondary to the power's true purpose may be added or removed.

Note that while Castle's original post has been lost to forum purges, the text of that post has been saved in other threads[2]. According to the thread referenced above, the following is the relevant text from Castle's original post:

"Seriously, it *is* a good policy -- it provides structure within which to do things. Without structure, there's chaos. How would you like it if tomorrow you logged in and, say, Build Up now built a small cottage at your chosen location, instead of adding to your damage? It's a silly example, admittedly, but it's to prevent such wholesale changes from happening. I *could* overturn it, in specific cases, if it were truly needed, but in the case being discussed here, it is not truly needed. There are MANY options that have been discussed that do not involve changing the core use of the power."

 

And if we're being honest my idea does violate this in a few ways.

 

First, tying the auras together is done for one explicit purpose: Action Economy. People who play D&D (and lots of tabletop rpgs in general are often familiar with the term.

 

The Empath, at any given moment, can only be utilizing one active power at a time and in doing so they have to make a decision as to which power, of their available options, do they have the have the resources for, and will cause the impact most desirable.

 

This decision is why Empath Defenders are less likely to engage the battlefield than others. This isn't a situation other defenders powersets labor under.  Why? Because their powers, almost universally, are fire and forget. Force Fielders being a good example. Their bubbles go on and they forget about them for the next four minutes. With the changes made on Homecoming these bubbles go on everything within a wide radius and thus become even less intensive.

 

This means the FF Defender can then focus on attacking, creating damage, using any controls they have, etc.

 

The Empathy Defender, as a rule, has to watch health bars.

 

So, the changes to the auras, the combining of Fortitude and Clear mind into one. This is all done to give the Empath more time to *do* things other than click Heal Aura/Heal Other/Absorb Pain and then micromanage a series of single target buffs.

 

So why tie it all to the Healing Aura? Because it's the power virtually everyone who gets the Empathy powerset gets. The only ones who have the option to *not* get healing aura, to my knowledge are Empathy Defenders.

 

So, we create a Voltron power that continually improves as the Empath does and we do this to ensure the Empath is free to do more to the opposition than just stand there looking at health bars and waiting for buffs to fall off.

 

And if you think I'm being unfair in my assessment... Ask yourself which other support primary has *no* direct impact on the opposition? 

 

So... yeah, that's why I voltroned the Healing Aura.

 

 

 

[Abysmalyxia]

29 minutes ago, AerialAssault said:

Rendering down an entire support set to a bunch of toggles sure sounds like fun.

By "bunch of toggles" you mean precisely two?

[Abysmalyxia]

44 minutes ago, Linea said:

Empath Solo +4x8 ITF:

 

 

Emp/Sonic Thread:

 

I've also posted offensive empath builds in various discords.

 

Any changes to empathy should  be additive or optional, but not change the base for those players that like it and use it as-is.   Primarily because I'd hate to see Green Machine builds broken.   Green Machines can wreak havoc even on SO only builds. 

 

Otherwise, just design a completely new set.  That's probably the better route to go.

 

If your Empath build requires you to six slot *boxing* to get by... and this is the sort of thing you want to subject the average player to?

[AerialAssault]

1 minute ago, Abysmalyxia said:

By "bunch of toggles" you mean precisely two?

Yeah you're right, I also forgot to mention auto powers. (As an aside, putting Regen/Recovery Aura onto Healing Aura means an Empath character would have to stand uncomfortably close to melee characters who typically need those buffs the most. Healing Aura doesn't heal nearly fast enough to absorb any incoming AoE damage)

 

It's clear you put a lot of thought into this, and I wouldn't say no to it being trialled. That's what beta servers are for after all.

 

But to me at least it would make an already fairly uninspiring set to play even more dull. I agree with @Linea in that the proposed changes would probably be better off in a new support set.

[Abysmalyxia]

3 hours ago, Kismette said:

Here as well, this was recorder before the new rules.

 

I got this build from the forum... the one with 3000+ builds.  So I'm pretty sure there are better builds out there that aren't being shared.  Long story short, Empaths CAN solo.

 

Anyone *can* solo. You could solo using nothing but brawl on a controller. However, ask yourself this... which other powerset reduces its user to only 3 powers when solo? I can think of one. Thermal.... and thermal at least gets an attack from it.

[Psyonico]

Some Archetypes and power sets are more suited towards group play.

[Abysmalyxia]

5 minutes ago, AerialAssault said:

Yeah you're right, I also forgot to mention auto powers. (As an aside, putting Regen/Recovery Aura onto Healing Aura means an Empath character would have to stand uncomfortably close to melee characters who typically need those buffs the most. Healing Aura doesn't heal nearly fast enough to absorb any incoming AoE damage)

 

It's clear you put a lot of thought into this, and I wouldn't say no to it being trialled. That's what beta servers are for after all.

