Empathy/Ice Blast Defender – Maximize Healing, Damage, or Survivability?

[Buffer]

To all the build experts out there, I’d love to get your thoughts on an Empathy/Ice Blast Defender build!

When putting together this build, I find myself debating a few key questions, and I’d love to hear your input:

Should I ignore personal survival and go all-in on healing and team buffs?

How important is my damage output? Should I focus on it, or leave it to the DPS?

Would sacrificing personal defenses be a mistake, or should I trust my team to protect me?

How do you approach this kind of build? I’d love to see different perspectives—what has worked for you in teams, solo play, and tough content?

Looking forward to your thoughts, thanks in advance!

Edited Thursday at 11:03 AM by Buffer
To engage the community rather than ask for a hand out.

[MoonSheep]

out of the attributes you’ve listed - healing, buffs, damage and personal defence, what’s the most important to you?

[Auroxis]

Should I ignore personal survival and go all-in on healing and team buffs?

No. Empathy has very little in the way of self survivability, with Healing Aura and Regeneration Aura being fairly inefficient at keeping you alive against spikes of damage. So you do want defense, and you do want resists. However, you do not need to go for the Fighting pool, and can instead opt for Flying which limits mobs to ranged attacks, helping you cut down on a lot of incoming DPS.

 

As for going "all-in" on healing and team buffs, Empathy already provides a very strong defensive kit and you don't need to delve into Sorcery for Spirit Ward or god forbid the Medicine pool (please don't do that). The Leadership power pool for more buffs is great however, as is Power Boost from Soul Mastery for better healing and buffs/debuffs. In sticky situations where a teammate falls in the middle of a pack and you want to go over and help him out, you have Power Boost + Vengeance + Resurrect + Fortitude for excellent stabilization.

 

How important is my damage output? Should I focus on it, or leave it to the DPS?

Yes, you should focus on getting your DPS output high. This is always important, even on Empathy. You could argue it's even more important on Empathy as the powerset has no -res and -regen to help teams against AV's and GM's. Ice Blast is solid on that front, but you need to proc out your heavy hitters for it to be effective. As far as AoE damage, since Empathy doesn't have a lot of ways to mitigate or heal through self damage, I would avoid going for AoE until your nuke unless you know you're teaming with people who can keep you safe.

 

Would sacrificing personal defenses be a mistake, or should I trust my team to protect me?

As mentioned above, you definitely need to pay a bit of extra attention to personal defenses on Empathy. After all if you get hit, and you're the only support on your team, all you're left with is Healing Aura and the hopes of Regeneration Aura being up at the time. No ways to buff yourself beyond that outside of PB+Vengeance as previously mentioned.

 

How do you approach this kind of build?

Empathy should focus on getting Recharge up as high as possible, as your buff uptime becomes increasingly more important in late-game faster gameplay where just healing isn't cutting it anymore. Recharge also lends itself to having your attacks damage procced, as it lets you have a strong attack chain despite not slotting recharge into your attacks. I would balance it out by grabbing Flying to keep me safe from melee attacks, and Stealth (since you don't have a way to stealth through task forces without it by going Fly over Super Speed). Picking up Leadership, Power Boost, and the Nerve alpha (we don't want recharge in our alpha like Spiritual because it lowers proc rates) lets us buff the defense of 4 teammates by up to +50% with PB+Fortitude+Maneuvers. This might seem overkill, but remember defense debuffs are prevalent late in the game so even if someone is softcapped it benefits them.

 

Defender (Empathy - Ice Blast).mbd

Edited Thursday at 12:59 PM by Auroxis

[Buffer]

30 minutes ago, MoonSheep said:

out of the attributes you’ve listed - healing, buffs, damage and personal defence, what’s the most important to you?

Healing ans buffs are my priorities. 

[Buffer]

40 minutes ago, Auroxis said:

Should I ignore personal survival and go all-in on healing and team buffs?

No. Empathy has very little in the way of self survivability, with Healing Aura and Regeneration Aura being fairly inefficient at keeping you alive against spikes of damage. So you do want defense, and you do want resists. However, you do not need to go for the Fighting pool, and can instead opt for Flying which limits mobs to ranged attacks, helping you cut down on a lot of incoming DPS.

