Suggestion for changes to MM Empathy

[oversed]

Regeneration Aura; change to Defensive Aura. Defensive Aura increases regeneration by 200% for all nearby allies. Increases All Resistances by 10% for nearby Pets (only). Increases All Defense by 7.5% for nearby Pets (only). Reduce CD to 3min 30s.

 

Adrenaline Boost; add a small All Speed boost for 1m 30s and a 30s All Defense buff (something like 5~8%) to your pets on cast, keeping the rest the same.

 

I feel MM Empathy is missing something that all other MM secondaries have, and that's added survivability through buffs/debuffs/cc. All Empathy has is heals and some buffs that are only really useful for other players. Now, that's fine if you're a defender; you have no pets, you only have yourself and your teammates to rely on. MM's, however, rely on their pets first, teammates second.

 

Now, Empathy could be fine, but currently I have all the defense enhancements for MM's, I have 6 slotted Maneuvers, I have holds + immobilize from my Ancillary pool, but my pets are always cleaved to death instantly in any slightly challenging content. The only way I can give my pets more survivability at this point is to get Injection (which I plan on doing later today), however that's only a single-target debuff, it doesn't help when my pets get swarmed.

 

So I want to suggest these changes to make MM Empathy provide more for their pets, while still being the more 'group oriented' secondary it's currently designed as.

[eldriyth]

Regeneration Aura; change to Defensive Aura. Defensive Aura increases regeneration by 200% for all nearby allies. Increases All Resistances by 10% for nearby Pets (only). Increases All Defense by 7.5% for nearby Pets (only). Reduce CD to 3min 30s.

 

Adrenaline Boost; add a small All Speed boost for 1m 30s and a 30s All Defense buff (something like 5~8%) to your pets on cast, keeping the rest the same.

 

I feel MM Empathy is missing something that all other MM secondaries have, and that's added survivability through buffs/debuffs/cc. All Empathy has is heals and some buffs that are only really useful for other players. Now, that's fine if you're a defender; you have no pets, you only have yourself and your teammates to rely on. MM's, however, rely on their pets first, teammates second.

 

Now, Empathy could be fine, but currently I have all the defense enhancements for MM's, I have 6 slotted Maneuvers, I have holds + immobilize from my Ancillary pool, but my pets are always cleaved to death instantly in any slightly challenging content. The only way I can give my pets more survivability at this point is to get Injection (which I plan on doing later today), however that's only a single-target debuff, it doesn't help when my pets get swarmed.

 

So I want to suggest these changes to make MM Empathy provide more for their pets, while still being the more 'group oriented' secondary it's currently designed as.

 

 

It not completely and totally sucking would be a great start. 2 AoE heals, 1 is a strong regen but has a horrid CD. 2 powers are ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS and can't be used on your actual pets. (I mean come on my guy, a MM is a SELFISH class. It's meant for soloing.) The rest of the crap is single target and not great.  Empathy is the worst set in game, and unless you're into grouping with other players, skip it.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

It not completely and totally sucking would be a great start. 2 AoE heals, 1 is a strong regen but has a horrid CD. 2 powers are ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS and can't be used on your actual pets. (I mean come on my guy, a MM is a SELFISH class. It's meant for soloing.) The rest of the crap is single target and not great.  Empathy is the worst set in game, and unless you're into grouping with other players, skip it.

I like most of what the SCORE team has done but there are a few decisions I don't really agree with and doing full powerset proliferation is one of them. While powerset proliferation is generally a good thing there are several places where the original developers make a decision not to give a set to a particular AT for good reasons and this is one of them.

 

Empathy just isn't a great set for Masterminds. It's playable and decent enough on teams but at the end of day it's not really a great option. If you really want an MM Empath the best option is to stick with Pain Domination which was designed with MMs in mind.

[Primantis]

I like most of what the SCORE team has done but there are a few decisions I don't really agree with and doing full powerset proliferation is one of them. While powerset proliferation is generally a good thing there are several places where the original developers make a decision not to give a set to a particular AT for good reasons and this is one of them.

 

 

Makes me ponder why did this in the first place.

 

 

My guess is a few people on SCORE asked "Hey, can we get Empathy for Masterminds?"

 

Leo was like "Well it's not gonna be great, but sure why not. No harm done"

 

As really, whats the harm. Not every combo has to be meta breaking. Maybe some people really enjoy their Empathy Mastermind.

