Is Sonic Resonance underappreciated?

[Hitback]

To be honest, I haven't rolled one yet, but I'm doing some research trying to decide on my next MM and I feel like Sonic is being slept on. 

 

Looking at the numbers, Sonic and the pet +res IOs are enough to give your pets 75% res to all damage types except Psionic. And after the upcoming nerfs, it will be the only secondary easily capable of -45% res debuff. 

 

I think it pairs great with robotics, even if they are defense-based. Sonic has no heals, no -regen and no psionic res, and robots can provide all three. 

Edited February 3, 2024 by Hitback

[Lunar Ronin]

Sonic Resonance is great.  It's just very endurance hungry, and doesn't have a heal as you've noticed.  But if your primary has a heal, or you don't mind working Aid Other into your build, and you can deal with the endurance, it's very solid.

[Psyonico]

I don't have experience with Sonic as an MM, but I do have it on a defender.  Yes, the set is underappreciated.  The next patch also gives a nice little boost to Liquefy, which IMO is exactly what the set needed to perform well, so we'll see how it goes.

 

I do agree that Bots could be a good choice as you pointed out.

[kelika2]

Sonic is ok but it requires a semi-big bank account or some serious dedication and/or thought.

 

The global pet based IOs are a huge must.  10+10+10(15 catalyst)% resists are huge for both Thermal and Sonics.  Making your pets tough is a huge bonus.  Also picking the primary to stack resistances helps.

 

the -resist toggle needs a melee type pet or finding out what pets do not need to be at a range.  Examples:

Mercs:  The Spec Ops DO NOT need to be at a range.  Their AoEs are Target AoEs (fireball, explosive blast, etc).  Meanwhile your Commando is very Cone based (fire/ice breath and so on) making your commando a bad Disruption Field target

Bots:  Your prot bots also do not have cone attacks, making them OK to send into melee for disrupt field.  also an added bonus:  the prot bots drones summon their seeker drones on themelves.  and in melee it makes it so they have a better chance to hit more targets

rest of the sets have a nice dedicated melee pet to do the job

 

eh..

 

Demons and Beasts get the most benefit from Sonic reso due to inherent resist stacking, sonic bubbles and IO buffs.  Necro sounds nice but smash/neg/psi/toxic damage enemy groups are rare.  Pets have a 90% resist cap.

 

With all that said, try Robot/Trick arrow.  Not only does Flash Arrow 'add' to bots Defenses you also get Oil Slick arrow later to really feel the power of stacking DoTs.  And glue arrow helps keep things in your assbots fire patches and your fire patch.

[Radeon]

I am wondering if i am the only one having Robo/Sonic running? 

 

Is there any decent build i can take inspiration from? 

 

Pools i have is Flight, Leadership, Fighting and Energy Mastery. 

 

Target is to walk on the line between being sturdy and packing a punch, i don't need to solo end content, am playing in teams most of the time, but want to be tough enough to not be eradicated by the sudden surprise mob 🙂

 

[Maelwys]

Unfortunately /Sonic is bottom of the pile for MM secondaries, just above Poison (which is worse in terms of survivability but probably has better damage output).
When soloing Bots/Sonic will be tricky to micromanage as the bulk of /Sonic's added damage comes from the ally-anchored -res aura; and Bots are "prefer ranged" so you'll need to anchor it on the AssBot and manually GOTO command them into melee range before they fire off their Swarm Missiles. Epic AoE immobilises will be your friend.

If you mostly team then it gets a bit better - Teams tend to be Defense softcapped but not Resistance Hardcapped; so your buffs are usually welcome... and having a melee teammate with a Taunt aura to anchor Disruption Field onto will alleviate a lot of your micromanagement issues. Most of the other powers in Sonic are pretty hands-off - just Bubble up once every four minutes, slot Liquefy for Recharge and -Tohit; and use Sonic Siphon on Bosses/EBs/AVs. So you'll have time to blast a bit with Procbombed Photon Grenade and maybe even an Epic attack or two (Thunderstrike from Mu Mastery is fantastic there; and you'll likely want to take Charged Armor and Electrifying fences anyway).

Note that taking the +Def Pet Aura IOs and Maneuvers and slotting Protector Bots for +Def can get your henchmen most of the way to the Defense Softcap; and Incarnates (Barrier Destiny/Support Hybrid/Talons Radial Lore) can get you the rest of the way even when soloing.



 

[Maelwys]

I had a quick dig and can't find any recent Robot/Sonic builds.

Icesphere's dropbox has a Thugs/Sonic that doesn't too bad at a quick glance.

The closest in my own stable would be Robots/Thermal and Robots/Kin.
zMastermind - Robotics - Thermal.mbd (note that this one was last poked at prior to the Bonfire nerfs)
The Bots/Kin I've discussed at length and most recent build(s) are here.

 

[evetsleep]

5 hours ago, Maelwys said:

Unfortunately /Sonic is bottom of the pile for MM secondaries, just above Poison (which is worse in terms of survivability but probably has better damage output).
When soloing Bots/Sonic will be tricky to micromanage as the bulk of /Sonic's added damage comes from the ally-anchored -res aura; and Bots are "prefer ranged" so you'll need to anchor it on the AssBot and manually GOTO command them into melee range before they fire off their Swarm Missiles. Epic AoE immobilises will be your friend.

If you mostly team then it gets a bit better - Teams tend to be Defense softcapped but not Resistance Hardcapped; so your buffs are usually welcome... and having a melee teammate with a Taunt aura to anchor Disruption Field onto will alleviate a lot of your micromanagement issues. Most of the other powers in Sonic are pretty hands-off - just Bubble up once every four minutes, slot Liquefy for Recharge and -Tohit; and use Sonic Siphon on Bosses/EBs/AVs. So you'll have time to blast a bit with Procbombed Photon Grenade and maybe even an Epic attack or two (Thunderstrike from Mu Mastery is fantastic there; and you'll likely want to take Charged Armor and Electrifying fences anyway).

Note that taking the +Def Pet Aura IOs and Maneuvers and slotting Protector Bots for +Def can get your henchmen most of the way to the Defense Softcap; and Incarnates (Barrier Destiny/Support Hybrid/Talons Radial Lore) can get you the rest of the way even when soloing.

 

 

I have a bots/sonic that I take off the shelf every now and then.  It's not horrible, but the issues you point out are in line with my experience.  The buff to Liquify helps and the layering of defense + resistance is always a good strategy.  The addition of the healing drone really expanded the survivability of non-healing builds that don't have a secondary that has one built in.

 

I have driven pretty much every MM combo at this point and I find poison the absolute bottom with sonic right above it as well.  Sonic isn't as frustrating as poison, it just doesn't perform nearly as well as others and I find it's repel one of the most annoying sounds in the entire game with large spawns. 

[Xandyr]

I had pretty good luck with Ninja/Sonic. I've got a Thugs/Sonic, but parked it around level 40.