[2.5.19] Empath

[Skyve]

Why do people value her regeneration aura so much? It's like a super mini Heart, but I don't see why some people like it so much.

Because it wins you lanes. And even jungles if you will.

[Shatterz]

Why do people value her regeneration aura so much? It's like a super mini Heart, but I don't see why some people like it so much.

If skilled early it gives a huge boost to all lanes, altough it reduces empaths early-game effectiveness. IMO its a bit underwelming, especially if you are gonna skill wall and link first.

[[Poni]kippetje]

you should always go Q max, 1 point in W, rest in E and ulti whenever possible, because wall is usually only effective for initial effect (to fk up pathing etc.) and 3 seconds is enough.

[Skyve]

You can max E early and get everyone on the team to get a chalice, which means they can simply spam their skills onto the enemy which can be quite brutal to play against, while you lose little to no health doing so.

Getting it late isn't too great though, I agree.

[PrestonLee]

Why do people value her regeneration aura so much? It's like a super mini Heart, but I don't see why some people like it so much.

the aura + a (strength) hero with a heart (+Empath ulti) = might as well gg, you can't stop this fgt from raping your towers anyway

Bd Empath+warbeast meta ftw!?

[Antimodus]

I think wb would much prefer a nymphora ally for a bd strat. Or even a keeper; send wb mid and keeper forest, get level 7 and have fun dropping towers in like 5 seconds. wb global is almost double damage for keeper's pets.

empath is more effective on a carry like pred or magebane or even mq than on wb IMO. Those ones really benefit from all of her skills; wb has no trouble holding on to his targets with his ult.

[PrestonLee]

I think wb would much prefer a nymphora ally for a bd strat. Or even a keeper; send wb mid and keeper forest, get level 7 and have fun dropping towers in like 5 seconds. wb global is almost double damage for keeper's pets.

empath is more effective on a carry like pred or magebane or even mq than on wb IMO. Those ones really benefit from all of her skills; wb has no trouble holding on to his targets with his ult.

This is true, but this is an Empath thread, and I was trying to make a point that heart+aura = wtf imba regen/survivability.

Maybe I should've used Armadon, or strength Shadowblade and tank-meta "hit tower win game" strats as an example instead of Warbeast

[[wGCw]Wei2SMITHIE]

To be straight up about empath, her ability faster should cost a lot less mana and her ultimate should have a 60-50-40 second CD with a SoTM upgrade which allows her to enter and leave a hero at will on a 30 second CD.
Her essence link needs the same range as her attack (600) to allow for effective harassment in lane
Synergy should have a sub ability when “as one” is activated. Such as healing your chosen partner by 100hp every 15 seconds, click to activate.

At the moment she is outshined in every aspect of the game, in the laning phase in a common 2v2 situation other range babysit support heroes such as Glac, Monarch, Nymph, WS all have reliable stuns, slows and nukes which are effective for bagging kills and for defensive purposes.

Compare any common carry / intel support lane with Empath and your preference will always be anything but Empath, this is the same in competitive play.

Armadon / Nymph vs Armadon / Empath
Forsaken / Glac vs Forsaken / Empath
Zephyr / Desham vs Zephyr / Empath
Valk / Witch Slayer vs Valk / Empath
TDL / Plague Rider vs TDL / Empath

^ the hero combinations on the right are much stronger then the combinations on the left in my personal opinion.

Her mid game lacks as her skills can’t set up kills or be used to farm and her ultimate isn’t even worth a look with 40damage at level 1 being outshined by moves such as Deshams cape, in fact her only real purpose during this time of the game is to simply survive and use wall to escape / stop heroes from fleeing and stack creeps for others.

Late game her only useful skill is her ultimate and it’s supposed to make carry’s, super carry’s but it’s way to situational, if activated to early the enemy team can choose not to fight and it’s wasted.

Empath needs to be buffed by improving her skills, conventionally I think she’s great but in context weak.

[[Poni]kippetje]

^
The problem with measuring Empath is that you NEED good synergy with your teammate for it to work at its best. Heroes like glac/dsham/witch/plague are all fine without good teamwork skills. With empath you need better teamwork, which means that for most ppl she will seem weaker than the others while she is not. She can in fact be stronger than the others because of the teamwork.

Empath does get quite a bit of farm. She is a semi-support like hero that can babysit. She gains the most assists out of all the support heroes (with MAYBE the exception of slither using ulti if you play him as support) and she barely dies because of the fact that she has a wall, a life steal and an ultimate that allows her to escape death as well but again, teamwork is neccesary for that.

Your comparison with dsham cape vs empath ult is plain stupid as cape only gives you damage for 8 seconds while empath gives you dmg AND attack speed, not to mention all the other benefits mentioned before. And in the late game her only useful skill is her ultimate. While that is somewhat true (if you exclude E), she will have the ability to use items which you can focus on late game items. You could get a tablet to push players while you are in someone, with good synergy with your teammate you will be able to manouver extremely well too.

