Dveight

[ QUOTE ]
You dont want to use the Sonic cones for damage. Hell, two of them you generally don't want at all. SOnic is a single target set. Howl is meh, Shockwave is meh-er, Sirens Song isnt a damage skill, and already has more than enough range(so does Howl, for that matter). If you ever play a Sonic build and take Shockwave, i will personally come to your house and drop a barrel of fish on your head. If you take Shockwave *and* howl, I pity you.

[/ QUOTE ]

don't be so quick. I've been seeing some postive reports lately about taking the elec EPP's cone and having a 3-cone mini-nuke chain of Howl, Shockwave, and Static Discharge. considering you'll also be able to mix Siren Song in there as a 4th control cone, that's not bad.

edit: cancel the above, I gave it a good run on test today and was unimpressed. Even with all 4 of Howl, Static Discharge, Shockwave and Siren Song, I was barely able to take down +1's or +2's (depending on mob damage type resists) WITH Buildup, and the amount of incoming return fire taken in the time taken to run that full chain wasn't worth it. Factor in mezzing mob types and it's not possible to pull off the full chain without being halted midway through, even by tring to utilize the KB from Shockwave or the sleep of S-Song. And the scatter of Shockwave was tres annoying, although it was fairly consistent in KBing all of them instead of partial.

I really think an AoE build with sonic needs Boost Range from /nrg to be effective. the range on these cones really required a close starting position. I was able to squeeze these AoE's in without sacrificing single target powers, but an AoE sonic build, while it may add more team-friendly AoE firepower, takes too many power picks to achieve what AoE-centric sets can do with fewer (no surprise there, just thought I'd mention it). so far my final impression of this is that I'd turf Shockwave, and just go with Howl+Static Discharge from Electric mastery epic pool. Adding Shockwave to the mix only added minimal extra damage, and the scatter required too much range switching unless led with Boost Range and will likely annoy teams quite a bit. Too many requirements for too little return.

bring it back

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I had this commission in the pipeline and Javier Kisic was kind enough to change it up at the last minute when I had this other idea pop in my head. This is an awesome, sexy picture of my newest heroine whose name just became available after the name purge.

Here is how she appears in game: Soviette References

and here is the amazing piece of art. WARNING: slightly NSFW

Sexy Soviette

[/ QUOTE ]

And people wonder why I love communism.

AHHHHHHH MOTHERLAND! <,<

[/ QUOTE ]

then why don't you move there if it's so great? Although I expect no less from someone who uses a stupid squirrel-person avatar like a 2 year-old. God I can't stand misfit kids with attention crying issues.

[ QUOTE ]
CoH needs more blades...

... like I need a hole in the head.

[/ QUOTE ]

/agree

thanks for more vanilla.

and parents? thank you for allowing your 13 year old kids to play CoH where they can vote for powersets they see on their anime cartoon shows.

according to that info, you'd be better off running unyielding when solo rather than invincible for the best rate of rare salvage and recipe drops, right?

you're kidding me right?

necroposters...

My Sonic/Energy guide listed in the index is now updated for I8.

The Issue 8 Sonic/Energy Blaster Guide v2.0

Introduction

**note- This is the I6 Guide updated for I8. I've decided to update this here rather than start a new post. Most of it is repeated information, but I've since changed my opinions on how a sonic/energy should be built post-40 so there are several changes. The addition of a 40' ranged Shout recently has also changed my gameplay significantly. Read on **

The Sonic/Energy Blaster is a versatile and fun powerset combination that is not only powerful, but an excellent synergistic concept choice as well. Within these two powersets can be found elements of blasting, control, and blapping that will easily leave your teammates Oooh-ing and Ahhh-ing at the destruction you wreak on your foes. Sonic/Energy performs equally well both in team and solo environments. I originally started this blaster when the Sonic powerset was introduced as a new addition to the blaster AT with issue #5 as a mostly ‘blasting’ style of blaster. With the introduction of ED and Issue #6, I found my damage became somewhat sub par but I also discovered that with the controllish powers within Sonic it lended itself quite nicely to ‘blapping’ as well. So I used my free respec to become more of a blapper But then I found that by leaving out certain blasting elements I was limiting myself in the opposite extreme so I respeced once again and this guide is a result of fine-tuning which has created a very well rounded happy medium with the best of both worlds. My personal experience having tried both ends of the blasting/blapping spectrum has shown a hybrid of the two to be the most enjoyable and effective build for the Sonic/Energy powersets. Your personal preference may differ. Now onto the powersets themselves:

