Saryn Makes Me Want To Facepalm...

[MechaKnight]

Being cryptic is not helpful.  To maximize Miasma's damage you should increase power strength, decrease power duration as much as possible, and make your ability as efficient as possible (75%.)  That will give you the most damage per energy spent of any nuke in the game. 

This is only true in certain cases. Granted, it's the strongest nuke not considering any scaling. However, if you're going to do any T4 key, Nyx's Absorb when toggled for a very short time has the true highest damage nuke for the least energy spent. Miasma's scaling falls off in wave 10 of T4 Defense, but Nyx's Absorb never stops scaling. It gets more powerful relative to enemy health as enemies spawn in larger groups. It also scales upwards during the continuous drain phase, so Nyx's Absorb has no practical fall off. It currently suffers no significant punishment from using Overextended either, since that base damage is tiny compared to the accumulated damage that is added on top.

 

Absorb is a toggle ability now, so using only Stretch, Overextended, and Streamline, Nyx in a T4 run of any game mode can turn on Absorb, and release it almost immediately to wipe the enemies, something like 10k within 2 seconds for only ~15 energy. Since T4 has more enemies per group, they contribute more damage than they can actually take when Absorb is applied to them all simultaneously. If that isn't enough, Absorb also accumulates damage as you keep it toggled on, so if it doesn't wipe the room immediately, it will in a few more seconds.

 

Additionally, Absorb can increase its damage from teammate weapons, Nyx's own weapons (if they inflict self-harm), and warframe abilities. It may still be true that Nyx can even recycle all the damage from an adjacent Nyx's absorb. A recent red-text from a patch hinted to it.

 

While not necessarily nukes, Nyx can also use Chaos to make enemies destroy each other, and use Mind Control to make Corropt Vor stop in his tracks. So Nyx is not only the best nuke in the game, but the best support. Many Nova players have switched to Nyx, and for those who still play Nova, she's a valuable asset to Nyx to multiply the power of her Chaos.

Edited June 16, 2014 by MechaKnight

[Spellcasterz]

Once upon a time venom melted faces.

In fact it melted faces so hard that it was a sure fire way to crash your game.

Then it got nerfed/fixed and now good old venom-built Saryn resides in the same place as 18k+ shields,god-mode Rhino and soon hysteria Valkyr,the locker of Vay Hek.

 

I cant be the only one missing those times of boundless OPness.

[RealPandemonium]

Can we please stop comparing direct damage abilities to infinitely scaling abilities like AMD and Absorb?  Also, I just cleared a T4 Exterminate with Saryn.  Non-heavy enemies were wiped with one Miasma.  Only the Heavy Gunners required special attention from my weapons.  I'm gonna test Absorb in detail later today and compare results.

[MechaKnight]

Can we please stop comparing direct damage abilities to infinitely scaling abilities like AMD and Absorb?  Also, I just cleared a T4 Exterminate with Saryn.  Non-heavy enemies were wiped with one Miasma.  Only the Heavy Gunners required special attention from my weapons.  I'm gonna test Absorb in detail later today and compare results.

The way AMD functions, it tends to move out of enemy fire so most of it is contributed by players usually, and usually only the Nova player is the one contributing significantly. By comparison, Absorb gains its damage supply from enemies, players, and the Nyx player if they are using self-destructive weapons. While AMD has a practical limitation by how much attention needs to be put in, Absorb has none. Absorb has no penalty from the use of suitable corrupt mods, and scales upwards as enemies spawn in larger groups and as the player chooses to stay in Absorb longer.

 

Granted, I don't deny some warframe abilities are effective by raw numbers, but they also get drawn into Absorb, with no reduction. So Nyx can leech of Saryn's Miasma, another Nyx's Absorb, AMD, or any damaging ability really.

 

Nyx's Absorb also has crowd control since it knocks down every enemy in its radius. So not only does it have incredibly high damage for incredibly low cost, but it also has crowd control. Most of the time only a short window of time is enough for Absorb to destroy everything in T4, but if you want to crowd control lock the enemies, you can do so by spamming absorb. If the damage from enemies isn't enough to always kill them in one use from toggle-spam, you can also ask teammates to shoot inside, or carry Castanas. Depending on the time you have while the enemies get up off the floor, you can prepare two to six castanas to detonate and apply all of their damage in a 25m radius.

Edited June 16, 2014 by MechaKnight

[RealPandemonium]

My point is that Absorb is inordinately powerful and exploitable by design, so you can't really use it as a benchmark for other skills.  The only thing keeping it in check before was its duration limitation and flat minimum damage amount.  Overall what was supposed to be a usability buff ended up being a problematically powerful number buff.  All they needed to do was give the player the ability to end it early; this whole toggle deal raises more problems than it solves (not to say that it wouldn't be appropriate for other skills, such as Ember's WoF.)

