Is Radiation Emission still great for AV/GMs?

It has been some time since I played the Rad primary set for Defenders. The last I played it was some years ago when Radiation was the rage as it was the go-to powerset for dealing with all the AVs and GMs who had ridiculous regen stats.

I'm looking at rolling up a character that will really help with bringing down AVs and GMs. I recalled Radiation was great at this at one time, but before I jumped into the boat again, I wanted to hear from the community if it was still good at this. I haven't paid attention to the powerset for years and don't know what changes have come along that may have changed the power behind the powerset.

Thanks in advance!

Yep!

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If it's been a while since you've played, you might also want to check out cold domination.

Follow-up question: do the "big 3" toggles on a Rad Emission character stack for multiple characters? I.e., if two Rad Emission characters use Lingering Radiation on the same target, do the debuffs stack?

Is Rad still great for AV/GMs? Yep.

Is it THE go-to for the same? Nope.

Thermal gets an AV-killer as well. It's otherwise outclassed in buff territory by Cold, but it just about as effective against AVs.

Any set that contains the trifecta of -resists, -damage, and -regen will do just fine.

Sure, we could sit in our armchairs and argue over whether the Cold, Rad, Thermal, or Traps defender is the best AV/GM killer. But in the time it takes for us to do that, all four have each pwned an AV or GM or two. Heck, maybe even Dark and Time, with their smaller -regen debuffs, will have pwned an AV or GM or two as well.

So AV/GM performance shouldn't be the only deciding factor. Plenty of sets can do it. Pick the one that suits your concept or playstyle.

Radiation Emission was bugged for a while meaning that it's debuffs didn't suffer the resistances that the debuffs from other sets did. So it was overpowered until they fixed it (which they did). Now its debuffs are on the same level as any other.

In terms of the whole set being "great for AV/GMs", it depends on what you're talking about.

If you're talking about solo'ing AV/GMs, the answer is yes. Debuff-intensive sets tends to be great for solo'ing tough content because almost all of the best buffs can't be used on the player themselves.

If you're talking about teams going after AV/GM, it's a completely different story. The purple patch will halve the effectiveness of debuffs on a +4 AV/GM. The AV/GM resistances will reduce that even further - you'll only be getting 15% of the return on most debuffs. So your -resistance debuff is only worth half what a comparable +damage buff would be worth and your -defense debuff is worth about 1/16th of a +hit buff.

The main value of Radiation in a team AV/GM fight is actually Accelerate Metabolism. AM is a solid buff, but it's not really up to the standards of 'buff other' benefits like Forge. So Radiation Emission would end up in the middle of the park. It's better than pure debuff/control sets like Dark, but worse then pure buff/heal sets like Thermal and Pain.

Mmmmm, it can't have anything at all to do with the un-resistible -500% regeneration... nah. FWIW, Dark brings the same in howling (at twice the recharge) and Cold brings the same in their benumb (at 1.5 the recharge)

Nobody is desperate for a particular set in any of the TFs anymore because we've all learned to do anything in the game with any team. New stuff comes out, it stumps a few people for a short while, others figure out how to beat it, post a guide and then after a short while, it becomes like all the other stuff and "bring what you like" rules.