What will be needed for PvP? :
Rad infection: accuracy debuff is insane, nothing can hit you unless they have aim+build up
Lingering Rad: best slow in the game, really screws up their attack chain.
Enervating field: makes taking down your target much easier
Also for PvP consider tactics, +perception means that if your opponent use invisi to try and drop toggles, you'll still be able to target them and rad debuff will stay on them, ie invisi can't drop the toggle debuffs.
A team of rad defenders can pvp. So get your rad SG when you enter the pvpzones.
A Paragon Defender
I may point you in the direction of the famous Cherry Fusion S4 Union, She is a Rad/Rad defender and im sure she will answer any questions you have pm on here her names cherry 
Short answer no with an if long answer yes with a but.
In solo PVP against melee AT's your best option is a triple debuff (RI/EF/LR) centred rad/rad with strong healing (incase of scrapper crits). Stealth isnt as important in this circumstances since they will be running before you have to, attacks also arent to vital since you wont have to work fast and you can conserve some end, personally I can take down certain tanks and most scrappers using only cosmic burst and neutron bolt.
Single Target Against Ranged foes/Controllers, Here your main 2 debuffs are almost useless since most have invis or a status effect to drop your debuff so timing your attacks and choosing when to attack are the secret, Stealth and LR will be your best friend in this case and you will need to be more offence based in your power choices 2 attacks wont cut it.
In teams you tend to work best when you make plans with your team and the enemy dont know your there until its to late, un-ivising and cosmic bursting (slotted to stun) can keep controller/blaster off your back or a defender from healing for a few seconds allowing you to plant EF on a harder target and the rest of your team (told of the plan before hand normally helps) know then to attack and watch the target fall easily. Do not stay in the open to long, a mistake Ive seen some rad users use is to stay in the battle to long using the debuffs making them an easy target for a blaster snipe or controllers ranged hold, stay outside the battle until you see a chance to pounce, you are not an empathy you dont need to be nearby to heal all the time.
The Best kept secrets of Radiation.
1. Accelerate metabolism is arguably the best buff in the game, as well as its known recharge and damage buffs it has a secret most people dont realise it is one of the only self target able buffs that protect against Endurance drain.
2. EMPulse slotted properly can drain between ½ and 1/3rd of someones endurance and if you time it right and drain all their endurance you will drop all toggles and hold them.
3. Using mutation to rez a fallen blaster or scrapper makes them, for a short time, a tool of pure vengeance beware the angry mutant 
Your biggest enemys, illusion controllers.
Your easiest targets, regen scrappers.
Your dullest fight, another rad/rad.
(By easiest/toughest I mean against standardly skilled players/first time pvper's, avoid at all costs such pvp gods as scrapopapaloplypse or whatever they are called and of course the FSA, on union)
Note:
The majority of this guide is based on my observations of rad/rad between issues 2 and 5, with the arrival of issue 6, ED the paranoia bought about by stalkers and the proliferation of +perception based powers and other power changes some of it may be incorrect since I havent played since then.
I wouldn't slot Cosmic burst for dis. dur . It might work if you play in teams only, but how would you kill someone solo if your only source of damage is neutrino bolt and x-ray beams? It's your best and higher damaging attack, and burst dmg is everything in pvp. Neutrino bolt and x-ray beam just don't cut it, your enemy will tp or sj away as soon as he'll be down to 1/2 or 1/3 health.
I strongly disagree with not using RI/EF on ranged people. -acc is useful, -def is useful (base ACC is 50%, unless your enemy has 3 SO or 2 SO + tactics, he won't hit at 95% with RI), -dam and -res are always useful (a defender can't kill fast enough without -res, we're at 66% blaster damage!). If you haven't got the time to RI for some reason, at least slap EF on them ! 1 sec activation, and your attacks are boosted by 22,5% after. And if you're under a status effect... well, use a break free! If you're going to be held the whole fight, you're dead anyway.
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Short answer no with an if long answer yes with a but.
