Rad/SS Build Review

Owenknowone · April 18, 2023

Looking for feedback on my build. Thank you.

This Hero build was built using Mids Reborn 3.4.6
https://github.com/LoadedCamel/MidsReborn

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Magic Tanker
Primary Power Set: Radiation Armor
Secondary Power Set: Super Strength
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Fighting
Ancillary Pool: Energy Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Alpha Barrier

(A) Titanium Coating - Resistance
(3) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance
(5) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge
(7) Impervium Armor - Psionic Resistance

Level 1: Jab

(A) Perfect Zinger - Chance for Psi Damage
(5) Perfect Zinger - Threat/Placate
(7) Perfect Zinger - Threat/Placate/Recharge

Level 2: Gamma Boost

(A) Numina's Convalesence - +Regeneration/+Recovery
(11) Numina's Convalesence - Heal
(11) Numina's Convalesence - Heal/Endurance
(13) Numina's Convalesence - Heal/Recharge
(13) Power Transfer - Chance to Heal Self
(15) Power Transfer - Damage/Accuracy/Recharge/Endurance

Level 4: Fly

(A) Freebird - Endurance
(15) Freebird - FlySpeed
(17) Freebird - +Stealth

Level 6: Proton Armor

(A) Impervium Armor - Psionic Resistance
(9) Titanium Coating - Resistance
(19) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance
(19) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge

Level 8: Punch

(A) Hecatomb - Damage/Recharge/Accuracy
(21) Hecatomb - Recharge/Accuracy
(21) Hecatomb - Damage/Endurance

Level 10: Fallout Shelter

(A) Titanium Coating - Resistance
(23) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance
(25) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge
(25) Impervium Armor - Psionic Resistance

Level 12: Radiation Therapy

(A) Touch of the Nictus - Healing/Absorb
(27) Touch of the Nictus - Healing/Absorb/Recharge
(27) Touch of the Nictus - Accuracy/Healing/Absorb
(29) Touch of the Nictus - Accuracy/Endurance/Healing/Absorb
(29) Touch of the Nictus - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge
(31) Touch of the Nictus - Chance for Negative Energy Damage

Level 14: Beta Decay

(A) Perfect Zinger - Chance for Psi Damage
(31) Perfect Zinger - Threat/Placate
(31) Perfect Zinger - Threat/Placate/Recharge

Level 16: Hover

(A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed

Level 18: Particle Shielding

(A) Preventive Medicine - Heal
(33) Preventive Medicine - Heal/Endurance
(33) Preventive Medicine - Endurance/RechargeTime
(34) Preventive Medicine - Heal/RechargeTime
(34) Preventive Medicine - Heal/RechargeTime/Endurance
(34) Preventive Medicine - Chance for +Absorb

Level 20: Hand Clap

(A) Absolute Amazement - Stun
(36) Absolute Amazement - Stun/Recharge
(36) Absolute Amazement - Stun/Recharge/Accuracy
(36) Absolute Amazement - Recharge/Accuracy
(37) Absolute Amazement - Stun/Endurance
(37) Absolute Amazement - Chance for ToHit Debuff

Level 22: Boxing

(A) Recharge Reduction IO

Level 24: Tough

(A) Impervium Armor - Psionic Resistance
(37) Titanium Coating - Resistance
(39) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance
(39) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge

Level 26: Ground Zero

(A) Superior Might of the Tanker - Accuracy/Damage
(39) Superior Might of the Tanker - Damage/Recharge
(40) Superior Might of the Tanker - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
(40) Superior Might of the Tanker - Damage/Endurance/Recharge
(40) Superior Might of the Tanker - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
(42) Superior Might of the Tanker - Recharge/Chance for +Res(All)

Level 28: Weave

(A) Shield Wall - +Res (Teleportation), +5% Res (All)
(42) Shield Wall - Defense/Endurance
(42) Shield Wall - Defense
(43) Shield Wall - Endurance/Recharge

Level 30: Taunt

(A) Perfect Zinger - Threat/Placate
(45) Perfect Zinger - Threat/Placate/Recharge/Range
(45) Perfect Zinger - Accuracy/Recharge

