I think Sonic resonance is lacking

Sonic Siphon is too limited with a single debuff. It should add -Dam, or give +Res to the user, or last longer/debuff more. Right now it's too much animation time spent on a single debuff upon a single target.

The AoE Res toggle costs too much. It should be expensive, but not 1.04 EPS, that's way high. .6 to .75 or so would be more appropriate.

Liquefy is a good power, but not such a great power that it deserves its recharge. 360 is too high, 240 would be appropriate. Maybe even 180.

Sonic Repulsion is pretty strange. I don't see enough use of this power. If it were a field that may be knocked you down and maybe back, it would be more useful.

Clarity is not needed as a second option for mez protection. Though removing it at this point is senseless, maybe it could be made into a bit more of an offensive buffage power, adding +Accuracy to the target.

Cage shouldn't be changed on its own. The main thing is that all Phase powers are in most cases useless or even harmful to a party. They should try to work something useful into Phase powers rather than leaving them useless. Maybe even making them "Affect Self Only" effects upon the targets, and giving the target 50% Damage Resistance but still able to be damaged, would be appropriate.

I think the problems with sonic are mainly:

1: Endurance. Your two best powers are expensive toggles (Sonic Dispersion and Disruption Field) that cost 1.56 end/sec unslotted, coming down to about 0.8 end/sec fully slotted for end reduction. That's quite a bit considering many of my melee characters run up to 6 toggles for the same endurance cost. This is my biggest beef with the set, especially because it does not have an endurance tool in it.

2: The -Resistance. It is difficult to apply high -resistance on a spawn because Sonic Siphon is single target and DF is at the mercy of your teammates. Most of the time you'll end up with 30% -Res on the spawn, 60% on the boss(es). Comparing this to Freezing Rain/Sleet/Enervating Field and whatever else you have that are up every spawn, Sonic doesn't really pull ahead. This isn't great for a set that's supposed to excel at manipulating Resistance values.

3: "Useless" powers. Sonic Cage doesn't have much use, I don't think I have to discuss why. Sonic Repulsion isn't great either because it does KB and uses considerable amonts of endurance. I probably wouldn't pick it even if it did KD because running the three toggles in Sonic wouldn't leave me with any endurance to use attacks or other abilities. Liquefy... I appreciate the power's insane debuff numbers, but I'd still prefer EQ over it for smaller mitigation that is available at every spawn. I'm not a fan of situational powers, because I pick my powers to use them, preferably often and all the time. With Liquefy, I feel like I'm constantly conserving it for the moment you need some surprise mitigation and I'm not actually using it.

4: Soloing. You only have four powers that you can use while solo, one is a toggle (Dispersion), one is single target (Siphon), one is more or less useless (Cage) and one is on an obscenely long recharge (Liquefy). It's not really a fun set solo when you only have one power that isn't a toggle you can use every spawn.

5: Disparity versus other buff/debuff sets. I just feel Sonic is completely overshadowed by sets like Cold and Thermal. They both provide similar mitigation to Sonic, but I feel they also have do more.

A Cold Defender provides ~28% Defense to everyone within Arctic Fog if they have the Cold Shields used. This is similar to Sonic's ~56% Resistance within Dispersion bubble. On top of that, Cold has Frostwork which can easily be placed on half of the team providing them with pseudo resistance. Cold also has Sleet which provides similar -Res to Disruption Field, but also has -Def, -Rech, KD, Slow and puts a lesser constraint on Endurance usage. It could be argued that Cold is about as good versus single targets with Sleet/Benumb/Infrigidation used regularly. Then there is Heat Loss which works much better as a situational power than Liquefy, you're not, after all, expecting to be out of endurance regularly.

