Ian's Guide to an Awesome Fire/Rad Corr: I9 Update

This is a very strong set if played correctly. I’ve had two people tell me that they made their fire/rad corrs after playing with me on mine. The most important part of this set is to remember to keep debuffs up as often as possible. If you have enjoyed either the fire blast or rad debuff set before you’ll likely really enjoy this combination.

Playstyle:
There are a lot of tricks I’ve learned over the 50 levels. The main one is that you have to be an aggressive player for this set. You're going to get a lot of aggro, because the majority of your skills are aoes. If you don't like that you better play with a brute, and not an energy aura one, because they suck at drawing aggro, trust me.

You have to get your debuffs up before you start to use your damage. Most mobs will be able to kill you before you kill them if you're just playing like a blaster. The debuffs will make you like a scrapper since the enemy won't be able to hit you often or hard, as long as you're good at not letting the enemy spread out. Avoid playing with people who love knockbacks, because they ruin your best powers, by limiting the number of people you can hit. Knockdowns are peachy.

Go up to an unnaggro'd mob. Make all your teammates wait at a nearby corner. Put RI on the mob, but run while it's still activating and hide at the corner. Most of the mobs will arrive at the same time, and you can throw EF on them. Now you have herded a mob, congratulations. If you can get an enemy in the group behind another group you can herd lots of mobs. When I had stealth and SS (before my pvp respec) I would go about 4 mobs down the hall, put EF on one and then come back. The mob would slowly come, pulling more and more aggro onto me. You better have a couple purples though because you'll end up with 40 or so enemies looking to punch you in the head. This is where your aoes are great. Having a brute that's not energy helps here too, especially if they knockdown (i.e. footstomp)

Dealing with bosses can be tricky. If they like to fight in melee, the best strategy is to debuff them and throw lingering radiation on them. Then run away while you fight. If you stay out of melee they won’t be able to use their extra powerful attacks on you, but you can still shoot them and wear them down. Often if they get a chance to hit you in melee they can stun you and you’re dead. Avoid that.



Fire blast - This attack is great for pulling, does decent damage and is fast. The range is huge on it, so you can throw it long before aggroing by range, but this is also kind of a downfall if you're a rapid clicker player (i.e. hitting or clicking powers rapidly so that you have minimal time between attacks) because you might end up shooting a new group before you realize the current group is dead.

Fire ball - This is a good power to use once you’ve gotten all your debuffs up on the mobs. It’s a fairly large aoe, so targeting an enemy in the middle will hit generally all of them. It can be used just as effectively from the middle of the enemies or from far outside of them, so if you like melee or ranged it works great.

Blaze - This attack deals a large amount of damage quickly. On an orange minion with the debuffs on him it’ll generally take about half the health. This is a great power for taking down the bosses that are left after the rest have fallen, because using aoes on one enemy would take out your end too fast, and with AM, Hasten and Fire blast you can spam the two of them without wasting much time.

Fire breath - It’s a strong aoe, but it requires you to jump back. My most often used tactic is to target one of the enemies, then jump to the opposite side of the mob so that he's farthest enemy from me, that way when using this power it's almost guaranteed to hit the whole group if you're far enough back. It’s a very good sized cone, but make sure to be far enough back or it’ll go between the enemies instead of encompassing them.

Inferno - Don't use this power unless you have some end insps handy, because despite the massive damage, if you’re fighting +2s (which is common) and your debuffs are on them you'll still only kill the minions (assuming they're not fire resistant). Then you're left to deal with bosses and ltnts without debuffs on them, and any defenses you had unable to be toggled on. It’s a very situational power and risky to use if you’re solo.

Aim - This is the very last power I took. I mainly took it because out of all the options it was the most useful pvp wise. It’d help me get past those people with defense based sets. You don't really need it for PVE, because with one acc in a power and RI up you're really accurate as it is. But if you PVP it can be a lifesaver on anyone running a power similar to Elude.

