Enfos Empath Guide

UNDER CONSTRUCTION PLEASE DO NOT LINK

Last updated March 2019

Introduction

This is both an advanced guide for veteran empaths as well as new (but gaming experienced) players looking to min/max their gameplay as an Empath. The goal is to discuss in-depth the current mechanics surrounding the guild as of (2019), and how to best take advantage of them to build a beast of an empath character. This is not meant to present information in an objective manner and let the reader decide what they want to do. Rather, this guide is similar to a "build guide" for current MMOs or APRGs where the author presents strong opinions on what choices to make in order to min/max.

Why Empath?

In the old days, an Empath could only heal other players. It offered a unique gameplay that no other game could provide, which not only drew me to the class, but also to DragonRealms. Despite being a heavy gamer that played most other popular games on the market, I kept coming back to DragonRealms because the Empath was unique. But that uniqueness came at a price: An Empath had no way to generate their own income, because they could not hunt, and the crafting system did not exist yet. They relied solely on the tips and goodwill of their patients, which coupled with relying on patients for advancement in the guild through training the Transference skill, made the Guild choice a humble one, which left many players wanting more independence.

Today, the Empath is probably the most capable guild in the game, provided they train properly. Here is what the Empath offers:

Healing

The empath still offers the most rewarding foundation for interaction with other human beings in the game. Healing remains perhaps the best consistent way to facilitate making friendships. Cleric rezzes come in second, and Trader and Moon Mage services probably a distant third. Healing used to be very difficult. Today's empath's abilities are overtuned, and frankly overpowered. Even a low circle Empath is basically fully functional. The concentration and fatigue problems of taking wounds are gone, and the mana issues with healing yourself back up are gone. A moderately high circle Empath is basically a healing god/goddess if played correctly, capable of soaking up every wound that walks through the door of a triage, thanks to Regenerate, Heal, and Fountain of Creation.

Tanky Hunting

A byproduct of being able to heal themselves up in a flash after healing others, the empath just happens to be the most tanky, resilient class in the game. They are near unkillable if played correctly while hunting. Any wound received disappears near instantly, and they even have a spell that acts as a ward against taking vitality damage. They have spammable AOE debilitation spells that knocks every creature in the room to sleep.

Lore Prime

This used to be a bad thing, as the lore skill set used to be worthless. But now with the mech lore split and the new crafting system and work orders, being Lore prime means you have a good way to make money while training skills. Lore Prime guilds have more career choices, which means more technique slots. This means you can turn in higher quality goods for more money. They have bigger pools and absorb the experience faster, which means you can do more work orders without feeling that the experience has gone to waste. On top of that, Empaths get a flat 5% bonus to income when turning in work orders.

Downsides to being an Empath

So why doesn't everyone roll an Empath? Here are the things that prevent some people from enjoying an Empath:

Weapons Tertiary

This drastically slows the advancement of the main offensive skillset in the game. Empaths cannot train weapons on living creatures without gaining shock, effectively restricting their hunting ladder to constructs and undead (with a spell). The primary way an Empath deals damage is through manipulation and Guardian Spirit, both scale at acceptable speeds via the Lore and Magic skill sets respectively. Thus the bigger problem with weapons being tertiary is not the offensive capability of the Empath, but rather a disadvantage in one of the more lucrative skillsets used for TDP gain. But with the new REXP system, which we will go into detail later, this is less of a problem.

Non Free-to-Play

Playing an Empath requires a subscription, which is a good thing or else there would be endless pet Empath characters. However this also means in the rare case that there is actually a new player to DragonRealms, they cannot try out the Empath for free, which is the richest experience DR has to offer (IMO of course).

Creating your Empath

Stats

Let's talk about the three most important stats for a modern Empath: Intelligence, Reflex, and Charisma.

Intelligence is the single most important stat for leveling speed. More ranks, means you get more TDPs faster, which means you can train more stats. In addition, it also helps your concentration, allowing you to neglect (if you choose) stamina. It also helps us in learning from classes, which we do a lot of when sitting around for the first couple of circles.

Reflex is the most important defensive stat. Because we are survival secondary, Evasion will be our most important defense, above Parry, Shield, and Armor. Reflex is our combat stat used to hunt mobs at our level. It also helps in minor ways with shield, hiding, and crafting.

Charisma used to be the most important stat for Guardian Spirit, which used to scale off Empathy and Charisma. Today it primarily scales off an Empath's Targeted Magic skill. Regardless, Charisma is still very important for an empath as it still directly affects manipulation, which is our primary offense ability and way of training Empathy. It also affects prices on crafting, along with how much we learn and teach from classes.

So in summary our stat weights look something like this: Int = Reflex = Charisma > Disc = Wisdom = Stamina > Strength > Agility

All the other stats are not as important. In the old days, Stamina and Discipline were very important for an Empath, as the process of taking wounds would tank an Empath's concentration and stamina, to the point where they could not heal themselves up afterwards, and was at risk of dying to bleeders. This is no longer the case. I recently circled a baby gnome Empath with very little of both of these stats, and I was shocked that I could take all the wounds from a patient and have both stamina and concentration be relatively fine afterwards. Today, Discipline still helps you hide a bit better, and absorb your spells a bit quicker. Stamina gives you more of a vitality buffer when healing very wounded patients, as well as combat. Wisdom is like a less effective Intelligence-- it helps give you bigger pulse sizes when draining experience, but training Intelligence gives you a bigger pool, and therefore a bigger pulse as well.

