Suggestions For Getting Saryn Back On The Front Line

[Mind_Bullets]

I had been putting together my thoughts on Saryn, my most played frame, prior to the recent Venom nerf. Now that Venom is useless, I'd say its time to talk about revamping Saryn.

 

First of all, I'm going to take the patch notes at face value and assume that the nerf to Venom was supposed to be an optimization to reduce spore lag. Be that as it may, what happened was that the quirkiest and most entertaining skill in the game just became worthless, and the one standout feature that kept Saryn relevant in the presence of our Dark Lord Nova is now gone.

 

Before I get into my suggestions for Saryn, I'm going to establish my general stance on this game. OP is not a term that applies to a PvE game. Achieving perfect balance is nearly impossible in any game, but in a PvE environment its just a waste of time. The relevant question is whether or not a mechanic is engaging, challenging, and conducive to teamwork. Venom was just that. Yes it was very powerful, but still didn't outclass Molecular Prime; a skill which most emphatically is not engaging or challenging and is actively detrimental to teamwork. (Did you just use Chaos/Vortex/Venom/Bastille/Rhino Stomp/Radial Disarm/Radial Stun/Pull/Smoke Bomb/Overheat/Molt/Decoy? Let me Prime that for you.) Thus I don't give any weight to an argument that it was breaking the game. 

 

Furthermore, Venom was reliant on the player's combat coordination and teamwork. A player first had to identify an enemy near the center of a cluster of mobs to tag with Venom, then needed to pop a spore without killing the target just to get the Venom party started. This required no small amount of situational awareness, tactics, and typically a low powered and reasonably accurate weapon fitted with puncture. Finally, as it was a DoT, it needed CC in order to have time to burn down enemies. It had fantastic synergy with Bastille, Chaos, Pull, Rhino Stomp, etc. As if that wasn't enough, anyone with a gun could get in on Spore Madness and help spread the love. What's better than a skill that lets the entire team work together to burn down a wave in a squad based game? A skill that one shots everything instantly, apparently. Because that's compelling. I digress.

 

Hopefully there are options for restoring Venom to its former glory AND taking some of the heat off of the host. If I understand the problems that can arise from Venom overload, (big if) then it should be possible to alleviate it by simplifying the core mechanic. For example, there does not need to be multiple ticks per second at any point. Simply tag an enemy as 'Venom level 1' when cast, which will then tic once per second for the full 60* damage. Then if venom is recast or a spore nearby is popped, the enemy gets hit with level 2, which ticks once per second for 120, and so on and so forth. Unless I miss my guess, this should lower the resulting lag, and allow Saryn to once again spread the plague. 

 

I have no way of knowing if this is a viable solution but I don't like to point out an issue without at least attempting to offer a solution. Ultimately this fix will be up to the devs, and I'm just hopeful that there is a way to get this highly entertaining skill back in the mix. It is, after all, the sole reason that Saryn is my favorite frame, as none of her other abilities are completely unique. 

 

Speaking of which, lets go over her remaining abilities, all of which could use a tune-up.

 

Molt: apparently got nerfed already, much to everyone's surprise and dismay. I struggle to understand why the decision was made to nerf a utilitarian ability, in a PvE game nonetheless. Apparently shunting aggro is more game breaking than instantly killing the next 7 generations of everything on the map with the press of a 4. The largest problem I have encountered with Molt is the fact that it has HP. This... baffles me. The inevitable result is that it lasts an eternity against low level enemies which pose no threat and dies instantly against anything you might really need to get away from. Ergo, it is of very little tactical value. Want to know whats amusing about this? The point in the game where Molt becomes useless is right around level 40, the level of the boss you have to farm to get Saryn. Honestly, you can't make this stuff up. In my opinion, it should be based on duration, should transfer any current aggro to itself from Saryn when used (why else would it be placed at your exact location?) and have a high chance to aggro anything else nearby, buying allies a reprieve. It still wouldn't have half of the CC value of Bastille, Chaos, or Rhino Stomp, just to name a few, so there is no danger of treading on anyone's toes, just a danger of making Saryn more fun and versatile. And again, this ability does nothing to actually kill enemies. It is simply a utilitarian diversionary tactic.

 

Contagion: sounds great on paper, is useless against anything you might need the extra damage to kill. All of the heaviest enemies in the game have the ability to knock you down at the very least, and some of them (looking at you Napalms and Ancients) have the ability to seriously ruin your S#&$ once they've knocked you over. There are actually 4 abilities already in the game which turn their frame into a melee heavy hitter, and all 4 revolve around protecting the user from these dangers of close combat. Invisibility and Smoke Bomb allow their frames to break aggro and wade into the fray without triggering those pesky knockdowns, all while buffing melee damage. Iron Skin and Link are even more potent in my opinion, as they completely block all that knockdown, poison, and disruption nonsense. All 4 of these abilities allow their frame to go toe to toe with enemies who would otherwise be impossible to stand up to. Saryn's Contagion, however, does not offer this versatility, only a damage bump. This is a waste of a tanky frame if you ask me. Even Frost can give himself an advantage in melee with the slowing effect of Globe. I will just say this: extra melee damage does not equate to a close combat specialist when the enemies can simply knock you down, beat you up, and steal your lunch money. This ability needs to give Saryn additional resistances to allow her to put that damage to good use. Also, I would love to see some synergy between this ability and Venom. Like a 25% chance to pop a spore on an enemy when hit by Contagion infused melee.  And/or a 25% chance to increase the Venom stack on the enemy. How much fun would that be? 

