New efforts!

[Azrael]

Arcana scores points for keeping the thread alive with the spirit of CoH 'build' talk in the absence of 'buyout' news.  ...and reminding just why we miss CoH so much.

I always benched my alts from Tank, Brute, Scrapper, Blaster, Dominator, Controller, Corruptor...etc...generally...on how they handled: Atlas, Hollows mission and street sweeping, Steel Canyon street sweeping, Talos street sweeping, Striga 'boat' missions was my key stress test (wide mobs, up or down difficulty...and see how much each alt could take before they 'fell' over...) and of course, Brickstown street sweeping was dense with Creys, Council and Freak juicy cluster mobs.  Of course, even though I 'hated' Arachnos 'odds stacked against you rebuffs...  I also noted the latter in my observations.

These are all based on normal SO origin enhances not IO'd out conditions.  Many of these were 'tested' back to back with a DUO partner.  (My favourite way to play the game...ie.  Somebody you can test 'Dual' FF defenders stacking their defences/overlapping.  Nemesis?  No problem...)

Blasters.  Found them hard going in the L40s.  Fun in the early game.  Took on an extra wind with DOs...(if you liked blapping and 'jumping' compact mobs in Steel...) and SOs (and pre-inherent Stamina...) gave them an extra dimension.  End management was vital.  That's why 'talk' of high defense and perms-hasten builds for En/En blasters leaves me green with envy.  If the game ever comes back...  Sonic blasters turned things into butter with those -res...  However I found that blaster liked the charisma or ballet fluidity of energy.  Electric blaster was a compelling choice with some super blapping options (thunder strike with its slight AoE?  Havoc Punch?)  Fence a foe, blast him, close to blap.  Good night vienna.  Ice/Ice.  Blast-oller.  Elegant.  Deadly.  Spent 3 levels in Founders fall levelling up by hunting the Snipers.  (It was personal...)  The Water Blaster?  A new breed of blaster pointing the way to Issue 24 and a brighter future for blasters.  Cork screw heal buff.  Whirl pool.  Rinse repeat Novas.  The fun never stopped.  My favourite blaster?  En/En?  Hard to decide.  But my first love.  As for fire/fire blaster...meh.  Not so much.

Tanks.  A compelling sense of invulnerability until that 'tipping point.'  I recall my SS/Invul' herding, punch voking, taunting, insulting their parentage Mobs with an AR/Devices blaster behind me.  As tank, I'd wait for my 'Duo' partner to set up the bombs/traps... and pull a mob to them.  Great fun.  Tanks were great tactical fun.  Pull mob to post.  Run into mob.  Mob to mob.  Pull the room.  Take to corner.  Taunt off squishy.  Etc.  Etc.  See how many you can pull on you until your tank falls over.  For me, my En/Invul became my most favourite tank because of the Energy transfer and Whirling hands...with Dull Pain coming round just in time to boost HPs.  My Mace/Electric tank was fantastic.  Great armour for Electric tank.  Tough had to be taken to shore up its smashing and lethal...but for the rest?  Sound.  2x AoE on the Mace really agitated mobs and kept them off their feet with some bone crunching Mace attacks.  SS/Invul was good.  How could you not like Rage?  But it was an Em/Invul build that I topped out the dam rest and defence cap!  I saw defence numbers off the charts with some of the mob clusters around me!  Great build at 1 billion influ'.

Hearing talk of SR tanks defence capped out the box...has me drooling.  That with Dark Melee?  I'm kicking myself for not rolling one when I had the chance...

Scrappers led a charmed life.  Most of the defence.  Most of the attack.  Super fast at levelling.  I think I enjoyed my Claws Regen most.  But DUOing Spines/Regen (with Tough on my alt...) was a formidable double act.  Super break neck fast levelling.