Sonic Blast

This powerset would fall under the ‘single target blaster’ category along with Ice and Energy Blast. The beauty of Sonic Blast is that it has a very low endurance cost. Because of this, I’ve found that Conserve Power or any other endurance saving/recovery powers from blaster secondaries are unnecessary. All that is required is a 3 slotted Stamina. More on this is covered in the Energy Manipulation section. Sonic also comes with a secondary effect. Many Sonic attacks and utility powers also have secondary effect, which is a damage resistance debuff. What this means is that the more you hit your foe, the more susceptible to damage he becomes, which means the damage of all of your following attacks increases! And this stacks if you hit them fast enough. This comes in especially handy if you prime your target with a couple of sonic blast attacks and then nail it with one of the devastating melee attacks from /Energy like Bonesmasher or Total Focus

Sonic Blast has slightly lower ranges than other blaster sets. It also has no snipe. However it comes with some controllerish powers in exchange which makes it a very good set to make a blaster/blapper hybrid since you have crowd control and are already a little closer already. The trade off of a little range for these is quite devastating. I like to think as Sonic as a cross between Ice Blast and Energy Blast because it combines certain features of both.

Here they are broken down separately. Suffice to say that sonic blasts are completely competitive with all the other blaster primaries, in addition to being able to increase their own damage via the damage resistance debuff secondary effect. The -res debuff for sonic amounts to 12.5% per application. So this means that if you were to string Shriek+Scream+Shout together and then end with Total Focus, you would be dealing TF with a 37.5% -res debuff on them. Quite nasty. Now close your eyes and imagine that on top of Buildup
If you want exact numbers for the length of time each attack's debuff lasts for, you can refer to Neuberg_Crowley's post above in response to my I6 version of this guide. He also makes a few other decent points that I'll leave as a place to refer to rather than repeat them here.

Shriek - Fast recharge time and activation time, similar to Power Bolt from the Energy Set. This is one of your staple attacks, and I recommend taking and slotting it early. Some people skip this and try to make up for it with Howl, but as you’ll see later, you’d be better off taking howl later as an addition rather than a replacement.
Recommended ED slotting: 1 Acc, 3 Damage

Scream – This is your second staple attack, similar to Power Blast from Energy/. Since ED no longer lets us one-two punch like we used to, I saw a suggestion from another thread about Sonic/ that slots it with 2 recharges by omitting an EndRdx SO due to the low endurance use of sonic blasts. This is also a great idea, but for purposes of this guide you can either slot the traditional way now that you have Shout as a 3rd ranged blast or try this out too. Take it and slot it early.
Recommended ED slotting: 1 Acc, 1 Recharge, 1 EndReduc, 3 Damage OR 1 Acc, 2 Recharge, 3 Damage

Howl – A very wide cone attack. I personally detest narrow cones, and enjoy the number of mobs Howl can encompass. I very very rarely use this solo, and its damage isn’t very impressive, but in teams this is a gem because it applies the Dmg Resist Debuff to a whole crowd of mobs, thereby increasing everyone’s damage J . I’d advise you to use caution with it. I only use it on teams that are heavy with crowd controlling AT’s. Otherwise the large aggro it draws becomes rather risky. You don’t need this power, but it comes in handy for the above, you will have room for it, and lastly I find it useful for missions like “Defeat 50 mobs” so I can go to a zone with really low level mobs, drop 50 of them in a couple of minutes and complete the mission 'supa' fast. Once I reached my 40's and needed room for a respec build, I dropped this power.
Recommended ED slotting: 1 Acc, 1 EndRdx, 1 Recharge, 3 Damage