 

As for going "all-in" on healing and team buffs, Empathy already provides a very strong defensive kit and you don't need to delve into Sorcery for Spirit Ward or god forbid the Medicine pool (please don't do that). The Leadership power pool for more buffs is great however, as is Power Boost from Soul Mastery for better healing and buffs/debuffs. In sticky situations where a teammate falls in the middle of a pack and you want to go over and help him out, you have Power Boost + Vengeance + Resurrect + Fortitude for excellent stabilization.

 

How important is my damage output? Should I focus on it, or leave it to the DPS?

Yes, you should focus on getting your DPS output high. This is always important, even on Empathy. You could argue it's even more important on Empathy as the powerset has no -res and -regen to help teams against AV's and GM's. Ice Blast is solid on that front, but you need to proc out your heavy hitters for it to be effective. As far as AoE damage, since Empathy doesn't have a lot of ways to mitigate or heal through self damage, I would avoid going for AoE until your nuke unless you know you're teaming with people who can keep you safe.

 

Would sacrificing personal defenses be a mistake, or should I trust my team to protect me?

As mentioned above, you definitely need to pay a bit of extra attention to personal defenses on Empathy. After all if you get hit, and you're the only support on your team, all you're left with is Healing Aura and the hopes of Regeneration Aura being up at the time. No ways to buff yourself beyond that outside of PB+Vengeance as previously mentioned.

 

How do you approach this kind of build?

Empathy should focus on getting Recharge up as high as possible, as your buff uptime becomes increasingly more important in late-game faster gameplay where just healing isn't cutting it anymore. Recharge also lends itself to having your attacks damage procced, as it lets you have a strong attack chain despite not slotting recharge into your attacks. I would balance it out by grabbing Flying to keep me safe from melee attacks, and Stealth (since you don't have a way to stealth through task forces without it by going Fly over Super Speed). Picking up Leadership, Power Boost, and the Nerve alpha (we don't want recharge in our alpha like Spiritual because it lowers proc rates) lets us buff the defense of 4 teammates by up to +50% with PB+Fortitude+Maneuvers. This might seem overkill, but remember defense debuffs are prevalent late in the game so even if someone is softcapped it benefits them.

 

Defender (Empathy - Ice Blast).mbd 41.07 kB · 0 downloads

Response to the Empathy/Ice Blast Build Perspective

First off, thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts on Empathy/Ice Blast. You’ve provided a lot of great insight into how to balance healing, survivability, and damage, and I really appreciate the breakdown.

I completely agree that Empathy lacks built-in survivability and that prioritizing recharge is key. However, I wanted to explore a few additional considerations that might be worth discussing:

1. Survivability & Defense

• Fly is a great option, but since many enemies have strong ranged attacks (Rikti, Malta, Council), Fighting Pool (Tough/Weave) might still be worth considering for added resilience.(insights from others are encouraged on this subject.)
• Rune of Protection (Sorcery) could be a helpful defensive tool in tougher fights, offering burst resistance when healing alone isn’t enough.
• Clarion Destiny might be a strong alternative to Nerve Alpha, since mez protection ensures that Empathy players can always heal and buff their team.

2. Damage Output & Team Support

• Achilles’ Heel (-Res Proc) in Ice Blast could help mitigate Empathy’s lack of debuffs, indirectly boosting team DPS.
• Power Boost (Soul Mastery) enhances Fortitude & Vengeance, improving both team defense and recovery.

3. Alternative Build Approaches(Your insights on this?)

A. Survival-Oriented Build (Tanky Healer)
1. Tough/Weave + Rune of Protection for additional defenses.
2. Clarion Destiny to avoid getting locked out of healing.
3. Steadfast Protection +5% Defense IO to further improve mitigation.

B. Offensive Support Build (Damage Hybrid)
1. Achilles’ Heel (-Res Proc) + Ice Storm for stronger teamwide damage.
2. Power Boost (Soul Mastery) to amplify buffing potential.
3. Agility Radial Alpha instead of Nerve for Recharge & Defense synergy.

 

I appreciate your perspective, and I think your points on Empathy’s team-focused role and the importance of recharge are spot on. It’s always great to hear different approaches, and I’d love to know if you’ve tested any similar build(s) in Incarnate content or high-difficulty missions. Thanks again for the thoughtful discussion!

