issue 27 Focused Feedback: Sonic Attack Revamp

[The Curator]

Sonic Attack Revamp

• Corruptor's powerset name "Sonic Attacks" has been changed to "Sonic Attack".
• All Sonic Attacks are now tagged as Energy Attack (they no longer check against an enemy's Smashing defense).

 

Changes to Resistance Debuffs (all Archetypes):

• All sonic attacks now apply two resistance debuffs called "Sonic Vibrations". Each attack does a "Short" debuff on the target that lowers resistance by -12% for 8s (Defender values). In addition to the Short Sonic Vibrations debuff, the following powers apply additional debuffs:
  • Shriek, Scream, Shout, Screech: "Incremental" for 8s (-8% res, Defender values). Stacks up to 4 times.
  • Howl: "Wide" for 8s (-8% res, Defender values). Does not stack, but refreshes debuff.
  • Dreadful Wail: "Extensive" for 20s (-8% res, Defender values). Does not stack, but refreshes debuff.
• Note: The single target attacks apply the same debuff and they can now stack up to 4 times. This includes using the same single target power multiple times to build up stacks. Once 4 stacks of "Incremental" are reached on a target from the same caster, new stacks will be ignored until one of the previous stacks wears off. This change now means a Defender can reach up to -60% resistance debuff on a single target (-12% from Short, -32% from 4x Incremental, -8% from Wide, and -8% from Extensive).
• 2nd Note: This change should allow more build flexibility. A character can select any combination of ST attacks as they would like and still have the opportunity to reach the 4 stack limit (assuming they have enough recharge reduction to achieve it). The AoE attacks do not stack, which is unchanged from Build 1.

 

Build 1 verbiage preserved in spoiler block, below.

 

Spoiler

Changes to Resistance Debuffs (all Archetypes):

• All sonic attacks now apply two resistance debuffs called "Sonic Vibrations". Each attack does a "Short" debuff on the target that lowers resistance by -12% for 8s (Defender values). In addition to the Short Sonic Vibrations debuff, the following powers apply additional debuffs:
  • Shriek: "Lingering" for 10s (-8% res, Defender values)
  • Scream: "Lingering" for 10s (-8% res, Defender values)
  • Shout: "Extended" for 12s (-8% res, Defender values)
  • Screech: "Prolonged" for 15s (-8% res, Defender values)
  • Howl: "Wide" for 8s (-8% res, Defender values)
  • Dreadful Wail: "Extensive" for 20s (-8% res, Defender values)
• Only one of these debuffs can be active on a target from the same caster at any given time. If a same-named debuff is applied on a foe, the previous debuff gets replaced (effectively refreshing the duration of the debuff)

 

Changes to Cast Times (all ATs):

• Scream cast time reduced to 1.47 seconds (down from 1.67 seconds)
• Shout cast time reduced to 2.00 seconds (down from 2.67 seconds)
• Howl cast time reduced to 1.6 seconds (down from 2.33 seconds)
• Shockwave cast time reduced to 1.67 seconds (down from 2.17 seconds)
• Siren's Song cast time reduced to 1.87 seconds (down from 2.00 seconds)

Changes to Max Targets:

• (Non-Sentinels) Siren's Song max targets increased to 16 (up from 10). Sentinels still have max targets set to 10.
• (Sentinels) Howl max targets reduced to 6 (down from 10).
• (Sentinels) Shockwave max targets reduced to 6 (down from 10).

Changes to damage/cooldowns (Endurance costs were also scaled appropriately):

• (Non-Sentinels) Shout cooldown reduced to 10 seconds and damage reduced to 1.96 scale. Sentinels cooldown is still 11s and 2.12 scale damage.
• (Non-Sentinels) Screech cooldown reduced to 12 seconds, damage increased to 2.28 scale and Stun duration is reduced to 5.0 scale. Sentinels version is unchanged.
• (All ATs) Howl cooldown decreased to 8s (was 10 seconds), damage decreased to 0.6694 scale (was 0.80).
• (All ATs) Shockwave cooldown increased to 11 seconds (was 8s), damage increased to 0.8652 scale (was 0.64). Accuracy is increased to 1.0x (up from 0.9x).
• (All ATs) Siren's Song cooldown reduced to 16 seconds (down from 20 seconds), damage increased to 1.1902 scale (was 0.50). Accuracy is increased to 1.0x (up from 0.9x).
• With the various changes to cast times and cooldowns, PvP damage was updated to reflect that.

Additional Notes:

• Corruptor's Scream and Howl now matches all other ATs as intended by the design formula. Previously Scream did 1.40 scale and Howl did 1.00 scale.
• Defender's Shout accuracy reduced to 1.0x (was 1.2x). This matches all other ATs.

