Blast Power Tiers (i.e. non-Sonic Blast Viability)

[warlockiii]

After reading several threads in this forum, I'm seeing a pattern--take Sonic. Like DP, I don't especially like Sonic thematically or aesthetically. Just curious how folks think the other options stack up.

[Bopper]

Sonic is great for debuffs, but the slow cast and low damage makes it unappealing to a solo player. Don't get me wrong, it can be very strong solo, but it just feels meh. I say this with experience as my main on live was a Rad/Sonic defender.

 

I actually like Dual Pistols a lot and is now my main. Swap Ammo just offers so much utility for teams and solo. Typically I'll do Incendiary, but I have no qualms with switching to Chemical for the -damage debuffs (it's fun to floor an enemy to -90% damage).

 

I don't really know how you would make Tiers for this as I think it really falls into two categories, damage tiers and support tiers. Damage Tiers, you're looking at Fire and sets with effects that allow for lots of proc use. Support, you're looking at which sets offer the best debuffs for keeping your team alive and/or killing the enemy faster. 

 

For Support Tiers, I would say Sonic, Dual Pistols, Radiation, Water, and Dark are very strong. For Damage Tiers, you're probably looking at Fire, Ice, and some of those previously mentioned. Since I don't play all the blast sets, I can't really speak to how they would rank, I'll let others do that. But what I can say...Archery is probably the worst 😛

[Hjarki]

I'd argue that Sonic is actually one of the worst Blast sets in current play. The value of a -resist debuff is based not just on its existence but also its duration and activation time. In practice, about half the value of the entire Sonic Blast -resist debuffing comes from a single power: Screech. Moreover, nothing in Sonic Blast permits you to slot Achilles' Heel, Annihilation or Fury of the Gladiator procs.

 

This leads to a result where both Dual Pistols and Beam Rifle are roughly equivalent to Sonic Blast in terms of debuffing potential. They may only have one -resist debuff, but it's capable of slotting an additional -resist proc (and one that will rarely be on a single target except from users of those sets) and it's better than anything Sonic Blast has to offer (by a large margin) except for Screech. The advantage Sonic Blast has over Dual Pistols/Beam Rifle is minor, but the penalties it pays are massive in terms of the damage it deals.

 

Moreover, Sonic Blast is a poor choice for any 'active' support set because the more time you spend with your support set, the less time you spend with Sonic's debuffing.

 

Overall, I look at the following features of Blast sets (in no particular order):  

• Knockback, especially on AE. A little bit of knockback (or, even better, knockdown) is a good thing since it lets you slot Force Feedback. However, you don't want enemies flying all over the place with every attack.
• Low activation times. The amount of damage you can realistically do is limited by the activation time of your powers. As a result, sets with relatively high activation times do a lot less damage than those with low activation times.
• High recharge. Due to how the proc math works, you really want higher recharges (up to a point) on your powers. Low recharge powers are ones that will inevitably deliver worse performances with procs.
• Proc-friendly secondary effects. For a Defender, you're going to get a lot of your damage from piling procs into your attacks, so you want secondary effects which permit this. Slow, -hit and KB all have an additional proc while -def has 2-3 additional procs.
• Sniper attacks. Due to the sniper changes, Sniper attacks are now high damage, fast-activating attacks.
• Rain effects. These are abnormally strong for Corruptors, but they come at the cost of not being useable against Flying targets. For Defenders, they're normally a negative.
• Ultimates. You're normally better off with lower recharge on ultimates and ranged > PBAoE in most cases.
• Aim. This can end up being active about half the time on a high recharge build.
• Holds. Holds have the best slotting opportunities of any powers.
• Cones. Cones are, in general, bad. However, extremely narrow arc cones that are effectively single target attacks tend to be good as well as extremely long range Cones. That being said, Cones have an inherently issue with poor close-range performance, so they need to be paired with sets that operate at long range.
• Multiple single target attacks. While all sets have multiple single target attacks, I'm really talking about multiple good single target attacks. Pairings like Gloom/Moonbeam, Blaze/Blazing Bolt, Freezing Ray/Bitter Ice Blast, or Psionic Lance/Telekinetic Blast stand out. However, most of these sets actually work better for Corruptors.

