Seldom

Hm. Perhaps I should go back and re-edit. No, I was not thinking the resistance would be enhanceable.

It came up in the thread, but I would argue against centering defense debuffs protection in dispersion. The DDR suggestion is twofold- it makes the protection more reliable, and it gives an added value when stacked on other characters already sporting high defense.

I argued for it being in the single buffs because in such case it's available even outside the bubble huddle, making it more reliable, and the self-effecting defense gets only a fraction of the DDR protection, in line with forcefield's lower standard personal defense/higher ally protection approach.

The linked video is similar to my own experience on the TF- I did this with a small team (5) and the primal Duray exhibited some of the same jumpy teleport behavior. To the point that we gave up on him and killed the praetorian versions and adds first, but still had another 15 minutes or so just chasing him around. It definitely made for a frustrating encounter.

As I said, most obviously the -dam, -tohit.

The -special could for flavor, but that's something I could let go, given the current strength. (-special beeing -speed, -heal, -mez, -def values on powers the enemy has that do those things.)

*shrugs* or just disagree. I find the percussion of the songs you linked to overdone, something I find problematic with music of that time in general. And the mad world link has the echoey singing I'd mentioned.

I simply thought both links had elements of what I took issue with, so I thought the inclusion of them might be ironic. Obviously I misread.

I understand the criticisms I brought up are 'problematic' only in my own view, please do not take this personally.

Tell me you were being ironic...

**insert echoey singing and overly loud drums drowning out melody here**

I appreciate the feedback and counterpoints you've brought up. I obviously have a few differences of opinion, but I'm glad the back-and-forth can stay friendly.

I was referring to the comment about how the set was "flawed" and needed a "proper overhauling." You've stated that most of the stated debuff protections in the shields and psy resistance are not the way to go, but that debuff protections in clarity do make sense. In fact, you'd mentioned the debuffs protections might be best shifted to it instead. You'd mentioned a stackable sonic siphon and faster liquefy would be preferred. You believe there should not be any psy resistance.

I'm just trying to clarify the stance you have here-
-An overhaul of the powerset is more necessary than small changes
-Stackable sonic siphon
-Shields staying as-is for the most part
-No comment on sonic cage, repulsion
-Lower cost for disruption field
-clarity carrying debuff protections
-An altered liquefy, for -dam/res rather than -tohit/-def.

Do I have this correct?

I've probably run into the ground my stance on protecting from side effects as well as damage, and treating psy damage as most others are. The other things well, I made these suggestions because they seemed in my mind pretty simple, and for the most part had little to upset balance-wise. They are straight-up additions rather than alterations of present values.

When you get into altering powers up and down, it has more ramifications on present characters. Most of the changes I'd suggested follow present functions, or are unalterable, thus more straightforward to balance.

I agree with some of your positions, particularly about liquefy needing to be changed, (Though I'd do it differently) and altered disruption field cost. I just think these are a bit outside the purview of 'quick additions.' Their exclusions are not to communicate that they shouldn't be changed. Rather, I just think those debates would be longer, more crazy. Hence why I thought I'd simply share the faster, simple changes.

Hm. Actually, the unenhanceable 25% resistance to psy damage (20% for controllers/corrs) I can see. It means set vulnerable are less vulnerable, but still must be careful. The lack of enhanceability means sonics don't all of a sudden need to find new slots, or gain new slots to use +res sets in.

I'm sorry if it came off like I was pulling a quote out of context. I read the quoted portion as a restatement of a position you had taken in general to the set, and was stating my reasons for challenging said position. My focus on psychic damage may be different, as I play a lot high-level on the redside. There you can't throw as stick high level without hitting a carnies, widows, fortunatas, psychic wardens, or rikti.

As to the rest, I would hope you could address the suggestions as they stand or at least enumerate your position rather than dismissing them as being an hindrance to a hypothetical, broader revamp of unstated scope.

Please don't take that as a personal affront, I'm just trying to be specific here.

Forgive me for being unclear, then. Other shielding sets that lack psychic shielding protect from psychic damage with other means. Forcefield blocks most psychic powers through positional means and active knocking about. Thermal heals it when it hits. Cold reduces attack rate among many other things, Sonic, well, doesn't. Sonic, a set that puts its eggs in the 'you're tougher to take the hit' camp, is the least reliable shielding set against psy damage. And anywise, every set that has a psychic weakness has an overwhelming strength elsewhere. Sonic does not, it protects against all with moderate shielding, evenly. Why have a glaring weakness then? ...So, I suggest adding psy damage coverage to a power that has a thematic reason to cover it, and is otherwise suffers from some level of redundancy.

Yes, I'm aware kill speed is mitigation. Hence why I kept my suggestions pretty minor. Sonic at its heart is still about making the team tougher and the enemies weaker, outlasting. Filling its crack neither overpowers the set, nor compromises its theme. If anything, it updates the set to a time where many more psychic foes appear than when it was built, and more reliably do what it's meant to do.

You want a set revamp? I know there are some deeper changes that could happen. Liquefy needs a better look, and sonic repulsion would, in my opinion, be far better as an ally click. But those are larger changes than some debuff resistances and unenhanceable side-effects added to a few powers.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'band-aid fixes.' Do you believe small improvements threaten to keep the sets from getting larger adjustments that they need? If so, I really don't get placing such an adversarial relationship between the two. If both are needed, they'll happen.