In solo PVP against melee AT's your best option is a triple debuff (RI/EF/LR) centred rad/rad with strong healing (incase of scrapper crits). Stealth isnt as important in this circumstances since they will be running before you have to, attacks also arent to vital since you wont have to work fast and you can conserve some end, personally I can take down certain tanks and most scrappers using only cosmic burst and neutron bolt.
Single Target Against Ranged foes/Controllers, Here your main 2 debuffs are almost useless since most have invis or a status effect to drop your debuff so timing your attacks and choosing when to attack are the secret, Stealth and LR will be your best friend in this case and you will need to be more offence based in your power choices 2 attacks wont cut it.
In teams you tend to work best when you make plans with your team and the enemy dont know your there until its to late, un-ivising and cosmic bursting (slotted to stun) can keep controller/blaster off your back or a defender from healing for a few seconds allowing you to plant EF on a harder target and the rest of your team (told of the plan before hand normally helps) know then to attack and watch the target fall easily. Do not stay in the open to long, a mistake Ive seen some rad users use is to stay in the battle to long using the debuffs making them an easy target for a blaster snipe or controllers ranged hold, stay outside the battle until you see a chance to pounce, you are not an empathy you dont need to be nearby to heal all the time.
The Best kept secrets of Radiation.
1. Accelerate metabolism is arguably the best buff in the game, as well as its known recharge and damage buffs it has a secret most people dont realise it is one of the only self target able buffs that protect against Endurance drain.
2. EMPulse slotted properly can drain between ½ and 1/3rd of someones endurance and if you time it right and drain all their endurance you will drop all toggles and hold them.
3. Using mutation to rez a fallen blaster or scrapper makes them, for a short time, a tool of pure vengeance beware the angry mutant
Your biggest enemys, illusion controllers.
Your easiest targets, regen scrappers.
Your dullest fight, another rad/rad.
(By easiest/toughest I mean against standardly skilled players/first time pvper's, avoid at all costs such pvp gods as scrapopapaloplypse or whatever they are called and of course the FSA, on union)
Note:
The majority of this guide is based on my observations of rad/rad between issues 2 and 5, with the arrival of issue 6, ED the paranoia bought about by stalkers and the proliferation of +perception based powers and other power changes some of it may be incorrect since I havent played since then.
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Being Cherry's friend 'n all I may be biased, however, I would take her advice seriously. I've fought her a number of times in pvp with my tank and I can say with certainty that shes awful to fight against, anything short of running away or using a full tray full of insps is futile. All through S4 we kept on praying we never had to face against a rad defender, Cherry managed to instill fear of rad into us. Fortunately we got soundly beaten in the quarter finals on Defiant and never had to. Also, I watched a number of Cherry's teams matches, and noticed she was effective against most of the enemy she fought be they blaster, scrapper or tank (I noticed she avoided controllers often though )
Anyway, in a sort of roundabout way, the answer to the original posters question would be: yes, they can....in my opinion anyway.
As I said in my post, but it seems it wasnt clear enough, in my experience cosmic burst slotted for dis works best in teams there will be other people there to deal damage and the difference between stunning an empath whoes out of breakfrees for 6 seconds instead of 2 is quite large, solo it should be slotted damage.
And as for using RI/EF on ranged targets I wouldnt say do not use them I would simply say, again in my experiance, ive found i can fight better not using them against good ranged players because they know how to avoid them, by loosing line of sight, or range to drop them or whatever.
Oh and ive never used x-ray beam in pvp, no room for it in my build.
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As I said in my post, but it seems it wasnt clear enough, in my experience cosmic burst slotted for dis works best in teams there will be other people there to deal damage and the difference between stunning an empath whoes out of breakfrees for 6 seconds instead of 2 is quite large, solo it should be slotted damage.
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My bad, I didn't understand.
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And as for using RI/EF on ranged targets I wouldnt say do not use them I would simply say, again in my experiance, ive found i can fight better not using them against good ranged players because they know how to avoid them, by loosing line of sight, or range to drop them or whatever.
