Fix Radiation Blast on blasters

[LynnD]

Radiation on blasters is very week and needs to be fixed.  My Atomic Blast is at 539 damage and it does hardly any damage no matter what lvl I play at.  You make all the other blast powers strong and just nerf the hell out of Radiation Blast, which is beyond saying.  I should not have to load a power up with procs to get it to do more damage.  By the way you can't 6 proc any power.  Not happy about Radiation Blast.

[Rudra]

Just looking at Atomic Blast. If for some reason you want it be 6-slotted with procs, you can do the following:

Eradication: Chance for energy damage                                                Fury of the Gladiator: Chance for resist debuff

Scirocco's Dervish: Chance of lethal damage                                          Avalanche/Superior Avalanche: Chance for KD

Obliteration: Chance of smashing damage                                            Achilles' Heel: Chance for resist debuff

Armageddon: Chance of fire damage                                                    Analyze Weakness: Chance for +ToHit

Touch of Lady Grey: Chance of negative energy damage                       Overhwleming Force: Chance for KD

Shield Breaker: Chance of lethal damage                                               Defiant Barrage/Superior Defiant Barrage: +Status

Blaster's Wrath/Superior Blaster's Wrath: Chance of fire damage

 

So that is 7 damage procs and 6 debuff or buff procs. Out of the damage procs, Eradication, Scirocco's Dervish, Obliteration, Touch of Lady Grey, and Shield Breaker are not unique. So you can slot those into as many powers as will take them, though no more than 1 of each in any single power. So if for some reason you want to 6-slot damage procs into Atomic Blast, you most definitely can.

 

Also, let's make a comparison of T9 base damages across the Blaster primaries. I'm using Mids for this because City of Data has equations for some of these, and I'm disinclined to try and figure them out. So, we have:

 

SET                        ATTACK NAME              BASE DAMAGE

Archery                  Rain of Arrows                 225.2

Assault Rifle           Full Auto                         178.6

Beam Rifle             Overcharge                      219

Dark Blast             Blackstar                          250.2

Dual Pistols          Hail of Bullets                   204.5

Electrical Blast      Thunderous Blast             250.2

Energy Blast         Nova                                250.2

Fire Blast              Inferno                             410.9

Ice Blast               Blizzard                             417.1

Psychic Blast        Psychic Wail                      250.2

Radiation Blast    Atomic Blast                     250.2

Seismic Blast        Meteor                             250.2

Sonic Attack         Dreadful Wail                    250.2

Water Blast          Geyser                              219

 

Note that for strictly base damage, Atomic Blast is doing nominal damage compared to the rest of the sets. The same 250.2 damage as 6 other powers. So no, Radiation Blast, especially Atomic Blast, is not weak.

Edited April 29, 2023 by Rudra
Edited to add "Out of the damage procs".

[biostem]

A quick check shows radiation blast's T9 dealing the same amount of damage as energy, psychic, and dark's.  Others do deal more, but usually it's over time, (instead of all at once), or has some other factor, (like archery's does less damage, but has a shorter cooldown time).

[Saiyajinzoningen]

Rad does seem to lack the oomph of over blast powers which is sad cause it has some of the best animations. Rad has lots of Dots so its more of a slow burn as opposed to a burst which probably isn't conducive to modern gameplay.

[Rudra]

4 hours ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

Rad does seem to lack the oomph of over blast powers which is sad cause it has some of the best animations. Rad has lots of Dots so its more of a slow burn as opposed to a burst which probably isn't conducive to modern gameplay.

Except the complaint is that Atomic Blast doesn't actually hurt anything despite doing 539 damage, and Atomic Blast doesn't use DoTs to do its damage. It is a single burst with 2 damage components: energy and smashing. While also possessing the ability to reduce the target's defense and inflict a hold on it. And at least most of rad's attacks have the ability to have part of its damage ignore the target's defense to inflict damage.

[FupDup]

In terms of raw damage, my Rad/Rad Sentinel hasn't really had any problems. And I didn't even proc bomb it. 

 

But then again, I'm used to Sents so my standards are probably a bit low. 

 

If Rad does get any buffs I'd like something to the effect of Rad Melee's contamination effect (toxic damage) if only for thematic reasons. I mean, it's radiation. Of course it should do some toxic damage. That's literally what radiation is known for. Why does it do the same damage type as a bolt of lightning or laser beam? That never made sense to me. 

 

But really, I think there are some other sets like Archery that should be in line for buffs first...

Edited April 29, 2023 by FupDup

[Luminara]

12 hours ago, LynnD said:

You make all the other blast powers strong and just nerf the hell out of Radiation Blast, which is beyond saying.

 

The only changes made to Radiation Blast on Homecoming have been PvP.  Proton Volley's damage was increased 20%, Electron Haze was set to deal single-target level damage to the primary target (and the AoE damage on secondary targets was increased).

 

No PvE changes, two PvP buffs.

 

12 hours ago, LynnD said:

I should not have to load a power up with procs to get it to do more damage.

 

You don't.  You can use +Damage buffs and Damage enhancements.

 

If you meant "I shouldn't have to use procs to exceed the intended damage output", well, yes, you should.

 

Also, in none of the tests performed and posted does Radiation Blast under-perform.

In this one, for instance, Radiation Blast tops the list when IOs are used.

Here, in a standardized model using SOs, we see Rad ranking mid- to top-tier.

 

13 hours ago, LynnD said:

By the way you can't 6 proc any power.

 

You can six-slot all of them with procs.  But how many procs a power can use isn't a determining factor in balance, or even the basic viability of any power, so that really isn't relevant.

[Ston]

Rad Blast is fine. Its actual among the best when considering procs. 

 

It will never do as much damage as Fire, if that’s what you want. The game exchanges raw damage for secondary effects. Rad has defense debuff as a secondary effect, so it won’t be doing as much damage as Fire, which has DoT damage as a secondary effect. 

 

If you look at base damage, the attacks have the same damage modifiers as other sets, so it’s not really disadvantaged in any way other than maybe slow animations and projectiles.

 

You can quickly make up for this difference by putting -resist procs in ANY of the attacks, which is something pretty unique to Rad. In my testing, it can clear AoE and single targets just as fast as any other set.

 

You may not be using it efficiently. We could probably help you out if you share what build you’re using.