What's the "Best" Secondary for an Empath?

[Peacemoon]

My Emp is Psychic Blast purely for his theme. It’s not a bad set either, with a lot of -recharge and a decent attack chain of telekinetic blast, will domination and dominate (psychic mastery APP).

Psychic scream has a wide arc and a huge debuff, and procs nicely. 
 

Weaken resolve with an Achilles heel proc is a nice extra too. 
 

I have a Thugs/Empathy MM I’m playing and at the moment I’m torn. The Defender is better in teams, but the MM is more fun solo as you can make good use of your powers on your pets. Whereas an Emp Defender solo doesn’t get much benefit from their primary at all. 

Edited November 12, 2021 by Peacemoon

[Ceejer]

Solo, emp/nrg, you'll be surprised how many targets don't have kb protection. 

 

Teamed, emp/fire or emp/rad. 

 

RO, at least 2 more emp/*. Take turns with the AoE buff and single target buff the teammate below you. Then you can take any /* you want.

 

https://www.repeat-offenders.net

[Doomguide2005]

On 11/11/2021 at 10:08 PM, Ceejer said:

Solo, emp/nrg, you'll be surprised how many targets don't have kb protection. 

 

Teamed, emp/fire or emp/rad. 

 

RO, at least 2 more emp/*. Take turns with the AoE buff and single target buff the teammate below you. Then you can take any /* you want.

 

https://www.repeat-offenders.net

     To add to this at high recharge you can put Fortitude down on at least 3 or 4 targets (including your Emp partner) without much effort and when those are other Emps you'll rapidly be sitting well over the I-cap for defense which is very useful for hard content like the 801 series (plenty of buffer against to foe hit buffs and defdebuffs).  Emps in groups of 4+ are extremely hard to defeat --> defenses at 60+ (each Emp is +22% or slightly more defense to all), hard capped regen (2000%), capped or near capped damage, stoopid amounts of recovery, and massive recharge with strong recharge debuff resistances

 

PS And a lot of that is without IOs.

Edited November 14, 2021 by Doomguide2005

[oedipus_tex]

If you're interested in playing a strong support character you could also consider rolling Empathy as a Controller. Dark Control/Empathy and Plant Control/Empathy for example are good pairings. Illusion Control/Empathy is possibly one of the most pure builds you could make, setting the pets free to do their thing without needing any supervision while you patch the team.

 

A bonus of going Controller is you can get perma mezz protection for yourself (via the power Indomitable Will) that Defender/Corr/Mastermind can only get through Destiny incarnate powers. It's not strictly necessary, but is very helpful if this is your calling.

Edited November 14, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[Doomguide2005]

     Personally I wouldn't in general do Empathy on a Controller.  My second ever Empath and first? (perhaps second) to 50 was an Earth/Empathy Controller.  He was lots of fun but he also made me of the belief that Empathy was not typically a good secondary choice for a Controller.  Empathy is a very busy set and my attention especially in a chaotic hard fight is focused strongly on my teammates and the team window firing buffs.  I've gone entire fights barely looking at the actual fight as I'm busy throwing buffs and reacting to the health bars.  Meanwhile my Controller side is (or more accurately wanting to) do the exact opposite.  I'm focused on the battlefield and my foes.  Where to drop my patches, which foe needs to be mezzed now! or is otherwise demanding attention.  I could go entire fights without ever really looking at my team window.  See an issue there?  I always feel I'm neglecting one set for the other and this gets worse the more tough and hectic the fight gets.

     Now note I said typically.  Illusion far more than other Controller sets is very Fire and Forget.  It's much more forgiving if I decide to drop PA and Phanty then if needed focus on being an Empath and neglect the Illusion side as the situation warrants.  At least that's what my head tells me.  I've run several Illusion to 50 but never paired with Empathy.  So if I were to do another Controller Empath it would almost certainly be an Illusion Controller.

[UltraAlt]

On 11/1/2021 at 9:26 PM, 00Troy00 said:

the moat badass

 

what is your definition of "the moat badass"?

 

I'm a character conception player, so I'm not sure what you are going for. Doing the most damage? Debuffing? fun?

[00Troy00]

I would say "the most useful to a team," since that's what I envision his role to be.

[Peacemoon]

6 hours ago, 00Troy00 said:

I would say "the most useful to a team," since that's what I envision his role to be.

Well I like Defenders who can hold their own and play aggressively.

Others like to focus on the debuffs their blasts can bring.

Some like to be passive too.

So it depends what you want your focus to be.