Flares – This is the minimal damage power in the set. The activation animation is fairly long for such a small damage output. In the lower levels it’s useful to be able to keep a continuous attack chain, since the other powers don’t recharge as fast, but once you have 3 or 4 attacks it ends up lowering your damage output since you could otherwise be using stronger attacks.

Rain of Fire – Coupled with Lingering Radiation this power can output a large amount of damage (especially now that these sort of powers can be buffed). However this power is generally a nuisance since any mob will attempt to run out of it. If you’re consistently playing with a dom then it could be helpful, but unless the enemy is immobilized this power will likely spread out all the mobs, causing your debuffs to become much less effective, and also drawing a considerable amount of aggro to yourself.

Blazing Bolt – I pull a lot, especially on large teams. However, this power is almost pointless to take if you want to pull. Sure it has great range and decent damage, but Fire Blast is well outside of aggro range and pulls just as effectively. Not to mention pulling with Radiation Infection generally helps confine the mob to a smaller area and also debuffs them.



Radiant Aura - You're forced to take this power. It's a pretty wimpy heal, even 3 slotted, but since it's an aoe, if you play with mm's you can get some of those nice heal badges. Soloing this power can really save you though, as most enemies won’t be able to beat your healing rate if you have them debuffed.

Radiation Infection - This should be the first power you use when starting to fight any mob. The debuffs can be slotted, so they’re stronger than EF, plus this one takes time to set while the other doesn't, so this one will keep you unaggro'd longer while putting the two powers on the mobs. I suggest you slot it with acc debuffs rather than def debuffs because you can't slot yourself for defense, but you can slot your powers with acc, so this method keeps you alive longer and still able to hit them.

Accelerate Metabolism - With two endurance heavy sets this power comes in very handy. The extra endurance recovery is helpful, plus this power won’t keep you from getting held or stunned, but it will decrease the time that you are. While still a pain in the butt, it’s nice to become unheld before you die, heal yourself and get the debuffs back on and continue fighting, rather than running back from the hospital.

Enervating Field - This power is another power that defines the set. It decreases the enemies resistance to damage (making you hit harder) and makes them hit for less damage. It has a quick activation time and debuffs an aoe, so try and keep it on the enemies as much as possible.

Lingering Radiation - This power keeps enemies from regaining health, it slows their movement and it keeps their attacks from recharging quickly. It’s tough to gauge how effective it is on enemies, but when Positron uses this on you, it’s very noticeable. During AV fights this really helps to shorten the fight, because with their regeneration decreased you won’t have to do near as much damage to finish them off.

Mutation - This power is completely unnecessary if you plan to solo all the time. If you like to fight white conning enemies and don’t even want to know what vicious difficulty is like you most likely won’t need this power. If you love a challenge and a good team you’ll want this power. Whoever you use it on will have full health and endurance, and a few really strong buffs so they’ll be able to get back into the fight quickly. It’s also nice not to have to clutter your inspiration slots with awakens.

Fallout - Most people avoid this power. I took it because I want to PVP with this alt, and in a decent PVP fight there will be dead teammates around and angry heroes looking to punch you in the face. Using this will not only take a good chunk of health off an enemy, but it will also debuff them considerably, adding to the debuffs that RI and EF are already doing. It’s also helpful, because in PVE when someone dies most likely they fell near enemies after doing damage to them, so this power will often finish them off or bring them close to death, not to mention the added debuffs making them much easier to kill.

EM pulse - I didn't want this power at first, but then I realized I’m stupid after I had it for 10 minutes. It’s a great power that I don't use often enough. It’s especially nice when your team is getting trashed, because it holds ltnts and often bosses too. The hold lasts a while also, so you have time to get your debuffs back up and get a few attacks off if you use it just after a stun wears off. The aoe size is also tremendous, probably bigger than inferno (I haven’t tested size really). Often I stun the current group with it and realize that the next group is stunned too, who hadn’t even aggro’d to me yet.