 

Miasma:  I assumed after reading the description that this was an area denial ability. You know, poison gas hangs in the air damaging enemies for an extended period of time. Potential to do huge damage, but dependent on the user getting the placement right. That's bread and butter RPG stuff, and it's barely represented in this game. Ember's Fire Blast and Frost's Globe are the only ones I can think of that either damage or debuff enemies in a persistent area (Vauban's Vortex does, but it disrupts players as well so that's kind of a wash.) With that in mind, Miasma was a real missed opportunity. Never mind the fact that any #4 ability could have its radius and damage quadrupled and it still wouldn't measure up to Molecular Prime. This could have been fun. How about a slowly expanding cloud that breaks LoS and damages enemies, creating moving cover for Saryn and her allies? Or a persistent cloud that damages and confuses enemies, making them easy pickins? A zone that slows enemies while reducing their accuracy and armor? All of the above? There were so many ways this ability could have brought some versatility to the team, over and above just being a nuke, and none of them were capitalized on.  Now that Venom is useless, its that much more unfortunate that this skill, while undeniably powerful, offers nothing to differentiate Saryn from the pack or get her out of Nova's shadow.

 

All this to say that Venom needs to come back and be better than ever. And as long as we're at it, give Saryn's other abilities some relevancy and character. Her ability set is so close to coming together to make a fun and formidable Warframe, it would require the conscience of a degenerate clone to let her fade out like this. 

 

 

*The numbers I use come from the wikia but they are just for the sake of arguement as I can't verify their veracity

 

TL:DR You're already browsing a forum discussing the balance of a video game. Don't act like your time is precious.

[Sir.Rigamortis]

Good job, well supported argument.

[Ryjeon]

Good points all around.

 

As someone who uses predominantly melee I would love knockdown protection on Contagion or maybe make the contagion effect remove the enemy's ability to knock a target down (like a 'weaken' debuff)

 

As for venom I don't need it to have infinite stacking damage potential like it had before, but just making it so it spread more reliably would put it back in my build. I enjoyed using it as a sort of aoe-snipe combo.

[Eisen]

Yes, I agree with all your points.
Of all female warframes, Saryn is the one I like the most ( I would try to date her, but I'm not flowery enough)

Sad thing is she's not Nova, so don't hold your breath waiting for the devs to do something about her; after seeing that half the community is asking for a nerf/rework of Nova and the devs go nerfing Trinity, Ember and Vauban, I don't think asking specifically for Saryn will work.

[RaptorShinRyu]

This thread is gold. Well written and great points. I'd love to hear your opinion on all of the other Warframes. I especially agree with the bit about Miasma.

[Erusa]

Limit Venom, people consider it useless and bad. Sure it's not that powerful as before, but it is was too powerful that it can destroy system units.

I still think Saryn is good there even with the limits of Venom now, I like your idea of Miasma though.

Well written, worthy of arguments and discussion. Good read, 9/10.

[CloudPies]

Great points on Saryn, could you do a write up about ember too?

[neKroMancer]

You and I have a different take on PvE balance but I agree with most of your points. OP in PvE game exists and it disrupt the game in term of gameplay and developer's income.

However, I think Venom was too powerful similar to M.Prime and decreasing Venom's efficacy is inevitable. Partially, it was that powerful because poison damage ignores armor. In low level gameplay, Venom has no role whatsoever. In high level, it turned into a god like power that annihilated everything into green goo. I suspect that we will see some surprises in U10 with Armor2.0.

Moult is Saryn's skin and it's acceptable to have HP attached to it. However, I think to make Moult better, it needs an aftereffect. Once Moult is destroyed, it release some sort of debuff into the area. Slow or stun surrounding targets for a short/moderate amount of time. Decoy, on the other hand, needs duration and more holographic-like. Right now it's a very solid hologram.

Miasma is fine as it is but your idea should be in the 2nd set of power for Saryn. Releasing poison gas to cover the area with status-inducing cloud sounds good.

Edited September 6, 2013 by neKroMancer

[rksk16it]

Nice and well thought out points, though I'd like to point out a few things :

 

First of all, I'm going to take the patch notes at face value and assume that the nerf to Venom was supposed to be an optimization to reduce spore lag. Be that as it may, what happened was that the quirkiest and most entertaining skill in the game just became worthless, and the one standout feature that kept Saryn relevant in the presence of our Dark Lord Nova is now gone.

