Empathy - How to Buff
Alright, so the title is a bit condescending, but Ive gotten on quite a few teams lately where the Empath(s) dont know how to, or who to, buff with what powers. So this mini guide is designed to explain the basics and tricks of making the best of the Empathy buffs.
This is, by no means, a comprehensive guide to Empathy, meaning I wont be focusing on any secondaries. There are lots of guides that cover specific combinations, and many of them are good at giving info on Empathy. As I said, this guide will help you improve your Empath skills. Also, this guide does not cover healing, as many of you probably know, Im rather vocal about the anti-healer stuff, if you want to learn how to be a good healer, I suggest you look
here.
The Buffs
[u]Hasten[u]
While not an Empathy buff, I find this power essential to an Empaths success. This will get your 3 final buffs up a lot more. Take it early, use it often.
When to use it
Pre-18, youll be able to use it however you see fit. Fire it off whenever its recharged. 18+ you use it right after you fire off RA (unless you use the 33+ world, you may find it useful to put it on autofire if you are using my* AB strategy (see below)
*not actually my idea
[u]Clear Mind[u]
This is the first buff in the set, it gives protection from Hold, Sleep, Immobilize, Stun, Fear, and Confuse, it also grants an increase to perception.
Slotting
Base slot is enough, I personally slot it with an Endrdx, but Ive talked to people who swear by either a Rechrdx or a Range enhancement in the default slot.
Who to use it on
This is one of the easy buffs of the set. It can be cast on everyone, but usually thats not necessary. Here are the general rules with exceptions.
1. Use preemptively on non tanks/scrappers/brutes/stalkers in situations with lots of mezzers (Carnies, Malta, The Lost, etc.) Exception: the classes listed above should get the power if they are not of a high enough level to have mez protection. *Side note* if the melee character is a high enough level to have mez protection (16 is always a safe cutoff) but they do not have it, and you are feeling malicious, do not CM them. It gets a point across, hopefully, though it may cause a few deaths. Another exception, depending on team make-up, you may not need to cast it preemptively. If you have a controller heavy team, there is probably enough lockdown to render it unnecessary. Teaming with a FF or Sonic defender is another example, if they have their Dispersion field, it will provide enough mez protection in most situations (though you might want to keep it on the FFer in case of the stray sleep)
2. Fighting enemies with only a few mezzes, CM can be used reactively. Exceptions: Again, if you have a bubbler, you may want to keep it on them proactively.
3. Fighting Arachnos. I have a specific section for arachnos, because they can get really nasty, very early and stay pretty nasty throughout the game. Clear Mind should be used fairly proactively for all characters who do not have a way of increasing their own perception. There is nothing more annoying than trying to fight something you cant target. On full teams, this may be more work than its worth. In this case, you may find it best to use the power proactively on key members, controllers and tankers without +perception powers, and use it reactively on others. This can take a bit of practice to get used to.
[u]Fortitude[u]
This power grants a single ally increased defense, damage, and To-Hit for 2 minutes. It has a base recharge of 1 minute.
Slotting
Pre-IOs, the best slotting you could get was 3 rech/2-3 defense/0-1 to-hit. In this world, you can get very effective slotting using 4 def/rech enhancements. That will save you 2 slots. Use these elsewhere or slot To-hits in them. In the very high level game, 3 Membrane Exposure Enhancements gives you ED capped Recharge, Defense, and To-Hit.
Who to use it on
This buff is probably a bit more tricky than CM, since its not possible to keep this on a team of 8. Because of this, you need to prioritize your targets. Most of my suggestions assume you and your team have SOs slotted.
Heres the priorities. Ive learned these through both playing as and with Emps on many different characters.
1. Fortitude the FF defender/controller. This is almost a no-brainer. The FFer will put the rest of the team in a very good spot defensively, but theyre usually fairly squishy. They will thank you for putting them at the same level of defense as everyone else. Similarly, a Sonic Resonance character is a good one to Fort.
2. If there is no FF defender: which is probably more often than not. Fortitude any other Emp on the team, and, in turn, they should use Fortitude on you. Since Empathy does not have a whole lot of buffs that they can use on themselves, using Fortitude on an emp increases their survivability and their damage. *NOTE* if the other empathy on the team is of the pure healer/support role, do not fort them, the buff will go to waste.
3. Fortitude the controller. After you get the important targets, the controller is your next priority. Their controls will mitigate lots of damage, however, while launching their first control, they can take some alpha strike, the +def is very useful, also, the higher To-Hit helps their AoE controls (which, for the most part, have an accuracy penalty) hit more often.
4. Fortitude the Defender. Your defender brethren will appreciate it more than anything below, for the most part.
4. Fortitude the blaster. There is nothing quite like having a high damage dealer with good defense and higher damage. Enough said.