Shockwave – Yuck. It’s a cone that has no damage resist debuff, scatters mobs, and does horrible damage. Think of this as the Explosive Blast power from Energy/ but as a cone instead of a targeted AoE. Skip this. I’ve seen the odd poster extolling its virtues, because they say the knockback is a useful crowd control. You’ll already have enough of that, and all the negatives to this power are certainly not worth skipping better powers for the miniscule damage and KB that annoys melee AT’s. And yes, it does annoy them despite claims that tankers and scrappers are thankful for it. You won’t be needing this solo either. Skip it, Skip it, Skip it. You don’t see any of the really good Energy guides tealling you that Explosive Blast is good, and Shockwave is no better. Did I mention you should skip this? :P

Shout – This is your mid-range, high damage burst type blast. Take it early, slot it early. This beauty has had its range increased to 40' and what this means to us is that we finally now have a full ranged attack chain. Shout makes for a powerful heavy hitting 1-2 combo with Bonesmasher and TF as well if you can afford to get in close and personal, which, you'll find, your stun and sleep and stealth utilities will often let you safely position for this. Also, since ED has negated our ability to take down higher con minions as fast with shriek/scream, I’ve found that Shout/Shriek or Shout/scream works quite well.
Recommended ED slotting: 1 Acc, 1 Range, 1 Recharge, 3 Damage

Amplify – This is the same as Aim, ‘nuff said. Take it. You don’t need to hurry that badly to slot it.
Recommended ED slotting: 3 recharge

Siren Song – mainly a solo tool, this is a wide cone sleep. For a blaster, this is pimp! Doesn’t come into play much in large teams but can be used to hold off a secondary spawn that was aggro’d by accident. This is going to be one of your best soloing assets. You won’t need to slot it because you’ll be taking Power Boost and it has a decent duration right out of the box, and because this will be a lead, you'll be able to boost your accuracy with Aim or BU. Prior to having all of these powers though, you may wish to toss a couple slots in it and spec them out later. Be aware that it does do damage, but it’s minimal and not worth slotting as an attack power. And because it does damage, mobs will be aggro’d once they awaken, but you’ll find that you’ll have them all beaten in a solo mish long before it wears off, especially power boosted. Some mobs are immune to sleep like robots and BP zombies. I’ll discuss its uses later.
Recommended ED slotting: 1 Acc in default slot

Screech – A ranged mez you say? Oh yes! Screech is a single target disorient. Take this as soon as it comes available. also does minimal damage not worth slotting, but it also has the Dmg Resist Debuff effect that your blasts have. I’ll discuss how Screech plays into your strategy later as well.
Recommended ED slotting: 2 Acc, 1 Disorient Duration, 1 Recharge.

Dreadful Wail – Ah yes, the eagerly awaited plum of blaster sets, this is your big nuke. Take it as soon as it comes and slot is as you would nova or inferno, with 3 recharges and 3 damage right away. Massive damage, a huge inherent accuracy bonus and a secondary disorient makes this an awe inspiring AoE attack. I wish I could count how many times I’ve used this and had teammates who never saw it before go “Holy crap! What the hell was that!?” Use Amplify + Buildup before hitting this and it’ll drop +3 and many +4 minions.
Recommended ED slotting: 3 recharge, 3 damage

Now onto your secondary, Energy Manipulation. This is my favorite, and a favorite of many others for good reason. Many have claimed it’s the best secondary out there, but I won’t go so far as that. Personally I love it because it just seems so fitting to take with sonic blast as a concept. PvP blasters favour this secondary for well known reasons, however at the time of this writing, Statesman has declared that toggle dropping is being toned down for Issue #7’s release. But that applies for all toggle dropping not just this set. As I dislike PvP anyway, I’m hoping the powers of /Energy remain unaffected for PvE but I won’t hold my breath. Without further ado…

Energy manipulation

There’s already tons of great guides around for this powerset so I’ll just discuss it and how it applies to sonic in general. You’ll be able to see which /energy powers and how I slotted them in my Recommended ED build below, so I’ll briefly touch on which powers I skipped, and why.

