I -know- I'm no blaster, but...Why am I so weak?
Cause God hates you, that's why. 
Well, there's a couple of things to consider here.
<ul type="square">[*]You're not a Scrapper. Nor are you a Blaster. Defender damage is just going to be lower, that's part of the balance tradeoff Defenders have for their incredibly powerful buffs & debuffs.
[*]So what's the point of the secondary powers? Well, several things. First off, just because it does less damage doesn't mean that damage is insignificant. You can still do decent damage that is helpful in a team setting and of course vital when solo. You won't be one-shotting things, but you can still handily complete missions yourself if you need to.
The secondary powers also offer a secondary effect. In the cast of Radiation Blast, that secondary effect is -Defense. In other words, making enemies easier to hit. Irradiate and Neutron Bomb both have very large values for this secondary effect and between them you can drastically reduce the defense of an entire spawn, making them easy prey for you and your team. If you've taken Choking Cloud from your primary, drastically dropping the defense of the spawn also makes them easy marks for it since reducing their defense is in effect making Choking Cloud (and all your other powers, and all your teammates' powers) more accurate.
The third reason secondaries are important for Defenders is control/mitigation. All of the secondaries offer at least one power to help you control the battlefield. For Radiation Blast, that's Cosmic Burst, and it's excellent. It's a good single-target attack that also stuns the foe. Probably one of the best powers in the powerset if not the best. [/list]
You really shouldn't be feeling useless at 32 on a Rad/Rad. Are you using Single Origin enhancements? You might consider posting your build, perhaps we can give you some pointers that will help you enjoy your character more. If you don't already have it, you can use Mids Hero Designer.
Iscariot's Guide to the Tri-Form Warshade, version 2.1
I'm sorry that math > your paranoid delusions, but them's the breaks -- Nethergoat
P.E.R.C. Rep for Liberty server
Despite what some might tell you, that weak, crippled feeling never really goes away. Unless you are Sonic, then it never really appears. Rest assured that the def debuffs you are handing out in your rad blasts are equally worthless past level 22 or so, when everyone and their dog is pegged at 95% chance to hit anyway.
The only advice I can give you, as a 50 ff/rad, is to learn to enjoy the graphics and sound effects of your powers, and turn off the display of damage numbers. Rad has a cool snipe sound! Neutron Bomb looks like a mushroom cloud! Neutrino Bolt looks like you are flinging a booger at the enemy (and does the same damage)!
I wound up rolling a sonic blast defender. To quote a scrapper forum poster, things die twice. Nothing like stacking res debuffs to dodge that low damage cap/weak base damage combo that defenders get.
edit: To moderate my cynicism
At 32, a well-slotted anything/anything should be not too bad to solo with, and a decent contributor (relatively speaking) to team damage. The thing about defenders is that your damage contribution comes from making the rest of the team do decent damage, not necessarily from your own blasts. When you solo, you are relying on your own efforts to arrest villains, and this is where you tend to notice that, well, bosses and LTs seem to have a certain persistence in the face of your green death. As Justaris noted, Cosmic Burst is amazing and needs to be in every build. It's your big hitter and a major defense as the target staggers around like a drunk in the alley.
Ah gotcha, I like the defender role, I just remember playing like a "blaster with a heal button" many many issues ago and was sort of alarmed at the shift.
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Cause God hates you, that's why.
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Cause Devs hate you, that's why.
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I dont know why, but I've found that Rad Blast can feel very ineffectual despite doing the same kind of damage values as other Defender sets.
Its got a 1.5 sec, 4 sec and 10 sec single target blast instead of a 4 sec, 8 sec and 10 sec like Energy Blast, so its going to take more attacks on average to down a target.
Energy Blast also feels powerful because you're physically hurling your enemies around the room as you use it.
I agree that the -Def secondary is pretty worthless later on, except for the IOs it allows you to use.
All attacks can hold the Achilles' Heel -Res proc, so that will up your damage a bit. Its no Sonic Blast, but it helps.
You also can slot the Lady Grey and Shield Breaker damage procs into your attacks. Neutrino Bolt particularly loves these, since its such low base damage and hits so often. Each damage proc is statistically equivalent to 2 damage SOs here.
This also adds a bit of Negative energy damage for those energy resistant, negative weak enemies like Rikti.
For Neutrino Bolt I'd recommend:
- Lady Grey Damage proc
- Achilles Heel -Res proc
- Shield Breaker Lethal proc
- 2 Acc/Dam from any set
- one Damage IO
Now THAT's a laser pointer of doom!!
