Rad/Dark

I just started playing again after about 5 years, and I'm trying to find a character to stick with. My first love is definitely Brute, and I've got a few of those on the go, but I wanted to dip into the buff/debuff area.
I had the idea of either a corruptor or defender, but frankly my corruptor drops dead as soon as anything looks at him. That led me to rad/dark, keeping everything debuffed/immobilised while I (or my team) takes care of them.
So now to the point, I went back something like 10 pages in the defender and corruptor forums, and can't find a single mention of the combo. In fact, the single guide there is for it was apparently written in beta. Can anyone share their experience with these sets?

There's not particularly any synergy between the two sets, but the two sets are both very strong on their own. In a game full of 1 + 1 = 3 builds, you're a 2 + 2 = 4, and there's nothing wrong with that. So you can probably figure things out just by looking at separate guides for Radiation Emission and Dark Blast, and piecing things together.

Just a couple of notes: Dark Blast loves and rewards you for staying about 40 to 60 feet away from the spawn while you blast. So you might look into Dark Pit instead of Choking Cloud for partial hard control. Remember, all AoE hard mezzes have crummy accuracy and duration when you first get them, so Dark Pit's reputation as an especially bad AoE mez is undeserved. Slot it up and it works just fine.

On the other hand, being in melee will help keep enemies from scattering until you can lay down your slows and roots. What you might end up doing is activating your Radiation Infection and Lingering Radiation at point blank range, standing right in the center of the mob, then backing up, laying down Tenebrous Tentacles (range slotted please!), then finishing them off from medium range.

Ku Ku Ka JU

Historically, before a lot of proliferation, Dark/Rad and Rad/Dark were both very popular defender alts that leveraged the benefits of the complementary sets. I assume you are radiation primary / dark blast secondary.

I have a level 44 Rad/Dark defender on Virtue. It is surprisingly effective. The safest place is next to your radiation anchor; fire away at the targets at range with dark blast to debuff them as well. If this character is paired with an effective tank, possibilies seem limitless. My defender uses the Rad Infection/Enervating Field + Lingering Rad + choking cloud and EM Pulse combo as my primary Raison d'être. The debuffed, held, and stunned do not fight back.

One caveat, a number of tanks like to draw more attention than their 15, 16, 17 limit on taunt can maintain. Your defender's debuff auras can peel off more than enough to get your defender killed as choking cloud doesn't hold things on a moment's notice.

i have a level 50 rad/dark that hit level 50 many years ago and im currently working on an io build for him. it is easily one of my favorite characters and was my second character to 50. ill agree it doesnt seem to be a popular combo anymore, not for certain if it ever was but if you want to make avs pee in their pants and control groups of mobs and be able to mix it up with them this is a awesome combo. i just put my anchor on a mob, close in with tentacles and blast them with nightfall, they generally cant hit me by that point then i use my single target attacks. the sniper attack can actually be used at close range as the mobs probably wont hit you while its charging. get emp pulse and the tier 9 blast power in dark, blackstar i think it is and you get to blow up large groups of mobs very fast. very effective combo and to me was alot of fun leveling up. im currently switching him over to villian side to get the mace mastery pool to get scorpion shield and even more immobilizes to lock mobs down so they cant move before moving him back to hero side and when that happens ill be around 40 percent defense to almost everything with my debuffs should be much more durable then.

just try it out, the combo is alot of fun and i found not a whole lot of mobs have resistance to neg energy so the damage is pretty high.

My main is a Rad/Dark. Its a fun combo, not as other have said not a ton of synergy but two very strong sets.

For Rad, the core powers are Accelerate Metabolism, Rad Infection, Enervating Field, Lingering Rad, and Radiant Aura. Mutation is a nice rez if you want one, some folks love choking cloud (it needs a lot of slots to shine), I *love* EMP. EF needs 2 END if you plan on running it a lot, RI is good out of the box but is worth slotting up when you get the chance. LR put in an ACC and a RECH and call it a day (it debuffs regeneration, so be sure to spam it during AV fights). RA is not the biggest heal in the game, but it ain't nothing to sneeze at. EMP also debuffs regeneration, so if you can manage to control the recovery debuff, its worth using against AVs (I use power boosted conserve power from my APP before EMPing to keep my toggles up). I like the idea of Fallout, but in practice it ends up being a wasted spot for me.

Dark Blast is a pretty solid set. It does to-hit debuff as a secondary effect, which isn't the worst thing in the world. It has 2 pretty decent cone powers, Tenebrous Tentecles and Night Fall. TT is also an immobilize, and screams for some frankenslotting (throw a couple of cheap level 25 acc/imm/rech IOs in there). I like gloom as a second single-target attack. I never used Dark Pit as a go-to power, but it would be a good way to get the drop on painful LTs or minions that can mez the crap out of you before you get all your debuffs in place (plus you can put the Stupify IO set in for some sweet bonuses). I find Torrent situationally useful, Life Drain really isn't needed with RA, not a fan of snipes, and Blackstar just wasn't as fun for me as EMP.

I'd start out with something like this:

Level 1: Radiant Aura
Level 1: Dark Blast
Level 2: Gloom
Level 4: Rad Infection
Level 6: Travel Pick (or just get a Jetpack Temp power and take AM)
Level 8: Accelerate Metabolism
Level 10: Enervating Field
Level 12: Lingering Rad
Level 14: Travel Pick (or maybe Hasten etc if you are going Jetpack route)
Level 16: Tenebrous Tentecles
Level 18: Free Slot (maybe Dark Pit, or whatever strikes your fancy)
Level 20: Night Fall

Even with AM, those toggles will take a lot out of you till you get SOs. Put a couple of slots in Stamina, and don't be afraid to frankenslot a bit of end reduction into stuff you spam a lot (ie replace a Damage SO and a Recharge SO with two different cheap level 25 or higher DAM/END/RECH IOs). EF *needs* 2 End Reduction.

Developing it further, Rad/Dark *loves* some good recharge. You can get Perma-Hasten and Perma-AM (or close enough) if you want it. The extra recharge lets you skimp on slotting LR (as does any +ACC you get) and helps tighten up your attack chain (at permahasten level, you can pretty much spam gloom/DB on single targets or TT/NF on groups without a gap). A little extra +def doesn't hurt, given you already have a substantial amount of To-Hit debuffs.

In teams, you have so many tools you probably won't be able to "set up" everything before you are onto the next group. If things are really flying, I'll just use LR, NF, and TT and not even bother with the toggles. If the fights are a little slower, I'll throw out EF first, and then maybe RI if I'm having to heal. AV fights RI, EF, LR and then I'll cycle through my attacks (while keeping an eye on anyone I need to spot heal) reapply LR, and use EMP as often as I can without dropping toggles (having some inspirations handy helps).

Solo, play it by ear. You've got a lot of tools to keep yourself safe, and a heal in case things really get out of hand. With both EF and RI running, you effectively gain a level on your foes. You've got LR to slow things down. Dark Pit can preemptively take care of mezzers. AM keeps you running faster, lasting longer, and hitting harder. Its pretty fun.