Fire/Poison v Fire/Rad

[Hexantress]

Hello, I don't normally play controllers and are relatively unfamiliar with the way their powers and their secondaries perform as I am more used to Widows/Stalkers/Tanks

I have a character concept that would work with either Fire/Poison or Fire/Rad, and I was wondering how the two differ from a game play perspective, and if one of the two was considered better overall, off sheer mechanics. Both fit the theme, but I'd really prefer to only make one in the long run as my time is limited.

Thank you.

[Death2Tyrants]

I prefer Fire/Poison but out of the box Fire/Rad will be more forgiving to a player new to Controllers IMO. TLDR Pick /Poison for skippables and PROC builds. Pick /Rad for better utility and new player friendliness. From an overall effects standpoint they will be similar (not the same) even if the mechanism of delivery is slightly different.

 

Fire/Poison will require slotting EndRedux in the splash debuffs to mitigate the biggest downside. If stack your ST debuffs with Splashes and your Poison Aura it will edge out /Rad in debuff magnitude at the cost of more casting. /Rad has a bit more of utility than /Poison

Fire/Rad has some desirable +Rech and +Recovery powers and you get your second aura earlier but /Poison gets the Poison Trap which can be PROCed out. The /Rad Hold aura has a wider PBAoE than /Poison as well. /Rad is a little more fire and forget.

[SeraphimKensai]

I haven't personally played a fire/poison, and had a fire/rad on live. Since then I have quite a few fire control, poison, and radiation emission characters.

 

I find that Rad Emission takes more time to use actively than Poison, so if your team is moving fast, poison would potentially help you keep up.

 

Poison has small aoe splashes for weaken and envenom, but you can alternate targets to stack the primary effect and splash effect on the same target. The biggest drawback to fire poison, is that hot feet has a base 1.04end/sec, and Venomous Gas has a base of 0.65end/sec, so you'll likely need heavy investment into end redux/recovery, or possibly Aegis. The drawback is that hot feet and poison want you in melee, so you'll likely need mez protection, and Clarion looks damn good, alternatively melee core or melee radial depending on your build can be useful.

 

Overall I imagine fire/poison is fun, but end intensive.

[tidge]

18 hours ago, Death2Tyrants said:

I prefer Fire/Poison but out of the box Fire/Rad will be more forgiving to a player new to Controllers IMO. TLDR Pick /Poison for skippables and PROC builds. Pick /Rad for better utility and new player friendliness. From an overall effects standpoint they will be similar (not the same) even if the mechanism of delivery is slightly different.

 

This is my instinct, having played some combinations of these on Controllers (Live and HC).

 

Fire/Rad is one of those classic combos from Live that, for some players, is still considered OP... I think it is fine, but I do think that its reputation exceeds its (relative) performance.

 

I feel obligated to add this personal preference about /Poison: I never take the T9 Venomous Gas. I've repeatedly tried to make it work on a variety of characters and my experience has been that unless I'm playing on a team with a Tanker (to take/hold aggro) that is both really paying attention and not simply frenetically running about that Venomous Gas ends up either/both doing very little (critters melt anyway) or/and gets my characters killed. In solo play I find it to be a handicap, in team play it is practically unnecessary.  I agree that it looks like a powerful debuff, but I simply haven't gotten the yield from it. The only thing I haven't tried to try to make it work is to make build choices to try to have exceptionally high defenses.

[Uun]

In addition to the above comments, keep in mind that the Imps are fragile. While Radiation has an AoE heal, Poison's is ST. Neither has any tools to buff the Imps defense or resistance.

[Uncle Shags]

5 hours ago, tidge said:

The only thing I haven't tried to try to make it work is to make build choices to try to have exceptionally high defenses.

This is how I built my poison defender.  Cranked up defense and resistances so I can stand in melee.  The irony is that once you can survive in melee venemous gas makes it even easier to survive because of the debuffs.  I love my poison.  Super tanky, super support.  Don't need a tank, that's me! 

 

I agree that both are awesome.  Rad is great buffs and debuffs, a bit slow on the toggle debuff application. Poison doesn't buff, but its debuffs are fast and furious.

[Uncle Shags]

Out of curiosity I just pulled up my poison build to see just how cranked the stats were.  Surprisingly they aren't that high:

 

I think it becomes tanky when you add in the venemous gas debuffs:

Added them together gives the equivalent of over 45% m/r/aoe and 92% S/L res.  Adding Weaken on top of that adds another -30% tohit and -37.5% damage.  Not too shabby!