Oh and ive never used x-ray beam in pvp, no room for it in my build.
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IMHO, if your target is running as soon as you drop RI and EF on him, you won't kill him by blasting during that time anyway. I don't believe a defender can get any AT from full life to 0 in 4 seconds without -RES, but I might be wrong. If someone wants to avoid the fight... there's not much we can do, no ranged immob/hold, no -fly -jump.
I have to admit I never went in the arena, so all my pvp experiences are post-ED. Defender damage could be enough at that time to drop your target fast with 5 or 6 slots of damage, but now you really need EF to do decent damage.
Afaik LoS doesn't drop RI/EF anymore. I'm not sure when that was rolled back, but I do a lot of chasing in pvp and the only time it drops is from stacked invis or long range.
And just because I like to nitpick : regen scrappers aren't rad/*'s easiest enemy anymore. With properly slotted IH, dull pain and reconstruction, you're looking at 3 click-heal powers. I'd rather fight a invul (low resists to anything but smash/lethal now, and none of our secondaries use this - except bow) or SR. (defense against 2-3 acc SO, tactics, and RI 3-slotted for -def? Hah.)
Personally I found i never had to worry about dropping someone in 0 - 4 seconds, and i couldnt if i tried on my regular cherry build. (only 3 attacks, nb, cb and pv) thou that build has seen me throu gotta be approaching 100 fights or more and I have lost only enough to count on both hands, the majority of those to controllers or ice blappers (you know who you are).
I have to mention thou my fighting came mostly at the time when everyone believed all defenders were healers and coulnt beat a hellion in the arena if said hellion had just done 10 rounds with hami, I like to think I've helped a little to change that view I cant count how many times ive been told after a fight by a surprised scrapper "wow how the hell did i loose im so rolling a rad/rad now"
In team pvp ive lost maybe 20% of the time, but won close to 80%, mostly down to some really really good team mates.
Ive found that a build that can last works best for my play style rather then one that can kill someone in under so many seconds.
I have experimented with heavily attack focused rad builds on test and by record stands at winning in just a little over 20 seconds against a regen and somewhere around 30 for a fire tank such builds are often useless against other ats or in pvp and Ive never changed my build for pvp other that slot useage I havent respected since before the arenas arrived my builds a solo play pve build (with it I have soloed monsters and even av's, well av really it was battle maiden and the fight took 20 minutes),that just happens to work quite well in the arena.
Any ranged attacker thats stupid enough to stick around once they are debuffed deserves to get beaten, the good ones Ive fought know its time to get out of there and drop that debuff somehow.
But again as Ive said this is all in my experience and suited to the way I prefer to play.
Oh and because I like to nitpick to, DA stupidly low energy resistance was also good prey for my rad/rad build.
P.S My build has the psi epic and always has, for the ranged hold and the stupidly over powered and soon to be "fixed" telekinsisisisis (i never know when to stop spelling that)
30-40%ish? energy is still way better than 10-15%.
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Any ranged attacker thats stupid enough to stick around once they are debuffed deserves to get beaten, the good ones Ive fought know its time to get out of there and drop that debuff somehow.
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Once again I don't get it. My whole point with the 4 seconds was it's the time you take to do RI+EF.
If your opponent is running away to drop your debuffs, why can't you :
1) chase him (and shoot him if you have SJ or TP, as you can kite fairly easily with those powers w/o slowing down)
2) run away like him as soon as he comes back, while casting RI+EF again on him
Of course, it's going nowhere. Running away as soon as someone else uses his powers is a bit silly IMHO. If you're dropping my debuffs, um, good? they'll be recharged in a few secs, and as soon as you'll be back I'll recast them on you. There's nothing saying "I have to stand still and let you shoot me while you can run everywhere".
I guess I just don't get something here. Trading shoots with someone better than me at this doesn't seem a smart choice to me, either.
The majority of the foes of faced predict ill chase them and do something about it, slows from ice powers, imobs from spines, countless -fly's.