Edited Thursday at 01:37 PM by Buffer

[Auroxis]

@Buffer

 

1. Regarding the Sorcery Pool: Rune of Protection is indeed solid, but break frees suffice in the odd situation. There's also Clarion as an option for CC protection, you can go for the +Special Clarion for another way to buff Fortitude and still keep some break frees handy. Spirit Ward is superfluous for teammate mitigation when you have PB Fort+Heals in the vast majority of scenarios. Flying pool also nets you more recharge via LotG slots, and doesn't require getting another pool like Combat Jumping for flight control.

 

2. Achilles' Heel does not go into any of Ice Blast's attacks. You can pick up Force of Will for Weaken Resolve and slot it there, but the attack does little damage for its cast time even if procced. That being said, Weaken Resolve is a solid pick-up instead of Stealth but I wouldn't go beyond that.

 

3. Clarion is a Destiny incarnate power and is not a substitute to Nerve, which is an Alpha incarnate power. The reason you don't go for Agility or Spiritual is because they increase the enhanced recharge of your blasts, making your damage procs go off less often and lowering your DPS (one of the reasons you go for global recharge over enhanced recharge). Vigor is a good alternative to Nerve, if you prefer going all-out on healing instead of improving your defense buffs.

Edited Thursday at 02:36 PM by Auroxis

[Buffer]

@auroxis

Thanks for your insight. I'll be following your work.

[Nemu]

Great questions that deserve thought out responses.

 

Here's the current state of empathy:
 

 

TLDR - empathy is overshadowed by more modern powerset designs that include both buffs and debuffs, and healing was never the king of mitigation as it is in some traditional MMOs. Focusing on being a healer has no place in this game, but that doesn't mean that healing has no place.

 

Even with the influx of new players you will typically find that you will get carried on teams if any of them has one or 2 well designed builds exemped down from level 50.

 

The reality of being an empath in today's COH is that you have very little to do if you just focus on healing. Also, your buffs are largely not needed for most well made builds for general content.

 

Speaking from personal experience, a few of my blasters run at range/smashing/lethal defense softcap backed up by mitigation and sheer killing speed, as well as endless endurance from the blaster sustain, such that I don't NEED regeneration/recovery aura or fortitude to be self sufficient. I appreciate them, but I'm self sufficient as it is without those buffs. The one and only ONE buff I need is Clear Mind. Mez immunity is not something I can get from IO sets, yet most emps I run across don't use this power to protect those ATs that don't have mez protection, citing they'd rather blast and contribute damage. IMO you can do both, it takes more work, but that's what separates good emps from not so good ones - the ability to manage your time between buffs, healing and blasting and prioritize your targets for who gets what buff.

 

I hope all your concerns about getting mezzed yourself translates to an appreciation of the impact of CM on other players that lack mez protection, and that you will use that power appropriately on other such players.

 

Onto the build itself, it's a balancing act, but you can strive towards all your goals and not lean into any one extreme. You can blast and contribute damage, and have enough recharge to keep a decent number of teammates buffed, and build for some personal defense. Auroxis' build hits those points. The good thing about ice blast is that most attacks animate fast, so you are not stuck in attack animation too long waiting to execute a critical heal/buff. A solid approach is to build towards 32.5% range defense so a single luck will softcap your range defense.

 

On survival, here's the secret to survival when playing in a group for general content: Know where to stand and where not to stand, and know when to attack and when not to attack. Poor empaths will hug the tank and spam healing aura. Smart empaths will bounce around and buff/heal as needed but will make sure they are not planting themselves where they can be hit with AoE splash damage/debuffs or be too far away from the rest of the team such that they can't get help when they are in trouble. You ever see those newbie players getting chased by a boss they can't possibly kill run further and further away from the team while still trying to attack said boss? Don't be like those guys, learn to position yourself but always come back to the team, it will do far more for your overall expertise at this game and survival than just building for softcap defense and hardcap resists. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen hovering players that think they are safe above get caught with an immobilize/-fly effect and now they are down on the ground right in the midst of all the AoE splash damage, their stats debuffed and movement speed slowed down to a halt and they just stand there helpless trying to slow mo run out of the danger zone and ultimately die.

 

If I were to adjust Auroxis' build it would be to drop the flight pool for combat jumping for immob immunity and use jousting to stay mobile, and to pick up more slow resist to make sure your can run out of slow patches and not be adversely affected by recharge debuffs. I'd also drop assault or tactics (I prefer tactics because I hate being blinded, and tactics helps your to-hit which is synergistic with proc attacks) that way you can fit in boxing/tough/weave if you wish for added defense/resists, or go mystic flight route for rune of protection if mez protection is a bigger priority for you.