Choking Cloud – This power is very hit or miss. You can’t slot it to be more accurate, but RI helps with that. It has a huge recharge time, so when it gets knocked off it will take a while to come back. It generally can permanently hold half of a group of minions, but isn’t very effective against ltnts and rarely affects bosses. It dramatically decreases the number of attacks you take if you stay in melee range, but melee attacks are much stronger and depending on the mob often can mez you. This power is also a very large endurance drain. I suggest trying it out for a couple hours before you use a free respec, because people either love it or hate it. I love it on my Ill/Rad controller but it’s far too taxing on my endurance for my Fire/Rad corr.


Concealment – This set is nice if you want to avoid fighting the majority of mobs. You can just stealth to the main objective of the mission and accomplish the goals with minimal efforts. However, with just about any travel power you can run past enemies in the majority of missions without aggroing them long enough to get considerably hurt. This set is useful if you want to stealth but are too afraid to risk just running past everything and taking a few attacks along the way.

Fighting – This is a nice set to keep yourself a little more alive over the course of the game. Since you take a lot of aggro it could help keep you alive, but the buffs from the powers are very minimal, and extra toggles to run on an already high endurance set is difficult to afford.

Fitness – This set is wonderful. Seriously, take it. Get hurdle, health and stamina. Put 3 endurance modifications in stamina as soon as possible. It’ll greatly increase your endurance recovery, coupled with AM, and you won’t have to deal with toggles dropping from lack of endurance.

Flight – This is a very slow travel power. However, you get a pretty view and minimal difficulty from aggroing mobs going to missions in dangerous parts of town. But due to the lack of speed you’ll likely get there long after your teammates (the zones are huge). That and it costs quite a good bit of endurance. Without stamina you’ll need at least two end reducs in it to keep from flat lining your power, and you’ll want three flight speeds to help you get around faster.

Leadership – The buffs from leadership are pretty dismal. The only ones I really consider getting are Tactics and Vengeance. Vengeance requires someone to die, and Tactics requires a large bit of endurance. That and the buffs pale in comparison to the radiation buffs you’ve already got. So unless you regularly team with a /kin or /rad corr you’ll likely want to avoid this pool.

Leaping – This pool has a defensive shield, which can be nice when slotted with end reducs. The travel is really helpful in CoV, which has difficult to navigate terrain. Acrobatics is a big help in keeping you from getting held, but lacks any other mez protection. Avoid Jump Kick, you have plenty of damage output with your fire attacks as it is.

Medicine – You already are forced to have a heal that will work on both you and your teammates. You can easily get a revive that is stronger and gives better buffs than this sets revive. I suggest avoiding it.

Presence – You’re a corruptor. You’re squishy. Do you really want more aggro? Not to mention the other non taunt powers will cause enemies to run away. We love making our enemies spread out, right? Especially with aoe debuffs! Hooray for an easy pool to decide to skip!

Speed – Hasten is wonderful. Hasten is your best friend. Your fire powers don’t recharge very fast without it. This will keep you attacking at a much faster pace and brings AM back up faster which will help your end recovery. I would avoid the other powers in this set though (based on opinion). I had superspeed up until level 38. It’s a pain to get around the zones in CoV with it, because a lot have large walls or pits that really slow you down. SS is a nice power if you want to skip to the end of missions, but I find it just as easy to turn on superjump and acrobatics and jump down the hallways.

Teleportation – A great power to use if you team a lot. You get to missions faster and can help your “geographically challenged” teammates get places. Large endurance use though.

Patron sets – I would advice you to make up your own mind on this. I chose Leviathan (Mako) because it fit my character concept. Each set has a shield, a hold, and a pet. The first power in each set is what sets them apart. Ghost Widow has a power that makes you hit harder and more accurately. Mako and Black Scorpion give you an aoe immob. Scirocco gives you and aoe endurance drain/recovery.


