The Definitive Empathy Rework: it's time to fix this bad powerset

[Shin Magmus]

A foreword from the author...

 

     This is an update to my original thread on long-overdue Empathy buffs and reworks, but now with the added context of Marine Affinity being released on Live.  Hi there, I'm the Mr. Shin who likes Defenders and Corruptors.  You may have noticed me mention that Empathy is the worst Support powerset in the game once or twice.  Well... that's because Empathy is objectively the worst option right now and the situation keeps getting worse; The HC Powers Devs have buffed and/or reworked pretty much every Support powerset in the game by now, even adding nifty buffs to outlier powers (Liquify in Sonic Resonance); these changes are greatly appreciated.  The Devs have also added 2 new very strong new Support Options in Elec Affinity and Marine Affinity: with these sets being useful benchmarks for the maximum strength that they believe Support ATs should have.  An unfortunate side-effect is that these sets absolutely dumpster Empathy by comparison.  Empathy hasn't been buffed once, ever, and it's genuinely incompetent sad that Empathy languishes like it does.  This problem is exacerbated by the high popularity of Empathy but the low skill level and intelligence of the average Empath.

 

     For some history, my first lv50 on Live was an Empathy/Dark Defender.  I am intricately familiar with playing the set both before and after power creep, and with playing its near identical analogues: first in Thermal and later when Pain Domination was added.  I vividly recall when Pain Domination first came out on Live; We noticed very clearly the changes to the set to bring it more in line with playing more smoothly with MMs, pets in general, and League mechanics.  I also noticed the overt detail that no fewer than 3 of Pain Domination's powers are simply upgrades from their Empathy companion powers: this will be discussed in detail.  These 3 powers offer incentives to pick Pain Domination over Empathy in an extremely literal way.  A bigger issue is that Empathy was partially outclassed even in the oldest versions of the game, because it has bizarre weaknesses like a +Recovery power that doesn't grant a single other benefit for when your teammates do not need assistance managing their Endurance.  It's a stark contrast from buffs like Speed Boost and Accelerate Metabolism, which provide +Recharge and have retained their meta relevance for 20 years.  All I want is for Empathy to be relevant again, instead of the bad joke that it currently is.

 

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Fixed Empathy 2.0

By: Shin_Rekkoha (Shin Magmus)

(Numerical values listed below will be using Defender as the base AT.  Reduce power values by known scalar ratios for Corrs / Controllers / MMs)

 

T1 - Healing Aura / T2 - Heal Other

     While these powers are ruthlessly boring, they have direct parity with the heals in Pain and Thermal: which seems to be the intended baseline for such powers.  I dislike the long animation time commitment using your PbAoE Heal in all 3 of these sets, but this is a bigger issue when bad players put their Healing Aura on auto-cast: because it prevents them from being able to reactively click other powers.  No changes are warranted here, but a small animation time reduction to Healing Aura, Soothe, Warmth, and Radiant Aura would probably be good for the game.

*No Changes -or- minor animation time reduction for Healing Aura + clones*

*Inspired Healing Aura and Inspired Heal Other added...*

 

T3 - Absorb Pain

     Here's our first directly inferior power.  Absorb Pain debuffs the user in exchange for the massive heal, but it doesn't give them any real incentive to use this power over Heal Other most of the time.  Pain got around this by making Absorb Pain buff the user's damage, which is a useful buff for focusing on your work.  As Empathy is more defensively-themed, I think Absorb Pain giving Resistance is entirely on-brand.  This buff not only makes the power more safe to use, incentivizing the player to go for it, but it diversifies what IOs can be slotted into the power.

