Would you prefer a teammate with Rez or an AV-killing debuff?

Would you rather have a teammate with Lingering Radiation or Mutation ?

LR is a terrific AV-killing boost. While it also helps slow enemies in the area, its best feature is reducing target regeneration. You've all seen the sort of situation where it shines: your team is pounding on an AV, and a whole minute (or more) goes by when you wonder if you're making the health bar drop at all. LR can push you over the top.

On the other hand, an in-combat Rez is a welcome rescue. Mutation revives you with a 90-second bonus to hit, to damage, and to endurance recovery. There's a temporary weakness afterward, but it passes quickly, and 90 seconds is usually plenty to get your feet under you.


Both are nice, of course, but every power choice displaces another, and in my build, there's room for only one for quite some time.

Which would you rather have in a teammate?

I pick both

Lingering Radiation for sure it's easy enough to make a wakie if no one has one.

LR by far. Radiation's primary purpose is debuffing, all else is secondary.

I want someone with Lingering Radiation and Fallout.

"I strike you down even in death! REVENGE IS MINE!!!"

I don't care much for rez powers. I can make myself an awaken easily enough.

I can make an awaken. No amount of inspirations in the game can combine to make an enemy debuff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

Depends who I am teamed with - either way, better also have fallout (if available)

once again, I add my voice to those who say Both.

There isn't really much in the radiation set that's skippable other than the last two powers, Fallout and em pulse. I'm going to pick on my ice / rad for a minute to explain why. Now, if you haven't played Ice / Rad, it's extremely endurance heavy. I'm not going to say it's the biggest endurance sucker in the game... I don't actually know that for certain... but even with perma-am, running with all my toggles on and trying to control still plows straight through endurance.

When I'm playing my ice / rad, I operate in one of two gameplay modes which depends on whether or not I've got team-mates with strong debuffs.

If I have team-mates with strong debuffs, I'll focus on the control aspect

If I have team-mates without strong debuffs, I'll lay off the mass control and focus more on delivering my debuffs to each target.

My IO goal was to focus on getting as much recharge as possible, with as much endurance recovery as possible, without using purples. (which, at the time, I couldn't afford... and really, even now, unless I emptied out the pockets of ALL my characters on that server, I don't think I could afford).

In order to make my build work, I wound up needing to drop 3 powers from my primary and secondary pools.

I wound up dropping Fallout because although it's a great debuff, it depends on players actually dying in order to work, and sort of depends on enemies being in range. Theoretically, if I was doing my job right, players wouldn't be dying to begin with.

I also dropped Em Pulse. Okay, it's a nuke. Controllers don't often get nukes. I was having enough problems keeping endurance up though... did I really want to take a power that only did 50 damage base against electronic targets only? at the cost of pretty much running me out of endurance? No. couldn't say that I wanted that.

The last power I dropped was Flash Freeze which... I get the point of it as a secondary mob control power... but again, if I was doing my job right as a rad, we'd be into that secondary group pretty quickly anyways... and once another attack goes off, Flash Freeze is useless in the face of the other ice debuffs.

***

Now, I can see from a defender or corrupter point of view, the possibility of dropping other powers in the rad set. Their job really isn't to control enemies... just debuff them.

Were I choosing though, Fallout and Em Pulse would be on the list of powers to go long before the others.

Radiation Emission/EM Pulse costs 20 end to cast, and gives you -1000% recovery debuff (same as a true nuke). It does not, however, bottom out your endurance entirely, like a true nuke does. So if you cast it when you have 20 end, then yeah, you're going to drop all your toggles, etc. But if you manage your endurance better and don't cast it when it'll drain you, all you need is a few blues (the debuff only lasts 15 seconds!) to keep you on your feet (or an endmod-slotted Adrenaline Boost from a friendly Empath; how I love thee, Adrenaline Boost!)

I recommend not 'trying it out for a few minutes and passing final judgment'. Heck, I recommend not doing that with any power. Take the power and play with it over the course of two to three play sessions. THEN you'll see whether it's useful to you or not.

