Best AT for Energy Melee / Rad Armor

[lightpunch]

Hi folks,

 

Lately I've been inspired to remake my first main/50 from live, and I'm looking for feedback on what AT would be the best fit for her. Originally, she was an Energy Blast/Fire Manipulation blaster, in the times before KB->KD, meaning she was truly one of the most unsynergetic combos available in CoX. I know a bit more about the game now, and there are both new and improved powersets available now that still fit her general theme, so it feels like a good time to reroll her. 

 

Conceptually, I imagine her as what it would be like if a woman with powers like Jubilee or Boom Boom became Captain America -- colorful pyrotechnic abilities combined with a classic look and a middle-of-the-fray playstyle. To achieve that effect, the new Energy Melee seems like a good fit, and between fiery aura, energy aura, and radiation armor, radiation seems the most exciting to me while also offering more AoE damage to pair with EM. 

 

So: what AT takes the most advantage of a EM/Rad Armor combo? I was leaning Tanker, because I like how much radiation armor shines with more HP and the Pyre Mastery Epic Pool seems like a great addition to the concept. But can I achieve roughly equivalent levels of survivability on a Brute or Scrapper, while getting substantially more out of EM's damage? I'm not strongly considering Stalkers, as they've never been my playstyle and also don't fit what I imagine for the character, but I'm open to being persuaded.

Beyond that, I'm also having trouble with my build simply because of how many powers from both EM and Rad Armor seem worth taking, so if anyone has any thoughts on what powers are skippable, I'm all ears.

 

Thanks in advance!

[DreadShinobi]

Rad Armor is great on tankers, as most resistance based sets are. I personally don't like that clicking Meltdown and Ground Zero takes 6 seconds to activate, and the set as a whole has much competition from Bio Armor. You mentioned Fiery Aura as one of your options and it is a great pair for Energy Melee, and is what I would recommend over Rad Armor. Burn helps shore up the lack of aoe in EM significantly. Fiery Embrace further buffs TF/ET damage to ST Nuke levels. Fiery Aura is no slouch defensively for tankers in most regular content either. A Scrapper would get 28% crit damage on TF/ETs and double focus for more fast energy transfers, same with stalkers, however neither AT runs well with fiery aura and that would be the tanker's niche here. The tanker being able to run a more offensive armor set in fiery aura can easily make up for the lower damage scale when compared to scrappers, outside of Bio Armor scrappers. Fiery Aura also has a couple more skippables that can open up room for pools and ancillary compared to Rad Armor. I don't recommend the combo for brutes. 

Edited November 14, 2020 by DreadShinobi

[Jimmy]

I'm planning on building up an EM / Rad Scrapper.

 

Rad is a really well-rounded armour set that's easy to slot around. EM's interaction with crits is also really fun.

[Saikochoro]

I would go EM on scrapper purely because EM is new on scrappers and it is awesome.  Having tested the new EM on each archetype I can say that scrapper is definitely my favorite followed by tanker. 
 

I personally feel that rad armor is better on a tanker than a scrapper. Tankers benefit more from higher armor multipliers, higher resist caps, and higher HP. Tankers will always have substantially more survivability than scrappers, but scrappers can still be built sturdy enough.  I think out of the armors you listed above energy aura would fit best on a scrapper. That said, rad armor is still great on scrappers.

Edited November 15, 2020 by Saikochoro

[lightpunch]

3 hours ago, DreadShinobi said:

You mentioned Fiery Aura as one of your options and it is a great pair for Energy Melee, and is what I would recommend over Rad Armor. Burn helps shore up the lack of aoe in EM significantly. Fiery Embrace further buffs TF/ET damage to ST Nuke levels. Fiery Aura is no slouch defensively for tankers in most regular content either.

I mentioned Fiery Aura as one that would work conceptually with a character themed after fireworks, but I'm not convinced it can give me the survivability I want, between its lack of mitigation (besides murder) and heavy reliance on healing flames. But I'm looking into it -- what powers are skippable other than RotP?

 

3 hours ago, Jimmy said:

I'm planning on building up an EM / Rad Scrapper.

 

Rad is a really well-rounded armour set that's easy to slot around. EM's interaction with crits is also really fun.

I already have a psy/rad scrapper, and though I love the feel of /rad, I haven't felt like she's that survivable. Do I need to be slotting her for more HP to feel the survivability?

