Grav/Sonic (Banal self interest)

Okay, so. Usually I err on the side of cautious pessemism resigned to the status quo, at least re: any build I play. Here I unleash my inner whine.

Gravity Sonic. Made 38 tonight.

Can I just say? What an abjectly sucky combo, on the back of two abjectly sucky powersets. Which bothers me mostly because, along with hover and TP, the toon ("Orbital Resonance" an alien satellite given sentience and humanoid form) is probably the coolest LOOKING thing, powers all fired up, I have in the game.

What can he do? Yeah, sure, he can pyew-pyew some marginal damage and mez resistance onto a team. And teleport some foes now and then. And I can probably add vengeance to his assault and tactics, because people still die around him plenty. With lightning reflexes and a little luck, I might occasionally get to hurl a giant wad of pink insulation at contained, sonic siphoned boss BEFORE somebody else defeats him.

So awesome.

I am keeping him around because:

1. Again, he looks cool.

2. I keep thinking there's always a chance that someday they'll get around to looking at what sets are really gimp, again, and subsequently some issue will have a buff simultaneously to Gravity AND Sonic, and suddenly he'll be POW!

3. I also miss the house I grew up in, and women don't like me.

No, I'm not going to shoot anybody-- that last part was a joke. So's Gravity/Sonic. Guh.

I've always though Singularity with Disruption Field would look incredibly cool, and yet be incredibly useless.

You have my deepest sympathies.

if it were me? (and I thought about this combo before)

Buff up Singy with Sonic Buffs (i think he can be buffed, but not healed) then focus on Recharge. Get Liquefy and the AoE Hold up as often as possible and neuter spawns with them each time. Hell, if I remember correctly, Crushing Field and Liquefy should be amusing since Crushing Field doesn't negate Knockback.

This character should also be extremely vicious against tough AVs. Sonic Siphon is great for people like Reichsman and, I'd imagen, Singy + You're Holds = quick mag stacking.

Also, another thing I contemplated was putting Sonic Repulsion on Singy, then sticking the Force Feedback proc into Sonic Repulsion (4 slots, 3 end redux and one for the proc). So everytime someone tries to bum rush Singy, bam, chance for your kick-face powers to come back that much sooner.

Thought: if you have the endurance to manage it, I wonder what I'd be like to put Singy on an AV and then Disruption Field AND Sonic Repulsion. most AVs have good KB protection, so everytime Sonic Repulsion ticks on the AV, you'd get a chance at Force Feedback AND would be debuffing them with Disruption Field while not putting an Ally in Danger since Disruption Field would draw aggro to it (maybe not enough to pull a tank off, but still. Back up plans.)

Just some random thoughts.

I always used to post how I felt Gravity was the poorest power set because it only has three interesting powers, two of which have substantial problems. (Propel and its slow animation, Wormhole and its situational usefulness). But I promised myself that I would work on a Grav controller to get high enough to give it a fair evaluation.

So I finally, over 2XP weekend, got my Grav/Storm up to level 39, and I have to say that he is actually a lot of fun, mostly as a solo character. Crushing Field + Freezing Rain provides a part-time knockdown field. Hurricane lets me focus on one foe at a time while the others get blown around. Tornado adds damage and chaos, and Lightning Storm adds even more. (Added to this is that the character amuses me -- he is a French Mime, with all the sillyness that suggests.)

That being said, I don't think I would want to level up another Grav character. Wormhole and Singy are pretty cool, but the rest of the set I still find lacking. Storm makes it quite interesting, but I'm not sure other secondaries would be interesting at all.

I have a Grav/Sonic too, but I specifically made it to screw up other teams in PvP. Having access to two intangibilities and also resist shields for the team made it pretty decent.

But for PvE...It's probably the most boring but cool looking character I have. The worst part is that it IS actually an effective support character, it just FEELS useless since most of its ability effects are a little low key. Most of its control is based around using singularity in creative ways. Someone above said use the resist shields on sing, and they're right. You can use singularity w/ recharge to quasi tank that way. Another trick is wormhole enemies into a corner with singularity blocking the corner. It's a ton of effort for returns that aren't really better than average control, though.

As for sonic, the resist debuffs do actually help if you stick the aura on a boss damage dealer and then hit any bosses they're attacking with the single target resist debuff. The resist debuffs really do make a difference, even if they're not obvious. Defensively, the resist auras aren't as great as FF's powers, especially since you can't use power boost on them, but you can shore it up a little by getting aid other. And with the APP shields you can get pretty high S/L resist numbers, which is nice. I'd have something to say about liquefy if it I could use it more than once a play session (heh heh)

Damage for this combo, however, is always going to be low and depressing to look at. You can't use your aura debuff while solo because singularity knocks everything out of its range, and as cool as propel is, it's terrible for actually fighting things. The single target resist debuff makes things a little more tolerable, but since singularity is a low damage pet it's more like being brought closer to the damage the other "offensive" sets do normally.

Come on Enantiodromos, you litter this forum with how Mind Control sucks and now you start on poor defenceless Gravity, is there any set you do like?

Ok well atleast Gravity is actually a bad set (see sig) but the the Mind Control stuff was just boring and wrong. So now I'm not sure if Grav/Sonic is a bad combo or you are just playing it incorrectly.

As a troller freak I levelled a Grav/Sonic back when Sonic Resonance first came out. Painful is a serious understatement... Soloing in the 40s was probably the worst CoH memory I have :-( Nobody knew what I was doing, damage was pitiful, synergy between sets was awful... But I did hang on to the guy for a few reasons:

1. Looked cool.

2. Turned out to be somewhat useful in small-scale PvP, that is until Sonic Cage got teh nerfbat.

3. Makes a decent support toon for STF with proper IO slotting.

4. Looks even cooler after they changed Sonic gfx.

That's about it really...

Send a link to this thread to Castle.

I have a 38 Sonic/Sonic Defender and I already thought it sucked in its own way (apart for res debuffing its only trick). Pairing Sonic Resonance with Gravity is just self-inflicted pain, pure masochism

Funnily enough... someone will probably tell you that the set is able to solo therefore is fine.
Come I16... when people will be soloing hordes of mobs, you will still be struggling with the lowest level of difficulty.

I hope they have some serious packed love for Gravity (having a 26 grav/storm myself) and Sonic.

/begin_indian_mystic_impression
Love and Hate are but facets of the same coin
/end_indian_mystic_impression

Just because I thought about it, I'm rolling a grav/sonic today and working her up to 32 at least, just so i can nickname singularity Saturn. With those pretty rings.

I look forward to the pain