 

Patch notes are a blatant lie to the players from DE. Check this post : https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/100651-update-97-saryn-venom-fix/page-4#entry1172627

 

There is NO PERFORMANCE FIX at all. They just added a cap and called it a performance fix. Now I dont know why they did this, but I suspect it was to contain the outrage on forums right before the event starts.

 

That very act broken even an illusion of my faith in DE. If they cant be trusted in the patch notes (which are supposed to contain accurate facts), expect them to do whatever it takes to get things done their way. This is the first time in my life I saw such a case in patch notes. In all other instances I remember, every other software/game/whatever when make mistakes in patch notes, they usually immediately publicly announce the error with a corrected version of the statement in consideration.

 

So from next time, I recommend taking absolutely nothing from DE at face value. Just log into the game and test it yourself.

 

Before I get into my suggestions for Saryn, I'm going to establish my general stance on this game. OP is not a term that applies to a PvE game. Achieving perfect balance is nearly impossible in any game, but in a PvE environment its just a waste of time. The relevant question is whether or not a mechanic is engaging, challenging, and conducive to teamwork. Venom was just that. Yes it was very powerful, but still didn't outclass Molecular Prime; a skill which most emphatically is not engaging or challenging and is actively detrimental to teamwork. (Did you just use Chaos/Vortex/Venom/Bastille/Rhino Stomp/Radial Disarm/Radial Stun/Pull/Smoke Bomb/Overheat/Molt/Decoy? Let me Prime that for you.) Thus I don't give any weight to an argument that it was breaking the game.

 

Balance is always needed in any game, regardless of PvE or PvP. Look at WoW community, if a certain spec does like 1% more dps (in PvE raiding) than other specs of any class, most of the players of that class switch to that spec. Even if you dont spec, raid-leaders/guild-leaders will often demand you to change your spec, so you will have very little choice (unless your guild/raid isnt hardcore). But you may disagree to this, which is fine, its your personal opinion.

 

Now the reason why I *think* venom is nerfed, is not because of balance entirely. I am afraid, to explain my point, I am considering Warframe a business, to make monetary profit. Now keeping that point of view, if you observe carefuly in Warframe, DE loves to put weapons as a "progression" in the game. What I mean is, maxing a weapon takes a LOT of time, you probably need to forma multiple times, maxing serration/hornet, etc. And add to it the fact that getting a good weapon itself may require lots of work.

 

Now anything that hurts that "progression", is "bad for business". I mean if you remove progression from any MMO, thats definitely bad for business, isnt it ? Venom did exactly same. Venom did more damage than any weapon in the game, made getting good weapons or maxing serration/hornet a redundant/wasteful activity. Many weapons like Dual Broncos which are easily available in the game, were amazing in spreading venom. Even MK-1 Braton was not bad at all. In fact, when it comes to venom MK-1 Braton is BETTER than lanka/acrid/ogris.

 

The above reason is more of a big-picture'ish view of the situation IMHO. But the nerf to Venom, as we know, was pretty sudden, without any forewarning, and there isnt even any official mention of the nerf YET. Even in livestream they stayed away from the topic. Compare it with incoming Vauban's Bastile nerf, they already talked about it, so all Vauban players know what is comming. Unlike Saryn players who got trolled in the face the first time they tried to spread venom after the ninja nerf.

 

The reason for this sudden nerf might be survival event. Someone in their QA team must be testing out venom on survival, and to their horror it turned out to be INSANELY GODLIKE in that gamemode. Anyone who used venom extensively knows why its a killer spell in survival mode. They must have panicked like "WTF.. They are all dying from a 17 energy spell, LOLOLOL OMG NURF NAO !!!". (25 energy if you dont have streamline)

 

Finally, my closing point, look at the two big nerfs recently and compare to new frame's abilities :

 

- Venom nerf : Necro's #1 stacks and give a armor reduction bonus per stack. If I can just stack thousands of venom on every enemy why would I bother about reducing their armor.

- Bastile nerf : Necro's #2 (Terror Totem). If bastille is better, then again why would I bother with making them flee ? I would rather like them to stay suspended helpless so I can take those perfect shots at weak points/sonar points.

 

That may look coincidence to some, but for me, its just *too much coincidence* to consider coincidence at all.

Edited September 6, 2013 by rksk16it

[IamLockeJaw]

 

 (Did you just use Chaos/Vortex/Venom/Bastille/Rhino Stomp/Radial Disarm/Radial Stun/Pull/Smoke Bomb/Overheat/Molt/Decoy? Let me Prime that for you.) 

 

(emphasis added)

I honestly cannot fathom the need to nerf one of the most unique powers in the game. A Saryn who actually knew how to use Venom (prepatch) was a great alternative to having a Nova spamming the 4 button; it needed skill and the right weapon set to both place and then trigger, and provided a nice alternative to having to shoot EVERYTHING in the face, bucket or cthulutentacles.  As it stands now, you're lucky if venom jumps to one guy on a crowded walkway.   