I9 Slotting

The following numbers are based on the assumption that they are slotted as lvl 50s or the highest available IO level for the set. I’m not going to go into why I chose each particular set of enhancements in detal, because it took me about 5 hours to pick them all out and it’d take me another 10 to write it all. However, I do say why I chose IOs over SHOs or vice versa and a general description of the reason behind the slotting. I made a large excel spreadsheet with all the different slotting possibilities for each power and chose based on which ones appealed to me more. Each of the numbers takes ED into account. The number before the power represents at what level I take it.

1 - Fire blast – Thunderstrike (acc/dam/end), Thunderstrike (dam/end/recharge), Devastation (acc/dam), Devastation (acc/dam/end/rech), Devastation (acc/dam/recharge), Decimation (10% chance for 10 second build up)

Acc: 85.7
Dam: 96.3
End: 61.0
Recharge: 61.0

Set Bonuses: 2% recovery, 12% regen, 2.25% health

I wanted to put the build up chance proc into Fire Blast because I figured it was the power I would use the most often of my attacks. With that in mind, I slotted so that it would have a good accuracy, because it needs to hit to proc (I think) and a fair amount of recharge so that it can come back often. This proc will be very important to my play, because this build lacks any form of build up and this can overcome that.

1 - Radiant Aura – Doctored Wounds (heal/end), Doctored Wounds (recharge/end), Doctored Wounds (heal/recharge), Doctored Wounds (heal/recharge/end), Doctored Wounds (heal)

Heal: 97.5
Recharge: 73.8
End: 73.8

Set Bonuses: 2.2% fear reduction (on self), 1.26% fire/cold resist, 4% heal increase, 5% recharge reduction

Between this setup and the SHO setup, I gain a few points on the heal but lose some end and recharge. The recharge isn’t very important cause it doesn’t take long to come back anyways and the end isn’t too bad on this power. Plus I get the nice recharge set bonus from this, which makes me happy.

2 - Radiation Infection – Synthetic Enzyme (end/tohit/defense debuffs), Synthetic Enzyme, Synthetic Enzyme

Tohit Debuff: 60
Defense Debuff: 94.9
End reduce: 94.9

Set Bonuses: none

No sets allowed in this power and enzymes are perfect in it. I can see no better way to slot it.

4 - Fire ball – Positrons Blast (acc/dam), Positrons Blast (dam/end), Positrons Blast (dam/recharge), Positrons Blast (dam/acc/end), Positrons Blast (20% chance for energy damage), Synthetic Nucleolus (dam/acc)

Acc: 79.7
Dam: 100.1
End: 47.7
Recharge: 26.5

Set Bonuses: 2.5% recovery, 1.58% fire/cold resist, 3.13% tohit buff, 6.25% recharge reduction

I threw in most of positrons blast set because it yields nicer bonuses than the others. It also has a 20% chance for extra damage, so if you hit 5 guys, one of them gets hit harder. I took out the dam/range from posi’s set and replaced it with a dam/acc SHO in order to keep accuracy high. It’s only at 47.7% without. The range is already very good on this power and the set bonus was just a 3.13% toxic dam resist. I feel the extra accuracy will be more useful than that.

6 - Accelerate Metabolism – Recharge IO, Recharge IO, Recharge IO, End mod IO, End mod IO, End mod IO

Recharge: 99.1
End: 99.1

Set Bonuses: none

Run sets don’t help this power much, so I went with regular IO slotting.

8 - Combat Jumping – Luck Gambler (end/defense), Luck Gambler (end), Luck Gambler (end/defense/recharge), Luck Gambler (5% or 7.5% (not sure) recharge speed)

End: 73.8
Defense: 28.7

Set Bonuses: 10% regen, 1.13% health, 3.13% tohit buff

This is the only power in the build with a defense set allowance, which lets us slot that sweet recharge from luck, so it went right in. Along with that luck has a few nice set bonuses and focuses on end and defense, so I figured I’d slot it up mostly for the bonuses, since the percents don’t really do you much good for the power itself.

