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Supporting roles - Viable?
Chlodwig
Member Posts: 150
Well, time to give this game another try. It looked nice, and since NC is now giving me a few weeks of game time as a TR refugee, I might as well just use it to see if it fits my bill.
Now, I enjoy playing "supporters". Healers (which, if I read the boards correctly so far, don't play that big a role in CoX) mainly, but anything that makes a good group great will certainly match my profile. Buffing/debuffing/shielding... that kind of character.
Now, how "viable" would such a character be? I tend to be quite extreme when I play my roles, and when I go for support, I mean support. I.e. complete team player, no focus on single player ability. Does it work out? Is such a character able to level at all (i.e. is there an incentive to group at lower levels)? Are such characters wanted in higher level groups?
And most of all, what kind of character would fit that profile best?
Comments
Empath/<anything> defender and get all your empath powers. The <anything> is your blast set, but as a defender it isn't all that powerful anyway. As far as leveling its probably possible, lower levels just start or wait for a sewers group to start up. Super fast leveling. Usually they start up in Atlas park.
Empaths are huge helps to groups. Its true in CoX you can probably get by without an empath or even a defender in a small group. In a large group things get crazy fast and they're pretty close to required. Usually a group that size doesn't have the patience to be tactical to get around not having some type of support.
try this out....
picture the character YOU want... be it hero or villain, doesn't matter. if you're unsure what you CAN be, give the different archtypes and powersets a once over.
some characters get pets... masterminds get different types of "humans", undead and even robots. other characters get .... elemental pets - fire, ice, earth, lightning, storms, etc... high level villains (not masterminds) get arachnos pets.
pain domination is a "heal" set that well buffs and hurts and heals and hurts and buffs, it's different.
mind has a lot of holds/sleeps/confuse at early levels -- if something is held or sleeping - it's not damaging anyone.
just throwing some random stuff at you.
picture the character you want to design, even if it's a barbarian warrior-mage princess....
describe the type of powers and such. make a short post describing the character you want -- does it fly? super speed? slowly stumble?
you want a pure support character? pick something with force field powerset... better yet -- make a mastermind that is robots/force field and you'll have TONS of support AND firepower....
even if you choose empathy --- the buffs in empathy will still be of far more use and power than the heals. no matter the powerset you choose -- if it has buffs the team will love you, if it has debuffs the smart team will love you.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
My suggestion would be to skip empathy. A lot of people take empathy and fall into a take no blasts mentality and thats just stupid. Defender blasts are fine, I soloed most of my rad/rad's way to 50.
just remember that the more damage a team puts out the faster the bad guys go down. That means buffs, debuffs, and DAMAGE. Not just the scrapper and blaster putting out damage, everyone should be putting out some damage.
One more thing to warn you about, guys like me kick defenders who completely ignore thier secondary off my teams. And, there are a lot more people like me out there then you can imagine.
Chlodwig - First, Yes, support characters are very viable. My two favorite hero archetypes to play are scrappers and defenders. Depends on my mood which one is my favorite. My favorite villain AT is corruptor.
Second, be careful how you use the term "healer." People around here are a little touchy about that word. That's because...
Third, It's next to impossible to have a "pure" healer. The empathy/pain powersets only have 3-4 powers that actually restore hit points. The rest are buffs/debuffs. Also, because of the way levelling is set up, you will have to choose an occasional attack power. Some powers are only available at certain levels. Anybody have a levelling guide to recommend?
Also, don't limit yourself to the empathy/pain powersets. Radiation, kinetics, thermal radiation, and dark miasma (?) all have heal powers. Even storm summoning, plant control, and gadgets/traps have minor heals. And there is a medicine power pool that is available to all characters (it has tech-y animations).
One other thing you might consider: Once you hit level 50, you unlock the epic archetypes. A level 50 hero unlocks the Peacebringers and Warshades. These ATs are great team players. They have several inherent powers and buffs that are centered around their teammates. They also have a couple extreme weaknesses that can make them difficult to solo with, so a team is almost a necessity.
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The less you expect, the more you'll be surprised. Hopefully, pleasantly so.
Not sure where you got the idea support chars weren't needed in CoX. My mains are melee toons but when I play my controller or defender we tear through missions like crazy.
Can a team suceed without support? Yes but its not even funny how much a support class helps. Given your full tilt support wants go controller. Full buffs, heals, cc... always something to do.