 

3 hours ago, Saikochoro said:

Having tested the new EM on each archetype I can say that scrapper is definitely my favorite followed by tanker. 
...

I personally feel that rad armor is better on a tanker than a scrapper. Tankers benefit more from higher armor multipliers, higher resist caps, and higher HP. Tankers will always have substantially more survivability than scrappers, but scrappers can still be built sturdy enough.

I was hoping that the inverse would also be true -- just like a scrapper can be built sturdy enough, that a /em tanker can be built to be damaging enough, at least with the right armor set too. I liked the idea of her being able to serve the classic tank role while doing good damage too, but maybe I need to reconsider an em/rad scrapper, if the kill speed increase is going to offset the lower defenses.

 

And thanks all for your replies, I appreciate it.

[Saikochoro]

12 minutes ago, lightpunch said:

I mentioned Fiery Aura as one that would work conceptually with a character themed after fireworks, but I'm not convinced it can give me the survivability I want, between its lack of mitigation (besides murder) and heavy reliance on healing flames. But I'm looking into it -- what powers are skippable other than RotP?

 

I already have a psy/rad scrapper, and though I love the feel of /rad, I haven't felt like she's that survivable. Do I need to be slotting her for more HP to feel the survivability?

 

I was hoping that the inverse would also be true -- just like a scrapper can be built sturdy enough, that a /em tanker can be built to be damaging enough, at least with the right armor set too. I liked the idea of her being able to serve the classic tank role while doing good damage too, but maybe I need to reconsider an em/rad scrapper, if the kill speed increase is going to offset the lower defenses.

 

And thanks all for your replies, I appreciate it.

An Rad/EM tanker will do outstanding damage. Sure it won’t be as much as a scrapper, but it definitely won’t be lacking in damage. 

[DreadShinobi]

2 hours ago, lightpunch said:

I mentioned Fiery Aura as one that would work conceptually with a character themed after fireworks, but I'm not convinced it can give me the survivability I want, between its lack of mitigation (besides murder) and heavy reliance on healing flames. But I'm looking into it -- what powers are skippable other than RotP?

Temperature Protection is skippable. Fiery Aura has alot of bad reputation about being squishy, but in practice it is quite solid defensively. Survivability is only relevant equal to the amount of incoming damage, and for many tankers, they have far more than what is needed. Most of my fiery aura experience is with brutes, as that is where the damage effectiveness was before the tanker buff patch, but I have tanked literally everything in the game with fiery aura, pretty much only carrying Red inspirations. That said my fiery aura brute runs two builds, one with 45% S/L defense, and one with psionic resist, better numbers defensively can obviously be achieved with a tanker. Once you meet the survivability threshold, fiery aura pushes far ahead of other sets (sans bio armor) with its offensive capabilities, which was what you mentioned, wanting an armor set that pushed EM damage further. I messed with mids today and pretty easily built a Fiery/EM tanker that has 90% resist to S/L/F, 58% cold, and 70% N/E resists on top of 45% S/L defense. With an 1100 HP heal every 12 seconds, and an additional ~280 hp regenerated in that time frame, you can have quite the layered defenses with fiery aura. It is quite easy to build in extra survivability (purple insps are broken), and much harder to build in extra offenses, which is why Blazing Aura, Burn, and Fiery Embrace are so valuable. Comparing Fiery Aura when built up to 90% S/L resist and 45% S/L Defense to say Invuln, I don't see how people can say it lacks in mitigation, and burn is some significant mitigation.

Edited November 15, 2020 by DreadShinobi

[WindDemon21]

8 hours ago, Jimmy said:

I'm planning on building up an EM / Rad Scrapper.

 

Rad is a really well-rounded armour set that's easy to slot around. EM's interaction with crits is also really fun.

I mean, I've done a stone/rad brute, and then did a psy/rad scrapper. Even with the aoe knockdowns/up etc, fully IOd, I don't find rad to have enough oomph most of the time outside of a tanker. Both are shelved now.

 

Two big things that would help change that would be to make particle shielding a lower rech for sure, at least 90, if not 60 seconds. But another really offhand power that just doesn't do what it's supposed to is radiation therapy. For starters, it should be noted that only the scrapper version is currently getting the extra regen buff from it, but even with that, it's actual heal is pitiful even fully slotted.

