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General Suggestions and Feedback / Some thoughts on Guardians in general, and Rad / Rad Guardians in particular
« on: August 21, 2022, 10:07:00 am »
As suggested, here is the cut and paste of my post on the Rebirth Discord:
I have some detailed thoughts about Guardians in general, and Rad / Rad Guardians in particular:
I've got my Radiation Assault / Radiation Composition Guardian up to level 32, and it has painful and not much fun most of the way, and I am seriously not interested in playing it further to see if it gets better. As a hybrid AT that pulls powers and mechanics from most of the other ATs, this particular blend is dysfunctional and suffers from whatever the opposite of synergy is. Noncomplementary? Radiation Assault for Guardians has multiple features that work against themselves, some particular to the power set, some more generally applicable to the Guardian AT.
I don't hate Guardians, truly:
I got my Kinetic Assault / Energy Composition Guardian up to level 50 and into iTrials and Incarnates within the first couple of weeks of release. That one is a joy to play. Kin / Energy enjoys Transference to alleviate the Guardian endurance problem. Inertial Siphon increases attack rate, which builds stacks of Impulse faster with every attack. Attacking faster means the Coalescence proc has a chance of happening faster, which increases accuracy, which in turn increases the odds of the proc, etc. Synergies galore, and it feels great.
With Rad / Rad, I was hoping for a close-range fighter that could take advantage of the point-blank area-of-effect buffs and debuffs some of the support classes enjoy. That sounds like a fun hybrid of melee, ranged, and support powers, right? That sounds exactly like a Guardian. This is definitely not the case, as Radiation Assault has no buffs / debuffs, and Radiation Composition has to split its power list between personal defenses (taken from Radiation Armor) and support powers (taken from Radiation Emission). Unfortunately, this is a case of a hybrid being less fun than its constituent parts.
Problems with Radiation Assault: Radiation Assault makes Contamination awful
As a primary power pool, Radiation Assault take powers from melee sets (Radiation Melee from Brutes, Scrappers, and Tanks), and ranged sets (Radiation Blast from Blasters and Corruptors). The problem with Radiation Assault is one inherent to Guardians - being a mix of ranged and melee means Radiation Assault's special mechanic Contamination is rarely ever usable. In archetypes with Radiation Melee the user is constantly in melee range, so the occasional Contamination proc can be immediately exploited via Radiation Siphon, which is similarly a melee attack. In combat the Radiation Assault user will employ a mix of ranged and melee powers, probably at both close and long ranges, and if Contamination happens to proc while fighting at a distance, it will not be possible to use Radiation Siphon to capitalize on the Contamination (the self-heal over time. The other special effect of Contamination (minor damage to surrounding enemies) is basically so slight that it is basically imperceptible. In short, you'll see Contamination less often, and you'll capitalize on that Contamination only a small fraction of the times you do see it, and that just feels bad.
Problems relating to the Guardian archetype: Melee-style defenses do not synergize well with ranged attacks, and together they are an endurance hog
By now, it's pretty commonly agreed that Guardians suffer from endurance problems - the common discourse is that extra slots in Stamina or Epic Pools and Incarnates are required to properly alleviate them. The original archetypes have a more balanced endurance consumption profile: for the most part personal defenses (e.g. smashing / lethal resist toggles) are limited to pure melee classes, and the support ATs typically do not have those style of toggles. This is an issue for Guardians in general, as they have both a variety of attacks as a primary pool, and defensive toggles in their secondary pools. This combination results in a character that consumes endurance at an unsustainable rate. I suppose I could either not attack, or not use defensive toggles in the middle of a fight, but both result in being worse at fighting than the constituent ATs, as noted above.
In conclusion:
Rad / Rad is awful for Guardians, and suffers from anti-synergies specific to its power set, in addition to exacerbating the common issues of Guardians in general.
tl;dr: Rad/Rad Guardians suffer from whatever the opposite of synergy is.
I have some detailed thoughts about Guardians in general, and Rad / Rad Guardians in particular:
I've got my Radiation Assault / Radiation Composition Guardian up to level 32, and it has painful and not much fun most of the way, and I am seriously not interested in playing it further to see if it gets better. As a hybrid AT that pulls powers and mechanics from most of the other ATs, this particular blend is dysfunctional and suffers from whatever the opposite of synergy is. Noncomplementary? Radiation Assault for Guardians has multiple features that work against themselves, some particular to the power set, some more generally applicable to the Guardian AT.
I don't hate Guardians, truly:
I got my Kinetic Assault / Energy Composition Guardian up to level 50 and into iTrials and Incarnates within the first couple of weeks of release. That one is a joy to play. Kin / Energy enjoys Transference to alleviate the Guardian endurance problem. Inertial Siphon increases attack rate, which builds stacks of Impulse faster with every attack. Attacking faster means the Coalescence proc has a chance of happening faster, which increases accuracy, which in turn increases the odds of the proc, etc. Synergies galore, and it feels great.
With Rad / Rad, I was hoping for a close-range fighter that could take advantage of the point-blank area-of-effect buffs and debuffs some of the support classes enjoy. That sounds like a fun hybrid of melee, ranged, and support powers, right? That sounds exactly like a Guardian. This is definitely not the case, as Radiation Assault has no buffs / debuffs, and Radiation Composition has to split its power list between personal defenses (taken from Radiation Armor) and support powers (taken from Radiation Emission). Unfortunately, this is a case of a hybrid being less fun than its constituent parts.
Problems with Radiation Assault: Radiation Assault makes Contamination awful
As a primary power pool, Radiation Assault take powers from melee sets (Radiation Melee from Brutes, Scrappers, and Tanks), and ranged sets (Radiation Blast from Blasters and Corruptors). The problem with Radiation Assault is one inherent to Guardians - being a mix of ranged and melee means Radiation Assault's special mechanic Contamination is rarely ever usable. In archetypes with Radiation Melee the user is constantly in melee range, so the occasional Contamination proc can be immediately exploited via Radiation Siphon, which is similarly a melee attack. In combat the Radiation Assault user will employ a mix of ranged and melee powers, probably at both close and long ranges, and if Contamination happens to proc while fighting at a distance, it will not be possible to use Radiation Siphon to capitalize on the Contamination (the self-heal over time. The other special effect of Contamination (minor damage to surrounding enemies) is basically so slight that it is basically imperceptible. In short, you'll see Contamination less often, and you'll capitalize on that Contamination only a small fraction of the times you do see it, and that just feels bad.
Problems relating to the Guardian archetype: Melee-style defenses do not synergize well with ranged attacks, and together they are an endurance hog
By now, it's pretty commonly agreed that Guardians suffer from endurance problems - the common discourse is that extra slots in Stamina or Epic Pools and Incarnates are required to properly alleviate them. The original archetypes have a more balanced endurance consumption profile: for the most part personal defenses (e.g. smashing / lethal resist toggles) are limited to pure melee classes, and the support ATs typically do not have those style of toggles. This is an issue for Guardians in general, as they have both a variety of attacks as a primary pool, and defensive toggles in their secondary pools. This combination results in a character that consumes endurance at an unsustainable rate. I suppose I could either not attack, or not use defensive toggles in the middle of a fight, but both result in being worse at fighting than the constituent ATs, as noted above.
In conclusion:
Rad / Rad is awful for Guardians, and suffers from anti-synergies specific to its power set, in addition to exacerbating the common issues of Guardians in general.
tl;dr: Rad/Rad Guardians suffer from whatever the opposite of synergy is.