Edited June 16, 2014 by RealPandemonium

[MechaKnight]

My point is that Absorb is inordinately powerful and exploitable by design, so you can't really use it as a benchmark for other skills.  The only thing keeping it in check before was its duration limitation and flat minimum damage amount.  Overall what was supposed to be a usability buff ended up being a problematically powerful number buff.  All they needed to do was give the player the ability to end it early; this whole toggle deal raises more problems than it solves (not to say that it wouldn't be appropriate for other skills, such as Ember's WoF.)

Yes, other warframes can benefit. Ember's WoF is a great example. At endgame, it's underwhelming.

[Moderius]

The Unnofficial Saryn Thread has about 10k words in the opening post, and I'll be happy to cite this thread as another community reference for discussion.

 

Are you trying to prove that Saryn is bad in the hands of clueless players?

[RealPandemonium]

Just tested the new Absorb.  This is ridiculously op.  I can become immortal, draw all aggro, explode for huge damage, and knock down whatever might (lol) survive the blast.  All for almost no energy.  AND I can deploy energy restores without breaking the channel so If I wanted to I could sit in the bubble for 30 minutes straight, or more. 

 

All absorb needed for a quality-of-life fix was the ability to cancel the channel in mid-use.  Changing it into a toggle has made it into a brainless ultra-ability that trivializes all gameplay.

 

 

Are you trying to prove that Saryn is bad in the hands of clueless players?

Answering MechaKnight's exuberance with malevolent exuberance of your own is not going to enlighten anybody.  It's clear that he wants DE to address the inconsistencies in their game; nothing more.

[Moderius]

Answering MechaKnight's exuberance with malevolent exuberance of your own is not going to enlighten anybody.  It's clear that he wants DE to address the inconsistencies in their game; nothing more.

 

Maybe you haven't read any of this thread.

 

This thread has been all about not knowing how to use Saryn, nothing more. The complaint that Saryn's abilities don't kill high-tier enemies is universal for damaging abilities; not even taking into consideration how much damage Saryn is really capable of, if built by somebody with the presence of mind to actually look at the wiki for three seconds.

 

This is ignorance: the thread. Not only has this guy not looked at the wiki to figure out how Saryn works, he even chided others for not looking for him. I even directly quoted Saryn's mechanics and scaling from the Wiki, and he simply chose to not even absorb it. So it's ignorance, end of story.

[MechaKnight]

Just tested the new Absorb.  This is ridiculously op.  I can become immortal, draw all aggro, explode for huge damage, and knock down whatever might (lol) survive the blast.  All for almost no energy.  AND I can deploy energy restores without breaking the channel so If I wanted to I could sit in the bubble for 30 minutes straight, or more. 

 

All absorb needed for a quality-of-life fix was the ability to cancel the channel in mid-use.  Changing it into a toggle has made it into a brainless ultra-ability that trivializes all gameplay.

That's why every player who played Nova for the OPness switched to Nyx instead. Nova's still okay, but now it's like Nyx owns the game, and Nova is her deputy-in-action.

 

 

Are you trying to prove that Saryn is bad in the hands of clueless players?

If you consider

to be clueless, then possibly. I understand the original poster of this thread is misinformed, but I also decided to inspect how DE plays their own warframe. In the case of Saryn, Rebecca fails Venom 100% of the time, can't defend herself with Molt, and doesn't use Contagion. We know Miasma is good when modded right, but that was the only ability that worked against level 16-17 Grineer in a tiny interception arena. I know Saryn's not the only warframe that's a one-trick pony that fails besides using that one trick, but back when I was picking a warframe to make a thread for, this one was the least spoken of.

 

 

Answering MechaKnight's exuberance with malevolent exuberance of your own is not going to enlighten anybody.  It's clear that he wants DE to address the inconsistencies in their game; nothing more.

Yes, it's all in inconsistency. Warframes should have a balanced kit that make you feel like there is variety in selecting more or fewer abilities, and focusing on abilities of choice. It should be a balanced affair, but I'm sure it's not easy. However, there are massive, glaring imbalances that look like madness when seen in-game. Meanwhile if you check the list of 19 warframes you just know some of them aren't so great.

 

 

Maybe you haven't read any of this thread.

 

This thread has been all about not knowing how to use Saryn, nothing more. The complaint that Saryn's abilities don't kill high-tier enemies is universal for damaging abilities; not even taking into consideration how much damage Saryn is really capable of, if built by somebody with the presence of mind to actually look at the wiki for three seconds.

 

This is ignorance: the thread. Not only has this guy not looked at the wiki to figure out how Saryn works, he even chided others for not looking for him. I even directly quoted Saryn's mechanics and scaling from the Wiki, and he simply chose to not even absorb it. So it's ignorance, end of story.

Self-explanatory. We established OP didn't do the research. Discussion was somewhat derailed, but there is some truth to the fact this this warframe (along with others) isn't where it should be in balance and variety.

Edited June 16, 2014 by MechaKnight

[Nagisawa]

This was already posted in this thread, just proving that you didn't read even half of it. Tell me if you think 1645.9 is higher than 2437.5.