5. If there is no tank on the team: Fortitude the scrapper. Odds are they are trying to tank, or at least, are taking the alpha, this will mitigate a lot of incoming damage, meaning you wont be focusing on healing them (see link above)
6. Special case: team of all tanks, 1 empath. Obviously I cant cover every team make-up, but this is an interesting situation which I have seen come up. In this situation, who do you fortitude? It depends on their primary, heres the order I would Fortitude them
1. Invul These guys are way too squishy
2. Fire
3. Ice
4. Stone
5. WP
6. DA
I put Stone early not because they need the survivability, but because they could use the damage buff more. Anything 4+ will not really need Fort for its defensive aspects.
[u]Recovery Aura/Regeneration Aura[u]
I put these together because they should, under all circumstances, be fired at the same time. Each power greatly increases their one aspect, endurance recovery or health regeneration. They are PBAoE Powers, meaning they affect you and all allies in range will benefit from it.
Slotting
Both require 3 recharge. Regen aura could use 3 heals, recovery really doesnt need extra slots. IO tip: Slot Regen Aura 5 Heal/Rech IOs, its slightly more effective than the 3/3 slotting (though not really noticeable) and saves you a slot.
Who to use it on
Yourself! The trick to this power isnt who to use it on, but when to use it. There are conflicting opinions on this, so I will give you both sides and let you decide.
1. Preemptively. This is the strategy I use, because it gets both powers up more often. Just fire off both powers when they recharge (which, other than at level 26, should be more or less simultaneously.) I set up a bind to let my team know that I will be firing off my auras in 5 seconds. This allows most of the team to get the buff. If we are nearing the end of a fight, I will wait and fire them off right before we start the next group.
2. Reactively. This is the other camp of thinking. Basically, you save it for when your team needs it, jump more or less in the middle of the team, and fire it off. This can be useful for longer fights (such as AVs or GMs) but other than that, I really dont see the point of it.
[u]Adrenaline Boost[u]
This power greatly increases a single Allys recharge, recovery, and regeneration, as well as granting them slow resistance.
Slotting
To make the most of this power, you really need to 6 slot it. Pre-IO, the best slotting was 3rech/1endmod/2heal. The idea of the Endmod is that it will put the recovery over 1000%, meaning your blaster or Defender buddy can overcome the nuke he just used, suffering only a momentary toggle drop. In the IO world, you can do slightly better with 5 slots, 3heal/rech, 2 endmod/rech. This gives you slightly higher regen and recovery and recharge. With that 6th slot, you can either move it or slot an extra heal (since youve got recharge more or less maxed, a plain Heal SO or IO will work just fine.)
Who to use it on
Without assistance (see rule 1, below) this power is not permable on even a single target, so choosing when to use it (and who to use it on) can be rather daunting. As with the previous ST buffs, there is no one easy answer, but heres the best Ive seen.
1. Empath with Hasten and AB. If you are an empathy with hasten and AB and you have another one on your team, talk to them briefly about this game breaking strategy. Set hasten on Autofire, and use AB on each other whenever it is up. Why? Well, both of you will be at the regen and recovery cap as long as you keep these powers going, however, with both of you at 170% global recharge nearly the entire time (hasten still has a small amount of down time) youve got enough recharge that you can stagger firing your RAs and keep RAs up 100% of the time (with a bit of stacking, too.) Yes, this power is that cool.
2. The Blaster/Defender. You cant keep it up 100% of the time on your own (without a serious investment in +recharge) a post 32 blaster (or post 38 defender) is always a good target for AB, I generally use it reactively in these situations, right after they nuke, give them a bit of AB love, they will thank you for it, by nuking more.
3. The Controller. Again, the idea here is to increase the recharge on their AoE controls.
4. The Tank (situationally). The tank is a good target if they do not have slow resists and you are fighting mobs with lots of recharge. If a tank cant attack, it cant hold agro.
5. Save it. If your team consists of none of the above (Ive had it happen) use ABs regeneration as a reactive way to get someone out of a bad situation. However, if your team is not having any problems, you would be better off finding a home for AB (or even rotating it through your team) than just letting it sit in your tray.
Binds
Ive seen lots of requests on how to set up binds on the Official Forums, so with that in mind, here is my basic bind set up that I use for all of my buffers.
/bind numpad1 unselect$$teamselect 1
/bind numpad2 unselect$$teamselect 2
/bind numpad3 unselect$$teamselect 3
/bind numpad4 unselect$$teamselect 4
/bind numpad5 unselect$$teamselect 5
/bind numpad6 unselect$$teamselect 6
/bind numpad7 unselect$$teamselect 7
/bind numpad8 unselect$$teamselect 8
That simply allows you to target a specified team member by using the number pad keys.
/bind multiply powexec_name clear mind
/bind subtract powexec_name Fortitude
/bind add powexec_name Adrenaline Boost
/bind numpad0 powexec_name Healing Aura
Again, easy access to all of your buffs is what this is all about.
