Fire/Rad or Rad/Fire

[Brutor]

Looking to build a brute who will be a team/content toon, with a little team fire farming thrown in, and not sure which way to combine these two.  Did some reading and found pros for both combos, but no real direct comparison.  TIA.

[Rylas]

I built a Rad/Fire brute for farming and teaming, and I've found that it performs exceptionally in both. Rad/ provides enough addition to AoE damage to melt minions pretty quickly, while some of its single target attacks help out for taking out tougher targets. Energy, fire and some toxic damage with -Def sprinkled on top? Kind of hard to beat compared to Fire/Rad.

[Bloodofcaine]

 I personally enjoy rad/fire because of it's inherent -def in its attacks. It really helps to soften the enemies when you're looking to get the character immediately into +4/8 farming.. You get two damage auras and rad's contamination mechanic helps to spread the damage throughout the surrounding mobs.  You also don't need to reposition as a rad/fire really in order to maximize your attacks. You can stay in place and still hit the enemies around you. This latter reason is why I abandoned my spines/fire in favor of rad/fire as I formerly needed to either jump out of a pack to position properly for throw spines or I had to leap upward in the air and target the pack in the right way to hit my targets.  Can't speak to fire melee personally, the graphics and animation never struck me really (not the best of reasons to avoid a set, but i like my aesthetics as much as the mechanics behind them)

[Werner]

I have aesthetic concerns with Fire as well. My solution on my Fire/Shield was enough recharge to make an attack chain using only the fire sword attacks. I synchronized the look of the fire sword and his shield as best I could. Not an optimal attack chain, but I thought it looked great. Anyway, one possible solution if aesthetics are an issue but you like the swords.

 

Edited August 12, 2019 by Werner