Energy Punch – I used to have this on my second respec into a blapper until I discovered the effectiveness of combining only BS and TF as my melee attacks with my blasts. It’s a safer route than blapping, and I feel more effective now without it. However, if I were to be into PvP, I’d most likely pick this up in place of Howl.

Stun – Again, better suited to blapping, I found this to be overkill for me and required me to be a blapper instead of the hybrid solution I created. It also has a longish activation time.

Boost Range – not a bad power really, but once again, since I have controllish powers that allow my hybrid blast/blap build, there’s no point in taking this for me. I’ve never needed range longer than what I have. Indoor missions rarely have range long enough for this to come in handy for me anyway.

Conserve Power – Although I did take CP, I added it to this list as a nice-to-have bonus power that I’ll take at level 50. I don’t need it at all with sonic’s low end usage. I used to have it until respec’d out, but the only purpose it really served was to be able to blast quicker after hitting Dreadful Wail, which drains your endurance and halts recovery for a few seconds. But I can achieve this by chewing a couple blue pills so I left it for last this time around.


Pool Powers

I won’t go into detail about all pool powers, but I will tell you what ones I found most useful and why. One thing I found about this build is that it allowed a lot of slotting efficiency and leeway. I always hated slot heavy AT’s and I found this build let me slot pretty much every power I needed to an acceptable level as soon as it came available and that’s nice to be able to do.

Fitness – This is pretty standard. Take and 3-slot Stamina by level 22 or so. As lead up powers I found swiftness more useful than hurdle because I took hover, and a 3-slotted health improves your downtime noticeably. Again, another lesson learned here. I experimented with not taking fitness and trying to get by with just Conserve power and regretted it terribly. Stamina alone will fill your endurance needs. CP alone will not.

Speed – Hasten is no longer a ‘must have’ since it can no longer be made perma. But I’d highly recommend taking it and 3-slotting it anyway. It help bring your Aim and Buildup up faster as well as Dreadful Wail. It certainly helps your attacks chain dramatically as well. Superspeed is my main travel power, since it works with Stealth to grant virtual invisibility.

Flight – only took and 3-slotted Hover from here. This serves 2 purposes: one is vertical movement. The other one is Knockback protection and hover-blasting. There are times when using melee attacks is just to risky, and on those occasions hover becomes invaluable. Now you can get a slight speed increase from Hover if you took Swift from the Fitness Pool.

Concealment – Only took Stealth from this pool and slotted it with one EndRdx SO. Stealth plays an integral part of your levelling strategy, but I did choose to drop it on a respec once I got my APP's.

Medicine - This is what I took when I respecced out of Concealment. I simply find it more useful, more often, than Stealth, especially now that I have Personal Force Field and the healing boost you get from using Power Boost first.
APP’s (Ancillary Pool Powers) – There are some APP guides available in the player guide forums and the blaster guide thread if you wish to know more.


Tactics

I won’t tire your eyes with a big detailed play by play of every possible scenario, but I’ll tel you in brief what I found works best for me. In my solo game, my tactics are pretty basic but effective. I will use my SS+Stealth invisibility to approach a spawn and try to best line them up in to cone range. Then I’ll hit Power Boost (which increases mez duration) and Aim (if I know they’ll be especially hard to hit, or there’s a boss around and I REALLY don’t want his minions awake!) and then apply Siren Song to sleep them. Once that’s done, it’s a very simple matter of alternating between Screech and Total Focus to disorient them (since attacking a sleeping foe wakes them up a wee bit angry) and take them out one at a time. I can usually do this at leisure in a nice cozy safe manner. Take the time to learn which attack combinations work best on various enemies. For example, after sleeping a spawn of 2-4 mobs, which is normal in solo missions, I’ll use Screech on the first one I want to take out to stun him and apply the -res debuff to the follow-up attacks. Then I’ll TF his buddy to disorient him, and finish him off. When you're doing this, try to lead with your smaller blasts so that teh -res debuff gets applied to the heavy-hitters. In other words, let the situation dictate. Lastly I’ll move onto the Lt.. For him, I’ve saved a Buildup + Screech + Shout +TF (to apply that dmg resist debuff we talked about earlier, remember?) and then Bonesmasher or whatever if still needed.

