Rad/MA help?

[kyuwyn]

Just coming back to homecoming and seeing the changes decided to roll up a tank, ended with Rad/ma -- enjoying it so far, rad is a nice toolkit, and 16 target dragon tail is hilarious -- I got it 3-procc'd and it's kind of a hilarious meat grinder.
 

Outside of that, and "Spec tanky"  and "put procs in therapy"

 

i'm lost, any advice? Primarily gonna be trollin' around doing normal content maybe some farming.

[PLVRIZR]

Rad is a resistance armor, so make sure your resistances (will be harder to reach with cold) are 90%, with one stack of Might of the Tanker ATO proc.

 

Your greatest strengths (clickie wise) are your absorb shield/regen in Particle Shielding and heal in Ground Zero (which is also damage proc-bombable), so pump up that recharge!  You also get a bonus chance for a smaller absorb shield with the Gauntleted Fist ATO proc.  There are different schools of thought on where to put the ATOs, I like fast charging, often used attacks, some prefer AOE damage auras.

 

MA adds defense, but without DDR, your defense can (and will) be quickly stripped away by debuffers.  Until that time, or in the absence of debuffers, it's just gravy, so not a bad thing.

Edited May 16, 2023 by PLVRIZR
reworded

[ZemX]

55 minutes ago, PLVRIZR said:

so pump up that recharge!

 

This, but also protect it with slow resist.  Recharge is life.  Getting slowed is death.   Plus it's nice to be able to dance out of a Tar Patch or Caltrops like it's not there. 

 

Rad gets some slow resist built in but you need more, ideally 100% but you can also shoot for 80% as "good enough".  You can boost it with the base empowerment station and get a 90 minute 20% slow resist tacked on for a small salvage cost.

 

Otherwise, look into places where you can two-slot Winter IOs for the slow resistance set bonus.  I like to toss a pair of Avalanche IOs in Ground Zero.  And I like making one of them the Avalanche knockdown proc because it's hilarious to see up to 20-30 enemies all take a seat at once (yes, it has a max 30 target cap minus any allies it hits with the heal).  Acc/Dmg/Recharge and Recharge/knockdown is a nice combo here for Avalanche.

 

Another good trick is to use one of your low tier ST attacks to slot both 2-slot normal Blistering Cold and 4-slot superior Blistering Cold.  This doubles up on the slow resist.

 

Also, Focused Accuracy is a must-have in my opinion.  Sadly it means forgoing any other neat Patron/Epic choices to pick Energy Mastery.  But without high defense, you get hit by everything and that includes toHit debuffs.  If you don't want to be reduced to a taunt bot vs. toHit debuffing enemies... Focused Accuracy for the toHit debuff resistance.

 

If you can squeeze it in there, less necessary, but also nice... is Tactics.  Again not necessarily for the toHit bonus (though that is nice) but for the less-talked-about Confusion protection, of which Rad Armor has none.  It's only a little protection, but it can be one less CoT succubus who can twist you around her finger and make you taunt your teammates.  Crey also have some confuse now, it seems.

 

Lastly... carry break-frees.  Last thing you might consider on a Tanker, but surprisingly you CAN be held.  It just takes aggroing more than one spawn of Longbow, Carnies, or Malta, to name a few.  Again with the theme of getting hit by everything, you get hit by all mezzes too.  And enough bosses with high mag mezzes like the aforementioned groups, can stack up high enough even to exceed your hold/stun protection.   Break-frees are also nice vs. fear, confuse (if you didn't get tactics), and repel (which every single freakin Family spawn now has one or TWO of it seeems).   All that stuff gets through Rad Armor.

 

12 hours ago, kyuwyn said:

"put procs in therapy"

 

I like to put in two heal-set IOs with heal and recharge, then 4 procs with one of the procs being Theft of Essence:%end.  This turns Therapy into something that fills BOTH green and blue bars since it already does a little of both, and this kicks that up to ludicrously effective level.  Doesn't need accuracy since it has base 300% acc.

[Zect]

MA is a parry set, so that makes it worth building for defense. A good rad/MA can have 90% resist all except cold and perma-45% def to all with 1 stack of ATIO proc and storm's kick.