Personally I fall into the first category, so I focus on my damage, as a dead enemy is one who won’t be doing anything, and I feel

my Empathy and Leadership skills already bring enough support.

[Without_Pause]

I only did a couple Emps and none to 50, but the best feeling one was Ill/emp. It has built in invis and a Confuse so it will generate a low amount of aggro and both sets are fueled by recharge. Sonic is one of the few secondaries on a Defender which to me felt impactful. A couple blasts and you can see a target start taking a bit more damage. Dark is obviously good with its debuffs as well and has solid AoE. 

[Psylenz0511]

I answered this before in another empath post. For maximum fortitude, regen aura, recovery aura, and adrenaline boost, you require maximum recharge. To do this I suggest a high recharge build with hasten, with IO set bonuses, and with Force feedback +recharge proc. To get all of the aforementioned you need Empath/ENERGY blast set. You will be able to decide which of the abilities you use most often to use the Force feedback procs. Your team will also want you to tone down the knockback with KB > KD procs as well. Leaving some of the KB in select abilities gives you the ability to push single targets back in to the kill zone/mosh pit. Torrent and explosive blast especially deserve the KB > KD proc to keep the peace with your  team.

 

To summarize regarding Empath/energy blast:

 

1. Maximum recharge

2. Good secondary damage

3. Knock down is a great damage mitigation

 

 

[Peacemoon]

7 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

I only did a couple Emps and none to 50, but the best feeling one was Ill/emp. It has built in invis and a Confuse so it will generate a low amount of aggro and both sets are fueled by recharge. Sonic is one of the few secondaries on a Defender which to me felt impactful. A couple blasts and you can see a target start taking a bit more damage. Dark is obviously good with its debuffs as well and has solid AoE. 

Sonic is good at debuffing but from what I hear you are really doubling down on the whole ‘amplifying other people’, as your personal dmg is quite low.

[Peacemoon]

5 hours ago, Psylenz0511 said:

I answered this before in another empath post. For maximum fortitude, regen aura, recovery aura, and adrenaline boost, you require maximum recharge. To do this I suggest a high recharge build with hasten, with IO set bonuses, and with Force feedback +recharge proc. To get all of the aforementioned you need Empath/ENERGY blast set. You will be able to decide which of the abilities you use most often to use the Force feedback procs. Your team will also want you to tone down the knockback with KB > KD procs as well. Leaving some of the KB in select abilities gives you the ability to push single targets back in to the kill zone/mosh pit. Torrent and explosive blast especially deserve the KB > KD proc to keep the peace with your  team.

 

To summarize regarding Empath/energy blast:

 

1. Maximum recharge

2. Good secondary damage

3. Knock down is a great damage mitigation

 

 

This is good advice I think. And I would agree energy torrent and explosive blast both benefit from KB -> KD. I wouldn’t bother for single target personally, they can just lump it.

[Without_Pause]

2 hours ago, Peacemoon said:

Sonic is good at debuffing but from what I hear you are really doubling down on the whole ‘amplifying other people’, as your personal dmg is quite low.

Not really. I had a Rad/sonic which soloed on live quite well.

[Doomguide2005]

     Very high recharge is definitely what to shoot for in an Empath built to team and while /Nrg (or Water) can readily slot for FF I can reach 275%+ recharge on pretty much any Empath build pre-Incarnate.  More will help but you are getting into the realm of only trimming a few seconds more off your Auras.  Post Spiritual I'm often looking at sub 120 sec Auras and sub 40 sec Nukes.  

     Having said that it would be interesting to see what sort of average recharge boost I'd see from a bunch of FF procs in a build.  Haven't been able to be in game and try it out.  If you can manage anywhere near constant 100% recharge then ... well then you might be looking at Auras with ~20 sec downtime or less (and 10 sec is at the recharge cap) or about where a GM team of 3+ should be sitting these days.

 

     And a Rad/Sonic should be a nasty solo build offensively (among defenders)  They can boost recharge and damage on top of what /Sonic already does (AM and EF).  +30% solo, +18% Assault, +25% Accelerate Metabolism and then drop an additional -30% resistance debuff before Sonic Attack blasts start in.  It's why Rad/Sonic make such good AV, hard target solo character nevermind teamed up.

[Peacemoon]

It would be really difficult to get a 100% uptime of the FF recharge proc. The best method I’ve had is to slot it into psychic tornado and it has a chance to proc of each enemy hit, so invariably it always goes off against a big group. 
 

In telekinetic blast though it is quite a low chance I find. Low enough to consider unslotting it.