Controllers.  Hmm.  I never really got one passed L32.  Jack Frost didn't seem the compelling pet that fire imps was (which I never really got to...)  Fire/Kin, Illus/Emp or Rad.  I never, to my shame played those.  I found Ice/Rad very elegant to play.  But I found there wasn't that tactile feedback in Controllers.  A preference perhaps.  But if I could get the game back, I'd like to try Controllers.  Control.  Yes.  But I found them lacking charisma...or yearned for even slight melee response at times.

Ergo...

Dominators.  I put a 4.5 billion influence build together and I still wasn't soft capped.  But it was Elec/Elec/Elec patron.  It was everything I wanted from Controllers, Blasters and Scrappers ...rolled into one.  Hold.  Blast.  Close to blap.  Good night Vienna.  Hold mobs.   End reduce.  Sleep.  Confuse.  Mobs wittle away to nothing.  You can hold them.  Stand amongst them.  Drain them.  Blast.  Blap.  Blast.  Knock down.  And if you didn't?  You're 4 pets did!  I ended up with 5 pets if you include the incarnate storm cloud!  They did the grunt work while I strolled in and slapped the mobs around casually.  It was like pulling legs off spiders.  PErma dom.  Perma Hasten.  It was my favourite alt.

I tried and L50'd a stone/stone Domi.  It was simply awesome control.  Vocannic gases was it?  Earthquake?  Stalactites?  Some brilliant holds.  Brutal close melee.  Hammer.  Big Hammer.  Rock punch.  AoE rock punch.  Simply devastating battery of close melee.  I'd def' play that one again.  Fun factor off the charts.

The thing about Domi's.  They could sure dish it.  But you had to be careful about stacking the deck against arachnos.  Or having 'too busy' a play field.  A few hits to your glass jaw and it was game over.  Domi's were the most fun archetype.  Vulnerable.  But powerful.  The skill was in negotiating the control from a a distance and close proximity, blasting and close in for the kill.  Whereas, Controllers could be pretty much arms length gaming before the mob closed the gap on you.  With Dom's it didn't matter.  You had a 'bacon sandwich' punch waiting for them.  But too many mobs in close prox' and you could get tagged too often.  Dominations was awesome to say to that boss, 'You're mezzed.'  (He say, 'No, I'm not...')  You say, 'YES you are!')

Defenders.  Overlapping duo partner.  FF/Energy.  FF/Rad'.  Rad' melts.  Energy hits harder.  Overlapping defences means you 'walk' through the the game.  Amen.  Simply staggering the punishment you can take with Deflection/Insulation etc buffed on you.  Two defenders like this together and you have an order of magnitude effect.  I never really got to try out the solo boost to def' damage later in the game.  But I did try a sonic/FF duo partnership.  Sonic melts.  Very effective.  Defenders were a unique arch.  Hard to solo.  Weak, I felt.  Could have had things like the buffs such as insulation/deflection shields to self buff and give blaster base damage to compensate on solo at least.  Ie.  If a scrapper could have most of the defence...and most of the attack...and have higher HPs?

Dark/Dark.  Nice to have orange mobs in Bricks unable to hit you...but it took ages, burned end and there'd be that boss that would mezz you...(...and I was thinking my Dark Melee/En Shields brute could do it better/quicker...if not better...)

Brutes.

SS/Shield, Epic Fire.  Devastating.  The madder I get?  The stronger I get.  Quick.  Insane recharge.  Rage.  Fire ball AoE.  Footstomp.  AoE.  Shield Charge.  AoE.  Fire.  Smash.  Overwhelming force.  Scorched earth... +2/+3 x8 with Bosses?  Np.  Defence capped at range, close and AoE.  Billion.  The best build to performance cost ever.  Awesome.  Incarnate.

Dark Melee/En Shields brute?  Elegant.  Great for mobs of orange and never getting hit as you debuff accuracy of mob.  Defence means you get hit less also.  Stacks.  Only higher bosses could hit you.  Efficient but it took it's time.

