Let's compare: Saryn and Hydroid.

[Prof-Dante]

I came back to play Hydroid excessively again and really enjoying his multi elemental damage buffing...having Viral and corrosive buffs is a lot of fun...so I had a thought, who else in this game can give multiple elemental damage buffs, and can also work as an ability damage nuker? Saryn.

I realized not only can Saryn provide Corrosive, Viral like Hydroid (let's imagine both have Nourish) she can also give Toxin damage with a similar multiplier to Xata's whisper.

And then I started to Compare. Again I'm comparing them not to find out who's better, both achieve practically the same results and even execute them similar to each other. this is again, a Comparison to find out who's more convenient to use, and more appealing to look at and play.

Fashion: Hydroid takes this one, I'm sorry even when Saryn is a beautiful, and one of the most gorgeous frames in the game, her skins kind of sucks...and it's hard to put attachments on her without being ruined by her shoulder snakey thingies.

Hydroid on the other hand, has a LOT of material to work with, with one of my favorite deluxe skins in the game...I personally fashioned mine into a red Kraken sea monster, and he looks so appealing to look at and fun to see him use animations.

Kit:

• Survivability: You can definitely survive with both, but Hydroid is better equipped, as he has a massive armor buff, if you'd care you can mod him enough to get 2700 armor which is 90% damage reduction, or utilize other gating mechanics like Quick thinking, and still benefit from your armor values. Saryn can do the same, but she's more catered towards damage.
   
• Damage: Now I know Hydroid has a massive Corrosive damage buff, that can also benefit abilities, and has access to Nourish, I can't help but think how easy it is to activate Saryn's damage buffs...just three taps and you get Venom Dose's corrosive damage, Nourish's Viral damage and toxic lash Toxin...sure it's boring, but it's just practical...Hydroid requires 20 corrosive stacks around to get the maximum damage value, and if the target is immune to abilities you can't "Plunder" them, thus you can't get the damage buff, I feel like this is more of an oversight on DE's part...a lot of bosses in the game are either immune to status or immune to abilities, or both...which makes Plunder really terrible to use against them.
   
• Modding: Both require a lot of elements, some more than others, for example saryn needs a lot of range, and if you play her as a damage buffer too, then high strength also. and you need to mod for survivability because shield gating alone won't save you, Hydroid needs the same, but average to high range and high duration. so they're equally hard to mod.

Verdict: Tbh, I have no Idea...it's like they're the same frame now, but the abilities are slightly altered and switched around to look different...I would love to know what's your thoughts on this.

 

for the Plunder and resistant bosses part, this was me testing Hydroid against lephantis and Fragmented one, one is immune to status, and the other is immune to abilities...it was pretty disappointing to not be able Plunder either of them.

Edited January 11 by Qorvex99

[MechNexus]

Honestly, I think it's okay for two frames to do a very similar job with similar performance if they play distinctly differently - Just gives you different options for completing the same task for different tastes. I also like that Saryn has an aggro dump and self heal (if you use the augment, I do) skill, which imo makes Saryn a lot more survivable for me as someone who mainly plays solo or with her boyfriend who mains (an honest) wukong. (I haven't played with Hydroid's new mechanics for his self heal augment, mind, should really do that but it looked underwhelming to me)

and ngl I prefer Saryn's aesthetics personally, swashbuckling's cool but I wanna be beautiful

[(PSN)Unstar]

Survivability note: Gloom makes Saryn an invincible tank, since her Spores trigger Gloom, meaning that she's always dealing more than enough damage to fully heal her.  In practice, this means that unless an enemy can one-shot her health pool, Saryn cannot die.

30 minutes ago, Qorvex99 said:

both achieve practically the same results and even execute them similar to each other.

I will admit to being a bit confused on this part of the comparison.  Am I missing some aspect of the Hydroid Rework?  Because Saryn has a very unique playstyle where there's a wing of the map Saryn hasn't even been in and she's still managing to kill enemies 3 rooms deep into that wing.  Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I don't think Hydroid does anything close to what Saryn does, with the lone commonalities being that they're both using Corrosive damage to kill things.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Wondering how much forum space we'd use if we 1v1 for every frame. The permutations are wild lol. 

But yea I don't agree, Saryn is better in every single way.

[(PSN)robotwars7]

50 minutes ago, Qorvex99 said:

Fashion

I agree that the pirate drip wins, but Integra Saryn is still a really nice skin on her, and IMO she's still the only female frame that really suits an infested fashion setup with her prime skin and Protosomid shoulder guard.

55 minutes ago, Qorvex99 said:

Survivability: 

Survivability is about the only place where Saryn is lacking, Regen Molt is basically mandatory if you want to take Saryn into higher levels, and shield gating only gets you so far. Hydroid can give himself huge armor buffs, that basically allow him to tank, albeit briefly. 

