What are the issues with /Rad again and did it benefit from the recent primary buffs?

[Frogsterking]

Why all is /rad considered a bad set and does it have any redeeming qualities or is it just sub par?

 

I was flirting with the idea of making a necro/rad to duo with my gf who is making a claws/willpower catgirl tanker.

 

If anyone has experimented with the new necro and /radiation I'd love advice or recommendations on how to play that set or for a more interesting necro/ option if you think necro/rad sucks.

[Astralock]

Radiation Emission is considered subpar on Masterminds for the same reason as Kinetics.  The +recharge from Accelerated Metabolism doesn't work on henchmen.  If you don't care about that, go for it.

[WumpusRat]

Also one of the big powers of the set, Fallout, can't be used on dead henchmen. Only dead players. Which makes it useless for a solo MM.

That said, I did doodle up a Necro/Rad MM to test out, and was able to run on +1/8 pretty comfortably, so it's not terrible. Just not ideal.

[Hedgefund2]

I have a Necro/Rad.  It's fine.  It's not a bad set, it's not subpar.  Right smack dab in the middle, probably.  It does what I expect a MM to do but it will struggle more if you up the difficulty against mezzing mobs. (Carnies, Arachnos, the usual suspects).  Note - I haven't respecced any of my Necro MMs nor given them substantial play since p5 so I can't speak from hands-on experience what they're like now.  

[Neiska]

I ran a Demon/Rad for a time. My biggest complaint was it relies on debuffs and toggles, which are pretty small in size. If they were a bit bigger it would be more manageable, but even if you group the pack into a tight ball it may not affect everything, which your pets more or less rely on to survive. It's not terrible or anything, it can be potent. Its debuffs are just so teensy in size that it can be frustraiting to play. If too bosses are standing a good distance apart, which one do you debuff and so on.

[bellona100]

I consider /Rad on a MM to be in the top 3 of Secondaries.   It is absolutely excellent at debuffing single targets.

 

I also think it is a very good all-around Secondary.  You have a PBAoE heal.  The AM buff which helps with mez, +Recovery, etc.  Three nasty debuffs.  And a PBAoE Hold for mobs, or when used on a single target provides -End and -Regen.

 

I recommend slotting Radiation Infection for -ToHit and End Reduction.   Enervating Field with End Reduction.  And Lingering Radiation with +Recharge.  I have my LR slotted with 6 D-syncs.

 

I've played /Rad extensively in PvP and have enjoyed the versatility and extensive debuffing it provides.

 

Necro is crazy fun with the new changes.  You have to be careful though with the slotting of enhancements.  The Primary has changed considerably and to slot properly, you need to know the nuts and bolts of how things work.   For example, you want to take the 3 attacks.   They each can spawn pets that have a powerful taunt.

[WumpusRat]

The problem with the wraiths is that once you get up past the mid-game, they become more of a hinderance than a benefit. Since you have zero control over them, they can sometimes aggro things you didn't want to fight, or end up chasing enemies around with no ability to call them back.  Their damage is incredibly lackluster, as well; at 50th level with +100% dmg, they have a single attack that hits for about 35. Supremacy and other buffs beef it up a bit, but it's still only about half the damage your tier-1's basic brawl attack is doing.

 

Once I passed about 30th I specced out of the attacks, as they were eating up power picks and slotting that I could definitely use better elsewhere.

[evetsleep]

I enjoy /rad (the new ninjas are SICK with it), but I think the biggest problem with the set that hasn't been mention (and for me is really the larger problem) is the 15ft radius of the toggle debuffs.  Darkest Night is 25ft by comparison.  Other sets like nature have a similar 15ft radius, so it's not unique to /rad.  Just wish it was like darkest night.

[bellona100]

5 hours ago, WumpusRat said:

The problem with the wraiths is that once you get up past the mid-game, they become more of a hinderance than a benefit. Since you have zero control over them, they can sometimes aggro things you didn't want to fight, or end up chasing enemies around with no ability to call them back.  Their damage is incredibly lackluster, as well; at 50th level with +100% dmg, they have a single attack that hits for about 35. Supremacy and other buffs beef it up a bit, but it's still only about half the damage your tier-1's basic brawl attack is doing.