Then we have Strength, which still has good quality of life uses by increasing your carrying capacity. This is helpful if you are lazy and like lugging around a lot of crafting stuff. If you like backtraining your weapons, and want to keep it fairly close to your main combat abilities, Strength would actually be a very important stat for you because it helps you carry all those different weapons around without burden, and also reduces the RT and increases the damage of the weapons, which helps you fill the weapon pools up quicker.

Races

Because of the stat weights, a Gnome and Prydaen are both S-tier choices for an Empath. If you want to learn fast with a huge Intelligence and Reflex advantage, all the while looking cute with lots of moxie while doing it, pick a gnome. A Prydaen offers a good Reflex and Charisma advantage, and is neutral on Intelligence. However a Prydaen has two unique advantages over the gnome: a tail and claws. Like I pointed out in the general Empath guide on the wiki, a tail offers you a unique place to put a pet bleeder. Claws offer you a natural brawling damage boost, and brawling is an Empaths preferred weapon because of the boost we get via Aggressive Stance (more on that later). The downside to a Prydaen is you might not enjoy the RP unless you are a Furry.

Elotheans, Elves, and Halflings are all good A-tier choices because of their stat distribution. A S'kra Mur has a penalty to intellgience, but a tail, a bonus to reflex, and are fun to RP, so still a good choice.

Humans and Kaldars are boring choices, they are both stat-neutral with no other mechanically interesting qualities.

Dwarves used to be a great choice, but now with less value to discipline and stamina, they are one of the poorest choices. And a Gor'Tog Empath? I think I've only seen one serious one in my 25 years of playing DR. I think her name was Lairnaa Feathers(sp?) or something.

Weapon Choices

With the new REXP system released in January of 2019, it fundamentally changes an Empath's weapon training strategy. Before the universal doctrine was to train all weapons for the maximum amount of TDPs. Now that's changed for REXP users. And since Empath's cannot be F2P, every Empath will have REXP to deal with and manage.

REXP

In short, the time for REXP is not actually consumed by the listed time. Every 20 seconds, if a pulse group has field experience, it is consumed and the time remaining is decremented by 20 seconds. This means that if a a field group has no pulse experience, the REXP is not consumed, and the four or six hours that come with a standard or premium account could in reality be extended beyond that time. If you are a casual player that can only play four or six hours each day, then by all means, continue to train all weapons. However, if you are logged into your character long enough each day to where your REXP ends, then it is in your interest to be selective on what weapons to train in order to maximize the time you are on REXP.

Here is a table of the relevant groups for weapons

Group	Skills
1	Staves, Polearms, Light Thrown, Heavy Thrown, Brawling, Offhand Weapon, Melee Mastery
2	Parry, Small Edged, Large Edged, Two-handed Edged
3	Missile Mastery, Primary Magic, Attunement, Arcana, Targeted Magic, Augmentation
4	Small Blunt, Large Blunt, Two-handed Blunt, Slings, Crossbows, Bows

Unlike other guilds, an Empath has no parry requirement. So we can completely neglect parry. This is a good thing because parry, shield, and evasion are all zero sum via the STANCE system. If we completely neglect parry, it allows us to put more STANCE points into shield. This means we do not have to train any edged skills, and we can save an entire pulse group.

Missile mastery is paired with the magic groups, which we will train of course, which means in general we should train some sort of ranged.

Finally we can cut out group four entirely. This means an empath can shave off two pulse size groups from their skill training regimen. How much time does this give us? Well it depends on the total number of other pulse groups we have, but you can look at the general difference 2 skill groups can make from the following table:

Group	Skills
1	Staves, Polearms, Light Thrown, Heavy Thrown, Brawling, Offhand Weapon, Melee Mastery
2	Parry, Small Edged, Large Edged, Two-handed Edged
3	Missile Mastery, Primary Magic, Attunement, Arcana, Targeted Magic, Augmentation
4	Small Blunt, Large Blunt, Two-handed Blunt, Slings, Crossbows, Bows

Brawling

Brawling should be an Empath's primary weapon for a multitude of reasons. The first is that because an Empath is Lore Primary, Tactics is a skill pool that needs to be filled up quickly and efficiently. Brawling offers the fastest RTs to mind lock Tactics when using the ANALYZE command in combat. The second reason is that our spell Aggressive Stance naturally boosts brawling (along with evasion). Third, Brawling is within the Melee Mastery skill pulse group, which means it does not take up an extra REXP pulse if any melee is to be trained. Finally, brawling has traditionally always been an empath's weapon from before they could actually deal damage to constructs and undead. In the old days, it was the only trainable skill with commands such as PUSH, SHOVE, and CIRCLE. Today, those commands have been moved under the jurisdiction of Tactics, and Brawling covers the damaging moves like KICK, CLAW, GOUGE, etc..

Training

This section features strategies for training each skill needed to advance.