Yes, I understand the code wasn't tight enough and it was taxing some people systems.  The solution for this is better code.  Ducttaping a hard cap on the number of jumps is just shoddy programming, and really disappointing considering how much this particular power encouraged team work.  

10/10, I hope the dev's read the OP

 

~LockeJaw

[Mainabi]

oh saryn's my main, I heartly agree to your post, to venom I always wondered why are there multiple ticks instead of one?

also I hope they will fix venom completely so ALL spore pops should be able to spread/beeing destroyed by gunfire

 

to moult, I don't rly know what I should think about it mixxed feelings

 

contagion, well... even ember could melee better with overheat, but I seriously think it needs a BASE dmg included to the extra % dmg, a base dmg that can also be increased by focus, or it should give lifesteal on a successful hit, (not % but with a base amount), it would give saryn a little bit different feel, also it would buff single target but fast hitting weapon usage with her, at the same time with the % scale it still does well with charge attacks, since there's too much risk in going melee, especially high lvl, I'd say the lifeleech is a good addition, (not thinking about something just high, 5-11-18-26 hp per hit, should work with focus)

 

that would bring her to the front making her rly aggressive, yes the heal can be much if you do it rly rly well, but high risk should be rewarded with high reward, right now contagnion is just high risk, and no reward or some trash skill for low lvl mobs

 

miasma, I agree to that, would be nice if they would reduce the dmg, but make the zone bigger and add a cc kind of confusion with longer duration

Edited September 9, 2013 by Seira-EGT-

[Mind_Bullets]

This thread is gold. Well written and great points. I'd love to hear your opinion on all of the other Warframes. I especially agree with the bit about Miasma.

 

 

Great points on Saryn, could you do a write up about ember too?

 

First off, thanks for the support. I'm glad this post didn't fall on deaf ears. Regarding other frames in general, my familiarity with Saryn is head and shoulders above the others, so I wouldn't currently be able to go into this much detail about them. Of course, that is changing now that Saryn is basically on the shelf. More posts are probably gestating as we speak.

 

As far as Ember goes specifically, I have some thoughts, but it would be better to wait until Update 10 goes live at the very least, as they are implementing a shopping list of changes to her. I will say that I'm already rather perturbed by the statement that was made in the live stream about turning Overheat into an offensive ability rather than defensive. She already has 3 offensive abilities, there is no reason that I can divine as to why you would push her into one trick pony territory with 4 offensive. We will have to wait and see.

 

And again thanks everyone for getting into the discussion with support or counterpoints. This is what beta testing is for after all.

[-Kittens-]

Couple of things: (Full Disclosure: Saryn is one of my three mains)

 

There is no if on Saryn's crashomatic tendency. I play WF on three systems. Two of them insta crashed with Venom, period. Every time without fail.

 

That's not an opinion and conspiracy theory voodoo economics has nothing to do with it. Not only does it crash for the sures, but I'm fairly certain it did permanent damage to my Athlon's integrated gpu, as certain DX apps now occasionally no longer work correctly, and the diag brings up the same crash parameters in other apps now, crash criteria that USED to be Warframe exclusive.

 

You can call me selfish if you want, but frankly, f@ck old venom. It was LITERALLY broken in more ways than one.

 

Now I wouldn't mind venom being set as her third and contagion being moved to first with the attendant cost changes thereof, but as a first venom is hilariously super effective, even now. I don't mind Saryn having the best 1st in the game at all, but the fact of the matter is it's heehaw efficient at dispatching anything at literally any level in rather short order.

 

Should PER-ENEMY damage and enemy susceptibility be returned to their level of effectiveness? Yes.

 

Should it be returned to what it was exactly? Not only no, but f@ck no, and f@ck you. Anything ridiculous enough to cause app ending crashes and potential hardware damage has no place in a commercial app of any kind, much less a T rated game that can be installed without admin controls and permanent registry hooks.

Edited September 7, 2013 by -Kittens-

[taiiat]

Molt:

In my opinion, it should be based on duration, should transfer any current aggro to itself from Saryn when used (why else would it be placed at your exact location?) and have a high chance to aggro anything else nearby, buying allies a reprieve. 

 

Contagion:

I will just say this: extra melee damage does not equate to a close combat specialist when the enemies can simply knock you down, beat you up, and steal your lunch money. This ability needs to give Saryn additional resistances to allow her to put that damage to good use. 

 

Miasma:

How about a slowly expanding cloud that breaks LoS and damages enemies, creating moving cover for Saryn and her allies?

 

TL:DR You're already browsing a forum discussing the balance of a video game. Don't act like your time is precious.

to start, Saryn is basically, the only frame i play. i've got close to 40m XP on Saryn, and... the next closest is like 8m. 