Bosses are a little trickier. I’ll stealth+SS up the the group, and line them up for a cone sleep, same as before. This time using Amplify (Aim) is a must. The trick here is to either sleep the minions and then TF the boss (TF has a high magnitude stun which will stun most bosses in one hit) or if I know the boss is too risky to not hit first, then I’ll TF him and then sleep the minions with Siren Song. Either way, you’ll be pleasantly surprised how fast even +3, +4, and even +5 bosses go down to a fully slotted TF+Shout+BS+ blasting combo when led with Buildup. On a side note, hitting Powerboost first not only increases the duration of the stun from TF but also boosts the ToHit Buff of Buildup and Amplify. For especially stubborn bosses that refuse to stagger like a drunk after one TF hit, you can follow up with screech which usually does the trick. I’ve ran across some really resistant bosses which didn’t stun until I nailed them with TF, then screech, then BS. For those nasty ones, make sure you have a good supply of inspirations (lucks, breakfrees) and prepare for an edge of your seat fight. Damn fun though! Alternating between dmg resist debuffing sonics and heavy hitting blaps is a thing of beauty . Being able to do so while they’re all mezzed? Priceless.

Teaming requires a few changes. Like I mentioned earlier, this is where you’ll find more use for Howl because it applies the Dmg Resist Debuff to a whole crowd of mobs, thereby increasing everyone’s damage. Once again, I’d advise you to use caution with it. I only use it on teams that are heavy with crowd controlling AT’s. Otherwise the large aggro it draws becomes a risky liability. I also blap a little less in teams. This is one of the reasons I spent 2 respecs before I settled on a blaster/blapper hybrid. I now have enough ranged artillery to blast from a distance in more safety. If I can tell there’s not too much risk involved, I’ll often jump in to help the melee AT’s take down bosses with my TF and BS.

The Build

OK, here’s where all you lazy buggers skimmed past my guide just to copy a prefab build :P lol. In seriousness though, I realize that a lot of guide posters dislike posting exact builds. It doesn’t really matter to me either way. I’m suggesting this as a guideline to show you what I found to me most effective but by no means am I suggesting you use it as anything other than what it’s intended as, which is simply a guideline for the new folks. As long as I make that clear, I don’t feel I’ll be hampering anyone’s personal preferences or creativity. This can be changed around any way you see fit to match your concept and personal preferences. Like I said, this is what worked best for me so far. The first one is what I would reccommend as a 1-41 levelling build, and the second is what I respecced into for 41-50.

---------------------------------------------
Exported from Ver: 1.7.6.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
---------------------------------------------
Name: sonic-eng
Level: 50
Archetype: Blaster
Primary: Sonic Blast
Secondary: Energy Manipulation
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Shriek==> Acc(1)Dmg(19)Dmg(21)Dmg(21)
01) --> Power Thrust==> Acc(1)
02) --> Scream==> Acc(2)Rechg(3)EndRdx(3)Dmg(5)Dmg(5)Dmg(7)
04) --> Build Up==> Rechg(4)Rechg(27)Rechg(36)
06) --> Hasten==> Rechg(6)Rechg(7)Rechg(9)
08) --> Shout==> Acc(8)Rechg(9)Range(11)Dmg(11)Dmg(13)Dmg(13)
10) --> Bone Smasher==> Acc(10)Rechg(15)EndRdx(15)Dmg(17)Dmg(17)Dmg(19)
12) --> Amplify==> Rechg(12)Rechg(27)Rechg(37)
14) --> Super Speed==> Run(14)
16) --> Swift==> Run(16)
18) --> Siren's Song==> Acc(18)
20) --> Health==> Heal(20)Heal(37)Heal(37)
22) --> Stamina==> EndMod(22)EndMod(23)EndMod(23)
24) --> Hover==> Fly(24)Fly(25)Fly(25)
26) --> Stealth==> EndRdx(26)
28) --> Screech==> Acc(28)Acc(29)Rechg(29)DisDur(31)
30) --> Howl==> Acc(30)Rechg(31)EndRdx(31)Dmg(33)Dmg(34)Dmg(36)
32) --> Dreadful Wail==> Rechg(32)Rechg(33)Rechg(33)Dmg(34)Dmg(34)Dmg(36)
35) --> Power Boost==> Rechg(35)Rechg(40)
38) --> Total Focus==> Acc(38)Rechg(39)EndRdx(39)Dmg(39)Dmg(40)Dmg(40)
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Sprint==> Empty(1)
01) --> Brawl==> Empty(1)
02) --> Rest==> Empty(2)
01) --> Defiance==> Empty(1)
---------------------------------------------


