Radiation Emission changes

[dusty elk]

Before I get flamed, radiation is a good set. I am not against the set at all. It is a set, though, completely carried by a small handful of its early powers. I'd like to see something along the lines of the below as QoL.

Fallout: thematically exciting, but this power is in reality lackluster. On a Def, it does about the same dpa in your primary as Rain of Arrows in your secondary, but with a huge recharge and the severe gate of needing dead teammate. You may pop this off once in a blue moon, but if we're honest it just becomes a set mule. A cool option would be to allow it to be used on a living teammate if they have a debuff and purge that debuff (however it would make sense to implement). This would make it uniquely useful as well as still within its theme of flipping the tables.

Mutation: the same issue of most the rezzes that you do whatever you can to avoid using it. This has become worse over time with the ability for anyone to combine Inspirations to make awakens and with the vet reward rezzes and incarnate power rezzes. I'd love to see this changed to be like Nature Affinity's where you can use it on a live teammate for a chunky heal instead so it has dual purpose and more mileage.

EM Pulse: The special against robots is exciting until you see it happen and realize it is pretty minor; the -regen would be good but it's so short-lived and also completely eclipsed by lingering radiation. The -recovery on you feels unnecessarily punitive given the power turns out to be a long-recharge minion and lieutenant- level hold. I'd like to substantially up the damage against robots, remove the self-debuff, lower the recharge time and extend the -regen, but open to any other suggestion on this one.

Choking Cloud: I'm sure there are folks that like it. But the end cost is high for a trivial mag hold aura. Even on a Cont I think I'd rather just hope for containment than try to pay the end cost. Would love to slash the end or give it more effects to justify it.

[strong grove]

I agree with that Fallout and to some extent Mutation are both skippable powers in the current power context, especially since the godmode Barrier gets rezzes without any penalty.

Fallout as an allied (or enemy!) target power in addition to that of just a dead teammate would at least make it attractive. Radiation armor has a thematic power that is similar and could be used as a template. Changing the targetting requirement to target enemy alive for one effect or target ally alive for one effect, target enemy dead or ally dead for another could be a way to make a tier 8 power possibly useful.

Mutation is just a resurrect power with a debuff attached, something that is just awful in current game context. Adding the possibility to use it on live allies would be great, and make the rez set worthwhile slotting. Right now almost all other options are better than this power if you want to avoid penalizing a teammate by resurrecting them.

I disagree with EMP, it really is a great power for shutting down spawns. The -Regen is really useful and stacks nicely with lingering radiation for effective AV disassembly. Stacking this with the next power, Choking Cloud, is a spawn shutdown even for bosses.

Choking cloud works best with sets that like to be in PBAoE for obvious reasons. With those sets, it can be useful, but on the other hand - not all powers can be must haves in combination wtih all other sets.

Changes I would rather see for Radiation emission, given it is a set that has been around since launch:

Radiant aura: no change needed, standard PBAoE heal.
Radiation infection: Cut animation time in half, add (at most) 10s lingering debuff á la Hurricane to reduce mitigation loss if an anchor drops early. Change target to enemy or ally, so you can anchor a buddy.
Accelerate metabolism: No change needed
Enervating field: Add at most 10s lingering debuff according to RI.
Mutation: Change permitted targets to Friendly alive (e.g. +dmg/+tohit/+recharge 60s) - Friendly dead as today, but debuffs lowered or even removed
Lingering Radiation: No change needed
Choking cloud: Possibly add secondary effect like -mez resist or -debuff resist, otherwise no change needed.
Fallout: Change permitted targets to enemy alive, enemy dead, in addition to ally dead with same effects.
EMP: No change needed.

Main thing in the set for gameplay now is the slooooow animation times. Melee sets and got a workover on this, but Radiation emission has 5 powers with over 3 second animation time, some closer to 4s. 2 other are around 2.5 seconds with rooting. Only "fast" ones are 1.7 seconds.