The problem is that the maximum damage number changes.  That's incorrect math.  3000 points of damage over time should not increase, nor decrease the total damage done.  It doesn't matter if it's 1 second or 10, it should in the end total up to 3000 no matter what.  At one second, it should give you 3k damage.  Bam done.  At 10 seconds, it should do 300 per second, totalling 3k.

 

The fact that the number seems to change isn't just counter-intuitive, it's just plain wrong.  This is not how Math works!

[Moderius]

Self-explanatory. We established OP didn't do the research. Discussion was somewhat derailed, but there is some truth to the fact this this warframe (along with others) isn't where it should be in balance and variety.

 

Self-explanatory, nothing. 

 

The complaint that, oh no, you can't kill a room of Tower 4 mobs with one cast? Why don't you take a nice slow step back and consider how much that makes sense at the base level. You can't kill a whole room of high-level enemies with a button press? Oh no!

 

Your argument that Saryn needs work and that this thread is relevant despite being both inaccurate and flawed on the basis of understanding the frame on a basic level is just...wrong. A flawed argument does not prove a conclusion. The only thing this thread really proves is that people will agree with anything to try and get buffs.

[Moderius]

The problem is that the maximum damage number changes.  That's incorrect math.  3000 points of damage over time should not increase, nor decrease the total damage done.  It doesn't matter if it's 1 second or 10, it should in the end total up to 3000 no matter what.  At one second, it should give you 3k damage.  Bam done.  At 10 seconds, it should do 300 per second, totalling 3k.

 

The fact that the number seems to change isn't just counter-intuitive, it's just plain wrong.  This is not how Math works!

 

Well feel free to test it yourself, since you obviously know better than the Wiki.

[MechaKnight]

Self-explanatory, nothing. 

 

The complaint that, oh no, you can't kill a room of Tower 4 mobs with one cast? Why don't you take a nice slow step back and consider how much that makes sense at the base level. You can't kill a whole room of high-level enemies with a button press? Oh no!

 

Your argument that Saryn needs work and that this thread is relevant despite being both inaccurate and flawed on the basis of understanding the frame on a basic level is just...wrong. A flawed argument does not prove a conclusion. The only thing this thread really proves is that people will agree with anything to try and get buffs.

And you need to take a step back and see that warframes have four abilities. This thread in general focuses on Miasma, but Saryn's other three abilities are lackluster to the point that Miasma is the only viable option. You can watch players and DE's development team flounder with the usage of this warframe infinitely to prove the point.

 

Perhaps some players want to make excuses to constantly buff warframes, but I only seek balance. I mean, Nyx is the strongest warframe in the game by far, due to imbalances in Absorb and Chaos. Meanwhile, Psychic Bolts could do with a buff. I'm not advocating to make warframes arbitrarily better, I'm trying to make the game feel satisfying to play in a variety of valid ways to play it.

[Nagisawa]

Well feel free to test it yourself, since you obviously know better than the Wiki.

I'm not saying the information is wrong, or that it doesn't happen that way, what I'm saying is that mathematically, which by the way most computers use to do anything, is throwing up incorrect information that flies against everything we've been taught about math and numbers.

 

That's the issue.  Most of us are not going to suddenly realize that 'Hey!  The less time it has, the more damage it does!"  That's like saying 2+2=178.

[MechaKnight]

I'm not saying the information is wrong, or that it doesn't happen that way, what I'm saying is that mathematically, which by the way most computers use to do anything, is throwing up incorrect information that flies against everything we've been taught about math and numbers.

 

That's the issue.  Most of us are not going to suddenly realize that 'Hey!  The less time it has, the more damage it does!"  That's like saying 2+2=178.

It's just a calculation error on DE's part. What's really the problem is that the only thing that makes this warframe viable in any gameplay is the calculation error. Without it, ability #1 only works on level 60 enemies for most teams, ability #2 can't even hold itself well against level 17 enemies, ability #3 may as well not even exist. And then there's Miasma, ability #4. The calculation error is the only aspect that makes the warframe worth playing anywhere, because it's certainly not the best warframe in the game.

[Nagisawa]

It's just a calculation error on DE's part. What's really the problem is that the only thing that makes this warframe viable in any gameplay is the calculation error. Without it, ability #1 only works on level 60 enemies for most teams, ability #2 can't even hold itself well against level 17 enemies, ability #3 may as well not even exist. And then there's Miasma, ability #4. The calculation error is the only aspect that makes the warframe worth playing anywhere, because it's certainly not the best warframe in the game.

Fair enough, and I'm not really arguing that, I'm just countering with the fact that this error is not something a lot, I even daresay most, people will realize or actually understand.

[Moderius]

I'm not saying the information is wrong, or that it doesn't happen that way, what I'm saying is that mathematically, which by the way most computers use to do anything, is throwing up incorrect information that flies against everything we've been taught about math and numbers.

 

That's the issue.  Most of us are not going to suddenly realize that 'Hey!  The less time it has, the more damage it does!"  That's like saying 2+2=178.

 

No, you're not saying it's "wrong", you're just saying it's "not right".

 

Or that you simply don't understand the method that uses to scale. The failure in understanding is a personal one, not a mechanical one.