 

But to me at least it would make an already fairly uninspiring set to play even more dull. I agree with @Linea in that the proposed changes would probably be better off in a new support set.

The changes are done, in part, to free the Defender up to be more pro active with both their secondary (i.e. attacks) and to be able to do more than just put healing aura on auto and call it a day.

 

If this were tested out you'd have a lot of fun. You'd be a defender that would be quite tough, do bonus damage, resist many status effects and have a plethora of endurance and health. You'd feel robust.

[Abysmalyxia]

2 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

 

 

I remember when that was true. Because now every single powerset in the game is quite good at soloing. Except one. One gets the shaft. One is the absolute bottom of the barrel.

 

And in a time when Empathy was live or die you would maybe have a point but that's no longer the case and likely hasn't been so for a while.

[Psyonico]

2 minutes ago, Abysmalyxia said:

I remember when that was true. Because now every single powerset in the game is quite good at soloing. Except one. One gets the shaft. One is the absolute bottom of the barrel.

 

And in a time when Empathy was live or die you would maybe have a point but that's no longer the case and likely hasn't been so for a while.

Pain Domination

Sonic Resonance

Thermal Radiation

 

All three of these sets are mostly geared toward teaming, yes, they have offensive powers, but they are Team sets

 

Note: I didn't include Force Field because it only has 2 Ally-only powers.

[Razor Cure]

1 hour ago, Linea said:

Green Machines can wreak havoc even on SO only builds. 

Let's be honest. 'Havoc' on SOs? I'd LOVE to see an SO, non incarnate emp solo the itf. At +4.

 

[Kismette]

27 minutes ago, Abysmalyxia said:

Anyone *can* solo. You could solo using nothing but brawl on a controller. However, ask yourself this... which other powerset reduces its user to only 3 powers when solo? I can think of one. Thermal.... and thermal at least gets an attack from it.

Thermal? I thought this is about:

6 hours ago, Abysmalyxia said:

 ...part of empathy that people rarely pay attention to due to old ways of thinking: Soloing.

 

Everyone and every play set can solo to varying degrees. Every playset is now built with the expectation that people will both solo and team and do so at their leisure.

But not the empathy playset...

 

[Dahkness]

Empathy can solo. I main an Ill/emp and I’ve done it. 
 

id love to see an update! 
 

I would be okay if you just gave CM an Aoe buff. You did it to Speed boost! 

Edited May 8, 2020 by Hops

[Abysmalyxia]

28 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

Pain Domination

Sonic Resonance

Thermal Radiation

 

All three of these sets are mostly geared toward teaming, yes, they have offensive powers, but they are Team sets

 

Note: I didn't include Force Field because it only has 2 Ally-only powers.

Pain Domination solo benefits from four powers... all of them pretty nice. They get an AoE fortitude, a healing Aura style heal, a healing toggle, and a area of effect debuff. All of them very beneficial solo.

Sonic also benefits from 4 solo centric powers, including a very VERY nice bubble, debuffs, and controls.

Thermal Radiation needs a little bit of help, but not nearly as much as Empathy.

[Jacke]

On 5/7/2020 at 5:46 PM, Abysmalyxia said:

If your Empath build requires you to six slot *boxing* to get by... and this is the sort of thing you want to subject the average player to?

A non-melee toon build often 4, 5, or 6-slots Boxing because it took Fighting Pool and it uses the set bonuses of a melee IO set in its best melee power.  One of the many possible trade-offs of making a build.  You could just asked why.

 

Empathy should receive some changes.  However, changes like those proposed, in this case turning several click powers into toggles, tend to be too radical a redesign.  Similar cases in the past during the early issues of City are still remembered with pain, irritation, even a remnant of anger.  Changes should be more along the line of what was done to improve Stalkers, Blasters, and blast powersets in the later issues of Live, as well as the recent sniper power changes and those done to Dark Melee's Shadow Maul.  Improvements without a complete rewrite.

Edited May 9, 2020 by Jacke

[AerialAssault]

8 hours ago, Abysmalyxia said:

The changes are done, in part, to free the Defender up to be more pro active with both their secondary (i.e. attacks) and to be able to do more than just put healing aura on auto and call it a day.

 

If this were tested out you'd have a lot of fun. You'd be a defender that would be quite tough, do bonus damage, resist many status effects and have a plethora of endurance and health. You'd feel robust.

Please don't presume to understand what I do and do not find fun.

 

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Empathy is sacred, hallowed ground that cannot be disturbed. While I won't say that Empathy is a useless set, it's use has been obfuscated with the addition of sets like Time Manipulation and Nature Affinity, so I think it could use a little something to pick it up a bit. However, I don't believe a complete re-write is necessary, other people in other threads have suggested small but important changes.