A /Sonic without Siren's Song?

After playing a Cold/Dark and a Sonic/Sonic to 50, I've decided to make a Cold/Sonic. I've been working through a solo build for him and it seems that siren's song will not be particularly viable. I'm just wondering what the more experienced Cold/Sonic fenders think of this.

Not really more a experienced cold/sonic but my thoughts would be:

From a soloing standpoint: Siren's is always good for safety with the Siren's/screech combo and since Cold does not have a ton of self mitigation that could be a good thing. Cold's single target debuffs should not break the sleep (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Siren's would make it a little easier to use heat loss.

If you plan to use sleet often the usefullness of Siren's goes WAY down. Although it could be usefull to hit a spawn with it after Sleet stops ticking damage or when sleet is recharging.

Mine is level 40 and I have never taken Siren's with him. However I can tell you that I don't miss it in the slightest.

I always open with sleet so I don't really see how I would need it anyway.

Ymmv.

"If you plan to use sleet often..."

I cannot imagine a situation where a stormy would not use freezing rain or a cold would not use sleet as soon as available. It's a HUGE debuff and alpha eater.

On my stormies, I use Thunder Clap to mez any leftover minions after Freezing Rain's done. Siren's Song would probably do the same for you, except LTs too.

You sure you don't have room for Siren's Song in your solo build? You won't need your three single target shields. Infrigidate, Snow Storm, Shout, Howl and Shockwave are nice but not essential. No need for Vengeance, Recall Friend, or most of Medicine pool, if you've got those.

I guess the question we should be answering is, whether you should skip Siren's Song, or whether you should skip some other power you're on the fence on? Which other power are you on the fence on?

I say go for assault. Siren's song is nice, but you can easily live without it.

Personally, I'd NEVER skip Siren's Song.

Hell, my Sonic/Devices blaster has it on his PvP build.

It's an awesome power, and if you're chasing recharge bonuses at 50 the purple sleep set is one of the cheapest you can get. With Fortunata's Hypnosis slotted my sleep was lasting over a minute and a half.

I would recommend not skipping it. It's simply too good a power. Plus at lvl 50 if decide to IO it takes the purple Sleep set which gives you very large bonuses at (on average) 1/5th the price of other sets.

I play a Mind/Cold troller so I know the frustration of having Sleet kill your sleep powers. However, eventually you are going to get surrounded or need to quickly grab a glowie and a fast recharging Sleep is really good at that. Sleep also suppresses Dispersion Bubble, Sonic Dispersion, and it detoggles damage auras.

"I cannot imagine a situation where a stormy would not use freezing rain or a cold would not use sleet as soon as available. It's a HUGE debuff and alpha eater."

I agree here but the issue is that sleet is not always available. If you are defeating spawns before the DOT from sleet wears off AND sleet is recharged before you get to the next spawn Siren's use is very limited.

BUT

If you cannot take out a spawn before the DOT stops you can sleep them when the DOTs do stop and pick off the survivors with your single target attacks or buy sime time until sleet is back up.

If you are taking out mobs before the DOT of sleet wears off then sleet is not going to be up for the next spawn if you are moving at a quick pace so siren's has a place there as well.

I would say that Sirens's would could provide more mitigation than the fighting pool depending on playstyle. Also it is a playstyle that is unique to /sonic as far as defender secondaries go so it was a nice change of pace for me.

If this helps persuade you at all, if Siren's Song were available to Controllers at its current mezz duration and recharge, most of them would pick it as well, even with all the Control powers they have at their disposal. It's an AoE mezz that you can work down to ~7 second recharge. While I wouldn't put in the top 10 powers in the game it's definitely in the top 30.

On my cold/sonic defender I have Siren's manly as a mule for rech. It is not needed I found with Cold/Sonic with sleet running it is not a real worry. Also Arctic Fog + SS = invis.

There are just too many da** possibilities with this set.

This guy started out after I played against a stone tank in cage matches with both my Cold/Dark and Sonic/Sonic. I was able to do good things with both builds and thought the Cold/Sonic would be an awesome combo.

So, I guess the question becomes how good is sleep in pvp? I'm not a pvp player per se so I won't be spending lots of time trolling BB but wouldn't mind finding an awesome combo I can take into a match from time to time.
Another would be do i have a better shot at AVs with Siren's Song or assault in my pocket?

The status effects that are useful in pvp are disorients, holds, and confusion if you're lucky. The other status effects either won't be worth the time or will cause a useful status effect to be suppressed. Speaking specifically about sonic blast, the status effect you want to be using is screech.