Is sonic better here

[kiramon]

I know they got a new screech, but sonic really

shines in defender cuz of the debuff— is sentinel another where sonic doesn’t work as well as a defender would?

[Underfyre]

Defender does -20% res per attack, this AT does 9.6%. It works okay here, but it's not enough to dredge this AT up from the depths.

 

Shriek per class:

Sentinel = 44.38 * (1 + 9.6% + 5%) = 50.86 (inherent adds 5% res)

Defender = 30.36 * (1 + 20%) * (1 + 30%) = 47.36 (solo inherent adds 30% to damage)

 

lets look at the follow up attack, Shout:

 

Sentinel = 112 * (1 + 9.6% + 9.6% + 5%) = 139.1

Defender = 76.64 * (1 + 20% +20%) * (1 + 30%) = 139.49

 

Sentinel = 189.96

Defender = 186.85

 

You could add a third attack to this, but the bonus for Shriek only lasts 5 seconds, If you used Scream instead it lasts 7 seconds. And let's face it, a Defender may have more to do than spam and attack chain. But whatever, let's throw Scream in there. Because Screech is not a viable damaging attack on a Defender apparently.

 

Sentinel = 69.7 * (1 + 9.6% + 9.6% + 9.6% + 5%) = 93.26

Defender = 47.7 * (1 + 20% +20% + 20%) * (1 + 30%) = 99.22

 

Sentinel = 283.22

Defender = 286.10

 

So assuming baseline values, eventually a Defender will pull ahead because their resistance debuff is allowing for an additional 26.2% damage, which is also playing against their 30% damage bonus, essentially allowing for 200% damage. So now I'm mildly intrigued by a Nature/Sonic Offender....

[Underfyre]

Nevermind, putting the numbers in my spreadsheet and updating the rotation to a Shout - Shriek - Scream - Shriek rotation still results in a lower average DPS, even throwing in a bonus -25% res from Corrosive Enzymes and the 82.5% damage boost from Overgrowth. And since the T9 cooldwon is 55 seconds longer (or 28ish seconds versus 42ish seconds when enhanced) than a Sentinels, the AOE is also going to suffer.

 

See, that's why I make these spreadsheets. To hamfist numbers and objectively say one thing is better than another without actually playing them lol.

[Hjarki]

10 minutes ago, underfyre said:

Defender does -20% res per attack, this AT does 9.6%. It works okay here, but it's not enough to dredge this AT up from the depths.

For a Defender, the conventional rotation would be Shriek/Shout/Shriek/Screech. While Screech does negligible damage, it's the bulk of the -resist debuffing. Together, this rotation gives you ~90% resist debuff over time, almost doubling your basic damage.

 

However, this isn't really the whole story.

 

The first issue - and this affects Sentinels as well - is that most of the time you're not interested in throwing enough ST nukes at a target to let the law of large numbers take hold. You're finishing off stragglers from AE blasts and the like. Sonic (on any AT) is horrible at this because it has low damage nukes and -20% resist on a dead target isn't much use. It takes time to build up those massive -resist bonuses and you don't have that time on a standard boss.

 

The second issus is that Sentinels get Lightning Field (and, I suppose, Havoc Punch). This allows them to stay in melee and get a significant bonus on that ticking toggle. When I last looked at it, a Sonic/*/Electricity would just barely edge out a Fire/*/whatever Sentinel for sustained single target damage. However, going this route also tends to mean that the AE from Sonic itself is somewhat useless (since Cones require range).

 

The third issue is that those Cones are significantly better on a Sentinel because they can get +50% global range from ATOs. While this can be tricky to slot, it means you can have Cones that stretch out to 80 yards or more. Sentinels also don't suffer from using Cones instead of standard target AE like Defenders do because the target caps are the same.

 

The last issue is that, well, you're still a Sentinel. A Sonic/*/Electricity Sentinel is going to outdamage an Empathy/Sonic/? Defender once all is said and done. But the Defender is going to be a far better teammate since the -resist debuffs are going to be double. Moreover, our Sentinel isn't going to come close to matching something like Storm/Sonic/? where the Defender is exploiting their own -resist debuffs for massive damage pseudo-pets.

 

And, truth be told, Sentinels don't actually enjoy much - if any - defensive advantage over Defenders. While Sentinels get complete armor sets, they get them at Sentinel levels. Defenders may only get a few pool/epic/primary toggles - but they get them at Tanker levels.

[Underfyre]

So the numbers pulled directly from the power data shows Lightning Storm to has a 1.17 speed attack every 4 seconds. Damage is a value of 1, or 36.15 44.49 for a Defender. Max targets of 5 in a 5 ft radius. Its damage is only enhance-able through enhancements and resistance debuffs.