 

story time!

when Saryn was first released, i saw what Saryn looked like, and that she was focused around poisons. i was instantly intrigued, and started collecting the parts on that first day she was released. after building Saryn, i was instantly hooked. Saryn has a really unique and interesting look(those goddamn waist high boots and elbow gloves still get me, and the Hemlock helmet is almost a direct visual style connection to one of my other favorite games). 

that, and the Poison revolving powers have a fantastic mixture of offensive, defensive, and Utility. Saryn's got it all :D

 

 

anyways.

personally, the thought of Venom was interesting, and it's very different and unique, but i got bored of it too quickly, maybe due to it just not working right or at all for almost 100% of Saryns' existence.

i wanted to like it and use it, but i stopped carrying it ever, after a while. though when it could stack, it was some pretty effective damage output against bosses, i admit.

maybe i got bored of it because using it slowed down gameplay or something. you are sort've animation locked while casting most powers in Warframe, even though this is a fast paced game and keeping on the move is supposed to be important. why can't i just throw the venom spore on the enemy while running past him? :<

 

 

i can totally agree that Molt would be quite unique working that way, and honestly, in the Warframe Profile on the Warframe channel on Youtube, Molt appears to do exactly that! placing the skin carcass instantly attracts the attention of the enemies, and Saryn(and other teammates presumably) is pretty much ignored.

it also should be placed client side since even with moderate ping Molt can get placed in a totally different place from where you wanted it. 

 

 

Contagion is a nice power, and i've always thought it was interesting, and surprisingly effective, but also difficult to use compared to most melee abilities. having resistances to knockdowns and such would be great. 

Contagion is also nearly useless for quick attack weapons, but crazy for heavy weapons. heavy weapons will get an extra like, 400 Charge Damage, but a quick attack weapon is probably going to get an extra 8 or 12. quick attack weapons should really get a larger bonus. if it separately gave bonuses to quick and charge attacks, it could be balanced better.

i also have always wanted my melee weapon to drip with Acid and / or have particles float off of it while Contagion is activated. that ehhh green filter over the entire melee weapon is okay, but it's not that interesting to look at.

 

 

Miasma has huge potential to be unique, and you hit the nail on the head for what i've always wanted out of Miasma.

if Miasma actually worked like a Miasma (by definition, a highly unpleasant, toxic vapor in the air), it would be... ideal.

 

it would be great if Miasma was a HUGE range poison cloud. Saryn herself would radiate a poison field, damage higher the closer to Saryn, and eventually tapering off to nothing. Saryn would also leave behind clouds of poison on the ground, that would have some slow and stun, but not that much damage output. so getting up close to something would dissolve it, but otherwise everything takes some average damage.

 

still the DoT system, ticks should be faster than they are now for Miasma, maybe .5sec instead of 1sec, but overall less damage per tick than Miasma does now, even if Saryn is standing right next to an enemy. but still a fair amount of damage.

 

this power would have a very long duration, to compensate for the relatively low damage enemies are taking in a short amount of time.

but overall, Miasma would actually deal more maximum damage to enemies than it currently does if you really focus on them, just over a much longer time span.

 

 

 

everything i say about Saryn, only a labor of love.

 

by the way, can we get rid of the Tumor on her right leg? i don't understand why it's there. it detracts from her look IMO. :(

 

 

edit:

 

 

or it should give lifesteal on a successful hit

hnngh, that sounds amazing. though your numbers sound like easy mode, 26hp per swing? :p

 

 

and frankly, i use Saryn extremely aggressively already, and i have little to no issues with this. i mean hell, her Shield Capacity is fine, and she has an almost absurd amount of Health, and even more so in Effective Health.

(this being with usually running around with 740/598 most of the time nowadays for just normal play, was 620/427 before when i was using 170% shield recharge, but i changed my mind recently - but, having 740/1100 is pretty huealicious for those really challenging Nightmare missions xD)

Edited September 7, 2013 by taiiat

[Mainabi]

to start, Saryn is basically, the only frame i play. i've got close to 40m XP on Saryn, and... the next closest is like 8m.

story time!

when Saryn was first released, i saw what Saryn looked like, and that she was focused around poisons. i was instantly intrigued, and started collecting the parts on that first day she was released. after building Saryn, i was instantly hooked. Saryn has a really unique and interesting look(those goddamn waist high boots and elbow gloves still get me, and the Hemlock helmet is almost a direct visual style connection to one of my other favorite games).

that, and the Poison revolving powers have a fantastic mixture of offensive, defensive, and Utility. Saryn's got it all :D

anyways.

personally, the thought of Venom was interesting, and it's very different and unique, but i got bored of it too quickly, maybe due to it just not working right or at all for almost 100% of Saryns' existence.

i wanted to like it and use it, but i stopped carrying it ever, after a while. though when it could stack, it was some pretty effective damage output against bosses, i admit.

maybe i got bored of it because using it slowed down gameplay or something. you are sort've animation locked while casting most powers in Warframe, even though this is a fast paced game and keeping on the move is supposed to be important. why can't i just throw the venom spore on the enemy while running past him? :<

i can totally agree that Molt would be quite unique working that way, and honestly, in the Warframe Profile on the Warframe channel on Youtube, Molt appears to do exactly that! placing the skin carcass instantly attracts the attention of the enemies, and Saryn(and other teammates presumably) is pretty much ignored.

it also should be placed client side since even with moderate ping Molt can get placed in a totally different place from where you wanted it.