There are many situations that could come up, some you could chase, some you cant, it all depends on the person your facing and how your built as such ive just presented my version of how I've found it plays best for me.
Keep in mind if he's using a attack he's suppressed for 4 secs. That's 4 secs during which you can shoot him while he has RI+EF applied on him.
FYI, slows haven't any effect on SJ or TP - and both powers are very useful for a rad pvp'er, the first because of acrobatics and cj in the same pool, the second because of tp foe and total unsuppressed movement.
If for some reason you can't chase someone... again, there's nothing saying you have to stand still whistling while waiting for him to come back and shoot you. Again, trading shoots with someone better than me at it (defender damage being 2/3 of blaster damage, for example) doesn't seem a good choice to me.
I understand it's "your playstyle", but this doesn't tell me why do you think it's better your way. Regardless of the situation, not using toggle debuffs as a rad defender doesn't seem a good choice to me, as we have arguably the lowest damage in the game (factoring containment for controllers and henchmen for MMs here), no status protection and no defense/resistance.
I think i'll make this my last post on the subject.
I havent at any point for me said my play style is better then anyone else I have only stated it has worked best for me compared to the many others ways I have tried, my build has never been a pvp build it was built before pvp was implemented it just happened to function quite well for me in pvp.
It doesnt feature tactics, or teleport, or combat jumping or any of the powers youve mentioned while I can see how they would be useful and result in a different play style to the one I've mentioned they are again still easily defeated, for example AM is no longer permanent and acrobatics I believe offers no resistance to sleep, so throw in an illusion kinetics controller and your going nowhere mister, a fully raged fire tank, a scrapper with focused accuracy, a blaster with aim or build up, all the RI's and EF's in the world arent going to save you.
There are many ways to play a rad in pvp, I have answered the posts original question by providing MY opinion and experience in the field of pvp, one on one against various ATs and in a team in the S4 competition not at any point claiming it to be the ten commandments of defender pvp.
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avoid at all costs such pvp gods as scrapopapaloplypse or whatever they are called
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How did my overbearing ego miss this? Although you did spell our names wrong, so the liquidation squads are on route. I'd like to let you live, but my hands are tied.
They can beat people even with their hands tied? Nerf them, I say!
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They can beat people even with their hands tied? Nerf them, I say!
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No, I can. No nerfing will ever balance me, I'm far too imbalanced.
Wait, that doesn't sound right...
Notice who got the blame for our loss
Oh, and you lot cheated at British Bulldog afterwards. For shame!!!
Notice who got 0 kills... calls himself a Scrapper...
World of Jackcraft.
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Notice who got 0 kills... calls himself a Scrapper...
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Midniokt Aornt? Yeah, I hate that guy, should have had me on the team instead.
Since this is a thread asking for advice about Rad/rad in pvp, I thought we could debate about which tactics and powers can a rad/rad defender use in (actual I6 - ED - open pvp zones) pvp, rather than saying the way we play without giving arguments as to why we think those tactics/powers work. I assumed it'd be pretty pointless to give a advice that
How silly of me. 
I agreed with most of the advice you posted, and I expressed my doubts about some parts. If you can't back up those points with arguments as to why it works, then it isn't very solid advice for every player, is it?
It seems you don't want to answer my questions regarding your point of view on RI/EF on ranged targets. The specific examples in your last post doesn't make much sense imo, since all those examples would kill the rad even faster if there was no RI or EF used. Scrappers can't use FA in the current pvp zones (and aren't ranged except for spines), there's no sleep in ill nor in kin. A fire/ss tank isn't ranged except for hurl.
It's quite obvious RI and EF doesn't make for a "god-mode". This wasn't my question to you. What I am (still) asking is : how does not using RI and EF make you better than using it ?
You, you, you. Ok, I think you've made it clear your posts are about you. However, I didn't see "Cherry, mind to give me pvp advice about rad/rad?" as the thread title, and, as stupid as I am, I thought I could come and try to give some advice as well. (which, if this isn't obvious enough by my last posts, is "use RI+EF+LR as much as you can, move a lot, slot your ST blasts for dam and acc, don't let melee types hit you, don't let ranged ones get away, consider assault and tactics for the placate, taunt, confusion RES and the +perception, consider SJ or TP for Cj/acro or unsuppressed movement")
How silly of me. I guess I'll stay out of the thread like you.
