Struggling with Rad / Broad Sword Tanker

[Kaibert]

Hey all I seem to be struggling to survive any packs as a rad tanker. I'm fairly new so my build is probably crap but any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm lv 37 and I can barely complete any missions due to how squishy I am. Thanks.

Edited August 20 by Kaibert
Added build pic

[tidge]

I don't have a Rad Armor character, but one comment I have about leveling up and using IOs is this: Most Armor sets don't really benefit that much from extra Resistance slotting in the armors. I'd probably just got Endurance Reduction + Resistance for those toggles to start, and put the slots in the attacks. (Endurance, Accuracy, Damage)

 

Nor do I have a Broadsword character... I don't know how similar it is to War Mace or Battle Axe, but for those attack sets I found that prior to getting (Global) Recharge, I had a hard time because I didn't have anything like a common attack chain. I mention this because if you are using IOs, you may want to consider adding a Recharge piece (4th) to the longer recharge attacks.

[ZemX]

Rad Armor is about resistance, absorb, heal, and recharge in roughly that order.  It also has a ton of endurance recovery and some regen, so it really needs nothing added to Health and Stamina.  I leave both at the default one slot.  In Health I put a Panacea:+End/+HP proc.  In Stamina, just a Perf Shifter:+End proc.   Another Perf Shifter:+end proc goes in Gamma Boost, also with just the one slot.

 

I generally start slotting attuned sets at around level 30 when you start getting more slots on level ups. Kick/Tough from Fighting Pool is nice for added Smash/Lethal res.

 

Parry, and defense in general, is not great on a Rad.  Too much stuff debuffs defense and Rad has no defense debuff resistance, so it blows away in the wind in pretty much the only situation where you actually could use more defense.  I'd drop Parry and maybe Meltdown at this level to free up a couple power picks for Kick and Tough.  You will be noticeably less squishy against a lot of things with closer to hard cap S/L resistance.

 

If you can free up the slots to six-slot Slice and Whirling Sword, those are good places for the Tanker ATO sets.  Might of the Tanker, in particular, for the stacking resistance(all) proc.  But both ATO sets at six will give you 6% S/L res each.

 

As for res sets in your armor toggles.  A couple sets of Unbreakable Guard are good.  Impervium Armor is not bad either.

 

A few one-slot wonder IOs you can put in Combat Jumping when you have the slots:

 - Shield Wall: TP prot/RES(all) - 5% to all resistance is nice

 - LotG: Recharge.

 - Reactive Defense: Scaling Res - Adds 3% res(all) and then a slight bit more as your health drops.  But the 3% default is nice all by itself.

 - Kismet:+toHit

 

For Radiation Therapy, prioritize a Theft of Essence:+End proc.  This turns the power into an endurance heal as well as a health heal.  Great when facing draining enemies.

 

It's all about stacking up the resistance to reach to or close to that magic 90%.  Close is often good enough when you have Might of the Tanker because that adds 6-12% by itself.

 

[High_Beam]

Yeah, what others have said.  I have a rad rad Brute. But rad is resist and regen/heal oriented so parry even if you are double stacking is giving back minimally compared to on a defense oriented set.  Slot those things that @ZemXmentioned to get resists up more so that your heals don't fall as short.

[ZemX]

49 minutes ago, High_Beam said:

But rad is resist and regen/heal oriented so parry even if you are double stacking is giving back minimally compared to on a defense oriented set.

 

Weird fact: The defense buff on Parry (and the Katana version, Divine Avalanche) doesn't stack on Tankers like it does for the other melee ATs.   It just refreshes.  Coupled with being the weakest attack in the whole set but still sitting at level 16 to pick up... ugh.    It's not even great on defense Tankers because they tend to do fine on Defense all by themselves and you can get much better attacks even in ordinary power pools.

 

Anyway @Kaibert, I have a Rad/Kat Tanker build somewhere.  I can look around for it when I'm home later, if I think about it.  Katana and Broadsword are similar enough it might still work.  Broadsword is just slower/harder-hitting.  But all the attacks are basically the same otherwise.  It's a tanking build.  You might find other examples around this forum that are built more offensively, with more damage procs, and the like.  On all my Rad tankers, I take Energy Mastery for the epic power pool so I can pick up Focused Accuracy.  Without defense, getting hit by many debuffs is a concern.  Getting hit by -toHit debuffs and/or Slow debuffs can be a real problem.  Hence I also look at a few places to two-slot Winter IOs for the slow resistance bonus.  That together with Rad's built-in slow resistance can set you up to basically ignore slows.  That will help keep you alive since some of your survival depends on refreshing the absorb shield and hitting the heal when things get serious.

[ZemX]

Okay, here's a variation on my Rad/Katana Tanker.  Load this up in Mid's Reborn and see what you think.

Tanker (Rad-BS) - Teleporter.mbd

 

[Kaibert]

Thank you all for the help! I'll try these all out!