Controller secondaries are NOT as good as defender primaries. The advantage with trollers is the primary. With everything locked down the buffs/debuffs seem as effective, but they aren't. The main advantage defenders have over trollers is that they get the buffs sooner. Kinetics defender gets speed boost at level 12, troller gets it at level 20.
i guess the disconnect is that i don't see fenders or trollers as "support". the quoted text reads as if fenders/trollers are of more use than melee characters. why would they then be labeled as support?
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
So it's not a strike against support characters. People dislike the word "healer" because they do want general support characters.
Pretty much any defender primary, or corruptor, mastermind, or controller secondary, will qualify. It's less important which you pick, and more important that you learn to use it efficiently.
Now efficient use doesn't mean 100% unflinching dedication to the perceived role. I've known people, more than a few, who decided they would be the "healer". They picked Empathy, which naturally heals more than any other set. Then they went and took the Medicine pool, which contains weak inefficient heals intended for characters who can't do it naturally.
Instead of being able to use their best powers to best effect, they diluted their builds with weak powers. Blind pursuit of a goal without seeing if it was effective. More importantly, if you had nothing but heal powers, what would you do on a team that wasn't taking much damage?
The reason I bring this up is to ensure you don't take too narrow a view of "support." There are wonderful beloved buffs and debuffs in this game. Heals are large, fast, and very effective. But sometimes the best support you can give is blasting an enemy down. In a sense, every character is a support character.
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Play a Kinetics Controller, Defender, or Corruptor people will love you and its a good support oriented set.
As for being a "healer". There are no healers, just some sets that have heals. Empath or Thermal have some of the best heals. But if you are not taking the buffs and only take the heals you will suck really bad. And if you neglect your blasts or control you will also suck. A Dark blast defense can completely floor a non-Archvillains chance to-hit and has two AoE cones to do that debuffing.
The problem with "healers" is that they neglect all the other stuff that is actually much more effective. Its not that healing is not useful its that it is only one part of your tools and is of secondary usefulness compared to buffs and debuffs.
Anyone calling themselves a "healer" is basically saying they don't know how to play the game right. Not that they took a set like Empath that is heavy on heals and that Empathy sukcs. Empathy is a very good set, but a big part of that is because of the Fortitude buff.
You have to realize that CoX is a different game. People dislike the word healer because you get idiots from other games coming in to the level 40+ zone going "healer LFT" and thinking healing is the be all end all because other games are so one-dimensional.
A Fire/Kin controller is a great supporter. Tons of CC and buffs that people love. But they are also a great solo/farm build. Same with Fire/Storm or Dark/Dark or Storm/Sonic or Storm/Dark defender.
You can play a set like Forcefields that is pertty heavily group dependent but it won't make you a better supporter than some other sets that are also good solo like Radiation Emission.
just for the record --- if you go to the official forums and type the word "h e a l" or "h e a l e r" or any variant thereof, on the defender or controller forums -- you WILL cry when you go back to read that thread. the replies here are INCREDIBLY mild in comparison.
the term healer does not exist in this game.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
yeah, I usually stay off the official forums. Too crowded and I can't keep up.
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The less you expect, the more you'll be surprised. Hopefully, pleasantly so.
If you are looking to be a support class I suggest you go with controller. I would say that crowd control, buff/debuffs, and healing all constitute support. You can never have to much crowd control in a group. Since you apparently want to heal, I would suggest going Thermal or Empathy. Despite what some people claim, if you slot properly you can easily fill the spot of primary healer. Of course you will be doing your crowd control at the same time, not one instead of the other. The better you do the CC the less healing you will have to worry about. I think Illusion makes a great primary for this. You basically get 3 pets (2 temporary), confuse, and holds. You also get superior invisibility which will allow you too get right into the middle of things to use your AoE heal on the tanks and scrappers. If you spec right for endurance /enhancement/reduction you can spam heals and CC while maintaining invisibility and still end the fight with full power.
This is just a suggestion. You can make a case for any of the controller primaries.