Level 32: Meltdown

(A) Impervium Armor - Psionic Resistance
(48) Aegis - Psionic/Status Resistance
(48) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance
(49) Titanium Coating - Resistance

Level 35: Evasive Maneuvers

(A) Reactive Defenses - Defense
(46) Reactive Defenses - Defense/Endurance
(47) Reactive Defenses - Defense/Endurance/RechargeTime
(50) Reactive Defenses - Scaling Resist Damage

Level 38: Foot Stomp

(A) Superior Gauntleted Fist - Accuracy/Damage
(43) Superior Gauntleted Fist - Damage/RechargeTime
(43) Superior Gauntleted Fist - Accuracy/Damage/RechargeTime
(45) Superior Gauntleted Fist - Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime
(46) Superior Gauntleted Fist - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime
(46) Superior Gauntleted Fist - RechargeTime/+Absorb

Level 41: Focused Accuracy

(A) Endurance Reduction IO

Level 44: Physical Perfection

(A) Miracle - Heal/Endurance
(47) Miracle - Heal
(48) Miracle - +Recovery

Level 47: Laser Beam Eyes

(A) Superior Winter's Bite - Damage/Endurance/Accuracy/RechargeTime
(49) Superior Winter's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance

Level 49: Group Fly

(A) Winter's Gift - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range
(50) Winter's Gift - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range/Endurance

Level 1: Gauntlet

Level 1: Brawl Edited April 18, 2023 by Owenknowone

Nemu · April 18, 2023

Skipping rage and knockout blow really hurts the build offensively. KO blow especially is not something that people skip.

Ask yourself this: Besides building for 90% resists, what other tools in your kit helps you with survival? What do those tools need to be effective?

You've shown that you understand stacking set bonuses. Level 2 of build making is spotting synergies and coming up with a game plan. Hint - not all game plans revolve around building for softcap defense or hardcap resists.

Owenknowone · April 18, 2023

Ok Im picking up what your laying down. What type of synergies would you suggest or should I be looking for?

ZemX · April 18, 2023

You don't need to take Jab these days. You can take Punch from level 1 instead. Also, Foot Stomp is available at level 30. Probably that version of Mid's doesn't have these updates.

Other than that, in no particular order:

Rage: Already mentioned, but I'll give an "Amen!" to that. Skip Rage? Skip SS. It's that stark, in my opinion. Rad is a great primary for SS mainly because it doesn't care too much about the crash. It has fantastic end recovery and it doesn't care about the defense debuff. Its main survival comes from Resist, Absorb, and Self-Heal. Defense is always nice, but with no Defense Debuff Resistance (DDR) that defense is gone when you most need it anyway. Build so that you don't EVER need it (except in Hard Modes where you're gonna need more defense than you can possibly build yourself anyway).
On the Resist, Recharge, Heal theme.... Recharge is key and so is keeping it. You want to both build recharge and slow resist. I can't load up your build right at the moment, but if you don't have 80% or more slow resist, consider aiming for it. As long as you can keep that absorb shield up and your heal ready, you're invulnerable. Two-slot winter IOs give a nice slow resist bonus and Rad has some to begin with.
The three-slot bonus in Perfect Zinger isn't worth spending the two additional slots there. Put one +5 recharge in Taunt and that's all you need. Some people like to put in the Perfect Zinger psi proc but it's not worth all that much, IMO. Low proc rate. Still needs a hit roll even though Taunt is autohit. Taunt only hits 5 anyway. Nah... skip it. You want Taunt ready whenever you need to rope in some aggro from range without leaving the group you're beating up on.
Hand Clap without a KB/KD converter is... well, people will have "opinions" about that if you team. Unless you plan to never use it, but in that case, a power and five slots just to gain those set bonuses is iffy. Consider swapping one of those slots for a KB/KD IO. You still get five great set bonuses and now have a fun control power you can use anywhere and, like any AoE tanker attack, taunts everybody it hits.
Ground Zero isn't a great place for Might of the Tanker. The recharge is too long. You want a decent chance to stack the +res proc twice (and it doesn't self-stack in a single power use). Take KO Blow and put it in there instead. GZ is a good place for two Avalanche winter IOs (I like one of them being the Knockdown proc. Try it and you'll see why) and the rest damage procs.
Radiation Therapy is another good mini proc-bomb opportunity. One IO you definitely want in there is Theft of Essense:%end. In a crowd, Rad Therapy will then fill BOTH the green and the blue bars. Very wide area, though only 10 targets hit. Still... nice for grabbing attention and doing a bit of damage. Up often enough you can use it both offensively or as a health or end heal when needed.
You don't need Physical Perfection on a Rad Armor Tanker. It already has great recovery and regen tools.
Group Fly? Really? 🤪

