RenownedGibberish

So, full disclosure, I haven't tried it out yet, but the numbers definitely don't look great. Previous to this change, stacking -80% resistance was not difficult, and -100% for a while after Dreadful Wail. Now, we have -12%, non-stacking, plus 8% stacking depending on which powers one is using, up to another -40%, for a total of -52% (-44% without Wail). Numbers-wise, that means a sonic defender is dealing only 55% of the debuffs (s)he was doing before (without Wail), or 52% with Wail. Now, sure, you can up the DPS and lower the activation time (further increasing the DPS), but even adding 100% damage to all Sonic attacks barely makes up for the reduced debuff potential, and that's all talking about solo play. Also, practically speaking, I feel like pushing people in the direction of taking specific powers over others is not an awesome design change; it might have been more helpful to enact something closer to the Water Blast system, where the sonic attacks build up, and eventually explode in some damage and the spread of the base debuff to nearby enemies, similar to Beam Rifle, which gives them more utility against groups. Then again, that's more of a pain to implement. On an eight-person team, a Sonic who can stack... for simplicity, let's say -100% resistance, because it makes the math easier, is doubling their allies damage. Not 'increasing it by 100%' as a damage buff would do, but Doubling It. Decreasing their resistance by 52% does multiply their damage by 1.52, but that is only about half as good as what Sonics could do before. If we take the Kin/Sonic, who can cap everyone's damage... well, the numbers look even worse (relatively; there's still buffs happening, after all). Suppose the Kin only doubles everyone's damage. Now our Kin/Sonic is doubling base damage, and then reducing enemy resistance by 100%, which doubles it again, for a total of Four Times The Damage (4.0x). With these changes, 1.52 becomes 3.04. This is still not insignificant; actually, it's pretty great! But it's nowhere near as good as they do now. All of that said, just because a set is amazing doesn't mean it's fun to play, and even as amazing as Sonic is without these changes, it does seem (empyrically) like a relatively small percentage of Defenders and Corrupters use it. So maybe I'll like it better, despite the apparent on-paper reduction in set power.