As for incentive to group, yes there is. This is probably the only MMO that I see people starting groups at level 2. You get better experience grouping and people start it right away. It's also more fun than soloing.
seriously, this forum is pretty much the only place you're going to find any advising you of being some type of healer.
peruse the official site, there's tons of controller and defender guides (this site doesn't seem to have any).
if you check out the official forums, you'll learn why no one posts about healer in regards to this game... and it's not because of forum nazis, it really is about the game mechanics.
since this isn't the official forums, and not many people post on this forum in particular, you'll find people using the heal words here and then acting like that's a totally normal thing -- in this game, it's not the norm, it's the exception to the norm.
and it's not a min/max thing either. heals honestly are the weakest of the powers available to controllers/defenders.
take illusion.
blind - single target hold, easily spammable wtih a few slots.
deceive - single target confuse (makes mob think you're it's friend and attacks other npcs... if you just do a little damage to what the confused npc is attacking, you still get 80-95% of the xp), easily spammable with just a few slots. you can deceive (or fail when trying to deceive) without aggroing mobs.
phantom army - 3 invulnerable (except to hamidon) pets, that can be made near-permanent with a little slotting + hasten; drop them into the middle of a group of npcs, and they take the alpha and just keep on dishing out their damage.
phantasm - permanent flying, blaster pet, can summon it's own decoy pet -- extra damage and knockdown/back (if something is laying down or standing up -- it's not attacking anything).
spectral terror - aoe fear pet that you can place anywhere, almost permanent out the box. about the time it's wearing off, you can resummon it. doesn't move, but it can be slotted with damage procs.
flash - an aoe hold - lead off the attack with this -- if everyone is held, no one is attacking
so, with just an illusion/anything controller... you can deceive 2-3 mobs, drop a PA in the middle of the group, flash them, blind a couple of stragglers, have Mr. Spooky aoe fearing the same group, and your phant going around picking off folks at random.
this is why the controller/defender forums don't mention healing.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Spoken like a person that lets other people do the healing and takes them for granted. You are greatly understating the value of healing. The fact is, there is almost always some type of healing going on in a group, whether you care to acknowledge it or not. There is no "Healer" archetype. No one disputes that. Archetypes that can heal have other things to do as well, but people do value healing. Empathy and Thermal are both very popular sets and are taken because they do have better healing than other sets. In some groups you can get by with little direct healing, but in other groups having a good healer is what saves you from a total wipe. Yes, people on the official forums most certainly do talk about heals and healing, but since most people know what heals are available with what sets, they mostly just talk about the sets. Most controller and defender sets include some type of healing ability. People choose Empathy or Thermal to be better healers. Having direct and AoE heals is a huge benefit.
The guides on the official forum are nice as a guideline, but they are outdated. Most were written several years ago when the game was much different. Most assume a nice balanced group, but that is rarely the case these days. Many times we don't have a main tank, or the (tank is a lower level) and no one to take aggro away from the rest of the group. So everyone is getting damaged, or some poor scrapper is getting torn up. The guides will also mention that controllers don't need to worry about healing because that is the defenders job. Well defenders are few and far between these days.
I have many characters, mostly scrappers and controllers. I took Thermal on one controller and enjoyed it so much that I took Empathy on another. It really can make a difference. That doesn't mean that I like my other controllers less. All sets have their benefits, but there are times when I'll be playing another set and wish that I had my Thermal or Empathy controllers, but sometime it happens the other way around too.
Some people get way too defensive of the term healer. To me it just means someone that heals, not someone that only heals. Back in the early days, groups tried to pigeon hole people, mostly defenders, into healing only roles. They got grief for using their secondary abilities. I really don't think it is still an issue today, but the scars remain.
The guides on the official forum are nice as a guideline, but they are outdated. Most were written several years ago when the game was much different. Most assume a nice balanced group, but that is rarely the case these days. Many times we don't have a main tank, or the (tank is a lower level) and no one to take aggro away from the rest of the group. So everyone is getting damaged, or some poor scrapper is getting torn up. The guides will also mention that controllers don't need to worry about healing because that is the defenders job. Well defenders are few and far between these days.
I have many characters, mostly scrappers and controllers. I took Thermal on one controller and enjoyed it so much that I took Empathy on another. It really can make a difference. That doesn't mean that I like my other controllers less. All sets have their benefits, but there are times when I'll be playing another set and wish that I had my Thermal or Empathy controllers, but sometime it happens the other way around too.
Some people get way too defensive of the term healer. To me it just means someone that heals, not someone that only heals. Back in the early days, groups tried to pigeon hole people, mostly defenders, into healing only roles. They got grief for using their secondary abilities. I really don't think it is still an issue today, but the scars remain.