Respecs rain like candy, so don't be afraid to tinker.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

The only 'skippable' power in Rad Em is Mutation. It's nice, but it's not really awe-inspiring. (It'd go up way more on the cool factor if you puked at the end, a la Poison's rez!!!) I can get most of the same effect from popping a wakie, break free, and some other random inspirations laying in my tray, and I don't have the brief debuff 90 seconds later.

There are several 'debatable' powers:
-- Fallout (requires a dead teammate; in the vast majority of my time playing my various Rads, I actually rarely have dead teammates, due to the awesomeness of the rest of Rad Em and my teammates' fabulousness)
-- Radiant Aura (Rad Em is about debuffing... having an AoE heal is nice, but it's super costly and weak for a set that can't supplement it with single-target topping off)
-- Choking Cloud (it's really, really awesome having a PBAoE hold toggle! until you realize that its accuracy sucks, it sucks endurance like crazy, and the holds are ridiculously short duration!! until you realize that CC benefits from frankenslotting more than just about any other power in the game!!!)

The rest of the powers? Radiation Infection, Accelerate Metabolism, Enervating Field, Lingering Radiation, EM Pulse... Take them, slot them, and kill the world.

Note: my level 40-whatever plant/rad has every /rad power, even Mutation. She mostly has Mutation so that I don't feel bad about my aggressive love for Vengeance>Fallout. (though again: see note on Fallout, above: I actually rarely get to use this combo)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

The debuff. Wakies are easy and I'd probably end up hitting Self Destruct anyway.

I choose Lingering Radiation because I don't die.






:P

I'll my voice to all of the others saying to go with LR. It's an excellent debuff and your best source of -regen, something that a Rad is often called upon to provide. As for Mutation, sure, it's nice, but now that players can create their own awakens on the fly I'd say all rez powers have pretty much been relegated to the "nice-to-have but not invaluable" category. Mutation is one of the better rez powers in the game, but certainly not so good that I'd call it mandatory.

If it was an autohit stun and a -regen debuff, and happened to rez multiple people, then I'd call it mandatory. But that's another powerset.

Go Dark Miasma.

Howling Twilight is a Rez *and* a Foe-Debuff (one that can be used even without a defeated teammate). Same with it's heal.

Hi i'm a n00b.

How is this a question?

The opening Q is absolutely drooling with sarcasm.

;p

I'm gonna go an be different from everyone else, and recommend Mutation over Lingering Radiation. With room, I'd definitely take both, but if forced to choose, I'd take Mutation. Why?

Quote:

Originally Posted by CB_GB LR is a terrific AV-killing boost. While it also helps slow enemies in the area, its best feature is reducing target regeneration.

Because LR isn't that great for AV-killing. Resistance debuffing (Enervating Field, for example) is far more effective at hastening an AV's defeat than Regeneration debuffing, and the slow is rarely all that useful. (Exception: AVs that have ridiculous HP values, such as Reichsman, are definitely worth debuffing Regen; but I still wouldn't skimp on the -res)

Mutation, on the other hand, is a great power and synergizes with the set. Radiation Emission contains Fallout, which requires a dead teammate.
Fallout does more damage than a Defender's nuke.
Not taking Fallout would be silly - it's nuke-level damage, without the endurance penalties. All you need is for a teammate to die. And eventually, someone will die.

Then, you can nuke them, killing off a bunch of enemies. If you've got Vengeance, you can also give the team a big buff at the same time. And with Mutation, you can get the dead teammate back on their feet, helping the team, prevent them from being bored lying there, keep them safer than a wakie (stun + partial HP + little to no endurance), and give them a combat buff.



In short: Resurrect, Resuscitate, and Revive Ally are terrible ally rez powers (although Revive Ally doesn't require a power selection, just two day jobs), and there are many powers I would rather have, in general. Mutation is a great power to have, meshes well with the set it's contained in, and is absolutely worth taking over a slow/-regen, since slow is rarely useful in PvE, and -regen doesn't actually do nearly as much as its proponents claim it does.