[Skyve]

Armadon / Nymph vs Armadon / Empath
Forsaken / Glac vs Forsaken / Empath
Zephyr / Desham vs Zephyr / Empath
Valk / Witch Slayer vs Valk / Empath
TDL / Plague Rider vs TDL / Empath

^ the hero combinations on the right are much stronger then the combinations on the left in my personal opinion.

That's not really true. If you lane Empath with FA for instance, one stun from Empath already gives a couple of hits with Skeleton's, and a guaranteed follow-up with a Volley. Then you can abuse the Volley to land a great wall, allowing for you to have a much shorter path to where the enemy would want to retreat, giving you AT LEAST as much time to attack the enemy as a Glacius does, with less time for the enemy to react (stun vs immobilize+disarm which is only 0.5 seconds longer on lvl4 of both abilities).

In addition - Empath can allow your whole team to get a chalice without any big HP loss while constantly refreshing your mana, which allows you to be pretty aggressive and constantly push the hp/mp stats of all lanes in your favor.

Empath's drain allows for her to outharass most heroes early on, forcing them to retreat rather than to attack back, giving you an advantage in harass. If her Q's leash was slightly longer, this would work even better.

Empath also offers one of the highest "single target" heals in the game with 325 total healing.

Also Empath can be in the middle of a teamfight and can often be guaranteed to get her abilities off, while most other supports are very susceptible to being picked off. The whole argument of making the game "4v5" doesn't even make sense. As long as she's not dead and able to use her abilities this simply isn't true. I mean how often can a support hero attack without putting themselves out of position under normal circumstances anyways? And besides, Empath gives 40/60/80 in terms of +damage and AS to a carry AND a pretty strong speedboost which increases the uptime of your carries DPS, which should pretty fast outperform what a regular supports contribution to overall damage with his autoattacks.
What you also can't forget is that Empath is able to get levels "faster" than most other support heroes, since she is able to stand in the middle of a teamfight without getting killed, and as long as one of your farmed heroes (that Empath usually would jump into) doesn't die, she will be able to get a lot of hero kill experience in a teamfight that other supports wouldn't be capable of getting. That can make quite the large difference.

[[JwFM]Th3pr0digy]

IMO if chain breaks by pressing Q it should do the full damage but stop the life leach.If u want to make it break and stun on how long it was activated for.For eg: she starts her link breaks it 2 seconds in it does the full dmg(not sure how much)But only leaches for 2 seconds then it stuns for a set time in this case 2 secondsThen make it a minimum of 0.5 seconds and max of 2.5 seconds with full duration

[Alten]

Actually what ur saying is incorrect, Empath has been picked several times when Flint beastwood was one of the popular carries back a year ago.
She got picked up three times +/- giving the flint a good early/mid game but soon after that she was forgotten just like succubus that was picked up twice.
They both aren't fit in the meta game since there are way better picks right now, like andromeda's aura is way more powerfull then empath into late.

Her skills are good, certainly not underpowered, synergize such a strong skill when leveled early, the link is a powerfull laning tool and the wall is extremely strong in certain situation.
But her ult is unique, and also has so much disadvantages, since she cannot be targeted, which is actually a big problem in my opinion since the opponents just have to take down 4 of you instead of 5.

You're discussing a meta from over a year ago. If she was not viable then, it is not logical to imply that she must not be viable now; the meta has changed drastically.

You comment that Empath not being targettable by the enemy team is a bad quality. Most supports will die from AoE and/or a few autoattacks from a carry, however; by hopping in a hero, she avoids this. It is also important to consider that Empath has far more survivability as compared to other supports because her ult targets tend to have high survivability; this is directly translated to Empath, and Empath depriving her tanky carries of being saved from a few autoattacks from an opposing carry is a laughable concern. She also gives her MS boosts and the extra EHP from the lifesteal (it is important to remember that heals are far more significant than damage because of damage mitigation, and as such the heal more than makes up for possible hits Empath takes). From this, it is arguable that Empath's ult provides more benefits than any possible negatives.

[Alten]

That's not really true. If you lane Empath with FA for instance, one stun from Empath already gives a couple of hits with Skeleton's, and a guaranteed follow-up with a Volley. Then you can abuse the Volley to land a great wall, allowing for you to have a much shorter path to where the enemy would want to retreat, giving you AT LEAST as much time to attack the enemy as a Glacius does, with less time for the enemy to react (stun vs immobilize+disarm which is only 0.5 seconds longer on lvl4 of both abilities).

In addition - Empath can allow your whole team to get a chalice without any big HP loss while constantly refreshing your mana, which allows you to be pretty aggressive and constantly push the hp/mp stats of all lanes in your favor.

Empath's drain allows for her to outharass most heroes early on, forcing them to retreat rather than to attack back, giving you an advantage in harass. If her Q's leash was slightly longer, this would work even better.

Empath also offers one of the highest "single target" heals in the game with 325 total healing.