Willpower/Mace brute.  Got this one to Incarnate as well.  Great regen.  Great attack.  Loads of fun.  Duo-ed to level 50 even con standard mobs all the way using TFs as appropriate.  1st time I 'played the game straight' to get to L50.  Enlightening to play the game directly with no digressions.

I enjoyed my elec/elec Scrapper.  I found my elec/elec Stalker a revelation of Palpatine proportions despite vowing I'd never play such a cowardly type.  So much I tried.  Even a psi Domi.   

But as people post now, I see so much I didn't try.  Or get chance to.  I thought I kinda had.  But looking back I see more possibilities.  Such as a plant Domi...or a turbo charged en/en blaster with high teens def'... ;)

Just some of my thoughts.

Azrael.

PS.  PB vs WS debate.  PB.  I liked the visceral thrill of direct combat, solar strike, incandescent, radiant...some eye wincing punches...and the potential of perm unstoppable light form opened up new possibilities.  However, it's not in the same league as a WS for devastating AoE mobbing.  I was cruelly robbed of the chance of getting my WS to L50.  Stopped, at L41, I think...with my desperate for slots in my human form as I'd spent many on my Dark Dwarf and getting the dark cloud pets recharged to allow two to orbit my Dwarf.  And that heal...from dead bodies.  Cute.  Sunless Mire...  Wow.

[Auroxis]

I found my elec/elec Stalker a revelation of Palpatine proportions despite vowing I'd never play such a cowardly type.

Stalkers were amazing in the game's final years. Elec/ in particular, those had the AoE of a blaster and the single target DPS of a scrapper, while having incredible survivability with IO's. Elec/Nin was my most invested character, Incarnate softcapped (59% def), perma hastened that killing machine and he could solo rikti pylons like the best of 'em.

[Arcana]

Fort wasn't bad, and yeah it benefited from the defender values greater than controllers, but IMO the benefit wasn't large enough even the odd nature of DEF to encourage Emp-Defender over Emp-Controller.  Slotted, what was it, 18% vs 23% controller vs defender?  Forcefield's values were large enough, getting close enough to the softcap, that those small value changes started to take on much more significance.  A FF defender was giving out, what, about 40% with the small and big bubbles combined?  While a FF controller gave out about 30%? 

(I'm honestly asking/guessing/trying to remember, I don't have the numbers in front of me)

In general, Controller buff numbers were 75% of Defender numbers.  So Defender fortitude had +15% defense unslotted, Controller fortitude had +11.25% defense unslotted.  Slotted, those numbers are about 23.4% defender, 17.6% controller.  For force fields, defenders had 15% bubbles and 10% dispersion, for a total of 25% defense unslotted, or about 39% slotted.  The controller numbers were 11.25% and 7.5% for a total of 18.75% unslotted, 29.25% slotted.  Defenders could just about soft cap their FF allies with maneuvers and a little overslotting, controllers were hitting about 33.3% defense to allies under the same conditions.

Force fields was a buff set in which the archetype difference was significant.  Much moreso than Empathy, where the difference between ~30% defense and 23% defense was usually less noticeable.  The problem with FF was that defense saturated so quickly most of the time.  The odds you would be buffing targets that already had a lot of defense either intrinsically or because of other team buffs was a lot higher than, say, the odds a Kin would find everyone already at the recharge cap.  Buffs like Accelerate Metabolism which spread their power over multiple effects rather than concentrated on one (like smash/lethal defense) were more likely to return full value in a team.

[Winter Fable]

Brutes were the only AT I never made.I always heard how good they were on the forums but in game (especially on the ITF)
and doing radio missions in the mid 30's and early 40's levels they didn't seem that good.They would run in like a tank but die
faster and scrappers seemed to do better overall.I guess people IO'd scrappers over other AT's maybe or they were cheaper to
IO.I knew people who ran Brutes for AE farms but on blue side for all the talk about Brutes replacing Tanks I saw many more
tanks.
Now with all the talk about best solo or best contribution to team play I want to know out of all the same AT teams who
were the best.Tanker Tuesdays were fun but all Controller or all Defender teams I think did best.All Mastermind teams were too
crazy even for me.

