Some questions about Bots/Sonic

Hello Masterminds! My altitis has been getting the best of me lately, and another concept character will soon be created. This one, as you might have guessed, will be a Bots/Sonic MM. Barring any outcries of "NOOOOO IT'S T3H SUX!" from the forums. I'm following my general strategy of envisioning the character both in leveling and endgame contexts as I try to think up a build. Which leads me into my questions.

1.) Will the resistance from sonic layering with the Protector Bot's defense shields be as good as I think it will be? It seems like having high resistance, decent defense, and heals will make the pets pretty tough.

2.) I seem to recall reading that the Protector Bots will apply stacking shields to the pets, but only one to you (the MM). Is this correct? Also, what is the value of that shield?

3.) At higher levels, I'm thinking of having the two Pulse Rifle ST attacks for AV fights. I would take Mace Mastery to occupy my time in normal battles with control powers and Mace Beam Volley. Also, Scorpion Shield. Is this a viable decision, or should I consider other options?

4.) The Disruption Field (I think it's called) in Sonic requires an ally. Solo, I was thinking it could be placed on the Assault Bot and I could use the Go To command to send him into a spawn to debuff them. Will that work? Obviously on a team I can just put it on the main tank.

5.) Is there something else I should know before starting this particular combo?

@Rorn ---- Blue Baron ---- Guardian

1) layered defenses are always über. I don't have mids in front of me, but I am unsure if you can layer enough to make that much of a difference. I can take a look at that tomorrow.

2) Correct, but don't forget your prot bots can't bubb themselves either. 11% is the enhanced defense they cast.

3) The bots do more than enough damage to take out the hard targets. The trick is keeping them alive to let them. With Scorpion shield, you may be able to softcaped, again, need to load mids up for that. A resistance shield may take you further as it will stack with sonic.

4) as long as you can keep him alive, sure, but really, assbot is at home firing from range. You may want to consider both aid other and repair in order to keep him upright, further stretching your power options.

5) these two sets don't really synergize well IMO. When layering defenses i try to maximize one layer before building on the other. I am unsure whether it is possible to get either high defense or high resistance here, or just midrange on both. Usually I build my mm's so I take the aggro, and let the pets do their thing. I would not be confident I could do that here. Again, would have a better idea after I load up mids.

Hello Vauluur,

4) The Disruption Field debuff needs a henchman or ally to work. The debuff toggle sucks an amazing amount of end(.50/sec base) and its AoE range once applied to the henchmen is only 15'. The amount of -Res it does to a mob is good, but nothing great.

Instead of focusing on this debuff, channel your attention to the 2 good debuffs in the secondary. These being: Sonic Siphon & Liquefy. Siphon is a single-target debuff that does -22.5% Res to a target for 30 sec. This element cannot be enhanced, but the Rech, Range, and ACC can be. Liquefy is a power you have to wait till level 38 to pick up, but is the strongest debuff in the set.

Liquefy's Detailed Info in PvE: debuffs Def & ToHit by 25% for a 31 sec duration.
-20% Rech for 31 sec duration
3% chance for 0.67 Mag KB(I believe this to be actually 70% through observation, also the description of the power states, "Most foes that pass through the location will fall down." Additionally, the location AoE does knockdown, not KB)
-Jump for 31 sec duration
Mag 2 Hold for 4.2 sec.
10 Smashing DMG
10 Energy DMG
And something about 10.00 fly protection on target for 31 sec that I don't understand.

Thanks for the responses! I am thinking the character will work out. Sonic might be ideal for melee henchmen, but most of the set works pretty well with Bots. I'm not too worried about the defense numbers for the Bots. Leveling, they should do fine with the enhanced resists from Sonic and I plan on having Diamagnetic Interface and Barrier Destiny in the end game. Besides, they have more defense than a Demons/Thermal and those seem to do well.

Liquefy seems great, but it looks like it has a really long recharge. I doubt I can have it every spawn. Though, with careful application of Sonic Siphon I shouldn't have enough enemies living long enough that it matters in most spawns.

IIRC fly protection is what the game uses to do -fly, in that it blocks flight powers from lifting you into the air. If that's correct, it makes Liquefy even more attractive.

I'll put a build together sometime soon, with MW3 being out now that might be in a few days though

@Rorn ---- Blue Baron ---- Guardian

I think you're going to be disappointed in the survivability of your pets.

If you don't go with a Defense based secondary, you might see the Bots hit 30% Def/All if you slot the Protbots for +Def, slot the 5% Aura, and run fully slotted Maneuvers. The damage resistance you're going to provide as Sonic is not going to make up for that last 15% defense to softcap (and it's quite a bit more in Trials).

If you have 30% defense, you're being hit 20% of the time. If you have 45% defense, you're being hit 5% of the time.

That means you're taking 300% more damage with 30% defense than 45% defense.

Robotics also does not, as mentioned, mesh well with Sonic's debuff anchor.

I24 Proc Chance = (Enhanced Recharge + Activation Time) * (Current PPM * 1.25) / 60*(1 + .75*(.15*Radius - 0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30))
Single Target Radius = 0. AoE Non-Cone Arc = 360.

Well, put together a build in mids today. Just updating my previous post.

1) layered defenses are always über. I don't have mids in front of me, but I am unsure if you can layer enough to make that much of a difference. I can take a look at that tomorrow.

- This is indeed the case, for me at least. There is not enough layering for me to be comfortable relying on it.

3) The bots do more than enough damage to take out the hard targets. The trick is keeping them alive to let them. With Scorpion shield, you may be able to softcaped, again, need to load mids up for that. A resistance shield may take you further as it will stack with sonic.

-You can indeed softcap with your prot bot bubble. However, the bots will neither be at the softcap, or resistance cap.

With a resistance shield, you can be capped and it is trivial to get within one purple insp. of the softcap. That makes you a little tougher in my mind. The bots will still be very exposed though. keep the mobs on you, and it shouldn't be that big of a deal

A word on a demons/thermal pairing. One of the reasons why it works so well, is because thermal shields stack with your buffs from your demons. A demons/sonic would have very nearly identical synergy with the resistances, but you may be wishing you had some of thermals debuffs.