Radiation Armor and Electric Armor question

[Infinitum]

I started with an invul/ss tank back in the day, and have run just about every tank combo imaginable.

 

Are these 2 primaries as strong as they appear to be on mids?

 

Im running a elec/kinetic and a rad/rad and they seem to be pretty durable if not more so than invul.

 

Any experience with these on higher levels?  In terms of end usage, hp/regen, and general survivability?  Rad looks almost overpowered on paper and elec looks slightly more durable than invul. Is that an accurate assessment?

 

Thanks

[LorannaPyrel]

I played an elec/ss back on live as my main, and have ben playing a rad/ss remake of her since Homecoming. I can speak on both in terms of end game play:

 

Electric Armor is built around the mechanic of end drain and endurance discount. Power Sink, when slotted for end drain and recharge, becomes both your main method of sustainable endurance management, and a secondary form of soft control, working in tandem with the end drain from your taunt/damage aura. By themselves, they're not quite enough to shut mobs down, especially at max difficulty settings - but, say, paired with Electric Melee, or the Mu Mastery patron pool, you will notice the mobs slowing down their attacks as the fight wears on. Energize, meanwhile, gives both good regen and a great endurance discount for thirty seconds - for that period of time, you will be free to cut loose with your strongest attacks, and you'll heal up quick.

 

However, I found that Electric Armor lives and dies by the amount of global recharge you have - you want Energize up as often as possible, both to heal big spikes of damage, and to take advantage of the regen/end discount bonuses. Electric Armor is a set that really benefits from having Hasten, and as much recharge as you can cram into the set.

 

Conversely, Rad Armor is a bit more durable out of the box - its taunt aura can substitute for Hasten, while you have both a self heal and an absorb shield, the latter of which coming with regen and recovery bonuses of its own. Your self heal even doubles as an end drain - however, unless you're completely surrounded by mobs, this end drain will not amount to much; Power Sink, it is not. Therefore, while Rad Armor is potentially more durable, its endurance management, pre Incarnates, is not as robust as Electric Armor's, relying only on boosing your Recovery to - admittedly - impressive levels. But Tanker melee sets are endurance hogs, as you probably know all too well.

 

The nice thing about Rad Armor, is that it plays much like a melee Defender - you're debuffing your enemies with three out of your nine armor powers. Stack the -to hit from Beta Decay with, say, Dark Melee's debuffs, or Soul Mastery's, and you'll be almost as untouchable as you are unbreakable. Or pair Beta Decay's and Ground Zero's defense debuffs with any set that lowers defense, and laugh at enemies' efforts to avoid your righteous wrath ^_^ And the great thing is, these debuffs help your teammates too!

 

TL;DR - Electric Armor plays like a melee end drain Controller, Rad Armor like a melee to hit and defense debuffing Defender. Both can be absolute beasts; the former has a more robust endurance management game, the latter more durability thanks to an absorb shield and to hit debuffs. Electric really wants global recharge bonuses; Rad Armor is more robust out of the box.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Loranna

[Infinitum]

Yep, very insightful. Thats exactly what I was hoping someone would say.

 

I think im on the right track.

 

The hard part now is finding a way to make up for sleep deprivation from playing so many alts.  lol

[marcussmythe]

Not sure about ‘more durable’ - but certainly more active, with more ways to interact with the bad guys.  I really like having more ways to interact with the game, and debuffs are historically far more powerful than any self-buff effect.

 

Ivuln is power and slot intensive and not very active, but offers such a nice mix of resistance, defense, and a massive, permable HP buff that its hard to stay away from.  Would be nice if the defenses were positional rather than typed (in general, capping positional is disgustingly easy compared to the suffering of trying to cap typed defense!) but its a very ‘old’ set and it shows, in comparison to later sets.  That being said, aside from the Psi Reist Hole, Invuln sacrifices everything on the alter of being impossible to kill, and IMHO is still the toughest, barring stone.