 

 

[Auroxis]

2 hours ago, Hjarki said:

I'd argue that Sonic is actually one of the worst Blast sets in current play. The value of a -resist debuff is based not just on its existence but also its duration and activation time. In practice, about half the value of the entire Sonic Blast -resist debuffing comes from a single power: Screech. Moreover, nothing in Sonic Blast permits you to slot Achilles' Heel, Annihilation or Fury of the Gladiator procs.

I have no idea why you keep spouting this misleading nonsense. You keep ignoring stackability, achilles' heel (and the two other procs) do not stack from multiple casters while the sonic attacks stack from the same caster. In reality there's a very high chance that rad blast build using achilles' heel applies zero -res since it's such a popular proc, while Sonic can easily stack up to -80% and go even higher.

 

You keep forgetting that Sonic DOES have a Fury of the Gladiator proc (with Dreadful Wail), and CAN get an achilles' heel if it wants (with weaken resolve, which isn't even that beneficial for reasons stated above).

[Coyote]

1 hour ago, Auroxis said:

I have no idea why you keep spouting this misleading nonsense. You keep ignoring stackability, achilles' heel (and the two other procs) do not stack from multiple casters while the sonic attacks stack from the same caster. In reality there's a very high chance that rad blast build using achilles' heel applies zero -res since it's such a popular proc, while Sonic can easily stack up to -80% and go even higher.

 

You keep forgetting that Sonic DOES have a Fury of the Gladiator proc (with Dreadful Wail), and CAN get an achilles' heel if it wants (with weaken resolve, which isn't even that beneficial for reasons stated above).

 

I have to mostly agree with this. Sonic can be a weak debuffing set, IF you pair it with a secondary that is very active and doesn't allow you to maintain a solid stack of -Res debuffs. But other than EA and Kinetics, I think that you can keep 2-3 stacks up and easily average 50% -Resist, even if mixing in an occasional Dominate to take advantage of the -Res with a hard-hitting attack. I manage 2 stacks on a Sonic/Dark, who mixes in both Dominate and Petrifying Grasp, and that feels like a busy non-Sonic combination to me.

 

Granted, Sonic NEEDS to keep up at least 40% or more to match up to other sets, but that's its design. You can keep that up and manage a solid attack chain, and it will boost the damage from your secondary if you have any. You can do the same concept with Dual Pistols, but not nearly with the same average -Res unless your secondary is so busy that you can't spend more than half your time shooting. In that case, DP can do as well since its debuffing is done with 2 attacks that last 10 seconds, so attacking more often doesn't help it much. But it would help Sonic.

 

So pick a non-busy secondary, and Sonic will do solid damage once it ramps up the stacks, and it will help the team do a lot more damage. But if you pick a busy secondary, then Dual Pistols will probably do as well on the -Res side, and put out more damage. I wouldn't say that Hjarki is flat out misleading, as much as that he's not being clear that Sonic's -Res can be matched only in the case of a busy secondary.

[Hjarki]

56 minutes ago, Coyote said:

So pick a non-busy secondary, and Sonic will do solid damage once it ramps up the stacks, and it will help the team do a lot more damage. But if you pick a busy secondary, then Dual Pistols will probably do as well on the -Res side, and put out more damage. I wouldn't say that Hjarki is flat out misleading, as much as that he's not being clear that Sonic's -Res can be matched only in the case of a busy secondary.

The various attacks all self-stack. A good metric for judging how good they'll be is debuff * duration / activation:

Screech = 20 * 14.9 / 1.716 = 174

Shout = 20 * 10 / 2.904 = 69

Scream = 20 * 6 / 1.848 = 65

Shriek = 20 * 3 / 1.188 = 51

Piercing Rounds = 20 * 8 / 2.64 = 61

Piercing Beam = 20 * 10 / 2.508 = 80

 

What this means in practice is that virtually all of the advantage Sonic has over Beam Rifle or Dual Pistols rests with Screech - which does so little damage it's more like a pure debuffing attack.

