radiation blast -

hey all. i'm going to roll a toon that has radiation blast soon & was wondering... should i go defender, corruptor, or blaster?

and what combos would/wouldn't work well with rad blast?

Blaster Rad Blast is actually a bit different than Corruptor or Defender Rad blast. Which one you want will depend on what you want to do with the character:

The Blaster version is good at AoE damage and works very well with /Fire or /Mental since it has a PBAoE attack and does well while standing in the middle of the enemy group (once you slot enough IOs to survive the aggro or find a good Tank / Brute to distract the enemies). It has defense debuff as a secondary effect but as a Blaster you're much more concerned with hit point debuffing, so you'll probably be trying to maximize the AoE potential and spending a lot of time in cone and PBAoE range. The Blaster version also has much stronger single target damage since Neutrino Bolt and X-Ray Beam were converted into harder hitting standard recharge attacks.

The Defender / Corruptor version has two extremely fast recharging (but weak) single target attacks and the same AoEs and heavy hitters as the Blaster version (though of course they don't hit as hard). If you are going for damage then you'll want to stay in close and leverage those AoEs so pairing Rad Blast with a close support set like Kinetics or Time Manipulation will be a good idea. If you care more about the defense debuffs (which get very large on Defenders) you can also just focus on spamming Neutrino bolts (preferably with an Achilles' Heel proc) between buffs and debuffs and dropping the occasional AoE... used like that the set goes with anything, though Rad/Rad is of course a classic from a concept point of view.

I personally prefer Rad Blast on Blasters because defense debuffs are generally less useful than some of the debuffs other Defender / Corruptor blast sets put out and damage-focused Corruptors are generally better off with Fire (Defenders are probably best off with Sonic for damage). But on Blasters Rad ranks right up with Fire if you want a PBAoE death machine and has the added benefit of being able to slot Achilles' procs. I would suggest a Rad/Fire PBAoE Blapper if you don't mind dropping a lot of inf IOs or plan to mostly run in teams, and a Rad/Mental if you want to be slightly less squishy while still packing massive AoE power.

Another vote for Blasters here.

Neutrino Bolt and X-Ray Eyes have the same animation times for all archetypes, but hit harder (after AT modifiers even) on Blasters.
The secondary effect isn't much to write home about - Defenders and Corrupters would get much more mileage out of Dark or Sonic Blast.

I've got a high level Rad/Energy Blaster who turned out very successfully, due to the combination of good area damage and the ability to stack stuns on problem targets while dishing out a single-target beating.

I'd definitely recommend this combo.

Yeah Blasters get the best version of Rad Blast by far IMO. For other ATs the first two attacks are among the weakest single-target blasts in any blast set. No other blast set gets two of the weakest. The others are only saddled with one at worst.

That's not to say there's no reason to play it on a Corruptor or Defender. I have a Rad Blast Corruptor I quite enjoy. One approach you can take is to proc up whichever of the first two attacks you take to help out its damage. The attacks take the Achilles' Heel proc as well, which is nice.

Add another vote for Blaster here. The original, Defender/Corruptor version of the set is just too weak.

Blaster Radiation/ pairs best (in my opinion) with Fire, Mental, Dark or Electric, to take advantage of your life in melee range and focus on area damage.

I24 Proc Chance = (Enhanced Recharge + Activation Time) * (Current PPM * 1.25) / 60*(1 + .75*(.15*Radius - 0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30))
Single Target Radius = 0. AoE Non-Cone Arc = 360.

I'd probably +1 on the blaster too, even if i've only gotten my Rad/Mental blaster Psygeiger up to level 17.

But...also starting up a Rad/Time corr with a "sands of time" theme going, with all the blasts and time powers tinted a tan/sand color.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe ::looks at RaikenX's signature:: Something funny.