Onlyasandwich

Thank you for your review, and sharing your own build! The single slot for brawl provides fairly comparable 1-slot return on slow resist to the Winter's Gift IO itself (15 versus 20%). Honestly slow resist is probably a lot less important on a MM, and even less so on /Sonic specifically. It is a bit of a quality of life issue for me, however, and this build has a lot of flex slots, so I may as well keep it. Victory Rush is very powerful, especially when used on bosses. When used on a boss, it provides (enhanced) 117% recovery, and reduces end consumption by 30% across the board. Even at LT level it is ~59% and 15% respectively. The downside is the uptime, which though significant, can't be made perma, as the power isn't affected by recharge. It's also pretty fiddly to use as noted. I rely on Mids for a lot of my math, so am not 100% certain on pet hit chances here. However, between a minimum of 60% local accuracy, 9% tohit from Tactics, 10% tohit from Supremacy, and 5% total tohit from both Enforcers, it should be pretty solid. Both Thugs and enforcers will also benefit pretty often from their own buildup procs. 2 Cytos would indeed be a bit better! However, I'm trying to cut down a bit on the most expensive enhancements where possible, and the extra tohit provided from a Cyto is pretty negligible here versus the extra bit of endredux from a plain old IO.

A few things: Greater enhancement value - this is the reason to use them! For normal sets, the set bonus will no longer be available when exemping more than three levels below the value (ie a boosted level 50 IO would grant no set bonuses when at level 46 and lower. This is the trade off normally. There are some notable exceptions, which guide how I attune and boost. PVP sets and purples always act as attuned even when boosted. There is no reason not to boost them. I'll also boost set IOs sometimes when the set bonus is pretty unimportant, and the extra enhancement value would be useful. A common example is boosting the endmod in performance shifter when slotted in stamina. I'll benefit from greater endmod, and I don't care if I lose the 7.5% movement speed set bonus when exemping.

The whips in demons are super strong, especially procced out.

I've polished off my latest MM, having finished my Necro/EA just a few days ago. He's amazing! Certainly can't go wrong with either of these sets. Edit: Played with the build a bit. Thugs is of course a very strong primary as well, and I have yet to play it. However, I have a concept that works well with /Sonic, and I've been itching to try and make the set work, as its literally the only support set in the game I haven't played. I like the idea of playing it on a character that can actually benefit from Disruption Field when solo (Thank you Mr. Bruiser), so Thugs is a good fit. I don't see much of Sonic in the MM forums, however. It seems the key here is the lack of a heal, which even with the best defenses, is something we end up needing to lean on in the chaos of managing our minions at times. I'm also struck by the particularly difficult end management of this combo. Lots of toggles, all of them very expensive! Some of them very mediocre even with this expense. If you've played this combo, or /Sonic on a MM at all, I'd love to hear how it fared in solo high level work. Can it complete even a +4X8 Council mission without waiting for liquify with every spawn, or constantly resummoning? A few things I'd like to keep regardless: I want to try Sonic repulsion. It doesn't seem very good for the enormous end cost, but I'd like to see how it goes. Have you found it useful? Does FFback work in here like it does in kinetics/Repel? I believe it should from the way it flags in CoD. Leviathan powers are for theme. I am a fan of slow resist, and like to keep at least 80% as here. What I've gone for: Max my personal S/L resist and grab recharge where possible, incorporating all the MM procs. Max hit chance against +3's. Survival strategy is uh - hope the Thugs can take it in the jaw? Really, open with either Gang war or Liquefy if possible, though it won't be always given absurd cooldowns. Otherwise, use a combination of KD procs in Bile Spray (88% chance) and Sonic repulsion to keep tagbacks to a minimum. This seems a bit dicey, but maybe my shields will hold us through! Slotting and power questions: Is it silly to miss defense slotting for Enforcer? I can't even tell if it actually enhances the power. Speaking of enforcer, what do you think of my proc slotting here? I believe gaussian should hit quite often for them given they are buffing all their buddies with the tohit aura. I skipped Empty clips, despite being an avid MM attack getter. This thing is just plain old garbage as far as I can tell, and even a pretty bad FFback donkey when procced out. Do you like it? A few of my slots were sort of thrown in for extra endredux (maneuvers, tactics, some others that are sort of marginal). Do you see any areas where I would better reallocate? Endurance usage! Holy cow I'm not sure if it's really possible to balance this end usage when running all the toggles. I guess the answer is not to run them, but we'll see. Victory Rush is only ~40% up time, and fiddly to use, but pretty effective. Ideally I'd like Rebirth, but Ageless is seeming like the only answer for high levels. Mastermind (Thugs - Sonic Resonance) mk2.mbd Visual:

If you happen to be using Flight pool on a given build, Evasive Maneuvers is a good pick to save slots here, assuming you have any power flex or room to rejigger the build. Evasive provides Knockback resistance, which is normally only available on melee AT KB protection powers. This will cut the mag of any KB roughly in half before your protection kicks in, meaning that 8 mag protection is roughly equivalent to 16 mag instead (48% resist). As a bonus, it provides immob protection as well, which is handy if you don't use CJ on this character. You may know this already of course! It's an easy to miss aspect of this power, however.

The most compelling reason is aoe damage. Blasters do way more of it, even without the nuke. Also nuke! Some blasters just jump in and pretend their blasts area all melee. This works fine if built sturdily enough and with clever application of controls in your secondary, but can hit a wall against certain content. There is also the old art of "jousting," for which @Nemu has a great guide. This allows you to more safely employ melee. Don't underestimate the control power of the secondary though, especially aoe knockdowns. A cheat at high levels is to pick up bonfire with a kb to kd IO.

That's a bit of an uneven comparison, as these are buffs that carry with you, and can be made almost perma. That being said, it is an extremely potent power. Its power budget is invested in somewhat redundant effects though. As the only real proactive enemy affecting power in the set, the long timer is felt more substantially. -res here would help Sonic live up to its rep as King of that debuff. As is it's outshined by cold, and basically equal to any other set with a standard aoe -res.

@Spaghetti Betty I love the combo here, and your build is great. I too very much enjoy the "damn the defenses" playstyle on sets who have meaningful controls to fall back on. It may not be as ultimately survivable as a defense softcap build, but it can succeed, generally has much better damage through procs, and is just more fun when you wish to feel engaged. I am inspired to make one of these myself, and bashed together my take on it. Much of my slotting is informed by yours, with some meaningful differences: Double tentacle action. I like the idea of constantly layering the full boss level immob mag on the whole spawn so things stay in place. I didn't proc out Vines. It definitely creates a nice little bomb if you do! My conceit here is to use it as a consistent opener, so hold/recharge enhancement is pretty useful. Swapping Grav anchor proc here gives a mag increaser with full 90% proc rate even with the maxed recharge. I'd love to hear more about how useful you have found the power. Heal slotting in Life Drain. I didn't go proc heavy here, though it does respectable damage. I usually fully proc out LIfe Drain, but am interested to see how often this tool is useful. Not quite at slow resist cap, but close enough with 90%. I grabbed the juicy low-hanging ranged defense bonuses, though didn't go out of my way outside of these. The idea here is to establish a solid baseline to stack with the to-hit debuffs, allowing me to stabilize in battle once Vines wears off. I built for max to-hit without Aim or Toxins in the mix. It looks like you may be leaning on these. Nightfall and Vines especially are running short on hit chance against +3's. I really like the idea of using Strangler as a one-shot boss hold. Even Abyssal will be clamping down bosses with regularity when used right after the opener. Of course, this leads to another question - why not just make a Dom? Plant/Dark Dom is one of the most powerful combos of anything out there. The real reason is of course fun and theme, but I see a few advantages to the Blaster: Nuke! More damage potential with their superior ATO set (extra purple proc). Better endurance management through blaster sustain. With how busted Plant/ is, I do think the dom version of this would tie or even pull ahead in damage outside of nuking, and gains full mez protection with perma-dom. Worth considering if you're inspired to make another dom! Nevertheless, not every character is about the optimal combo. Sometimes it's about making something odd work really well, and this is just the treat! Here's my build for reference. Blaster (Dark Blast - Plant Manipulation) mk2.mbd Screenshot:

/Sonic will be quite capable on teams. For solo work, you'll have mez protection, which is nice. However, a huge swathe of your toolkit is useless solo. Of special note is your biggest -res debuff (Disruption Field), which can be nice on Controllers with a melee pet. No melee pet here. Theme is king if you really prefer it! It is not a very optimal pairing unless you are teaming most of the time.

