Sonic melee and Attune

[evetsleep]

I played it a bit before it came out and now Ive been running some sonic melee brutes and tanks and I'm starting to wonder if attune is worth it.  Generally it only seems to make sense to put it on bosses and higher and on most teams boss level baddies just don't last that long.  I've been trying to use it where it makes sense but it seems like it runs for 1-10 seconds and then the boss is dead.  My poor finger is hurting from trying to tag bosses all the time.

 

Am I doing it wrong and is the benefit that attune brings really worth it in your experience?

[PoptartsNinja]

It's an unenjoyable busywork toggle if you try to use it as-is.

 

If you macro it into a powexec_toggle_on you can just put it on your bar and treat it like a normal attack without risk of accidentally turning the toggle off. Just hit the button as part of your attack rotation and if it's already on, no harm done, you didn't accidentally detoggle.

 

 

/Macro ATT "powexec_toggle_on Attune"

[Midnight Mystique]

Does anyone have good advice on slotting attune? Its doesn't need recharge obviously and while end reduction is nice in a toggle its not quite as important as it is in a full attack, which means that most  common IO sets (crushing impact, etc) are going to be wasting a lot of their enhancement values. I am just starting a couple of sonic chars (stalker and brute) to get a feel for them but for now it looks to me like an accuracy, a couple slots of damage and maybe an end red is all you need, although I am tending to leaving it with just the basic slot for accuraccy.  Anyone have better ideas? 

[Wavicle]

19 minutes ago, Midnight Mystique said:

Does anyone have good advice on slotting attune? Its doesn't need recharge obviously and while end reduction is nice in a toggle its not quite as important as it is in a full attack, which means that most  common IO sets (crushing impact, etc) are going to be wasting a lot of their enhancement values. I am just starting a couple of sonic chars (stalker and brute) to get a feel for them but for now it looks to me like an accuracy, a couple slots of damage and maybe an end red is all you need, although I am tending to leaving it with just the basic slot for accuraccy.  Anyone have better ideas? 

accuracy and damage

[BurtHutt]

I am not really loving attune. I took the power. I guess it's just like an opening attack for me in an attack chain. It helps your other sonic attacks - I haven't looked at numbers to see how much more damage it adds to the other powers.

 

So far, I think I will just one slot it with a damage IO. Maybe a purple. I will play my toon for a while before I can form a final decision. 

[PyroNugget]

not a fan of the game mechanic or the entire "it's a different powerset we MUST have something different in it" mindset

 

but it is a good power to mule ATOs

[vibal]

I had extremely low expectations for sonic as they all seem to pay the -res tax in terms of AoE output. Sonic melee manages to underwhelm even with some AoE in the kit. Notably the solution for -res being too good was to pull it as a secondary effect from every power except the sleep. Note: Sleep isn't an effect I generally pursue especially on a melee character. It's -9%/15s res which is okay, but you won't be cratering a tough target's resistance and you'll be slotting a sleep so y'know. Replacing -res with hold/kd is okay I guess (?) but sonic already has an established *thing* - why isn't it here?

 

Attune doesn't pull the trigger on being interesting. It's a single target DoT toggle. The damage isn't great and the secondary effects aren't either. The only powers that increase the output are sonic thrust and strident echo and ONLY if you hit the attuned target. Neither of the 1st 2 attacks in the set are buttons worth pushing and by mid 20's they exist in other sets as filler for when the buttons you want to push are recharging. So what do you get for slotting and prioritizing one or both of your throw away level 1 power picks? 10% increase to damage per stack on the attuned target. In a mystical dreamworld you'd toggle up, get to 10 stacks, and enjoy 100% bonus damage. That will happen approximately never. AV fight or bust I suppose, but I can't think of another power with a use that narrow.

 

The set wants me to toggle a target up, tickle it with my throw-aways and retarget to hit everyone else OR hammer into the attuned target and retoggle/lose stacks. It's a DoT set which says brute, but it's a base damage buff set which says everyone BUT brute. You do get a 180 degree cone and a 15' pbaoe which I didn't expect from sonic. The reason I didn't expect it is you don't get the thing that made you want to play sonic. At least a ST focused set with -res would help everyone do damage instead of breakdancing around forgettable powers to buff your own damage.

[Captain Fabulous]

54 minutes ago, vibal said:

I had extremely low expectations for sonic as they all seem to pay the -res tax in terms of AoE output. Sonic melee manages to underwhelm even with some AoE in the kit. Notably the solution for -res being too good was to pull it as a secondary effect from every power except the sleep. Note: Sleep isn't an effect I generally pursue especially on a melee character. It's -9%/15s res which is okay, but you won't be cratering a tough target's resistance and you'll be slotting a sleep so y'know. Replacing -res with hold/kd is okay I guess (?) but sonic already has an established *thing* - why isn't it here?