[dom9630]

This feels like kicking the unpopular kid while he's already down.

 

In all seriousness, can we get the justification/idea for why these changes are being made?

[MoonSheep]

what a bizzarre set of changes to an underperforming set

 

edit: i’ve come back to this after having reviewed the other various changes over the last few days and am now in support of this change.

 

i love my kin/sonic, however i am also vocal that i feel the game is an empty husk of its former self as there is no challenge left and characters have been allowed to become vastly overpowered, the game is unrecognisable compared to its golden era. if this change helps invoke more challenge then i am in favour of it

Edited July 17, 2022 by MoonSheep

[Crasical]

So, correct me on this: The resistance debufff changes, they still apply the same -20 resistance, but it's on two separate timers that resist being stacked with each other, which works *against* the other changes of giving the attacks lower cooldowns, less damage, and faster animations. 

IE: I use Shriek, 12% 'short' and -8% Lingering. I then use Scream, for 0% extra debuff, it just rereshes the timer. I then go ahead and use Howl and only add an extra 8%, because most of the debuff is caught up in the 'short' vibration. 

Howl went from .8 to .66 scale, Shockwave went to .86 from .64 so... a *tiny* net increase on using those two powers together, I guess. The real big damage buff is in giving Siren's Song more damage, and the faster animations. 

Sentinels in particular get hit with their target caps getting nearly cut in half. I don't see why an already struggling archetype needed to get worse.

[Brawlin]

Congrats you have made a mediocre blast set even worse. With nothing redeeming about it.

[AustinSmith]

Y'all are straight up ignoring the massive DPA buffs to the set, huh?

Screech alone is a MASSIVE damage buff; 0.2 damage scale all the way up to 2.28s.

[Captain Powerhouse]

55 minutes ago, dom9630 said:

In all seriousness, can we get the justification/idea for why these changes are being made?

 

As you note, Sonic Attack has been forever deemed as an under-performing set. Rebalancing it has been always an issue due to the set’s -Res component. Buffing the power set to be actually good, while keeping the old -res stacking scheme, was just not viable.

 

This change is a drastic buff to Sonic Attack’s damage output, both in AoE and single target performance, even with the dialed back -resistance stacking.

 

Cast time reductions that result in DPA increases, damage number bumps, Siren Song’s newfound damage potential, all this adds up to a considerable boost. The target cap increase on Siren Song's also adds a lot of safety into the mix. The set is still not aiming at top performance, but its now above-average performer, with the potential of multiple Sonic Attack users to drastically lower foe’s -Res. A full team can still reach -300% res, and now dish a lot more damage than before.

 

I highly encourage anyone to take this new version of Sonic Attack for a spin on the Brainstorm server and test how it works out now. Existing builds might see desire to respec since some of the least desired powers like Screech and Siren's Song in the set are now some of the best.

[Crasical]

6 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

I highly encourage anyone to take this new version of Sonic Attack for a spin on the Brainstorm server and test how it works out now. Existing builds might see desire to respec since some of the least desired powers like Screech and Siren's Song in the set are now some of the best.

 

Good: faster animations, Siren Song recharges faster and does more damage (.69 damage scale more)

Meh: Howl recharges 2 sec secs faster, Shockwave recharges 3 secs slower, gained 0.0946 damage scale between them. 

Cons: enormously lowered ability to apply -res. Max targets on two cones reduced from 10 to 6 (I'm on a Sentinel).
 

It looks *really* bad on paper. I'll reserve further judgement until I can get home and test it myself, but...

[dom9630]

5 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

As you note, Sonic Attack has been forever deemed as an under-performing set. Rebalancing it has been always an issue due to the set’s -Res component. Buffing the power set to be actually good, while keeping the old -res stacking scheme, was just not viable.

 

This change is a drastic buff to Sonic Attack’s damage output, both in AoE and single target performance, even with the dialed back -resistance stacking.

 

Cast time reductions that result in DPA increases, damage number bumps, Siren Song’s newfound damage potential, all this adds up to a considerable boost. The target cap increase on Siren Song's also adds a lot of safety into the mix. The set is still not aiming at top performance, but its now above-average performer, with the potential of multiple Sonic Attack users to drastically lower foe’s -Res. A full team can still reach -300% res, and now dish a lot more damage than before.

 

I highly encourage anyone to take this new version of Sonic Attack for a spin on the Brainstorm server and test how it works out now. Existing builds might see desire to respec since some of the least desired powers like Screech and Siren's Song in the set are now some of the best.

 

This helps me to see where the idea for these changes come from. I don't know that these changes will make the set more popular, but definitely more viable.