Edited April 18, 2023 by ZemX

Owenknowone · April 18, 2023

A little backstory on this build. My main goal was to go all in on resists. But maybe that's overkill. I understand what your saying with def. Rad does not excel at def and focusing on one over the other was my goal. This build was more my "tanky" build. So some of the decisions were based on survivability and not damage. Again perhaps having three build slots is more of a distraction then potentials?

Very much appreciated with your input. As long as Ive been playing CoH, I truly do enjoy the community. Switching gears, would dark melee be good fit as well or does SS supersede it?

twozerofoxtrot · April 19, 2023

2 hours ago, Owenknowone said:

Switching gears, would dark melee be good fit as well or does SS supersede it?

A Rad/DM tanker would be really good, fun, and synergistically hard to kill.

But Rad/SS has repeatedly proven itself over the years to be not only one of the most powerful Tankers, but one of the most powerful AT/Power combos period. High *global* recharge and the selective use of damage procs is the key to unlocking that potential. Damage procs aren't affected by Rage crashing, allowing you to continue applying damage through it.

ClawsandEffect · April 19, 2023

I built a Rad/MA tanker purely for the +defense in Storm Kick. Lets me softcap my positional defenses without going too crazy chasing defense set bonuses. However, he's much better as a teaming tank. He's damn hard to kill, but his damage output is a little lacking.

Nemu · April 19, 2023

On 4/18/2023 at 7:11 AM, Owenknowone said:

Ok Im picking up what your laying down. What type of synergies would you suggest or should I be looking for?

I'll talk about survival first:

It helps to have some prior understanding of cornerstones of survival out of the box for any given set. For rad armor the one power that stands out (besides your resist shields) that contributes a lot to survival is particle shielding. It gives you extra HP in the form of an absorb shield, increased regeneration and recovery. It also has a 120 second out of the box recharge timer. I would want to refresh that absorb shield as often as possible so I can continue to take hits. At this point I'll put a mental note to build for some recharge.

A build with no defenses is still going to get hit, a lot. The absorb shield alone isn't going to cut it. How do you add further mitigation on top of the absorb? 2 approaches

1 - Get hit for less

2 - Get hit less

Your build focuses on 1 so you already understand the value there, so I'm going to discuss 2.

There are a few ways to get hit less:

1 - high defense

2 - active mitigation

3 - kill stuff fast first before they hurt you

I have no doubt that you can cobble together a build with high defense, but all the investment that you can dedicate to defense can and will be stripped away very easily with a few debuffs. I'm going to discuss the other two.

Active mitigation is another way to get hit for less, especially if they exist in powers you are going to be using anyway. Footstomp is a great example of a power that serves dual purposes, it's damage, but it's also mitigation. Knockdowns are very useful for the majority of game content. Unlike hard controls that require stacking mags against higher ranked critter, knock works against most critters regardless of rank and knocked down mobs usually takes around 3 seconds to get back up. Besides footstomp SS also has handclap, if you have enough recharge to spam footstomp and handclap you can keep mobs knocked down. Knocking them down instead of knocking them back keeps them in footstomp and other AoE range so you can not only mitigate damage but keep hurting them. That's another way to get hit less besides building for high defense. In addition, both powers can also slot a FF recharge proc, which not only help them recharge faster but also particle shielding. That's the first synergy I can leverage.

