Rad/Sonic - help my build

[Moonbat Smith]

I'm building a support char for group content. Rad/Sonic Defender. I'm looking for any critiques of my build.

Must have skills are: Hover, Flight, Mutation.

Playstyle: mostly range, only entering melee for the PBAOE

Goal: Be best supportive healer/debuffer/damager defender I can be.

 

 

 

Defender (Radiation Emission - Sonic Attack).mbd

[Wimbochismo]

You've got a good build and you managed to hit the 45 ranged defense mark. I'm questioning the additional aoe defense. In some cases you can build a tanky Defender with ranged + aoe defense but you may have to sacrifice recharge bonuses to get there. This is contrary to Radiation which has Accelerate Metabolism needing to be perma'd to provide its recharge and endurance buffs. I feel that you'd be better served dropping some of the aoe def for recharge bonuses, ideally to get Hasten perma'd as well. The Accelerate Metabolism/Hasten recharge interaction lowering all your cooldowns is one of the best parts of Radiation.

 

Onto a breakdown of your build:

• Tough, Weave, and Dark Embrace are all overslotted. Reduce slotting in each.
• Shriek is low dpa, you should switch it for Shout.
• Soul Storm isn't providing you much utility as a single target hold. You currently have Howl (spammable low dmg for -res) and Dreadful Wail (long cooldown) as aoe. On my Sonic I prefer to also pick up Siren's Song as another decent dpa filler aoe.
• The -tohit debuff in Radiation Infection is desirable to enhance. Usually 4 slot Dark Watcher's.
• Accelerate Metabolism slotting is usually 2, 50+5 recharges to save slots - similar to Hasten. Otherwise I like Preemptive Optimization for the bonuses.
• You should finish splitting Superior Vigilant Assault set.
• You're missing the Reactive Defenses and Kismet accuracy uniques.
• I try to fit in the -res procs on my Defender's if I can.

I took all of the above into consideration and streamlined the build for funsies. Only other thing I did was to drop Assault for a LotG mule. This is what it can look like if you take it in this direction.

Defender (Radiation Emission - Sonic Attack) Edit.mbd

[Moonbat Smith]

thank  you so much., this is very helpful.

[Zect]

I've installed 44% aoe def on your build while maintaining other stats as a case study of how to simultaneously build R/aoe def on a fender. This also gives you a more usable emp (-regen!) and an unbreakable guard unique. The main loss is the damage procs in the aoes.

 

 

I want to highlight a few things. One, it's usually better to take musc radial over core on a fender. The small loss of damage is negligible on an AT with such a low damage scalar (screech loses only 4 damage for example) and the endmod enhancement can be used to drop a slot from stamina. If not taking musc radial, the other common option is intuition radial which buffs debuffs and damage.

 

Two, your gaussian's proc is currently in amplify. This is perfectly fine, but you may also consider putting it in tactics - this also gives you a more usable tactics. Gaussian's rolls once for every target affected by tactics, even including pets, and the proc chance is pretty ridiculous on a team. This is considering you state you are building for a team.

 

Finally, I actually encourage you to trim back on defense a little and build for 40% R/aoe (or only R) def. In the current meta, def is very abundant and nearly all teams will have someone else running maneuvers or other defense buffs, which will softcap you. This will free up a huge amount of build capacity (going from 40 -> 45 def is about twice as hard as 35 -> 40) and will allow you to fit more utility powers and damage procs in your build. Tweaking the build to achieve this is left as an exercise for the reader.

 

My own rad/sonic is designed to have 40% R/aoe and run a defense amp for the last 5%. This also gives 7.5% res to all and mez protection, enabling me to carry other destinies than clarion. I also prefer to skip the 2nd filler aoe and take spirit drain instead, and I prefer to use a fly/hover toggle macro and take vengeance over evasive as the last lotg mule - vengeance is wipe prevention which I consider valuable.

 

Defender (Radiation Emission - Sonic Attack) Edit2.mbd

Edited February 18 by Zect

[Onlyasandwich]

1 hour ago, Zect said:

encourage you to trim back on defense a little and build for 40% R/aoe

Fully agreed here! 

 

Doubly so on a primary with one of the best to-hit debuffs in the game in Rad Infection. With the updated faster animation time, it's easy to put down on every spawn. 

 

By going for a heavy defense approach, you are losing out on a lot of the power budget already afforded you by your powerful debuffs. If you rely more on your debuffs, you have much greater freedom in your build to proc out attacks or pursue other slotting strategies.

 

Granted, I know that RI has a limited radius and floating on ranged defense is an easier approach that is less reliant on mob positioning. Still, Rad is one of the best soloing Defender primaries even without a single IO in the build. Lingering Rad is typically enough to keep things clumped and at range until they are dead.

 

 

Edited February 18 by Onlyasandwich