10 - Enervating Field – End IO, End IO, End IO

End: 99.1

Set Bonuses: none

No sets allowed, only end reduce allowed and it’s a big end hog so I 3’d it.

12 – Hurdle – Unbounded Leap (stealth)

Jump: 0

Set Bonuses: none

Free perma stealth! Woo!

14 - Super Jump – Synthetic Microfilament (travel/end)

Jump: 33.3
End: 33.3

Set Bonuses: none

This lets you slot both aspects of this power without wasting a slot. The bonuses from the leaping sets weren’t good enough to waste slots in it.

16 – Health – Numinas Convalescence (heal), Numinas Convalescence (20% regen, 10% recov)

Heal: 42.4

Set Bonuses: 12% regen

I don’t think any build should be without the num (20/10) slotted in health. Perma super buffs! The extra heal gives us more heal from the power itself plus the extra regen from the set bonus, so it’s doubly good.

18 – Blaze – Devastation (acc/dam), Devastation (dam/end), Devastation (acc/dam/recharge), Devastation (acc/dam/end/recharge), Synthetic Centriole (dam/range), Synthetic Centriole (dam/range)

Acc: 66.3
Dam: 103.8
End: 45.1
Range: 40.0
Recharge: 39.8

Set Bonuses: 12% regen, 2.25% health, 3% damage

This power is a lot nicer when its range is slotted, so I put two dam/ranges in it to account for that. The rest I put in whichever IOs from a set would give me the better set bonuses and slot the power so that it is well rounded. If my build turns out to not have enough end reductions in it I will likely swap two for a thunderstrike +recovery bonus.

20 – Stamina – End Mod IO, End Mod IO, End Mod IO

End Mod: 99.1

Set Bonuses: none

No sets allowed, heavy end powersets, nuff said.

22 - Fire Breath – Synthetic Nucleolus (dam/acc), Positrons Blast (dam/end), Positrons Blast (dam/recharge), Positrons Blast (dam/range), Positrons Blast (acc/dam/end), Positrons Blast (20% chance for energy damage)

Acc: 54.2
Dam: 100.1
End: 47.7
Range: 16.0
Recharge: 26.5

Set Bonuses: 2.5% recovery, 1.58% fire/cold resist, 3.13% tohit buff, 6.25% recharge reduction

Unlike Fire Ball, I feel that fire breath can use some range, so I kept the dam/range in it from that set. I chose to replace the acc/dam IO with an acc/dam SHO to increase my accuracy 6.5% and my dam 1%. I lose the 3.13% toxic resist, but that’s not as useful as the extra acc on an aoe, imo.

24 - Lingering Radiation – Tempered Readiness (acc/slow), Tempered Readiness (slow/end/recharge), Pacing Turtle (acc/slow), Pacing Turtle (end/acc), Pacing Turtle (slow/end/recharge)

Slow: 91.8
End: 68.9
Recharge: 42.4
Acc: 78.6

Set Bonuses: 1.5% recovery, 2.75% sleep reduction (on self), 2.5% slow powers

I chose to mix two sets on this one, because the upper set bonuses didn’t appeal to me. I wanted to focus on acc because this power hitting is rather important when it matters and the ones that slot more properties give you more overall percentage, so I put those in.

26 – Hasten – Recharge IO, Recharge IO, Recharge IO

Recharge: 99.1

Set Bonuses: none

No sets allowed, this is a good power, want it up a lot!

28 – Acrobatics - End IO, End IO, End IO

End: 99.1

Set Bonuses: none

I hear this uses very little end, so I might be taking these slots out and putting them elsewhere.

30 – Mutation – Numinas Convalescence (end/recharge)

End: 26.5
Recharge: 26.5

Set Bonuses: none

This one might change because I’m not sure if it really accepts sets or not. If not I would just put one end reduce IO in it.

