Would Sonic/Ice make a good solo Corruptor?

I really want to make a /Ice Corruptor. I was scanning through the primaries and I was trying to pick a primary that would be ideal for solo play but also one I haven't made before. The choices I was looking at were:

Fire, Ice, Sonic, Rad, Energy, or maybe Dark.

Can someone share some insight?

Wait for i16 and go archery ftw!

The aoes combined with the -res would be ace, though of course that would be far more suited to team play, unless you popped a bazillion purps and went off herding.

I personally also find sonic to be a good set for duos and small teams, as anyone attacking the same target as a sonic blaster will be doing massive damage, though I'm pretty sure plenty of sonic/rads are mainly soloists so I don't see why it shouldn't transfer to cold (apart from the toggles being faster recharging than sleet and heat loss).

That said, if survivability is what you want, dark is definately the way to go, major -tohit (I think it would be possible to keep 2 or 3 enemies on pretty low tohit all together while you wear them down but I have no personal experience with dark), not to mention the self heal which lets you skip the medicine pool.


I think on balance for solo I would probably pick dark, mainly because dark blast is such a rare set and finding it a good partner set (stack slows with -tohit for 'nevar hit meh', with -res to help you along in the damage bit) gives you a good excuse to roll it and shock people with your weird and wonderful fx and animations. The rare times you do team with people they will cack themselves, drawing on the most likely conclusion that powers customization has come out early, rather than the ridiculous notion that you're actually using dark blast.

but I digress. Show the world the wonders of dark blast! Also it wasn't too bad in 1v1 pvp last time I checked; that said it was i12 so things may well have completely changed in that respect.

Not sure if you are being misleading or serious (So I am asking). Is Dark Blast really good? How is it damage wise against a single target compared to something like Ice?

I believe it's quite pathetic in the damage department really, though Dark/Cold really was good in pvp and I was trying to be serious, maybe it looked a bit cooky in that I didn't really structure it lol. Its strength lies in its secondary effects. Maybe you could try one out for a few levels and see if the damage is acceptable? or just compare base damages on mids lol.

Doing some nub sums on mids (first damage then activation then recharge)...
Sonic Blast (as a chain with all attacks bar screech 3 slotted for damage vs target with no resistances, where -resistance works the same as +damage in favour of the attacker iirc)
screech: 8.34 1.5 20 (10ish with 2 slots recharge which is what most people have)
shriek: 95.45 - 1 - 3
scream: 151.06 - 1.67 - 6
shout: 255.2 - 2.67 - 10
510.05 damage in 6.83 seconds activation

vs Ice Blast
ice bolt: 83 - 1 - 4
ice blast: 136.2 - 1 - 8
bitter ice blast: 189.3 - 1.07 - 12
441.7 in 3 seconds activation

In terms of spike damage Ice Blast unloads quicker, but Sonic deals more, not to mention the fact that with its lower recharges and the cumulative nature of sonic -res (I can't remember if -res stacks from the same caster but the next shriek after the shout will have 4 sets of -res resulting in an extra 30% damage from before), for the long haul it would seem the damage from sonic is much higher. If you have only 3 seconds to deal damage Ice Blast will get more done but going much beyond that usually results in a win for the Sonic camp I think.


This is my first math monkey attempt, how did I do?

Good Sonics don't use Shout

Also Ultimus, if you're wanting to solo AVs/GMs go /Traps or /Rad

I would go with sonic, it does alot of damage and has some nice support in the primary. For example sirens song, while being a sleep if you are careful with you're AoE's you won't have to worry about the whole mob killing you at once.

In my (limited) experience, sonic/anything is good for soloing. Seriously. My sonic/thermal is perfectly happy to solo a full team sized spawn (though it's a bit slow doing so), and all I have out of /thermal (when soloing) is a small self heal.

Grab all your single target attacks - the -res stacks from each, and you won't (while levelling) have the recharge to make a continuous chain without shout. You can, though, make a chain where (once it gets going) all the attacks benefit from all three -res effects; I normally use shriek-scream-shriek-shout-repeat, though shout-shriek-scream is usually enough to kill a minion.

Get Sirens Song. It's an AoE sleep; and it's perma (with about ten seconds to spare) right out of the box so you can get by with just slotting it for accuracy. Sleep all; pick off targets one at a time. When you inevitably miss one - well, that just means that's the one you're going to kill first.

For soloing, skip Howl and Shockwave. They're good AoE if you're with a group, but solo they just disrupt Sirens Song; you won't be using them. (If you do group on occasion, it might be worth picking up Howl later, but it's not a priority for a primarily solo build.)

I'd suggest getting Screech as well; it's useful if you need a target (say, a malta sapper) to absolutely never have a chance to attack you. It's also a nice chunk of extra -resistance; I throw it into my attack chain when I'm in groups and against an AV - using it that way may reduce my personal damage, but it certainly boosts everyone else's. And, without too much trouble, you can make it double-stackable for locking down bosses.

You do, of course, have a weakness: Bosses (or, worse, elite bosses) with mez powers. Make sure you have break frees if you know you're going to be fighting stuff like that.