(Note: If you wanted to explore more options for knockdown there are also procs that knockdown like the ragnorak or overwhelming force procs)

Finally there's killing stuff before they kill you. This is a bit more advanced as it delves into the principals of procs. Rage is a cornerstone power of SS and it offers some very significant bonuses to your ability to do damage. It provides +to hit and +damage and can be easily double stacked with some recharge (recharge again, this seems like a theme for this combo). What this means is that instead of the traditional method of slotting attacks with ACC/Dam you could potentially leave that to Rage, and instead slot damage procs in some of your attacks to further increase your damage potential, with the added benefit that damage procs still do full damage during rage crash. The principal of proc monster build require the following:

Enough global recharge to cycle proc powers frequently - you can do this via force feedback procs + global recharge bonuses

Enough acc/to hit to ensure that proc powers can hit, since you are most likely not slotting much ACC into such powers - Rage can offset the lack of acc slotting

Enough damage in proc powers to enhance their base damage - Rage takes care of this again

Enough endurance management since you are not going to be slotting much end reduction in proc powers - Radiation Therapy and Particle shielding takes care of this

Since recharge seems to be a recurring theme let's see what tools in your kit benefits from it:

Rage

Particle shielding

Radiation therapy

Ground zero

All your attacks, especially the ones that can be loaded with procs

You don't have to go full proc with your build, but you can leverage these synergies a bit more than your original build , which just went down the 90% resist to everything while skipping key powers and sacrificing other synergies route.

Owenknowone · April 20, 2023

Awesome stuff. My thought process was to ignore damage and focus on all primaries and resists. I felt def was a bit of waste or not achievable to the exten it was worth it. Perhaps reevaluate this? Super team guy.

It seems going for a more balanced approach. I do agree mitigate the damage with knock downs. Perhaps I'm old school (ok I am) but other then a solo build, I don't mind not being a big damge dealer, yet I do see the benefit at times.

I will head back to the drawing board and see what I come up with.

Again thanks for all the help!

provoked · April 20, 2023

5 hours ago, Owenknowone said:

Awesome stuff. My thought process was to ignore damage and focus on all primaries and resists. I felt def was a bit of waste or not achievable to the exten it was worth it. Perhaps reevaluate this? Super team guy.

It seems going for a more balanced approach. I do agree mitigate the damage with knock downs. Perhaps I'm old school (ok I am) but other then a solo build, I don't mind not being a big damge dealer, yet I do see the benefit at times.

I will head back to the drawing board and see what I come up with.

Again thanks for all the help!

To build on what was said previously, a team can also help fill in some gaps. Not running much acc in your attacks because rage does it? Great, a teammate might have tactics. Have your heal set up as a proc bomb? Great, that teammate over there is an employee defender. I think the big thing is that we, and yes I mean we, think of tanks in the traditional sense but in CoH they really wanted every character to feel "super". This means that even tanks can slot for damage and yet still be nigh unkillable.

Just like you, I am also trying to wrap my head around this and adjust as I have always been an old school mmo player.

Nemu · April 20, 2023

Unless you are running 4* hardmode ALL THE TIME you really don't need the kind of extreme high end survival that tanks provide. And despite all the "I want a 4* hardmode godmode insert your AT build" sentiment that I see on these forums I can tell you that not too many people run that stuff religiously. Because if they did they'd understand that those build can still die. That kind of content depends a lot more on buffs and end AVs are also DPS checks so you also need to balance survival with damage.

It's nice to have the option but the option is overkill for the rest of game content.

Coming from playing a lot of melee blasters I also understand the power of the alpha strike and active mitigation on top of builds that support that playstyle. Rad/SS is the poster child of a combo with so many proccable AoE powers that you can use those as your initial AoE alpha strike to take out all fodder and greatly reduce incoming damage. In that respect it's very much like a blaster leveraging a nuke to kill things dead before they can retaliate.