Thermal is a similar case. It provides about half of Sonic's +Resistance, but on top of that it has heals, which in most cases make up the difference. Thermal's AoE -Res is slightly weaker than Sonic's, but it also provides -Def regularly. Forge could make up for the difference in the -Resistance, because the +Dmg can affect a whole spawn instead of single targets (Forge vs Siphon) if your team has AoE attacks. Thermal also has Heat Exhaustion for tough single targets, which in most cases is equal to significant DPS by shutting down regen completely, or at least nearly so. Thermal, just like Cold, also seems more endurance efficient in that I'm not as often out of endurance as I am with Sonic.

How would I fix Sonic, then?

I'd probably start with lowering the Endurance costs of the toggles. I simply don't like playing a character that has limited active capacity. And we're only talking about two of the main toggles. What about if I want to run leadership like on the rest of my defenders? Or pick an epic pool shield?

After that, I'd make Sonic Siphon a max 5 targets, 10ft radius targeted AoE. Unstackable. That would really make it a more useful power in a team setting and also help make Sonic excel in -Resistance.

I'd also make Liquefy something closer to Earthquake. I basically want a power that is up every spawn, but does less mitigation than Liquefy does, but still enough to make a difference.

Lastly, I'd like Psionic and special resistances in the single target buffs. Maybe even unenhanceable +HP, +Recovery, or something like that. Just to make it stand out in a way.

Note, this is coming from someone with a level 50 Sonic, Thermal and Cold, and I'm only speaking from my experience. As always, YMMV.

I am aware that I'm in the extreme minority on this one, but here goes...

So I'm currently playing a level 30 sonic/sonic defender and took Repulsion Field as more of a joke power just to check it out and have some fun messing around with my friend I usually duo with. I'm a big fan of Repel on kins so I gave Repulsion a shot eventhough I knew that relying on someone else as a KB anchor sounded like a horrible idea.

The past few nights I've found myself using Repulsion a good amount, believe it or not. It works well for the back line squishy who seems to attract a whole lot of aggro. You have to realize that every team will not be that perfect steamrolling team who mows through +4s with perfect aggro control and no deaths. Just last night I was on a level 39 team with the only melee being my BS/Regen buddy who has absolutely no aggro control. The rest of the team was blasters, and a few defs/controllers. The scrapper took the alpha and from there the controller(s) were doing a good job of trying to keep everything in line. Aside from that though, the backline was constantly being rushed by stray freak tanks/warwolves who were having their way with those squishies.

Once I saw this I decided to put up the Repulse turning those tanks/wolves in to helpless fish flopping around while being picked off by the blasters, all the while I could continue my focus applying shields to the team and assisting the scrapper with -res attacks. Considering that this is an auto-hit, unlike other KB mitigation powers, this is now a fire and forget power for that skirmish. At certain points, I would pop it on the empath and the backline would turtle around him for healing aura for incoming ranged damage and kb for incoming melee attackers. It worked out great.

One nice thing to note about repulsion also is that enemies will repel away from the caster (Me), not the anchor, so you know which direction the enemies will fling towards giving you some control with this ability. This is really a unique ability and works well as long as you realize that this power takes a good amount of awareness, but if you're playing a defender you really need to be aware of the battlefield and your team's positioning anyway. My main gripe with the ability is that it can drain your endurance in a couple of seconds at times, but it's an auto-hit safeguard so it kind of makes sense.

I think a lot of the negativity in general has to do with the way that the game is expected to play out. Tanks/scraps herd, everyone else smash enemies in the small contained area. Rinse/repeat for optimal xp. This isn't always the case though. Mistakes happen, you don't always have full aggro control, you don't always have a team with 4 elec/shield scrappers to clear the map while everyone else pretends to do something.

I know my positive experiences with one power won't change everyone (or anyone's) opinion, but I thought I'd drop in my own 2 inf.

Personally, I think the set is fine. On a controller, you can keep a team upright with your controls and buffs/debuffs, on a Defender, if you leverage debuffs from your secondary, you can keep a team chugging along, dunno about corruptors.

