So in one of my many times of giving DR a swing, I decided to see if I could make a combat empath straight from the start. Obviously this gets easier once things like manipulate and GS come into play, but I wanted to see what I could do from the get go.

Anyway, all basic stuff was no problem except...empathy. I found that I could learn a trickle in combat by perceiving critters, but it was painfully slow. Wanting to avoid sitting in front of the guild and heal people I decided to try something a bit different...made a F2P account to get bet up and just heal them (a bit more on demand for a brand new empath than real patients who may not have the, uh, patience for me).

This was just as maddening. I would stand in rats or whatever, building up all sorts of wounds to work with. Then my new empath would take em all as fast as I could. Empathy was better, but it takes me like 20-30 minutes to heal myself with HW and HS so I could take more wounds. So empathy would get to "maybe" 10/34, but drain out before I could finish healing.

Is it really this bad? It feels like it would take an eternity to just to get to 50 ranks for manipulate to see how well that would work (though at least it would fit the character concept a bit better). Are there better ways to train up empathy quickly? I guess classes, but looking for other options.

Consider this a big facepalm moment for me...

And it just so happens to stop working at 50 ranks...right where I would need to be as long as empathy got there first. Thanks!

>50 ranks for manipulate

You can learn manipulate at around 40 ranks if you know Gift of Life. Hit me up on AIM at DRZamara if you need someone to teach it to you when you reach that point.

Also, I'd be more than willing to come by and teach an Empathy class for awhile to get you up there if you'd prefer.

>SARKRANIS's post

+1 Also hello, it is I the Empath obsessed person.

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Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

>>Gamergirl151: You can learn manipulate at around 40 ranks if you know Gift of Life. Hit me up on AIM at DRZamara if you need someone to teach it to you when you reach that point.

>SARKRANIS: Linking with a powerful Empath will also raise your effective ranks (for the purpose of learning to manipulate).

While this is true, the minimum rank bonus on buff spells is +10, so this tends to work better for this purpose than LINK does. LINK has some randomness to the bonus size.

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Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Had no idea that would/could be considered mech abuse..

I decided to split the difference at least for now, I'm walking around the hunting grounds taking people's cuts and bruises instead staying sitting on my arse all helpless and such. At least if I get it moving I can keep in moving during my own "hunt" sessions for the time being.

>>Gamergirl151: You can learn manipulate at around 40 ranks if you know Gift of Life. Hit me up on AIM at DRZamara if you need someone to teach it to you when you reach that point.

I may take you up on that when I get there, thanks!

Consistently perceiving non-Empaths takes about 100 ranks in empathy and PP.

This is just speaking from the experience of playing Empaths though and not GM knowledge.

I think epedia is wrong on this one.

Melete

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Nature, it seems, is the popular name
for milliards and milliards and milliards
of particles playing their infinite game
of billiards and billiards and billiards.

Yes, as far as I recall NPCs count as creatures. The logic looks for (player) Empaths then looks for creatures/NPCs and non-Empath players, then other stuff.

Melete

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Nature, it seems, is the popular name
for milliards and milliards and milliards
of particles playing their infinite game
of billiards and billiards and billiards.

Yes, the ranks for perc health on NPCs is off a bit on Epedia, or I'm interpreting them wrong. I'm succeeding about 50-60% of the time on shopkeepers and guards with 96 Attunement, 68 Empathy, and a capped (for level) GoL. That is still enough to keep Empathy moving, but just barely. No time to stop and do anything else really

Just to chime back in here, at 100 attunement and 90 empathy + GoL, I'm at ALMOST 100% (feels about 90%). So what is interesting to me about this is that if the minimum boost to a skill is 10 ranks, that would put me at exactly 100 attunement/100 empathy, but still failing. If it's expected that an average of 100 is needed for 100% success, then GoL isn't factoring in for this purpose.

Manipulate is a much better trainer when used on critters that challenge empathy.

FWIW, as a veteran player who has recently tried an Empath for the first time, I'm prepared to call them more difficult than Necromancers, at least if you plan on being a combat Empath and not hanging around the guild all day. For that matter... I don't know if it's desired, but the initial starting point is really rough. You basically have to be taught. Not too many people come around for healing anymore, and even if they did you're slow at it - so most of the time they won't want to put up with your ineptitude.

Of course, the difficulties with combat training are there. But the biggest problem, IMO, is that there's no way to train yourself in Empathy at low ranks. Even Traders, who for several reasons I find most comparable for their guild skill, have a method to train Trading without the assistance of other players. Perceive Health is a long way off before you can very effectively train in combat of via health walking, and you can't even learn Manipulate until you hit an adjusted 50 ranks.

It's possible you'll all tell me I'm just an Empath noob and I need to Learn 2 Play, but I had to resort to getting some teaching to get anywhere with any kind of speed comparable to other guilds. I don't think it would be amiss if perhaps perceive health self could teach a trickle of Empathy - at least until you hit 50 ranks, but preferably a little higher to slide into perceive health actually working on non-Empaths or creatures. I think that would ease the path a bit more for new players, considering there no longer seems to be a culture of hanging out at the guild with easy teaching ranks and plenty of patients.

- Saragos

For Empathy at low ranges, it's certainly tricky, but you could always go to autopuffs and poach wounds, listen to the many Empathy classes taught in the guild, or even read a compendium.

It's rough going early on, to be sure, but as soon as you can learn Manipulate (around 40-50 ranks I think? Very early, though I'd argue it should potentially be even earlier), you can train Empathy all the time.

Here's what you wanna do, as an Empath.

Kill everything, all the things.

You should have at minimum 18 weapons on you at any given moment. I don't care if 15 of them are carving knives, you will need all 18 (minimum) weapons to bathe in the blood of your foes.

Make yourself a macabre Hannibal-Lectre-like mask out of rat skins. I find that moves Empathy really well.

I'm not sure how widespread this attitude is. Whenever I'm hanging out in the guild, if there's a young Empath healing someone they always apologize for being young and literally every person has responded that it's quite alright and that they understand the need to train. Have never once seen someone complain, get huffy, or decline healing from a younger guild member. I HAVE heard complaints in my thoughts about Empaths /not/ sitting around and being available in the main guild... but with the new remodel it's been a pretty full place. (Now we don't have to hang out with the Rangers har har). YMMV.

>For me, it was all about not WANTING to be a guild healing empath, I wanted to be a combat focused empath from the start. The couple of times I did heal in the guild, it was no problem (even got a 5 plat tip from one, that made my day...)

Yeah, this is possible, but you need like... 40 ranks of Empathy before you can do it. That's not too bad.