Is Sonic Resonance Worth Having?

[drgantz]

I've thought of making a DP/Sonic.  I thought that it might be good because it can debuff.  I've read some posts saying that it is not good, at least for defenders.

Is it good for Corruptors?

[Psyonico]

Sonic is a good set.  I don't know about Corruptors, but on Defenders it's good.  Not great, but good.  The nice thing about the set is Sonic Cage and Sonic Repulsion are easily skippable, giving you more room for other powers.  The stinker is Liquify's recharge it's just way too long.

[Uun]

Depends on whether you intend to solo or team. 5 of the 9 powers are only usable on allies, including the AoE -res power. If you're solo, the only debuffs you have are Sonic Siphon (ST -res) and Liquefy (AoE -tohit/-def/hold/kb). If you're looking for -res debuffs, Poison is much more potent.

[SeraphimKensai]

My biggest gripe about Sonic Resonance is that I wish liquefy had a shorter base recharge. I'd like it to have maybe a base 90 second recharge as opposed to its 300 second recharge as it's a location based power so mobs that move outside of it are magically better.

 

Otherwise I wish Disruption Field was a pbaoe toggle, or at least given the treatment like Enflame to be useable on an enemy as well as an ally, because as is, the power although a staple of the set is useless solo.

 

Clarity doesn't make too much sense to me from a design perspective either. It's like they were scraping the bucket trying to cut and paste together a powerset when they made it.

 

As such I personally find Sonic towards the bottom tier of support sets.

[DreadShinobi]

2 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

 

Clarity doesn't make too much sense to me from a design perspective either. It's like they were scraping the bucket trying to cut and paste together a powerset when they made it.

 

I would love to see a buff to clarity.

Either make it an AoE like increase density or increase the recharge and give it additional buff properties akin to fortitude/forge/temporal selection. Clarity could give a large tohit buff and psi resist buff with a longer recharge to compensate. 

 

Also agree liquefy needs a recharge reduction and possibly sticky debuff treatment for enemies that move outside the area, akin to freezing rain. 

 

Would also like to see sonic siphon actually ... siphon ... like kinetics. Would be cool to see a small self buff or pbaoe buff centered on the target.

[Doomguide2005]

Clarity, just weird to be so many levels later than the identical Clear Mind.  

[Zect]

Sonic is well balanced in terms of power, and it's quite attractive in the modern mass-defense meta; mez prot that does not come from clarion and res to back up everyone's softcap are very valuable.

 

However, I also think that Liquefy is problematic. The recharge on it is exorbitant, at no less than 300s - twice that of most classic blaster nukes which are 145s. When your key powers have that long a recharge, the set feels bland because most of the time you're using a smaller set of less impactful powers, the same problem FF has.

 

The reason for this long recharge is probably because liquefy has too many redundant functions, and tries to do too much. Does a KD patch also need to be an aoe hold/-tohit/-def/-fly/-rech? (I'm not kidding, it really is all of those). Any two of those would be good enough to neuter a spawn.

 

I would like to see Liquefy trimmed down to just two key effects, and have its recharge cut down significantly, into the 120-150s range. That will put it within every-spawn recharge range for a typical endgame build.

 

 

[Gemini2099]

Sonic is a fine set. Reduce the recharge of Liquefy by half and add buffs to sonic siphons and the set would be even better.  On teams it shines but with some of these simple adjustments it would be an enjoyable set for soloing as you can spend more time blasting.

 

 

[OdinAZ]

On 2/6/2023 at 11:32 AM, Uun said:

Depends on whether you intend to solo or team. 5 of the 9 powers are only usable on allies, including the AoE -res power. If you're solo, the only debuffs you have are Sonic Siphon (ST -res) and Liquefy (AoE -tohit/-def/hold/kb). If you're looking for -res debuffs, Poison is much more potent.

 

This is kind of it. I have a DP/Sonic and it is rough.  So many power help allies, but not yourself.  

 

Sonic Dispersion is a PBAOE +res to the whole team, except you.  (Obviously, I stand corrected) And Sonic Siphon is a ST with a slow recharge.

Edited March 3 by OdinAZ

[Wimbochismo]

11 hours ago, OdinAZ said:

Sonic Dispersion is a PBAOE +res to the whole team, except you.

 

The wording in the description is a bit confusing, check: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=corruptor_buff.sonic_resonance.sonic_dispersion&at=corruptor and look at the bottom for "Entities Affected." It works on Allies and Self. This is the most important ability for your own resistances and status protection.

 

To add to the thread, Sonic probably shines more on a Defender. Why? You have to spend ~3+ slots on Sonic Haven and Sonic Barrier for minimal gain to yourself. This is less slots for attacks. To use Disruption Field with more regularity, Defender's have better end management. The resistances are higher on a Defender. Although the fire-and-forget nature of the powers could lend itself to focusing on the Blast set for a Corruptor.

 

If Sonic does one thing very well, it is to boost resistance. On my Defender with current slotting and between the shields and Dispersion, I'm adding +53% resistance to all but Psi. That's pretty huge.

 

Lets break down resistances that I commonly see amongst "squishy" builds. This probably applies slightly less to AT's with an Armor. "Outlier" resistances here refer to those that aren't s/l resistance which is typically easier to get.

• Low Resistance - For anything but s/l resistance, often the only thing boosting outlier resistances is Shield Wall and Reactive Defenses uniques. Maybe some set bonuses thrown in there. Outlier resistances here usually fall around 10-15% for that reason.
• Medium Resistance - Typically seen if someone can only fit Tough into their build for some reason. With slots dedicated to it and uniques, you're going to see s/l resistances around 30%.
• High Resistance - This occurs when someone takes an Epic resist shield. In some cases s/l resistance will jump to 50% with some outlier resistances hitting around the 30% range. If Tough is also used, s/l will hit 75%.