*Add Resistance on self after use / allow slotting Resist Damage sets*

*+22.5% Damage Resistance (All) on self (unresistable) for 15s*

*Inspired Absorb Pain added...*

 

T4 - Resurrect

     Here's our second directly inferior power.  With the same 3 minute CD as Conduit of Pain but no buffs or secondary effects to the target or to yourself: Resurrect is the absolute worst "Rez" in the game.  An incredibly simple fix is simply for this power to buff the target, using templates from other "Rez" powers.  Conduit of Pain, Mutation, and Elixer of Life all give a very strong buff for a duration, followed by a weaker debuff for half that duration.  This double-edged buff/debuff theme does fit those powers, but for an Empath's kind heart I don't think debuffing our teammates is thematic.  Instead, I propose the buff granted be weaker as balance for not having a "crash" or debuff.  Resurrect should give the target +12.5% Defense (All but Psy) and 15% Res (All) for 60s.

*Add Defense and Resistance on revived target after use / allow slotting Defense and Resist Damage sets*

*+12.5% Def (All but Psy), +15% Damage Resistance (All) on resurrected target (unresistable) for 60s*

 

T5 - Clear Mind

     Here's our third directly inferior power.  I am aware that people dislike most single target Mez protection clicks and wish they were AoEs, but that's never going to happen.  Clear Mind is identical to Clarity, but both are weaker than Pain's Enforced Morale which gives a minor +Recharge as well.  The bigger issue is how much worse these powers are than Antidote and Thaw, which provide Damage Resistance on top of valuable debuff resistance (to slows) in exchange for not granting +Perception.  I've always thought there was a middle ground here, and that ground was giving both Clear Mind and Clarion minor Resistance to Psy damage; It makes complete sense thematically, matches the power names, and it partially patches a current damage type hole in both Empathy and Sonic Resonance.  Additionally, Clear Mind, Enforced Morale, and Clarity are regarded as Dead Powers in your build because they can slot nothing useful for the effect of the powers nor mule unique IO's for your build; Most people simply throw in a Recharge IO which barely makes any difference.  Allowing the player to mule an incredibly useful Resist Damage Unique IO in these powers is simply giving them parity with Poison and Thermal Radiation.

*Add Resistance on target after use / allow slotting Resist Damage sets*

*+10% Damage Resistance (Psy) on target (unresistable) for 90s, effect does not stack with multiple applications like Mez Protection*

 

T6 - Fortitude

     The issue with Fortitude is that it is balanced around players being intelligent and very active.  The numbers on this power fall apart when the Empathy player is dumb and inactive: which is a staggeringly common occurrence.  The average Empath on your team will barely manage to keep Fortitude on one person instead of the theoretical potential of the entire team, if they even use the power at all; this is not an exaggeration, it's the reality of how terrible Empaths play.  Even the best player in the world won't be able to reasonably extend Fortitude's benefits to the legion of extra entities from MMs, Controllers, Lore Pets, etc.  The Live Devs and the HC Powers Devs both understood that AoE buffs mesh better with teamplay and leagueplay in the way that CoH has evolved, and it's long past due for Fortitude to be made an AoE.  Changing the way that this power works will buff it more at the low end of skill and less at the high end of skill, but it will be a large buff regardless.  There are 2 viable ways to rework Fortitude: AoE click buff or AoE ally-anchored toggle.  If Fortitude becomes an AoE click buff, it will have to get numbers reductions across the board to have parity with World of Pain and Foresight, especially because a long duration AoE click buff will benefit massively from full-duration interaction with Power Boost.  Alternatively, if it becomes an AoE ally-anchored toggle it can retain its current numbers and work like an inverse version of Disruption Field, which will only receive brief windows of increased strength from Power Boost.  Marine Affinity has shown that the Devs are okay with strong buffing ally-anchored toggles and set the precedent for this change.

*Change power to an PbAoE, either a click buff or an ally-anchored toggle*

*Click Version: 25 ft Radius (affects user), 255 targets, 15.60 End Cost, 120s duration, 240s CD, +25.00% Dmg, +12.50% To Hit, +10.00% Def*

*Toggle Version: requires ally to cast (pets okay), 25ft Radius (can affect user), 255 targets, 0.52 End/Sec, 8s CD, +31.25% Dmg, +18.75% To Hit, +15.00% Def*

 

T7 - Revitalizing Aura (Recovery Aura + Regeneration Aura)