Contagion is a nice power, and i've always thought it was interesting, and surprisingly effective, but also difficult to use compared to most melee abilities. having resistances to knockdowns and such would be great.

Contagion is also nearly useless for quick attack weapons, but crazy for heavy weapons. heavy weapons will get an extra like, 400 Charge Damage, but a quick attack weapon is probably going to get an extra 8 or 12. quick attack weapons should really get a larger bonus. if it separately gave bonuses to quick and charge attacks, it could be balanced better.

i also have always wanted my melee weapon to drip with Acid and / or have particles float off of it while Contagion is activated. that ehhh green filter over the entire melee weapon is okay, but it's not that interesting to look at.

Miasma has huge potential to be unique, and you hit the nail on the head for what i've always wanted out of Miasma.

if Miasma actually worked like a Miasma (by definition, a highly unpleasant, toxic vapor in the air), it would be... ideal.

it would be great if Miasma was a HUGE range poison cloud. Saryn herself would radiate a poison field, damage higher the closer to Saryn, and eventually tapering off to nothing. Saryn would also leave behind clouds of poison on the ground, that would have some slow and stun, but not that much damage output. so getting up close to something would dissolve it, but otherwise everything takes some average damage.

still the DoT system, ticks should be faster than they are now for Miasma, maybe .5sec instead of 1sec, but overall less damage per tick than Miasma does now, even if Saryn is standing right next to an enemy. but still a fair amount of damage.

this power would have a very long duration, to compensate for the relatively low damage enemies are taking in a short amount of time.

but overall, Miasma would actually deal more maximum damage to enemies than it currently does if you really focus on them, just over a much longer time span.

everything i say about Saryn, only a labor of love.

by the way, can we get rid of the Tumor on her right leg? i don't understand why it's there. it detracts from her look IMO. :(

edit:

hnngh, that sounds amazing. though your numbers sound like easy mode, 26hp per swing? :p

and frankly, i use Saryn extremely aggressively already, and i have little to no issues with this. i mean hell, her Shield Capacity is fine, and she has an almost absurd amount of Health, and even more so in Effective Health.

(this being with usually running around with 740/598 most of the time nowadays for just normal play, was 620/427 before when i was using 170% shield recharge, but i changed my mind recently - but, having 740/1100 is pretty huealicious for those really challenging Nightmare missions xD)

26 hp per swing doesnt apply if the enemy is shielded since its not rly lifesteal, I need flesh huehuehue

also 26hp sounds extremly high, it is on low lvl, but imagine against lvl 150 targets where you can get 300dmg per second, or a little bit higher you can get 1 shotted

tanking isn't rly tanking in warframe its just rather sustaining yourself a little bit but not rly tanking for your team,

ps nightmare isnt challenging

Edited September 7, 2013 by Seira-EGT-

[Reshasis]

With the advent of % of health damage (The Necro's soul punch) I'd say that it's about time that DE started revamping certain skills to utalize this system, Venom and Psychic Bolts being the prime candidates.

What do you guys think?

[rksk16it]

With the advent of % of health damage (The Necro's soul punch) I'd say that it's about time that DE started revamping certain skills to utalize this system, Venom and Psychic Bolts being the prime candidates.

What do you guys think?

 

Necro is the shiny new frame... how dare you ask about bringing other frames to his level ? :)

[rksk16it]

-snip-

...having 740/1100 is pretty huealicious for those really challenging Nightmare missions xD)

 

For nightmare, how about converting 35 points of energy into 1600 health + CC immunity, while still having crispy dmg on ult ?

Also : You get a HUGE DURATION of stun for free in your ult, making miasma stun look silly.

 

[taiiat]

For nightmare, how about converting 35 points of energy into 1600 health + CC immunity, while still having crispy dmg on ult ?

Also : You get a HUGE DURATION of stun for free in your ult, making miasma stun look silly.

you're locked to energy, i'm not. and if health vampire is in effect, i get an even bigger bonus. 

 

and you're still locked to energy, which all too often in Nightmare, you don't have.

 

 

 

26 hp per swing doesnt apply if the enemy is shielded since its not rly lifesteal, I need flesh huehuehue

also 26hp sounds extremly high, it is on low lvl, but imagine against lvl 150 targets where you can get 300dmg per second, or a little bit higher you can get 1 shotted

ps nightmare isnt challenging

hm, alright, you must wait to shoot 3 bullets at a shield before you can life steal, not a big problem, shields that the enemies have are a joke anyways.