 

People will tell you rad doesn't have -def resist. Defender's fortitude doesn't give -def resist either, but nobody with a brain ever opined this makes the defense buff worthless! The only problem, if you can call it that, is that this level of survivability is far overkill for anything you encounter.

 

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that rad has extremely good endurance recovery. It's the armor set with the most eps (elec gets endrdx instead). A well-built rad tank should try to trade this eps for combat power. Go with an endurance-hungry 2ndary like SS, take some powers that are normally less affordable for tanks such as tactics, take more procbombed attacks, skip ageless in favor of barrier, etc.

[Hyperstrike]

2 hours ago, Zect said:

MA is a parry set, so that makes it worth building for defense. A good rad/MA can have 90% resist all except cold and perma-45% def to all with 1 stack of ATIO proc and storm's kick.

 

People will tell you rad doesn't have -def resist. Defender's fortitude doesn't give -def resist either, but nobody with a brain ever opined this makes the defense buff worthless! The only problem, if you can call it that, is that this level of survivability is far overkill for anything you encounter.

 

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that rad has extremely good endurance recovery. It's the armor set with the most eps (elec gets endrdx instead). A well-built rad tank should try to trade this eps for combat power. Go with an endurance-hungry 2ndary like SS, take some powers that are normally less affordable for tanks such as tactics, take more procbombed attacks, skip ageless in favor of barrier, etc.

On Rad, which is primarily a Resist set with ZERO DDR?

My advice would be beef up your Resists.
If you wind up with a lot of Defense on top of that?  Great!  Just remember that big debuffs make that go away FAST.
So it's great for Tanking Alpha strikes.  But just treat it like ablative armor.  It gets worn away eventually.
High Regen and Recovery make Rad a nice ride too.

[twozerofoxtrot]

On 5/17/2023 at 1:23 AM, ZemX said:

Lastly... carry break-frees.  Last thing you might consider on a Tanker, but surprisingly you CAN be held.  It just takes aggroing more than one spawn of Longbow, Carnies, or Malta, to name a few. 

 

Related PSA: 

 

  Superior Protection Imbuement (AKA Super Team Break Free)

 

Relatively cheap on the AH (or 30 Threads each if you have a max count character/farmer) and provide not just you but your whole team three (3!) minutes of insanely high mez protection. Usable at level 1.

 

Always worth it to carry one of these in the trays, if not for yourself than for team mates that might be locked up by an AoE mez. Should easily last through any fight with that duration. 

 

Protip: be the MVP of your next Posi 1 run by dropping one of these before the shadow clone fight.

 

 

Edited May 19, 2023 by twozerofoxtrot
Spelling, got the cost wrong

[ZemX]

18 hours ago, Zect said:

People will tell you rad doesn't have -def resist. Defender's fortitude doesn't give -def resist either, but nobody with a brain ever opined this makes the defense buff worthless

 

Getting hit with Fort doesn't cost me recharge or slow resist.  BUILDING for defense... does.  If the defense from Fort gets wiped by a bunch of defense debuffs because I have no DDR, so what?  I am no worse off than I was before.

 

The same cannot be said of building for defense.  Builds are a zero-sum game.  If you prioritize defense in set and power selection, you are de-prioritizing something else perhaps more valuable to a Rad Armor tanker such as recharge or slow resist or toHit debuff resistance.  Even with Storm Kick's 10% def(all) helping you still have to come up with 35% def to all positions starting with nothing.  And then you have 45% def(all), the soft-cap.... until you run into pretty much anybody with a defense debuff.   Getting hit 1 in 20 times sounds fantastic... until 20 guys (okay 16 maybe) are shooting at you all at once and every shot carries a def debuff. 

 

And if you're doing what a tanker is supposed to be doing, you ARE being shot at by that many enemies.

 

18 hours ago, Zect said:

The only problem, if you can call it that, is that this level of survivability is far overkill for anything you encounter.

 

I do call that a problem because it's exactly the reason I took my Rad Armor tanker and respeced out of defense and never looked back.   If the only situation I need that defense in is the very situation where it gets stripped away from me then it isn't worth much to me.

 

It would be worth it if you were in a regular team and knew you'd get more help with defense or DDR from teammates.  Then having a base defense to build on is wonderful.  But if you're looking to be self-sufficient and join any random team whenever you feel like it?  I prefer to prioritize resist, recharge, slow resist... and to proc out my heal and Ground Zero.  That leaves not a lot of room for defense.  I have Weave usually, because it was one more step after Tough and it holds a LotG for more recharge.  If I have Maneuvers, it's because I wanted Tactics for the Confuse debuff protection and I am still probably only putting a LotG in there too.  I've got better uses for slots than building defense.  If I end up with some anyway, great.

 

18 hours ago, Zect said:

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that rad has extremely good endurance recovery. It's the armor set with the most eps (elec gets endrdx instead). A well-built rad tank should try to trade this eps for combat power. Go with an endurance-hungry 2ndary like SS, take some powers that are normally less affordable for tanks such as tactics, take more procbombed attacks, skip ageless in favor of barrier, etc.

 

All this though.  Maybe my favorite thing about Rad Armor is the boundless energy.  Even though I always take energy mastery for Focused Accuracy, I rarely take Physical Perfection.  Or put extra slots in Stamina/Health.  Gamma Boost and Stamina get Perf Shifter procs.  Health gets Panacea.  Everything else is handled by the Theft of Essense proc in Rad Therapy.

[SeraphimKensai]

I have a lot of experience with Radiation Armor and here's my 2 cents, take it for what it's worth or don't as I don't have an epeen and at the end of the day it's your character....

 

Radiation Armor is a resistance based set with click powers for absorb, heals, and mini nukes. You do not have to build your tank to hit 90% for your resistances with just set bonuses. Might of the Tanker ATO proc is 6.7% to all per stack, it stacks up to 3 times. Depending on your power pick and slotting, relying on it to have 2 stacks is fairly reasonable. If you're willing to take Sorcery, you can use Melee Core Embodiment, RoP, and Meltdown as a rotation to basically cover about 18% resistance to all. So that means as long as you have access to your Hybrid you can basically build your character to utilize those three powers rotationally to get you to your resistance hardcaps. Doing this frees you to take say Ageless Radial for DDR and recharge. The recharge obviously will help you have Perma hasten fairly easily, and the DDR is invaluable as through slotting it's reasonable that you'll be able to get decent defenses (especially with storm kick) and protect yourself and your teammates from defense debuffs.

 

Radiation Armor benefits tremendously from slotting winter's gift slow res, and winter IO sets to get your slow resistance up to 100%, so you're click buffs don't get debuffed.

 

As Radiation Armor has Rad Therapy and Ground Zero that work really as mini nukes that helps supplement martial arts mediocre AoE game, and since they hit really hard when proc slotted, you'll kill lots of minions/lts with these which allows you to quickly dispatch them allowing you to maintain agro on more mobs (and ground zero has a 30 target cap to get you on the agro tables of lots of mobs).

 

For patron powers I personally am a fan of soul for tankers as running tactics and having a kismet proc in the build usually get you a decent chunk of tohit to help your attacks accuracy. With soul you have darkest night which pulls in more agro, reduces mobs tohit and their damage output so that helps not just you but the whole team. And if you have room for Dark Obliteration, you can fit an annihilation proc in there giving you three -res proc opportunities.

 

That all said there's tons of ways of getting to destination, you just have to find the route that works best for you.

[Hyperstrike]

1 hour ago, ZemX said:

I do call that a problem because it's exactly the reason I took my Rad Armor tanker and respeced out of defense and never looked back.

 

Yeah, I did the whole, slather on buttloads of Defense thing, thinking it was going to help me.

About the time I hit the RWZ, I saw how squishy I'd been after hitting a small group of Arachnos.

They were taking me apart in roughly 30 seconds.

So I went in, respec'ed for maximum Resist, while still keeping an ablative Defense layer to break up the alpha strikes.

And it impressed me so much I rejiggered all my Resist-based (Fire/Elec) Tanks in a similar manner and realized huge performance gains.

[Hyperstrike]

35 minutes ago, SeraphimKensai said:

take it for what it's worth or don't as I don't have an epeen

 

 

[Zect]

20 hours ago, ZemX said:

Getting hit with Fort doesn't cost me recharge or slow resist.  BUILDING for defense... does. 

 

Nah, this isn't true. You can build a rad/MA tanker that has

• perma 90% res to all except cold
• perma ~45% def to all except psi
• perma 95% slow res
• permahasten

And doesn't get there by doing stupid things like skipping DT or whatever.

 

The real cost is you will lose a significant number of damage procs. Considering how much dps tanks potentially do, this is actually a significant downside. Frankly, I respect that argument a lot more than all the weird stuff you say about being self-sufficient and so on.

[ZemX]

1 hour ago, Zect said:

The real cost is you will lose a significant number of damage procs. Considering how much dps tanks potentially do, this is actually a significant downside. Frankly, I respect that argument a lot more than all the weird stuff you say about being self-sufficient and so on.

 

This IS my argument and you're making it for me.   Remember, I was responding to your idea that if nobody complains about being hit by Fort, why would they complain about building defense?  This is why.   Free defense is great!   Of course nobody complains about being hit by Fort.  But if it costs me something, then I gotta weigh that cost against the benefit.  Whether that is resist, recharge, a bunch of procs, or even a few slots that were giving me nice enhancements in some attack power so I could move them into a defense power.  It's something.  And the benefit is something that is only really with me when I am not tanking defense debuffing enemies.  If I am, it is quickly gone.  Is that worth anything?  Some people think so.  I don't.  I'd rather lean into the powerset's strengths and build stuff that will ALWAYS be helping me.

 

And "self-sufficient" isn't weird if you don't pull it out of context.  I was talking about the only case I DO value fragile defense in and that's when I've got teammates to buff me on top of that.  Having a buffer well above the soft-cap can substitute for DDR in some ways.  Except I do random PuGs most of the time and can't count on that anymore than I can count on build defense staying with me.  If I can only count on what I've got in my own build, why is self-sufficiency "weird"?  Seems pretty practical to me.  And yeah, it ends up with a build that isn't all the way survival-focused either, so the procs do matter to me (though I wouldn't say I've heavily procced out either).  I also don't factor in Incarnate powers.  I spend too much time exemplared below 45.

[Zect]

16 hours ago, ZemX said:

Remember, I was responding to your idea that if nobody complains about being hit by Fort, why would they complain about building defense?  This is why.   Free defense is great!   Of course nobody complains about being hit by Fort.

 

In bringing up the fort example (and cold shields, and ample examples of def without -def resist), I'm illustrating that defense is still generally valuable even without -def resist. You have a very SR scrapperesque perspective, where the defense cascade needs to be prevented at all cost, or it's worthless. That might be true if def is all you're relying on, but this is a resist tank with strong sustain we're talking about. Defense on resist sets can be considered ablative armor that regenerates with each engagement. It delays being defense floored and absorbs debuffs and alpha strikes. It's worth recalling that mobs base tohit is 50%, not 95%. When playing resist sets against mobs with -def, there is a really noticeable difference in incoming damage before and after you get defense floored. A cushion of defense, especially when close to the softcap, may delay that significantly.

 

Your argument is that defense comes at the expense of slow resist and rech. I'm trying to tell you: that isn't true. (And you don't forfeit capped resists, either.) You keep talking about defense being "stripped away" when you're not on a team. I'm trying to tell you: it's served its purpose. I present a powerful build strategy that caters to MA's unique strengths as a parry set, without excessive investment in defense, while still maintaining a respectable offensive capacity. If you don't feel a need for high survivability (I think my softcapped rad/MA would be on the extreme defensive end of tanker builds I'm willing to play) because you aren't playing the content where it's valuable, fair enough, but going on weird tangents about self-sufficiency that are unrelated to the subject is simply odd.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Zect

[ZemX]

7 hours ago, Zect said:

In bringing up the fort example (and cold shields, and ample examples of def without -def resist), I'm illustrating that defense is still generally valuable even without -def resist.