32 – Inferno – Devestation (acc/dam), Devestation (dam/recharge), Devestation (acc/dam/recharge), Devestation (acc/dam/end/recharge)

Acc: 66.3
Dam: 89.9
End: 18.6
Recharge: 66.3

Set Bonuses: 12% regen, 2.25% health, 3% damage

Between 3 acc/dam SHOs with a recharge IO and this set, I lose some accuracy and slight damage, but this power is already strong enough to do more than enough damage and has a base 40% tohit I think, so those aren’t too worrisome. The recharge is also better than the alternate and I get the nice set bonuses. If I’m lacking in overall end reduction I might trade out two of these for two of the thunderstrike set to gain more recovery in place of the dam and health bonuses.

35 – Fallout – Synthetic Lysosome (tohit/defense debuff/acc), Synthetic Lysosome, Synthetic Lysosome, Damage IO

Tohit Debuff: 60
Defense Debuff: 94.9
Dam: 42.4
Acc: 94.9

Set Bonuses: none

The sets it allows don’t let you slot what it’s best for, which is debuffing the enemies so that they don’t finish you off while your pal is faceplanted. That’s how I see this power anyways. But the lysos are perfect at that, so slot em away!

38 - EM Pulse – Synthetic Endoplasm (acc/mez), Hold IO

Hold: 75.1
Acc: 33.3

Set Bonuses: none

A lot of people like to slot this power a lot more than I do. However, I always use aim before this power so it doesn’t miss in most all cases. And the hold lasts long enough for us to finish everyone off. I suppose if you wanted to take slots out elsewhere you could put a recharge in it, but I don’t use it unless the mob looks particularly deadly so it’s up when I need it as is.

41 - Shark Skin – Synthetic Ribosome (res/end), Synthetic Ribosome, Synthetic Ribosome, Aegis (2.3% psi res/20% mez duration decrease (on self))

Resist: 60
End: 94.9

Set Bonuses: none

The only resist set allowed in the build. The 20% mez reduction durationg lasts for 120 seconds after the toggle is dropped, so even though you still get mezzed it’ll be less long. The ribo’s just maximize the other abilities of the power.

44 - Spirit Shark Jaws – Devastation (acc/dam), Devastation (dam/end), Devastation (acc/dam/recharge), Devastation (acc/dam/end/recharge), Hold IO

Hold: 42.4
End: 45.1
Recharge: 39.8
Dam: 89.9
Acc: 66.3

Set Bonuses: 12% regen, 2.25% health, 3% damage

Accurate, fast recharging, well slotted hold plus good bonuses. Slotting with SHOs gave a longer lasting hold, but I feel the set bonuses were worth the one second or so it would lose.

47 - Summon Coralax – Recharge IO, Recharge IO, Synthetic Nucleolus (acc/dam), Synthetic Nucleolus (acc/dam), Synthetic Endoplasm (acc/mez), Synthetic Peroxisome (dam/mez)

Disorient: 66.6
Recharge: 83.3
Immob: 66.6
Dam: 94.9
Acc: 94.9

Set Bonuses: none

I can’t think of any power better to put acc/mez or dam/mez SHOs into other than pets that do multiple mez types, because it slots for all of the mez types in one. The pet sets didn’t have good enough set bonuses to outweight this slotting.

49 – Aim – Recharge IO, Recharge IO

Recharge: 83.3

Set Bonuses: none

This power takes no sets and needs nothing more than a slight recharge. This power is almost not needed and I only really use it before using ling rad or other important powers on special enemies with a ton of defense.

Overall Set Bonuses (not counting the specific IOs within sets)

Recovery: 8.5%
Regen: 70%
Health: 10.13%
Fire/cold resist: 4.42%
Accuracy: 9.39%
Recharge: 17.5%
Damage: 9%
Fear duration reduction: 2.2%
Heal increase: 4%
Sleep duration reduction: 2.75%
Slow powers: 2.5%
Stealth: perma


And there you have it. That’s my build plan. I haven’t yet achieved it so I don’t know quite how amazing it will be, but it’s the goal I’ve set for myself after looking at all the options and deciding what looks shiniest. Hopefully I’ll eventually get it all slotted. Oh and by the way, don’t follow my build advice cause then I’ll have all you guys looking for the same things I am which means more competition, so slot everything that I didn’t! thanks for reading and taking my advice seriously, and hope I helped ya to understand your powers better.