[Arcana]

Empathy Defenders could:

1. Give +30% defense to most of your team with Fortitude and Maneuvers (I personally kept 6 people Fort'd constantly, and sometimes even 7 if I had someone feeding me recharge). 

2. Fortitude also happens to give a damage buff, so +50% damage to your teammates together with Assault.

3. Give a character softcapped defenses with PBU Fortitude.

4. Easily heal any damage that goes through those defenses with active heals (Heal Other, Healing Aura) or passive heals (Regeneration Aura, Adrenalin Boost).

5. Give a team mez protection.

6. Solve a team's endurance issues with Recovery Aura.

7. Give fast recharging crash-less nukes to a blaster with Adrenalin Boost.

And a nice bonus is how none of these have to be done at the start of fights. Empathy Defenders can start blasting the second fights start, they don't have to apply control powers or debuffs on the mobs before their benefits take effect.

You seem to be comparing Empathy Defenders to non-Empathy Controllers, but I have no idea why.  All these things you say Empathy Defenders can do, Empathy Controllers can do (albeit with different numbers to the powers).  And all these benefits accrue at exactly the same time as Empathy Defenders.  On top of that they have controls.  Empathy Controllers can start blasting the second the fight starts no different than Empathy Defenders, its just that when the Controller starts blasting everything else stops blasting back.

Lets take an example, using my favorite controller primary example.  In a comparison with an Ill/Emp controller vs Emp/* defender, both Emps buff their team mates at similar times and with analogous benefits.  But at the start of the fight, the Emp/* defender starts "blasting" while the Ill/Emp casts the PA into the middle of the spawn, grouping them all up into a nice pile, so that when the AoE arrives it lands on everyone.  On top of that, the Ill/Emp has an additional buff: Group Vis.  This makes the entire team stealthed and adds almost 3% additional defense which closes the Fortitude defense gap almost in half, and generally ensures the team gets the alpha strike.

On top of that, if you're thinking the Ill/Emp can't cast the PA into the center of spawns all the time because its sometimes recharging, the Ill/Emp has one more trick up its sleeve there: superior invisibility.  You can toggle SI, teleport right into the middle of a spawn, and the PA will happily march right there and start the process all over again.  An experienced Illusion controller can pace themselves so that they are always moving to the next spawn just as the previous one is being completed, ensuring the PA starts the process before the bulk of the damage dealers arrive.  The critters are just plain not going to see you, because SI's stealth is stalker-class stealth: its actually a little higher than Hide numerically.

Now, my Ill/Emp has at least two modes it can be playing it.  It could be in a team where after all the static buffs go out, the team is fine and doesn't need much mitigation help.  In that case, I can just go to town on offense, including Epic attacks if I'm high enough level.  But suppose the team is in trouble and needs additional mitigation.  I could start spamming heals.  Both the Ill/Emp and the Emp/* can do that, but while they are doing that the Ill/Emp is still dealing significant damage, because that damage is coming from the PA and the Phantasm (even the Spectral Terror if you've proced it).  I can switch between actually using attacks and using other powers like heals while my pets continue to fight.  Every second the Emp/* defender stops attacking their damage essentially drops to zero.  And there are only so many activation-seconds to go around.

Incidentally, this is one of the reasons why I felt Ill/Rad was the best swiss army knife combo.  It wasn't just the diversity of effects, it was the way they could be leveraged tactically, and the way they synergized in unexpected ways.  It took me a little bit of time to figure out how to best leverage the PA.  Team mates would sometimes think I was nuts jumping right into the middle of the hardest spawns until it dawned on them they were almost never actually shooting at me.  Until I attacked I had no aggro, and when I chose to attack it was either after aggro had been taken by the PA or other players, or when I decided to flash them all into submission.