 

You are making this way more complicated than it needs to be.  It is simple cost/benefit analysis.  You assign a value to defense and then you weigh it against the cost.  And this is where talking about Fortitude WITHOUT talking about cost falls apart.  Fort can give you an idea of the value of fragile defense on your tanker.   But for BUILDING defense instead of just getting hit with a free buff, you have to determine the cost by looking at your build and deciding where you will trade something away to get that defense.  I mentioned I might lose resist or recharge and you countered saying "no no, you would lose procs".  This isn't a counter-point.  It IS the point.  What is lost is up to the person doing the build.  YOU choose to lose the procs.  I might not.  Stop getting bogged down in the detail of resist or recharge.  It's not the point.  The point is it's something and whatever that something is is the thing you are putting on the other end of the scale from this fragile defense you are gaining.

 

7 hours ago, Zect said:

You have a very SR scrapperesque perspective, where the defense cascade needs to be prevented at all cost, or it's worthless.

 

Nice try, but no.  I've never played an SR scrapper.  The bulk of my experience in HC to date has been playing Rad Armor tankers, mostly in normal content, which is what the OP mentioned they were planning on playing.  And I've watched 50+% melee defense get wiped by an angry mob of sword-wielding Cimerorans in seconds.   This is in a fight that's going to last a whole hell of a lot longer than a few seconds.  So no, I don't much care for the "ablative armor" argument either.   I'd rather be stronger in the much LONGER phase of the fight that follows being defense stripped than take a bit less damage in the opening seconds.    If you don't agree then we don't agree.  That ain't the end of the world either.

[kyuwyn]

2 hours ago, ZemX said:

Nice try, but no.  I've never played an SR scrapper.  The bulk of my experience in HC to date has been playing Rad Armor tankers, mostly in normal content, which is what the OP mentioned they were planning on playing.  And I've watched 50+% melee defense get wiped by an angry mob of sword-wielding Cimerorans in seconds.   This is in a fight that's going to last a whole hell of a lot longer than a few seconds.  So no, I don't much care for the "ablative armor" argument either.   I'd rather be stronger in the much LONGER phase of the fight that follows being defense stripped than take a bit less damage in the opening seconds.    If you don't agree then we don't agree.  That ain't the end of the world either.

 

First of all -- thank you for the advice, I rerolled rad/ba (my issue with MA is the same as it's always been with DM, the MA chain is beautiful, but when I play a melee, I prefer aoe heavy sets, something about explosions of numbers providing dopamine) -- The Rad/ info here has been extremely helpful tho, and enough for me to make inform decisions building.

 

Secondly, i'm confused as to why you'd build def here too -- weave and maneuvers sure, but.. there's no form of natural def, so you'd be like a blaster sacrificing.. a lot to reach an easily debuffed number.

 

More HP = bigger heals, bigger buffer between "alive" and "dead" for your resists to protect, bigger absorb.

 

Point for point you'd be better off capping resists then leaning into health/recharge to pad out your heals to increase your "number of hits to dead" rather than building piddly defense (Your team will probably also provide) -- the replies here have only reinforced that sentiment.

I will say tho, my first 50 on live waaay back when, was a Kat/SR scrapper, I was never worried about  debuffs, before scaling resists, it was that unavoidable 5% chance to get splatted (soloing av's on SR back then was a game of "Will you hit me in the 5 minutes it takes to kill you?" cause you were 100% dead if even a basic hit you from an AV), after that, it was.. still that but less binary.

 

SR gets like 70% DDR built in, idk why SR players would ever worry about a "debuff cascade"

[ZemX]

41 minutes ago, kyuwyn said:

First of all -- thank you for the advice, I rerolled rad/ba (my issue with MA is the same as it's always been with DM, the MA chain is beautiful, but when I play a melee, I prefer aoe heavy sets, something about explosions of numbers providing dopamine) -- The Rad/ info here has been extremely helpful tho, and enough for me to make inform decisions building.

 

Battle Axe is hilarious fun with the new Axe Cyclone.  Sets up Pendulum perfectly.  MA ends up having decent AoE simply because it's one PBAoE is so fast.  But yeah... I like a little variety too.

 

44 minutes ago, kyuwyn said:

Secondly, i'm confused as to why you'd build def here too -- weave and maneuvers sure, but.. there's no form of natural def, so you'd be like a blaster sacrificing.. a lot to reach an easily debuffed number.