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Liberty
My 50s:
Hero: Armor Assassin (scrapper), Cross Dresser (scrapper), Surly Seaman (blaster), Defensive End (Tank), Rad Rhino (Cont)
Villain: Beast Infection (Corr), Sweet Zombie Jesus (MM), Milk Weasel (Stalker), Orgullo (MM), Agent Eris (Crab)

updated to discuss reason for set choices

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Liberty
My 50s:
Hero: Armor Assassin (scrapper), Cross Dresser (scrapper), Surly Seaman (blaster), Defensive End (Tank), Rad Rhino (Cont)
Villain: Beast Infection (Corr), Sweet Zombie Jesus (MM), Milk Weasel (Stalker), Orgullo (MM), Agent Eris (Crab)

Just curious but was there anything you were aiming for with your set bonuses? It looks like you spread out a bit to try to get a bit of everything.

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I didn't really specifically try to get anything in particular. For each power I chose which set bonuses would help me better than other set bonuses. The slotting is meant to just show how I chose mine, rather than how everyone should choose, because depending on what you want you could throw a diff set in it.

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Liberty
My 50s:
Hero: Armor Assassin (scrapper), Cross Dresser (scrapper), Surly Seaman (blaster), Defensive End (Tank), Rad Rhino (Cont)
Villain: Beast Infection (Corr), Sweet Zombie Jesus (MM), Milk Weasel (Stalker), Orgullo (MM), Agent Eris (Crab)

I was a little short sighted about the special single use proc enhancements and forgot to look into the less than lvl 50 sets for alot of stuff, so a few changes will be made to my slotting.

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Liberty
My 50s:
Hero: Armor Assassin (scrapper), Cross Dresser (scrapper), Surly Seaman (blaster), Defensive End (Tank), Rad Rhino (Cont)
Villain: Beast Infection (Corr), Sweet Zombie Jesus (MM), Milk Weasel (Stalker), Orgullo (MM), Agent Eris (Crab)

I love the Fire/Rad combination. It was my first villain, I got it up to 50 very fast, and it's fun to play. I'll likely be looking VERY closely at all this myself, as I'm a hard-core number cruncher. But here's a few things I noticed that I would do differently. Note that my Invention info is from ParagonWiki, so it's only as accurate as that source.

Your Fire Blast power set descriptions are pretty much dead on. Avoid Flares, it's just bad. Blazing Bolt isn't really needed. I skipped Aim as I don't PvP. But I did take Rain of Fire at higher levels, as both Lingering Radiation and a patron AoE Immob make this a deadly power.

Radiation Emission was also dead on. I like Radiant Aura as it's a guaranteed heal. Radiation Infection gets 3 ToHit debuffs no questions asked. I like to cap the Slow effect from Lingering Radiation. It keeps mobs together for debuffs and such, but it lets them waste their time trying to run away. Mutation works well in really tough fights (RSF), and meshes well with Recall Friend and Vengeance. EM Pulse is the best hold in the game. Long duration, 60 foot radius, and a 50% chance to hold bosses. Almost an "I win" button.

Fly no longer costs a huge amount of END. It's more in line with Super Speed and Super Jump these days.

Leadership is nice if you're playing in big teams, almost no matter what. Maneuvers combined with Radiation Infection means you will be hit rarely. Tactics gives you Perception, mandatory in PvP these days, and required for anyone facing Night Widows.

In Leaping, Combat Jumping provides a very small Defense bonus, and is mainly good for Immob protection. Acrobatics provides Hold AND Knockback protection.

Speed is worth it for Hasten alone. Super Speed with a Stealth IO will give you complete Invisibility. And well slotted Hurdle will let you jump over almost anything, as Hurdle is a surprisingly large Jump buff.

