Catastros

Originally Posted by DrMike2000

You normally have a 50% chance of being hit, subject to some modifiers.
A Force Fielder can give everyone else on the team 45% Defence just using SO enhancements and Manouvers from Leadership, thus dropping this chance to 5%, subject to the same modifiers. You can be doing this at level 22.

So, having a single FF-er on a team full of squishies (Blasters, Controllers and Defenders) or Resistance based melee-ers will mean they take only 10% of the incoming damage they would otherwise.

If the enemy does 100 damage per hit, you still take 100 damage per hit, but you get hit ten times less often with the Force Fielder around, so the overall incoming damage is 10% less than what it was.

If you replace the FF-er with a Sonic Resonance Defender, a team will be taking 56% less damage, ie 44% will get through.

So yes, Force Fields protect the team much much better than Sonics do. But sonic also add a big chunk of Res debuff to the enemy, making you defeat them faster.

FF is the ultimate Defence set. Sonic is a balanced Defence-Offence set.

Originally Posted by Catastros

What do you mean by "Force Fields drops it to 10% of original"?

Like if a villain does 100 damage, it'd do 10 damage on a hero fully bubble'd?

And if the hero has sonic bubbles, the villain would do 50 damage instead? o.o

Originally Posted by Fulmens

Something else to consider about the Sonic primary: It doesn't help THAT much, by itself, but it stacks very nicely with anything else on the team.

I came to Sonic from 100+ levels of Force Field defender. If you're playing FF, nobody touches the team, ever. However, if anyone else on the team has +Defense powers there's a lot of redundancy. Sonic "halves incoming damage", but Force Fields drops it to 10% of original. No more and no less, even if you've got Force Fields, Cold shields, and acc debuffs and a Super Reflexes scrapper.

Almost NOBODY is capped on resistance, ever, so there's always room for Sonic rings. And more damage is always, always appreciated.

As for soloing? I don't know if it's the WORST, as Dr. Mike suggests, but it's close enough to worst that I won't argue. It's bad.

Originally Posted by DrMike2000

A Sonic Defender adds about 56% Resistance to the team, not 68%.

15% from Sonic Dispersion, 20% from the ally shields is 35% base total. Mutliply by 1.6 for your enhancements and you get 56%.

It still stacks really well for characters who already have resistance, like Fire_Minded says.

I'd grab Sonic Barrier first.
Sonic Siphon doesn't do a whole heap solo I found - against anything less than a boss it means you defeat the targetted enemy with 1 less attack, but you had to spend animation time and end to fire it off, so... you kind of break even for much of typical PvE gameplay. Against AVs and EBs its well worth it though.

Rad/Sonic is a really effective and popular choice, and great for solo and team play.
Sonic/Rad is very weak solo because Rad Blast offers very little in the way of damage mitigation.

Originally Posted by Fire_Minded

Well, I have a Sonic/Sonic Defender, so I can tell you how it plays.

You can have 45% resistance to Smash/Lethal damage if you have toughness from the fighting pool running, and 23% to everything else.

Those in your Sonic Bubble, will gain 23% to all damage types in resistance as well.That is if you 3 slot SOs of damager resistance in it.Then you can pump up everyone with 45% damage resistance to everything with 2 other personal sonic armor powers in the primary set.

If the person you armor up stays in your sonic bubble, youll grant them 68% resistance to all damage.Thats for blasters, and others that dont have Armor sets.Yup, that Blaster has 68% damage resistance.

Then to top it all off, if you armor up that Super Reflexes Scrapper, and stay near him to keep him in your bubble, he gets the 68% damage resistance as well as continues to use his high Def%'s.You effectivly just made that Scrapper, a high damage dealing, fast moving, Granite Tanker.

Say youv got a Electric Armor, or Invln, or Fire Armor on the Team....You'll cap all there resistances.No questions asked.

You hear about how a Soft-Capped character only takes 10% of the incomming damage because of how much it dodges.Heres something else to consider.When you Cap Resistance, you take only 10% of the incomming damage, just like that Soft Capped player, because you Cap at 90% for a Tanker, and Brutes Resistance.

Now, moving on.....

You can set up a Dissruption Field around the Tanker, and when he jumps in to the mob, he uses your field thats around him, to drop the mobs damage resistance by 30%, then if you take howl, and cone that same mob, you drop it another 20% for a total of 50% damage resistance reduction.

A attack that would normally do 50 damage, now does 75, one that does 100 damage now does 150, and that 300 damage KO blow, now does 450.....see the pattern?

Id seriously stay away from taking Rad Blasts with Sonic Primary.

The choice on what your more comfortable with is yours, but my Sonic/Sonic Defender is a force to be reckoned with on a team, and does rather well solo.