 

To be totally clear on that, it's not without any value and Zect isn't the only one talking about "ablative" defense shields either.  It's a thing.  How good a thing and how much it is worth compared to whatever else you might build for is where we disagree. 

 

Another good thing to keep in mind about resistance building though is that 90% is the cap for resistance to damage but getting to 100% or more is still useful because that value is used to resist resistance debuffs.   i.e. If your Smash Res is 100% or more then you literally can't be debuffed by any resistible resistance debuffs.  For example, Longbow Nullifier grenades.   There ARE a few unresistible res debuffs in the game, but there are only a few.  So pushing key resistances to 100+ is very nice to have.  Typically very easy for Smash/Lethal thanks to Tough. For Rad Armor will be there easily with Energy/Tox too probably.

 

1 hour ago, kyuwyn said:

SR gets like 70% DDR built in, idk why SR players would ever worry about a "debuff cascade"

 

I think it's actually 95% because, unique to SR, it's enhanceable.  I've got a baby SR/Staff tanker I run with the Tanker Tuesday crew on Reunion once a month (which is tomorrow actually).  I should play it more or roll one aside from that.  I've been curious about it ever since I started that project because these days, you can build so much res as a Staff tanker and SR has scaling resistance as it's damaged.  You can add enough resistance such that you hit the res caps way before you get dangerously low in HP at which point you have lowsih HP but uncrackable soft-capped def and capped resistances.  Only thing you'll fear is autohit attacks, I'd guess.

 

I hear Shield/MA is a great combo for Martial Arts for getting Incarnate defense levels with very good DDR.  Very Captain America too. 🤪

 

[Sovera]

Rad/MA Tanker was my very first build that boasted of having 90% resistances to most things on top of having 45% defense to melee, ranged, and AoE. And then having an absorb shield that doubles as Recovery tool, and a heal that doubles as blue bar filler. A bit nutty of a build but the damage was slow as heck though and I turned to Fire Armor and never looked back since I found I was about as sturdy just by dint of killing things dead.

 

Rad Armor ends up being more damage with a ton of procs than Fire Armor, but Fire Armor starts straight at level 18 (or 13 if exemplared down) and not abusing the proc system where Rad Armor pretty much wants max level and incarnates to do both damage and be sturdy ('just' sturdy while leveling/exemplared).

[ZemX]

3 hours ago, Sovera said:

Rad/MA Tanker was my very first build that boasted of having 90% resistances to most things on top of having 45% defense to melee, ranged, and AoE.

 

Any chance I could see that 90/45 build?  I'd like to see what the tradeoffs are between that and something I'd build without prioritizing defense.  Particularly what it looks like pre-Incarnates.  I keep wanting to try MA with something.   I started a Shield/MA long time ago but it never caught my interest to stick with it.

[Sovera]

15 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

Any chance I could see that 90/45 build?  I'd like to see what the tradeoffs are between that and something I'd build without prioritizing defense.  Particularly what it looks like pre-Incarnates.  I keep wanting to try MA with something.   I started a Shield/MA long time ago but it never caught my interest to stick with it.

 

My mids spazzes when I try to export a file. I might need to rebuild old builds from scratch and see if it works but for what it's worth here's a screenshot. I can rebuild it if you'd like:

 

Spoiler

 

It's a prehistoric build and I tweaked things a lot since it was a prototype for my Fire/MA that I ended up playing much longer and because of this refined it until I no longer needed Tough to be capped and still have the 45% to all.

 

This one still has Tough toggled on (but not really a problem with how Rad sweats endurance) but has really dubious slotting looking back at it such as the -res in Beta Decay.

 

The numbers are with one stack of the ATO and then a second for 90% to S/L/E and Barrier's 5% to finish capping negative and melee/ranged/aoe.

[PLVRIZR]

43 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 I keep wanting to try MA with something.

 

And @Sovera's "Brunker" (Fire/MA) was my inspiration (nay, plagiarism) for "Martial Mayhem".  THAT is a fun toon. 😆

[Spaghetti Betty]

1 hour ago, ZemX said:

I keep wanting to try MA with something. 

I'm gonna second @PLVRIZR that Fire/MA is one of my favorite all-round Tanks. But really, MA is such a versatile melee for Tankers that you can pair it with anything and it'll be a smooth ride.