City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Sonic Defender Now Useless, I guess

3dent

By 3dent,
Posted on: 2011-10-01 07:16 in Defenders

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Deacon_NA View Post
This wasn't always the case. The toggle brought the aggro to the Sonic, once upon a time. Could be an amusing griefing tool to use, if you wanted, if stealthy and en-hula hooped, you could run up to a mob and watch them take off after your sonic buddy.
So it was you!!!!

 

Posted

I hate that people still think like that. My main and first toon I had was/is a sonic/sonic defender and I cant tell you how hard of a road that was. Always trying to get a team and once I did I wold be given the same attitude you were, except I sometimes got kicked off the team. Notably for empaths,kins, and rads. Some people just don't understand what sonic defenders do. They don't understand we can help in the lower levels with those dreaded circle of thorns. They don't understand we can make the scrappers and tanks freakishly happy because they feel like little demi gods. That we can make the squishies not die in two or three hits. It's sad to see that people still think like that. I still play my sonic defender and luckily haven't had to deal with people like that in a while. Don't take it personally. They just need to learn. The ignorance they have is not your problem. :P

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by shaggy5 View Post
I went on an Eden run today and brought my sonic/rad defender. They said we would go fast because they had 2 Time corrs (which I will admit are good). Then the guy says, "Oh and we have a kin, too." I mentioned that I was a sonic so I could contribute to the debuff, to which I got a "Sonic? Meh" and that attitude prevailed throughout the trial.

I understand why some people think sonic (and bubbles, too) need an overhaul, but they are hardly useless, but on my team of 8, I seemed to be the only one who thought that.
An Eden Trial? Isn't that the trial where the monsters drop things which basically make any Defense Buffs useless? So the Time guys fancy-pants soft-cap would mean nothing?


Your teammates were sillies.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mega_Jamie View Post
I enjoy sonic, but it is massively unloved by most people, which I don't udnerstand, the majority of people build for a softcap, so I can see why FF gets some hate, but not many people are capable of putting themselves at resistance caps, even with sonic putting them halfway.
Very true. It's near impossible unless you are of a few very specific ATs and powersets to build good quantities of resistance. Especially to anything other that smashing/lethal.

That said, I have to add that my sonic puts everyone WELL beyond 1/2 way to the cap (obviously except for Psi) and even then a lot of folks aren't capped.. I'd bet every resistance based melee set is capped to all but Psi with me around, tho, even in the lvl 20 range before they have many slots to spend refining their powers.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Oathbound View Post
This is the problem that buff and debuff sets have, people don't notice when they're NOT taking damage, because there's next to no feedback about it. There's nothing that says "This attack missed you, thanks to that friendly Bubbler on your team." Where there IS feedback along the lines of "Empath heals you for XXX amount" in the form of easily noticeable little green numbers.

If there's nothing TELLING them that you're being useful, they're more inclined to believe that you're not.
I think this is very true. And while it's especially true for the really unloved support sets (FF, Sonic, TA) it's also true of most every support set that doesn't offer SB or a selection of heals. The only set that I think doesn't suffer from this problem as much is Cold, as I think the combo of the very obvious buff graphic, and the word of mouth about it's capabilities, means most people just assume that a Cold that knows how to play the set is worth their team slot...

Otherwise, often buffs (other than HP buffs, er, healing and of course, SB and FS) and especially debuffs, just go unnoticed and unappreciated.

I don't know if there is anything that can be done, or even should be, about this. It's just the nature of the support role.

 

Posted

One thing going against Sonic is what I would call the survivability threshhold. Once your teammates have sufficient survivability that they rarely, if ever, die, any additional survivability is moot. Some teams exceed that threshhold before any team buffs are applied. Others need one or more team buffs to reach it. The less survivable the base team is, the more buffs like Sonic will help.

