Biospark

There have been several threads on Fitness since it was announced, and one idea of mine was to drop a power at the top end and move up the ancillary/patron level minimums similar to the following;

Tier 8 Secondary power at level 34
Tier 9 Secondary power at level 36
Tier 1 Ancillary/Patron at level 38
Tier 2 Ancillary/Patron at level 41
Tier 3 Ancillary/Patron at level 44
Final Power choice at level 47

At levels 48, 49, 50 you would get 3 slots each level.
Then add 1 more slot to levels 3, 11, and 21

Currently we get 24 powers, 67 slots
This would become 24 powers, 70 slots

I chose levels 3, 11 and 21 carefully, based on when characters get enhancements and when those enhancements naturally "kick-in". At level 2 you have 3 powers, so at level three you can put an extra slot on each power. Its minor, but it feeds well into later improvements. At level 11 you are on the verge of DOs. So being able to plan ahead for them and throw some extra slots into the build will smoothly increase the character.
And of course level 21 is the "cusp" of SO-level enhancements.

One of the biggest complaints with this change is that we are getting 3 more powers but "zero" more enhancements for the added powers, unless we scrape them off Health and Stamina. I agree with the sentiment, but with Incarnates right around the corner, I think that everyone will soon find that they could afford to move slots around from other powers. For example, Biospark is "Heavily" recharge focused. When I have an "Alpha" slot available and can sink a "global recharge" into it, this could very well free up 1 slot in each of the following powers: Hasten, Regen Aura, Healing Aura, Heal Other, Adrenaline Boost, Fortitude, Recovery Aura. Thats a potential of 7 new slots that can slide around to other powers. In reality, I will be surprised if I get 7 slots to "re-assign", but 3 more slots is VERY reasonable to expect.

It hasn't gone live yet, but I for one cannot hardly wait. I have several Alts just hanging around doing nothing so they can play through the low levels with this change and see how it goes.

The change does not address any disparities that may exist between ATs and Powersets, but I am not sure that was the purpose for the change.

The biggest thing that this change DOES in my personal opinion is change DRAMATICALLY which powers you will pick and at what levels you get them. Currently, at level 20, you will have 12 powers, and will have access to 7 of your primary and 6 of your secondary powersets. If you are like me, 5 of those 12 powers will be consumed by Fitness(3 powers) and Travel (2 Powers), leaving ONLY SEVEN powers to pick and choose from 13 available primary/secondary choices. That means just over 50% of your main-course choices can be on your power tray and the rest have to wait till your 20's or 30's. With this change, you could have 10 of those 13 available powers (just over 75%). Not to mention many, many other subtleties that this makes possible. For instance, Scrappers who want Tough. Think about it for a minute.

So, Inherent Fitness at level 2 = 1 more power pool to choose from,
Slotted Stamina at level 3 = soloing lower levels just got much easier,
3 more Powers on my Tray at level 20 = PRICELESS !

Playing an Empath and knowing how many folks view Empaths in general makes me avoid these kinds of threads. My suspicion is that the majority are folks seeking to start up the "monthly" Empathy sucks threads.

With that being said, my instinct is that you are truely asking for assistance.

So here are my opinions on your two questions.

I don't have Absorb Pain. In 2004 when I first began playing the game, it was from the experience of a support specialist from other MMOs, so when I looked at the description Absorb Pain seemed a no brainer. Well, it is a highly situational power. And even up to the first time I ever ran the STF, I had my doubts about the decision to NOT take it on my latest and greatest Empath. On my first ever STF run, my friend StratoNexus even sent me a tell saying that NOW was the time that I was going to wish that I had Absorb Pain. He was correct, of course. Lord Recluse is one character out there that can take a character's health down fast. But, I consider Rez more usefull in 99% of every team encounter by far, and here is why; Anything nasty enough to take a character to death fast enough to need Absorb Pain, may just be TOO fast for you to stop a player from dying<-- enter Rez.

IF you play Empathy correct, you will focus your build on as much recharge as possible.
Combine high recharge with Heal Other and you can spam enough healing to bring anyone from the brink of death quickly, even on the STF. Heal other doesnt have any nasty side effects associated with it, so its a "no brainer" to me. Perhaps at lower levels and with a lot less recharge, you will find Absorb pain more needed on teams, but I have never missed it since 2004 when I played my first Empaths.

Healing Aura on Auto. Not a chance. And there are several reasons (some have been mentioned already). First of all, if you get your recharge built up (something most Empaths do), then you should have several on your team buffed with fortitude, your RAs should be firing frequently and Adrenaline boost should be near-perma on one team member. Between all your buffs there should be very little need to fire off Healing Aura very much at all. I find that I use Healing Aura mostly solo these days. I do use it on teams, but only in situations where my Regen Aura is not up, and multiple team-mates are getting hurt. I will target the one that (I believe) is in the most danger of dying and fire heal other followed by healing aura. This assumes that I am standing near everyone that is getting hurt as well.