 

on the topic of why range defense is important and jousting see this thread:

 

Don't worry about debuffs, most general content is going to get steamrolled as I mentioned, and extra Achilles' heel or Annihilation -res debuff will not make a meaningful difference for most of that content. I'd opt for damage procs if you want more damage to help you out in solo situations. Auroxis' has those in freeze ray and bitter ice blast. You will not have the ability to heavily proc all your stuff, so those 2 single target attacks is good enough.

[Buffer]

9 hours ago, Nemu said:

Great questions that deserve thought out responses.

 

Here's the current state of empathy:
 

 

TLDR - empathy is overshadowed by more modern powerset designs that include both buffs and debuffs, and healing was never the king of mitigation as it is in some traditional MMOs. Focusing on being a healer has no place in this game, but that doesn't mean that healing has no place.

 

Even with the influx of new players you will typically find that you will get carried on teams if any of them has one or 2 well designed builds exemped down from level 50.

 

The reality of being an empath in today's COH is that you have very little to do if you just focus on healing. Also, your buffs are largely not needed for most well made builds for general content.

 

Speaking from personal experience, a few of my blasters run at range/smashing/lethal defense softcap backed up by mitigation and sheer killing speed, as well as endless endurance from the blaster sustain, such that I don't NEED regeneration/recovery aura or fortitude to be self sufficient. I appreciate them, but I'm self sufficient as it is without those buffs. The one and only ONE buff I need is Clear Mind. Mez immunity is not something I can get from IO sets, yet most emps I run across don't use this power to protect those ATs that don't have mez protection, citing they'd rather blast and contribute damage. IMO you can do both, it takes more work, but that's what separates good emps from not so good ones - the ability to manage your time between buffs, healing and blasting and prioritize your targets for who gets what buff.

 

I hope all your concerns about getting mezzed yourself translates to an appreciation of the impact of CM on other players that lack mez protection, and that you will use that power appropriately on other such players.

 

Onto the build itself, it's a balancing act, but you can strive towards all your goals and not lean into any one extreme. You can blast and contribute damage, and have enough recharge to keep a decent number of teammates buffed, and build for some personal defense. Auroxis' build hits those points. The good thing about ice blast is that most attacks animate fast, so you are not stuck in attack animation too long waiting to execute a critical heal/buff. A solid approach is to build towards 32.5% range defense so a single luck will softcap your range defense.

 

On survival, here's the secret to survival when playing in a group for general content: Know where to stand and where not to stand, and know when to attack and when not to attack. Poor empaths will hug the tank and spam healing aura. Smart empaths will bounce around and buff/heal as needed but will make sure they are not planting themselves where they can be hit with AoE splash damage/debuffs or be too far away from the rest of the team such that they can't get help when they are in trouble. You ever see those newbie players getting chased by a boss they can't possibly kill run further and further away from the team while still trying to attack said boss? Don't be like those guys, learn to position yourself but always come back to the team, it will do far more for your overall expertise at this game and survival than just building for softcap defense and hardcap resists. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen hovering players that think they are safe above get caught with an immobilize/-fly effect and now they are down on the ground right in the midst of all the AoE splash damage, their stats debuffed and movement speed slowed down to a halt and they just stand there helpless trying to slow mo run out of the danger zone and ultimately die.

 

If I were to adjust Auroxis' build it would be to drop the flight pool for combat jumping for immob immunity and use jousting to stay mobile, and to pick up more slow resist to make sure your can run out of slow patches and not be adversely affected by recharge debuffs. I'd also drop assault or tactics (I prefer tactics because I hate being blinded, and tactics helps your to-hit which is synergistic with proc attacks) that way you can fit in boxing/tough/weave if you wish for added defense/resists, or go mystic flight route for rune of protection if mez protection is a bigger priority for you.

 

on the topic of why range defense is important and jousting see this thread:

 

Don't worry about debuffs, most general content is going to get steamrolled as I mentioned, and extra Achilles' heel or Annihilation -res debuff will not make a meaningful difference for most of that content. I'd opt for damage procs if you want more damage to help you out in solo situations. Auroxis' has those in freeze ray and bitter ice blast. You will not have the ability to heavily proc all your stuff, so those 2 single target attacks is good enough.

@Nemu

 

You bring up solid points, and honestly, I can’t argue with any of them. Everything you said about Empathy, positioning, and balancing buffs with damage makes a ton of sense.