This is the build I respecced into once I got PFF from my Force mastery Epic. I debated this with myself for a long time but finally decided to drop concealment for Medicine for several reasons. I got more mileage from Aid Self both solo and in teams where in teams I found I wasn't really geting much use from stealth now that the 40' range of Shout was allowing me to deliver damage from a safer distance. The +def of stealth isn't really worthwhile fighting +3's or higher which is mostly what I do now at this level range. Powerboost+Aid self is a damn nice heal. PFF provides enough defense to allow me to do the same thing I was doing with stealth when solo: either superspeeding to mish ends, or setting up sleep cones, nukes, etc. Even just the small pseudo-stealth you get from superspeed has been quite sufficient in most cases as well. I was also finding that Aid Self has given me much more mileage from my inspiration tray because Breakfrees and lucks seem to last a lot longer than Respites do. Now I have room for more of them

Unfortunately I had to drop my one and only AoE, Howl, to fit Medicine in my build so now I'm running almost 100% focused on Single Target. But I must say I find this far more efficient soloing. Since Howl's damage is lackluster to begin with, the only real use I found for Howl was that it gave a team some -res debuff ro apply to the movs whil eteamates use their own AoE's. But the debuff is only 8 seconds, and to be honest, nobody has ever noticed it was even their so they won't miss it, so this wasn't a deal-breaker for me. I also console myself with the fact that I still have my nuke, and when you're running large teams, that nuke is up for roughly every 3rd spawn and depending on if you're running an especially tough mish, it can be up every other spawn. On a large mish map, that's a lot of nukes! The final deciding factor for me was my own gameplay. I end up solo roughly 60-70% of the time so a strong focus was more in order for me. I won't say that my way is the best for you if you're planning on a team heavy build, and some folks, like Fusilier, who is a good contributer to the blaster boards, went heavy AoE for teaming on his sonic/elec and likes it, so if that's your plan, by all means go for it
It wasn't the right thing for my needs, so here is what I went with:

