Radiation / Dark Melee Build Ideas

[Owenknowone]

Hola.  I have a level 40 Rad/Dark Tank that I would like to spec out for tank goodness.  The focus would be on its ability to resist damage.  Does anyone have a build they would care to share to help facilitate the process before I over indulge with the enhancements?  Thank you.  

[Warshades]

Very quick build to maybe offer some ideas, there are probably several ways you could tinker and improve it further. You're basically sitting at 1 SMoT proc away from hard capping everything other than cold and psi, neither of which are very common. The cold hole isn't worth trying to fix in radiation armor imo, but you could move some slots from weave to give impervium psi resist uniques if you wanted even higher psi resist. I didn't bother with dark consumption since rad armor doesn't really suffer from endurance issues and the recharge is to long to make it a useful part of an attack chain.

 

Regarding ground zero, I fully proc'd it out since soul drain should provide you with more than enough +to hit to have sufficient accuracy, but you could remove 2 dmg procs and do a 2 piece superior avalanche (acc/dmg and acc/dmg/rech) to improve accuracy and get recharge debuff resist. This would also open up more options for siphon life as you wouldn't really need blistering cold set for the recharge debuff resist.

 

I went for a full bombardment in psi tornado for the resist buffs but they are likely overkill. You may benefit more from doing a 5 piece ragnarok and FF +rech proc in psi tornado.

 

Hope this helps offer some ideas.

Tanker (Radiation Armor - Dark Melee).mbd

Edited Friday at 06:41 AM by Warshades

[ZemX]

11 hours ago, Warshades said:

do a 2 piece superior avalanche (acc/dmg and acc/dmg/rech) to improve accuracy and get recharge debuff resist. This would also open up more options for siphon life as you wouldn't really need blistering cold set for the recharge debuff resist.

 

Making one of those 2 the Avalanche rech/knockdown proc is hilarious, if you have not tried it.  High proc chance, high target count (up to 30 including teammates), and very large radius = "everybody take a seat!"

 

Also, very much agree with skipping Dark Consumption.  Rad Therapy with a Theft of Essense:+end is all you need on top of Rad's already stellar recovery.

 

Did you have trouble with toHit debuffs?  I generally can't avoid taking Focused Accuracy on resist-based toons.  Or does Soul Drain mostly take care of this too?  I really wish there were more sources of toHit debuff resistance (or debuff resistances in general).  It's a real advantage of defense-based toons that they can naturally avoid most debuffs by simply not being hit by any but the autohit variety of debuffs.

[Warshades]

1 hour ago, ZemX said:

Did you have trouble with toHit debuffs?  I generally can't avoid taking Focused Accuracy on resist-based toons.  Or does Soul Drain mostly take care of this too?

 

I don't personally have a rad/dark tank, I do have a rad/ss one and for me a double stacked rage is sufficient. In the event I'm facing things with a lot of tohit debuffs like a mob of CoT demons or the shadow things from MJ arc, I'll usually be teaming and teammates can take care of killing them. There are very few mobs that truly stack enough -tohit to impact a double rage. Dark melee would be affected a bit more since a max target soul drain only provides 30% tohit buff compared to a double stacked rage with membrane exposure HOs providing nearly 60%. Ideally, you'd start any fight with soul drain if it's up, which at least would maximize the tohit buff before any debuffs can land and decrease the chance of hitting max targets with soul drain.

 

1 hour ago, ZemX said:

Making one of those 2 the Avalanche rech/knockdown proc is hilarious, if you have not tried it.

 

I have not, but sounds like a fun experiment. My rad/ss has plenty of knockdown between stomp, hand clap, and psi tornado so I went for the dmg procs on my build.

[ZemX]

1 hour ago, Warshades said:

I have not, but sounds like a fun experiment. My rad/ss has plenty of knockdown between stomp, hand clap, and psi tornado so I went for the dmg procs on my build.

 

Joking aside, it's also very practical on a team tanker for two reasons (1) The knockdown momentarily stops the mobs from attacking so it's a great way to save someone who is suddenly overwhelmed by an ambush or something.  It not only hits them with a bit of heal, but it knocks all their attackers on their asses.  (2) The knockdown is great visual communication to the team of what you just taunted and that it's safe for them to engage.  I love it when I see a Kin zip in and fulcrum shift them all when they're still picking themselves up.  It's just a really nice opening shot.

[Owenknowone]

Thank you for the help.  Follow up question/comparison.  Would a Inv/Rad tanker be "better" or tomato potato?

[Onlyasandwich]

Just now, Owenknowone said:

better" or tomato potato

Both are excellent combos. I'd say tomato potato. I might venture that /dm is a better secondary by a small margin.