Hey guys I was wondering if any of you know of any runes that create synergy between champions using attack: sonic? I wanted to make a sonic bg just because its one of the few I haven't made...
howling wind gives vulnerability sonic, maddening echoes does sonic damage, sonic elemental has amplify sonic, that's the only direct damage synergy I can think off. But sonic main thing is deafening aura IMO, try to combine it with fascinate/repulsion/wandering etc.
sounds like the best option gabriel, i was gonna go combat awareness and sl/ud split so i could use madd echoes with rolling shriekers and varu dragons, just wish howling winds and sonic elemental was in one of those two factions.. a sonic circus bg would be fun!
I've actually used a Sonic (SP/ST) BG quite a bit in ranked. Horrific Howl converts a units attack to sonic so it provides a lot of synergy with Psychological Warfare. To that end, here are runes that have strong synergy with Sonic and/or Fear. SAVAGE TUNDRA Crystal Dragon: pick Freezing Aura Frost basic attack, Catalyst: Frost, Fascinate and 1-2 range Crystal Howler: pick Horrific Howl Sonic basic attack, Deafening Aura and 1-3 range Jakei Heretic: pick Psychological Warfare Psychic basic attack, Adaptive: Tundra, Fear, Immunity: Frost and 6-7 range Wailing Yeti: pick Horrific Howl Sonic basic attack, Abominable, Deafening Aura, Fear and 1-3 range Yeti Tracker: pick Shadowspawn and Declare Target (Shatter if necessary) Frost basic attack, Abominable, Frightful Blows, Stealth Yeti Shaman: pick Horrific Howl or Frightful Blows Magic basic attack, Abominable, Psychological Warfare and range 2-4 Gale Force: Frost DMG and forced movement through Deafening Aura (or into other units) Howling Wind: Frost/Sonic DMG and Frost/Sonic Vulnerability (supermegacombobreaker!) Incredible diversity of damage types and attack ranges with every champ having a way to apply Frightened for the two Psychological Warfare (Confused galore!) champs. Abominable is an alternate form of detection and can even apply Frightened! The real kicker is Abominable gives +1 DMG per Yeti which can really snowball your damage on power turns. SHATTERED PEAKS Hyaenid Witchdoctor: pick Cleanse or Distract Sonic basic attack, Hex, Cackle and range 4-5 Sonic Elemental: forced upgrade paths :*( Amplify Sonic, Deafening Aura and Teleport Voil Screecher: pick Horrific Howl (Sonic Roar is worth trying) Sonic basic attack and range 2-4 Voil Skyhowler: pick Horrific Howl Sonic basic attack, Screech and range 4-5 Crescendo: bouncing Sonic DMG (make sure last bounce will kill else it grants Immunity: Sonic) Peak Tactics: AoE temp Flanking (Havoc's Touch is an interesting alternative) Zemi of the Elements: Mobility and +1 SPD for Elementals (Crystal Dragon/Howler and Sonic Elemental), Deafening Aura and Repulsion (forced movement away from it) Witchdoctor is a really nice option for shutting down truly monstrous beaters (Hex/Cackle), Sonic Elemental is your go to font contestor with an added Sonic boost and Skyhowler is a highly flexible monster that can combo with Howling Wind for 12-18 DMG Screeches. Zemi of the Elements makes your already strong Elemental champs a nightmare to deal with. Plant this while contesting for all kinds of shenanigans. A quick example of something you could run before tweaking to address weaknesses: http://www.poxbase.com/#!/deck/CfkCwKCgjCq7CgFCadC86CgzS7Us7bS2LS3bS6YS59r2YR38. Very easy to assemble BG with only one Exo+ rune (Witchdoctor). Also, a couple examples of how your damage can snowball: Jakei Heretic = (11 base +1x adaptive) * 1.5 if Frightened = 17+ DMG assuming 2 triggers of adapative and Peak Tactics is active we reach 27 DMG Yeti Shaman = (9 base +1x abominable +2 howl) * 1.5 if Frightened = 17+ DMG assuming 2 yetis and Howling Winds is active we reach 27 DMG (37 if Peaks Tactics is also active) As you can see, there is a LOT of potential for heavy hitters across the board.
