Sorry for the delay, had a meeting and holy sweet fuck does thread move fast.
First off, take this with a grain of salt because my warlock is level 4. This is from playing against them and paying attention because they're rare.
Most important point of what I said: well-played. A crappy sunsinger is easy pickings, so "weak" isn't a surprising descriptor. But let's imagine a well played one and consider these aspects/skills that would be used to dominate during Radiance in the Crucible:
Offensive Benefits:
Grenade Spam: Massively reduced grenade cooldown means that grenades are essentially your primary weapon when it's Radiance time. With Solar grenades you can create impenetrable deathtraps with area denial; Fusion Bolt grenades can guarantee individual kills if you are accurate.
Scorch: during Radiance, the Sunsinger warlock special melee attack is a OHKO even to a fully shielded target. Obviously this doesn't make them into Bladedancers, but with a high Strength armor set, this makes them incredibly dangerous at close range- including shotgun range- for the entire duration of Radiance
Touch of Flame: During Radiance, Sunsinger grenade cooldown is... silly. You can essentially spam them at will. This skill adds: "All grenades ignite enemies, causing damage over time." This can turn a grenade "miss" into a kill from DOT, and probably quadruple the amount of Postmortem kills you can obtain when killed out of Radiance
Viking Funeral (optional, consider against Radiant Will): "Enemies you ignite burn longer and take more damage." Obvious synergy with Touch of Flame and the grenade cooldown spam. What this does is essentially guarantee any grenade contact is a kill or near-kill. And there will be lots of grenades.
Defensive Benefits
Radiant Skin (optional, consider against Fireborn, but usually the right choice): "While active, Radiance reduces incoming damage." This alone makes the Sunsinger dangerous for the entire duration of Radiance. Radiant Skin with no other action taken still allows the Sunsinger to withstand two Arc Blade strikes. If I'm playing a good one, slice at him in Radiance, and discover he's got Radiant Skin (he doesn't die), 80% of the time I go on to be killed by either a shotgun blast or Scorch.
Flame Shield: "Damaging enemies with Scorch reduces incoming damage for a short time." Obviously, synergy with Radiant Skin. This is similar to the Titan Defender's barrier melee (though not as strong). Combined with Radiant Skin (and assuming all traits focus on Toughness) this can allow the Sunsinger to survive three Arc Blade strikes or possibly even four from full health while in Radiance. It also has no tell whatsoever that I can see, other than noting the green overshield on their health bar after they get it (which, as a hunter, is merely a "Nope" indicator rather than something I can counter).
Fireborn (optional, consider against Radiant Skin): "Radiance can now be activated from beyond the grave. Doing so returns you to life." Yeah this allows you to self-resurrect. Not recommended for Rumble; having been killed "counts" toward the match-ending score, and you allow for the chance of getting outplayed by someone who sees it coming (I'm hyper-vigilant about this already) and giving out double points. However, in Team/Objective modes, this can easily turn the tide of a team fight after you go down and even turn a close fight into a massacre like no other super can. Fist of Havoc and Nova Bomb get blown and if there was someone involved in that fight that wasn't in the spot, there's a moment of vulnerability for the super user. This is like the opposite of that; an apparent moment of expected vulnerability (one less team member alive) becomes an advantage.
General Benefits:
Radiant Will (optional, consider against Viking Funeral): Just extends Radiance duration so all of these benefits translate into more kills/minute. Depending on your accuracy, this might be the better choice most of the time. Viking Funeral is extra leeway if you miss grenade throws; Radiant Will is the professional's choice IMO.
Auto-revive: Activating Radiance revives any nearby dead guardians. In Skirmish or any other potential modes allowing revival this is an absolute godsend for team fights.
Incredible, duly underrated class. Utterly nasty with skilled play, but high skill ceiling IMO. As a Bladedancer, I still hate Titans more- because if I roll up on a Radianced-out Warlock with Arc Blade active, I can just get my ass to safety by air dashing rather than getting instantly Fist of Havoc smashed or Barrier Melee Shoulder Charge Fucked.
it is the most close to invincible that you will get in the game.