That's what experience taught me and the mindset that I come from. And this is my Rad/SS build:

This Hero build was built using Mids Reborn 3.4.7
https://github.com/LoadedCamel/MidsReborn

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Nuka Panda: Level 49 Science Tanker
Primary Power Set: Radiation Armor
Secondary Power Set: Super Strength
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Fighting
Ancillary Pool: Leviathan Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Alpha Barrier

(A) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance
(48) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance
(49) Unbreakable Guard - RechargeTime/Resistance

Level 1: Jab

(A) Superior Might of the Tanker - Accuracy/Damage
(11) Superior Might of the Tanker - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
(13) Superior Might of the Tanker - Damage/Endurance/Recharge
(15) Superior Might of the Tanker - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge

Level 2: Proton Armor

(A) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance
(15) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance
(17) Unbreakable Guard - +Max HP

Level 4: Haymaker

(A) Hecatomb - Damage
(7) Hecatomb - Damage/Recharge
(7) Hecatomb - Damage/Recharge/Accuracy
(9) Hecatomb - Recharge/Accuracy
(9) Hecatomb - Damage/Endurance
(11) Superior Might of the Tanker - Recharge/Chance for +Res(All)

Level 6: Combat Jumping

(A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed
(17) Kismet - Accuracy +6%
(29) Winter's Gift - Slow Resistance (20%)
(29) Shield Wall - +Res (Teleportation), +5% Res (All)
(33) Reactive Defenses - Scaling Resist Damage

Level 8: Radiation Therapy

(A) Perfect Zinger - Chance for Psi Damage
(34) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage
(34) Eradication - Chance for Energy Damage
(34) Scirocco's Dervish - Chance of Damage(Lethal)
(37) Touch of the Nictus - Chance for Negative Energy Damage
(40) Theft of Essence - Chance for +Endurance

Level 10: Fallout Shelter

(A) Gladiator's Armor - TP Protection +3% Def (All)

Level 12: Hasten

(A) Recharge Reduction IO
(13) Recharge Reduction IO

Level 14: Beta Decay

(A) Achilles' Heel - Chance for Res Debuff

Level 16: Hand Clap

(A) Explosive Strike - Chance for Smashing Damage
(40) Perfect Zinger - Chance for Psi Damage
(43) Sudden Acceleration - Knockback to Knockdown
(45) Force Feedback - Chance for +Recharge

Level 18: Particle Shielding

(A) Preventive Medicine - Heal
(19) Preventive Medicine - Heal/Endurance
(19) Preventive Medicine - Endurance/RechargeTime
(25) Preventive Medicine - Heal/RechargeTime
(27) Preventive Medicine - Heal/RechargeTime/Endurance
(27) Preventive Medicine - Chance for +Absorb

Level 20: Knockout Blow

(A) Ghost Widow's Embrace - Chance of Damage(Psionic)
(21) Touch of Death - Chance of Damage(Negative)
(21) Perfect Zinger - Chance for Psi Damage
(23) Hecatomb - Chance of Damage(Negative)
(23) Unbreakable Constraint - Chance for Smashing Damage
(25) Force Feedback - Chance for +Recharge

Level 22: Ground Zero

(A) Shield Breaker - Chance for Lethal Damage
(45) Perfect Zinger - Chance for Psi Damage
(45) Touch of Lady Grey - Chance for Negative Damage
(46) Eradication - Chance for Energy Damage
(46) Scirocco's Dervish - Chance of Damage(Lethal)
(46) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage

Level 24: Rage

Hamidon Origin:Membrane Exposure

Level 26: Maneuvers

(A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed

Level 28: Tactics

(A) Endurance Reduction IO

Level 30: Foot Stomp

(A) Scirocco's Dervish - Chance of Damage(Lethal)
(31) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage
(31) Perfect Zinger - Chance for Psi Damage
(31) Eradication - Chance for Energy Damage
(33) Armageddon - Chance for Fire Damage
(33) Force Feedback - Chance for +Recharge