Also Empath can be in the middle of a teamfight and can often be guaranteed to get her abilities off, while most other supports are very susceptible to being picked off. The whole argument of making the game "4v5" doesn't even make sense. As long as she's not dead and able to use her abilities this simply isn't true. I mean how often can a support hero attack without putting themselves out of position under normal circumstances anyways? And besides, Empath gives 40/60/80 in terms of +damage and AS to a carry AND a pretty strong speedboost which increases the uptime of your carries DPS, which should pretty fast outperform what a regular supports contribution to overall damage with his autoattacks.
What you also can't forget is that Empath is able to get levels "faster" than most other support heroes, since she is able to stand in the middle of a teamfight without getting killed, and as long as one of your farmed heroes (that Empath usually would jump into) doesn't die, she will be able to get a lot of hero kill experience in a teamfight that other supports wouldn't be capable of getting. That can make quite the large difference.

I didn't notice this post before making mine; I apologise, thank you for making those points before me.

[[GOUB]JesusTeh1337]

Simple way to make empath more useful and require more skill, without significant changes and related to OPs concerns

At the moment if empath casts life tap, and then exits her host, the life tap will continue to drain health to the host.

I believe the life tap should stick with empath, so empath can choose to exit her host to execute her stun from breaking the tap.

Case in point is where you're in the carry who is chasing someone on the enemy team. For whatever reason, whether low mana, or low duration left on ulti, being able to execute your stun by leaving the host is useful. This change would also have a downside as you would be leaving your host, and also, the life tap would no longer provide health to the host once you leave.

Overall I think it gives empath a less passive role regarding her ult, while also making life tap more useful in the mid to late game, when the heal amount becomes negligable.

I would like to have empath's wall coding a bit more refined. I find that it appears to not always accurately wall enemy heroes on the right side of the wall, and in some instances it actually pushes heroes on one side of the wall. This can even benefit enemies by giving them a little boost. I think this is something empath doesn't need. While i understand that heroes exactly on the wall will need to be placed on one side or the other, this should not be a major push in either direction.

I'd like to see her ult get more scalable. perhaps by providing empaths damage directly to the hero, with level 1 ult providing 33% of her damage, 66% and 100%. Makes it more scalable to the late game wherein the buff she provides can become negligable, and she merely becomes a wall maker and minor speed boost for the carry.

[[S2]ElementUser]

I believe the life tap should stick with empath, so empath can choose to exit her host to execute her stun from breaking the tap.

The design change was implemented by yours truly and for good reason. Currently there is no feasible way to reassign the linkage to Empath & the target if she exits the host and when she's inside someone the linkage replenishes HP for your ally (which makes perfect sense because you're already invulnerable, thus you don't need the healing yourself).

Thus, what you're suggesting is not only not easily done via script (it probably could be done, but it'll take a lot of proxy reassigns) but the design implication is already superior to your suggestion because of my light-blue text above. It also forces the ally to think to use the breakage of the link to perform the stun, rather than just mindlessly follow the enemy. Of course this means that ranged heroes would benefit more from it compared to if Empath was inside a melee hero.

[Skyve]

The design change was implemented by yours truly and for good reason. Currently there is no feasible way to reassign the linkage to Empath & the target if she exits the host and when she's inside someone the linkage replenishes HP for your ally (which makes perfect sense because you're already invulnerable, thus you don't need the healing yourself).

Thus, what you're suggesting is not only not easily done via script (it probably could be done, but it'll take a lot of proxy reassigns) but the design implication is already superior to your suggestion because of my light-blue text above. It also forces the ally to think to use the breakage of the link to perform the stun, rather than just mindlessly follow the enemy. Of course this means that ranged heroes would benefit more from it compared to if Empath was inside a melee hero.

Why not make it so that Empath's ultimate creates a buff with a tag unique to the empath player and change the heal so it heals the player with the buff from that Empath players tag if one exists?
Would also fix another bug that is currently active.
Also you could just always heal Empath with the above (would also be somewhat interesting, as it allows her to take some damage, then heal inside someone, although I'm not sure if that is needed).

[[S2]ElementUser]

I don't like adding secondary states if I can prevent it because of a bug/exploit that could happen. If I was the designer I'd simply heal both Empath & her host regardless of where Empath is as long as she casts Q when inside the host, but that might cause balance issues, etc.

[man_guy]

Make it heal both, but Empath has anti-healing debuff when she uses her ultimate?

[Pineapple]

i dont think empath needs much of changes.. har drain is really strong early game.. her wall is sick in all phases of the game if placed by a pro as you can set up ganks or use it as an escape mechanism..

her ulti is probably one of the strongest support-ulties atm as it can boost an underfarmed carry up from useless to raping.

if anything should be change you should be able to activate stun while draining. but i dont think you should be able to do it before lvl 4 as drain is really strong early..
maybe her ulti could use a tiny nerf?

[wonzling]

Just wanna say: Empath is one of the most fun heroes to play for me, and she's seems lacking a reliable support ability for competitive gaming. Even with a reliable support ability (like a stun or a heal) she'd be a niche pick at best, as she's very dependant on a good carry. She's feels a win-more hero that can't do anything on her own, but excels once one of your teams carrys starts rolling.

Farmed mid-game carry + Empath = GG
Underfarmed carry + Empath = UU (Utter Uselessness)

Btw. does anyone know if moonmeander finished his Empath Immortal Challenge?