Finally, use Sands of Mu temporary power if you have the 12 month vet badge. All that -Def in your attacks allows it to hit reliably, and it does awesome damage for a Defender. Negative damage too. So come to think of it, that -Def is pretty cool actually.
You'll never be a Blaster (with this character) but you can get a bit closer.
Per Red Tomax:
Shockwave, at level 50 with 95% damage boost, does 128 points of damage on a Scrapper.
Proton Volley, at level 50 with 95% damage boost, does 195 points on a Defender. Without taking Aim or resistance reduction into account.
Were you perhaps thinking of some other Claws attack?
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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Per Red Tomax:
Shockwave, at level 50 with 95% damage boost, does 128 points of damage on a Scrapper.
Proton Volley, at level 50 with 95% damage boost, does 195 points on a Defender. Without taking Aim or resistance reduction into account.
Were you perhaps thinking of some other Claws attack?
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No, they were thinking of Shockwave. Reading the OP many times, it's entirely psychological.
Could also be set choice. Rad is hmmm so-so on single target damage, but the way I play it is to constantly throw AoE after AoE after AoE. A long range AoE to soften things up with a nasty -defense debuff (check out the duration!), a wickedly fast animating PBAoE, and a basic hard-hitting cone. Throw in Achilles' Heels and all those AoEs start to feed into themselves nicely.
Really? Well, how are you slotted? What powers did you take and skip?
I'm 34 with my Rad/Rad Defender and am basically satisfied with my damage. And I still have a lot more damage to pick up when I fit in that sixth slot in Irradiate and Electron Haze for the Lady Grey proc. I'm fairly IO'd - though with nothing particularly bank-breaking other than a Numina unique I scored on a lucky merit roll. Probably spent, oh... 20 mil on the build so far, and have most of my stuff now. I rely more on AoE damage than ST, which really gets halfway decent when I've got all my debuffs going.
Granted, it's not amazing. I wasn't expecting it to be. But it's good enough that I feel like my damage actually does something and that my secondary powers are worth investing in.
I agree with the others who've said that -Defense is a fairly useless secondary effect after 22, except that -def as a secondary effect allows you to slot some cheap procs for extra damage, which is amplified by the resistance debuff in Radiation Emission. I often feel like my damage makes a big impact once the debuffs are out.
::shrug:: Your mileage may vary, I guess.
The Ballad of Iron Percy
because fenders dont have /fire yet....
Active 50's
Darklocked (dm/sd Brute)
Wardman (Fire/sd Scrapper)
Congealer (ice/cold Corruptor)
Peroxisome (mind/psi Dominator)
Evil Thing (Fire/Kin Corruptor)
Proud Member of Repeat-Offenders
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but I feel fundamentally useless besides that. Like even activating my secondaries is a end waste.
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This is the key that shows that it's all in the OP's head. I do X damage and X damage is less than Y damage, thus I feel useless.
That's like equating 100 to 0 because 150 is more.
Defender damage is sub par overall. Once it is accepted you get used to it.
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Defender damage is sub par overall. Once it is accepted you get used to it.
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Yep. Despite apologia, the fact remains that defenders hit like girls with muscular dystrophy. I know it's for balance. It's just one of those things that makes you sigh when you are reminded of it. Defenders are still an amazing AT, but just like scrappers aren't known for their debuffs, defenders aren't known for their damage dealing.
-Your- defender isnt known for its damage.
Try not to speak for mine.
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I know it's for balance.
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The only balance concern I can think of is a metagame one. If 10% more of the CoH playerbase were enticed into playing defenders, the game would get way too easy for everyone.
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-Your- defender isnt known for its damage.
Try not to speak for mine.
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Well, I don't know your defender for its damage 
I'm glad your defender is satisfying your damage-dealing needs! What's your spec of choice?
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The only balance concern I can think of is a metagame one. If 10% more of the CoH playerbase were enticed into playing defenders, the game would get way too easy for everyone.
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Heh, good call! On the flip side, if defenders did 10% more damage, blasters might start gathering dust 
Honestly, some specs are great at handing out damage, relatively speaking. Having played literally hundreds (300+) levels of defenders of all flavours, I am interested in hearing about others' perceptions of damaging sets and combinations. My next plaything is gonna be a kin/sonic; I've shied away from /sonic since it was introduced due to the horrible animations of the blasts. However, recent playing about has made me a believer.
Having seen Tornelco's defender solo AVs and Giant Monsters, I think I'd be happy with that damage on my dominators.
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Having played literally hundreds (300+) levels of defenders of all flavours, I am interested in hearing about others' perceptions of damaging sets and combinations.
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I must admit, most of my Defenders don't do damage in an amount that would make me want to brag. They get the job done, but it's nothing special, really. More often I'm impressed by the difficult situations they can solo, or the profound impact they can have on a team. They do okay damage, but many Scrappers and Blasters will put them to shame.
