Help on /WP or /Rad plz

[Fordson]

Hello all. I’ve seem to have my share of 50’s, coming back to CoX after all these years. I’ve made most AT’s that sounded fun or were META. I’m finding it harder and harder to get on bc of RL stuff but wanted to make “one last toon”.  It most likely  won’t be, but for now, I really need help on a secondary for EM/. Lol, I already know what your thinking/saying but I had one on live (EM/EA) and just miss the EM sounds, look. I don’t want to go through EA again though, so I’ve decided to pair it up with either /WP or /Rad.  I know nothing about either as a secondary for brutes and how they mesh with primaries, EM to be specific. Could someone who has lvl’d up either/both guide me in a direction?  I would be taking it to 50 and beyond, infamy would not be a problem if I’m having fun, to spend on her post 50. She’d be mostly lvl’d with TF’s and teaming. Not sure I really want to grind another toon solo. Thanks for the knowledge in advance. 

[nihilii]

Rad Armor is flavor of the month on the forums right now, or so it feels; and for good reason. It pairs well with EM because you can proc the heal to turn it into a respectable AoE, and you get another AoE in the form of Ground Zero. So you can patch EM's lack of AoE that way, and on top of that you get good regen and heal to offset Energy Transfer's -HP. On a Brute, Meltdown can let you touch resistance caps against most common damage types. There is room to grow post 50 too, for example with a build alternating Meltdown and Hybrid Melee, letting you stay at the resistance cap most of the time.

 

Willpower is OK as a toggle up and forget about it secondary. Personally I think it doesn't hold up to the options offered by other secondaries, but of course everything is viable.

[Fordson]

Thx for the reply. I will look into /Rad tonight and probably create and play a little tonight.  At least get on Mids and look deeper into the powerset and how things work. 

[Fordson]

So I was able to get on for a couple hours last night and try out the /Rad. I did like it, but as dumb as this sounds, /Rad isn’t the same visually as say EA. It got

me thinking, I haven’t tried /Inv yet. Maybe that could be a decent alternative?  I could also go into the Fly line of powers and use AS as an attack with EPand BS, leaving either ET or TF as just a finisher?  I’ve read a ton on /Inv psi hole at later stages but maybe use barrier or just kill them first, lol?  Any thoughts or info on maybe going this route instead since it’s early?  Thx. 

[Hyperstrike]

Rad's, visually, a bit murky.  You get a lot of glow in the center of the screen.
If washing things out isn't your bag, Inv works pretty decently too.

Once you've leveled up, take a look at my Invuln Framework build.
Just plug your Primary in and select powers.

[umbriel]

On 8/3/2020 at 12:49 PM, nihilii said:

Willpower is OK as a toggle up and forget about it secondary. Personally I think it doesn't hold up to the options offered by other secondaries, but of course everything is viable.

I have run plenty of Willpower based Sentinels, Tanks, Brutes and Scrappers even back on live.   I really enjoy the hands off nature of the set as it gives me more room to focus on situational awareness.  I also like the fact that its not slot heavy and endurance light so I can be more flexible in my build.  But it does have to be balanced with Tough/Weave/Combat Jumping and/or Maneuvers for defense boosting depending on your AT and play-style. 

 

The trick to survival is in maxing "Rise to the Challenge" by staying close to as many mobs as possible and finding a way in your build to have a heal or better regen to cover those times when the mobs get lucky.  

 

This does make tanking some AVs more of a challenge since he ends up being the only mob so you lean on resists more.  But you can still tank/off-tank pretty well as long as you avoid the Alpha Strike.  Plus some inspirations/power selections can plug that hole if you have to tank you more difficult AV.  

 

In the Sentinel forum there is a write-up on Willpower that I think has useful info for all ATs interested in Willpower.

 

Umby

[InvaderStych]

WP = Fire and Forget. No Real "Holes;" it protects moderately against most everything, but excels at none of them.  It's easy mode up to a point, then it can easily get in over its head. The only mez you need to worry about is Taunt/Placate.  Which mostly irrelevant in PvE.  Most will skip the Rez, some will skip the T9 and the Rez - so more flexibility in build choices.

 

Rad = Good Resists, 2 Click Heals, 1 Nuke (Definitely Proc the Nuke, Mix Proc/Heal the heal to taste), You're clicking more from your secondary here, but you're getting excellent tools.  Nothing to skip here though, so power selection can get tight depending on your primary/pool preferences.  A Brute might be able to skip the T9 since the dmg buff is lower (33% for Brute, 41.5% for scrapper), but that's really up personal taste, and my scrapper definitely kept it.

 

Most annoying holes are complete lack of Fear/Terrorize or Confuse protection. Confuse doesn't come up much in normal play, but I've run into it a few times soloing redside.  Could be really bad to get confused on a team and hit Ground Zero before you noticed.  Fear/Terrorize is more common: big mobs with multiple bosses that can apply it (Longbow bosses and their Spectral Terrors, for example) can be an annoyance.

 

You will almost never notice the cold dmg hole.  You also get to laugh at Toxic dmg, which is actually more useful than it sounds.

 

In fairness, my /WP is a Brute, and my /Rad is a scrapper.  The scrapper - naturally - lives more on the bleeding edge but with PS and RT can recover from it much more easily than the Brute.  My /WP Brute is unstoppable right up until the point where he isn't. Heh.

 

Both are solid, fun choices tho.

 

As an aside; I don't get the "Rad Armor is Ugly" thing, but I respect that it won't feel the same to everyone.

 

That said, in the interest of balance, I think it looks great in certain colors.  My Rad/Rad tank uses a purple/aqua scheme that imo works well.  My scrapper is more in the deep blue ranges, using the lower saturation options.  Still tweaking the color scheme, but I like it.  My only complaint is that the Mez armor effect looses all saturation no matter what color you pick, but that might be a side effect of my gfx settings being quite low.