Level 32: Taunt

(A) Perfect Zinger - Chance for Psi Damage

Level 35: Spirit Shark

(A) Superior Winter's Bite - Accuracy/Damage
(36) Superior Winter's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
(36) Superior Winter's Bite - Damage/Endurance/Accuracy/RechargeTime
(36) Apocalypse - Chance of Damage(Negative)
(37) Gladiator's Javelin - Chance of Damage(Toxic)
(37) Explosive Strike - Chance for Smashing Damage

Level 38: Boxing

(A) Absolute Amazement - Stun
(39) Absolute Amazement - Stun/Recharge
(39) Absolute Amazement - Stun/Recharge/Accuracy
(39) Absolute Amazement - Recharge/Accuracy
(40) Absolute Amazement - Stun/Endurance

Level 41: Arctic Breath

(A) Impeded Swiftness - Chance of Damage(Smashing)
(42) Shield Breaker - Chance for Lethal Damage
(42) Touch of Lady Grey - Chance for Negative Damage
(42) Bombardment - Chance for Fire Damage
(43) Positron's Blast - Chance of Damage(Energy)
(43) Ice Mistral's Torment - Chance for Cold Damage

Level 44: Tough

(A) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/+Def 3%

Level 47: Gamma Boost

(A) Synapse's Shock - EndMod
(47) Synapse's Shock - Damage/Rechage
(47) Synapse's Shock - EndMod/Recharge
(48) Synapse's Shock - Damage/Recharge/Accuracy
(48) Synapse's Shock - Damage/Accuracy/Endurance

Level 49: Weave

(A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed

Level 1: Brawl

(A) Empty

Level 1: Gauntlet

Level 1: Sprint

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Edited April 20, 2023 by Nemu

SeraphimKensai · April 21, 2023

So I have been pondering radiation armor and super strength myself over the past day or so and decided to roll one for myself.

However when looking at Tanker vs. Brute for this pairing I couldn't come up with a reason to roll it as a Tanker as Super Strength doesn't really benefit much from the wider AoE arcs and I was able to get my resistances hard capped or damn close on the Brute easily enough while achieving 100% slow res, and having enough CD to keep my clicks on a reasonable rotation. Tanker would make hitting hardcaps easier but ultimately would likely do less damage.

I have several super strength characters and radiation armor characters built across each AT that can use the sets all at 50 incarnate and IO'd and I kept thinking Brute for the Rad/SS pairing.

That said you brought up Rad/DM, and that happens to be one of my tanks, and it works out as a very resilient tank. If you are chasing defense on a Radiation armor character (and I'm not advocating that you do), you'll want to ensure you take Ageless Radial for some modicum of DDR.

Owenknowone · April 21, 2023

Again more information is great but that does leave me with a few more questions.

Is a SS/Rad Brute a better option (I do understand the difference of the archetypes) base off of the powersets?

Does Energy Melee work just as well as SS on a tank?

Would a INV/Dark tanker be more durable?

SeraphimKensai · April 21, 2023

51 minutes ago, Owenknowone said:

Again more information is great but that does leave me with a few more questions.

Is a SS/Rad Brute a better option (I do understand the difference of the archetypes) base off of the powersets?

Does Energy Melee work just as well as SS on a tank?

Would a INV/Dark tanker be more durable?

Given the SS/Rad powersets and a heavily IO'd and incarnate character I feel Brutes are going to be pound for pound better.
Energy Melee works great on a tank. The increased arc and radius are more noticeable imo on EM than SS, mainly because of Power Crash. EM works well on any AT.
Invuln/DM if well built would likely be more survivable than a Radiation/SS tanker numerically. You're looking at hitting several hardcaps for resistance, possibly some typed defense softcaps with some native DDR, and potentially the HP Cap. Adding in DM, you get THD which is essentially boosting your defense, a self heal, and potentially Perma Soul Drain. In play though from a skilled player with strong builds on both, you're most often not dying anyways so it comes down to theme and preference (I have both Radiation, Invuln, and honestly every other type of tank aside of Firey Aura at lvl 50 and IO'd and they all hold up pretty well.)

Owenknowone · April 21, 2023

I agree anything is viable and I don't have to go crazy min/max but I do want to make fun and awesome characters.

