Radiation Armor Guide and Example Builds

[Zylli]

I am of the opinion that Radiation Armor is the best set in the game when IO sets are added to it.  Stone Armor has more mitigation potential, but the usability of the set is diminished by the penalties and lack of mobility in Granite armor.  Plus, your costume is ugly in Granite form.  Dark and Electric come close to Radiation in terms of mitigation, but lack the utilities and QOL benefits provided by Radiation Armor.

 

For the sake of comparison, all powers are assumed to be slotted with 3 standard level 50 IOs, except inherent fitness only receiving 1 IO.

 

Skip to the first reply if you just want to look at the example builds.

 

Key Powers

 

- Particle Shielding:  This is Radiation Armor's best power.  It provides an unenhanceable 50% recovery bonus for 1 minute, an enhanceable regeneration bonus, and a fairly large (1100+) absorb shield.  The only downside is the absorb bonus is not enhanced by healing bonuses from your Alpha slot.

• With enough recharge bonus, the cooldown can be brought down close to 30 seconds, making the regeneration buff practically permanent.
• If the shielding is counted as healing for the sake of comparison, combined healing so far (inherent Health + Particle Shielding) is around 60 HP/s before IO set bonuses, Willpower needs about 3 targets in range to achieve the same HP/s.
• If the shielding is counted as temporary health, it is about the same amount as Invulnerability and Stone Armor's bonuses of ~1120 HP.

- Gamma Boost:  When at full health and unenhanced, this power provides about a 36% bonus to recovery. 

• For comparison, Willpower provides 30% base.  Combining Particle Shielding with Gamma Boost results in the highest recovery available on Tankers.  Endurance should not be a problem for you once you get Particle Shielding down to around 60 seconds recharge.

- Beta Decay:  An auto-hit aura that gives you recharge bonus and debuffs defense so you can hit things easier. 

• Auto-hit means it will keep enemies around you taunted, when other sets often have an accuracy check on their taunt auras.

- Radiation Therapy:  At first glance, this may look like Soul Drain.  However, it should be noted it heals for a large chunk and small amount of health with no targets hit, plus it heals for the same small amount for each target hit.  In addition, it performs a regeneration debuff on all targets hit.

• Radiation Therapy can potentially heal for around 400 + 80 + 80/target, and have about a 16 second cooldown.  Combined with the healing from above, that puts Radiation Armor around 90 HP/s effective healing with no targets hit, which is equivalent to Willpower with 8 enemies in range.

- Ground Zero:  The damage on this isn't important.  The fact it hits up to 30 targets makes this power stand out.  Effectively, you get a PBAoE taunt that puts you on the threat table of more than the target cap.  This is extremely useful in situations where your team is swarmed, like ITF or LGTF.  As enemies targeting you die off, the enemies you hit with Ground Zero start attacking you instead of allies.

- Meltdown:  This is a great emergency click power in the game if you choose to use it.  The crash only takes 10% of your endurance instead of 100%, unlike most other crashes.  Personally, I skip it, but you may want it.  Brute builds sometimes take it and rotate between Meltdown and Rune of Protection for a constant +~20% resistance to all damage.

 

TL;DR:  Radiation Armor has the potential to get more endurance recovery than any other Tanker, rivals Willpower's healing, and has effectively the same health pool as Invulnerability and Willpower, before Incarnate powers.  It has amazing aggro management and an emergency power that won't kill you.

 

 

IO Slotting and Builds

 

- Defense or Resistance? 

• If you can't afford very rare sets or ATOs, go for S/L defense and recharge bonus.  Use Rune of Protection and/or Meltdown to shore up your resists when needed.  An example build is below.
• If you can afford very rare sets and ATOs, get as much resistance as you can while using pool powers and global IOs to fill in your defense.  Rely on teammates to soft-cap, or don't worry about defense because you don't really need it with all of your effective healing and 90% resists to the most important damage types.  A build with 90% S/L/F/E/T and 75% C/N/P is provided below.

- Slotting Toggles:  Don't worry about endurance reduction.  Your recovery is so high that only TW can come close to pushing the limits of what Radiation Armor's recovery provides.

- Suggested Secondaries:  Anything can work with Radiation Armor.  You can go for damage or control, though I prefer the latter on my Tanker so I'm filling the role better.