 

Still feels like it's missing that 'x factor' that makes a set special and feel different than other sets, especially when it's special characteristic (the -dmg resist) is nerfed.

[Sovera]

Nerfing Sentinels is a bold move though.

[Doomrider]

Fwiw; the feel of the the set as a whole has been vastly improved. Chaining the cones feels good and fluid and the animation speed increases take a lot of the clunk out of the set.
I would really suggest people reserve judgement before they try the set because I agree, they don't look great on paper. 
After testing it, Sonic's niche foremost as a debuff blast set is a little softened but in exchange for a huge amount of QoL changes and improvements to the set as a whole. Personal damage output is up as well.
You might not be able to stack -res from multiple Sonic Attackers like you could before, but I think the changes are more good than bad, and that's coming from someone who was really skeptical in the beginning.

Edited July 13, 2022 by Doomrider
Misread the latest patch notes.

[jojogladco]

Testing on a Son/Storm Corr. 

AOE chain is gapless and all 3 being cones feels nice not to have to move a lot. It would be nice if the areas were normalized to just let you hit the same area with all 3 back to back.

ST it took the same amount of attacks to bring down a Level 54 boss as it takes my Fire/Storm Corrs and 1 more than it takes my Ice/Storm Corrs.

 

Over all enjoy the changes. This has turned a set I'd never have used into one that I'll level up a couple of toons with.

[evetsleep]

As probably one of the few regular sonic blast sentinels out there the target cap change honestly make me kind of sad.  I'm sure there's a really good reason for it, but it just seems like a strange change to make on, what is already considered an under powered AT and a blast set that, based on what I've seen, is super rare.  I already don't add a ton to a team other then some -RES and a pretty nice chainable as set of cones that includes a knock down.  Now that effects a cap of 6 baddies which makes my sonic sentinel less effective (at least in my mind).

 

The other sonic changes look interesting and looking forward to testing them out.

[Captain Powerhouse]

The Sentinel version of Sonic Attack was breaking the rule of having its cones lowered to melee-set target caps because the set never had access to one big TAoE (that would hit 16 targets on a blaster or 10 targets on a Sentinel.)

 

With this revamp, Siren Song was kept as a cone, but treated as an TAoE, also turned into the most potent AoE in the set. Under that change, sentinel version of the set is being adjusted to follow the AT standards, with the regular cones hitting 6 foes and Siren's Song hitting 10. Given its higher damage and utility, you likely will want that power in your AoE toolkit.

[arcane]

These changes look awesome on paper to me... really eager to calculate the DPS with all the increases in DPA.

[Draeth Darkstar]

The set feels great to play now, except for the Cone targeting. I don't know if it's as much of an issue for fully-sighted players, but as a legally blind person I have kind of a hard time gauging the aim for Cones, and when they're all different sizes it compounds that issue a lot for me. I think the set would feel better if they were the same range, at least, if not the same arc.

[Booper]

2 hours ago, Doomrider said:

You might not be able to stack -res from multiple Sonic Attackers like you could before

Multiple sonics do fully stack. You're thinking of a different implementation. One that allowed a solo sonic attack user be able to build up more resistance debuff, but dampens the amount other sonic attackers stack on the same target.

[Hjarki]

3 hours ago, Crasical said:

So, correct me on this: The resistance debufff changes, they still apply the same -20 resistance, but it's on two separate timers that resist being stacked with each other, which works *against* the other changes of giving the attacks lower cooldowns, less damage, and faster animations. 

As I'm reading it, this isn't quite the case. You've got a single common debuff (Vibrations #1) that's -12% for 8 sec. Then you've got 5 different debuffs for -8% (of varying durations). So in theory you can stack up to -52% resistance (although not consistently since one of those debuffs only comes from the long recharge ultimate).

 

More realistically, you're probably not going to use Howl or the ultimate in your single target rotation, so you'll be stacking 12% + 8% * 3 = -36% on a Defender.

[Mezmera]

Couple questions: 

 

Is there no AT modifier and it's 12% and 8% across the board no matter the AT?

 

The 12% for 8s can stack on itself from the same source but the other portion needs to be of a different category?

[Sovera]

1 hour ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

The Sentinel version of Sonic Attack was breaking the rule of having its cones lowered to melee-set target caps because the set never had access to one big TAoE (that would hit 16 targets on a blaster or 10 targets on a Sentinel.)

 

With this revamp, Siren Song was kept as a cone, but treated as an TAoE, also turned into the most potent AoE in the set. Under that change, sentinel version of the set is being adjusted to follow the AT standards, with the regular cones hitting 6 foes and Siren's Song hitting 10. Given its higher damage and utility, you likely will want that power in your AoE toolkit.