---------------------------------------------
Exported from Ver: 1.7.6.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
---------------------------------------------
Name: sonic-eng
Level: 50
Archetype: Blaster
Primary: Sonic Blast
Secondary: Energy Manipulation
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Shriek==> Acc(1)Dmg(19)Dmg(21)Dmg(21)
01) --> Power Thrust==> Acc(1)Acc(43)
02) --> Scream==> Acc(2)Rechg(3)EndRdx(3)Dmg(5)Dmg(5)Dmg(7)
04) --> Build Up==> Rechg(4)Rechg(27)Rechg(36)
06) --> Hasten==> Rechg(6)Rechg(7)Rechg(13)
08) --> Shout==> Acc(8)Rechg(9)Range(9)Dmg(11)Dmg(11)Dmg(13)
10) --> Bone Smasher==> Acc(10)Rechg(15)EndRdx(15)Dmg(17)Dmg(17)Dmg(19)
12) --> Amplify==> Rechg(12)Rechg(27)Rechg(37)
14) --> Super Speed==> Run(14)
16) --> Swift==> Run(16)Run(46)Run(46)
18) --> Siren's Song==> Acc(18)
20) --> Health==> Heal(20)Heal(37)Heal(37)
22) --> Stamina==> EndMod(22)EndMod(23)EndMod(23)
24) --> Hover==> Fly(24)Fly(25)Fly(25)
26) --> Stimulant==> EndRdx(26)
28) --> Screech==> Acc(28)Acc(29)Rechg(29)DisDur(31)Range(46)
30) --> Aid Self==> IntRdx(30)IntRdx(31)Rechg(31)Heal(33)Heal(34)Heal(34)
32) --> Dreadful Wail==> Rechg(32)Rechg(33)Rechg(33)Dmg(34)Dmg(36)Dmg(36)
35) --> Power Boost==> Rechg(35)Rechg(40)
38) --> Total Focus==> Acc(38)Rechg(39)EndRdx(39)Dmg(39)Dmg(40)Dmg(40)
41) --> Personal Force Field==> DefBuf(41)DefBuf(42)Rechg(42)Rechg(42)DefBuf(43)Rechg(43)
44) --> Temp Invulnerability==> EndRdx(44)DmgRes(45)DmgRes(45)DmgRes(45)
47) --> Force of Nature==> Rechg(47)Rechg(48)Rechg(48)DmgRes(48)EndMod(50)
49) --> Conserve Power==> Rechg(49)Rechg(50)Rechg(50)
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Sprint==> Empty(1)
01) --> Brawl==> Empty(1)
02) --> Rest==> Empty(2)
01) --> Defiance==> Empty(1)
---------------------------------------------


There you have it folks, the very first Sonic Blast guide, now updated for I8. I hope you have as much fun with this formidable, versatile, and enjoyable blaster as I do!

-Supatroll

Nice info, thanks for the addition!
I don't like getting into the minutae of the BI numbers and etc. personally, because I intended this more for the casual observer, but your addition will come in handy for the numbers crowd I'm sure

Thanks for mentioning the accuracy myth, I was getting kind of tired of hearing that as well. If anyone still wants to debate it, a seperate thread is what you're looking for, not a thread in the guide section

[ QUOTE ]
Another note- the upcoming patch will extend the range of Shout from 20' to 40'. That is important info for any guide, I believe.

[/ QUOTE ]
Defintely, I'll be including that on my next update
I can't begin to tell you how glad I am that this change is coming. I've been waiting for a loooong time to see blasters get an all-ranged attack chain!

I'll be considering tweaking this guide a bit to reflect the upcoming range increase to Shout next patch, and some other changes I'm considering.

pulling with an AoE is useful if your team already knows they can handle the entire spawn and they're trying to pull the whole group away from a second, nearby group. But if your intent was to pull 1 or 2 mobs away because that single spawn alone is too much for your team, then yeah, pretty dumb move.

Incidentally, I still find that the majority of players aren't aware of the fact that single target ranged attacks that either knockback or DoT as a secondary effect tend to draw aggro and make bad pull powers. I teamed with several eng and fire blasters at high levels that said after I told them about this, "holy crap, I always wondered why my pulls hardly ever work well"

someone kill the thread dead again!

not taking stamina will significantly limit your ability to maintain steady offense in human form, yes that is true. You can use human form only as openers or closers as well, yes that is true also. However when you're on a decent sized team, your inherent power of Cosmic Balance is what truly transforms your human form into a thing of beauty to behold. I like to stay in human form at least as much as my other forms on teams. I see quite a few of tri-form out there that relegate their human form to nothing but something to click hasten and buildup in. Or something as mentioned above, only to be used as an opener or closer form. Personally I think that's not really a tri-form at all, and self-limiting. Hence, Stamina.

[ QUOTE ]
As I mentioned at the start, this is mostly based on reading and speculation, things may not quite work out the way I think they might. Or I might learn that I don't care for one of the functions of the AT (such as preferring scrapping to tanking). The need for Stamina is my biggest unknown.