Personally I went with Super Speed and Teleport for travel, Fitness for Stamina, and Leadership because I usually play on BIG teams. I'm wondering how IOs will change that though.

Patron Set: I took Mace Mastery (Black Scorpion). The first 2 powers are awesome on a Fire/Rad. Web Envelope is an AoE Immob, just the thing to keep debuffed mobs together for your AoEs, including Rain of Fire. Scorpion Shield is a Defense based armor that when slotted and stacked with Radiation Infection gives you effectively capped Defense to Smashing, Lethal, and Energy attacks. This is the biggest reason. All of the other Patron Sets give you a Resistance based armor, which just doesn't compare to capped Defense.

As an added bonus, Scorpion Shield should accept Defense Sets, which means another Luck of the Gambler 7.5% Recharge Reduction IO.

As to slotting...

Fire Blast: I'm going 5 slots worth of Decimation on this. So what if the individual bonuses (capped at level 40) are slightly smaller than those of Devastation and Thunderstrike, the Recharge and Endurance set bonuses are too good to pass up. Definitely going with Build Up as well in here, as it'll proc VERY frequently.

Accelerate Metabolism: If you're looking for extra slots, that last END Mod really doesn't add a whole lot.

Combat Jumping: I see some wasted slots there. It costs almost nothing to run, and it provides almost no Defense, so it's hardly worth slotting for either of those bonuses. Yes you definitely want the Luck of the Gambler 7.5% Recharge reduction IO. You may want another for the +10% Regeneration set bonus, and I'd pick the Luck of the Gambler Def on general principle. The other slots only give you unimpressive set bonuses.

Super Jump: I'd give this 3 Micros if I had it. It costs a moderate amount of END, and it takes 3 SOs to cap the movement, so it really does benefit from all 3.

Health: I usually recommend taking Swift and Hurdle on builds that have a quick and easy self heal (like Radiant Aura), but IOs definitely change that. All my Rads are going to have Health now. But I'll likely go 4 slots, to include 2 Miracles (Heal and +Recovery), with the Set bonus +Recovery on top.

Blaze: The range on this power was somewhat recently increased. I've got a Dam/Range SHO in it, and it goes plenty far these days. I'll probably even be comfortable without that extra range, so I'll be going with the 2 Thunderstrikes.

Lingering Radiation: I'll probably go with 5 Tempered Readiness on this. All of the Slow Enhancements will let you cap the Slow debuff even against higher con mobs. All of the set bonuses are a bit small, but they're all nice.

Acrobatics: Costs 0.26 END/second, so it's definitely worth it to use the starting slot for END Reduction, and at most one more slot for the same.

Mutation: It heals someone to 100% HP and doesn't accept Heal Enhancements, so it probably doesn't accept Heal Sets. I'd probably go with an END SO, or IO if you have the Infamy to waste.

Inferno: I'm not sure what sets it should take, so I'm not sure how to handle this yet.

EM Pulse: I'd add Recharge Reduction, as this power is too nice to ignore.

Shark Skin: Definitely try to get a Steadfast Protection Res/+3% Def(all), as it stacks nicely with Radiation Infection.

I was originally rather unimpressed with Inventions as the bonuses all looked to be so small. But then I decided to take a holistic approach. Slot with certain sets and your individual powers cost a little less END. Slot with certain sets to get Endurance or Recovery set bonuses. Slot unique IOs in auto powers for more Recovery bonuses. Put all those together and the END situation is looking pretty nice. Same thing applies to Recharge Reduction, slot the right sets and powers and suddenly everything is recharging faster, including Hasten and AM. Put a Chance to Build Up proc in a fast cycling power and it's going to activate often. When you have enough END to cast fast recharging damage boosted AoEs often, you're going to roll over mobs.

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Goodbye and thanks for all the fish.
I've moved on to Diablo 3, TopDoc-1304