 

On two VERY rare occasions only, did I have the regen from it actually stack per target hit, and it just felt right. Of course lowering particle accelerations rech down would fix a lot, but this power still just seems to be lacking, I would imagine more that it may just stack that regen per use (not per target hit) which would also help it a lot more against tough single targets like AVs.

 

Keep in mind that rad has ZERO defense in it, which we're all aware is a huge downside to any resist only based set, which is why most don't work well for scrappers which also only have a 75% resist cap. And that -regen resistance from radiation therapy hardly has ever done enough for my rad armors. One death mage twilight grasp and your regen is still basically floored, or anything else I've come up against that has -regen attacks.

[InvaderStych]

33 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

Two big things that would help change that would be to make particle shielding a lower rech for sure, at least 90, if not 60 seconds.

Properly slotted (Heal/Recharge and a little EndRedux) Particle Shielding can already have 100% uptime, even outside of Hasten.  Mine is on 34s recharge inside Hasten, and 43.5 outside of it.  This is before bumps in recharge from either Beta Decay or Force Feedback.

 

Radiation Therapy is also fantastic.  Slot for some Heal, add a Theft of Essence, and run x8 all day long.  A big self heal every 18s?  Yup.  Very good.

 

It's not about the static regen with /Rad, it's about the extra 796hp worth of absorb from PS that refreshes within its duration and firing RT for the heals - if solo.  If i were to build /Rad exclusively for teaming I'd slot that puppy as a half-nuke and call it a day.

 

Also, Scrapper Meltdown is a 41.5% damage buff.  Tanks/Brutes only get 33% on lower base damage.  It's all about the damage. 🙂

 

Obviously Tanks are more durable, that's their job. 😄

Edited November 15, 2020 by InvaderStych

[WindDemon21]

7 hours ago, InvaderStych said:

Properly slotted (Heal/Recharge and a little EndRedux) Particle Shielding can already have 100% uptime, even outside of Hasten.  Mine is on 34s recharge inside Hasten, and 43.5 outside of it.  This is before bumps in recharge from either Beta Decay or Force Feedback.

Except the absorb is still just a pre-heal, not extra hp, resist, or defense. Much like energize as well they should be on a 60s recharge to be effective. Even fully slotted minus maybe a few defense bonuses and with tough/weave/hasten I've still had that absorb disappear in literally seconds with scrapper numbers. Then you're waiting way too long with just the tiny regen and radiation therapy.

 

7 hours ago, InvaderStych said:

Radiation Therapy is also fantastic.  Slot for some Heal, add a Theft of Essence, and run x8 all day long.  A big self heal every 18s?  Yup.  Very good.

I have, slotted for max heal and recharge and the heal is just far too tiny to do what it needs to do. Granted it survives better than fire armor, but that's not saying much. And the difference between rad armor on a scrapper and literally any other set that has any defense component is miles above what I've gotten out of rad armor.

 

The resist numbers aren't really the issue IMO though you definitely notice night and day on a tank, but it's these two powers that are just sorely lacking for a scrapper's survival.

 

60s for PS (and energize for /ea and /elec), and a larger heal/stacking regen for RT.

[InvaderStych]

27 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

The resist numbers aren't really the issue IMO though you definitely notice night and day on a tank, but it's these two powers that are just sorely lacking for a scrapper's survival.

 

Fair enough.  That hasn't really been my experience with the set, but I know my Kat/Rad wouldn't turn down the buff. 🤣

 

It's likely my expectations for (and what I actually want out of) my scrappers is different than yours - which is all good. 

 

That said, my /Rad is night and day more durable than my /SD while solo.  The /SD folds on long, solo AV fights where as the /Rad can outlast the target on the backs of PS/RT, Avalanche, and Meld. AVs with "Win Button" powers like GW's mag 100 hold are tougher, but still winnable if I pay attention to when they're about to hit that button.

 

On a team where heals come from an outside source /SD might pull ahead, but on a lot of teams building for durability isn't even really that important as it is easy to lean on the available support buffs and/or controls.  With more available time and inf I would carry two builds - one for teams and one for solo.

