Sonic Resonance: Buffs

[RadiantPhoenix]

Sonic Resonance is a support powerset that looks cool, but feels weak to me.
 

It resembles Force Field (FF), but FF feels like it has a little extra added onto most of its counterpart powers.

Here are some changes that I think might improve the set:

T1: Sonic Siphon

This is a -RES power, which is good, but that's all it does. I feel like it should either:

• Play into the name ("Siphon") and "transfer" some of that RES to the user by adding +RES to the power. (allowing players to slot +RES sets)
• Play into the description ("set up a constant vibration within the body of your foe"), and do some damage-over-time on top of -RES (allowing players to slot damage sets)
• Help more with AVs by adding 500% -Regen to the power

T2: Sonic Barrier
T3: Sonic Haven

These are 4 minute shields, which are strong, but that's all it does. FF's equivalents have several advantages:

• They add extra benefits (Tox resist, END/Recv resist)
• They are +DEF, so they can take LotG globals

Personally, I think these should add some uncommon debuff resistances, like DDR, ToHit, or Regeneration.

T5: Disruption Field

This is an AoE -RES power, which is very good, but making it a toggle that targets somebody else means that it falls off whenever you go through a door.

Is there some way to make it stop doing that?

T6: Sonic Dispersion
 

Almost identical to the FF equivalent, except it offers less Mez protection (-20 vs -30) and resist (2.0 vs 3.0), and falls off more quickly if somebody leaves (2.25s vs 15s)

T7: Sonic Repulsion

A clear parallel to the version in FF, except the FF version got buffed a bunch (no extra END per target, and has Repel in addition to KB) and this didn't.

T8: Clarity

This one is almost an exact copy of Clear Mind from Empathy, except it takes longer to cast. It should really take a page out of the other three variants on this power and do something else too.

Maybe Psi resist, or another type of debuff resistance?

T9: Liquefy
 

This power feels like it just doesn't have a use-case:

• The CD is so high that you can't just throw it on regular enemy groups
• The debuffs (-ToHit, -DEF, -RECH) don't work on AVs because of AV resistance
• The damage isn't high enough to matter

I think that the correct angle to pursue here is further reducing the CD to something like 30 seconds, but making it replace itself so that you can only have one copy out at a time. This makes it a nice AoE debuff that you can throw down on ordinary enemy groups to help protect the team.

[Psyonico]

Liquify got buffed a while back, its recharge got cut in half.  I think it's in a pretty good place right now.

 

I used to think that the buff to liquefy was all that was needed for the set, but Marine has come out since then and it shows the devs are willing to give some extra "oomph" to support sets.

 

The biggest issue I currently see with Sonic Resonance is the endurance cost.

[Shin Magmus]

   Sonic Resonance is honestly in a pretty good spot overall, and it has impressive impact on both keeping teams alive and melting the AV faster with a (standard, but still good) -60% Res on Defender scalars.  The only real issues with the set are that Sonic Siphon is hilariously outclassed by *literally* every single other single target -Res power in all competing Support powersets, and no debuff resistance.

 

Suggested buffs:

 

- Speed up Sonic Siphon cast time, make it reduce both Def/Res.  This makes it less blatantly outclassed by every other power, even Corrosive Enzymes, and also lets it slot some procs like Achilles Heel.

 

- Add debuff resistances to shields.  Sonic Resonance would feel more impactful if the powers insulated you from the annoyance of things like sapping and tohit debuffs.  This is one area where the revamped Force Field is absolutely killing Sonic Resonance by direct comparison.

[Lunar Ronin]

7 minutes ago, Shin Magmus said:

   Sonic Resonance is honestly in a pretty good spot overall, and it has impressive impact on both keeping teams alive and melting the AV faster with a (standard, but still good) -60% Res on Defender scalars.  The only real issues with the set are that Sonic Siphon is hilariously outclassed by *literally* every single other single target -Res power in all competing Support powersets, and no debuff resistance.

 

Suggested buffs:

 

- Speed up Sonic Siphon cast time, make it reduce both Def/Res.  This makes it less blatantly outclassed by every other power, even Corrosive Enzymes, and also lets it slot some procs like Achilles Heel.

 

- Add debuff resistances to shields.  Sonic Resonance would feel more impactful if the powers insulated you from the annoyance of things like sapping and tohit debuffs.  This is one area where the revamped Force Field is absolutely killing Sonic Resonance by direct comparison.

 

Adding to that, yeah, I second increasing the falloff time for Sonic Dispersion to fifteen seconds to match Force Field.

[Uun]

21 hours ago, RadiantPhoenix said:

T7: Sonic Repulsion

A clear parallel to the version in FF, except the FF version got buffed a bunch (no extra END per target, and has Repel in addition to KB) and this didn't.

The big difference is that the FF version is cast on you while the Sonic version is cast on an ally. I've yet to see anyone take this power or use it in game.

[Shin Magmus]

   Sonic Repulsion is not supposed to be analogous to Force Bubble.  It's identical to Repel in Kinetics, or the same power on Singularity (it's a hidden passive), except you toggle it onto an ally.  With KB-to-KD, Force Feedback, and significant Endredux: the power does have some modest utility.  The issues with Sonic Repulsion are the same issues with Repel: it's a bad use of your Endurance compared to other options.

[Auroxis]

New Liquefy is quite nice. The high recharge can be leveraged to get a 90% proc rate on the -res proc as well as a hold proc (with recharge+ToHit debuff slotting). The hold proc stacks with the Liquefy hold, which lets you CC bosses for a short while (useful to buy time or get a quick containment setup). I agree though that it only shines once you get your personal recharge levels up, and that it doesn't do much against AV's.