AV/GM killer other than fire/rad or traps...

If they're making that argument, they're not 'experts'. The arcanatime-adjusted dpa of each attack:
Shriek = 29.49
Scream = 31.60
Shout = 30.45

Since a pure Shriek/Scream rotation would require -405% recharge, you need to do something with your time once you've gone Scream -> Shriek. Shout is the only option that does any sort of decent single target damage.

You do find Sonic in teams avoiding Shout, but that's due to debuff time per activation:
Shriek = 4.21
Scream = 3.79
Shout = 3.44
Screech = 6.99

Archery, Beam Rifle, Fire, Psychic and Radiation all have a 'useless' first tier power at high enough recharge. Assault Rifle, Electricity and Dark all lack a conventional heavy nuke, so have slightly oddball rotations.

Dual Pistols, Energy, Ice and Sonic are the only sets that really have a conventional rotation.

So unless we want to get into a long discussion of why all those sets are using bizarre rotations, it's just a lot easier to point out that non-optimal rotations for such sets beat optimal rotations for Sonic while solo.

Keep in mind that Sonic's two basic nukes need a debuff on the target merely to pull even with the bad single target sets. Then it has to deal with a heavy nuke that is ridiculously bad compared to the high damage single target sets (BiB is 2.4 times as much dpa, Blaze is 3.7 times as much dpa).

So not only do you have sets that beat Sonic's performance single target even while chain-nuking, but Sonic's performance rapidly drops off a cliff the more you're working with the secondary since you're hit with the double whammy of the average debuff stack getting smaller while the heavy nuke is emphasized.

Facts that are not accurate are not, in fact, facts. At best, they're sloppy assertions, at worst, they are lies.

Here you post incorrect numbers for Scream's damage, which should be 58.39, unenhanced. I realize this is to Sonic's detriment, but I'm not presenting a side here, just checking your facts.

Further, you assume a 15% resist debuff, which is good for a start, but it's not that straightforward. There would be no debuff for the first attack in the first chain. Every attack after that would add a 15% debuff. Assuming this exact 'chain' is used, Shout would have the benefit of 30% debuff before the first attack's debuff faded.

Starting the next 'chain', you would have even more debuffs, at least for the first attack or two. Note that the Resist debuff's length actually depends on the attack, and is not standardized to five seconds as you claim.

No, they're talking solo. There's more than one Sonic/Cold or Sonic/Rad that has posted over the years with news of the latest pwnage. This was well before Incarnate content and the plethora of temporary powers, though I am not sure if it was before IO's.

Except the "five second" window is a seven second window for Scream, and a ten second window for Shout. Other attacks have varying lengths of debuff as well.

I'd be more wary of the number you posted, as it is not attainable.

Which you can't, and so Psychic is not the clear winner in the raw damage department.
This is one of those things that makes people question your sincerity, by the way. You claim that something is true if an impossible condition is met. Since your condition cannot be met--and you should know it, if you are well versed in these numbers--the statement is always false. It is a blatant disregard for the truth to present something in this way.

Which I've already pointed out is not, in fact, a five second window. In a long enough altercation, using Shout as you've suggested, a four stack of debuffs isn't beyond the realm of reason.

I'm out of energy at this time of night/morning, but seriously, your "hard numbers" are sloppy, if not wrong. It can be inferred that your conclusions are also wrong, and that your continual claims of having the factual high ground are baseless.

No, it's quite common. It's what is termed a 'biconditional'. You create the conditional linkage and then demonstrate the consequent is false because the antecedent is.

Pretty much anyone who ever took even an introductory course in philosophy or rhetoric would instantly recognize it.

Actually, it can't be so inferred. You'd have to demonstrate a specific kind and scope of sloppiness first.

If I say it's a "few thousand miles from New York to L.A.", that's a pretty 'sloppy' number. But if I'm using that figure to claim "you can't walk the distance overnight", the potential error in my 'sloppiness' is not sufficient to doubt the claim I'm making.

You'll notice that despite the volume of complaints about my analysis, no one has done more than nitpick. There haven't been any actual counterarguments that demonstrate that Sonic is legitimately better at single target dps than I'm making it sound. Which is probably because it isn't very good at single target dps while solo - and no amount of wishing and hoping by fanboys is going to make it so.

While what you're saying here is "ture" it is still impossible in the realm of this game where hard limits are programed into the game. You cannot give a character more than +400% recharge at any given time. It's just impossible. You could have 1000 kinetics defenders hitting you with speed buff and after the first 8, nothing would happen to your recharge because the game prevents it. Your theorized numbers being called facts is like me calling what happened in a movie a historic event because the world ended.


There have been valid counter arguments, and they have shown that almost everything you have said is false. There has been mathematical figures pointed out to you that show you are incorrect. Anymore stubbornness out of you is going to begin looking a lot like trolling, and purposely feeding false information to the OP who asked for advice. Take a deep breath, read through what others have said, and admit you are wrong in this one specific example, then move on.

It is biconditional, but because the condition can never be met, it is also always false. This makes your contingent statement, (that psi blast has better dps that fire given certain conditions) an outright falsehood. Perhaps they haven't covered it in your introductory philosophy course yet, but lies aren't permitted in honest discourse. They may have a value in rhetoric, but then rhetoric is only about convincing an audience, not about reasoning out the truth. The truth value of statements based upon lies is also suspect.

My original claim was that your statement about having the factual high ground was simply wrong. As your only refutation to my claim is that you somehow still have proven your point--invoking rhetoric where truth is only a means to an end--I have to believe you accept my analysis.

The original question in this thread was what non-fire primaries are up to the task of soloing AV's and/or GM's. The simple answer is that sonic is one of the best, and this answer has been proven beyond reasonable doubt in practice by the numerous people that have accomplished these feats in the past. Your number-mashing is a feeble attempt to introduce numbers which prove that the reality of the matter isn't possible.

You're presenting figures that prove that going to the Moon is impossible, long after we've been there.

I like this analogy; it sums up my thoughts rather well.

How does a bug involving AV protections and the purple patch as it relates to level 54 AVs have anything to do with melee toons traditionally not being able to solo GMs? Do you understand what the difference between a GM and an AV is?

The reason that corruptors, defenders, controllers, and masterminds could fairly easily solo giant monsters when melee toons couldn't, despite the fact that melee toons could solo AVs reliably is because GMs have much higher hit points, and therefore regen than AVs do. AVs base regeneration is something like 94 hp/s, so in order to kill one, you have to be able to do at least 95 DPS (though to do it quickly and reliably you'll want something more like 140-150). Though it isn't easy, melee toons are perfectly capable of achieving these sorts of DPS numbers. A GM on the other hand has something like 250-300 hp/s regen, and that's damn near impossible for a melee toon to do (or at least it was before we got the incarnate slots). A corruptor, defender, controller, or mastermind though doesn't need to do anywhere near that much DPS, because they can debuff that massive regen number.

I'm sure in the world he lives in the moon landing was faked.

Now, out here in the real world...

What? He didn't have any bogus figures. If you get +OVER 9000!!!!!!% recharge, you can really kill lusca and all 8 tentacles in about 30 seconds with defender psi blast.