The only gripe I have with the set is the slotting is limited. Since -res can't be enhanced, you're pretty limited on IO sets. Clarify, Disruption Field, Sonic Siphon, Sonic Cage, none of them accepts IO sets and 3 other powers only accept 1 type (resists). So throughout the whole set, you can only slot 6 types of IOs and 4 of those types are jumbled into 1 power.

I'd like to see some additions be made so more varied slotting can be used, like maybe KB in Sonic Siphon, Disorient (or better yet, Confuse) in Disruption Field, maybe some recovery in Clarify...stuff that gives you options to frankenslot...I like my procs, gentlemen.

some comparisons: (defender values)
disruption field: (sonic)
15' radius, -30% res. .52 end.
enervating field: (radiation)
15' radius, -30% res, -25% damage, .52 end.

Sooo...why are you paying the same cost for half the product? Just because it's centered on an ally rather than a foe? I know, I know, foes die. But only 4 archetypes are designed for melee, and they aren't always on the team.

This is the biggest head-scratcher to me. I really just do not get it.

The psi hole seemed no big deal until the devs swamped the game with content using the sort of psi-heavy Rikti, and very psi-heavy Arachnos. Clarity IS clear mind, just a lot later. (especially for the /sonics.) A +15% psi res in clarity and/or longer protection duration would help justify a power that suffers a degree of redundancy and is an 8th tier power duplicating a 5th tier one. The power is about shielding minds, so it's thematic as well.

Yeah, I definitely understand your viewpoint on this. The only reasoning I could think of the lack of a secondary debuff on disrupt is what I mentioned previously. Personally I feel like a debuff aura on ally is more effective than on single target foe, but yes, you do in turn end up using more endurance because it's working even during downtime between fights. Also, if you plan on soloing then it becomes useless.

Maybe bump the -res up to 40?

The way I'd propose to fix Sonic is a little weird.

Basically what I'd like is for Sonic Siphon to work as it currently does, but the "siphoned" energy result in the creation of a "sonic anomaly" near the target. This would just be an unmoving pet with no attacks, possibly using the "mote" animation. The anomaly would provide a small endurance boost as long as it is in existence. Because it's a pet, you can also hang your toggles on it.

This would solve several of Sonic's issues at once:

- Lower the brutal endurance costs
- Provide better options to use the toggles, especially solo or with non-melee team mates. Need a knock aura? Siphon an enemy in the location you need it. Need to debuff an enemy while standing back? Create one siphon on one end of the field and a knockback on the other. And so on.

I would then simply lower the recharge of Liquefy to 240 or 180.

Clarity may simply be unfixable. One option would be to make it capable of dispelling illusions, but I don't have any sense of how this would work. Or it could add resistance and protection from Psi attacks like Indomitable Will offers.

I'm not going to break down Doc's post because his points aren't exactly solid, and others have essentially already done it. Instead I'll pick out certain points. Thermal's Resistance isn't 5%. It's right up there with Sonic so don't make silly arguement that Thermal's resistance capabilities aren't good if not great. Infact, it's roughly 2/3rd of what Sonic's is. Which is still good. Also, it has those other, more useful abilities behind it.

A lot of people (even the pros) tend to forget that the knockback bubbles do NOT scatter targets. Knockback is applied towards the enemy with you as the point of reference. They are knocked away from you. so Force bubble will knock all enemies that enter it away from YOU in a linear path. This means that force bubble -is- better mitigation than liquefy as long as the Force bubble is continously pushing the enemies agaisnt a wall.

The more I think about it, the more I want a Force Bubble on the team than the entire Sonic Resonance set. In an open field, Sonic Resonance may have an arguement. But Force bubble is better in an enclosed space. Which is 95% of the time.

Fortitude can hold 6 slots. This doubles it's recharge and doubles its defense.

Sonic requires, at the bare minimum 3 in each of it's ressitance powers or else your not getting the maximum amount of mitigation.

Fortitude = +5 extra slots.
Sonic Barrier/Haven/Dispersion = +2 +2 +2 = 6 extra slots.