 

My experience with /Nin on a scrapper was highly disappointing: The +end and +hp clicks there might be numerically superior (I wouldn't know for sure) but they were dramatically more (personally) annoying to use for the speed at which I prefer to roll.  In general, I find layering defense on top of a resist set to be more robust in more situations than leaning on the soft-cap from a secondary and calling it a day. 

 

/SR's massive DDR and scaling resist are the outlier there.  That's a shiny little set these days that too few people are giving a go in favor of the newer ones like /Bio.

Edited November 15, 2020 by InvaderStych

[Carnifax]

On 11/15/2020 at 8:14 AM, WindDemon21 said:

I mean, I've done a stone/rad brute, and then did a psy/rad scrapper. Even with the aoe knockdowns/up etc, fully IOd, I don't find rad to have enough oomph most of the time outside of a tanker. Both are shelved now.

I find my Mace/Rad Brute to be a total monster. I am heavily IOd but not at Resist caps (I went for layering defense on top of 80% S/L resists) and not a billion inf build at all. 

 

He ended up tanking for an ITF over the weekend after our tank / team leader had to drop for RL stuff. We managed it quite easily and I was rarely in trouble. Only downside was that I don't have Taunt which made it a little trickier to pull things off people. Came close to dying from massed Bright Nova / Dark Nova spam at one point (-Def coupled with -Recharge and lots of Neg NRG damage is nasty) but being able to heal right back up from 10% to 100% saved my ass. 

 

So to answer the OP I'd personally edge towards Brute just because I like my Mace/Rad Brute and the 75% resist limit on scrappers irks me. 

[WindDemon21]

On 11/16/2020 at 5:17 AM, Carnifax said:

I find my Mace/Rad Brute to be a total monster. I am heavily IOd but not at Resist caps (I went for layering defense on top of 80% S/L resists) and not a billion inf build at all. 

 

He ended up tanking for an ITF over the weekend after our tank / team leader had to drop for RL stuff. We managed it quite easily and I was rarely in trouble. Only downside was that I don't have Taunt which made it a little trickier to pull things off people. Came close to dying from massed Bright Nova / Dark Nova spam at one point (-Def coupled with -Recharge and lots of Neg NRG damage is nasty) but being able to heal right back up from 10% to 100% saved my ass. 

 

So to answer the OP I'd personally edge towards Brute just because I like my Mace/Rad Brute and the 75% resist limit on scrappers irks me. 

If you're using ITF to judge your ability to tank mobs on a nearly (87% i would assume at low health with the scaling unique) resist to their attacks, that is not saying much about rad armor, to which you also explained how the 75% cap really does hurt scrap/stalkers more on it too as well.

[brasilgringo]

Might be Tankers after the EM changes due to higher target caps on the AOEs (in both primary and secondary).  Worth watching the boards post the new issue.

[Rejolt]

I haven't played a resist-only set on a Scrapper or Stalker (to 50) due to the resist cap and this hurts me as I play every electric set on every AT at least once to 50.

 

Energy/Rad is my choice for a brute though.

 

I might consider Energy/Dark on a scrapper (has some def and -acc) as it can stack a stun aura with the punches. My Dark/Elec tank has both the FF proc and KB to KD in Thunder Clap and it's a good stun-lock build. Both Dark and Fire have self rezzes if I ET myself to death lol.

 

Getting a new set ported to a new AT resets my spreadsheets for sets I've already played inside an AT as it wasn't available before. I have so far as Scrappers/STalkers - Elec/shield, Stj/Nrg, Claws/Bio and Psi/Nin.

 

An Nrg/Nrg stalker should be fantastic - some resists, def cap, +HP, a click heal with regen/end redux and the only aT that gets a Stun aura out of /nrg armor (Disrupt). I just have to decide if I want to do it again after stj/nrg (which is also amazing).

Edited November 18, 2020 by Rejolt

[fitzsimmons]

I'm going to make a scrapper.  Just did a build based off of my kat/rad scrapper.  Should be nice.  Musculuture, assault, meltdown, good times.

 

Softcapped defenses to melee and s/l with a procced out Radiation Therapy.

 

Looking forward to it.

[Zepp]

I set up my EnM/Rad Scrapper, enjoying so far, but still not sure about my final build.
Thinking about going all sacrilegious and building without Hasten...

 

[Omegawoman]

My main is a em/rad brute and she is my strongest character I love it