There may be circumstances on a great team where someone goes down and a Sonic's +Resistance shields might've kept them up. If you're talking pure efficiency, though, what did you give up in order to fit the Sonic? If you killed things faster, you might not've taken that damage in the first place. This doesn't just apply to Sonics, but Empathy and Force Field, too. I've been on teams where one Emp or bubbler turns a teamwipe candidate into a juggernaut. I've been on teams where the Emp or bubbler could doorsit all day and nobody would notice. The sets aren't bad or useless because of this, but their benefits are dependent on the team's capabilities and the challenges faced.

Resistance also takes a clear back seat to defense. Any attack that hits can apply its secondary effects. Even if you take less damage, you might now cause less damage or take damage more often/easily due to that secondary effect. If the team isn't softcapped to the key damage type they're facing, then +Defense or -ToHit will help more than +Resistance. If they are softcapped to that damage type, either individually or due to team buffs, adding +Resistance on top of that isn't going to move the needle much in terms of survivability under most conditions.

 

Posted

The only problem I ever had with Sonic Resonance were some of the effects. They can be annoying.

That said, I agree with the posters who said that the visibility of the effects of the powers going unnoticed has a lot to do with the perceived usefulness of the powerset versus some of the others, especially Rad and Empathy (Oh, Christmas tree!), Dark and Kinetics. Not a lot of people (the forum-runners and vets are the outliers) think, "that attack hit me for half as much or not at all" because of their Bubbler or Resonator, but when they get hit with Fulcrum Shift and notice much bigger orange numbers or the green numbers that come up over their head from a heal, they know it right now.

11 months of all-nighters, messy feeding sessions, bath fighting and realizing just how good my son's lungs work, and I am still convinced he is the crowning accomplishment in my life. What in the blue HFIL is wrong with me?

 

Posted

Ok, here's how it goes: Sonic on an Eden trial?

Properly slotted, you were granting your teammates around 50% resistance to most damage types, including Toxic damage against an enemy group that isn't short on the stuff.

If you were using Clarity you were also providing Sleep protection and additional Hold protection (especially if you kept up Sonic Dispersion), something very useful around the Mold wall and anywhere else there was a damn mushroom.

And if you were spamming Sonic Siphon, you were also causing a nice -60% Resistance to increase your teammates damage past the damage cap. Probably only against 1 or 2 enemies at a time, but on a Trial with 5 Monster/Giant Monsters and lots of bosses, that's still pretty useful.

Yes, Sonic can be outdone, but it's not a terrible set. It could stand a little attention to make it more appealing than similar sets, but it's not useless. It's a very good set to have on a team. It's just... less fun to play. The fact that it's not the best and that most people find it a boring set contributes heavily to the meh attitude surrounding it. It's not a set you should play if you really want to be... noticed, I guess. But if you enjoy playing it, then who cares what anyone else thinks?

Now, off to play Trick Arrows!

Trickshooter's Characters | @Trickshooter @Brightside

 

Posted

I wonder...considering the point made about the set already offering mez protection, should Clarity be changed to this:

"By bouncing a carefully pitched sound wave off an ally's ear drum, you can free him from any disorient, hold, sleep, confusion, fear, and immobilize effects, and leave him resistant to such effects for a good while. Protection will improve with multiple applications and as you advance in level. The soothing tone also provides your ally with enhanced perception, greater accuracy, and helps protect him from recharge debuffs."

  • Accepts endurance, range, recharge, tohit enhancements and Tohit IOs
  • 60s recharge
  • 10.4 endurance
  • -12.975 Sleep for 90s If NOT on a PvP map [Non-resistable]
  • -6.4875 Stun, Immobilize, Held, Confused, Terrorized for 30s If NOT on a PvP map [Non-resistable]
  • RES(Sleep) +216.25% for 90s If NOT on a PvP map [Non-resistable]
  • RES(Stun, Immobilize, Held, Confused, Terrorized) +129.75% for 90s If on a PvP map [Non-resistable]
  • RES(Sleep) +346% for 90s If on a PvP map [Non-resistable]
  • RES(PerceptionRadius) +108.125% for 90s [Non-resistable]
  • +1.081 PerceptionRadius for 90s [Non-resistable]
  • ToHit +18.75% for 90s [Non-resistable] Effect does not stack from same caster
  • DEF(Psionic) +15% for 90s [Non-resistable] Effect does not stack from same caster
  • RES(Psionic) +15% for 90s [Non-resistable] Effect does not stack from same caster
  • RES(RechargeTime) +20% for 90s [Ignores Enhancements & Buffs] [Non-resistable] Effect does not stack from same caster