Great name, and an excellent combo!

Sleep is indeed a bit undervalued as others above have highlighted. Welcome back to the game! Forgive me, as I'm not quite clear on your intention here based on what you have said thus far. It sounds as if you are saying Sleep is the best form of control, and that "Every other control set can only root." As others have pointed out, there are certainly more forms of control than Sleep and Root, and every single control set has multiple. Stun and Hold are more powerful than sleep, given that they keep the enemy from retaliating at all even if you hit them, whereas sleep will be broken upon damage. These are fairly basic tenets of the game, so you might understand our collective confusion. Perhaps this is obvious to you and we are all misunderstanding your intention! This is however very directly what your posts thus far are stating.

Also an outstanding choice!

What a truly classic and satisfying combo you have chosen! End consumption is indeed a bit rough if you are leveraging its full potential. I have my own build, shown here for reference. Demon Dark.mbd Note that Demon/ MM attacks are actually quite powerful once properly slotted, and also enhance your pet attacks through -res. My build above shows how you can proc them out productively. Unless you just don't like the whip theme, it's a shame to skip them. Overall your current build will be survivable, and you will support your pets quite well with current slotting. However, even in tough solo content, you should survive quite well on the strength of pet tankiness, heals, -to-hit, and some strong baseline defense. Rune is indeed a nice fallback, but a bit of a heavy power investment, and proper pet management and aggressive use of controls should make mezzes mostly a non issue. I would consider a ground up rework of these priorities, dropping the heavy slot investment towards defense set bonuses that don't contribute much to local power enhancement. You sacrifice very little defensively for a more proc focused build with the right IO focus. My build has lower baseline defense, but very similar resist profile, even without tough/weave. Between Fearsome stare, Darkest Night, and Fluffy, you'll be quite safe. Regardless of how you might otherwise re-adapt the larger decisions of your build, here are a few things that stand out: Summon Demons is underslotted for +res. It is worth maxing out. Rune of Protection is way over slotted. This power doesn't benefit from recharge at all. Even if you keep it, One or two +5 resist IOs are sufficient. I typically just mule the steadfast res/def IO here and call it a day, as the big benefit is the mez protection, and a lot of your most important resists will be capped anyhow. Consider swapping your ATO usage around as in my build to better benefit from all the easy +10% recharge bonuses while maintaining the same or better enhancement values. Twilight Grasp is overslotted with no super useful set bonuses, even for your current build. 3 slot with Acc/heal, acc/end/heal, and heal gives enough accuracy and maxes out the heal. I like the theft proc here to make the power free or an end benefit quite often. Howling Twilight is a great power. If you use any of the above advice to free slots, consider further enhancing end redux and recharge here. Your extra slots in tactics lead to very marginal local power benefits and IO bonuses. These slots are better used elsewhere. If keeping Weave, swap 2 of the lotg's for the equivalent shield walls and +5 them. Higher enhancement value that still exemps (pvp set), and a stronger +HP bonus. This is my favorite MM combo so far! I'm sure you'll have a blast no matter what you do.

Panacea proc belongs in Suppress Pain. Here, it will proc not only on yourself, but pets and allies within radius. There is no advantage to putting it in DE. Personally I find the tiny amount of regen offered by Numina and Regen tissue pretty bad return for slot investment on a MM, as Pet HP isn't all that high. Even at max level with DE fully enhanced for heal, you're talking like 2-3 hp per second for each unique on the lich, and even less for the lower minions. You are better served maxing the heal enhancement of DE, then using those slots elsewhere for damage procs, slow resist, personal end support, or other places you find interesting. I haven't verified with my own testing, but I saw someone say that they found slotting DE for endredux also reduces the end consumption of Necro pets, which would be a worthier return for Pet endurance if you find that an issue. Personally, I slot DE with one 53 Golgi and a +5 Heal IO. This helps me save on recast mid battle when having to resummon, gets near enough to ED caps, and if the end trick actually works hey why not, that too.