 

Moreover, the Dual Pistols/Beam Rifle attacks can slot Annihilation with nearly 100% uptime. While Annihilation procs from different players will not stack, this normally isn't a concern because no one except Dual Pistols/Beam Rifle users can usefully slot Annihilation for use on a single target (the AFs on the proc chance kills it unless the underlying attack has such a huge recharge that you can't maintain reasonable uptime). So your stacking concerns are limited with Annihilation. Unless you're playing with an 'all one power set' group, chances are you're the only person using Annihilation. You're certainly the only one using Annihilation on the target if you're solo or attacking the mob by yourself (which is virtually all single target attacks except AV/GM).

 

To compound this difficulty, Sonic Attack is a lot worse than it initially looks because of the inability to slot procs into its powers. Attacks like Penetrating Ray deal about 4x the damage of any Sonic Attack single target power once you've accounted for those procs - Beam Rifle can literally beat Sonic Attack's entire attack chain with that one power.

 

Even in a team setting, this massive shortfall in personal dps is difficult to overcome. The benefits of Sonic Attack are almost exclusively on AV/GM (targets tough enough to stack multiple -resist) in a team setting, while its damage is painfully inadequate anywhere else. However, in a team setting you often have so many debuffs on the target that the slight marginal advantage it provides in -resist debuffing often isn't enough.

 

Sonic Attack really ends up being a 'pure support' Blast set. It's terrible as a Blast set and it's only value lies in the fact that you might potentially be helping the rest of the team. But the situations for this help to be meaningful are narrow enough that you're almost always better off going with a Blast set that can actually Blast. Even after you've laid in your -resist (a process that takes long enough that non-AV/GM targets would probably already be dead under normal circumstances), you're still under-performing traditional Blast sets.

[warlockiii]

It seems a greater problem that all of the debuffs in the game except -resist (and -regen) have been essentially rendered useless. And similarly, defensive power sets as well. So I can go Rad or Dark, but their debuffs aren't doing anything--and the only discussion is whether the opportunity cost of giving up sonic's debuff for higher damage is worth it or not (and more than likely Sonic is the better option). So my 2 thoughts are:

 

1) How material is the damage loss you give up to play a more appealing set--2%? 10%? 30%?

 

2) What is % of time spent on the boss fight vs clearing trash--and does the time spent on trash, mean some may be overestimating -resist's value? Maybe it's a wash, if trash is quicker the entire run, and the boss takes 20 more seconds to kill.

Maybe a corruptor or controller would be a better option.

Edited April 24, 2020 by warlockiii

[Linea]

I generally recommend: Fire, Ice, Water

 

I personally like DP, and dislike Sonic, but those are personal tastes, neither objective nor even subjective to performance.

 

Edited April 24, 2020 by Linea

[Peacemoon]

1 hour ago, warlockiii said:

It seems a greater problem that all of the debuffs in the game except -resist (and -regen) have been essentially rendered useless. And similarly, defensive power sets as well. So I can go Rad or Dark, but their debuffs aren't doing anything--and the only discussion is whether the opportunity cost of giving up sonic's debuff for higher damage is worth it or not (and more than likely Sonic is the better option). So my 2 thoughts are:

 

1) How material is the damage loss you give up to play a more appealing set--2%? 10%? 30%?

 

2) What is % of time spent on the boss fight vs clearing trash--and does the time spent on trash, mean some may be overestimating -resist's value? Maybe it's a wash, if trash is quicker the entire run, and the boss takes 20 more seconds to kill.

Maybe a corruptor or controller would be a better option.

I think -defence is of questionable benefit, since often accuracy is not an issue. Which is why I rarely enhance it and just take whatever is given as bonus. It’s reasonable at low levels or against high level mobs though. 