 

1. Empathy being outdated – Yeah, power creep is real. Back in the day, Empaths were a big deal, but now that so many sets offer a mix of buffs and debuffs, pure healing just doesn’t cut it.

 

 

2. Healing isn’t the best way to keep people alive – True. Mitigation and prevention are way stronger than reactionary healing. If you’re just spamming heals, you’re already behind.

 

 

3. Most teams don’t need Empathy buffs – Makes sense. Well-built characters are self-sufficient, so a lot of buffs don’t even register as a game-changer. 

 

 

4. Clear Mind is king – 100%. Mez protection is something you can’t just IO your way out of, and an Empath who actually uses it well is worth their weight in influence/infamy.

 

 

5. Positioning > stacking defenses – Absolutely. A lot of people build for tankiness but don’t actually know where to stand. A well-placed Empath dodging damage is way more effective than one stacking resists and hoping for the best.

 

 

6. A good Empath does more than heal – Exactly. If you’re just standing there watching green bars, you’re doing it wrong. You’ve got to be buffing, blasting, and keeping the flow of combat going.

 

 

7. Range defense being key – Never really thought about it like that, but yeah, if you can get to 32.5% and pop a Luck, you’re golden. That’s some real min-max wisdom.

 

 

8. Flight has value, but Combat Jumping has advantages – Flight gets a bad rep in PvP, but it’s still useful as a melee damage mitigation tool. Being airborne keeps you out of reach of ground-based melee attacks such as earthquake, and if used well, it can buy time to react. Combat Jumping, though, gives immobilization protection and better ground mobility, which makes it easier to avoid being caught off guard. It really depends on playstyle and what kind of threats you're up against.

 

 

9. Slow resist is underrated – Good call. Recharge debuffs can completely screw you over if you’re not ready for them.

 

 

10. Procs over debuffs for most content – Fair. Resistance debuffs can be nice, but in general play, extra damage just makes more of an impact.

 

 

Now, Here’s a Thought - Annihilation PvP Without Travel Powers

 

So let’s take all of this and throw it into an Annihilation match in the arena, where no travel powers are allowed. That means positioning, mitigation, and sustain are even more important.

 

How does an Empath actually hold up in PvP when movement is restricted?

 

Are they a sitting duck? Without a good escape tool, they might just get dogpiled by Stalkers and Scrappers.

 

Do they become a priority target? A smart enemy team is going to focus the Empath hard—how do they survive that?

 

Does an Empath + Tank combo hold up? If you put an Empath behind a durable, taunt-heavy Tanker or Brute, does that buy enough time to make the heals and buffs matter?

 

What kind of team comp actually makes them viable? You probably want Controllers with crowd control to lock enemies down, Stalkers or Scrappers to break up the enemy team, and maybe Blasters that can operate independently but still benefit from Clear Mind.

 

 

Would an Empath be a game-changer or a liability in a high-speed PvP fight? Is there a way to build around them so they actually enhance a team instead of just struggling to keep up?

 

I’d love to hear your take because if there’s a way to make an Empath work in that setting, that’s the kind of build challenge that gets interesting.

 

 

Edited Thursday at 11:55 PM by Buffer

[Nemu]

I don't pvp but back on live if you wanted an emp for PVP you went illusion/emp for pure support , and empaths were valuable as support for team pvp with clear mind as a main buff to provide +perception. They used phase shift to protect themselves from getting spiked, nowadays there's also speed of sound with the built in TP to get you out of trouble. Other PvP experts can chime in but that kind (actually any) of pvp is mostly dead on homecoming from what I gather.

 

Viable can be interpreted a number of different ways. If you are enabling people on your team that deserve to be enabled, like helping the dom that is locking down everything achieve perma dom easier via adrenaline boost, or enabling the fearless blaster to nuke and obliterate everything without the hassle of getting mezzed, then you are making a difference. It may not be noticeable and people will probably not shower you with dumb comments like "nice heals!" But you know you are making a difference.

 

If you want to make a noticeable difference then under-powered teams tacking content slightly above their capabilities is a good place to hang out. There your heals and buffs and other contributions matter. Maybe +1 or +2 /8 content. Above that threshold emps start to falter on these under-powered teams because they won't be able to keep up with incoming damage. That's where mass aoe buffing/debuffing sets like forcefield/cold dom/storm etc... start to show their value much more noticeably.