I put together my own take on this combo were I chasing the same goals. You could dial back procs here and there to achieve closer to perma-hasten, but where I have slotted is I feel a good balance. If it were my own character, I would dial back even further, dropping many of the +ranged defense bonuses, allowing -tohit to make up during solo play. This could round out slow resist (modest at 65% right now), or allow further enhancement of the aoe immob. I like to put the energy font and Overwhelming KD proc in it. This definitely relies on hitting Soul Absorption reliably, as otherwise you are starved for end. Fortunately, it's basically perma, and very powerful indeed. I'm sure this could be optimized further of course, but this is the basic idea. Edit: Optimized further towards @Bellicose's stated goals. I have this slotted with Musculature Radial, but Intuition radial is a good swap as well. The +range is indeed pretty nice with the cones, as @Bionic_Flea points out. I prefer musculature for the extra end support, and the -tohit, which is pretty significant in this combo. If you are chaining back to back aoes, there is room in the rotation for an epic aoe. However, you can just as easily weave in your ST attacks during that downtime, leaving you with more power options. This reliance on the primary attacks for your damage also feeds Reverberant as mentioned above. The damage and control of Reverberant is very respectable if properly played! Remember that a certain amount of time even in extended aoe combat will be dedicated to recasting Fade, Tar Patch, Soul Absorption, and healing when needed. Controller (Symphony Control - Darkness Affinity).mbd Here's an alternate version with Psi APP for Indom Will if you want to tackle mez protection as well. I don't care to fiddle with Indom will myself, as you have to hit it proactively (doesn't act as a BF like Rune). You could do rotating bind shenanigans with Hasten to mitigate this. Controller (Symphony Control - Darkness Affinity) mk2.mbd

You're welcome! Here is my own Symphony/Pain for reference, in the event you might find some of the primary slotting a helpful starting point. Controller (Symphony Control - Pain Domination).mbd

If I were going for these same goals, my choice would be Symphony/Dark. Reasons: Huge base +def in Fade, allowing you a much simpler softcap focus without detracting from other elements. Ranged softcap would be the simplest solution here, and the power combos not only allow easy slotting for this, but you also have the power to stay at range easily. Excellent resists, including an extra layer of exotic resists that are exceptionally useful during certain challenging parts of hard mode (NE is a big one). An effectively infinite end tool built-in with Soul Absorption, again allowing more flexible slotting for other goals. Symphony operates very comfortably at range, allowing you to position quite safely. Enormous aoe damage from the primary when procced out, allowing you to solo easily. Given your goal of perma-hasten, procs will be a bit of a balancing act against global recharge. However, the pay-off is huge. I wouldn't be surprised if Symphony out-damages Fire/ and even Plant/ in practice when properly slotted. Confounding Chat will be doing ~550 damage, discord ~330, lullaby ~200, all while applying your control effects. This also gives you more freedom in APP picks, as you don't need to rely on it for aoe. ST damage chain built into your control powers (your hold and Serenade are quite sufficient themselves, though you can supplement with an epic blast if needed). These powers can be hitting for ~370 and ~250 respectively, with a quick cooldown. Stealth built in with Shadow fall, allowing you to steer away from super speed for full invis if you like. Enormous -tohit alongside your strong defenses will actually make an impactful difference in hard mode, though at 4 star this will of course still rely on further contribution from the team. For solo work, this easily allows you to ignore soft-cap strategies if you are open to it, giving you even more freedom in slotting. I wouldn't even bother with tough/weave on this combo, though you can if you feel you have room. Symphony really wants you to be casting as many primary powers as possible in order to feed Reverberant things to copy. I would highly recommend picking up combat teleport so you can quickly pop in for Soul Absorption and pop back out for your cones. A target bind to go in and a back bind to go out makes this smooth. You may have a tough time leveraging the true power of this combo while achieving full perma-hasten, given that the strength lies in many procs. However, you can easily get to the 5-10 second downtime range on hasten with little sacrifice there, which is effectively little difference in practice.