The honest fact is, most defenders and controllers are sought much more for their other abilities; any efficient group can get along very well with little to no active healing.
In my experience (beta to current date playing CoH / CoX) a well-organized team rarely needs active healing. Defender / Controller buffs, crowd control, good tanks, and gobs of damage mitigate most of the need for healing out of hand.
Shore that up with inspirations (and the fact that now you can combine three inspirations into any type you need, so three inspirations you don't need can instantly become a heal) and that further lessens the need for healing.
Spot healing is excellent when you're dealing with alpha strike attacks, such as those from an archvillian. Without any healing at all, some archetypes (*cough* blasters *cough*) can go down like a sack of wet concrete very quickly.
But the reality is that controllers and defenders are no longer "support classes" as they were when the game first went gold. At that time, the damage for some archetype combinations was so pitiful that they were completely ineffective without a group.
Today, they are more than viable as solo classes, and many of the controller archetype combinations are fully capable of out-damaging / surviving a blaster or scrapper, while providing crowd control and buffs.
So what it really boils down to is; nearly any combination of archetype available in CoX is useful and/or viable.
HOWEVER: It's just common sense not to put all of your eggs into one basket, and specifically, not into the healing basket. Give each power careful consideration and consider their benefit to you as both a solo and group player.
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Spoken like a person that lets other people do the healing and takes them for granted. You are greatly understating the value of healing. The fact is, there is almost always some type of healing going on in a group, whether you care to acknowledge it or not. There is no "Healer" archetype. No one disputes that. Archetypes that can heal have other things to do as well, but people do value healing. Empathy and Thermal are both very popular sets and are taken because they do have better healing than other sets. In some groups you can get by with little direct healing, but in other groups having a good healer is what saves you from a total wipe. Yes, people on the official forums most certainly do talk about heals and healing, but since most people know what heals are available with what sets, they mostly just talk about the sets. Most controller and defender sets include some type of healing ability. People choose Empathy or Thermal to be better healers. Having direct and AoE heals is a huge benefit.
The guides on the official forum are nice as a guideline, but they are outdated. Most were written several years ago when the game was much different. Most assume a nice balanced group, but that is rarely the case these days. Many times we don't have a main tank, or the (tank is a lower level) and no one to take aggro away from the rest of the group. So everyone is getting damaged, or some poor scrapper is getting torn up. The guides will also mention that controllers don't need to worry about healing because that is the defenders job. Well defenders are few and far between these days.
I have many characters, mostly scrappers and controllers. I took Thermal on one controller and enjoyed it so much that I took Empathy on another. It really can make a difference. That doesn't mean that I like my other controllers less. All sets have their benefits, but there are times when I'll be playing another set and wish that I had my Thermal or Empathy controllers, but sometime it happens the other way around too.
Some people get way too defensive of the term healer. To me it just means someone that heals, not someone that only heals. Back in the early days, groups tried to pigeon hole people, mostly defenders, into healing only roles. They got grief for using their secondary abilities. I really don't think it is still an issue today, but the scars remain.
coming from a lvl 50 ill/storm and fire/rad -- i can say that heals are not anywhere as NEEDED as even the quoted states. coming from someone who has to either buy new character slots or delete low level characters, in order to create new toons... i can say that heals are not essential to playing this game. they are just another tool, and they are a reactive tool, not a proactive tool. if you're healing, then your enemy is able to attack you and has been damaging you... why is that?
why is that enemy able to attack you? why aren't they confused? held? blinded? knocked down/back/up (if they're picking themselves off the ground, they aren't attacking), why aren't they running out of some kind of 'trops, or 'rain of'? why isn't your team buffed up in +def and/or +res? why isn't your team healing/recovering at +300%? why is the enemy having a higher than 5% chance to hit anything on your team? why aren't pets soaking up alphas and drawing aggro? why aren't pets mowing down minions and LTs before the npcs can even respond? why aren't the mobs feared? why aren't there toggles slowing and debuffing npcs, ON the npcs?
blasters have knock down/back/up, 'rain of', 'trops, etc. i think most ATs do have some form, or multiple forms, of what i've said up there.
if a scrapper is using cloak of fear... how many of those 10 npcs in that group are attacking him? if someone just laid down a footstomp, how many of the enemy are taking a short time out?
thrown caltrops onto some tsoo lately? have you watched the sorcerors and ink men run back and forth and back and forth and back and forth until you finished "arresting" all of them?
how much healing needs to be done when an aoe confuse has the entire group fighting each other, while you pick them off (oops, you only get 80-95% of the xp... is it worth using the confuse to cut your fighting time down to 1/5th of what it would be, if you're ONLY getting 80-95% of the xp? yes, it is, many times over.)
oh, that devices person just smoke grenaded a group... why aren't they attacking us?
why are the mobs trying to run out of that glue arrow area... shouldn't they just attack us with their ranged attacks, like they were BEFORE the glue hit the ground? but they aren't, they're running thru the glue and not attacking and giving us free attacks on them.
so, aside from morons bumrushing each group, mindlessly depending on anyone with a heal to keep them alive -- what is going on that damage mitigation and massive death of npcs is not happening and primary (and secondary) healers are needed?
of course, someone will need an occasional heal; but if healer is a job assignment on a team -- something is being done incorrectly, possibly by everyone on the team. by all means, take healing powers, but don't think that being a healing bot is ALL that your character can do... or that "support" ATs can't tank, dps, or tank/dps/buff/debuff/heal/cook/etc.
no really... look at posts made on the official forums dated with today's date.... you don't have to look at an outdated guide. go on, see all the advice, then try it out.
but please, don't advocate a primary healer as a good way to play the game. if you have to have a primary/dedicated healer to run missions; then, yes, someone or everyone, is/are doing things wrong.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
You are the ones that keep defining healer in terms that were not intended. We were talking support and part of that support is healing. You say that it is not needed. Go ahead and post on the official boards that you think healing should be removed from the game and see what responses you get. You guys keep talking about perfect situations, with perfect group balance, and everyone's powers landing without resists. Well, in the real world it doesn't work that way. Most pickup groups these days are not perfectly balanced. Not only do you not get the nice balance of different classes that you want, but the level ranges can very greatly. Purple targets can resist a lot (especially bosses), and a lot of damage can be done in the first 20 seconds of a fight while people are getting beat down. That is when most of the healing is needed. A good healer is often the only thing that saves the group from a total wipe. You can keep talking about your perfect world scenarios, but quite frequently we don't have a tank in the group to take aggro. Soft classes don't stand up so well to the beating. Even when we do have a tank, I have see some go down very quickly early in the fight.
You can ask me why it happens all day long. I don't know. i just know that it does. I see it all the time. I have also been playing since beta and have a ton of alts. I have seen a lot of good groups, and a lot of bad ones, and of course many in between. Maybe you guys play with the same people all the time, but with the low numbers on the servers these days, we take what we can get in pick up groups. Some times everything runs great and healing is not needed as much, other times it is needed constantly. Especially at the start of the fight before things get under control. It's also quite possible that you have a controller that has AoE heal set on auto cast and you never notice that part of the reason that everything is going so well is because you are constantly being healed.
You can argue that controllers and defenders are not really support classes any more, for various reasons, but all intents and purposes that is their role. We can split hairs, but we aren't talking about WoW type healer and support roles. CoH is different, but for the most part controllers offer crownd control, heals, and buffs/debiffs, which are support roles. Keep in mind that that is what the OP wanted.
Yes, primary healer is a fun and satisfying way to play the game. Why? First, because there is no Healer AT and you have plenty to do if there is no healing to be done. Second, if healing is needed, it's a great feeling when you are a big factor in preventing a group wipe. Third, it can keep you really busy.
For whatever reason you are way too sensitive to the term healer. I said before that it is not to imply that that is all they do, only a part of what they do. A large part of the reason people take Thermal or Empathy is for the extra healing abilities.
Yes, by all means go to the official forums and see what they say about Thermal and Empathy. See if those discussions avoid talk of heals completely like what is being implied above. I also find it quite ironic that while we are being directed to those forums to prove that they never use the term healer, one of the first threads is "Soloing AVs with my healer".
just finished a couple of hours run in a group of 4 blasters, 2 fenders (both mind/ta), and 2 scrappers. to the highest level person on the team, we were fighting +2s/+3s (occasionally +4s or even +5s). 3 SKs on the team. for the mentors - started high 20s & ended low 30s.
what perfect group balance and situations and builds did we have? we fought freaks, cot, council.
if you read my post, you would see that i said healing is a TOOL. you use tools, right? do you remove tools from the game?
take, twist, whatever what i've said... i just played a few hours with the above group... what kind of heals does mind/ta have? or, what heal (for other people) do blasters and scrappers have?
theory is fine... in theory.
when i speak, i speak practical application. you don't think a fire/rad ISN'T rocking the aura to keep his fire monkeys alive?
if you want to argue with me about this... then you need to be supporting "oh we need a primary dedicated healer"... if you're picking a side on this argument and you are supporting anything OTHER than that, in debating with me -- then you either don't understand what i'm typing, or you're just twisting things so you can argue (like in your original post i replied to in this thread).
doesn't matter to me which it is. healing is a tool, and oftentimes a minor one. a lot of characters get a self heal and know how to play their character. those people oftentimes do not need someone rocking the aura to keep them going. but they use all the tools available to them -- self healing being a TOOL, not a dedicated job on the team.
but, feel free to explain to me that players that actually play well and fight +2s and +3s and +4s and occasionally +5s NEED healers; because i just spent the past couple of hours on a team of 8, without team wipes, with very rare deaths -- proving that no dedicated healbot is even remotely needed.
if you've spent the past few hours proving that a team healer IS needed... i think my point is made.
theory is great, but the proof is in the pudding (whatever that means).
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
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Silverado
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Reged: 12/16/06
Posts: 1686
Loc: Freedom/Virtue
Soloing AVs with my healer
#12669675 - 12/01/08 11:19 AM
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Don't be fooled by the title, but I decided to take my Fire/Therm/Fire Controller out for a stroll, and this is what came out of it:
<lots of links to pics followed>
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=12669675&an=0&page=0#Post12669675
great post, please do read it.... talks tons about PLAYER skill in it, even if the toon was purpled out.... how many hundreds of millions (or billions) does an all purp build cost nowadays?
edit: typo that bugged me.
edit2: i've read thru most of that post and i like the part where it discusses an empath using a shivan (and other temp pets) to solo an av.
and other people that post here have also commented on how they've played since beta. that's good to know, when considering everything.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
if you read my post, you would see that i said healing is a TOOL. you use tools, right? do you remove tools from the game?
take, twist, whatever what i've said... i just played a few hours with the above group... what kind of heals does mind/ta have? or, what heal (for other people) do blasters and scrappers have?
theory is fine... in theory.
when i speak, i speak practical application. you don't think a fire/rad ISN'T rocking the aura to keep his fire monkeys alive?
if you want to argue with me about this... then you need to be supporting "oh we need a primary dedicated healer"... if you're picking a side on this argument and you are supporting anything OTHER than that, in debating with me -- then you either don't understand what i'm typing, or you're just twisting things so you can argue (like in your original post i replied to in this thread).
I was never arguing any such thing. Healing IS a tool. It was you that twisted what I said based on the use of certain words that you tie a certain meaning to that I don't. The original poster wanted a support class and liked healing. I suggested a controller (Illusion specifically) with either Thermal or Empathy as a secondary. I then explained why I liked them. I also mentioned that the more crowd control you do the less you will have to heal. All of it was directed to the OP's desire. You then took, out of context, the fact that we used the term healer, and then proceeded to try to make it sound like healing isn't really needed in the game and nobody really does it. I have personally found that to not be the case and was stating that fact. You claimed, and still maintain that healing is the weakest tool, and I disagree. That is what we are arguing. I was never arguing that there was a dedicated "Healer". it's just a part of the job. I find a controller with Thermal or Empathy to be a fun and often fast paced build. It doesn't lessen what other controllers do. The original poster was looking for a support class that could heal and I made my suggestions.
People that spec Thermal or Empathy want to be the best healers. Things can and do go bad in groups and a good healer can save the group from a wipe. These people generally take it upon themselves to be primary healers. Primary does not mean dedicated or restricted in any way (in relation to this anyway). They can direct heal and AoE heal and can save other players butts. My point when i used the term was that some people feel that only defenders can make decent healers and controllers should not even try, and I feel that is wrong. Controllers who want to be good healers can be if they choose...provided that they don't neglect their other duties. The OP likes healing, so he might as well be the best he can be while providing the other support functions that are available to him.
I was never arguing that there was or should be a dedicated healer. As a controller it would be foolish not to be controlling. If anything good controlling enhances you ability to provide good healing. Controlling and good healing make a good combination for those that like it. The OP does, and that it why i suggested it.
