page 3 [FOCUSED FEEDBACK] New Melee Set - Sonic Melee

[Championess]

Unfortunately my laptop is in the shop while all this exciting stuff dropped so I won't get to test this anytime soon but I'll give a bird's eye take on a little bit.

 

I'm most interested in the stalker/scrapper version which I trust people are giving it a good testing to find quirks.  The one thing I do agree with though is tying the attune gimmick to both first attacks. 

 

Conceptually it sounds neat if not a bit extra management.  After you get a few attacks in your chain those first 2 attacks get to be awful weak.  I'd only take and set mule the t2 attack and rarely use it in any attack chain, I could never imagine having the room to take and use both the t1 and t2 attack unless the later attacks are truly awful, which would be a whole other issue.  Depending how strong this attune thing is I'd find better functionality afforded the set if the t1 attack and a later attack were able to benefit from attune.

 

This is just a suggestion purely from a general build efficiency standpoint.

[Kaika]

Just got on and messed around a bit with the new attune and the VFX is a game changer feel wise. Makes the power feel far more impactful and translates it mentally into a toggle in my head way easier. I really like the VFX for it, just enough to not lose it in the mix of things, but not too big as to get mistaken for a AoE, and does not cover the head or legs to be mistaken as control. The extra range also makes it quite a bit harder to detoggle and makes it so you don't feel like you have to be glued to your target anymore, I don't think I would want it to extend any farther then this though. I still have to get into melee to make the DoT effective so it isn't a free lunch, but I no longer need to constantly keep my target in mind positioning wise, and they are far easier to keep track of. All and all a huge upgrade in the game feel department here, good work on this.

 

The only thing I could think to make it better would be if the VFX changed when the T1/2 were applied to it, but I know thats a bit of a ask and it's still very good the way it currently is.

Edited 7 hours ago by Kaika

[WindDemon21]

On 11/10/2025 at 5:19 PM, The Curator said:

Deafening Wave - PBAoE Melee, DMG(Energy/Smash), Foe Chance for Hold

• You create a large field of sonic waves, causing damage to all foes around you. It has a moderate chance of causing migraines, leaving them shaking in pain and helpless.

 

Please, please, PLEASE move deafening wave sooner. All main aoe powers should be available by at least 20, super annoying having any later than that for the main aoe.

[Kai Moon]

4 hours ago, Psi-bolt said:

One quick bug, Sandman Whisper opened up for my Tanker at level 18 during a respec.  It opened up before Sound Booster.  

Also happens outside respec. Tanker Sandman's Whisper is set to 18, but should be 24 (secondary tier 7 level).

[Kai Moon]

Tanker Deafening Wave has a target cap of 10. It should probably be 16 because of Gauntlet.

[Kai Moon]

Hold Duration Enhancements and Sets in Attune

These don't seem to do anything, unless I'm missing something? Currently, the brute, stalker, and tanker versions of Attune accept hold enhancements and sets. The scrapper version doesn't. This shouldn't accept hold enhancements and sets if there's no hold duration to enhance.



 Sleep Duration Sets in Assassin's Whisper 

Currently accepts sleep enhancements but not sleep sets. Should probably accept both. Sandman's Whisper (brute, scrapper, tanker) accepts both.

Edited 5 hours ago by Kai Moon

[Championess]

10 minutes ago, Kai Moon said:

Hold Duration Enhancements and Sets in Attune

These don't seem to do anything, unless I'm missing something? Currently, the brute, stalker, and tanker versions of Attune accept hold enhancements and sets. The scrapper version doesn't. This shouldn't accept hold enhancements and sets if there's no hold duration to enhance.



 Sleep Duration Sets in Assassin's Whisper 

Currently accepts sleep enhancements but not sleep sets. Should probably accept both. Sandman's Whisper (brute, scrapper, tanker) accepts both.

 

They just removed allowing sleep sets in AS this new build.  Likely something was too good between stalker ATOs, placate and sleep set procs (placate proc comes to mind).

[High_Beam]

New Build with attuned is night and day better.  No longer clunky.  visuals also a plus.  My complaint was never about the newness or the mechanic of how it works it was the de-toggling and the extra work that was required to make it flow with the attacks chain.  Now I flows.  Bravo.  Way better and still keeping the power new with the mechanism.

[OverkillEngine]

Just got done taking a Sonic/Inv Brute for a spin on test. No hard metrics measured, just did a mission at every 5th level using basic SO or IO's only.

Attune takes a little bit to get used to, but it does output some decent animation free DPS after the initial setup so long as you have both Strident Echo and Sonic Thrust. Feels wasteful to use it on anything less than an Lt, though at least it recharges fast if you use it to obliterate a minion at the start of a fight. Tentative thumbs up.

The only time the toggle nature of it made me upset was when I was doing content in the 10-15 bracket and was running into Lost Rectors that could chain mezz, which neuters offensive toggles if you don't have status protection yet, which I did not have access to until 16. Nor did I have a reliable way to lock them down with status effects. Those were some close fights even after eating inspirations like candy.

Sonic Clap was nicer than I expected. I know some people hate having mixed cones and PBOE's in melee sets, but this power has a pretty generous cone arc and range. It's right in the sweet spot, at most I had to take a short step back or to a side to easily hit nearly everything already in melee with me. You could port a pure smashing version of this to Super Strength and I'd be pretty happy, hint, hint.

Sound Booster is the usual Build Up analogue. Functional. No complaints.

I skipped Sandman's Whisper since my single target chain was adequate enough for my purposes at the time and a low mag single target standard sleep isn't exactly useful to me as anything it would affect out of the box I could already easily obliterate (minion/Lt), and I had nothing else in the set to stack it with. So I had no room for a power that was going to be docked on the total power budget due to a weak status component. Ah well, not every power in a set has to be a must-pick.

Speaking of status stacking, Deafening Wave and Earsplitter having matching (useful) status effects that could be boosted was appreciated.

Though one thing that annoyed me about Deafening Wave is when it hits multiple targets, the resulting sound effect is VERY similar to the sound of armor toggles dropping due to lack of endurance - please do not do that. It's a very disconcerting sound to hear when I am hip deep in a fight. Please consider some SFX polish here.

For doing regular content at least the set feels alright overall, has decent ST damage and enough AoE to whittle packs down at a decent rate especially with the -res secondary effect. It is however busy enough that I would probably only pair it with a hands-off secondary that doesn't require micro.

Edited 3 hours ago by OverkillEngine

[Kai Moon]

Sandman's Whisper uses melee_pvpdamage modifier for pve damage

(brute base damage = tanker base damage in pvp, but brutes should do lower base damage in pve)

[smnolimits41]

Graphics for Sonic Thrust is no longer animating ??