 

Once I passed about 30th I specced out of the attacks, as they were eating up power picks and slotting that I could definitely use better elsewhere.

 

I don't think anyone expects the Specters to be damage dealers.  Thats just nonsense.  The Specters are like a scaled down Gang War.  They help mitigate damage away from the henchmen, MM, and other pets via a strong Taunt.

 

The attacks can be slotted with damage procs to add some punch.  In my opinion, if you're going to spend the time using the attacks, might as well get something out of them besides the Specter pets.

 

WumpusRat does make a very good point here.  It's mixed in with all the negative vomit, but its there nontheless.  The combination of Necro and Rad will create a set that is Endurance hungry.  The set creates a scenario where the MM can debuff, heal, attack, mez, and summon.  This is a lot of clicking that uses a lot of End.   I recommend making Endurance management a top priority in the build.  For example, make a Miracle: +Recovery at level 20 and slot it early.   Make a Panacea: +Hit Points/End at level 10 and slot it early.

[kelika2]

the small radius on debuffs is what got me to reroll some masterminds.  15ft radius on radiations debuffs vs 25ft on darkest night vs 35ft on flash arrow

I group primarily and always lost a minion or two from a stray/out of range enemy

[biostem]

For me, it was always about just how long enemies are left standing, and whether that longevity makes using all the anchor debuffs worthwhile.  I kind of feel like MMs should've been able to place the debuffs on their own minions, but still have their effect only apply to enemies...

[WumpusRat]

18 hours ago, bellona100 said:

 

I don't think anyone expects the Specters to be damage dealers.  Thats just nonsense.  The Specters are like a scaled down Gang War.  They help mitigate damage away from the henchmen, MM, and other pets via a strong Taunt.

The spectres' taunt is based on their damage, in that their damage is magnified by their taunt ability (+400%). The problem is that at higher levels, once you get your actual pets slotted up and you buff them with both upgrades, they deal so much more damage than the spectres that the spectres all have to gang up on one mob to make their taunt overpower your pets' damage. They MIGHT hold a minion or lt that hasn't been hit by one of the zombies' multiple aoe attacks (or anything a grave knight hasn't looked at yet, since they deal so much damage that there's no way one of the spectres is going to peel a mob off of it), but that's about it, and you can't direct them, so you can't tell them who to try and peel.

 

After playing a couple of necro MM's from 1-50, my personal take was that the spectres aren't worth it at higher levels. Not for the slots you need to dedicate to them to make them useful. Those 3-6 slots and 3 power picks can be spent somewhere much more productive, imo. During the leveling process though, they're amazing. I had all 3 attacks in my build up to the mid-30's, which is about where the wraiths really started to drop off, as I only had 2 slots in each attack, and one was accuracy.

 

If you have a build that you can dedicate a bunch of slots to your attack powers, then by all means use them and the spectres. I tend to try and cram a ton of stuff into my builds and can't generally spare the slots for my attacks on masterminds.

 

<edit> I keep calling them wraiths. I think it's because that's what they look like to me. 🙂

Edited November 23, 2022 by WumpusRat

[Harakh]

12 hours ago, WumpusRat said:

The spectres' taunt is based on their damage, in that their damage is magnified by their taunt ability (+400%). The problem is that at higher levels, once you get your actual pets slotted up and you buff them with both upgrades, they deal so much more damage than the spectres that the spectres all have to gang up on one mob to make their taunt overpower your pets' damage. They MIGHT hold a minion or lt that hasn't been hit by one of the zombies' multiple aoe attacks (or anything a grave knight hasn't looked at yet, since they deal so much damage that there's no way one of the spectres is going to peel a mob off of it), but that's about it, and you can't direct them, so you can't tell them who to try and peel.

 

After playing a couple of necro MM's from 1-50, my personal take was that the spectres aren't worth it at higher levels. Not for the slots you need to dedicate to them to make them useful. Those 3-6 slots and 3 power picks can be spent somewhere much more productive, imo. During the leveling process though, they're amazing. I had all 3 attacks in my build up to the mid-30's, which is about where the wraiths really started to drop off, as I only had 2 slots in each attack, and one was accuracy.

 

If you have a build that you can dedicate a bunch of slots to your attack powers, then by all means use them and the spectres. I tend to try and cram a ton of stuff into my builds and can't generally spare the slots for my attacks on masterminds.

 

<edit> I keep calling them wraiths. I think it's because that's what they look like to me. 🙂

 

You quoted Bellona telling you the spectres are not about damage in their opinion and then continued responding saying why their damage is the issue.

 

The spectres have an actual Taunt built into their one attack.

 

Bellona is saying they are helpful to mitigate damage because of this.

 

I agree.

 

I solo 4/8 and have many times seen them distracting a boss, and tank AVs when I've come across them.

 

And the attacks do not need to be max slotted to have effective a little distraction provided by specters - I only slotted life drain.

 

 

[WumpusRat]

2 hours ago, Harakh said:

 

You quoted Bellona telling you the spectres are not about damage in their opinion and then continued responding saying why their damage is the issue.

 

The spectres have an actual Taunt built into their one attack.

 

Bellona is saying they are helpful to mitigate damage because of this.

 

I agree.

 

I solo 4/8 and have many times seen them distracting a boss, and tank AVs when I've come across them.

 

And the attacks do not need to be max slotted to have effective a little distraction provided by specters - I only slotted life drain.

 

 

It was my understanding, based on both what I read as well as what I observed, that their taunt was a magnifier for the damage they dealt, to create a larger threat score for the spectres. If that's not the case, then that's fine, I'm okay with being wrong -- I'm just coming back to the game after a two year hiatus, so there are likely a lot of things that have changed.

 

In my experience, after around 30th level the spectres weren't being very useful. It might simply be that the secondaries I have for my necros (Nature and Electric) weren't condusive to carefully studying what the spectres were doing, as I was usually busy firing off abilities, and there were so many graphical effects going off that the spectres aren't very visible among it all.

 

And I was never saying they had to be "max slotted". 3-6 slots was among all three powers, so each one would have 2-3 slots in it. I just have difficulty squeezing that many power picks and slots into my builds, which are usually fairly tight to begin with, mostly because a lot of my slotting aims for set bonuses and the like.

 

But this has gotten far off topic.

[Harakh]

23 minutes ago, WumpusRat said:

It was my understanding, based on both what I read as well as what I observed, that their taunt was a magnifier for the damage they dealt, to create a larger threat score for the spectres. If that's not the case, then that's fine, I'm okay with being wrong -- I'm just coming back to the game after a two year hiatus, so there are likely a lot of things that have changed.

 

In my experience, after around 30th level the spectres weren't being very useful. It might simply be that the secondaries I have for my necros (Nature and Electric) weren't condusive to carefully studying what the spectres were doing, as I was usually busy firing off abilities, and there were so many graphical effects going off that the spectres aren't very visible among it all.

 

And I was never saying they had to be "max slotted". 3-6 slots was among all three powers, so each one would have 2-3 slots in it. I just have difficulty squeezing that many power picks and slots into my builds, which are usually fairly tight to begin with, mostly because a lot of my slotting aims for set bonuses and the like.

 

But this has gotten far off topic.

 

I'm running /electric

 

I agree specter goes unnoticed unless you're using it for a purpose. Such as when I solod lvl 54 Chimera the specters helped from keeping pets one shooted after another long enough to get set up in a good spot then as long as I kept the specters flowing out they held aggro well.

 

I saw that comment too about the taunt effect + damage. No idea about this but am keeping an eye open.

 

Lol I forgot what topic this was until typing this very line. You're right.

 

If we must persist I new thread shall be in order >.<