Only a last thing : new rad/ players, if you happen to read this thread, please test everything yourself in pvp.
Not using RI+EF against a ranged foe seems a bad idea to me, for those reasons :
- rad/ defender's damage is the lowest in the game if you don't use EF. (Second lowest if you don't consider Containment for controllers)
- rad/ defenders haven't any defense outside of the -acc from RI, or resistance outside of the -dam from EF
- rad/ defenders haven't any status protection (AM gives status resistance), which means if you're getting hit more (and you will be without RI) there's more chances for you to fall under a status effect.
YMMV.
Just a couple of points unrelated to the rad/rad discussion to save anyone else entering the topic and becoming confused.
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Scrappers can't use FA in the current pvp zones (and aren't ranged except for spines
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I dont recall mentioning ranged scrapper attacks, i only recall mentioning scrappers in relation to focused accuracy, and since the original topic didnt specify only pvp in the current zones would be considered I mentioned it since it can, and is quite often, used in the arena for pvp which amazing as it may seem some people still use.
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there's no sleep in ill
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Last I checked blind was a dual hold/sleep effect again it may have changed but correct me if im wrong.
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nor in kin
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I never implied there was a sleep in kin, I mentioned it in reference to AM no longer being "perma" and thus the susceptibility to endurance draining effects in kinetics,
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A fire/ss tank isn't ranged except for hurl.
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Again Im sure I never mentioned ranged tankers but correct me if im wrong i think i said raged referring to rage, the /ss power that raises accuracy.
And to answer your question, again.
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how does not using RI and EF make you better than using it ?
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Simply because I "grew up" with pvp in the days when debuffs suppressed travel speed, endurance was a rare commodity, teleport was the travel power for stone tanks and people with a night crawler fixation, and leadership was only for the person with one spare pool space to fill, the majority of ranged attackers I fought knew this was the case and so simply either ran away to drop debuffs ( even slowed a lot of them could move faster then I could with suppression active) went invisible or simple aim+build up and blapped me, so I changed my style of play to fight on there terms, sure I couldnt damage them as quickly as they can damage me, but I could heal, they could not, and they were more likely to stick around and try and kill me if they thought they had a chance, a debuff would scare them off so I would wait till they got low enough on health, whilst keeping myself not quite on full health but not quite in the red just enough to make them think they were making a dent, and when things looked about right, once they were low enough on endurance I would let off Empulse drain and toggle drop em, stop em using any travel powers to escape (no endurance) which would also hold them, at which point I would let off a snipe and a cosmic burst and as many neutron bolts as I could.
That is one of the ways I found I could fight well enough against ranged attackers without using debuffs, there is always more then one way to approach a fight.
Lets just make things simple. Rad/Rad is good but so are so many Sets and ATs. Which ever you have suits your play style and how you play. Let me just remind you " Who ever you what ever you theres always a bigger fish in the pond ." So what ever build you have someday your gonna fail and die.
I seem to remember posting here before advising you to seek cherrys advice. Cherry in here infinite wisdom took time from her holiday to try and pass on her well founded PvP experience to you. I can now see it is pointless trying to help you. Just pray i never meet you in a pvp zone.
*Cherry
Even if this guys doesnt appricate you. I thank you for responding. Have fun on hols and come back soon
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Cough
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Now that was fun
/love Cherry
I ask this cause when I get Doulos to 50, in 44 bubs time, I will be playing as a Rad Rad, anyone got any tips on balancing the build for PvP and PvE? I'm pretty sure I know what is essential in PvE but its the PvE time that concerns me... debuffs taking time to take hold and all that, would a stealth Rad Debuffer be any good... or should it be a quasi blasting tank?
Any thoughts please let me know!