Rigel_Kent

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For a squishier team, FF helps more than Sonic against most mez

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Uh, Clarity?

Helps more than Sonic against end drain and debuffs though.

I'm planning an arc designed like a Mad-Lib that I'll republish with new words filling the blanks chosen by my teammates every time I run it.

Let's get NPC dialog to show up when it's supposed to show up. Then see if cutscene dialog is still needed.

Glue Arrow's nice, but the real best case scenario would be Darkest Night and Radiation Infection.

-gets three-shotted by minions with throwing knives-

My experience differs.

My overall impression is that FF is more specialized while Sonic is more versatile. Sonic can somewhat prop up a PuG that's weak on defense, but really, granting godmode to 7 newbies is FF's unique niche. On the other hand, Sonic contributes fairly well to a team that's already surviving fine, while FF has to fall back on secondaries and Repulsion Bombs.

Though of course you can bridge the gap by taking FF with a damagey secondary (hello /Ice, /Archery), or Sonic with a debuffy or mezzy one (hello /Psi, /Dark).

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I think that was the point of the statement.

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The statement was:
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a "healer" is highly desirable if not outright required

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(On lolsewer teams.) The poster framed it as a "heals vs. buffs" question, so I had to say a little something about buffs. But I mainly wanted to talk about debuffs, which are already way better than heals even on lolsewer teams.

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I like that people are talking about the undesirableness of "healers" as if no of us has ever gone into the sewers before. Do some quick math on the value of a heal versus the value of a buff at that level, and tell me that there aren't occasions when a "healer" is highly desirable if not outright required to keep the team running.

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Deflection Shield and toggle debuffs neuter Vahz. Sewers suck for XP anyway.

And the only reason buffs aren't good at low levels are because they're not unlocked yet.

Like make Siphon Speed an AoE recharge buff, and then leave Speed Boost as a pure movement buff?

I am so using this.

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Lastly keep in mind that the person requesting for a healer...

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... thinks healing is better than buffing, debuffing, and hard and soft control. Better enough to overtly discriminate in team building.

... is occasionally right. Though on such occasions, they tend to use the word "empath" instead of "healer," e.g. Hamidon raids.

... usually is a perma-newb who will stubbornly continue to believe their team wipes are caused by needing more healing. Plenty of people out there will never figure out that this game is different from whatever RPG they think they're playing.

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In fairness, I overtly discriminate in team building, too. I actively recruit debuffers over controllers, buffers, and healers. If you're Trick Arrow, Radiation Emission, Storm Summoning, or Dark Miasma, I want you on my team now. Empath? Meh. If I can't find anyone else, fine. Hope you can blast.

But at least I realize it's personal preference -- matching teammates up with my own playstyle, and rewarding players with less popular builds who might be having trouble finding other teams. It's not because I think debuffing is so much better than other forms of mitigation.

Well, maybe just a little better.

Come to think of it, changing pets to be unaffected by recharge buffs is an excellent reason to make all the recharge buffing powers a little better. Speed Boost, Accelerate Metabolism, Adrenalin Boost, etc.

Oddly enough, my best defender moment was a PvP moment, even though I don't like PvP.

Back when /Storm controllers were a PvP FotM but the entire defender AT was considered a non-threat, I was taking my Storm defender around Siren's Call, opening presents for the winter event while collecting bounties here and there. Then I noticed a stalker rep farmer type was my bounty -- ugh. According to the waypoint, she was just sitting on a rooftop. Probably at the stealth cap, just waiting for someone to open the present to get an easy risk-free kill.

So I oblige.

I turn off Hurricane, fly up to the rooftop, drop down to the present, and click. Then, halfway through the progress bar, I interrupt the click to dump Freezing Rain right on top of myself.

Hello. She's /Dark without Acrobatics. And, what's this, she had another stalker buddy with her. Double AS rep farmers, I suppose. Double the fun. Freezing Rain suppresses their stealth and interrupts both their AS's, the one without knock protection gets her bounty taken by the "easy-kill" defender, the other runs away like a typical stalker kiddie, and they both leave the zone in search of easier pickins. Good feeling, teaching someone a lesson like that.

I like gravity's movespeed debuffs. But most people don't give a damn.

You might give Grav/Storm a try.

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What you do need is at least one or two support characters, and most preferably ones that are competent.

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And even that much is iffy. I've been on a decent four-blaster PuG once, no support necessary, much less a healer specifically.

Good grief, OP, why did you crosspost the same question to every archetype forum? What a pain.

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If we're going to be catering to the tastes of the majority of the playerbase, I guess we should all be writing single-mission joke arcs full of Rikti, 5th Column and easy custom critters with cute costumes and funny bios. Since that seems to be where the tastes of the playerbase lie.

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Touché.

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Sounds like Empathy needs a buff? (or storm a nerf....)
Unless the gap from average to good is supposed to be "far outperforms" wide.

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It's many many newbies and perma-newbies dragging down Empathy's average.

Though in fairness, I played with not one, but two solid empaths on a PuG KHTF last night. Refreshing experience.

What's your primary? Tornado is a bit different if you have a primary that suppresses knockback on targets.

Psionic Tornado is a larger-radius slower-damage Fire Ball with a chance to slightly knock up targets. Graphically it looks a little like a pet, but it isn't.

My gut feeling is that Cold/Ice is a good way to go.

Cold/Psi (AoE -recharge hell), Cold/Dark (deflected and rejected), Cold/Sonic (AoE -resist hell), and Cold/Rad or Cold/Archery (big AoE damage) also look like they'd be good options. If your playstyle or concept steers you toward one of those secondaries, go for it. Otherwise, Cold/Ice is still great.

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Might I take this opportunity to remind you... you have (and can name) dual builds now.

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Good point. I always forget that dual builds are a big bonus to Cold, Emp, FF, and Sonic.

And solo builds for the above work double duty as tanking builds to boot. I might nudge those four sets a notch higher in my rankings--so long as people are actually using the dual builds.

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I hear calls for empathy all the time, even for high level teams, never once heard a call for a storm. Even on something like the hero respec task force where a storm would rule, an average PuG will not think of it.

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Maybe because the worst case scenario for an empath is "afk whole mission," while the worst case scenario for a stormy is... well, you know.

Which is unfair to stormies, since the average PuG empath isn't much better than the afk worst case scenario, while the average PuG stormy at least dumps Freezing Rain on every spawn. This is just my experience, but I do recruit empaths last of all buff/debuff sets for that precise reason -- too many of them just don't know how to play.

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they have the two heals because heals are what ya need

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sewer mishes

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from levels two through eight

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you just need constant heals

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I, uh, couldn't agree more.

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Even if nobody preferred any arc length over any other, shorter arcs would still get more play.

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Demand is just half of supply and demand.

If there were more short arcs written and fewer long arcs written, plays per arc would be more even between the short and long arcs. Thus my conclusion that people are writing arcs that are, in the aggregate, too long for the tastes of the playerbase.

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I LOG ON MY EMP TO KEEP MY FRIEND'S KIDS ALIVE WHILE THEY PLAY A GAME THEY KNOW ALMOST NOTHING ABOUT

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Thank you for being more clear.

Empathy is okay, but not great, at what you're trying to do with it. Cold Domination, Dark Miasma, Radiation Emission, and Storm Summoning are more up the "single handedly keeping a team of 8 out of debt" alley. Especially Dark Miasma. I'd still rank Empathy above Kinetics, Sonic Resonance, and Trick Arrow, though.

I apologize if it is not your intent to imply that Empathy is the set best suited for that purpose, when it's closer to fifth best out of eight, but that's how I read it.