Thank you for the information! Now to decide before I go too deep down the rabbit hole.

Ashford · April 26, 2023

On 4/21/2023 at 9:31 AM, SeraphimKensai said:

Given the SS/Rad powersets and a heavily IO'd and incarnate character I feel Brutes are going to be pound for pound better.

Energy Melee works great on a tank. The increased arc and radius are more noticeable imo on EM than SS, mainly because of Power Crash. EM works well on any AT.

Invuln/DM if well built would likely be more survivable than a Radiation/SS tanker numerically. You're looking at hitting several hardcaps for resistance, possibly some typed defense softcaps with some native DDR, and potentially the HP Cap. Adding in DM, you get THD which is essentially boosting your defense, a self heal, and potentially Perma Soul Drain. In play though from a skilled player with strong builds on both, you're most often not dying anyways so it comes down to theme and preference (I have both Radiation, Invuln, and honestly every other type of tank aside of Firey Aura at lvl 50 and IO'd and they all hold up pretty well.)

for brute, elec would probably be more of a sleeping giant as that armor set is much better on a brute than scrapper or tanker, plus rage crash on rad is still pretty bad without a few dozen million influence.

Edited April 26, 2023 by Ashford

SeraphimKensai · April 26, 2023

1 hour ago, Ashford said:

for brute, elec would probably be more of a sleeping giant as that armor set is much better on a brute than scrapper or tanker, plus rage crash on rad is still pretty bad without a few dozen million influence.

Elec armor isn't bad imo, however it's going to keep you on the ground to prevent you from getting kb'd. It does seem to require a lot of recharge though to keep Energize perma. I don't particularly see electric armor as better on a Brute than a Tanker, but it is better than on a Scrapper, Stalker, or Sentinel due to damage caps.

If your point regarding the rage crash is using power sink after a rage crash to restore endurance than maybe, but it's kinda a moot point to Radiation armor given the amount of end recovery the set gets. Both sets being resistance based and not defense based disregard the -def impact of rage crashes equally.

Part of the reason I suggested Radiation Armor as a Brute was due to the OP looking at combining Radiation Armor with Super Strength. A Tanker version will hit 16 mobs with Foot stomp as opposed to the Brute hitting 10, but factoring in the largely single target nature of super strength and fury I thought super strength made more sense at least to me as a Brute (I know it's probably the most popular melee set for tankers due to the sheer number of Invuln/SS tanks out there, it's a damn good set either way).

As I mentioned with heavy IO investment Radiation Armor (and Elec Armor for that matter) is able to close the distance to the resistance levels a tank is easier to get due to their larger buff values. If you're able to hit the resistance hardcaps then excess resistance is wasted, so it makes more sense to then build towards damage or some other stat (that's why most tanker builds will lean into proc slotting for more damage).

A Brute with a decent build can get their resistance levels to the cap, or what you can do reasonably well is build them to a point that you can cycle things like: rune of power, meltdown, melee core, and even demonic (although you can get 100% uptime with the first three without demonic). This allows you to hit your resistances, where you also have tons of end recovery, decent slow resistance (which through slotting you can get to 100%) to help your main clicks Particle Shielding, Radiation Therapy, Ground Zero, and Meltdown.

A well built radiation armor toon typically will be survivable enough to actually utilize Radiation Therapy and Ground Zero for pbaoe proc bombs to supplement super strength's lack of AoE.

Electric Armor in comparison well although it will hit similar resistance values and uses a direct heal with regen against radiation armor's absorb and regen. They both have recharge bonuses. Elec armor gets lightning field and power sink compared to Radiation Therapy and Ground Zero (I prefer the two heavy hitting proc bombs myself), and radiation armor's t9 is significantly better than elecs as it provides you with more damage and doesn't drop you to 10% HP.

Sorry for the very long post. I actually like both sets for various reasons as I have tankers, brutes, scrappers, and sentinels of each. I also have a rad armor stalker, but haven't tried elec on stalker, but haven't tried elec on stalker.

Owenknowone · April 27, 2023

Always enjoy the great discussions.

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