Because quite simply it represents for sonic resonance an area in which a protective buff set is incapable of providing protection. Look again at other sets- they do have a weakness to psy damage. But they have lots of mitigative debuffs or heals that can compromise the psy damage dealers.

Sonic does have mitigation, but limited:

• Sonic cage: less mitigation and more damage procrastination
• Sonic repulsion: requires endurance consumption not sustainable, and an ally in harm's way
• Liquefy: has a base 1/10 uptime

Sonic relies a LOT on its shields, because it has such a small toolset for actively taking the bite off of attacks. Having a hole means sonic can suddenly run up against a mobs that will be doing 100% damage and it can't do much about it at present. This is not a good position for a set meant to be relied on for safety to be in.

A weakness? Perhaps. But the suggestion has several reasons. Firstly, it gives forcefield an extra tool to use in situations where its other tools face redundancies. Due to the time limitation on KB and the hard set 5% hit that enemies gain, this gives something that can always be helpful to the team, and add to their performance even if there's a ton of defense, KB, or if the foe ignores KB. The BIGGER reason is that it gives forcebolt a lot more utility. There is absolutely no reason to use it in an AV fight right now, and due to the KB nature, some folks don't use it even when the enemy could be sent flying. This makes the power a very palatable power pick- but it still has its 'enemy will be sent flying' portion, so forcefielders can't just spam it everywhere without possible repercussions. It also is for theme. something that can send you flying with its impact would certainly bruise. Also, as -res can't be enhanced or changed, it doesn't bring any new slotting intricacies.



The idea was, as stated, to make all forcefields buffs more reliable. The high rating on the single buffs is to (1) ensure the DDR would stick with the team, (2) work well even on characters with high defense, and (3) still stick to the overall theme of the set. As such, giving the DDR to the smal bubble means the shields are reliable even outside the big bubble hug, like, say, a melee character bouncing around after characters, or running ahead to take point on the next group. If the values were reduced, I would make the overwhelmingly weakest source be for the big bubble, to ensure the bubbler has only very limited DDR.



As this is another unslottable effect, and another that they consistently avoid stacking, -damage plays well into the mode in which the power now operates. With the way they approach -res effects, they're almost always either unstackable or of short duration. Changing the present mechanic would be sure to change the power in common practice, hence why the -damage is there. It gives utility, helps as mild mitigation, but still plays by the power's rules.



because it softens the common side effects of an attack. even at base defense, a -defense attack makes every enemy's hit more sure against a shielded foe. This mitigates that debuff. This comes to a commonality in sonic shield powers: it has extremely limited means of disrupting incoming enemy attacks, so your enemies WILL hit your team, and they end up taking full debuffs even if the damage is weakened. This follows the resistance-based armor approach in a resistance-based buff set by weakening side effects because they're sure to land.



*shrugs* see above.



*shrugs* See above. ensured enemy attacks landing= good enough reason for me to makes any power that softens the damage to also soften the effects.



Here I must disagree. Psy damage is not the biggest weakness of the set: continuous attacks are. It puts all its eggs in the 'less damage' basket. The set, unlike other sets, has very limited attack disruption or reactive mitigation. The only tools are one that removes a single foe from the fight, one that requires a very large amount of endurance and an ally in harm's way using it correctly, and one power on a VERY long recharge. Making sure the powerset can cover all of its bases is hardly a huge buff, especially on a short-lived buff.
To be more specific: forcefield shields, but also has an unending supply of continuous knockaround to stop foe attacks. Thermal can heal back damage that happens to shielded allies. Cold can reduce attack rate while reducing damage via shields. Sonic- sonic in can boost survival via faster kill rate, but damage still happens, reliably. The other mitigations are damage type neutral. With less mitigation of this sort, the typed resists take far more of the weight of providing extended survival. The last thing it needs in such case is a damage type that ignores even this. Adding psy resistance would make sonics better, yes. It would be especially handy when many sets lack resistance. But since sonic places so much emphasis on damage rests, having this inclussion just makes it the most reliable shielding resist set. This does not make the powerset the end all, be all of support sets; only better at the one thing it emphasizes so strongly already.

Also, it makes clarity a lot more palatable as a power choice, as it's ant-mez buff in a set with an anti-mez bubble which at present makes it less valuable.

Hm. not sure if that's needed. Of course I haven't seen the new AoE speedboost/ice shield/forcefields/etc, so I have have no idea if the animations on those were changed. Since that's where the antidote thing is coming from, the comparison so far lacks a point of reference.

Heh. This was somewhat intentional. The thinking being that forcefields and sonics are far more focused/limited in the strengths they provide. It would only follow that they'd be stronger in these areas. The above additions would make them stronger in the reliability sense, without changing the actual defense/resistance values.

Antidote, yes. Alkaloid is a stretch, though, as no single target heals were made into an AoE.

I'm sorry, that implication was never intentional. The suggestion is to simply give forcefielders a tool that makes their-and even others' defense more reliable because they have a forcefielder around.

That's it.