What this means is that for squishy AT's in particular at the Low/Med end, you have to add anywhere from 45%-65% resistance to get them to 75%. This is especially true for those outlier resistances.

 

I do agree Sonic could use a pass similar to Force Field eventually. Sonic Cage doesn't get much use and Sonic Repulsion is skippable. Clarity is partially redundant because Sonic Dispersion already covers Hold/Immobilize/Stun protection.

 

Weirdly enough I wish -dmg was proliferated to the set. Force Field not only buffs defense but gives DDR and also debuff's -DDR in Damping Bubble. For enemies, -dmg is similar to +res for players and goes past the "cap." Just an idle thought.

Edited March 3 by Wimbochismo
Werds

[Uun]

11 hours ago, OdinAZ said:

Sonic Dispersion is a PBAOE +res to the whole team, except you. 

Sonic Dispersion definitely works on you.

 

Are you confusing it with Disruption Field (ally anchored -res AoE)?

[Renatos1023]

Just jumping in to say that Sonic is definitely a good set, one of my favorites to be honest. My experience is on a Defender, and as someone said above you add 53% resistance to all but Psi. (granted, I'm guessing that this number will be in the high-30s for a Corruptor - which is still good). In a game where it seems that most people (myself included) build for high defense at end game, being able to plug that resistance hole for many (if not most sets) is a huge boon. I skipped Clarity, Sonic Cage, and Sonic Repulsion.

 

I do want to point out that Page 7 did recently reduce the cooldown on Liquify from 300 seconds to 150 seconds (granted I think it should be 120s, but I'll take what I can get). So, it is now a much easier power to have up at least every other mob with some decent recharge. 

[Gemini2099]

I am going to start up another AR/Sonic corruptor because the advantage is that you just blast away and don't worry about dropping so many debuffs.  But yes on a defender sonic is better.

 

I will say this about Sonic Cage and that it is really a great power that you can rely on with minimal slotting.  But it is very niche which is why it is love/hate relationship with the power. 

 

The new changes to Liquefy really make the set flow better and you actually feel that Sonic is actually more useful on teams and solo as a result.  Sonic Siphon though needs buffs as well as looking at the end costs for some of the powers. 

 

Overall Sonic is a solid set.  

 

Edited March 24 by Gemini2099

[Hjarki]

Sonic Siphon, Sonic Cage, Disruption Field and Clarity can’t slot any enhancement sets. Sonic Barrier, Snoic Haven, and Sonic Dispersion can only slot resist sets (which are relatively limited in value beyond the uniques). Sonic Repulsion can only slot knockback sets (again, limited). Liquefy can slot a huge array of enhancement sets but few of them do any good because it’s a pseudo-pet power so procs work poorly and the few procs that work well (mainly ones that proc on power activation like Force Feedback or Performance Shifter) aren’t amongst that huge array.

 

That makes building for Sonic Resonance extremely challenging since a significant part of the power of any build comes from its enhancement set bonuses.

 

Sonic Resonance also lacks many of the features like endurancement management, self recharge or self-healing (or abilities to achieve these through procs) that permit it to augment a blast/control set usefully.

 

While not a direct comparison, Thermal is going to be generally stronger and more versatile at doing what Sonic tries to do although obviously it involves a very different theme.

[Gemini2099]

9 hours ago, Hjarki said:

Sonic Siphon, Sonic Cage, Disruption Field and Clarity can’t slot any enhancement sets. Sonic Barrier, Snoic Haven, and Sonic Dispersion can only slot resist sets (which are relatively limited in value beyond the uniques). Sonic Repulsion can only slot knockback sets (again, limited). Liquefy can slot a huge array of enhancement sets but few of them do any good because it’s a pseudo-pet power so procs work poorly and the few procs that work well (mainly ones that proc on power activation like Force Feedback or Performance Shifter) aren’t amongst that huge array.

 

That makes building for Sonic Resonance extremely challenging since a significant part of the power of any build comes from its enhancement set bonuses.

 

Sonic Resonance also lacks many of the features like endurancement management, self recharge or self-healing (or abilities to achieve these through procs) that permit it to augment a blast/control set usefully.

 

While not a direct comparison, Thermal is going to be generally stronger and more versatile at doing what Sonic tries to do although obviously it involves a very different theme.

 

I agree with this.  Sonic just needs some slight tweaks to be up to date for the modern game with IO sets. 

[Ukase]

So...just my two inf - for free. 
Never listen to anyone else about what's good or bad. Most of the time, this kind of analysis, while potentially accurate, the difference between good and bad might be too small for most folks to ever notice. 

I have played sonic on a defender and a corruptor. Candidly, I couldn't tell you that I noticed any difference in the buffs, de-buffs or survivability. I remember being fairly surprised to see how easily they both reached the resist cap. 

The only pain point for me was some end issues, but that's fairly common in the 30's, at least, it is for me.  

[Gemini2099]

Honestly if you are min maxing you are not going to notice a difference between a sonic defender or corruptor.  Also with IO builds you can really cover a lot of bases for a defender sonic or corruptor sonic.

 

The problem with the set is how end heavy it is and how sonic siphon doesn't offer a buff when it debuffs like similar powers.  As for other powers they could be reworked for the modern game but it is okay for a set to not have so many must have powers.  But having powers that are compatible with IO sets is really where sonic resonance falls behind other sets IMVHO.