Deacon_NA

Yeah I'll ditto the whole "Fire for up to AV, Sonic for the AV" sentiment. What I'll add to that is, because of /Cold, you WILL defeat the AV and defeat it handily. Sonic will allow you to defeat the AV in 1 minute instead of 1 minute 5 seconds (full disclosure - I'm completely making up these numbers). Fire though, especially coupled with Cold, will absolutely obliterate the other spawns to such a degree your teammates need only keep aggro off you. I don't have a Sonic/Cold Corr, but I do have a Cold/Sonic Def, in addition to a Fire/Cold Corr. My "feeling" when playing those 2 is that the Cold/Sonic is there to support the team, for the Fire/Cold the team is there to support her. Maybe that's more of a Corr/Defender thing, but I don't think so, I think it's a Sonic vs Fire thing.

Bottom line - there is no "wrong" choice. However, to answer the question that was asked, I'd have to say Fire Blast.

As teams form, I tend to keep an eye on team composition to see if I could maybe bring something more helpful. I don't with my VEATS though. I know they will ALWAYS bring something, even when TT:M may be overkill on high Def teams.

My Sonic Def has soft-capped ranged def. Sonic definitely allows you to have the best of both worlds (high def, high resists) with the bonus of status protection.

So the 1-word answer for the OP: both.

I only really solo for A-merits. Yes, I did bump my diff up a notch.

I'm having a hard time seeing /Sonic as overpowered for MMs. TA already provides more -Res than Sonic. Sonic in general seems to be regarded as less effective than Thermal and we have Thermal MMs.

Kinetics is most perplexing to me when people hype that up as OP for MMs. Here's how I see a Kin/Ninja MM's life - Fulcrum shift > *splat*. All a Kin has to keep pets alive is a heal that a) has to hit b) needs the pet to be in range of the heal. I wouldn't bet on henchmen, least of all Ninjas, staying exactly where they need to. I won't even get into how the pets can't take advantage of sb's +rch (though I guess I just did).

I have a Traps/DP def that is quickly becoming my favorite to play. She's never redundant. Close behind is an Earth/Cold troller.

As for favorite to team with, for me, the answer is an unqualified "it depends". My Invul Tank is most pleased with a Sonic. Actually most all my Def based toons love the Sonics. Or, if the Emp will keep AB on me perma, that's easily my favorite support to team with, but outside of double boxing I haven't met that Emp yet.

Blaster is the only AT that will allow you to make a Sonic/Dev, might want to move this to that forum.

This happens on Synapse as well, on a similar looking map (abandoned office). It seems like it tends to be in that one big room that has 2 levels, with a hole on the top level you can jump down. Maybe not, but that's what I'm remembering.

Do you have logs from herostats that lead you to believe Sonic attacks hit less than the one Dark Miasma power with a to-hit check (Twilight Grasp) that you could possibly have at that level? Or how did you conclude Sonic is hitting less than Dark?

As I mentioned in other thread, Sonic's accuracy suffers no penalty whatsoever. Perhaps you have turned your difficulty up too much too soon.

At 15, you area heading towards the end of "beginners luck", a bonus to lowbie to-hit that ends at level 20.

Bottom line to your question "is sonic borked?" No.

To say that "Sonic does not hit a lot though" is perplexing to me.

The attacks have a base accuracy of 1, except Sirens Song and Shockwave (both .9). I don't imagine one would base their assessment of Sonic's accuracy on those 2 powers. Then it has Amplify (Aim). Maybe if you're used to Arch (1.15 Acc) or Rad (1.1 + Def debuffs) then Sonic may seem less accurate, but overall, it's not.

I for one, will definitely be focusing on Ice Mistrals this week. An "under ideal conditions" (no invasions, people are in their zones and ready for their hunts) Numina will probably be faster than an Ice Mistral. Maybe the average between the two will be the same, however the worst case for Numi will be FAR worse (see the OP).

Then there's the matter that Ice is simply a better sf/tf. That's purely my opinion, so ymmv, but I definitely believe it.

You can actually go to 7,

5 that give the normal 4% recover , f/c resists, 15% accuracy and 10% recharge
any number of the pet set
4 of Apocalypse, which is only affected by "rule of 5" at the 5th slot

Pros and cons eh? Let me see what I can whip up while "multi-tasking" on a conference call.

Demons

Pros
Decent resists
have +resist aura that affects you and teammates
have targeted heal for other pets, pbaoe heal that affects you and teammates
Slow effects are pretty effective
A LOT of variety for damage types
Melee-centric so new melee ai doesn't adversely affect them
Attacks are worth taking and using, primarily due to -res

Con
Lieut pets are endurance hogs, probably the worst in game.
One word - "aaaaaaarrrrrrrooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo "
Worthwhile attacks makes build tighter

Summary
Very self-sufficient, can work well with a non-carebear secondary. Mine was (is, she still exists, though not played much) /Storm. I was pleased with this combo and only wish I had slotted the Miracle and Numi uniques early to deal with the endurance issues I had throughout (80% due to Storm, 20% due to spamming attacks from primary). If you can deal with the noise, this is a solid choice.