• Knockdowns provide a great way to control groups and keep them from attacking you and your teammates.  Converting a knockback to a knockdown is also an option to make sets like Energy Melee tolerable.  Notable sets with AoE knockdowns include Battle Axe, Electrical, Ice, Kinetic, Psionic, Super Strength, and War Mace.
• Super Strength and Electrical Melee both have AoE disorients and AoE knockdowns they can use frequently to keep enemies under control effects.
• Ice Melee has additional control in the form of slow effects and a sleep effect.
• Defense debuff sets help your teammates hit more often, but are is rarely needed at 50 due to IO sets and the vast amount of defense debuffs others on your team may have.  Any of the "bladed" weapon sets debuff defense, plus several other sets, including Radiation Melee.  Don't forget you already have a defense debuff in the form of Beta Decay.
• Dark Melee debuffs to-hit, which is equivalent to adding defense to yourself.  
• Super Strength and Titan Weapons are go-to sets for dealing damage.  If you want to make a DPS Tanker, they should be more viable after the upcoming buff.

- Suggested Epic Pools:  Your Epic pool choice may depend on your secondary and how many power selections you have free.  Adding an extra AoE or control effect can help round out your build or provide some usefulness outside of just tanking things.  Take fewer attacks from your secondary if you want more options at 50.  You don't need every attack to be a tank.

• Earth Mastery gives you an AoE sleep, which is useful if your group pulls more than they can handle.  Hit a cluster of enemies with this, then tank another cluster to lighten the pressure on your squishies.
• Mu Mastery gives you two targeted AoE abilities, which can act as a ranged AoE taunt, while dealing some damage or immobilizing a group.
• Pyre Mastery has a great AoE resistance debuff, as well as a targeted AoE power.
• Anything with a hold effect can be useful for shutting down an Immunes Surgeon from range, or stacking holds on Hamidon encounters.  This also gives you access to IO sets with some great bonuses that are hard to otherwise obtain.

 

[Zylli]

Example Builds

 

This Rad/SS build uses no purple sets, no ATOs, and no PvP IOs.  It achieves capped S/L resist and is 1 inspiration away from S/L defense softcap.  You are meant to cycle between Rune of Protection and Meltdown as needed when facing non-S/L enemies, though the recharge bonus will leave you with some gaps in protection time.  With either up, you are capped on all resists except cold and psionic, which are 50-60%.

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This Rad/Psi build is what I personally use.  It achieves capped S/L/F/E/T resists at all times, and can reach 75% C/N/P resists when the Tanker ATO procs.  Defenses are at 20%, putting you in range of the soft cap with two smalls or a medium, though I haven't felt the need for it.  As with the other build, Spiritual Core Paragon is highly recommended for the recharge time bonus.  If you feel the need to be capped on all resists, use the Pay2Win vendor's buff to get 5% more resists, then use a small orange inspiration to reach the cap.

 

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Edited October 20, 2019 by Zylli

[Hellborn]

"Super Strength and Titan Weapons are go-to sets for dealing damage.  If you want to make a DPS Tanker, they should be more viable after the upcoming buff"

 

What buff is this?

[Bopper]

35 minutes ago, Hellborn said:

"Super Strength and Titan Weapons are go-to sets for dealing damage.  If you want to make a DPS Tanker, they should be more viable after the upcoming buff"

 

What buff is this?

You can read about it on the Beta Forum section, but basically they are going to buff tanker damage (along with other mechanics). I'll edit this post with a link shortly.

 

Link 1 (most recent): 

Link 2 (original post): 

 

 

 

Edited October 21, 2019 by Bopper

[Zenogi]

Yo bud I've made a rad/rad stalker and I'm wondering if I should focus more on my resists or defenses? I'm Def capped for s/l and Res capped for s/l and fire, is it worth just aiming for Res caps instead do you think?

[Tsuko]

3 hours ago, Zenogi said:

Yo bud I've made a rad/rad stalker and I'm wondering if I should focus more on my resists or defenses? I'm Def capped for s/l and Res capped for s/l and fire, is it worth just aiming for Res caps instead do you think?

this post is 1 year old 🙂

[Zenogi]

9 hours ago, Tsuko said:

this post is 1 year old 🙂

I know, guy seems to know his shit though 😛

[Infinitum]

16 hours ago, Zenogi said:

Yo bud I've made a rad/rad stalker and I'm wondering if I should focus more on my resists or defenses? I'm Def capped for s/l and Res capped for s/l and fire, is it worth just aiming for Res caps instead do you think?

You should always chase what the set is geared to first (resistance) and sell out to that then chase what it is not geared to secondary (defense)

[Zenogi]

32 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

You should always chase what the set is geared to first (resistance) and sell out to that then chase what it is not geared to secondary (defense)

Cheers! I usually go for more defense based secondaries but wanted to give rad a go so it's a first for me for no chasing defense based IOs n such lol

[Heraclea]

My current tanker project (2/3 of the way through 49) is rad/spines, conceived as a moneymaker and drops earner for my newer Torchbearer SG.  Having just gotten the character to the S/L softcap, I think the rest of her build and her incarnates will focus on increasing DPS.  This is also one of the better tanker primaries for taking to Hamidon raids. 

[Infinitum]

4 hours ago, Zenogi said:

Cheers! I usually go for more defense based secondaries but wanted to give rad a go so it's a first for me for no chasing defense based IOs n such lol

Yeah always tempting right?

 

A good strategy for pairing defense on resistance native sets I normally try to adopt is getting to at least45% melee defense while capping or coming close to capping every resist category especially toxic and psy.

[Zenogi]

2 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Yeah always tempting right?

 

A good strategy for pairing defense on resistance native sets I normally try to adopt is getting to at least45% melee defense while capping or coming close to capping every resist category especially toxic and psy.

Tbf I don't think I'm far off that with my stalker build bud, smashing, lethal and melee is capped smashing, lethal and fire res capped and the others are somewhere on the 60-70 range apart from cold which is somewhere in the 20s/30s

[Infinitum]

1 minute ago, Zenogi said:

Tbf I don't think I'm far off that with my stalker build bud, smashing, lethal and melee is capped smashing, lethal and fire res capped and the others are somewhere on the 60-70 range apart from cold which is somewhere in the 20s/30s

Yeah and cold dont really matter its the least encountered damage type in the game.

[brasilgringo]

Question on Radiation Therapy:  is the -Regen debuff sufficient enough to make it worth spamming on AVs?  MIDS seems to say it is -150%. 

 

Ground Zero:  sounds like you are suggesting using it to grab aggro in big groups -- I'd been kind of holding it until the other team ppl had taken a beating, to use the +heal on them.  How often do you use it and when, in your rotation?

 

[subbacultchas]

On 10/18/2020 at 12:14 PM, brasilgringo said:

Question on Radiation Therapy:  is the -Regen debuff sufficient enough to make it worth spamming on AVs?  MIDS seems to say it is -150%. 

 

Ground Zero:  sounds like you are suggesting using it to grab aggro in big groups -- I'd been kind of holding it until the other team ppl had taken a beating, to use the +heal on them.  How often do you use it and when, in your rotation?

 

I seem to think Rad Therapy has a short duration on, 10 seconds or less, so I don't think it's wonderful for -regen. However, slotted with a couple heal/recharge and all damage procs, it's reliable enough damage and heal/end that why would you not use it when it's up?

Initially I had scrapped GZ, and instead picked up Ball Lightning and the group immob from epics. I later decided to give GZ a chance, loaded it with 4 damage procs and 2 purples for some acc/damage/recharge, and I absolutely love it. I use this a lot in TFs, especially ITF since it has that 30 target limit. The damage on it is great with 2-3 procs going off on most enemies, in addition to the base damage of it. I don't know as I'd use it to heal, it's a regular part of my aoe attack chain, but I do sometimes hold off if only facing 4-5 enemies left.

Mind you this is all on a Sav/Rad brute, but I like it so much I'm considering rerolling as a Tanker for the extra HP and Res.

Edited October 21, 2020 by subbacultchas

[BZRKR]

On 10/18/2020 at 12:14 PM, brasilgringo said:

How often do you use it and when, in your rotation?

I have a Radiation/SS/Mu Tanker with Ground Zero, and I pretty much fire it off whenever it's up and I have enemies in range.

 

Currently, I have it 5-slotted with Avalanche Acc/Dam, KD Proc; Fury of the Gladiator Acc/Dam, -Res Proc, and An Eradication Energy Damage Proc. The knockdown is nice for mitigation, the extra -Res proc helps out everyone, and the Energy Damage proc is icing on the cake. 

 

However, if you were chasing +recharge, you could 5-slot it with Panacea for a +7.5% recharge bonus, and it would heal your friends really well. Then, if you had another slot to assign to it, you could add a Damage or Utility proc and be all set.

[Tsuko]

45 minutes ago, BZRKR said:

I have a Radiation/SS/Mu Tanker with Ground Zero, and I pretty much fire it off whenever it's up and I have enemies in range.

 

Currently, I have it 5-slotted with Avalanche Acc/Dam, KD Proc; Fury of the Gladiator Acc/Dam, -Res Proc, and An Eradication Energy Damage Proc. The knockdown is nice for mitigation, the extra -Res proc helps out everyone, and the Energy Damage proc is icing on the cake. 

 

However, if you were chasing +recharge, you could 5-slot it with Panacea for a +7.5% recharge bonus, and it would heal your friends really well. Then, if you had another slot to assign to it, you could add a Damage or Utility proc and be all set.

The "secret" is to have 4 FF recharge proc really used in your rotation, and you suddenly have a perma hasten in a build with a 150 sec cd on hasten out of combat 😛