Great! Added bonus of saving me a slot. I wonder how the personal end benefit stacks up in comparison to health if I'm spamming it. Mids says about 70% fire rate, so pretty good odds, though it is random wether I get hp, plus end, or both I believe. Edit. In health it hits 50% of the time every 10 seconds, so insulating looks way better when spamming. The concern then is if it chaining to me reliably, but even if only half the time it's looking really good. Great call!

Thank you for sharing your findings, @StrikerFox! Given that this higher average dps came out even with ~30% less ED than the non proc test, these are pretty favorable results for -def procs in the Knights. When I get to 50 and incarnated, I'll do some parsing of my own. I'm especially interested in the impact of procs in Soul Extraction, having the purple hold proc there right now in the build myself. It may be that even if it works really well, the power is so strong baseline that it's sort of redundant. In that case, I could take the S/L resist ATO set bonus or steal the slot for something else fun. My slotting is somewhat similar to yours, but takes full advantage of the 2 slot ATO recharge bonuses. I'm a bit lacking in global acc, so need a bit more local enhancement to max out against +3's, thus room for 1 less proc in Knights. For reference: /Elec takes care of pet survival and end quite well, so I see less usefulness in worrying about adding regen or end procs to the pet upgrades for my build. This slotting gives all three pets roughly ~60% acc, ~115% damage, with pertinent procs squeezed in (minus shield breaker in Knights). All Pet IO's slotted, with accompanying acc/dam to round out hit chances and gather small set bonuses (why not). I do quite enjoy the OF Knockdown in Zombies! It makes a big difference as you note. Here is the build, which I have further streamlined for end consumption and pared down cost as well where possible. I have found that it can be a bit dicey relying on injections from energizing circuit, and I want to be sure I have a solid baseline to keep spamming however I like! electric necro mk4.mbd

I've been playing this guy now to 36, and am very impressed! That is, most impressed by the powersets themselves. /elec was pretty dicey for survival, especially keeping the Zombies alive, but Insulating Circuit changed everything. The whole business is pretty active though, or I risk losing my static, and am less likely to get endurance injections chaining to myself. Soul Extraction is the all-star everyone says it is. Hit that button and I can just spam Insulating with all my pets in aggro mode until the mobs are gone. I've gone back to a more refined version of my original build, and intend on testing the Purple proc in soul extraction. If anyone has their own formal parsing on this, along with necro pet slotting in general, I'd love to see! Edit: Further build tinkering. I've realized it's not worth sweating about every tiny drop of recharge for this combo - better to optimize local enhancement in certain key powers in some cases, while grabbing the easy bonuses. electric necro mk3.mbd

I have it 3 slotted for excellent return, but this relies on D-syncs. Level 53 D-Sync Siphon Acc/Heal, 2 level 53 Reconstruction Heal/Rech. With the global acc in the rest of my build, this gives me max hit chance against +3's (effectively +4's with Alpha shift). Heal is 97%, Recharge 77% (5 seconds shy of perma with my global recharge). I don't find it necessary to enhance the end component, as a baseline hit in an average crowd is plenty. Enhancing the heal makes a big difference in your survivability. I use Musculature Radial, which does juice the end a bit.

Still tinkering with this build! There's so much to balance with MM's. Moved slots around to: Gain acc/dam in Lich. Slot Defib with more regular usage in mind (endredux, recharge), anticipating its role as a potential sapping tool. How effective is this for sapping in practice? I'm not quite understanding the formula for it presented in City of Data. Achieve better totals for energizing circuit. In the exchange, I lost: 10% slow resist. 6 % Tox/Psi resist. Purple proc in Soul Extraction (Big loss, negligible?) Once I get this fellow up in levels I'll do some parsing myself to see if I can come to clear answers on optimal pet slotting. electric necro mk2.mbd