The second big reason that you dont want Healing Aura on auto is cycle-time. With no recharge enhancement, Healing aura takes 2.03 seconds to cast and 8 seconds to recharge. Thats 2.03sec per 10.03 seconds that you are rooted and cannot react and cast ANYTHING else. Approx 25% of your cycle time. Now if you increase your global recharge AND enhance Healing Aura the way I have you can get the recharge down to 2.62sec, this means I would be using 43% of my available cycle time CASTING Healing Aura. But the amount it healed would be the same as when I have ZERO recharge in it. Healing Aura on auto fire is simply bad use of cast times at the end game. Its not even a really good use of your time at lower levels. I have run a few POSIs recently where my in battle actions would go something like this: Heal Team-mate (A) with Heal Other, Lightning Bolt and CB a mob attacking the same player to draw some heat off them and keep blasting until mob down, cast healing aura to bring me and team-mate back to full health and switch to a new target.

The truth is, Heal Other and Fortitude are your two best powers until you get into higher recharge and higher level powers. And then they are still your most Basic and useful powers.

I Hope this helps you in some way

-Bio-

Ahhh very interesting !

Thanks Garent and Klaw for the feedback.
This make me much happier about this situation.

Hello folks,

Have a question which I should seek the answer on before embarking on the journey.

Can you have 1 build setup with Ancillary powers at 50 and fully IOed, then switch builds, turn Villain, run the Patron Arc(s), respec the second build and set it up with the Patron pool powers. Basically, 1 build as Ancillary choices and the second as Patron choices?

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

P.S. I realize that if this is possible, I would need to be a full Hero/Villain on the proper build if I ever respecced again.

I almost always change their costumes at some point. To answer the question I would say, almost never.

The most annoying problem for me isn't their costumes, it's their powersets. Sometimes after I play a character, the name and costume are wonderful, but I decide that the AT/Powers need a tweak. Reroll !
I have dozens of saved costumes that get re-used every time I try out a new set of powersets. Eventually, something sticks.

And then there is coloring of the powers. If I change a costume theme, it often comes hand-in-hand with power color changes.

Its all good !

Just out of curiousity, I decided to look at all 85 "Forced powers" to see how many of them would be considered "marginal" by my standards. Powers which, if the choice to skip were possible, would I skip them? Be advised, these are just MY opinions of a power's worth and I don't mind at all that others view them differently.

So, of the 85 choices, this is what I found.

Blasters: Damage for Web Grenade and Power Thrust are markedly lower than other secondary counterparts, and Only Power Thrust seems to "stand the test of time" in a build. A single target Immob is still useful, just less "fundamental" in the end-game.

Controllers/Corruptors : My previous comments on gale as a possible "marginal" power are all taken back. I love this power and it is plainly obvious that other powersets have it worse off. Gale only suffers from the same issue that plagues the whole "Storm" powerset and that is powers that don't always play nice together.
Sonic Siphon seems a little on the "weak" side for a power and is less usefull as you level because you gain better tools to do the same thing. If the cast time were considerably shorter and maybe recharge faster, then this power could be more of a "staple". Cold Dom's Infrigidate probably could have the same improvement made to it, but it's cast time is perfect at 1 sec. Trick Arrow gets Entangling Arrow. Again, this certainly is not useless, but for the vast majority of choices, it could lose its appeal at higher levels. heck Glue Arrow practically makes it obsolete.

Defenders/Tankers/Dominators : Single target Attacks. Basic survival tools, no issues here other than they do Tier 1 damage. Can we have more damage? Please ? No ??? Ok

Scrappers/Brutes : Willpower, Regen and Invulnerability are the only sets that get forced to take an auto power instead of a Defensive toggle. This would make alot of sense to change. Temp.Inv is a better Tier 1, Mind over Body for Willpower and Regen is a case where Reconstruction would make sense as well. The big question is : Are the Auto powers "optional" ? An argument can be made for each power's necessity. I would still take them, but might wait till later to pick them.

Stalkers : this AT is a special case, and as I mentioned in a previous post, I asked whether it would make more sense to make HIDE an inherent, and move stalkers secondaries back in line with Scrappers/Brutes. Whether or not that makes sense, they still run into the same three powers at level 2 that Scrappers/Brutes did at level 1. So in the case of stalkers, their Tier 2 and 3 powers could stand to be swapped so that TI/MoB/Recon become available at level 2 instead of level 4.

Masterminds : Alkaloid in Poison is the only standout set here. Envenom or Weaken seem to be better suited as Tier 1 powers, and to be honest Weaken seems like it could use the same treatment as Sonic Siphon (make it cast faster and more often).

The only other item of note is the difference between Controllers and Masterminds with regards to Forcefields. Both Force Bolt and PFF would find their way (and have) on any build of mine, but I personally think Force Bolt makes more sense as a Tier 1 power. PFF makes more sense later in the powerset. Forcebolt suffers much in the way some other powers I have mentioned do, which is they can be replaced by powers later in the set, so there is some reasoning to improve the power in some way.

So lets see out of 85 choices of "forced" picks, I found 11 that I would definitely call "out-of-order" : Fast Healing, Alkaloid, Resist Phy Damage, High Pain Tolerance, PFF (controllers). And of these, Only Alkaloid is a power that I would really "hate" being forced to take at level 1. And 9 of the 11 are the same 3 powers for 3 seperate melee ATs. Thats a pretty low percentage of error.

The rest of the powers that I found issue with, were just deemed "weak" or "replaceable" later in one's career. These powers just need to be improved. If you swapped them to another Tier, they would just be "thrown" onto the woodpile of "skippable" choices. So it makes more sense to "fix" them rather than swap them around.

Ugh, didn't see this getting so long

-Bio-

Sonic Resonance

I see it on Controllers from time to time, but other than my own, never on defenders.