Rupture Alpha? Escalation + Horrific howl at 20 dmg is fun and Cyclops Youth = WAIL and yeti spirit for too-good to be true metaness (despite non thematic, its still a yeti so u can force it in, right?) imma try this myself seems interesting. How does it fare against FF KF? All those timberwolves seems to make all your sonic spells useless
I played several games with the exact BG linked above for testing purposes and while I never faced FF KF, I will say that one thing this BG lacks is a sturdy tank. You have lots of options for fear, but because you can't overlap Horrific Howl an enemy champ can't be Frightened of more than one of your champs at a time. The one exception I found was Horrific Aura which ignores this stacking restriction. Rupture Alpha looks like a viable option for providing meat and DMG buffs. Crystal Yeti (Elemental!) seems like another solid option at a similar price point to the Alpha. Additionally, Howling Wind is much harder to land properly than I remember as its AoE range is the exact size of every unit's default spell presence. I found I had to intentionally hit at least one of my own units in the process of casting the spell. This isn't that much of an issue if you hit a champ with immunity to one of the damage types, but with almost no healing in the sample BG every bit of health counts. I was very pleased with the how consistently I caught my opponent off guard by the sudden damage of Horrific Howl + Psychological Warfare (which was vital to hard-countering certain champs with difficult to manage upgrades). One combo that decided a lot of font battles was teleporting Sonic Elemental in to give spell presence for Gale Force. I'd blast champs through Deafening Aura and into range of my other champs for easy one-rounding. Often times I'd gain enough nora from the globe to Vertical Push one of the remaining champs to cap the font or outright kill something I hadn't quite finished off. Overall, the BG was very flexible, but it had trouble standing up to SL power turns, UD in general (must play more defensively until champ advantage is established) and hyper-efficient BGs (which will ideally resolve itself as the revamp continues to develop)
http://www.poxbase.com/#!/deck/C2GCd+CwKCgjchDCq7c2ZCadC86s7KS7US2LS3bsNS82r2Yr30e1Qe1f I'm probably gonna try this before putting my Ferren Dancer up for sale...
I actually just got done trying a ST/SP split. I have found it does remarkably well early on but has an issue against large numbers and summoned units. It's also possible to use Rupture and Howler both with the yeti equipment that grants fuel rage. It allowed for some hard hitting turns and units that could still fight decently well before the amp of the elemental. Another synergy to point out is Crystal Howler is Sonic'R'Us and if using Heretic can spread the sonic around as well as benefitting and being synergistic with the rest of the battle group if using the dragon and/or yeti. A fair warning though is that against other sonic damage and echoes this battle group suffers. My issue I found at large was that just going straight for sonic damage I was hard pressed to see how I wouldn't just do better splitting with UD for echoes.dek. Our own units such as the Voil being sonic vulnerable as well as our amplification source not doing that much if anything on it's own also make us hard pressed compared to other amplification battle groups. Comparing an elemental that varies between 62-74 in cost to another unit such as the Dirtbag in UD that can attack, blind, stall and impair vision for the same price of 62 Nora to me seems laughable unfortunately. Maybe I'm missing the synergy but to me it seems that unless they actually focus in it as a theme we are I'll equipped.
The BG I provided isn't actually a Sonic Amp BG nor is there a way to make one. Sonic Elemental is the only source of Amplify Sonic Howling Winds is the only source of AoE Sonic Vulnerability. (This was pre-revamp, feel free to correct me if new sources were provided) I would call the ST/SP BG I provided Howling Winds instead of Sonic Amp because that's what it is. I don't see how other Sonic BGs or Echoes, specifically, pose an above average threat unless you are running far more than the 2-4 Voils I suggested above. I also don't agree that Dirtbag is comparable to Sonic Elemental. He can't teleport (for a speed of 9), he doesn't inflict passive damage (which then Distracts), he doesn't have Resistance 3 to Disease/Poison/Psychic and he doesn't have Fearless/Iron Will. Absorb might not be as effective as Blind/Stall for dealing with attacks, but Sonic Elemental exists primarily to quickly contest, provide spell presence as needed and to punish your opponent for moving. They fill entirely different roles. A more reasonable comparison would be Hyaenid Witchdoctor vs Dirtbag. I definitely agree that cramming too many sources of sonic damage is a bad idea hence the focus on Horrific Howl. Several of the ST champs (and Rupture Alpha) have non-sonic basic attacks (Electric, Frost, Magical and Psychic counting only the champs I've suggested) that provide the alt dmg every BG needs to adapt. Being able to convert attacks to Sonic (through Horrific Howl) for Howling Winds power turns is the core of the BG. TL;DR - the Sonic synergy I've created is between Howling Winds, Horrific Howl and Psychological Warfare.
