Rad Emission Secondary: Rad Blast or Dark Blast

[StriderIV]

Hi all!

I usually team with 2 buddies, and none of us roll a Defender/support style hero 😂 I've decided I'd be the first.

After reading over the primaries, I've settled on Radiation Emission. I feel it has a nice mix of supportive skills, as well as some powers that will help us take down tougher targets.

I'm a little stuck on which primary to choose. Leaning towards either Radiation blast (Laser beams from my eyes? Cool irradiate animation? yes please) and Dark Blast (Soul Noir FTW).

 

Obviously, I think both look amazing! Being that this is my first defender, I'd thought I'd check in with the heroes on here and see if anyone had any recommendations! Does either synergize better with Rad Emission? Are there any quirks between the combos I should be aware of? Sample builds?

 

Thanks in advance all!

[StriderIV]

There is also Sonic Blast. I hear it’s a good combo, but is more effective with larger teams. I’m not a HUGE fan of the animations, although it’s not so bad if you do the alt hand animations haha

[Psyonico]

Sonic Blast would get my vote, Rad/Sonic is known as one of the early AV soloers.  Rad blast is a good choice for concept reasons and you can also proc every attack with a -res to get some extra benefit from it.

[StriderIV]

15 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

Sonic Blast would get my vote, Rad/Sonic is known as one of the early AV soloers.  Rad blast is a good choice for concept reasons and you can also proc every attack with a -res to get some extra benefit from it.

Nice! I hear sonic matches well. I also hear it shines more the larger team you are on? Slotting -res into Rad Blast sounds nice, but seems like it could just be a poor man's Sonic Blast. But I guess you'd be getting the -Def and -Res.

[Doomguide2005]

The thing about Rad Blast as I understand it these days is the ability to use all those defdebuff and other damage procs and build a proc monster.  Most of the attacks will take multiple damage procs.  Shield Breaker, Lady Grey, Positron's Blast, Scirocco's Dervish, Obliteration, Gladiators Javelin, plus Armageddon and Apocalypse are a few I recall from memory.  And then there's the -resistance procs and to hit buff proc.

[StriderIV]

1 minute ago, Doomguide2005 said:

The thing about Rad Blast as I understand it these days is the ability to use all those defdebuff and other damage procs and build a proc monster.  Most of the attacks will take multiple damage procs.  Shield Breaker, Lady Grey, Positron's Blast, Scirocco's Dervish, Obliteration, Gladiators Javelin, plus Armageddon and Apocalypse are a few I recall from memory.  And then there's the -resistance procs and to hit buff proc.

That's true. It seems like if I want to be generally safer, I would go Dark Blast. If I want to do a surprising amount of damage, go Rad. I know Procs are all the rage these days 😂

[Darkir]

On 3/10/2021 at 2:35 PM, StriderIV said:

That's true. It seems like if I want to be generally safer, I would go Dark Blast. If I want to do a surprising amount of damage, go Rad. I know Procs are all the rage these days 😂

From our various discussions, I think you will be happier with a rad/rad from the options you listed, but I think you'd be even happier with a cold/water or a dark/rad.