 

And with 2 Heals, the ability to Fort your T3 (and both T2s with enough recharge), + CM, I am sure it is at least playable. The T3 pets might have enough HP to make Adren Boost a nice HoT too, I dunno. (Recharge has no effect on pets right?)

[eldriyth]

I like most of what the SCORE team has done but there are a few decisions I don't really agree with and doing full powerset proliferation is one of them. While powerset proliferation is generally a good thing there are several places where the original developers make a decision not to give a set to a particular AT for good reasons and this is one of them.

 

 

Makes me ponder why did this in the first place.

 

 

My guess is a few people on SCORE asked "Hey, can we get Empathy for Masterminds?"

 

Leo was like "Well it's not gonna be great, but sure why not. No harm done"

 

As really, whats the harm. Not every combo has to be meta breaking. Maybe some people really enjoy their Empathy Mastermind.

 

And with 2 Heals, the ability to Fort your T3 (and both T2s with enough recharge), + CM, I am sure it is at least playable. The T3 pets might have enough HP to make Adren Boost a nice HoT too, I dunno. (Recharge has no effect on pets right?)

 

Empathy needs more pet friendly tweaks to be worth choosing at all. If the CD on the regen was lowered, and the 2 powers that are another player only got switched to something new that benefit pets, it would be decent but not great.

[Benchpresser]

I've been playing Empathy a bit these days, and have put some thought into it-

 

1) Cool Down on both Auras does need to be tweaked downward.  Not so much that it can be made permanent but what about changing recharge to 300 seconds rather than 500?

 

2) Fortitude- especially with Emp MMs, this really REALLY needs to be an AoE buff!

 

3) Absorb Pain-  Everyone knows this is bullcrap, just completely skippable.  What about changing it to an Absorb Version of Healing Aura?  Do a long timer but make it an AoE Absorb grant?

[Vanden]

1) Cool Down on both Auras does need to be tweaked downward.  Not so much that it can be made permanent but what about changing recharge to 300 seconds rather than 500?

 

A 300-second recharge would make them quite permable with a typical build focused on recharge.

[Xaeon]

It not completely and totally sucking would be a great start. 2 AoE heals, 1 is a strong regen but has a horrid CD. 2 powers are ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS and can't be used on your actual pets. (I mean come on my guy, a MM is a SELFISH class. It's meant for soloing.) The rest of the crap is single target and not great.  Empathy is the worst set in game, and unless you're into grouping with other players, skip it.

I like most of what the SCORE team has done but there are a few decisions I don't really agree with and doing full powerset proliferation is one of them. While powerset proliferation is generally a good thing there are several places where the original developers make a decision not to give a set to a particular AT for good reasons and this is one of them.

 

Empathy just isn't a great set for Masterminds. It's playable and decent enough on teams but at the end of day it's not really a great option. If you really want an MM Empath the best option is to stick with Pain Domination which was designed with MMs in mind.

Their proliferation is so inconsistent though.

 

Empathy for masterminds but no Energy Aura for tankers?  Clearly a conspiracy is at work!

[Trickshooter]

It not completely and totally sucking would be a great start. 2 AoE heals, 1 is a strong regen but has a horrid CD. 2 powers are ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS and can't be used on your actual pets. (I mean come on my guy, a MM is a SELFISH class. It's meant for soloing.) The rest of the crap is single target and not great.  Empathy is the worst set in game, and unless you're into grouping with other players, skip it.

I like most of what the SCORE team has done but there are a few decisions I don't really agree with and doing full powerset proliferation is one of them. While powerset proliferation is generally a good thing there are several places where the original developers make a decision not to give a set to a particular AT for good reasons and this is one of them.

 

Empathy just isn't a great set for Masterminds. It's playable and decent enough on teams but at the end of day it's not really a great option. If you really want an MM Empath the best option is to stick with Pain Domination which was designed with MMs in mind.

Their proliferation is so inconsistent though.

 

Empathy for masterminds but no Energy Aura for tankers?  Clearly a conspiracy is at work!

 

Energy Aura needs some work in the opposite direction. If Tankers were just given the Scrapper/Brute version as is, but bumped up with Tanker mods, it could soft-cap all damage types except Negative (but very close) and Psionic with just SOs. And that's on top of moderate resistances, a heal, +recharge and +endurance.