Radiation Hazard and Radiation Elemental Enhancement Sorties sound fun in concept. Who wouldn’t find it fun to accidentally down your team mates in a funny moment of hilarity? It’s a zany idea! It’s just a bit of fun! No. No. It’s not. Radiation is not to be toyed with. Radiation Sorties will cut you in two. Radiation Sorties will eat your objective and spit failure in your face if you’re not careful. There are things you SHOULD NOT BRING TO SORTIES.

In case you’re asking, I’m writing this because I just got out of a hellish Radiation Sortie mission. A Survival, which is normally a piece of piss, where Sortie missions are concerned.

Mesa

Just no. No. NOOOOO. Do NOT bring this aimbotting monster to Sorties. She will destroy your shit before you’ve even had a chance to work out what’s going on. Her fourth ability will kill anything Mesa looks at, and if she gets rad-proced and looked at you, you’re dead. And so is the rest of your team.

Mirage with AOE Weapons and Shotguns

You think one person with a Lenz and a Radiation proc is bad enough? Try one person firing five Lenz explosions at the same time. Or five Pentas. Or five Zarr cannonballs. Or five Ignis flamethrowers. Oh and Mirage does increased damage while standing in bright lights. Boom, there goes that Excavator.

Bladestorm Ash

The default thing that gets hated when it comes to Radiation Sorties, although Ash isn’t the worst person any more when it comes to team killing, he’s still up there. A Radiation proc and a swoop of his cross-hair could mean his shadow buddies will slit your throat in a cool slideshow of killing and death. Luckily this is less deadly than it used to be.

Spore-Spreading Saryn

This is what caused me to write this article. Sure, Saryn is a great damage dealer, one of the best in the game. But her spores spread uncontrollably, and they will instantly spread to other players should either the Saryn or her team mates get a Radiation Proc on them. Luckily, you can see the spores spreading, meaning you do have a chance to try and run away or switch to Operator Mode to save yourself.

World on Fire Ember

Yeah, that flaming ability which randomly causes explosions on enemies? It will target allies too should an Ember be hit by Radiation. The ability might not have the range or power that it used to, but World on Fire can and will hit through walls and can easily down team mates before they’ve even realised what hit them.

Octavia with Mallet

Funnily enough, most of Octavia’s abilities are ally buffs which don’t seem to disappear when Radiation-procced, but Mallet will kill you and any objectives around you pretty damn quickly. As Octavia scales well into high level content, this makes her even scarier than you’d think. The dame goes for other high range, high damage abilities like Equinox’s Maim, Volt’s Discharge and Frost’s Avalanche.

The Zenistar

This nice big spinning disc of death is normally so damn good, but I always put it away in Radiation missions. Why? Because I nearly failed a mission with it. I got a Radiation proc on me while my Zenistar was defending a console in Mobile Defense, and I only just managed to get rid of the disc before it destroyed the console completely.

Explosive and auto-aiming Weapons

I once got blown up by a guy with a Zarr and a high damage riven. It wasn’t fun. He died trying to revive me.

Long Range Whips and other Room Clearing Weapons

These are the worst, because you can’t immediately tell if you or a team mate is suffering from a Radiation proc. Yeah, you may have cleared the whole damn room, but you also cleared out the room behind you and the room ahead of you. Cleansing it of all forms of life, including your team mates. You might not even think it was you, especially when whip weapons like the Atterax in particular can go through the environment. One of the most awkward missions I ever played consisted of a Mesa and an Ember constantly downing each other with Atteraxes while doing nothing to avoid Radiation clouds.

Honorable Mentions include frames with Exalted weapons, Plague Zaws and, as u/XiaolinDraconis suggests, Atlas, who might turn you to stone and blow you up.

And then there’s Maim Equinox…

The only time you should even consider bringing any of these items is if you have an Oberon in your squad, who can instantly nullify any Radiation procs you get. Alternatively, bring the likes of Rhino, Nezha or Valkyr. If you get Radiation on you, then switching to Void Mode will at least protect you from harm until the debuff wears off.

Think before you do your sortie.