 

A Sonic Sentinel was my first level 50 in HC. Though I trust you have no malice and your formulas are correct I also dropped the Sonic thanks to the double digit cone damage. Plus all the problems that cones have such as our target being knocked away as we are pressing the button, or the lengthy animations couple with the poor damage making hitting 3-4 mobs not worth it.

 

This is double digits on +1 mobs, not +3 or +4.

 

And now they also hit 6 mobs only. Heh.

[Booper]

4 minutes ago, Hjarki said:

As I'm reading it, this isn't quite the case. You've got a single common debuff (Vibrations #1) that's -12% for 8 sec. Then you've got 5 different debuffs for -8% (of varying durations). So in theory you can stack up to -52% resistance (although not consistently since one of those debuffs only comes from the long recharge ultimate).

 

More realistically, you're probably not going to use Howl or the ultimate in your single target rotation, so you'll be stacking 12% + 8% * 3 = -36% on a Defender.

Not quite. Notice Shriek and Scream have the same debuff. So it's a cap of 44% (not counting dreadful wail).

 

This may seem unintuitive, but I'll explain my understanding for this change. One of the concerns from early testing was involving the power tax, which means you had to take (and use) every power to reach max resistance debuffs. Another concern was the nerf to resistance debuffs themselves, as it results in a slower build up of resistance debuffs.

 

So a compromise/solution was made. The debuff stacking from Shriek and Scream was removed from each other, but it was replaced by a 12% resistance debuff that all powers would get. This allows you to get 2 stacks of debuff on the first attack (faster application of debuffs) and you no longer have to take both Scream and Shriek (power tax lessening).

 

Here is a hypothetical break down of what the chains could have looked like without this change:

Example where all powers grant 10%

Shriek>Scream>Shout>Screech>Howl

10%>20%>30%>40%>50%

 

This implementation:

Shriek (or scream)>Shout>Screech>Howl

20%>28%>36%>44%

 

You can still use them both together, but you won't add more debuff. Still, we feel it is more desirable to only feel the need to take 4 powers instead of 5 to reach maximum debuff capability. 

[Booper]

12 minutes ago, Mezmera said:

Couple questions: 

 

Is there no AT modifier and it's 12% and 8% across the board no matter the AT?

 

The 12% for 8s can stack on itself from the same source but the other portion needs to be of a different category?

There is an AT modifier. The 12% and 8% are defender values. 

[akumamishima]

1 hour ago, Mezmera said:

The 12% for 8s can stack on itself from the same source but the other portion needs to be of a different category?

 

The way I'm understanding it: it's the other way around.  Each Sonic Attack applies (and refreshes) that 12% for 8s debuff).

 

In addition to that, each attack also applies a secondary debuff that's uniformly weaker, though typically longer duration. These secondary debuffs are attack specific (for the most part) and stack independently of one another.  The tier 1 and tier 2 attacks' secondary debuffs have the same name, so instead of stacking, they refresh.

[Gorgar]

1 hour ago, Booper said:

You can still use them both together, but you won't add more debuff. Still, we feel it is more desirable to only feel the need to take 4 powers instead of 5 to reach maximum debuff capability. 

 

Not everyone builds that way.  I took Shriek, Scream and Howl but not Shout on my dark defender because I favor quick attacks on her so she can get back to debuffing, healing, etc.  I know Shout is a bit faster now but I'd still prefer to avoid it.

[WindDemon21]

9 hours ago, The Curator said:

(All ATs) Shockwave cooldown increased to 11 seconds (was 8s), damage increased to 0.8652 scale (was 0.64). Accuracy is increased to 1.0x (up from 0.9x).

This is also pretty unwarranted, it's damage was already fairly lower, but this just helps reduce it's use for it's knockback to keep mobs knocked. Three seconds may seem small, but it makes the difference when trying to juggle enemies at decent recharges.

 

9 hours ago, The Curator said:

Changes to Max Targets:

• (Non-Sentinels) Siren's Song max targets increased to 16 (up from 10). Sentinels still have max targets set to 10.
• (Sentinels) Howl max targets reduced to 6 (down from 10).
• (Sentinels) Shockwave max targets reduced to 6 (down from 10).

Um... wth no. Honestly all ranged cones should be SIXTEEN targets on non-sentinels. The 6 target cap on the cones is already the DUMBEST move on sentinels. It without a doubt should be 10 targets if not just normalize 16 still. Sents have it rought enough as it is for  that, but seriously, all of the cones should be 10 targets. It just ruins sets that have that SO badly on sentinels and makes them just unplayable. The only ones worth playing as it is now are the ones that have 10 targets on their aoes versus the 6 target ones. Seriously, DON'T do this and completely ruin that set, just don't. And fix the others that are only 6 and make them 10. It's just wrong.