[Arcana]

Brutes were the only AT I never made.I always heard how good they were on the forums but in game (especially on the ITF)
and doing radio missions in the mid 30's and early 40's levels they didn't seem that good.They would run in like a tank but die
faster and scrappers seemed to do better overall.I guess people IO'd scrappers over other AT's maybe or they were cheaper to
IO.I knew people who ran Brutes for AE farms but on blue side for all the talk about Brutes replacing Tanks I saw many more
tanks.
Now with all the talk about best solo or best contribution to team play I want to know out of all the same AT teams who
were the best.Tanker Tuesdays were fun but all Controller or all Defender teams I think did best.All Mastermind teams were too
crazy even for me.

In any "all X" team, it would be the force multipliers that would have the best performance.  Basically, Defenders, Controllers, Masterminds, and Corruptors, all of which had lots of stacking team buffs.  And in terms of sheer crazy, that would have to be the Controller and Mastermind teams because on top of being force multipliers, all the pets added to the crazy.  The craziest teams I've personally seen have been all Controller Illusion/Fire controllers with Kin/Rad.  All those pets and all that speed.  I guess the ultimate in crazy would be something I've never witnessed before, a hypothetical all Thugs/Time team.  All those pets, all that speed, and gang war.  That would have to be batshit bananas.

[Auroxis]

You seem to be comparing Empathy Defenders to non-Empathy Controllers, but I have no idea why.  All these things you say Empathy Defenders can do, Empathy Controllers can do (albeit with different numbers to the powers).  And all these benefits accrue at exactly the same time as Empathy Defenders.  On top of that they have controls.  Empathy Controllers can start blasting the second the fight starts no different than Empathy Defenders, its just that when the Controller starts blasting everything else stops blasting back.

Lets take an example, using my favorite controller primary example.  In a comparison with an Ill/Emp controller vs Emp/* defender, both Emps buff their team mates at similar times and with analogous benefits.  But at the start of the fight, the Emp/* defender starts "blasting" while the Ill/Emp casts the PA into the middle of the spawn, grouping them all up into a nice pile, so that when the AoE arrives it lands on everyone.  On top of that, the Ill/Emp has an additional buff: Group Vis.  This makes the entire team stealthed and adds almost 3% additional defense which closes the Fortitude defense gap almost in half, and generally ensures the team gets the alpha strike.

On top of that, if you're thinking the Ill/Emp can't cast the PA into the center of spawns all the time because its sometimes recharging, the Ill/Emp has one more trick up its sleeve there: superior invisibility.  You can toggle SI, teleport right into the middle of a spawn, and the PA will happily march right there and start the process all over again.  An experienced Illusion controller can pace themselves so that they are always moving to the next spawn just as the previous one is being completed, ensuring the PA starts the process before the bulk of the damage dealers arrive.  The critters are just plain not going to see you, because SI's stealth is stalker-class stealth: its actually a little higher than Hide numerically.

Now, my Ill/Emp has at least two modes it can be playing it.  It could be in a team where after all the static buffs go out, the team is fine and doesn't need much mitigation help.  In that case, I can just go to town on offense, including Epic attacks if I'm high enough level.  But suppose the team is in trouble and needs additional mitigation.  I could start spamming heals.  Both the Ill/Emp and the Emp/* can do that, but while they are doing that the Ill/Emp is still dealing significant damage, because that damage is coming from the PA and the Phantasm (even the Spectral Terror if you've proced it).  I can switch between actually using attacks and using other powers like heals while my pets continue to fight.  Every second the Emp/* defender stops attacking their damage essentially drops to zero.  And there are only so many activation-seconds to go around.

I was more referring to the "Empathy was bad" post, Defender was more of a side-note and for numbers. As I said earlier about controller vs. defender , it's a matter of preference. I like being able to dish out the blasts whenever, without setup especially when i'm busy managing my buffs and keeping an eye on the team's health bars and location on the map (gotta watch out for scrapperlock).

