Empathy vs other secondaries, Darkness team stealth

[malleable1]

So I initially thought Empathy was a lock for my group of MMs, as I ALWAYS want resurrection on all my guys.  As long as one guy is standing I can bring back the rest.  I was under the assumption that Empathy was the resurrecting power - but now that I know Dark, Nature, Radiation, Thermal Radiation, and Poison have resurrect as well I am open to these secondaries.

 

So I tend to prefer buffing over debuffs, and the Empathy description says that while it doesn't have any offensive powers its buffs are more powerful than other secondaries (or words to that effect).  Are Empathy's buffs better than other secondaries?

I'm not completely sure how healing works, but I don't expect to cast targeted heals - I have trouble managing pet health and prefer to just cast PBAE/team heals, so buffs are really what I care about in Empathy besides the first PBAE heal.

 

And my second question is about Darkness toggle group stealth.  In other games having stealth has always been a blast.  Moving through trash content and avoiding fights was always great.  In this game it seems most of the missions have you clearing out places, so avoiding trash mobs doesn't seem possible in most cases. 

If stealth is important, does stacking the Concealment stealth with Darkness stealth work better?  Is there a need to stack stealth to make it effective?  I'd hate to take a secondary for group stealth only to find out that its doesn't provide enough stealth to be effective.  If I have to take both concealment and darkness for stealth to make it always work, I'm cool with that, but kinda want to know before going down that path. 

 

What are your thoughts on Empathy versus the other secondaries?

What about Darkness and stealth and Concealment and their usefulness for MM in COH?

 

Thanks very much for your comments,

Mal

[Arbegla]

Sadly, last I checked, Shadow Fall and Stealth don't actually stack. I could be mistaken, but because Shadow Fall's main 'thing' is stealth, and Stealth's main thing is obviously stealth, they don't stack their effectiveness, it just takes the greater of the values (In this case, it would be Stealth, especially with the new changes that were done to it)

 

Now Stealthing as a tactic, it very useful in general, but specific to MMs, its not so useful. Pets have remarkably dumb AI, so if you're trying to stealth while having them out, you're going to have a really hard time. Having said that, it is possible to do, and I do it on my own Mastermind, just using Superspeed (which has Stealth, but not as a 'main thing') but not every mission has the ability to stealth. A large portion of them are clear all missions, and stealth can make those annoying, as mobs won't notice you, and therefore will be harder to track down.

 

As for Empathy as a buff set, it is one of the best ones. If I remember correctly, 5 out of 9 of its powers are buffs (Fortitude, Recovery Aura, Regeneration Aura, Adrenaline Boost, and Clear Mind) and 3 of them are heals (Healing Aura, your typical PBAoE heal, Heal other, and Absorb Pain) and the last power is a Rez. Unfortunately Empathy probably has the worst rez in the game, as all it does is bring you back to life. All the other sets with a rez either have a neat effect (Dark is a MASSIVE debuff, and an AoE rez..) or grant some kind of temporary power to the person you're rezzing (Thermal is basically Rise of the Phoenix, so you can use it as a 'nuke' of sorts, Rad and poison give a boost to the person you're rezzing, and Nature can be used on living or dead allies, doing slightly different things depending on the status of the target)

 

Now, If you just want a 'fire and forget' powerset, Empathy sadly isn't it. Keeping Fortitude up on your pets (or your allies) can be taxing, I think at max recharge you can keep it on 5 people, but you have to be quick about it. The RAs (Regeneration and Recovery Auras) are amazing, but can not be perma'ed, so they are more of a 'This big bad is coming up, lets make sure we're going to be fine' and AB (Adrenaline Boost) basically grants 1 Ally all of the good things about /Regen, plus a nice +rech boost. Its very click intensive, but also very powerful. If you're looking for something that is more 'fire and forget' I would roll a /traps, /nature, /dark, or /rad instead. I know /traps doesn't have a rez power, but you can easily get one either via the Medicine power pool, or from various temp powers (even a day job gives you an ally rez) and the powers in /traps are very easy to just set and forget.

[Hedgefund]

Though I was no fan of playing Empathy on live, I was enthused to try it on an MM, because I had always thought it would be very good for MMs.

 

And sure, it is buuuuut....  your attention cannot waver at all.  Once Fort is up it needs to be cast.  Once all the minions are buffed you have to remember who to cast Fort on next since they'll all have the buff icon.  Being content with AB on 1 minion (Bruiser for me) and Fort on the other 5 helps the frenetic pace a little bit, but there's still the question "who gets the buff?" once you get rolling.

 

Now, I made a Thugs/Emp when HC opened.  That's a good pairing and I haven't tried other minions (yet).

 

That makes Empathy, when very attentively played, a strong MM soloer.  Once you're on a team and buff your teammates, then the minions are rather exposed, with really only your heals and occasionally Regen aura to help them survive.  That makes MMs paradoxical to the conventional wisdom for Empathy, which has been "great for teams, terrible solo" since the opposite is true for MMs.

 

To your specific question "Are Empathy's buffs better than other secondaries?"  I say no.  Not even close, except for small teams.  Newer buff sets like Nature, Time and Elec Affinity have surpassed Emp for buffs by a lot.  That said, the Emp that gives me Fort + AB (+CM if I'm squishy) is my favorite teammate.