The thought process is to retain yet weaken the Clear Mind aspects while focusing more on the other parts of the concept of "clarity" by buffing tohit and protecting against psi.

Pretty sure others can point out errors in my numbers.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by streetlight View Post
If you killed things faster, you might not've taken that damage in the first place.
-res is an unsung hero.

unless I am mistaken

1% applied -res > +1% dam

the +dam % could probably be increased noticeably above 1% and the sentence above would still be true for a number of ATs and builds.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by all_hell View Post
-res is an unsung hero.
I'm not disagreeing with you, but Sonic Resonance doesn't do any better at resistance debuffs than other sets with also do a number of other things. I suppose on SOs it may, but once you get into an IO build and can double-stack Tar Patch/Sleet/Freezing Rain, other sets are doing just as much -res along with everything else.

Add in outside recharge buffs and those sets can even triple-stack their debuffs, while Sonic Resonance doesn't benefit from recharge boosts in any way other than greater uptime the T9 and perhaps the ability to spread the Siphon to more targets.

 

Posted

So, we are in agreement!? Lets buff Sonic Resonance.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Supernumiphone View Post
I'm not disagreeing with you, but Sonic Resonance doesn't do any better at resistance debuffs than other sets with also do a number of other things. I suppose on SOs it may, but once you get into an IO build and can double-stack Tar Patch/Sleet/Freezing Rain, other sets are doing just as much -res along with everything else.

Add in outside recharge buffs and those sets can even triple-stack their debuffs, while Sonic Resonance doesn't benefit from recharge boosts in any way other than greater uptime the T9 and perhaps the ability to spread the Siphon to more targets.
I assume you're right about what you posted.

I was just pointing out that -res is underrated. I strongly suspect that in a lot of regular game play situations it has a significantly greater impact than +dam when it comes to the, "If you killed things faster, you might not've taken that damage in the first place," assessment.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gemini_2099 View Post
So, we are in agreement!? Lets buff Sonic Resonance.
Well, I don't want to risk unbalancing the game. So perhaps we should just buff my toons.

 

Posted

I don't expect praise on my dark/rad fender, nor my storm unless I do something clever. I don't really see the need for such when I'm just doing my job, like every other fender out there. Emps just get it because of the carry over from other online games, so I don't really use them as the standard.

But people do forget, or overlook, what you bring to a PUG. Its easy to do, and happens alot I'm afraid to say. Just last week on a trial, we had a emp fender that did a really good job of being there with his buffs and heals when I needed them. I, of course, being the decent type say to myself "I got to thx him after this battle!"... to which I promptly forgot. But me not saying that didn't lessen what the emp brought to the team. He did a great job, and I'm sure he knew he did a great job, so why worry about some a line or two of praise in chat.

But if you need the praise, then just use the 'fishing' emote.

/Empaths can turn three people into Jesus, one person into God, and everyone else into the twelve apostles.~Angry_Citizen

Don't you know that discussion of power selection/slotting can ONLY be based on hearsay, rumor, idle speculation, and bald-faced lies??!? ~Elf_Sniper

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Spad_EU View Post
Many people are idiots. Many people are also blinded by the new shiny.
Yep just like people who believe that the new SR Tankers can't tank or "If they can't do it, no one can".

Such narrowmindedness.