     It's best to lead with this: a pure Recovery buff is worthless on many teammates whose builds do not require help managing endurance.  All good Recovery buffs in this game have useful secondary effects, usually +Recharge, to provide any benefit at all in these situations.  Recovery Aura and Regeneration Aura also dubiously cannot be made permanent in a game where support sets have completely defined themselves by achieving "perma" buffs such as Overgrowth and Chrono Shift.  So what we've got here is a power that is situationally useless... with the audacity to also have forced downtime.  The current power Recovery Aura is a joke power, while Regeneration Aura is simply a decent power.  This is completely sound justification to merge Recovery Aura and Regeneration Aura as part of the Empathy rework: it's just good game design.  The new power needs a name and I think "Revitalizing Aura" fits the bill nicely, we're not done yet though...  Increasing the duration is interesting but Overgrowth lasts for only 60s and Chrono Shift for 90s, and Revitalizing Aura is very similar in scope to those powers.  Leaving it at 90s duration "feels right", so that leaves lowering the CD.  A reduction from 500s to 360s is reasonable for uptime that is nearly permanent, and with outside sources of +Recharge could be permanent.  Now all that's left is strength adjustment.  Recovery +200% -> +100%, Regen +500% -> +250%, now grants debuff resistance complementing the buffs: 64.88% resistance to -Regen/-Recovery/-End at lv50.  This new power still provides incredibly potent buffs, but now it also insulates the team against debuffs making it more consistent overall at countering enemy groups such as Freakshow and Praetorian Clockwork.

*Regeneration Aura and Recovery Aura combined / Power renamed to Revitalizing Aura / buff effects decreased, cooldown decreased, added debuff resistance to -Regen and -Recovery*

*PbAoE buff (affects user), 25 ft Radius, 255 targets, 26.00 End Cost, 90s duration, 360s CD, +100% Recovery (unresistable), +250% Regeneration (unresistable),+64.88% Resistance to -Regeneration, -Recovery, and -Endurance (ignores buffs and enhancements, unresistable, scales with player level)*

 

T8 - Healing Hands (Empathy gets a NEW POWER)

     There's no getting around the obvious answer here: Empathy needs a new power and this power needs to increase damage in a way beyond the easily cap-able +Damage buff stat; The 2 options are -Damage Resistance debuffs and +Damage procs (additional instances of damage).  We also have the precedent set by Marine Affinity's Shifting Tides, so the Devs are fine with Support powersets being able to add damage procs.  This is the only way for the powerset to remain relevant on teams at all when the players aren't struggling, by providing offensive merit for when teams don't need Empathy for its defensive merit.  The theme of Empathy is that it has 0 powers which directly affect enemies, and that gave me an idea.  I've combined aspects of several powers to come up with a genius solution to this problem, creating a brand-new idea for a power that every Empathy player will love: Healing Hands!!!  This power is a buff you cast on yourself that has 2 effects.  First, it increases your Healing strength allowing you to puke out larger green numbers.  Second, it changes the effects of Healing Aura, Heal Other, and Absorb Pain, via the redirect ability to call different versions of those powers in the same way that Titan Weapons works; You can think of this mechanically as "Momentum but for Empathy".  The absolute brilliance of this implementation means that it rewards Empathy players (and their teammates) for the Empath hitting everyone on the team with Healing Aura: but it is a long enough duration affect that it also doesn't further reward or encourage needless Heal spamming, allowing plenty of time to use attacks and other powers.

*Added new power "Healing Hands", self buff, +strength to Healing, redirect to "Inspired" Healing powers, grant affected targets +Psy Dmg procs*

*Description: "You focus your heart and mind, strengthening all of your Healing powers to restore additional Hit Points.  These powers inspire you and your allies to defeat your foes, causing all damaging powers to inflict additional Psionic damage.  The bonus damage effect lasts for a brief time, but can be extended by Healing targets again."

*Primary Effect: Self Buff, 90s duration, 360s CD, +25% Strength to Healing (unresistable), redirect Healing powers to "Inspired" versions of Healing powers.

*Child Effect: Healing Aura, Heal Other, and Absorb Pain now buff all affected targets for 30s (Healing Aura also buffs the user), 100% chance of dealing bonus Psy Dmg procs on all attacks, does not stack from same caster (Healing again will refresh the duration of the buff, allowing it to last up to 30s after Healing Hands wears off), damage expression is similar to Brimstone Armor (check City of Data for details) but understandably much lower for balance reasons*

 

T9 - Adrenaline Boost

     This power is pretty cracked for what it does honestly, just like Painbringer.  When enhanced for Heal(Regen), this buff can make a decent build completely un-killable and put them into a hands-off safety state for 90s.  I appreciate that it contains massive resistance to Slow/-Recharge as well, as that fits the theme and helps shield your chosen ally from dangerous debuffs.  I see no reason to change this.  However, if I was going to add anything, it would be that Painbringer and Adrenaline Boost should be the only powers in the game that give the target a small amount of "Bloom" like Nature does, enabling everyone to heal the targets more during the effect and partially counteracting -Heal debuffs.

*Add -20% Resistance to Healing on target for 90s*

 

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     That's that, the Definitive, much-needed, and well-reasoned list of changes for a long overdue Empathy buff and rework.  Thanks to the HC Powers Devs for finishing up Marine Affinity and officially releasing it; Now we have a template against which we can measure Empathy's performance and dial in how much it needs to be buffed.  My suggested changes to Empathy will result in a significantly improved experience for Empaths and their teammates, at both low skill level and high skill level minmaxed builds.  Bopper and Captain Powerhouse, you can feel free to use my Healing Hands idea since it's better than anything you'd come up with.  I'm very interested in any and all feedback.

 

 

[Laucianna]

I'm not an empathy main by any means (Did used to play one) so I am not that experienced but aside from the very humble comments 😄 I do think this sounds like a great buff to an underperforming set whilst still maintaining the ultimate healing vibe, the only thing I am not sure on is the proc on healing hands as that is damage but having it add extra effects to the other powers whilst increasing the healing is a great idea! It also gives Empathy players that recharge goal to achieve perma healing godhood which is always a great milestone to get on a character ❤️

[Shin Magmus]

Aw... thank you.

[Bo7a]

All of these changes make perfect sense. Great write-up.

I love the healing hands idea. If these changes were even 80% implemented I think I'd roll an empath for the first time ever.

 

[golstat2003]

I think it’s okay. The devs may tweak a few things if they go this route. And yeah agreed AOE anti mez is not something I see them doing for empathy ever. lol

[FupDup]

I'm still weary of adding more offense to Empathy for thematic reasons (I understand the metagame reasons but I think that meta is dogshit and don't want to further reinforce/stagnate it), but at least this psi proc version is more creative and unique than your previous -res idea. I don't entirely hate it. 

Edited 20 hours ago by FupDup

[Shin Magmus]

38 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

I think it’s okay. The devs may tweak a few things if they go this route. And yeah agreed AOE anti mez is not something I see them doing for empathy ever. lol

     The long-lasting mez protection clicks are basically on a soft banlist from becoming AoE (even Increase Density as it is now) because they allow all the squishy ATs to essentially not have any weakness (before lv50 and Clarion).  All current sources of AoE mez protection are field effects, and you lose the buff if you step outside of it, almost instantly in fact.  The Clear Mind clones all last 90s and that being AoE is just forever off the table.

[Auroxis]

First i'll say that I wouldn't be upset if these were the changes, so kudos for that. I like that your changes address my least favorite parts of Empathy which are solo utility, Fortitude being a bit too active for optimal play, and the lack of high level offensive support (the idea of giving a psy damage proc to address it is quite good).

 

What's missing for me is updating my favorite part of Empathy which actually fits the powerset's selfless name, which is the theme of "choose a player, it is now a god". It is not primarily about yourself with Empathy, but about others. For example, being able to elevate that newbie to endgame build levels is very satisying to me, and I'd like that part up to date with modern standards.

Edited 16 hours ago by Auroxis