Fire/Rad Questions

My fire/rad is in the high teens atm, but I have a few questions about it, as it seems quite a tight build..

For ST attacks where needed, I tend to cycle through Fire Blast and Fire Ball as needed. I'm at the point of being able to pick Blaze, but it's range is pretty low, so would I be better off with Flares? or should I try to squeeze in Flares + Blaze?

I haven't taken Fire Breath, but I'm wondering if I should. I never liked it on my plant/fire dom and have shyed away from the breath on my ice/dark corr, but the damage might be useful, especially for getting RoF to scourge sooner. What's the general concensus on this?

I rarely take the snipe in any build, but I'm curious how useful it is on fire/rad.

Building for defence? /rad has a reasonable -tohit debuff, so should I still try to soft-cap def or aim for around 25-30%? .. and what kind of defence? S/L? Ranged? both?

Finally, the epic pool .. Mace seems most useful, primarily for the S/L defence, but also web envelope looks great for keeps mobs in RoF. Would this be the most practical? or should I take a resist shield to cover myself for when def does fail.

Thanks again and I know it's a lot of questions lately, but being busy and having fun with my corruptors

Definitely take Blaze. Its short range but awesome. Seriously, don't skip it. Flares is skippable, I'd only take it if you're finding your ST chain a little gappy or end-intensive using Fireball.

Fire Breath is, well, pretty great as cones go. It hits a lot harder than Frost Breath does, but if you don't like cones in general its not a big deal to skip. Fireball and RoF are the AoE gems in the set. I've personally picked it up on most of my Fire/ Corrs with the extra power picks from Inherent Fitness, but if you don't like cones it's not a huge loss.

I'd skip Blazing Bolt. Its a set mule, if anything.

You could aim for 25-35% def counting on RI, but the problem with that is RI doesn't have a massive area so its not that reliable. If you want defenses but don't want to go all the way to 45%, go for about 32%. RI or a small purple insp will softcap you and that'll be much cheaper and easier to build for. As for what kind, I go smashing/lethal because of the Scorpion Shield. You can also build for ranged defense if you want, I've never really felt it needed.

Web Envelope will help keep stuff in RoF, the only problem is that WE has a very small radius whereas RoF has a huge area. So....unless you're corner pulling stuff you won't catch all of the spawn in the immob. My personal preference is to use Lingering Radiation in conjunction with RoF to keep them in the Rain. The slows will stack and along with throwing my other AoEs into the mix, stuff running out isn't an issue.

Thanks, that's some great advice.

I think I might try Fire Breath then, as I have room for it in the build and it might be overall more useful than flares and I guess my ST chain will feel stronger once I get Blaze anyway.

I agree totally about RoF and FireBall .. absolutely loving them

Is the chance of KD proc useful in RoF to help keep them in it?

On the /Rad side, are mutation / choking cloud / fallout, all skippable?

I will try and push defence as high as I can .. but on a fire/rad should this take preference over recharge? .. or should I be aiming for something like perma-AM as a priority?

Have to see I've been surprised by Fire/Rad. I thought I would feel very squishy/vulnerable, but I don't. I guess that's down to the killing speed of Fire

And thanks again, for the advice

If you're talking about the KD proc from the Ragnarok set, I'd put it in Fireball. The Ragnarok set has much better end rdx and recharge values than Posi Blast and RoF arguably needs them more, but you'll be using Fireball far more so you'll get more soft control out of it. Plus hurling a Fireball into a spawn so hard that a third of them get knocked down is cool as hell.

Mutation, Choking Cloud and Fallout are all skippable. Mutation is worth picking up since its fine with just the default slot, chuck an end rdx or a recharge in it and call it done. It's a handy power to have around. Fallout and CC are much more difficult to justify tbh. You don't have any other holds to stack CC with, its a massive end hog and you don't really have any other melee/PBAoE powers that'll have you in melee anyway.

The good thing about /Rad is AM means you can get the best of both worlds. You only need about 70% global recharge with good recharge enhancement in AM and Hasten to have both perma, giving you a permanent +100% recharge buff. That kind of recharge is very easily attainable while getting good defense numbers.

Yup, Fire/Rad is a really powerful build. I'm a big fan, really happy with mine. My old /Rad was Sonic/, haven't regretted replacing him at all

Hmm.. an interesting idea and one I will bear in mind for the future.

As to FireBreath, I've given it a go and pushed Enervating back to the early 20's as I don't really have the endurance atm for another toggle. And I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised by it and it's certainly cranked my dps up a notch

Lingering Radiation - wow, an almost game changing power. it neuters a mob so well and with fires killing speed it doesn't even need a second application <3

But, what's the best way to slot it? Not that there's many options lol, but I'm thinking Curtails for the +rchg and +def, or do people just generally just slot it for Acc and leave it at defaults?

And Radiation Infection, slot it for -tohit? So something like a set of DarkWatchers?

Absolutely loving Fire/Rad and might even prove to be be my overall fav, but we'll see as time goes on. So far, it's awesome and getting better every level.

Doh.. didn't notice RI took an achilles.. have one of them lying around

Just been having fun with EB's .. I so love LR, watching an EB crawl after you, with RI neutering it, as RoF scourges it to death is a beautiful sight