 

-hit is absolutely useful though, both solo and in teams.
You have to remember there is a wide variety of players in this game, and an even wider power level between characters. Not everyone will be defence capped or even close, so -hit is always useful as a reverse defence buff.
 

I tend to go on theme and the actual powers themselves, I.e cones or PBAoE focus, and like to focus on blasting to kill rather than to debuff.

 

I’m not a fan of sonic because I just hate the idea of screaming at someone to defeat them! Maybe if you could put their powers into a rifle or something...

 

[warlockiii]

 

1 hour ago, Peacemoon said:

-hit is absolutely useful though, both solo and in teams.
You have to remember there is a wide variety of players in this game, and an even wider power level between characters. Not everyone will be defence capped or even close, so -hit is always useful as a reverse defence buff.
 

I tend to go on theme and the actual powers themselves, I.e cones or PBAoE focus, and like to focus on blasting to kill rather than to debuff.

I think I'm just going to follow this advice anyway. It's a game after all.

 

And as I mentioned earlier, I suspect the fact that Sonic's payoff is mostly confined to boss fights, which is not what you'll be fighting 100% of the time. I can live without being marginally better just part of the time (especially given it'll probably be a better choice for the rest of the time).

 

1 hour ago, Peacemoon said:

I’m not a fan of sonic because I just hate the idea of screaming at someone to defeat them!

 

 

Uh, yes! This! 

[Coyote]

4 hours ago, Hjarki said:

The various attacks all self-stack. A good metric for judging how good they'll be is debuff * duration / activation:

Screech = 20 * 14.9 / 1.716 = 174

Shout = 20 * 10 / 2.904 = 69

Scream = 20 * 6 / 1.848 = 65

Shriek = 20 * 3 / 1.188 = 51

Piercing Rounds = 20 * 8 / 2.64 = 61

Piercing Beam = 20 * 10 / 2.508 = 80

 

What this means in practice is that virtually all of the advantage Sonic has over Beam Rifle or Dual Pistols rests with Screech - which does so little damage it's more like a pure debuffing attack.

 

Two things.

First, are you sure about your numbers? It looks to me that Shriek should have a duration of 5, not 3, and that Scream should be 7, not 6. Oh, and I think Screech is 12, not 14.9 (that's the base Stun duration).

Second, you're right about individual powers... DP and BR both have attacks that are overall better with good damage and good -Resistance debuffing. Where Sonic's strength lies is not in a single attack like Screech, but in the fact that you can layer multiple attacks and run with 3 stacks active for -60%, then throw Dominate... then repeat with a different high-damage attack if you have access to one, or suffer by sticking Screech or Shout in. Screech can do about 170 damage with procs, so after a 60% debuffing it's not bad.

Basically, Sonic stacks in order to get its superior -Res, while DP and BR have superior individual -Res powers, they're not going to stack 3-4 debuffs.

Edited April 24, 2020 by Coyote
Screech debuff duration

[Silverado]

Ice has very high single target DPS, as well as 2 single target holds (one of them being rotational).

My Therm/Ice Defender can easily solo (no temps/incs) most AVs and GMs, including Lusca

 

 

Edited April 24, 2020 by Silverado

[Sir Myshkin]

8 hours ago, Auroxis said:

You keep forgetting that Sonic DOES have a Fury of the Gladiator proc (with Dreadful Wail), and CAN get an achilles' heel if it wants (with weaken resolve, which isn't even that beneficial for reasons stated above).

I’d like to take this moment to point out the irony of Weaken Resolve, when slotted with Cloud Senses, Shield Breaker, and Lady Grey Damage procs, has a higher DPA than many of the “weaker”  Defender blast sets (ahem, Sonic). It also becomes exponentially self-increasing by causing -Res on its own, and then again with Achilles proc in it. 
 