Just for fun, I knocked together how I would approach the combo while keeping the same thematic powers. expensive snark.mbd Perma-dom is still online, and the lower recharge here doesn't meaningfully affect your rotations. However, your build does achieve perma-dom even without hasten, while mine relies on hasten. What you gain: Immensely more damage in most powers, including one of your staple controls (Terrify). Since much of this relies on procs, you also have more room to benefit from +damage before hitting the cap when on teams or laying down a juicy Soul Drain. 80% slow resistance. This will keep errant slows from disrupting your dom cycle, and is just nice to have overall. A very meaningful bump in all resists. Although recovery is lower, end consumption is less as well. With the domination injections, you'll be solid on end for either build except when running TK. A few sort of handy powers. Evasive is nice QoL for travel and sometimes nice in combat. Grant invis is admittedly purely a mule, though you could pop it on mates when you feel like it. What you lose: Influence! It's a pretty expensive build with Winter sets and HOs. The HOs could be swapped for set IOs in most instances with minimal impact. The ease of perma-dom without hasten. Personally I set dom to auto and pop Hasten manually. There's still a little fudge room for this so you don't have to be right on it. Perception resist and confusion protection from Tactics. No more Dark Consumption. It's a nice topper here and there, but very marginal given the long recharge, even with such high global recharge. Hold duration on Dominate. However, you'll want to weave it in more often than a low damage dominate, as it is a really efficient killer now. The +Dam ATO proc is slotted here, and you will routinely be stacking it 2-3 times in ST scenarios. Note that for valid damage comparison, make sure to toggle any buffs on/off equally (gather shadows, soul drain, the power with ATO +dam proc). Your build does have Decimation build-up proc toggled on, which affects totals. However, it's at the minimum proc chance, so not likely to influence actual play very often. If you're really focused on perma-dom without relying on Hasten, that's fair enough as well! I think your build serves that goal well, and it is thoughtfully crafted. Perhaps you might find some of the slotting decisions here helpful. In that case, I would mostly focus on swapping out Levitate, perhaps for Combat Teleport or something else fun. If you do pick up CT, I rather like putting the Gaussian proc in it. It goes off more than you might expect, and the buff will almost always be happening right when you are unleashing damage, requiring no action beyond what you were doing anyhow.

It's an excellent set whose strengths are better capitalized on by controllers in my opinion. That being said, it's still great on doms. I would only call the st immob an easy skip. As with most control sets, there is some argument to skip the aoe hold if you have a competing pick, but i like it myself. Doms maybe get a bit less from the sleep, as they have good damage cones in the secondary. However, the pet really wants you to be spamming primary powers so it can copy them, so the more time spent there the better. This is one big reason I like it better on controllers. The absolute key powers are chords and discord. Proccing everything out has huge returns. Sonic is really all about whether your want to stay ranged or optimize for melee. Melee powers here have amazing proc opportunity from the hold sets. I picked everything except shriek and scream, myself.

@Snarky The build you posted is very strong indeed in recharge! From a higher perspective, I would say you have probably sacrificed too much in going a bit overboard on recharge beyond what is needed for perma dom. By dialing this back a bit, you could proc out more powers for massively more damage (Terrify, Engulfing, and Dark Oblit are big ones), pursue beefier resists, or get close to a meaningful softcap. Personally I like to avoid softcap on my doms, as part of the fun for me is surviving on the strength of my controls. It looks like you have a similar approach, and it's quite viable! You will have to be pretty aggressive with your controls. Fortunately Mind has some extra tools for this, with a full 4 aoe controls, and a mini aoe in TK. Mass Hyp is better than many give it credit for I think, being on a low cooldown, non-notify, with quick application. Are all of the power picks here locked in for theme, or are you flexible? Levitate is pretty redundant on a Dom. Mesmerize has some decent utility for AVs, and is a good power for exemping. Otherwise, I think your power choice here is pretty solid if you are truly wanting to stay ranged. Part of the glory of a dom to me is not really caring about range, as the enemies are locked down anyway. If this is a stylistic choice, I definitely understand. If not, Smite is one of the best DPA powers out there, and Midnight Grasp is no slouch properly slotted either. You'll be pretty solid either way. One point I would consider is something @honoroit mentioned. I have found Combat Teleport to be a wonderful addition to my doms who are mixing cones with pbaoes. Using a simple tp to target, then tp back a distance bind makes this smooth as can be. The easiest drop for this would be Dark Consumption, which isn't up nearly enough to be a meaningful part of your end strategy. It's not useless of course, but it would be my target.