How hard was Rad armor hit?

[Story Archer]

I've got a RAD/SS Tanker who I've farmed with forever but haven't played much of late. I've been thinking about what kind of Brute I want to run - I came up with a cool concept for Savage Melee/Rad Armor, but I'm wondering how much of a step down it will be now. I'm also considering Bio and Dark Armor...

[Sancerre]

it lost the aoe proc bomb damage.  it is still just as tanky...ish.  radiation therapy is now just strictly for durability/resilience... some would argue its less effective than before but most people werent using it for resilience/durability anyways.  that said, if the main goal was to scoop up extra aoe damage in your secondary then you lose that aspect here.  i dont feel like savage melee is hurting in that department particularly but having radiation proc bomb may have swayed you to taking focused accuracy utility instead of fireball for example... so it has its own impacts. 

 

overall still a great armor set but people may value the radiation therapy proc bomb differently.

[Story Archer]

1 hour ago, Sancerre said:

it lost the aoe proc bomb damage.  it is still just as tanky...ish.  radiation therapy is now just strictly for durability/resilience... some would argue its less effective than before but most people werent using it for resilience/durability anyways.  that said, if the main goal was to scoop up extra aoe damage in your secondary then you lose that aspect here.  i dont feel like savage melee is hurting in that department particularly but having radiation proc bomb may have swayed you to taking focused accuracy utility instead of fireball for example... so it has its own impacts. 

 

overall still a great armor set but people may value the radiation therapy proc bomb differently.

 

Ground Zero wasn't affected by the changes, or any other AoE/proc interactions?

[WuTang]

12 hours ago, Story Archer said:

Ground Zero wasn't affected by the changes, or any other AoE/proc interactions?

 

As far as I know, RT was the only thing that got hit.

 

I'm respec'ing out of it on my Tank and Brute, but my Stalker is keeping it just with reduced slotting.

 

In my testing thus far, Radiation Therapy only adds survivability, which my build doesn't need. Though I will admit, RT did save me a couple times in a 4* Aeon, I threw a full set of TotN in it and it will refill the green bar fully with just a few baddies on you and the recharge isn't half bad a that point.

 

Rad Armor is prob still my favorite armor set, just now I feel like I'll need to find another AOE...

[Maelwys]

12 hours ago, Story Archer said:

Ground Zero wasn't affected by the changes, or any other AoE/proc interactions?

Ground Zero had its target cap drastically reduced, it can only hit 16 foes now.
There was a couple of weeks when its proc activation rate was lower but this was a bug and has since been fixed.
So if you're only ever fighting up to 16 foes at a time it'll be the same as prior to the patch.


Radiation Therapy got adaptive recharge (so recharges very fast if you hit 0-1 targets with it; but proc rate has plummeted) however its base damage got a bit of a buff and it's a lot better now for survivability purposes - especially whenever you're only fighting a single target. Unfortunately due to the way it was recoded it also runs afoul of the same "overcap" exponential diminishing returns curve - so the first target hit will take full damage; the second target hit will take 75% of that first target's damage, the third target hit will take 75% of the second target's damage... etc etc. including damage from procs. All that means it's a lot worse than before when it comes to dealing AoE damage; even after trying various wildly-different-to-before slotting combinations.
 

It's worth noting that the devs subsequently trialled yet another version of Radiation Therapy which looked a lot better... however this has been put on hold until a future "balance pass" patch. So we may see RT's damage effectiveness boosted again "SOON (tm)".

All that said; I'd still rate Radiation Armor pretty highly for boosting your AoE damage in its current state.
 

Edited Thursday at 11:27 AM by Maelwys

[Story Archer]

11 hours ago, Maelwys said:

Ground Zero had its target cap drastically reduced, it can only hit 16 foes now.
There was a couple of weeks when its proc activation rate was lower but this was a bug and has since been fixed.
So if you're only ever fighting up to 16 foes at a time it'll be the same as prior to the patch.

Radiation Therapy got adaptive recharge (so recharges very fast if you hit 0-1 targets with it; but proc rate has plummeted) however its base damage got a bit of a buff and it's a lot better now for survivability purposes - especially whenever you're only fighting a single target. Unfortunately due to the way it was recoded it also runs afoul of the same "overcap" exponential diminishing returns curve - so the first target hit will take full damage; the second target hit will take 75% of that first target's damage, the third target hit will take 75% of the second target's damage... etc etc. including damage from procs. 

All that said; I'd still rate Radiation Armor pretty highly for boosting your AoE damage in its current state.
 

 

I'm actually fine with RT being re-centered to be a more effective healing tool, I had stopped using it primarily for damage a while back anyway. I like that its more effective in solo fights which is often a concern for me with healing powers dependent on hitting multiple foes to be effective. Thanks for the info!

[tidge]

I was concerned about changing slotting of my Rad Armor characters, but after playing with them on Live I didn't feel the need to make any changes. 

 

Ground Zero's target cap being scaled back is not something I see as a 'nerf' but more of a correction,

 

Radiation Therapy is where I thought I would make big changes (to focus more on the self-heal, possibly saving some slots) but ultimately my builds have been smooth enough I didn't see any obvious place to make a change... that is, I'd go from one set of marginal improvements from area to another.

[Uun]

The other big change to Radiation Therapy was they reduced the accuracy from 3.0 to 1.2, so you can no longer skip slotting accuracy.

[Octogoat]

I've noticed no real changes to my character but I don't pull whole maps and I'm not a speed farmer. Character is a rad/ss tanker.

[Troo]

On 7/30/2025 at 11:18 AM, Story Archer said:

Savage Melee/Rad Armor

 

If you didn't have the character before, you likely will not notice beyond the reduced target caps and the need for accuracy.

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 7/31/2025 at 7:21 AM, Maelwys said:

Ground Zero had its target cap drastically reduced, it can only hit 16 foes now.
There was a couple of weeks when its proc activation rate was lower but this was a bug and has since been fixed.
So if you're only ever fighting up to 16 foes at a time it'll be the same as prior to the patch.


Radiation Therapy got adaptive recharge (so recharges very fast if you hit 0-1 targets with it; but proc rate has plummeted) however its base damage got a bit of a buff and it's a lot better now for survivability purposes - especially whenever you're only fighting a single target. Unfortunately due to the way it was recoded it also runs afoul of the same "overcap" exponential diminishing returns curve - so the first target hit will take full damage; the second target hit will take 75% of that first target's damage, the third target hit will take 75% of the second target's damage... etc etc. including damage from procs. All that means it's a lot worse than before when it comes to dealing AoE damage; even after trying various wildly-different-to-before slotting combinations.
 

It's worth noting that the devs subsequently trialled yet another version of Radiation Therapy which looked a lot better... however this has been put on hold until a future "balance pass" patch. So we may see RT's damage effectiveness boosted again "SOON (tm)".

All that said; I'd still rate Radiation Armor pretty highly for boosting your AoE damage in its current state.
 

 

This is a great write-up.  Good work as always.

 

Radiation Armor is no longer the clear cut winner of "Best Secondary to prop up damage on full farming maps", but really hasn't changed that much.  The change in Ground Zero was primarily to cut down its effects to the aggro cap, rather than affecting over ten times the aggro cap, so I'd call that fixing a bug.  Most of Rad Therapy changes seem to be in order to change it from a power mostly useful as an offensive weapon through proc useage to one that fits in a defensive set.  

 

I really haven't noticed much of a difference other than kill rates are lower and character survivability is higher.