A new Radiation Tanker

[khy]

I would like to soak up hits and remain standing. To laugh off attacks, and sneer at danger. I'd like to be able to lure everyone in to attack me, while the rest of my team cleans house.

 

Radiation might not be the best choice for this, but it seems like a good set. Solid, lots of buffs. Gamma Boost in particular seems nice, health when you need it and End the rest of the time.

 

I'm struggling trying to decide on a secondary though. I'm not a farmer, I'm interested in grouping more often than not. It seems to me like for big group content AoEs are king since you're going to be drawing in big crowds, yes? I know that Beta Decay will be AoE taunting, but I'm curious if there's a secondary which generally works better in group content.

 

And, of course, any recommendations for slotting would be greatly appreciated.

[Warshades]

Axe in particular sounds like what you're looking for in a secondary. It has a good amount of AoE's and Axe Cyclone actually draws enemies in closer to you, which can be helpful on maps where mobs are more spread out.

 

As far soaking up hits and remaining standing, I would not personally go with radiation armor. It's a decent set but ideally you would want a set that can mix both high resist and high defense, Invuln is perhaps best for being able to stand and soak stuff up without failing. I actually got curious to see if I could get invuln to sit at soft cap defense with 1 foe in range of Invincibility and capped 90% resist to all with just 1 SMoT proc and the 5% resist/defense from barrier core detiny and came up with this below:

 

 

Again, radiation armor can be made durable and should easily handle most general stuff without issue, but if you're trying to soak things up, Invulnerability is the way to go (unless you're ok with dealing with Granite on stone armor, it could technically be considered more durable as it can also hit soft cap s/l/e/n/f/c and can be hard capped to all resists while having higher regen from Rooted and a more readily available heal in Earth's Embrace). 

[khy]

I think the reason I like Rad in theory, it has lots of interesting secondary effects. Its heal scales on enemies hit, its taunt aura doubles as -tohit and -def on enemies, stuff like that.

 

I definitely don't see rad/ as the tankiest set but it looks so fun!

[Warshades]

56 minutes ago, khy said:

I definitely don't see rad/ as the tankiest set but it looks so fun!

 

This is the most important part in the end. Radiation will also help with endurance management since Battle Axe is end heavy, so it's a good pairing!

[Warboss]

I've found Rad to be very resilient (and incredibly fun to play) to most content (and I'm sure my builds could be tweaked to be even more so). That said, I agree with @Warshades with Axe being a great secondary (especially once you learn how to get the most out of Axe Cyclone).

[ZemX]

Rad is plenty tough so long as you don't forget to shore up certain debuff resistances.   Because it has no defense built in, it's vulnerable to stacking debuffs like -toHit and -defense.  i.e. Because everything hits you.  So I never skip Energy Master for Focused Accuracy for one.  And I also pick up a few two-slot Winter IO bonuses to stack up a little more slow resistance.  Being slowed is deadly because Rad's other survival layers, the self-heal and the absorb shield, both depend on recharge.  So do these things and stack up a bit more resistance and you'll be fine in most content, like @Warboss said.

 

For extra survivability, I like Staff Fighting.  My Rad/Staff is easily my toughest tanker.  You can get decent melee defense without spending a lot on defense or defense IO set bonuses.  You also get a +res bonus in the Sky Splitter finisher when in the damage stance.  On Tankers, it's a hefty +13% res(all).  That on top of Might of the Tanker can easily account for +25% res(all) full time.  Basically I am hard capped to all but Cold most of the time without using any T9 or Incarnate abilities.

 

Ground Zero is fun when procced for damage.  I am also partial to adding a purple KD proc to it because seeing everyone take a seat when I fire that sucker off never gets old.  It also clearly communicates to your team that you just got everyone's attention.  I love seeing a Kin zip in and Fulcrum while everyone is still standing up.

[Warboss]

41 minutes ago, ZemX said:

Rad is plenty tough so long as you don't forget to shore up certain debuff resistances.   Because it has no defense built in, it's vulnerable to stacking debuffs like -toHit and -defense.  i.e. Because everything hits you.  So I never skip Energy Master for Focused Accuracy for one.  And I also pick up a few two-slot Winter IO bonuses to stack up a little more slow resistance.  Being slowed is deadly because Rad's other survival layers, the self-heal and the absorb shield, both depend on recharge.  So do these things and stack up a bit more resistance and you'll be fine in most content, like @Warboss said.

 

For extra survivability, I like Staff Fighting.  My Rad/Staff is easily my toughest tanker.  You can get decent melee defense without spending a lot on defense or defense IO set bonuses.  You also get a +res bonus in the Sky Splitter finisher when in the damage stance.  On Tankers, it's a hefty +13% res(all).  That on top of Might of the Tanker can easily account for +25% res(all) full time.  Basically I am hard capped to all but Cold most of the time without using any T9 or Incarnate abilities.

 

Ground Zero is fun when procced for damage.  I am also partial to adding a purple KD proc to it because seeing everyone take a seat when I fire that sucker off never gets old.  It also clearly communicates to your team that you just got everyone's attention.  I love seeing a Kin zip in and Fulcrum while everyone is still standing up.

 

Yes to all of this, excellent advice (especially the GZ KD proc, although I think I'm using the one from Avalanche). 

[PLVRIZR]

4 hours ago, ZemX said:

Rad is plenty tough so long as you don't forget to shore up certain debuff resistances.   Because it has no defense built in, it's vulnerable to stacking debuffs like -toHit and -defense.  i.e. Because everything hits you.  So I never skip Energy Master for Focused Accuracy for one.  And I also pick up a few two-slot Winter IO bonuses to stack up a little more slow resistance.  Being slowed is deadly because Rad's other survival layers, the self-heal and the absorb shield, both depend on recharge.  So do these things and stack up a bit more resistance and you'll be fine in most content, like @Warboss said.

 

For extra survivability, I like Staff Fighting.  My Rad/Staff is easily my toughest tanker.  You can get decent melee defense without spending a lot on defense or defense IO set bonuses.  You also get a +res bonus in the Sky Splitter finisher when in the damage stance.  On Tankers, it's a hefty +13% res(all).  That on top of Might of the Tanker can easily account for +25% res(all) full time.  Basically I am hard capped to all but Cold most of the time without using any T9 or Incarnate abilities.

 

Ground Zero is fun when procced for damage.  I am also partial to adding a purple KD proc to it because seeing everyone take a seat when I fire that sucker off never gets old.  It also clearly communicates to your team that you just got everyone's attention.  I love seeing a Kin zip in and Fulcrum while everyone is still standing up.

 

I second Warboss' sentiment.  This is the way and Zem is excellent at it.

[Warboss]

I will take a moment to plug Fiery Melee (mostly because it's FIRE) if you want to add mitigation you slot KD procs in Fire Sword Circle, Combustion and one of your ST attacks. This paired with GZ (if using a KD proc) will allow you keep mobs on their backsides for a good portion of the fight. Just be careful not to stack them too quickly as you'll start KBing mobs, which is not particularly helpful to your power sets.

 

KD Procs: Avalanche (AoE), Overwhelming Force (either), Kinetic Combat (ST), Ragnarök (Ranged AoE) (I  might have missed a few. These are the ones I use).