The Thunderspy server has announced a couple of Empathy changes aimed at making the set more interesting to play for Defenders and Controllers that are quite eye-catching.
The first change they’ve made is that Absorb Pain has been replaced. The reasoning behind this change was that Absorb Pain left the user unable to heal for a considerable amount of time and it felt a bit redundant given that Empathy already had so many ways to heal. It is being replaced by Empathize, a power inspired visually by the Medic’s healing beam from Team Fortress 2. The power links you and an ally together with a beam of light. Mechanically speaking, when you are linked your partner shares ¼ of the damage with you. Your ally also gains damage resistance while connected and incoming healing to them is more effective. The power works at a distance of 80 feet though you must maintain line of sight during that time. If line of sight is broken the link will be re-established once you get line of sight back. It has been warned however that the 80-foot distance may be changed in future patches.
Another change is to Empathy’s resurrection power which has been changed to an AOE, allowing you to resurrect multiple people in a small area. Fortitude was moved to earlier in the powerset so that you can pick from something else besides healing powers earlier in the game. The powerset has undergone a bit of a shuffle so several of the powers aren’t where you would expect them to be anymore. See the picture below for the details. And finally, the regeneration rate for Regeneration Aura has been buffed to 600%.
Hopefully, with all of these changes, Thunderspy has made Empathy a more appealing option for City of Heroes players. Though it does sound like they are going to be open to making some changes in the future if necessary. The team at Thunderspy also put together this fun video to show off all the changes. Be sure to watch it to the end.
