My Fire/Rad USED to be the coolest kid on the block

I remember when my Fire/Rad troller was the closest thing to a main I had (alt fever, different topic). She could demolish anything and rock it out.

Well she is 50+1 and I feel weak. I am always dying, or out of end, or something. I don't use mids (and don't know how). Any simple advice?

Do yourself a huge favor:

1. Grab a copy of Titan Sentinel. This will allow you to grab a copy of your build directly from the game that you can then import into Mids.
2. Grab a copy of Mids so you can look over your build and save it.

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My fire/rad is actually my main, and it is a beast for sure. I took the route of getting tier 4 ageless from destiny.. and it allowed me to change my focus from recharge/end recovery to recharge/more recharge/and ranged defense... and it works wonders.

A little range defense goes a long way.. and the standard flashfire/aoe immob opening is great. With choking cloud make sure to take cinders.. since jumping in and cindering will often catch the whole group (like if you get ambushed when flashfire is down) cause of the stacked holds. I keep emp as a backup (and basilisks gaze mule) and the combo of cinders/emp makes everything a joke outside of cimmorea.. especially when choking cloud keeps it going. Plus... emp then ageless almost feels like cheating.. full end bar and the extra recovery (specially the uber front ended part) makes the emp "crash" painless.

I find the reactive 75% damage proc is key... now that I switched to that from the -res one I don't even have time to use EF before most groups are melted... flashfire and the aoe immob are now both nice damage powers... and hotfeet/world of confusion both set it off too so things just plain melt. As a fire/rad ... you are never without an aoe control to stop things...

Post a build and I'll give ya a comparison of what I find effective (like I'm seriously considering taking out radiation infection again since I never have time to use it... I use it on AV's now just for the achille's heel proc considering I have unlimited endurance it seems with ageless)... fire/rad is definately a combo that gets exponentially better the more set bonus's you get so it was my first choice of an IO'd out char.

Thanks guys. I will look closely at these when I am at my computer. Seems like it will help a lot.

Ms Chernobyl is my Fire/Rad and my main. Still is my number one go to Hero for any mission. She's an expensive high recharge build with three purple sets. Tier 3 Incarnate. She's also soft capped defenses to energy and 43.8% to smash/lethal. I have yet to find any foe she's not capable of defeating and always useful on teams.

My pal was taking a (non-optimized) team through villain side doing villain tips. I brought my level 50 Crab VEAT to help. Tough fights, many deaths. Switched to Ms C. Smooth sailing from then on.

Yeah, Mids isn't very hard to use. If you know how to select powers, assign slots and place inspirations in-game, then you have half of Mids figured out. Granted, it involves right-clicking to place an enhancement into a slot, and there's a few other tricks (for instance, you can "activate" toggles and accolades to see their effects on your endurance use, defense, recharge, etc), but otherwise it's straight forward.

Also, since this IS fire/rads we're talking about. I'd like to take the opportunity to invite you guys to the Fire/Rads superteam(s) on Freedom. Monday nights, 9PM Eastern.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

OP, is there a particular mission/TF/enemy that is really putting you through the ringer? I know my Fire/Rad had a lot of trouble on the Incarnate trials at first and ate quite a bit of floor. I know if I get sloppy, I get dead real fast. If I stay sharp and take the time to set those debuff toggles, I'm back to godlike status.

The trials were tough for me too on my Fire/Rad. Stick with it. The new Incarnate powers and level shifts will certainly help, and just learning the vibe and rhythm of the Trials will get you up to speed.

That first week or so, I think I spent more time waiting for the damn hospital doors to open that actually participating in the trial
And even now, with T4s in all but one slot, i still get cut down once in a while. I like to play on the front line, right in melee with my Frad, and that can be a rough place to be around a bunch of level 54 Victorias.

Mt Fire/Rad which was very very tricked out at the start of the Incarnate Trials dies quite a lot in the trials too. Being in melee at -4 levels with no defense was rough. Now she's -1 level and has smash, lethal and energy defenses and obviously does much better. My Fire/Shield scrapper was easier to play in the Trials right out of the gate, even though she did her fair share of dying. She's only got one level shift and can solo a crate in Lambda now. I think my controller would still have a harder time doing that.

Point is, stick with it. If you like the Fire/Rad's playstyle, don't give up hope. It will get easier. Mine now just ruins normal content play. In a good way.

You guys make me miss my Fire/Rad so much. My first 50 way way back in the day based on a friend telling me "let's roll double Frads and melt sh*t!" I loved him to death even though I was a noob. I think he was the longest played toon aside from my current main, which I played exclusively since last year. He even had a nice name that fit the power set (Sunpulse) and when color rescheming came out made a soft yellow and white mix to have a beautiful sunlight color (IMO).

Would love to get him tricked out. I never really considered he'd put out enough dmg/lock down without faceplanting like my current fav--Druid theme--troller does now. Plant/Storm named War-Druid.

Also been contemplating a Fire/Storm build and using a Red/Orange color scheme for the storm powers. He'd have to be tricked out though to have a reliable lockdown power with either Flash Fire or Cinders always up (but still don't know how I would feel giving up Seeds of Confusion... just too much damage there and don't know how a well slotted World of Confusion compares).