 

oh certainly, eventually any amount of lifesteal would be outclassed by incoming damage. we'd need to actually see it in action to really know how much 26/swing would really gain you. but most of the time... i'm not taking much damage anyways, so i'd waste the lifesteal on full health, heh.

 

(i know Nightmare isn't really challenging(and if it feels challenging it's only because of artificial difficulty, not actually being challenging), it's just one of the harder things i could provide example to without talking about HWD since it's irrelevant to the game).

Edited September 7, 2013 by taiiat

[rksk16it]

you're locked to energy, i'm not. and if health vampire is in effect, i get an even bigger bonus. 

 

and you're still locked to energy, which all too often in Nightmare, you don't have.

 

Assuming you have Rage :

 

If health vampire effect is on, you get unlimited energy. So continuous iron skin and stomp. And with roar and acrid, its pew pew !!

 

If energy vamp is in effect, spam #2 at start, there is enough energy at start to put one iron skin on. Even if it isnt, let first mob hit u once, then put on iron skin. From that point on, its walk in the park. Seriously, Iron Skin is THAT good in nightmare. Grineer Napalms... bleh...

Edited September 7, 2013 by rksk16it

[Mainabi]

you're locked to energy, i'm not. and if health vampire is in effect, i get an even bigger bonus. 

 

and you're still locked to energy, which all too often in Nightmare, you don't have.

 

 

 

hm, alright, you must wait to shoot 3 bullets at a shield before you can life steal, not a big problem, shields that the enemies have are a joke anyways.

 

oh certainly, eventually any amount of lifesteal would be outclassed by incoming damage. we'd need to actually see it in action to really know how much 26/swing would really gain you. but most of the time... i'm not taking much damage anyways, so i'd waste the lifesteal on full health, heh.

 

(i know Nightmare isn't really challenging(and if it feels challenging it's only because of artificial difficulty, not actually being challenging), it's just one of the harder things i could provide example to without talking about HWD since it's irrelevant to the game).

thats the point on full hp you dont get lifesteal, and yet its still useful but as i said it just needs a base dmg

15-30-45-60 per hit, for charge dmg its super low for fast hitting weapons its not bad right now % only based is bad, only charge atts profit from % but with base dmg normal weapons finally gain a well deserved buff

[MaddPhish]

I dearly love Saryn and support all of this.I was so bitterly disappointed to only have her a few days before this happened. Stacking the dots really saved me on a few T3 void missions.

[LordSebastian]

Great thing you posted here, all of this arguments are holy truth.

What do you think about some of my ideas for her abillities:

Venom - first of all - max stacks - 4. Now you can put venom on any floor\wall\roof\Molt that is in range. Lets be honest, if you want to deal with huge group\wave of enemies, even if you stack venom on one of enemies, its incredibly hard to aim them while they are in group(and moving like dodge masters - zigzages)and ofcourse pop venom without killing target. So, putting on a wall will provide more tactical advantage for you on any sort of missions. with 4 max stacks it will be quite usefull on any difficulty.

Molt - Just my opinion, but as Saryn is one of the most deadly Warframes(as her description says), Molt could be offencive(with self-defencive elements) abillity aswell. So, here's even pack of ideas:
1)Every time, somebody hitted molt - he will recieve average poisonous DoT effect(deals only 50% dmg of effect to non-melee hits)(10\20\30dmg every sec with 6\8\10 sec. stacks 4 times. After recieving full stacks, every next hit to molt will refresh countdown) make it immune to dmg, but Molt will lose 2.5-3%(proportionally to her lifetime) of her health every sec. And ofcourse, Energy costs increased to 50.

2)First of all - increased health and shields, amount of both will depend on mission lvl\Tier. Now molt is filled with deadly poison, Molt will blow up(after ellapsed time\destroyed) srpeading poisonous gas in 5\6\7m that will last 6\8\10sec, dealing 25\40\55 dmg every sec to everyone, who's in radius. Now you can have 1\2\3 Molt at the same time. Same cost - 50 Energy.

3)(this idea can recieve negative posts from Loki players) After using molt(Molt's lifetime same as in 1st idea - immune to dmg, but Molt will lose 2.5-3%(proportionally to her lifetime) of her health per sec.) Saryn will become invisible and will leave behind her poisonous trail, that will deal 25\50\75 dmg every sec for 6\8\10 sec. Does not stack. her movement speed will slightly increased(2\3\4%)

Contagion - Its basicly just needs to be more powerfull - so here's an idea, instead of just basic dmg increase, every your hit will aply poison DoT effect, wich dmg will be based on your melee dmg. For example - with all mods your single hit deal 130 dmg(its just example) so with Contagion your hit will poison target for 40% / 60% / 75% of your total dmg(after it calculated with enemy resistances) with DoT, that will last 3\4\5 sec, and can stack for 1\2\3 stacks max.