But I do believe that out of all sets that can do with a buff then Sonic is top of my list.

He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by shaggy5 View Post
I went on an Eden run today and brought my sonic/rad defender. They said we would go fast because they had 2 Time corrs (which I will admit are good). Then the guy says, "Oh and we have a kin, too." I mentioned that I was a sonic so I could contribute to the debuff, to which I got a "Sonic? Meh" and that attitude prevailed throughout the trial.
Yesterday, during a slow day at work I was thinking that I never, ever heard something along the lines "Hey, I've read that FF sucks on forums, your FF, ur kicked for ur gimp build."

Now I heard everything.

"Bad" support set like FF, Sonic, or TA isn't "bad" the same way a blast is bad, or an armour is bad. It may be a bit boring to play, or over-specialized, or something, but, played competently it still contributes more to team for less investment than pretty much anything else.

People on AT forums are all too often too fascinated by uber-soloing builds, and yes, uber-soloing builds are fun. But a single defender with pretty much any primary can give many of the advantages of such a build to EVERYONE ON THE TEAM. FF? Softcap, posi to inc trials if you wish (post-small bubble buff and PBU@35 epic pool change.) Sonic? See above "damage goes to ELEVEN" post. TA? All sorts of useful stuff there, too much to enumerate. (I actually don't understand TA hate, it's supposed weaknesses are, as I understand "no buffs of any kind," then we praise sets like rad, cold or therm for their great debuffs and how incredibly useful they are. Forgetting that the price for those is things like rads having AM (non-perma) instead of SB.)

Don't be afraid of gimp support sets. Be afraid of team leaders who don't get how support works in this game.

 

Posted

As I posted in the Rude Tells yesterday my Traps/Beam defender got this on Exalted last night.

Me : "Level 26 Traps Defender lft"

after a few seconds
Idiot : "Level 21 Team running tips looking for a proper healer instead"

No idea who idiot was, but I hope he got an aura-rocking healzor and they got torn to tiny shreds anyway

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA View Post
As I posted in the Rude Tells yesterday my Traps/Beam defender got this on Exalted last night.

Me : "Level 26 Traps Defender lft"

after a few seconds
Idiot : "Level 21 Team running tips looking for a proper healer instead"

No idea who idiot was, but I hope he got an aura-rocking healzor and they got torn to tiny shreds anyway
That's rank ignorance. What I meant was someone who obviously DOES know things like "10 reasons pure heals won't keep you alive in CoX," but drank too much powerset-hate kool-aid.

 

Posted

Did a Posi 1 last night with a bubbler & a sonic (one was a def, the other a troller I didn't check to see who was which.) Smooooooth as silk and the team ripped stuff up with no difficulties at all. I dropped my shields, kept my mez toggle up and spent all my end on just beating stuff up. Our Blasters were all in melee range kicking tail too. All of the other melee toons on the team did the same and we all commented on how it was the easiest smoothest Posi any of us had done with a PUG.

We followed it up with Posi 2 but lost the bubbler & ringer... picked up some /kin corrs what a different experience that was. Successful on both, but the Posi 2 was no where near as smooth.

 

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Last night the team leader was grabbing random folks. We had many blasters, scrappers, brutes, and tanks, no defenders, no controllers, no corruptors -- but we had a merc/sonic. The rings kept us upright. Sonic dispersion kept us mezz-free, and the hula hoop/tutu of down allowed dark blasters to actually do significant damage to banished pantheon. In such a 7 man team with no team buffs/support, ONLY a sonic or forcefield user would do.

Triumphant Defenders Forever
Psylenz FF/Psi, ArticQuark Storm/Rad, Symon BarSisyphus Bots/psn, Max VanSydow Thugs/Dk, Cyclone Symon Bots/stm, Blue Loki Ice/Cd, Widow 46526
HelinCarnate:OMG it is so terrible. I have the option to take 3 more powers but no additional slots. Boo F'ing hoo.