Yeah Illusion can deal ok single target DPS and be a tank if the team lacks one. I just preferred rapid-firing my blasts and letting the brute/tanker do the aggro management while I kept teammates buffed and in check. If the team didn't have a brute/tanker I'd just log on my brute.

[blacksly]

when I decided to flash them all into submission.

I'm SO quoting this out of context.

[Twisted Toon]

I guess the ultimate in crazy would be something I've never witnessed before, a hypothetical all Thugs/Time team.  All those pets, all that speed, and gang war.  That would have to be batshit bananas.

How much damage could 80 generic thugs, 24 loyal thugs, 16 enforcers, and 8 Bruisers do to an AV?

I would like to see a full team of Thug Masterminds sometime...unfortunately, I think my computer's video card would cry and then refuse to talk to me ever again.

[Arcana]

How much damage could 80 generic thugs, 24 loyal thugs, 16 enforcers, and 8 Bruisers do to an AV?

A lot.

I would like to see a full team of Thug Masterminds sometime...unfortunately, I think my computer's video card would cry and then refuse to talk to me ever again.

During architect beta, before they took this away, I made a mission with a custom critter group that was all Thugs masterminds.  The first time any of them saw a player enter the mission all of them decided to trigger gang war simultaneously.  They literally filled the hallways to a density where you could walk across their heads like a mosh pit.  I imagined in my head that the masterminds all looked at each other and were all like "no, I thought I was supposed to call for help", "no, *I* was supposed to call for help", "I thought you called for help last time," "well I can't send these guys all back," "maybe more players will show up, lets wait and see."  And I was like "oh hell no" and left the mission.

[Arcana]

I was more referring to the "Empathy was bad" post, Defender was more of a side-note and for numbers. As I said earlier about controller vs. defender , it's a matter of preference. I like being able to dish out the blasts whenever, without setup especially when i'm busy managing my buffs and keeping an eye on the team's health bars and location on the map (gotta watch out for scrapperlock).

Yeah Illusion can deal ok single target DPS and be a tank if the team lacks one. I just preferred rapid-firing my blasts and letting the brute/tanker do the aggro management while I kept teammates buffed and in check. If the team didn't have a brute/tanker I'd just log on my brute.

Fair enough.  I think Empathy was originally overrated for its heals, then it was underrated for only having heals, and it took some rehabilitation before people realized Empathy's true strengths lay with its non-heals: Fort, AB, and RA in particular.  Personally, I liked playing Rad more, but I had no problem playing squishies having a good Emp watching my back.

[Ironwolf]

I was more referring to the "Empathy was bad" post, Defender was more of a side-note and for numbers. As I said earlier about controller vs. defender , it's a matter of preference. I like being able to dish out the blasts whenever, without setup especially when i'm busy managing my buffs and keeping an eye on the team's health bars and location on the map (gotta watch out for scrapperlock).

Yeah Illusion can deal ok single target DPS and be a tank if the team lacks one. I just preferred rapid-firing my blasts and letting the brute/tanker do the aggro management while I kept teammates buffed and in check. If the team didn't have a brute/tanker I'd just log on my brute.

If I were on my Fire/Dark corruptor I can debuff, tank, DPS, heal, rez, slow, stun and all those glorious orange numbers when I drop my fire rain onto the tar.

I didn't say Empath is bad. I said it was not as good in most circumstances as other power sets. I prefer to mitigate rather than react. In an all defender ITF - I tanked all the missions and AV's with a Dark/Sonic Def. This includes pulling both AV's and the computer all at once in that mission.

[Auroxis]

Again though, Empathy isn't really that reaction-based due to Fortitude, AB and Regeneration Aura. Your active heals eventually become more of a safety blanket and don't see use that often.

Dark had the responsibility of Heals as well, that doesn't make it a reaction-based powerset.

[Vee]

Fair enough.  I think Empathy was originally overrated for its heals, then it was underrated for only having heals, and it took some rehabilitation before people realized Empathy's true strengths lay with its non-heals: Fort, AB, and RA in particular.  Personally, I liked playing Rad more, but I had no problem playing squishies having a good Emp watching my back.

This. Empathy was great in the early leveling game, but got overrated because of that and all the "Thanks for heals!" nonsense, which led to all the healzors and the morons who'd complain that other fenders weren't healers even though their presence could make heals not needed. The main issue I had is that once you're dealing with most of the level 50 content, even the otherwise great fort loses some efficacy (even on a recharge build that can keep it on most of the team) due to IOs and other buffs on the team. Compare what fort does to one team member at a time to what a widow or time, e.g. can do permanently to the whole team. Similarly RA and AB were great, but IO builds are likely to have endurance pretty well taken care of, and i'd rather have other forms of mitigation such as dark's crippling -to hit or a troller/dom's mezzing than extra regen in most cases. And of course you could easily have a rad giving similar buffs but also debuffing the hell out of everything. There's nothing wrong with empathy, and of course if played well it's helpful, it's just that in most high level cases (i.e. other than hami, states, keyes) I'd rather have something else because what empathy does well a team can get from other sources which have other benefits.

[Arcana]

I'm SO quoting this out of context.

Interestingly, this is also how my MA/SR describes defeating something with Eagle's Claw.

[Arcana]

This. Empathy was great in the early leveling game, but got overrated because of that and all the "Thanks for heals!" nonsense, which led to all the healzors and the morons who'd complain that other fenders weren't healers even though their presence could make heals not needed.

Believe it or not, back in the pre-Issue 1 days the forum consensus was that Radiation Emission was the worst defender primary, because it was perceived to have low healing and not enough anything else to compensate for the crime of having not enough healing.  Even force fields was considered better because while it lacked a heal, it at least had strong defense (but it was considered second worst, behind Rad).

Seems quaint today.

[ivanhedgehog]

You seem to be comparing Empathy Defenders to non-Empathy Controllers, but I have no idea why.  All these things you say Empathy Defenders can do, Empathy Controllers can do (albeit with different numbers to the powers).  And all these benefits accrue at exactly the same time as Empathy Defenders.  On top of that they have controls.  Empathy Controllers can start blasting the second the fight starts no different than Empathy Defenders, its just that when the Controller starts blasting everything else stops blasting back.

Lets take an example, using my favorite controller primary example.  In a comparison with an Ill/Emp controller vs Emp/* defender, both Emps buff their team mates at similar times and with analogous benefits.  But at the start of the fight, the Emp/* defender starts "blasting" while the Ill/Emp casts the PA into the middle of the spawn, grouping them all up into a nice pile, so that when the AoE arrives it lands on everyone.  On top of that, the Ill/Emp has an additional buff: Group Vis.  This makes the entire team stealthed and adds almost 3% additional defense which closes the Fortitude defense gap almost in half, and generally ensures the team gets the alpha strike.

On top of that, if you're thinking the Ill/Emp can't cast the PA into the center of spawns all the time because its sometimes recharging, the Ill/Emp has one more trick up its sleeve there: superior invisibility.  You can toggle SI, teleport right into the middle of a spawn, and the PA will happily march right there and start the process all over again.  An experienced Illusion controller can pace themselves so that they are always moving to the next spawn just as the previous one is being completed, ensuring the PA starts the process before the bulk of the damage dealers arrive.  The critters are just plain not going to see you, because SI's stealth is stalker-class stealth: its actually a little higher than Hide numerically.

Now, my Ill/Emp has at least two modes it can be playing it.  It could be in a team where after all the static buffs go out, the team is fine and doesn't need much mitigation help.  In that case, I can just go to town on offense, including Epic attacks if I'm high enough level.  But suppose the team is in trouble and needs additional mitigation.  I could start spamming heals.  Both the Ill/Emp and the Emp/* can do that, but while they are doing that the Ill/Emp is still dealing significant damage, because that damage is coming from the PA and the Phantasm (even the Spectral Terror if you've proced it).  I can switch between actually using attacks and using other powers like heals while my pets continue to fight.  Every second the Emp/* defender stops attacking their damage essentially drops to zero.  And there are only so many activation-seconds to go around.

Incidentally, this is one of the reasons why I felt Ill/Rad was the best swiss army knife combo.  It wasn't just the diversity of effects, it was the way they could be leveraged tactically, and the way they synergized in unexpected ways.  It took me a little bit of time to figure out how to best leverage the PA.  Team mates would sometimes think I was nuts jumping right into the middle of the hardest spawns until it dawned on them they were almost never actually shooting at me.  Until I attacked I had no aggro, and when I chose to attack it was either after aggro had been taken by the PA or other players, or when I decided to flash them all into submission.

Now youve done it, I want to recreate my Ill/emp. hopefully negotiations will start up again and we can do this.

[LaughingAlex]

This. Empathy was great in the early leveling game, but got overrated because of that and all the "Thanks for heals!" nonsense, which led to all the healzors and the morons who'd complain that other fenders weren't healers even though their presence could make heals not needed. The main issue I had is that once you're dealing with most of the level 50 content, even the otherwise great fort loses some efficacy (even on a recharge build that can keep it on most of the team) due to IOs and other buffs on the team. Compare what fort does to one team member at a time to what a widow or time, e.g. can do permanently to the whole team. Similarly RA and AB were great, but IO builds are likely to have endurance pretty well taken care of, and i'd rather have other forms of mitigation such as dark's crippling -to hit or a troller/dom's mezzing than extra regen in most cases. And of course you could easily have a rad giving similar buffs but also debuffing the hell out of everything. There's nothing wrong with empathy, and of course if played well it's helpful, it's just that in most high level cases (i.e. other than hami, states, keyes) I'd rather have something else because what empathy does well a team can get from other sources which have other benefits.

A good number of my plans for when the game starts are based on this issue heavily.  For me though it's not just that there are other sources, it's that empathy was far more frequently mis-played on a routine basis.  A LOT of people would ignore everything but the heals and wonder why they weren't as highly demanded at high levels or why their teams consistently sucked.  The reasons were that good players knew empathy had to be played as a buffer rather than a healer, all the while the "n00bs", not refering to newbies but the type of player who litterally never learns anything in the game after playing it a while, still insisted on healers as the only form of support.  Which lead to disaster routinely for them.

[Winter Fable]

If I were on my Fire/Dark corruptor I can debuff, tank, DPS, heal, rez, slow, stun and all those glorious orange numbers when I drop my fire rain onto the tar.

I didn't say Empath is bad. I said it was not as good in most circumstances as other power sets. I prefer to mitigate rather than react. In an all defender ITF - I tanked all the missions and AV's with a Dark/Sonic Def. This includes pulling both AV's and the computer all at once in that mission.

Defenders got all the attack powers corruptors had not sure what issue,so that means when the game is back Dark/Fire this
time right :)Can't wait to get back to all Def/Troller Super Teams again.

[darkgob]

During architect beta, before they took this away, I made a mission with a custom critter group that was all Thugs masterminds.  The first time any of them saw a player enter the mission all of them decided to trigger gang war simultaneously.  They literally filled the hallways to a density where you could walk across their heads like a mosh pit.  I imagined in my head that the masterminds all looked at each other and were all like "no, I thought I was supposed to call for help", "no, *I* was supposed to call for help", "I thought you called for help last time," "well I can't send these guys all back," "maybe more players will show up, lets wait and see."  And I was like "oh hell no" and left the mission.

https://i.imgur.com/urJjgqL.gif