 

To your next question set - though Stealth doesn't stack with Shadow Fall, a Stealth IO does as well as Super speed.  Not sure if Infiltration stacks with SF.  With recent changes to MM minion cast times, it's less cumbersome to stealth to objective then summon than it used to be.  So with Shadow Fall you can use SS to get to objective undetected or toggle on Sprint (whatever variety you may be using) slotted with a stealth IO to do the same.  Using Shadow Fall to move minions undetected in a mission will not worth though, unless you take Grant Invis and cast it on each minion individually.  You'd be much better off dismissing then resummoning.

 

[malleable1]

I swear, these forums are by far the best of any MMORPG for helpful replies.  You guys are great.

I kind of decided to go with Radiation Emmission.  I want to maximize my AoE damage, buffs and debuffs - and realize there is no way I could keep up with single target buffing all my robots. Radiation easily has the most AoE powers, and the early team buff looks nice.  If I need stealth I'll just go with the concealment power pool at some point in the future.

 

Thanks,

Mal

[Arbegla]

1 hour ago, malleable1 said:

I swear, these forums are by far the best of any MMORPG for helpful replies.  You guys are great.

I kind of decided to go with Radiation Emmission.  I want to maximize my AoE damage, buffs and debuffs - and realize there is no way I could keep up with single target buffing all my robots. Radiation easily has the most AoE powers, and the early team buff looks nice.  If I need stealth I'll just go with the concealment power pool at some point in the future.

 

Thanks,

Mal

 

If you didn't wanna keep your super team to pure MMs, I would recommend running a Illusion/Force Field Controller with your team.

Group Invis will affect everyone, its easily perma-able and gives the highest stealth value you can get for a team. Illusion also has a lot of 'fire and forget' powers in the Spectral Terror and Phantom Army. Plus, /Force Field has your mez protection in Dispersion Bubble. The shields are also AoE now, and last around 4 minutes or so but with all the stacking PBAoE toggles, you shouldn't really need them, especially if you stack Leadership.

[MTeague]

12 hours ago, malleable1 said:

So I initially thought Empathy was a lock for my group of MMs, as I ALWAYS want resurrection on all my guys.  As long as one guy is standing I can bring back the rest.  I was under the assumption that Empathy was the resurrecting power - but now that I know Dark, Nature, Radiation, Thermal Radiation, and Poison have resurrect as well I am open to these secondaries.

 

Keep in mind, Mastermind Henchmen cannot be ressurected, period.

 

You can resummon them. And the re-summoning time is actually very small now. 

But your MM pets are never a valid target for Ressurect, or Vengeance, or Fallout, or any other power that you can use on a fallen player-controlled ally. 

 

That said, Empathy can work quite well as a secondary. 

• At low levels, I find it works best Tankerminding.  Keep your pets in Bodyguard Mode, charge right in and take aggro yourself.  Incoming damage will be distributed among you and your pets, and they'll all be in range for heal auras. 
• At mid-levels and up, Fortitude makes it very tempting to have your pets be your full time tank.  and will a well-slotted Fort, those pets you buff will be able to do so. But keep in mind you're not really going to be able to Fort all of your pets. Most likely mid-game, your Forts will go to your T2 pets when soloing. And the T1's will just... need some care. 

That said, it'll get the job done.  Will you be solo farming +4x8?  Maybe not. But if it's a playstyle you enjoy, it don't matter. 

 

And even if some people hold a worldview off "everyone should be softcapped to everything, all the time!" the reality is that's often not the case, and I don't know of any team that's ever said "God damn it not another Empath".... So Long As, you use your Whole Toolkit, both Primary and Secondary.  Someone who AFK-Follows while Autocasting Healing Aura, I have no use for. But an Empath who also uses their buffs, and either pets or blasts or controls (depending on AT), is always welcome on any team of mine.

 

[malleable1]

Thanks MTeague,

I went with Radiation, and am super happy with how its going.  I took Accelerate Metabolism at 6th, and its fantastic.  I wanted +Recharge, and I know my spells were coming off timers REALLY fast.  Granted I have x4 MM all casting AM at the same time, but I was getting bored with waiting for spells to refresh and that is gone now.  I also opened up a couple more slots in AM and put in +Recharge in the AM so I can keep it up most the time.

So now I just need to figure out how to farm enhancements or influence to keep my slots up.

 

Mal

[Arbegla]

On 4/29/2021 at 6:10 PM, malleable1 said:

Thanks MTeague,

I went with Radiation, and am super happy with how its going.  I took Accelerate Metabolism at 6th, and its fantastic.  I wanted +Recharge, and I know my spells were coming off timers REALLY fast.  Granted I have x4 MM all casting AM at the same time, but I was getting bored with waiting for spells to refresh and that is gone now.  I also opened up a couple more slots in AM and put in +Recharge in the AM so I can keep it up most the time.

So now I just need to figure out how to farm enhancements or influence to keep my slots up.

 

Mal

 

If you want to swap secondaries, /Kinetics is a good secondary that will boost your recharge. Just having 1 kinetics, and 3 /Radiation would make your recharge really nice.