Not saying we should all sign up for this set up, but on a Solo perspective it is interesting as a supplemental tool that doesn’t require anything but a little global recharge and some Accuracy to be a -30 Res 89 DPA (base) hitting attack.

[Hjarki]

1 hour ago, Coyote said:

First, are you sure about your numbers? It looks to me that Shriek should have a duration of 5, not 3, and that Scream should be 7, not 6. Oh, and I think Screech is 12, not 14.9 (that's the base Stun duration).

Second, you're right about individual powers... DP and BR both have attacks that are overall better with good damage and good -Resistance debuffing. Where Sonic's strength lies is not in a single attack like Screech, but in the fact that you can layer multiple attacks and run with 3 stacks active for -60%, then throw Dominate... then repeat with a different high-damage attack if you have access to one, or suffer by sticking Screech or Shout in. Screech can do about 170 damage with procs, so after a 60% debuffing it's not bad.

Basically, Sonic stacks in order to get its superior -Res, while DP and BR have superior individual -Res powers, they're not going to stack 3-4 debuffs.

I just pulled the numbers from Mid's, so they may differ a slight amount from the in-game values. However, the relative value should be similar to what I posted. The problem that occurs with the fast recharging attacks is the same that occurs with procs: powers you use whenever they recharge gain far more benefit than powers which recharge 'too fast' in your rotation.

 

In terms of the stacking issue, these powers 'self-stack'. So if a better power (longer duration) is available, you always prefer that power. What's effectively happening is that Dual Pistols/Beam Rifle get their version of the best power in the set - the power that constitutes about half of your debuffing - while being able to exploit that debuffing with far more effective attacks.

[Bopper]

13 hours ago, Hjarki said:

Moreover, nothing in Sonic Blast permits you to slot Achilles' Heel, Annihilation or Fury of the Gladiator procs.

Annihilation can go into Howl, Shockwave and Sirens Song. FotG can go into Dreadful Wail (or cross punch if you go that route). Achilles can go into Weaken Resolve if you want to go that route. None of those procs self stack though.

 

You can achieve 95+% resistance debuffs using sonic (without procs). Throw in procs and weaken resolve, you can do more. But comparing apples to apples and ignoring options available to everybody, sonic can hit 95+%, Piercing Rounds or Piercing Beam might get you 2 stacks for 30%.

 

7 hours ago, Hjarki said:

The various attacks all self-stack. A good metric for judging how good they'll be is debuff * duration / activation:

Screech = 20 * 14.9 / 1.716 = 174

Shout = 20 * 10 / 2.904 = 69

Scream = 20 * 6 / 1.848 = 65

Shriek = 20 * 3 / 1.188 = 51

Piercing Rounds = 20 * 8 / 2.64 = 61

Piercing Beam = 20 * 10 / 2.508 = 80

The problem with this analysis (besides numbers being wrong in some spots) is it only looks at the activation portion, as opposed to an attack chains duration. You can't spam Piercing Rounds on repeat without gaps, but you can chain Sonic Attacks without gaps. I'm going off memory, but I think Piercing rounds has 15s base recharge, so at best (capped recharge) it recharges in 3 seconds. Combined with activation time you can stack its buff every 5.64s. So 20*10/5.64 = 35.5 doesn't look nearly as impressive. 

 

Edit, I'll add piercing beams numbers assuming 500% recharge.

20*10/(14/5+2.508)= 37.7

 

Edit 2, I'll correct your numbers. 

Screech = 20 * 12 / 1.716 = 139.9

Shout = 20 * 10 / 2.904 = 69

Scream = 20 * 7 / 1.848 = 75.8

Shriek = 20 * 5 / 1.188 = 84.2

Piercing Rounds = 20 * 10 / (15/5+2.64) = 35.5

Piercing Beam = 20 * 10 / (14/5+2.508) = 37.7

Edited April 24, 2020 by Bopper

[modest]

I had a feeling that Hjarki was incorrect in both their numbers and conclusion, so I took my Rad/Sonic Defender to Dark Astoria for some testing. By following the Screech  -> Scream -> Shriek -> Scream attack chain, I reached -88.8 Resistance from Sonic Attack skills alone. With Enervating Field it reached -122.10%.