59 minutes ago, Qorvex99 said:

Damage:

nourish can be put on both, but I'd say it ultimately depends on how long you need the damage for; if we're talking about clearing a single room, Hydroid can probably bbe equal to if not faster than Saryn, but in a prolonged engagement such as survival, where enemies are constantly spawning, Saryn's spores can constantly ramp up, and as anyone who takes Saryn to ESO knows, as long as you keep spreading, enemies keep dying and eventually they die faster to Spores than anything else in the game: the only downside - and reason it's never been nerfed - is that it requires time to get to that point.

1 hour ago, Qorvex99 said:

Modding:

I guess both use a similar setup, or at least mine do: I try to balance strength and range (getting this right is more important on Saryn though, so as not to make her spores kill before they can be spread), keep duration positive and let the efficiency take the hit because Arcane Energize. 

1 hour ago, Qorvex99 said:

Verdict:

both are great frames, and I'd argue that post rework, Hydroid is on the same threat level as Saryn, at least on shorter missions, but for longer runs, Saryn is queen. 

[Prof-Dante]

56 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

Wondering how much forum space we'd use if we 1v1 for every frame. The permutations are wild lol. 

Don't worry this isn't becoming a "series"...And it's just something I enjoy doing on General discussion every few days/weeks...I will definitely stop, if a lot of people are annoyed of it

since my cross save, I've gotten tired of the forums, feedback is dead, and I hate that my burner account is now the permanent one in here.

 

but yeah, I think Saryn wins, just that Hydroid's drip and more interesting playstyle make him shine so bright, so he makes it hard for me to choose. 

1 hour ago, MechNexus said:

Just gives you different options for completing the same task for different tastes.

I don't find it bad either...I actually prefer it this way...so for example if you like Saryn's kit but you fancy Hydroid's looks more.

[NorthernDarkIceSoul]

Hydroid might have a lot of material to work with, but Saryn has two materials to work with.

[rawr1254]

The two major comparisons are honestly more:

Saryn:

-Glass cannon(irrelevant with shield gating though really)

-Spores that essentially function as an "auto turret" that we didnt want in the game in the first place but *shrugs* but also  has damage decay if no enemies are affected by them

-A 4th ability that seems to lose functionality at later levels and also only gives a single stack of viral so is better to replace with something better possibly nourish

-inability to armor strip completely (unless with green shards)

-2 good augments 1 ok one

Hydroid:

-2 good augments 1 ok agument and 1 almost mandatory

-a first ability whose augment could technically be replace with nourish to retain similar functionality

-a 4th ability that eventually cant kill effectively however is not only effective at stripping armor, cc and with the augment increasing loot, it also can be buffed by his 3rd ability while not losing the buff if something isnt being held by the tentacles

-is a tanky frame with an also very decent amount of shields for good gating

-can fully armor strip helping his abilities and weapons work much more effectively especially with either his 1 augment or nourish

 

tl;dr: So, very similar, but also very different. Saryn if you wanna afk and do teeny number damage that also can kill just about everything in a 10 miles radius, or hydroid where you can armor strip, double loot, and do big damage with a extremely high corrosive damage buff.

 

[taiiat]

2 hours ago, Qorvex99 said:

Modding: Both require a lot of elements, some more than others, for example saryn needs a lot of range, and if you play her as a damage buffer too, then high strength also. and you need to mod for survivability because shield gating alone won't save you, Hydroid needs the same, but average to high range and high duration. so they're equally hard to mod.

there's actually little to no reason to add Range to Saryn. the only time you have a use for Range is when you're playing Onslaught. anywhere else, and Saryn is good for exactly two things - stacking Weapon buffs, and using Molt to go fast.
Venom Dose is the only reason to even keep Spores on instead of Subsuming over it. base Spores and Miasma are borderline useless in most Missions. you just aren't standing in one area and Killing large amounts of so-so Health Enemies over and over, in most Missions. nor is there actually any benefit to doing that, in most Missions.

in most Missions, you're just pushing as much Strength as you can to boost your Weapon buffs and speed boost, and then whatever mixture of Duration and Efficiency you feel comfortable with. but you wouldn't totally nuke Range either, since it's nice to be able to share Venom Dose with your Allies.