Btw, My last post was refering to the both posts before it. Some of what was said may have been refering to the other poster, not you. If you feel that I twisted your meaning then that may be why.
words, like i said, i'm getting tired of repeating the same stuff.
you put "you can easily be primary healer" ... yes?
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Yes, and you are the one that tied the narrow meaning to it. Primary does not equal dedicated to nothing but healing. It also not not mean required. It means Number 1, the best healer. It means that they are good enough to save the group when things go badly. This is something that some people like to do and take upon themselves. A primary healer can spam heals if necessary. If someone wants to be a primary healer they can. It does not mean that they stop using the other tools of their AT, they do it in addition to those other abilities. It can be fast paced and a lot of fun, but too fast paced for some.
Some people claim that only Empathy defenders can do that, and my point, with that one sentence that you focus everything on, was that controllers can do it too if they want to. That comment was simply referring to defenders vs controllers at healing, and you made it into a big deal.
People take Thermal and Empathy to be the best healers. That is a simple fact. You say that a healer isn't NEEDED, but technically you can say the same about any of the AT's and/or their skill sets. You don't need anything that kinetics has to offer, but it's nice to have. You don't need a tank, but when you have one it is appreciated. Having a good healer is also appreciated.
just finished a couple of hours run in a group of 4 blasters, 2 fenders (both mind/ta), and 2 scrappers. to the highest level person on the team, we were fighting +2s/+3s (occasionally +4s or even +5s). 3 SKs on the team. for the mentors - started high 20s & ended low 30s.
what perfect group balance and situations and builds did we have? we fought freaks, cot, council.
...
but, feel free to explain to me that players that actually play well and fight +2s and +3s and +4s and occasionally +5s NEED healers; because i just spent the past couple of hours on a team of 8, without team wipes, with very rare deaths -- proving that no dedicated healbot is even remotely needed.
if you've spent the past few hours proving that a team healer IS needed... i think my point is made.
outside of the sarcastically titled post referenced earlier in this thread, you really DON'T wander around forums (aside from here) where people both 1 claim to have played this game for years, and 2 throw around the word healer like that carro person. (and that referenced post, which i linked to this thread, really doesn't sit there talking about "imma healer", go read it please.)
pretty weird that a random team would need to have anyone that thinks they're "primary healer"
hey carro-, if people need healing, that's your job. seriously. you can reword and play semantics till the cows come home, it really doesn't make it any less unbelievable.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
I can tell you that it's possible to level a character like that up to 50, but it's bound to be the most boring existence ever.
One of my guildmates in CoX took a Force Field Defender up to 50 and never took any of his attacks after the first one. He even gimped his build with a bunch of useless powers that might have made his character more survivable, but at the expense of any fun he might have had. He largely ended up just standing there or following the rest of the group around with his shields up.
Personally, that would have bored me silly. My advice? Don't get so wrapped up in team support that you ignore the help you can otherwise provide. Your damage might not be that great, but every little bit helps.
I've taken two Defenders to 50 (Empathy and Kinetics), and apart from a couple of Scrappers and a Brute, I tend to gravitate towards support roles in CoX, like Defenders and Controllers. Personally, I think the best way to approach the concept of team support is that while you're not on the front lines taking a beating, you can definitely still help.
A well played support character not only heals and buffs others, but they contribute damage and debuffs as well. For example, my Empath wouldn't just stand back and heal and buff. I'd use her Dark powers to immobilize (Tenebrous Tentacles), disorient (Dark Pit) and debuff (Night Fall) groups of foes when we were in huge fights. I might not have done as much damage as a Blaster or a melee character, but fights would go faster, and people were getting hit a lot less often due to the Accuracy debuffs.
I'd recommend experimenting a bit. Don't just fall into the trap my guildmate did and think that support/healing = gimped toon at the back of the bus just catering to everyone else. A good support character is much more than that. There's a whole arsenal of tricks that can be pulled out to help a team.
My main is a mental controller, with kinetics. I love making the enemy fight each other, pin one dude against the wall to let a blaster take him out from a distance, and then wiping the mind of somebody that my group's scrapper is facing off against.
MMO games played or tested: EQ, DAoC, Archlord, Auto Assault, CoH, CoV, EQ2, EVE, Guild Wars, Hellgate: London, Linneage II, LOTRO, MxO, Planetside, SWG, Sword of the New World, Tabula Rasa, Vanguard, WWIIOL, WOW, Age of Conan