 

I unslotted Annihilation and Fury of the Gladiator before performing this test, and I did not use Dreadful Wail or Howl to stack additional -Res.

[Frosticus]

In fairness you are facing a -1 so your debuffs are a bit stronger than they "should" be (10%).

 

But yes, in general Hjarki is mistaken about how sonic works, or what it is capable of. Either that or he is using metrics that have no bearing on the game. 

 

In the actual game I find that shriek>scream>shriek>screech>dominate 

does just fine for damage  and needs minimal recharge. Given how safe sonic can solo I feel it is ok.

 

In a team I view sonic as a debuff+control set more than a blast set. Howl is a solid cone debuff, dreadful wail is the best nuke in the game and you still have your single target debuff chain. 

Sonic is fine, though I would love to see a full second trimmed off of shout and maybe have the cones sped up a bit too. Then sonic would be really fine. 

 

Sonic does have higher opportunity cost than other sets though. A pause to do something other than attack has tangible drawbacks beside just losing out on direct damage. 

[warlockiii]

Does anyone disagree with the assertion that even if Sonic is better target on boss fights, that you only spend a portion of your play time in combat engaged in fighting bosses? Anyone care to put some numbers to that--so that you're saying Sonic is x% better than (other power set) y% of the time, but the other 100%-y% of the time, Sonic is worse?

 

For a made up example, say Sonic is 30% more damage for two 5 minute boss fights over a 30 minute run. Is it the difference in beating the content or would you have won anyway--but you just saved 15 seconds--while the other 20 minutes may have gone faster with better AOE powers. And also having slows, -to hit, stuns, etc. might have their own subjective benefits. I don't have real test data to bear this out--wish I did, but I do think these questions are more relevant than trying to say Sonic is the wrong power to use vs bosses.

 

Anyway, I just posit that for future Defenders dropping by this forum that they don't all feel it's Sonic or bust, because many players feel the need to min max to what is "best", when the assumptions that said it were best were incorrect or the marginal benefit of that best vs the rest did not really amount to much. But I'm just a noob, so what do I know :)?

[Bopper]

6 minutes ago, warlockiii said:

Anyway, I just posit that for future Defenders dropping by this forum that they don't all feel it's Sonic or bust

This certainly should not feel like the case. Many of the blast sets are viable with defenders. It depends on what you like. Debuffs are aplenty with blast sets.

[Hjarki]

1 hour ago, Frosticus said:

But yes, in general Hjarki is mistaken about how sonic works, or what it is capable of. Either that or he is using metrics that have no bearing on the game. 

Actually, I think I'm the only who is using metrics that have bearing on the game while everyone else is trying to argue from some sort of sandbox that doesn't mimic game play.

 

Against trash, Sonic is horrible. -Resist has to be applied before attacks, not after. Saying "ooh... I can stack -100% resist!" isn't really meaningful against enemies that are dead long before those stacks occur. In terms of single target nuking power, Sonic doesn't come remotely close to what other sets deliver even with the -resist debuffs - those other sets have attacks that are literally 3-4x the dpa of what Sonic brings once you slot them up.

 

So you're left with AV/GM fights. But not solo AV/GM fights (where Sonic's abysmally low personal dps overwhelms the value of its -resist debuffs). Team AV/GM fights. But you need team AV/GM fights that are going to last a reasonable amount of time, where you've got enough dps to overwhelm your personal dps shortfall, where the kill time matters and where you don't have so many debuffs that your -resist debuffing isn't watered down. That's a pretty precise target to hit.

 

I think the problem is that people are imagining the value of Sonic rather than observing it. It's a set like Empathy - you can speculate on all sorts of "other players will love me!" notions, but eventually you realize that other players just don't care - and, if they do care, their primary concern is that you're a burden on the team because you're ineffectual when you don't have someone helping you.