2 hours ago, Qorvex99 said:

Survivability: You can definitely survive with both, but Hydroid is better equipped, as he has a massive armor buff, if you'd care you can mod him enough to get 2700 armor which is 90% damage reduction, or utilize other gating mechanics like Quick thinking, and still benefit from your armor values. Saryn can do the same, but she's more catered towards damage.

there is one consideration to note as of late - Green Shard Healing. Saryn can do this, natively, while few other Warframes can at all without Modding for Toxin Damage intentionally.
in most scenarios this is plenty of Healing. at the Levels where you're actually going to be taking Damage, anyways. you spray your Guns into all of the Enemies and that offers you a considerable amount of Healing without having to actually 'manually do it', perse. you can solve the Healing need by just shooting harder. :)

outside of that, Saryn does pretty much rely on Umbral stacking, Adaptation, and whatever Shield Gating you can push into. there's no reason to use Augur Stretch so only Secrets would normally be used, so it's 1/6 unless you're going to be using other parts of Augur Set.
would be nice to fit Fast Deflection but i don't think it fits. maybe it's worth considering over Adaptation, not sure how i feel on that.

i don't tend to actually have problems with surviving like this, occasionally something might apply a DoT strong enough that i get oneshot before i notice it's even on me, or some *shakes fist* Enemy Types like Blast Eximus whos' explosion trail can occasionally oneshot me. Electric Eximus were pretty spicy for a while, but the Shield changes helped a loooot against that.

 

 

and also ofcourse we have the Green Shard boost for Toxin Status, which is nice too. it even functions like a Final Multiplier, pretty stonks.

it would be nice if Saryn had some real CC, but then again between Eximus and many of the newer Boss-ish Enemy Types, lots of stuff is increasingly immune to this anyways so it wouldn't even be super reliable anyways. something localized / on the smaller scale would even be fine, but then also what Ability Slot would that even be on. one of these 4 is going to be Subsumed either way, having 3 Weapon buffs is like, the entire reason to use Saryn thesedays, so unless Molt gains some active CC, there's not really any place that makes much sense for it to be. i'll just keep living without it frankly, and gaining some CC capability via other means than my Warframes' Abilities.

 

 

 

anyways, looks pretty good to me. i like this Skin atleast, anyways.

[CrownOfShadows]

Yeah no Saryn > Hydroid on fashion 100%. I completely ignored everything else you said because you were so obviously wrong about this.

That said, I would agree that Hydroid is near S tier territory right up there with Saryn now, which is crazy considering he was dumpster tier not long ago. His CC is better but Saryn's range is better. For survivability idk, umbral gloomy saryn can take an enormous amount of abuse, if you don't one shot her she'll live forever, but the huge armor buffs on hydroid make him more classically tanky. If I was worried about killing a lot of stuff I'd take Saryn, if I was worried about defending something I'd take Hydroid.

[Voltage]

I think you've just come to the realization of how modern kits are designed lol. There's lots of homogenization going on with Warframe design to make them practical to use in your everyday content. The downside is that the field is pretty saturated. 

Just pick what you want for flavor. Saryn has hers and Hydroid has his.

[GovernmentSecrets.gov]

Even though fashion is entirely subjective Hydroid and Saryn both have some pretty good options. Saryn's got some really good tennogen stuff to although that kinda means less these days considering the buy it twice policy for PC mains.

Can't really say much about reworked Hydroid, I haven't used him after his rework. I'm still sad about undertow. Saryn as always is fantastic though.

[TeaHands]

I gotta lightly disagree on the fashion, Saryn is gorgeous and has a lot of pretty skins to work with and mesh together.  Can't deny that Hydroid Deluxe is pretty baller though.

1 hour ago, Qorvex99 said:

I will definitely stop, if a lot of people are annoyed of it

Nah boo you post as much as you want. If people don't like your posts they can just ignore it. 

[CatboyPrincess]

i hate hydroid's look in almost all his skins.

the main thing i love about saryn is being able to play her as a debuff support by maximizing range and adding the Spore radar augment. Strength and duration after. Dump efficiency. I put Rolling Guard and Resonator (replacing Molt) on her for more protection + CC. With Arcane Steadfast, I can use Miasma a few times in a row for multiple Viral stacks.

Then I give her a Grimoire modded for orbs and energy regen and a Cedo modded as a primer for the full plague witch experience. Most enemies are CC'd and wither away to DOTs, while elites take Cedo primary fire to the face.

I just wish that there was a way to make Miasma inflict more Viral procs other than relying on ability spam.

[Strikerays]

5 hours ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

But yea I don't agree, Saryn is better in every single way.

No, it is not, lol

[Prof-Dante]

3 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

you were so obviously wrong about this.

I did acknowledge saryn's Beauty, I'm not saying she's an ugly Warframe, even though this topic is highly subjective...I find Hydroid's Pirate theme better utilized than Saryn's snake theme.

I don't really find anything interesting when I look at Saryn's tenno gen except the alt helmet, the different "hair" styles with each tenno gen is definitely very cute and beautiful, but other than that they look the same.

her first deluxe skin is way too bright for my liking, especially that bright colors just hurt my eyes too much (I should probably get that checked) and her second Lunar one has cloth 

 

me personally, I'm a fan of Hitsu San's work, so maybe if I get to look at her skins a second time I can find a good combination, it's a good thing I play on PS :D

Edited January 12 by Qorvex99

[Prof-Dante]

4 hours ago, taiiat said:

and also ofcourse we have the Green Shard boost for Toxin Status, which is nice too. it even functions like a Final Multiplier, pretty stonks.