 

Attune doesn't pull the trigger on being interesting. It's a single target DoT toggle. The damage isn't great and the secondary effects aren't either. The only powers that increase the output are sonic thrust and strident echo and ONLY if you hit the attuned target. Neither of the 1st 2 attacks in the set are buttons worth pushing and by mid 20's they exist in other sets as filler for when the buttons you want to push are recharging. So what do you get for slotting and prioritizing one or both of your throw away level 1 power picks? 10% increase to damage per stack on the attuned target. In a mystical dreamworld you'd toggle up, get to 10 stacks, and enjoy 100% bonus damage. That will happen approximately never. AV fight or bust I suppose, but I can't think of another power with a use that narrow.

 

The set wants me to toggle a target up, tickle it with my throw-aways and retarget to hit everyone else OR hammer into the attuned target and retoggle/lose stacks. It's a DoT set which says brute, but it's a base damage buff set which says everyone BUT brute. You do get a 180 degree cone and a 15' pbaoe which I didn't expect from sonic. The reason I didn't expect it is you don't get the thing that made you want to play sonic. At least a ST focused set with -res would help everyone do damage instead of breakdancing around forgettable powers to buff your own damage.

This is not how Attune works. It boosts the damage of all your Sonic attacks, not just Strident Echo and Sonic Thrust.

In a mystical dreamworld this rant might have been relevant.

[Xandyr]

8 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

This is not how Attune works. It boosts the damage of all your Sonic attacks, not just Strident Echo and Sonic Thrust.

In a mystical dreamworld this rant might have been relevant.

 When reading descriptions, it makes me think that all your Sonic attacks will be boosted. HOWEVER, ONLY Sonic Thrust and Strident Echo will cause Attune to do extra damage. Correct, @Captain Fabulous?

[Midnight Mystique]

1 hour ago, Xandyr said:

 When reading descriptions, it makes me think that all your Sonic attacks will be boosted. HOWEVER, ONLY Sonic Thrust and Strident Echo will cause Attune to do extra damage. Correct, @Captain Fabulous?

 

Only Sonic Thrust/Strident echo cause attune to do more damage, all the other attacks do an extra 10% damge themselves when attune is active. The patch notes for earsplitter, sandman's whisper, deafening wave and sonic clap ALL state this - the misleading part is its not in the attune description. Two examples from the patch notes (not interested in cutting/pasting more):

 

• 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. This power will inflict 10% bonus damage against Attuned targets.
• Earsplitter - Melee, DMG(Energy/Smash), Foe -Res(Debuffs), Chance for Hold
  • You generate an earsplitting sound wave right in the face of your foe, inflicting great damage. It has a good chance of causing a migraine, leaving them shaking in pain and helpless. This power will inflict 10% bonus damage against Attuned targets.

 

Attune went through a lot of changes in the open beta, most of the 'complaints' about it are based on old information. Currently, its a fast casting (1s), fast recharge (0.5s) toggle with a 20 ft range, It adds to the damage of all the attacks in the set in various ways and does a dot as well. Is it  a great power? not sure, its definitely a gimmick. I am not saying the set or power is awesome, but if you map attune to a powexec_toggle_on macro its easy to use and as far as I have been able to tell so far (L21 sonic/psychic armor brute) makes all the attacks more effective, at least on a single target. Still holding back my opinion on the entire set as a whole at least until I hit the mid 30's , which is when I will have a decent build with all the best powers, but so far its soloing at least as fast as any other brute I have played. 

Edited yesterday at 09:03 PM by Midnight Mystique

[vibal]

2 hours ago, Captain Fabulous said:

This is not how Attune works. It boosts the damage of all your Sonic attacks, not just Strident Echo and Sonic Thrust.

In a mystical dreamworld this rant might have been relevant.

 

Actually re-reading the descriptions it's worse than I thought. 10% to the attuned is dog water. Scaling it up only boosts the ST auto brawl toggle damage. I thought you could scale the boost up on all attacks to 10 stacks, flat 10% to one target is awful.

[Captain Fabulous]

19 minutes ago, vibal said:

 

Actually re-reading the descriptions it's worse than I thought. 10% to the attuned is dog water. Scaling it up only boosts the ST auto brawl toggle damage. I thought you could scale the boost up on all attacks to 10 stacks, flat 10% to one target is awful.

OK. Don't take it then.

[Lockely]

I do think the busywork of having to press it each time you swap targets is a bit much, but 10% isn't nothing to sneeze at. However, I do feel like it might be more efficient and fun to use if it were, say, on a 20s CD and you pressed it to attune to a bubble of targets around you. You'd still have to do work to keep it up, but it wouldn't feel like so much busywork when ST chewing through a pack of mobs.

[nightchrome]

A far more interesting (if difficult to implement) mechanic would have been Reverb instead of Attune.  

Once the toggle is on an enemy, attacks against that enemy have a chance to chain a portion of damage (or heck, no dmg but a -res debuff?) to other enemies within range, depending on how long it has been on the target, minimum 1 chain. Longer it's on, stacks of reverberation add up, chains more.

Thematic, helpful in crowds, makes it worth toggling on.