This ofcourse isn't including the fact that most people put an extra slot into Dispersion for endurance reduction. Also, thats 3 powers compared to 1. Please try not to leave out key information when making a counter arguement.

Also, people have to be in the Dispersion bubble. Doesn't always happen. Expecially with those crazy scrappers. But this is a very specific example and should be taken with a grain of salt.

and lastly, yes -Recharge is good mitigation. You don't notice it because your still being hit, just more slowly. Naturally we don't compare a non-slowed enemy's DPS compared to a slowed one. But we do compare damage taken when under the effects of resistance and defense. This is almost insulting.. expecially from someone as experienced as yourself, you should know that -Recharge, while not the best defense, is still good secondary defense.

True: Knockbacks are the same as Holds. Enemies cannot attack while being knockedback. Enemies cannot attack while being held. a Knockback is essentially just a traveling hold that lasts for roughly 2-4 seconds.

You keep bringing in skill when it comes to Knockback. If we wanted to bring in skill, we could say that noob Sonics don't always apply their -res powers or use Liquefy properly or slot their powers to the fullest. Skill is a terrible example when making a point, it makes things messy.

Hm. keeping this simple, what if they did this? (Changes in yellow.)

Sonic siphon: -30% res, 16 sec recharge, 30 second duration
+10% resistance to all but psychic damage. (to caster) Unstackable.

sonic barrier: +20% s/l/tox targeted, ally (unchanged)

sonic haven: +20% res to f/c/e/ne targeted, ally (unchanged)

sonic cage: foe capture, 30 sec. duration, 60 second recharge (unchanged)

disruption field: -30% res, targeted ally
.26 end cost

sonic dispersion: pbaoe +15% res to all but psy, +stun/hold/immobilize protection .26 end (unchanged)

sonic repulsion: kd, (able to be enhanced to KB) targeted ally. .52 end, NO charge per foe knocked back. 10' radius Max targets: 10.

clarity: mag 13 protection to all mez, +res to all mez. +15% res to psi damage. recharge, 4 sec. duration: 120 seconds. Unstackable.

Note on the above: there were problems with clear mind when it was made unstackable. Sonic gets around this by having a secondary form of mez protection for most mez. The duration is similar to that of speed boost. As a tier 8 power that's unstackable, the longer duration is to make up for the now lowered possible mag protection. (as the mez protection no longer stacks.)

Liquefy:kd, hold, -rech, -speed, -fly, -tohit, -def,-jump: -30% tohit, -30% def. rech: 240 sec. duration: 30 sec.

Liquefy sucks.

Well... my 2inf.

I have a sonic/sonic defender that was intended for pvp when I created him and was fun for the time up until 80% of the build became worthless with the i13 changes. but thats a different story.

Honestly the set has always felt really lackluster. I can't deny that it significantly improves the teams damage and survivability. But I fight with my blue bar more than I fight enemies. so as far as fun sets go... this is on the low end of the totem pole.

so I'm on board with the the end reduction to disruption field. closest version of that power on any other set is Rad enervation field which has the same end cost but also debuffs damage. seeing as this power only has 1 effect and can be left on a target that (hopefully) doesn't die. the .52/sec end use seems more reasonable.

yeah Liquify is a great power... but the 300 sec recharge just makes the power really dull. as its the most fun to use but is up every 5 mins (slotted) 150 base seems more reasonable. thats at least every other fight(every fight with IOs or hasten) that or make the Hold 10 second base... or round up to 5 at least lol...

um... does anyone actually use sonic repulsion? what if it wasn't a toggle... maybe just a click more like repulsion bomb. centered on an ally. I just don't know anyone who takes that power... and if they do they never use it... the 1end/sec + 2.5 for ever KB endurance costs alone make me want to skip it personally. let alone its situational usage.

I'd delete the toon but I'm hoping for PvP changes that will at least make the set more useful... if it got improved in PvE also i wouldn't complain.

Blueruckus said, while trying to defend an AOE KB power: