Secondary for Rad?

[Call Me Awesome]

I've been toying with rolling up another Defender... first one here on Homecoming although I had 4 at level 50 on Live.  I've settled on Rad for the primary and am debating on a secondary to pair with it.  On Live I had a Rad/Rad that worked fairly well but I'm wondering if there's a better choice.  

 

I'm pretty familiar with most of the sets, I'm just wondering what others have paired with Rad and what worked best.  While Fire has the damage I wondered if something else might be better with the Defender AT modifiers.

[oldskool]

The obvious choices are going to be sets with additional effects that stack with Radiation.  Sets like Sonic Blast (more negative resistance), Dual Pistols (multiple options within ammo), Dark Blast (to hit debuff) and so on.  Defenders aren't hurting for choice when it comes to secondary sets with good utility.

 

If you haven't played with Water Blast yet, then I'd recommend taking a look at it.  Water has some debuffs but more importantly it has some unique mechanics with its Tidal system.  If you're inclined to build for IO procs you'll find Water has a lot of options.  The set also has a lot of AoE attacks.

[Force Redux]

I'd second Oldskool's recommendations for either Sonic or Water.

 

Sonic offers the best secondary for moar damage, and offers a really good sleep for solo work. It has cones though, so AoEs benefit from good lining up and some +range. Decent damage types too (smash/energy).

 

Water has both good ST and AoEs, and the AoEs are IMO easier to use, being 1 wide cone, 1 targeted sphere, and 1 large ground placed. Nice mix of damage types (smash, cold, fire)  and debuffs.

 

Can't go wrong with either.

Edited October 22, 2019 by Force Redux

[Call Me Awesome]

I'd been thinking about those two sets; I'm currently leveling a Sonic/Kinetic Corrupter who's in the mid 30's so I think Water may be my choice since I've little experience with it.

 

Back on Live I ran with a dedicated superteam of all Rad or Kin Defender/Controllers and it was loads of fun, the two Kinetics were both Kin/Sonic and I had a Rad/Rad while the others were Ill/Rad and Fire/Rad 'trollers.  We managed to kill off Lusca in under 5 minutes at level 25 and pulled lots of other stunts while leveling up.

 

Once I get my namesake Tanker to 50 (currently 43 as of last night) I'll likely start working on the defender.  It'll be something different, I had a Rad/Rad, Kin/Rad, Dark/Dark and FF/Energy at 50 on Live.

[Mercurias]

Rad/Water would be interesting to see in action. That’s a cool choice.

 

Also please name it Atomic Waterslide.

[StratoNexus]

I really enjoyed my Rad/Dual Pistols/Mace defender. Choking Cloud and the debuff toggles worked really well in combination with Hail of Bullets (use toggles to gather, they run into Choking Cloud, AoE enemies).

[Lens Perchance]

I was going to suggest Rad/Rad, it's a fun AoE build, especially at 50. However, Atomic Waterslide is too good a name to pass up.  

Maybe his origin story could tie in with the Fukushima Daiichi reactor disaster, perhaps one of the brave scientists who rushed in shortly after the breach in order to contain it.

[Call Me Awesome]

I had a Rad/Rad on Live named Bogus Wave, mirror shades, speedo and a tan😎

 

I'd actually forgotten I'd rerolled him a few months ago as a Water/Rad Corruptor until I found him in my character list and played him to 35 yesterday.  (In fairness, he was already sitting at 29).  That being the case I've decided to go Rad/Kin and call him Harpo (Marx of course).  The costume designer kind of let me down a bit since I couldn't do a "Harpo Wig"  but I did get a reasonable overcoat and the rest of the appearance.  Bonus points for anyone old enough to know about Harpo Marx 😜