Not so for my Kin/Ice. Obviously, Kin is the damage king for Defenders without outside buffs. Considering most people have roughly 100% damage buff from enhancements, each percent of damage resistance debuff is roughly equal to 2% of damage buff. Fulcrum Shift means you're nearly always running at your damage cap, so that's 300% damage buff, which roughly equals 150% of damage resistance debuff. I don't think any other Defender primary can exceed or even match that amount of damage boost.
Add that to the fact that Ice Blast for Defenders uses Blaster-scale damage for Ice Storm and Blizzard, and Kin means lots of +recharge, which means lots of Ice Storms and Blizzards, and the damage potential of a Kin/Ice without outside buffs becomes extremely significant. My Kin/Ice doesn't just do good damage for a Defender, he straight-up does good damage.
Of course, your Fire or AR Blasters and your Spine or Fire Scrappers are still going to kill things faster than my Kin/Ice, particularly when they're getting my damage buffs, too. It's just that many times I have found myself on teams heavy with Defenders, Controllers, and Tankers, and in those instances, I might as well be a Blaster for all the damage I do. Things die fast when I'm around, and a lot of times it's my damage that is killing them.
You said your next project is a Kin/Sonic. I expect the damage you will be able to put out will be dramatic, and you might not feel so weak on that toon. Sonic bugs me due to its lack of personal AoE potential. I went Kin/Ice, and I loved every minute of it.
I could see the argument being made that Kin/anything does good damage. Defenders at their damage cap really do a large amount of damage. Things die fast.
Bye, everybody!
*Champion*
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Considering most people have roughly 100% damage buff from enhancements, each percent of damage resistance debuff is roughly equal to 2% of damage buff. Fulcrum Shift means you're nearly always running at your damage cap, so that's 300% damage buff, which roughly equals 150% of damage resistance debuff. I don't think any other Defender primary can exceed or even match that amount of damage boost.
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Minor note, but the defender dmg cap is 400% of base damage, or a maximum of 300% damage buff, including enhancements. Per your analogy, assuming ~95% damage enhancement in all attacks, going from 'normal' damage on your defender to fulcrum shifted, capped damage would be going from ~195% damage to 400% damage. This would be roughly the same effect as applying a 100% resistance debuff to the targets and no damage buffs, not 150% debuff. Kin is still really beefy, but not THAT much beefier than the resistance debuffers.
Although it's a fringe case, a Rad/* can provide as much or more effective damage enhancement for a battle as a kin/* if you allow for Fallout; Fallout + Enervating Field packs an 80% -res debuff, along with Accelerate Metabolism's 25% dmg buff (and/or Mutation's 50% dmg buff for the Fallout bait), which ties with straight 400% dmg. Cold defs can come very close at very high recharge; Sleet can be doublestacked, and the -res applies from both since they are treated as coming from separate sources (the two different pseudopets). Put an Achilles' Heel proc in it and throw Heat Loss on top and you're looking at a LOT of -res, along with the damage from the sleet itself and any dmg procs it may have. Trick Arrow can come close with stacked Disruption Arrows and proc'd Acid Arrow.
Needless to say, Kins have always been and will always be the go-to set for MOAR DAMAGE NAO, but they're not the only option.
Rule number six of an empathy defender is NEVER underestimate a blaster's ability to die. I don't care if he has CM, Fort, both RAs, bubbles (both FF and Sonic), and is fighting next to a Storm defender with hurricane on. If there is a way to die in that situation, the blaster will find it.
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Defender damage is sub par overall. Once it is accepted you get used to it.
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Yep. Despite apologia, the fact remains that defenders hit like girls with muscular dystrophy. I know it's for balance. It's just one of those things that makes you sigh when you are reminded of it. Defenders are still an amazing AT, but just like scrappers aren't known for their debuffs, defenders aren't known for their damage dealing.
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I agree Defendes really do bring alot to the table. There is no shame in doing less damage then others.
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-Your- defender isnt known for its damage.
Try not to speak for mine.
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Your defender isn't known for your damage.
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Having seen Tornelco's defender solo AVs and Giant Monsters, I think I'd be happy with that damage on my dominators.
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Negating regen versus doing more damage than the regen of AVs is two seperate things. The speed at which one goes down is another.
32 Rad/Rad defender here, and even with accelerated metabolism and a res debuffed foe, even my aimed snipe does less damage than my claw scrapper's unbuffed shockwave.
I mean I still do helpful team functions, but I feel fundamentally useless besides that. Like even activating my secondaries is a end waste.