 

Note: Another analogy would be relationships like Force FIeld vs. Time or Cold. Technically, Force Field can buff defense to greater values. But this comes at such a cost that's almost never worth it. The same could be said for Sonic. The cost is simply too high for the marginal benefits it provides.

Edited April 25, 2020 by Hjarki

[Bopper]

7 minutes ago, Hjarki said:

Actually, I think I'm the only who is using metrics that have bearing on the game while everyone else is trying to argue from some sort of sandbox that doesn't mimic game play.

So far your metrics have including wrong numbers and wrong info. Most of us had to spend more time correcting your work than to counter argue it. But once again, nobody is saying sonic is a top tier dps set, so saying its not good because it's not bursty in general content...OK, tell us something we don't know. But killing of minions and lieutenants fast doesn't impress me much, anything can do that. Sonic can even do that.

 

Bosses will take a few cycles of attacks, and you can achieve a pretty good buildup combo with something like screech, shriek scream, shriek, proc'd out dominate. If other sets are doing it better, great for them, but I'm pretty sure you'll take down a boss in little time hitting them with a few sonic attacks then your ST nuke.

 

But the true benefit of sonic comes in team play. All the damage boosting you get from resistance debuffs may not make up for the slow attacks in solo content, however those same debuffs help the entire team, thus making your contributions significant. 

 

For as much as belittling the ability to tear down a AV/GM quickly, I mean...what else is there? What content are you running where you're struggling with minions/LTs? If you're already steamrolling, you're unlikely to notice zero debuffs from -100% debuffs. 

[warlockiii]

1 hour ago, Bopper said:

But killing of minions and lieutenants fast doesn't impress me much, anything can do that. Sonic can even do that.

 

For as much as belittling the ability to tear down a AV/GM quickly, I mean...what else is there? What content are you running where you're struggling with minions/LTs? If you're already steamrolling, you're unlikely to notice zero debuffs from -100% debuffs. 

I wasn't talking about difficulty but about efficiency. And being efficient on the boss is great, but I was just saying you spend a lot of time on trash--and killing that fast saves time, too. I wasn't belittling Sonic but trying to elevate other power sets to not being perceived as subpar--and they have benefits (IMO) also.

Edited April 25, 2020 by warlockiii

[Bopper]

11 minutes ago, warlockiii said:

I wasn't talking about difficulty but about efficiency. And being efficient on the boss is great, but I was just saying you spend a lot of time on trash--and killing that fast saves time, too. I wasn't belittling Sonic but trying to elevate other power sets to not being perceived as subpar--and they have benefits (IMO) also.

I never thought you did. Again, any blast set should be fine and you shouldn't have to feel pigeon-holed into what you think you have to play. Everything has its merits...except maybe Archery.

[Coyote]

1 hour ago, warlockiii said:

I wasn't belittling Sonic but trying to elevate other power sets to not being perceived as subpar--and they have benefits (IMO) also.

 

I get that you started the thread from the premise that everyone is suggesting Sonic, thus it must be significantly better than some other sets. To be honest, I'm not sure that I've heard that before... not that I think Sonic is bad, but if I had to bet on what would seem the top set according to the forums, it would be either Fire or Ice. With occasional mentions of DP, Water, and Archery.

 

All the blast sets are generally pretty solid, and some will come out ahead or behind the curve depending on what's important to you. Beam Rifle isn't good at AoE, yet it's one of the top mentioned sets for AV soloing. Fire Blast is commonly mentioned as a great set, but provides no damage mitigation. Etc. Everything has some strengths and some weaknesses, and how good it is for you really depends on what your priorities are. Sonic is a good set overall, but I'm surprised to hear that people mention it as their top choice for anything other than teaming.

[Sir Myshkin]

4 hours ago, Coyote said:

...and Archery.

 

5 hours ago, Bopper said:

...except maybe Archery.

 

🤣

 

I like my TA/A Proc Monster TYVM