Hmm I was debating about this shard perk, My Saryn currently has two tau emerald, one for 15% extra damage perk, and the other for the +3 corrosive stacks, the plan was to strip armor just slightly before 100%, so I can still benefit from the corrosive damage bonus on armor, plus the 15% multi damage from the second shard, just to help her bump her spores damage on high levels, I can definitely see the difference.

but I am still wondering if removing both of them and reinstall them for extra 90% toxin dot damage is overall a better path.

[0_The_F00l]

You forgot Lavos

[Prof-Dante]

6 minutes ago, 0_The_F00l said:

You forgot Lavos

buffing weapon damage with elemental buffs, not JUST deal elemental ability damage...but speaking of this...I am LONGING for an augment that allows Lavos to infuse the current element into his weapons.

[0_The_F00l]

18 minutes ago, Qorvex99 said:

buffing weapon damage with elemental buffs, not JUST deal elemental ability damage...but speaking of this...I am LONGING for an augment that allows Lavos to infuse the current element into his weapons.

Yeah, me too ,

seems like a logical augment to have but could be a tad OP (but depending on how it's applied could be just complex enough that it's balanced out).

Eg. You gain the last elemental bonus(es?) you cast ,it lasts for as long as that ability is in cooldown. So now you can have weapon buffs , but it could go away faster than expected too.

A different discussion for a different topic though.

For the current one , barring the weapon buffs (which can still technically be applied as you have access to certain arcanes that trigger on elemental effects) he is my go to frame that does it all.

Edited January 12 by 0_The_F00l

[Prof-Dante]

1 hour ago, 0_The_F00l said:

For the current one , barring the weapon buffs (which can still technically be applied as you have access to certain arcanes that trigger on elemental effects) he is my go to frame that does it all.

I would definitely play him more, even only him...but his looks lack style and substance.

look at Dagath for example, not exactly a "pretty" Warframe, right? but that's the point...she's a faceless undead corpse with Ghost powers...and she absolutely nails it at that.

Lavos needs to have his Alchemy theme expressed more in his future deluxe skins...lab coats that look like lab coats, not whatever he has going on in the back, better gloves, better helmet...heck, even better Nobel and agile animation

[0_The_F00l]

16 minutes ago, Qorvex99 said:

I would definitely play him more, even only him...but his looks lack style and substance.

look at Dagath for example, not exactly a "pretty" Warframe, right? but that's the point...she's a faceless undead corpse with Ghost powers...and she absolutely nails it at that.

Lavos needs to have his Alchemy theme expressed more in his future deluxe skins...lab coats that look like lab coats, not whatever he has going on in the back, better gloves, better helmet...heck, even better Nobel and agile animation

Ehhh , eye of the beholder and all that I guess.

But I wouldn't put him in any fashion competition anytime soon.

[Raarsi]

"Sir, would you like your mass destruction in salt and vinegar flavor or sour cream and onion?"

I think is really is just whatever you vibe with.  Both are fun, both can Thanos snap entire rooms of enemies out of existence, and both can do so looking good.

Edited January 12 by Raarsi

[taiiat]

15 hours ago, Qorvex99 said:

Hmm I was debating about this shard perk, My Saryn currently has two tau emerald, one for 15% extra damage perk, and the other for the +3 corrosive stacks, the plan was to strip armor just slightly before 100%, so I can still benefit from the corrosive damage bonus on armor, plus the 15% multi damage from the second shard, just to help her bump her spores damage on high levels, I can definitely see the difference.

but I am still wondering if removing both of them and reinstall them for extra 90% toxin dot damage is overall a better path.

depends on what Mission - in Onslaught where Spores and Miasma is useful, then building for Ability Damage boosts makes sense.

in basically every other Mission (except i guess uh, Defense, or Defense-like Gamemodes) where Spores and Miasma are borderline useless anyways? then it's definitely going to be the Toxin bonuses. you can take some Corrosive Stack boosts if you want, though Saryns' obvious use style is rainbow Damage so frankly i doubt one would notice the difference because you're going to be Killing Enemies before you can even fully stack all your Status Types for Condtion/Gundition Overload, let alone to stack enough Corrosive to remove Armor.

the reason we use Venom Dose isn't to get Corrosive Status, the Status only matters as a tick for Condition Overload, significantly weakening or removing Armor from Enemies isn't relevant in this game unless it's a special Boss or you're planning on playing Steel Path for like 2+ Hours at a time or something. elsewise, focusing on stacking Corrosive Status is just wasting time - you're supposed to be Killing the Enemies, not 'Painting them like a French Model'. it's all about stacking Damage, and/or boosting Toxic Lash due to its vey useful properties.