Rad/Sonic - Incarnate advice

[nebber]

Hi all!

 

I just hit 50 with my rad/sonic. I want him to be team friendly, but also want to be able to take down AVs solo since this is this combo's party trick. 

So, my ultimate goal is really increasing single target damage.

 

My obvious choices are: alpha = musculature, destiny = clarion, judgement = ion.  After that, I could use some advice!

 

Interface.  Reactive?  I'm already doing a lot of -res, so... is more -res good or, like, diminishing returns at that point?  Would degenerative be better to spread the debuffing over -res and -hp? 

Or would the fire DoT under the Radial side under reactive help my damage more?

 

Hybrid.  Assault - I gather from the TL:DR of the 'What the hell is doublehit' guide that Radial (doublehit) is berter for lower damage scale, single-target oriented heroes.  Does that still apply here or does anything about the rad/sonic dynamic make the Core damage-stacks better?

 

Lore.  In a long AV fight solo, can the 'touchable' pets survive, when rad debuffs are out there, or do they get too much aggro?  Was thinking Longbow for even more -recovery to stack with lingering radiation.  Any other good ideas?

 

My build:

https://www.midsreborn.com/builds/download.php?uc=1414&c=694&a=1388&f=HEX&dc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

 

Thanks!

[nebber]

well, since no one rushed in with the answers, I decided to drag myself to test and do pylon tests with the different combos.  Three runs of each combo tested at T4, with occassional swearing each time the drop ship one-shotted me.

 

EF&RI on the pylon, chain: shriek, scream, shriek, shout - LR / AM / Hasten activated when recharged, then back to the chain.

Build as above, just swapped in more KB enh as the pylon was knocking me back.

Musculature Core & Assault equiped (but not activated), then:

Degenerative Core - 5:22 average

Reactive Core - 5:32 average

Reactive Radial - 4:47 average

 

So looks like the fire DoT under reactive is the winner -- I suspected the bit of extra -res from Core was minor relative to the heavy rad & sonic -res.

 

Then to test assaults, I kept it with reactive radial, then:

Assault radial active - 4:21 avg

Assault core active - 4:40 avg

 

Core looks like it added very little extra damage even though I usually hovered around 3-4 stacks.  Doublehit shaved more time off.

 

So, thought I'd post this in case anyone else was curious. 

 

I'd still welcome Lore pet suggestions for AV battling though!

 

[Uun]

Interesting, I never think to get the Interface Radial. Always assumed the debuffs were better than the DoT.

 

I find that the lore pets with ranged attacks are a bit more durable. The ones that go into melee tend to get killed pretty quickly by AVs with big melee attacks. If you haven't seen it already, take a look at this google sheet with pictures and stats for all the pets and DPS numbers on the second tab: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tmuk9Jf-NxhSE2P1RB6wRtn-qUDvwqpV_10B9QAAinE/edit#gid=0

 

Its not going to boost your damage as much as Assault, but I'm a fan of Support Radial. Gives you and the entire team/league an 8% boost to damage, defense, healing, accuracy and mezz as well as a 10% endurance discount.

 

 

[nebber]

Ah cool, I had seen that Lore list but didn't realise it had DPS numbers.  Looks like the pure ranged Lores are middle-ground at best on the DPS list, but I imagine that it's better to have midrange DPS than no DPS because your dumb pets charged the AV.   So... Longbow, Nemesis, Clockwork, Drones, Seers, Storm, Vanguard, Warworks do ranged.  I think Longbow it is, then.  I do like the mega-cannon-blast that bigguns uses, and more -regen is good to stack with LR (I think...)

 

Thanks!

[Onlyasandwich]

Assault - as per your results, doublehit is almost always the best choice for defenders. Also better in damage cap situations with Kins on the team, where core wouldn't do anything at all.

 

Lore - I find the core (non invuln pets) damage oriented pets are pretty difficult to keep alive, even at range. A rad defender may have a better time of it solo, but bets are off on a team where more overaggro may be at play.

 

Interface - For solo play, reactive DoT is likely the best as you noted, though degen may work better vs GMs. In teams, you will likely see this very commonly picked interface already saturated from other teammates, so if this is a mostly team character you may prefer a different, more exotic interface like spectral. 

 

 

[nebber]

Cool.  Well then, assault doublehit and reactive DoT look like the way to go for my first T4s, since I'll see the most difference with those when I'm solo.  Then once I'm further along I can add in an alternate T3 interface and switch according to team composition.  Also would be good to switch to support hybrid when teaming.  I'll be needing a lot of incarnate salvage, it seems!

 

On 2/1/2021 at 8:09 PM, Uun said:

I find that the lore pets with ranged attacks are a bit more durable. The ones that go into melee tend to get killed pretty quickly by AVs with big melee attacks. If you haven't seen it already, take a look at this google sheet with pictures and stats for all the pets and DPS numbers on the second tab: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tmuk9Jf-NxhSE2P1RB6wRtn-qUDvwqpV_10B9QAAinE/edit#gid=0

 

14 hours ago, Onlyasandwich said:

Lore - I find the core (non invuln pets) damage oriented pets are pretty difficult to keep alive, even at range. A rad defender may have a better time of it solo, but bets are off on a team where more overaggro may be at play.

 

I tried Longbow first then Robotic Drones on test.  I noticed the Longbow bigguns still charges straight on up to his target even though he's ranged, so that may make him more susceptible to an AV swatting him down.  I fight from height with Hover (and 45% ranged def) so I thought I'd try the drones -- even though they have worse DPS, they fly too.  I was pleased to see they did stick by me and so were in the range of my AOE heal, and EF's -tohit + maneuvers running helped them avoid hits.   

 

Pylon test, three runs each, previous chain, musc T4+assault doublehit on+reactive DoT, plus Lores:

Core Longbow: 0:52 average

Core Drones:  0:54 average

 

Today I learned how OP Lore can be against high HP foes.  They helped me kill Pylons in under a minute, as compared to 4-5min  solo.  Like, wow.

Here I was fretting over the difference in Lore DPS numbers, but when it was me vs. a 30k HP target, the practical difference in kill time between a mid-range and low DPS Lore was, on average, two seconds.  Two seconds!  Maybe something about the -res of rad/sonic makes Lore DPS differences less signifcant?

 

So I like the drones.  Plus they fit my theme, as I'm in a flying robo suit.  Drones are cool.

[Onlyasandwich]

2 hours ago, nebber said:

Plus they fit my theme,

I think this is the right approach to lore pets! They are all very powerful - just pick the one that feels fun and fits your concept.