The state of Radiation damage AFTER Jade Shadows...

[Yunjuwo]

After Update 36, Radiation is now probably the worst damage type in the game, and in a really bad way.

Before Jade Shadows, Radiation gained +75% damage against Alloy Armor(consequently also ignoring 75% of the target's Alloy Armor). Couple this with the fact that the majority of the game's tankiest enemies consisting of bosses, Sentients, Murmur, and even the bread-and-butter of Grineer units on Steel Path(Elite Lancers), all previously used Alloy Armor, and Radiation was great to slap on most builds.

Now that we only have one Armor type and one Health type, Radiation lost its damage bonus against armored units, as well as against enemies that used Robotic health. So what purpose does Radiation serve now? Well let's see...

Radiation is now "effective" against Sentients and Murmur, but is it really?.

1. Sentients are weak to Cold and Radiation, and resist Corrosive. However, after the armor changes, Corrosive still performs better than Radiation because its status effects have a more noticeable effect when stripping their armor. Meanwhile, Radiation no longer ignores armor and its status effect doesn't help in killing them any faster. Even Cold is better than Radiation as its status effects not only have more reliable crowd control, but also assists in dealing more reliable damage.
2. Murmur are weak to Electric and Radiation, and resist Viral. Radiation is beat here too; not only by Electric but also Viral. Electric's status effects assist in killing Murmur much faster because they apply DoTs, and even though Viral is resisted by this faction, its status procs also assist it in achieving faster TTKs, especially when combined with Electric rather than Radiation.

Currently, Radiation is beaten out by other damage types, even when compared against those where it should(on paper) have an advantage over, because the damage types it's competing against have superior status effects. The changes to damage type effectiveness buffed a lot of damage types but heavily nerfed Radiation, and with every damage type besides Radiation having pretty good status effects now, it's clear why Radiation feels so weak to use after Jade Shadows. Since Radiation can easily be combined with Cold, Toxin, and even Viral, I personally believe that the potential for Radiation's damage effectiveness is fine as is, and that all it needs is a reworked status effect.

Thoughts and ideas would be welcome.

[Chewarette]

Viral's previous effect (reducing target's max health) should be given to Radiation. It makes sense as Radiation is supposed to reduce your life span after all. 

Maybe make it -5% max health per stack, so -50% at max stacks, -20% for Necramech as I believe they can take 4 stacks max so it wouldn't be that OP.

Then it would open very clean combinations Viral/Radiation/Slash ❤️

Edited June 21 by Chewarette

[Azamagon]

Well, I called it. You didn't exactly need to be a rocket scientist to have predicted it.

Imo, Radiation should have the Overguard damage amplification that Magnetic got, on top of its confusion effect, so it at least gets to have a niche. Magnetic needs something else tied to it to compensate though (something NOT shield-related).

Such a change to Radiation would tie in with the new health-type system as well:

Viral = Anti-health.

Magnetic = Anti-shields.

Corrosive = Anti-armor.

Radiation = Anti-overguard.

It just works.

Edited June 21 by Azamagon

[ominumi]

So Eidolon hunting don't use Radiation anymore?

[jimbi16]

I'm glad someone brought it up, because I have been thinking about the problems with radiation too.

Further to this, I am keen to know how radiation affects specific enemies now. Previously radiation was strong against certain enemies (eg. Armoured corpus in the index), mini-bosses (eg. Tusk thumper, Necramech) and bosses (eg. Eidolons, void angels, ropalolyst). Following the descriptions for sentient and murmur enemies, this answers the question for Necramech, eidolons and the ropalolyst.

But what about some of the other enemies I mentioned? Corrupted Vor stands out as a prominent example, since the orokin/corrupted enemies are resistant to radiation.

And my understanding the effect is apparently weaker since vulnerability incurs a 50% bonus rather than the previous 75%. 

Overall, radiation was previously niche for strong enemies/bosses but seems to be . And I don't see this being commented on in any of the Dev blogs or by any of the content creators.

[H8FaTe]

• Slash
• Impact
• Puncture

SIP are now the main "course" from my testing that deals significantly more damage, while also ofc having status procs to increase it.
 

But using raw "Rad, Mag, Corro, Viral" only will just NOT do.

• Vs Grineer & Kuva Grineer = Impact (was slash?)
• Vs Corpus & Orokin = Puncture (was impact)?
• Vs Infested & Narmer = Slash (was puncture)?

so yes you may regards your stats and reform alot of weapons.
SIP will be your primary choice with (Primer) as Either Primary or Secondary.
(maybe melee)

 

Source: https://imgur.com/a/rKO3kR2

Edited June 22 by H8FaTe
Correction of Damage Efficacy Enemy Types

[Rexis12]

Let it simmer for a while. 

If Radiation was 'good' because the old status system was a hodgepodge mess where Radiation could be slapped onto any build, simply due to the lack of it having a massive weakness. 

It wasn't 'Good' it was just so neutral that it wrapped around being good. 

[H8FaTe]

2 minutes ago, Rexis12 said:

Let it simmer for a while. 

If Radiation was 'good' because the old status system was a hodgepodge mess where Radiation could be slapped onto any build, simply due to the lack of it having a massive weakness. 

It wasn't 'Good' it was just so neutral that it wrapped around being good. 

It is as you say, an Status that basicly are Mandatory are not fun.
(if all u need is radiation) then why would u go anything else if not with primer-weapons?

Im one whos glad over the changes making Blast up abit from being utterly useless while also balacing in more Status vs all factions to create a variation and balance.

[Birdframe_Prime]

This is exactly the reason why I argue that Status is King in Warframe's damage system, and has been for years.

Since the rework to Status, and even before, the highest level of enemies was killed mostly by ignoring Damage Type and building around the Status effects.

So... sure, Radiation deals less damage overall. Radiation Status, however, is amazing because it'll turn off the effects of Eximus buffs on their allies, it'll CC enemies that can't be CC'd normally by turning their allies against them and drawing aggro, it can even (because it's a status, not an Ability) work on things like Nullifiers even when they have their bubbles up.

Status will be King for a long time yet. It'll take many more updates to the damage system before they change that.

[Yunjuwo]

On 2024-06-22 at 10:02 AM, Birdframe_Prime said:

Radiation Status, however, is amazing because it'll turn off the effects of Eximus buffs on their allies, it'll CC enemies that can't be CC'd normally by turning their allies against them and drawing aggro, it can even (because it's a status, not an Ability) work on things like Nullifiers even when they have their bubbles up.

Eximus buffing allies isn't an issue, the eximus themselves are, especially when their eximus powers will still target you despite radiation procs. Which just goes to show how unreliable radiation procs are for cc, and if you really want aggro manipulation cc, there are plenty of warframes in the game that assist with that. As for nullifiers, the Magnetic buffs makes them less of an issue, as well anything with overguard including eximus.

Radiation status effects have always been terrible. No need to say otherwise.