Mercs

Pros
Before ai was changed, these guys would stay at range (except the brawling medic).
Boss Merc has my favorite entrance and just looks bad-azz.
Medic will sporadically heal and use stimulant, including on you.

Cons
A "pro" is supposed to be mez effects but they're too inconsistently used to really be a positive.
Damage is sacrificed for these mez effects.

Summary
Not self-sufficient, they definitely need babysitting. A lot of people will put Mercs as the least effective primary. I am one of them. I paired my Mercs with Traps. This combo "worked", meaning I could beat all the EBs no problem, but I'd give more credit to Traps for than Mercs.

Necro

Pro
AI change got Grave Knights to melee easier, which is where they're more effective (Broadsword attacks that crit are sweet)
Neg Energy attacks give desirable secondary effects.
Each pet can self-heal
Soul extraction may be my favorite "utility" power, for the extra pet
The Lich (boss) is pretty darn good, like a Dark/Dark corr

Con
Totally resistant to slow. "How is that a con?" you may ask. All pets freak out with fire patches and caltrops. Most of them move out and attack. Necro will spaz out all over the map. ALL OVER.
Squishy, very prone to being one-shot, especially against Lethal and Fire.

Summary
I went for Necro/Dark, which is a pretty nasty combo.


Ninjas

Pro
May well be the best at taking out a single target, as you might expect from a bunch of MA and Katana users.
Have some degree of defense that stacks well with a def buffing secondary (meaning FF or Traps)

Con
Definitely need a support oriented secondary, otherwise very squishy.
Like Necro, they resist slows so they too are prone to run a LOT when encountering caltrops.

Summary
I paired Ninja with Pain Dom. Life changed when I took Provoke. With provoke, the resists and regen of PD, this character became quite powerful.
I think Ninjas have a "cool" factor, but that's a personal thing.

Robot

Pros
After the lvl 32 upgrade, astounding aoe capabilities. Performs better as spawn size increases.
Very tough (relatively) independently. They bubble and heal each other and will bubble you.

Con
They have a lot of kb which may be counter productive to your secondary and even their own burn patches.
A LOT of pew pew pew up to level 32, certainly to level 26.

Summary
I've made a few Bots over the years. Bots/Poison, Bots/TA (a CRAZY fun combo) and of course Bots/Traps, because everyone needs one along with their ill/rad, fire/kin and whatever other FOTMs they have room for.
This is a very strong primary. Rivaled only by...

Thugs

Pros
Thugs are sort of like a well balanced pug you put together that will listen to you somewhat. You get a Brute, a crazy blapper and other ranged support.
Leadership is what distinguishes Thugs. Maneuvers gives a solid foundation of defense that can soft-cap all pets when paired with FF or Traps.

Cons
Outside of Leadership, they don't support each other, so they need more support from you than Bots.
A lot of damage comes from a minion level pet, so he's -2 to you and his damage and to-hit reflect that. Also, he dies a lot.

Summary
My experience is with Poison, FF and Traps. Thugs worked well with all of them.
If you keep the Bruiser alive, he draws a lot of aggro, which keeps the rest alive

The cast of that animated movie looks more legit than the cast of the live action movie. Yes, I'm including Roddy Piper in making that judgement. ESPECIALLY Roddy Piper (see "They Live").

You owe no one an apology MaHa. It's those teammates that owe you an apology for cursing you for prioritizing your baby over their stupid tf.

Ha, well then, the 1 scenario I thought it would be useful for in my prior post above (hasty retreat post pet-wipe) it can't even help with due to 4 sec interrupt. Craptacular.

That was helpful for recapping. What I just found amusing was, I was thinking of some additional questions before I realized I was mixing in the show with Harold/young Mr. Sulu and Shakespeare (I totally forgot the name and I'm not looking it up, since I'm glad I forgot). These 2 shows just seem so generically similar to each other. "Ooooo, something mysterious and freaky happened/is happening/will happen..."

They (fire/cold) don't do defense debuffs but cold does slow recharge and movement. Resists Elements + Winters Gift unique io help (a LOT) but it's still best to avoid cold attacks.

I'm pulling for Bob's Burgers. I'm turned off by the animation, but I'm a fanboi for the creator, Loren Bouchard (Home Movies and Dr. Katz, NOT Beavis and Butthead (that's Mike Judge)).

Also I'm a bigger fanboi for Jon Benjamin (from both the prior mentioned shows and he's also the voice of the title character from the great... ARCHER!)

I started watching Fringe when it moved to Friday and man do I wish I'd been keeping up. I love it.

Also I think Community is a very very clever show and I'd miss it for sure.

You can slot all 4 of the pet IOs that boost pet resists or def. That'll help... some.

I've never taken it for the /Poison MMs I've made, I have yet to see one person defend it with even an obscure situation where it's useful. Other "hated" powers seem to at least have a scenario to use it, like the cage powers or some of the high mag kb powers. I haven't heard of such a use for this Poison Trap.

I guess if your pets get wiped, this could buy you some time to get away. Something else that could do the same - superspeed.