Miasma - i dont think that Miasma need some buffs, but cause of miasma's weakness on hi lvls, she can deal true dmg(ignoring all resistances and armor) to her targets, OR she can ignore shields, as poisonous Ancidents do.

Edited September 8, 2013 by LordSebastian

[Mainabi]

Great thing you posted here, all of this arguments are holy truth.

What do you think about some of my ideas for her abillities:Venom - first of all - max stacks - 4. Now you can put venom on any floor\wall\roof\Molt that is in range. Lets be honest, if you want to deal with huge group\wave of enemies, even if you stack venom on one of enemies, its incredibly hard to aim them while they are in group(and moving like dodge masters - zigzages)and ofcourse pop venom without killing target. So, putting on a wall will provide more tactical advantage for you on any sort of missions. with 4 max stacks it will be quite usefull on any difficulty.Molt - Just my opinion, but as Saryn is one of the most deadly Warframes(as her description says), Molt could be offencive(with self-defencive elements) abillity aswell. So, here's even pack of ideas:1)Every time, somebody hitted molt - he will recieve average poisonous DoT effect(deals only 50% dmg of effect to non-melee hits)(10\20\30dmg every sec with 6\8\10 sec. stacks 4 times. After recieving full stacks, every next hit to molt will refresh countdown) make it immune to dmg, but Molt will lose 2.5-3%(proportionally to her lifetime) of her health every sec. And ofcourse, Energy costs increased to 50.

2)First of all - increased health and shields, amount of both will depend on mission lvl\Tier. Now molt is filled with deadly poison, Molt will blow up(after ellapsed time\destroyed) srpeading poisonous gas in 5\6\7m that will last 6\8\10sec, dealing 25\40\55 dmg every sec to everyone, who's in radius. Now you can have 1\2\3 Molt at the same time. Same cost - 50 Energy.

3)(this idea can recieve negative posts from Loki players) After using molt(Molt's lifetime same as in 1st idea - immune to dmg, but Molt will lose 2.5-3%(proportionally to her lifetime) of her health per sec.) Saryn will become invisible and will leave behind her poisonous trail, that will deal 25\50\75 dmg every sec for 6\8\10 sec. Does not stack. her movement speed will slightly increased(2\3\4%)Contagion - Its basicly just needs to be more powerfull - so here's an idea, instead of just basic dmg increase, every your hit will aply poison DoT effect, wich dmg will be based on your melee dmg. For example - with all mods your single hit deal 130 dmg(its just example) so with Contagion your hit will poison target for 40% / 60% / 75% of your total dmg(after it calculated with enemy resistances) with DoT, that will last 3\4\5 sec, and can stack for 1\2\3 stacks max.Miasma - i dont think that Miasma need some buffs, but cause of miasma's weakness on hi lvls, she can deal true dmg(ignoring all resistances and armor) to her targets, OR she can ignore shields, as poisonous Ancidents do.

i dont like the idea of max stacks for venom, i rather think the prob is not every spore is pop-able, i have almost no trouble aiming for the spores in fast situation the prob is just it doesnt pop up (i use braton prime for these cases)

moult1: do not like because it doesnt make sense if you shoot something from 40m away and get a dot

moult2: i think thats not bad

moult3: i posted something similar 2 months ago already, moult should give saryn invisibility as long moult is up, duration should be at 4sec (should be affected by continuation mods) moult should stay as an escape tool not something to tank with, we've got decoy from loki already

contagion not sure about the dot, id rather use dot in combination with miasma

miasma is utterly boring i agree with the older posts making a poisoncloud to zone out enemies, i'd even like to have a kind of personal saryn buff there, using contagnion with miasma should turn contagnion into a dot but a stackable dot, every hit should refresh and stack a dot

Edited September 9, 2013 by Seira-EGT-

[LordSebastian]

i dont like the idea of max stacks for venom, i rather think the prob is not every spore is pop-able, i have almost no trouble aiming for the spores in fast situation the prob is just it doesnt pop up (i use braton prime for these cases)

moult1: do not like because it doesnt make sense if you shoot something from 40m away and get a dot

moult2: i think thats not bad

moult3: i posted something similar 2 months ago already, moult should give saryn invisibility as long moult is up, duration should be at 4sec (should be affected by continuation mods) moult should stay as an escape tool not something to tank with, we've got decoy from loki already

contagnion not sure about the dot, id rather use dot in combination with miasma

miasma is utterly boring i agree with the older posts making a poisoncloud to zone out enemies, i'd even like to have a kind of personal saryn buff there, using contagnion with miasma should turn contagnion into a dot but a stackable dot, every hit should refresh and stack a dot

But in other side, having skill that is only usefull with combination of your another abillity(esp "Ultimate" 4th) will make him just energy-expencive. remember, that Saryn dont have much energy overall.