Rad Blast/Time (not a good time)

I had one 'main' character in mind with the release of i21, a Rad blast/Time character.

As much as he 'looks' cool I am finding he seems really bad. BUT let me be honest he is very low... like 13. He's stuck in Praetoria, oddly enough begging for teams.... or plodding along at a VERY slow rate on his own.

Here's the thing I observe so far....

I -thought- matching time with Rad blast would be a good mix because I felt Time would be a set that you COULD get close in with your targets, and further slow them, and survive.

The thing is obviously I am not slotting my attacks with anything other than dropped DO's.

But that being said I'm getting a bad feeling about my damage. Time needs a fair amount of slotting..... It seems to anyway.

But is it fair to say Fire is a superior ranged ability?

I'm looking at it like this:
The first two powers are a wash.
Then: Irradiate < Fire Ball
Electron Haze < Fire Breath

And I can only guess Neutron bomb is not equal to Rain of Fire.

Otherwise I think Time is a 'neat' set but I'm starting to think it's better in a pure support role which I didn't think going in. It just seems to be somewhat intensive... busy, for a corruptor secondary.

First off comparing damage on anything to fire is always going to lose since fire's secondary affect is more damage so it wins every time.

Radiation's secondary is defense debuff. Not the best secondary but can be a benefit, especially at low levels. Damage is OK for a non-fire set. Neutrino Bolt and Laser Beam eyes are your typical blaster level 1 attacks 80 range, fast recharge, low damage.

Irradiate is a wonderful PBAoE but since it is PBAoE it requires you to be in melee range.

Electron Haze is OK, has a chance to KB. I skipped it on my rad blaster.

Neutron Bomb is more comparable to fire ball but it is a very slow moving ball (you can fire it at range and beat it to the target, which when used right can be an good tactic).

Cosmic Burst is the standard, high damage close range attack.

See I thought the -def, and the rather... close range nature of Rad would make a VERY good match up with Time.... because of the slows, and the way the heal works (to assist the melee people).

The damage just feels lethargic compared to fire. Aside from my 50+ DP blaster, all of my 'ranged' damage characters are fire based.... just right now, this character is feeling fairly underpowered.

+edit+
Just thinking about this....

The other problem with Time is you want to take just about everything... you just can't. And oddly enough one of the powers I'm thinking of dropping is Time's Juncture..... but it also feels very important as Rad is making me a near 'blapper' build.....

Time has a set where I think I'll have to make hard choices. The single character buff power is the only 'easy' power to pass up on. Some of them must be sacrificed though to get proper slotting on the Rad blast part. Hard decisions....

Right now at 13, Time's Juncture is just an End hog, and needs slotting. But at 40 something? It might be huge.

The other thought is as a Corruptor are you a team buffer? In other words how many of the Time buffs/de buffs should I feel obligated to take?

Rad blast is pretty meh. I'm not surprised you feel underwhelmed. I found it to be weak and slow. The animations aren't bad or especially slow, but what kills it for me is that the actual blast travel times are terrible. Also, the -def effect rapidly becomes superfluous.

I'm actually enjoying my Rad/Time. I'm 50 but just on SOs with a Miracle IO in health. The damage does feel a little low sometimes, but when Mid's comes out I'm gonna see if I can build for a little +Def then +Dmg & Recharge, and see where it stands then. Hoping a procc'd out N Bolt With a better slotted Cosmic Burst will help.

Power
Total focus, and at the amount of recharge you'll have, it won't take forever to recharge. It can also stack with Cosmic Burst to stun Bosses, and maybe EBs if you can get another CB in, haven't tried it yet. A shame is doesn't Scourge though, Isn't every other ATs inherit effect APP/PPPs? Anyway.

Temp Invul, it can stack with your Tough/Weave combo, and with Cardiac you get around 55% S/L Res, it's came in pretty handy since I'm a little lower on the survival scale without IOs, with them, it should be even better.

Power Build Up, Makes your Farsight give you around 20% defense, With Weave & Combat Jumping I'm at 30% Defense to all On SOs, so it'll be pretty easy to softcap whichever Positions/Type you want. It provides a 68% +dmg bonus and around a 10% tohit bonus for about 12 seconds. Bad thing is though is its recharge, 240s so it can only really be used in unison to Farsight, so you can't always utilize it's +Dmg when you'd want to.

Force of Nature, Pretty nice I'd have to say, the one time I ran the Underground Trial, (failed at the end) it kept me alive for a good while, Caps S/L Res and gives you around 45% to everything else. And some +recov, still debating on if I want this or Conserve Power.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Murdok Your mom's real name is Castle.

I gave up on him for now....

Rad might work better with something that has a quicker access to something with -red -def and whatever other debuffs.

Rad needs a tweak for sure.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to continue with this guy, but at 'corruptor' levels, his damage seems even more lethargic compared to what people around me are doing....

There's a lot of corruptors in Praetoria right now and many of them are mixing something with 'Time Manipulation' and so far Radiation blast at least appears to be the least damaging.

Fire Ball, fire breath, rain + Scourge = pretty darn nice.

Irradiate, electron haze, + Scourge = not so darn nice.

Single target action?

Bolt and Beam..? Not sure about the logic of taking a lethargic power and taking it because if you put special Proc in it, it's less lethargic.

Cosmic Burst? Could be awesome, but it comes with only 2 more powers left in the set to take, and there is mixed feedback on those powers (at least one of them) So is that one power enough to save the set?

I say this wihtout I/Oing anything yet as I typically just use garbage til 20ish, and then basic inventions, and nothing fancy til 30 something.

If you want to stick with Rad Blast, throw in a -Resist Proc into one of your ST attacks, maybe and AOE power for teaming.

Personally, quite enjoying my DP/TIME, and Dual Pistols is consider bottom of the barrel.

I felt like I did a lot more damage with my DP blaster..... who is incarnate now. He was, IMHO, EASY to get to 50.

This guy is just... lethargic in damage right now. BUT I am going to give your advice a try (I mean the proc advice) and stick him out for a bit longer before deletion!

Elektro,

One of your biggest problems is that you are stuck in Purgatoria.

I'm actually semi serious with that. I took a elec/stone dom through there and it was sooo aweful that i almost deleted him twice rather than get to level 20 with him. I got him out of there eventually and he's immediately a better char.

Also, I'd suggest at least sticking with your char till level 22 and SOland. Several sets perform very poorly until they get SOs and Rad blast is one of them. So so damage and large recharge on your only good aoe will do that to a person.

This set combination definitely is a late bloomer.

IMO Rad Blast is best played procced to the gills. That's what makes my Rad/Kin so much fun, anyway. It helps that I don't miss damage slotting on a Kin, so I'm doing capped damage + 2-3 procs per attack.

I tried Rad/Time on beta that I had level bumped to 50 and just didn't enjoy it much on SOs - I didn't copy a set of IOs across, but the feel I got was that it would just be the "Tanker" version of my "Brute-like" Rad/Kin: lower damage and better survivability, compared to silly damage and good-enough survivability.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

The best thing about rad blast is the "proc-ability" of the set. Every single target attack can slot one of 10 different procs!

1. Shield Breaker
2. Analyze Weakness
3. Touch of Lady Grey
4. Achilles Heel
5. Decimation
6. Entropic Chaos
7. Apocalypse
8. Gladiator's Javelin
9. Tempest
10. Devastation

Agree. Rad is subpar until you proc it out, in my opinion.

Neutrino Bolt is what sells rad for me. With just a little bit of global recharge it comes back in less than a second so it's always available. Toss an accuracy or two, an achilles heel and damage procs to taste and it's a facemelter.