Radiation Melee: Crit damage on Radioactive Smash way out of line?

[Omnicron]

Looking through the different Stalker primaries to try to figure out where to start my stalker journey, I was comparing the crit values for the different starting powers, and HOLY COW is Radioactive Smash above the curve!.

 

Radioactive Smash deals 23.40 damage on a crit at level 1. For comparison, the next highest 16.40 for Broadsword's "hack". Most of them have crit values between 10 and 13.

 

What gives?

[Nezix]

Do you mean you made a lvl 1 character and tested the crit damage in game?

 

Sounds like that's because Radioactive Smash has the highest Damage Per Activation of any of those powers. It also has a longer animation, so the actual DPS may be the same. You can see this in any of the Build programs (there is pinned in the Discord channel: at-build-general called Mid's Reborn which is up to date with Homecoming.

[marcussmythe]

Rad Melee is newer, so didnt get the ‘cannot crit for full damage’ punishment that KM and EM did.  Same goes for StJ, and is a reason for much if its current strength.

[Frostweaver]

If it makes you feel better, the rest of the set's mechanics are a terrible fit for stalker and suck right up until the end game.