 

Tornado does... honestly I have no clue. It's cast time shows 0 and it's recast shows 0 too. Its "attack" (that has no damage value attached) says 0 cast time and 2 recast. Assuming its damage is the 0.15 from its other component, its 5.42 6.67 instant cast with a 2 second recharge? Sounds like an aura that ticks every 2 seconds with a 7 ft radius and 5 target cap. Ticking for 5.42 6.67 damage.

 

These are also both throwing enemies every h'wich-a-h'way unless you dropped the KB>KD IOs in there.

 

Yeah, they sound nice, and it's damage you didn't have otherwise, but they're not contributing the staggering amount of damage you want to believe they are.

Edited June 30, 2020 by underfyre
Checked the damage numbers in game.

[Hjarki]

1 hour ago, underfyre said:

So the numbers pulled directly from the power data shows Lightning Storm to has a 1.17 speed attack every 4 seconds. Damage is a value of 1, or 36.15 44.49 for a Defender. Max targets of 5 in a 5 ft radius. Its damage is only enhance-able through enhancements and resistance debuffs.

 

Tornado does... honestly I have no clue. It's cast time shows 0 and it's recast shows 0 too. Its "attack" (that has no damage value attached) says 0 cast time and 2 recast. Assuming its damage is the 0.15 from its other component, its 5.42 6.67 instant cast with a 2 second recharge? Sounds like an aura that ticks every 2 seconds with a 7 ft radius and 5 target cap. Ticking for 5.42 6.67 damage.

 

These are also both throwing enemies every h'wich-a-h'way unless you dropped the KB>KD IOs in there.

 

Yeah, they sound nice, and it's damage you didn't have otherwise, but they're not contributing the staggering amount of damage you want to believe they are.

Lightning Storm deals a total of ~500 damage while Tornado deals ~400 damage. Before you slot them or add the impact of -resist debuffing, they're going to be dealing about 20 dps and 25 dps for each Lightning Storm and Tornado. So you've got ~115 dps. With slots/incarnates that's up to 250 dps or so. With this does consume ~15% of your activation time, the remainder of your activation time is spent nuking.

 

Add in layered Freezing Rain and Sonic Blast debuffs and you're looking at 600+ dps.

 

Admittedly, this is primarily a tactic for AV/GM, but you don't need a log parser to notice the immediate and visceral impact a Storm/Sonic brings to that kind of fight.

 

[nihilii]

A damaging Screech benefits Sentinel Sonic immensely. Having Dreadful Wail on the standard Sentinel nuke timer doesn't hurt, either. It animates fast and makes an excellent candidate for the Fury -proc, which coupled with native -RES gives you a -29.6% RES AoE up every half minute.

I don't use the cones but others like @Sovera (IIRC) have reported they work fantastically well with Opportunity.

As for better or worse than Defender... I think the changes between the two ATs are widespread enough the sets play completely differently, to the point it's an apples-to-oranges comparison. Any decisive result will likely be influenced by personal goals and playstyle.

Essentially, Defender Sonic Blast is awesome in protracted fights against tough targets, especially as team support.

Sentinel Sonic Blast can be played as a straight shooter without any ramp up. The -RES becomes an additional boon rather than the cornerstone of the set. It deals competitive damage with other Sentinel primaries. And, of course, you can exploit -RES to boost the usual psi epic suspects; turning procced out Dominate and Mind Probe into even stronger punches.

[Sovera]

As Nihilii mentions the cones are almost the reason to take Sonic, not the debuffs. They do crappy damage on their own, but it can be buffed by /Bio and when their own -res kicks in.

 

They are also verrrry nice for a team since it has been mentioned a bit above how the Sentinel is not really help much. One cone does KD, the other cone does Sleep, and while Sleep is not very useful it is still common to see mobs asleep while killing things. That means a Sonic Sentinel can spam non stop three cones that are sleeping and KD whole spawns (hits 10 targets) while doing reasonable damage (less than the T1, which is kinda bad, but hitting several enemies at once, which makes up for it).

 

The second hidden reason for Sonic is that the Sentinel will be -constantly- under the effect of Opportunity. That means -constantly- filling up nearly a quarter of an HP (and endurance) bar with each use of a cone. A single use of a cone with an empty Opportunity bar will fill it to the max. I have a Sonic/Bio guide in these forums with gifs showing both the mad HP regeneration and Opportunity filling. This is only against packs of enemies though, not single target.

 

 

With all of that said the build is fun to play around with especially with the crazy vampiric effect (build is hyper survivable thanks to it), but ultimately cones are crap to aim, they are *way* too slow*, and they could do with being aimed where the camera is aimed and not a target. The damage is not amazing either which is a bad combo combined with the cones. Either the damage would be amazing and we would persevere through the cones, or the damage stays as it is but the cones are turned into targeted AoEs a la Fireball or Fire Sword Circle PbAoEs