Radiation or Corrosive

[Schregger]

Simple question. Which is better for Grineer, like in sorties and high level endless modes. Radiation, or corrosive. And lets say I have CP aura equipped, as well. 

[nms.]

43 minutes ago, Schregger said:

Simple question. Which is better for Grineer, like in sorties and high level endless modes. Radiation, or corrosive. And lets say I have CP aura equipped, as well. 

Corrosive with status, on mid/low fire rate you ideally want 50%+, on high fire rate you can get away with like 20-25% status chance, the higher the better, as long as you keep a balance between damage and chance. Shotguns with a high pellet count will strip armor super fast, i.e strun wraith can strip armor of a 135 napalm within the first five shots when built for status. The corrosive proc removes armor permanently and gets stupid useful at high levels if not running 4 CP. You need to find the balance between the damage types though, meaning, put as much weight on corrosive as possible so it procs more often, sometimes it is preferred to skip an extra damage type if it means putting more weight on corrosive, even if it takes out status chance. If there is space, corrosive+heat can help in case you strip the armor, as heat adds bonus against flesh. Corrosive+cold is another acceptable combination as cold adds bonus against alloy.

If really low status chance go full damage with radiation, or radiation with toxin, against grineer. High base damage allows the toxin proc to deal good DOT, if it happens. Radiation is good when focusing for CC, on weapons like the sonicor, ragdoll+confusion can keep the enemy away in case of emergency, but damage falls off hard as the enemy gets higher since it flatlines, while enemy armor and health scales up. Radiation can have extended damage lifetime on weapons with a really high base damage, like sancti tigris, since they will still deal good numbers on 100-150ish enemies, but it will eventually fall off.

If using 4 CP, go with viral, or viral and heat. For viral you only need to proc once to halve the HP, additional procs just refresh the timer.

Bombards, heavy gunners and napalms are the main focus, napalms having double the HP as the first two.

You should get the key to the simulacrum (simaris) so you can test out builds and weapons.

Edited May 13, 2016 by nms.

[Heatnix.]

I think it depends on the target and the weapon. Personally if I get spread and very very very high status I go with radiation. That way I can confuse big numbers of enemies rather easy and give me a breather.

Corrosive is my most used element but I'd prefer to use it on high-hp/defense targets. It is kinda pointless on random trash.

So the answer is I~dunno.

[Nachino]

They are both good, i like to go with Corrosive but if you have doubts i think you should go with Radiation. I recommend carrying an elemental combo on the primary and a different one on the secondary.

Edited May 13, 2016 by Nachino

[polarity]

Personally I'd get a high status, AoE or high fire rate weapon with corrosive to handle trash/cases where someone is lacking corrosive projection, and a high damage sniper / bow type weapon with radiation + viral to handle priority targets, then I look at the mission type, what the rest of the group has equipped, as well as the frames they're using, and pick whatever fills the most obvious gap in what the group can do.

Edited May 13, 2016 by polarity

[Cray]

@nms. PRO TIP: Status chance for shotguns is actually kinda complicated.

Status chance per pellet is done with this formula: 1 - ((1 - Status) ^ (1 / BasePellets)), Where Status is 0 to 1, 1 being 100%, and BEFORE multishot mods are added to the weapon. This will give you a number from 0 to 1, translating to 0 to 100% respectively.

99% status with 10 pellets will get you ~37% chance per pellet.

100% status will always get you 100% chance per pellet.

What this means is, shotguns that claim to have 100% status chance when Hell's Chamber is installed, but less than 100% when not installed, don't do nearly as many procs as you might expect. The Strun Wraith (when built right) has 100% status before multishot, which is why it's so effective: 22 procs, a good chunk of which will be corrosive, per shot.

Edited May 13, 2016 by DeltaPhantom

[taiiat]

Radiation + Toxin/Puncture(if Puncture weighted Weapon) overall deals the most Damage vs Grineer.

however, once Enemies get to quite high Levels, both Radiation and Corrosive Damage will still be poop due to Armor. what Level Range this happens at will depend on the Weapons you want to use, see at what point both styles start to feel weak.
then Corrosive Status will be pretty much all that matters at that point in regards to your Weapons.

 

and bringing your Corrosive Projection into this - how many are going to be present? if it's just one, then nothing changes. if it's two or three, then the point where your Weapons must rely on Corrosive Status moves further. if it's four, then you'd want Viral Damage anyways.
it's important to note that if you use Corrosive Status (or Corrosive Projection) to completely strip the Armor of an Enemy, despite having lost the Damage Bonus for Corrosive, you're dealing much, much more Damage than if you hadn't stripped the Armor. so while once the Armor is gone Viral would deal more Damage, any Damage type is already leagues ahead of not stripping the Armor.

unfortunately however, Weapons with a low Rate of Fire get very little benefit from Corrosive Status (in a timely manner that is, because Status is per Shot, and slow shooting Weapons do not have the capability of causing multiple Status Effects per Projectile over faster shooting ones). to get appreciable Armor reduction, you need atleast ~10 of them, and more than 20 to get close to fully stripping the Armor of an Enemy.

 

preferences for things other than Damage is up to you.

 

for more information, see the full Corrosive Damage Article.

Edited May 13, 2016 by taiiat