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just wanted to comment on this last part - yes, you will need stamina for a tri-form, all the way to 50. You can trust me or listen to those forum fibbers who tell you otherwise, but I will finish by simply saying that anyone who tells you you don't need stamina is either a fool, a liar, someone who likes to play gimp, or some combo of these .

ok cool thx. I was just concerned is all, because I went the recharge route and I was worried there might be a problem slotting something else if I did that. thx again

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...

the problem is, the Cities have acknowledged that the core of their base is players who DO NOT WANT that stuff in this game.

Making the game more like WoW is going to cause more cancellations than new subscriptions. The SWG effect, if you will.

[/ QUOTE ]Saying players have "acknowledged they DO NOT WANT that stuff in this game" ....Doesn't make it true.

You go ahead and try to speak for 100 thousand other players and type in CAPS, I'm just giving my opinion what I would like .

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um... ok GameOver, his post kind of implied that Cryptic Studios are the ones who made the statement lol. You know...
the ones who make this game?
I dunno.. he said "cities" which I assume meant City of Heros/Villains, which I assume he meant the producers of the game. I could be wrong but that's how it looks to me dude.

pwned. what was that you said about 5 or 10 people now, GameOver? Your name is somehow suitable right about now

really? I'd like to see the results of a poll on this.

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"Statesman: I would’ve thought that bases would have gotten more attention, to be honest."

Even if bases where free and everything thing in it , they would still be boring. Running from one side of the base to the other isn't going to make people stop playing WOW and other MMo's.

Combo's
Loot
Skills
Crafting

This would make COH/COV fun for me and would get players attention IMO.

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it never ceases to amaze me that WoW type fantasy gamers STILL come in here asking to have all those garbage things from their hack n slash games brought in here. The *LACK* of loot, crafting, and skills is what makes CoH such a breath of fresh air compared to that tired old Diablo formula. Please go to WoW if you like that stuff, or break your keyboard, or forget your forum password.

did he by chance announce that he's leaving for another game too?? *crosses fingers*

A parting gift

may its insight and time-spanning wisdom serve you better at your next job, and may it's words be a lesson for Forum Cartel members here, and everywhere.

yours truly,
Supatroll

just one question - why don't you have any recharge reduction SO's in any of your attacks? I'm guessing it's because of a playstyle thing where you're dropping everything you got into your first massive strike chain. My playstyle prefers faster recycling attacks though, even if it is a little harder on endurance. But was your reason personal preference?

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In fact the funniest thing i did was jumping around with a Fire aura on me and then hand clapping.....wasnt trying to kill the master mind...just eliminated the pets super fast that way....my hand clap would demolish pets very fast

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while I was tempted to say you sucked at PvP, because my MM did amazingly well while yours was getting pwned, I changed my mind and decided to tell you that you suck at CoH instead because you just told us how you demolished pets with a power that does no damage! lol.

Sometimes it's better to remain silent and just be thought foolish than to open your mouth and remove all doubt

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If Scrappers are Gods and what the heck are Stalkers?

I'm not playing some drama here trying to pretend Tankers are awful such as the post you're referring to.. however even considering the range of performances from all sets... Tankers are not preferable to anything else in PvP

I seem to observe a general satisfaction with Tankers being sub par. ... as if people somehow accepted this AT not meant to compete as well as others. The only ATs you can't judge 1vs1 are the support ATs... but if Tankers are to have no team effect they should be fixed to compete 1vs1 with scrappers... same should be done for Brutes and Stalkers (a nerf in that later case)

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I'll take any FotM stalker with my FotM spine/regen in Recluse's Victory any day. It's going to be no contest. Yeah I know they're are pissed about FA and it's not even out yet, but anyway, there you have it. It's not like they haven't earned some payback.

As for tankers being the least preferred? Well depends on you rmindset. I'm planning to respec my tanker for team vs team PvP and his main role will be a taunting/punchvoking meatshield with some damage support. I'll suck 1 vs 1 but in a team vs team I'm going to be a menace.