Saryn's Miasma Is Too Much Op

[Tymerc]

Miasma is by far the most obnoxious and unbalanced four in the entire game, and should be addressed by DE.

Edited January 31, 2015 by Haldos
No bumping, please.

[Eric1738]

i doubt it's too powerful. if falls off quickly after lvl 50. and that's why nobody want miasma in endless void mission. you still see saryn though, but that's because of the poison damage buff from venom.

 

again the problem with saryn is similar to excalibur before the RB nerf. they have 1 good, even arguably OP ability but 3 other meh abilities. you dont ask for NERF, you ask for rework/rebalance.

Edited January 31, 2015 by Eric1738

[Flowen231]

I know where you're coming from, and being used less doesnt mean it's underpowered, but saryn is by no means overpowered compared to alot of frames (roll out the tier list folks!) and the fact that her 4 is her only good ability kinda screams BUFF ME PLEASE, not nerf me, and certainly not rework me (or nerf in disguise as I like to call them).

[MechaKnight]

I've already stated last month on this same page that Miasma only works to this effect because of a bugged calculation. Even then, the calculation is technically balanced by the fact that she is ruining all three of her other abilities and both of her augments to achieve this effect. The developers have already known about this since the start of last year--it's even been talked about in livestream.

 

However as a long-time Saryn main myself, the solution to Miasma is obvious: remove the backwards duration-to-damage calculation, and replace it with a duration-based offensive support effect, similar to Oberon's. If Oberon works similarly to mini-Nyx, Saryn could work like mini-Nova. Perhaps stun, slow, and some form of durability debuff should be applied to the enemy. It will be more balanced than the instant damage payout she has now.

 

However, a problem with all warframes in general is that all radial abilities are technically overpowered. Most radial abilities hit infinite targets within a 2*pi*r^3 spherical area around the caster. Unless they are given a target cap like Nekros' Terrify, they will always be objectively better than other abilities.

 

A possible solution to this common problem is get an estimate for how many enemies are found in groups within a certain radius, find the total damage a nuke would do, and give that capability to every non-AoE ability in a concentrated form. The other alternative is nerf radials, which a lot of people will be angry about.

 

For Saryn's particular case, it's pretty bad. Contagion is literally a non-option, removing one of her three non-ultimate abilities. Venom has issues with duration, mechanics, and multiple dice-roll probability. It can have trouble spreading around some weapons, has trouble spreading around enemies which die too easily, relies on duration, and depending on the number of spores on the target and random luck, it could take too long to inflict that much-wanted viral effect, which is generally what Venom is used for. Molt is the most functioning ability in her kit, but it's strictly self defense with a bit of offense.

 

Saryn needs a lot of fixing. Miasma's calculation change will be a nerf in damage, but could hopefully come with some well-deserved scaling and support.

Edited January 31, 2015 by Haldos
Naming and shaming.

[TypeSaber]

Why not have targets that are hit be completely stripped of thier Armour value? Making saryn able to scale extremely well as when the damage from misasma falls off, it has excellent utility like Nova's

 

Actually hilariously enough my friends were discussing what would happen if that's what her ult did, Since it would allow teams to forgo corrosive Projection in favor of using other selections of Aura's at the cost of a frame slot in their 4 man. And honestly the end opinion was yes. That would be a change that would be acceptable for the Sarin since it adds more versatility at the cost of Nuking Power.

 

And since nukes are the worst thing in warframe for anyone who has actually played this game outside of 10 minute Dark Sector Defenses and Draco runs, it would probably be a buff. its honestly hilarious how many threads I keep having to post on trying to explain the fallacy of nerfing ability's that aren't overpowered as well as the consequences of people complaining about things they honestly don't understand.

 

Honestly if your only problem in this game is getting KS'ed in low level/difficulty runs then honestly...man the frak up, stop trying to ruin other peoples fun, just play with your friends or solo if you don't like how certain people play their frames, and if you think miasma is an OP ability well..then you obviously haven't played enough war-frame. The well of ridiculous goes far deeper then *cough* Miasma

[Neogeo]

I thought nullifier are suppose to counter press 4 to win. It's not working? Saryn 4th is not that OP, it has shorter range than other nuke power. Also, the damage doesn't scale at all. 32k damage may seem a lot but it merely ticker the enemy at level 60. She is not a one trick pony, her second power is useful for distraction and also regenerate your health

[faustias]

I'm still OK with the shortest duration possible = insta-nuke

 

she's useful for clearing everything in an exterminate alert/invasion.

[Somniavi]

Her Molt Augment makes her much more than a press 4 frame, it really makes Molt a very useful ability you can't go without. Her other abilities I can agree need a rework but you shouldn't be complaining for them to nerf her ultimate because I can think of more OP ultimate's for example Mesa, Ash, Nova...

[Kamikiri]

OP? I love playing as Saryn myself but I have no clue as to why you'd call it or her OP with that build you are running.

As many people have mentioned in here, Nukes don't mean jack past a certain point, making them only viable to use in low level content, where they may seem OP, but that's still in the enemy range where you can forma a Braton to make it a viable weapon, and even if I could use a Braton to sweep through those hallways I wouldn't exatly call that OP now would I?...

 

Unless you actually mod her for duration, Miasma is going to hit a very sudden wall where it'll put the Saryn in immediate danger whenever she exits her cast animation since all targets that survive the damage of the ability will be able to retaliate instantly, but the CC locking capabilities of Miasma is often left ignored because of it's low- to early high-level nuking capacity.

But I heavily doubt that complaints about a nuking frame being OP comes from someone that plays said nuking warframe, as it is far more likely for complaints to roll in when someone can't keep up with said nuking no matter how hard they try.

So go get yourself some experience with playing Saryn starting out with a nuking playstyle in higher leveled missions and let your modding and playstyle adapt itself as you go along.

You'll probably find that besides adding duration to Miasma that Molt will be one of your best friends (especially with the augment).

And if you already have Saryn and play her but you still complain that her 4 is op, just try to go into endless missions with her and stay OP past the 15 min mark.

 

(But while Her 2 and 4 work just fine as is for what they are. Her 1 and 3 fall off rather drastically early on since the actual payoff for using these abilities doesn't really justify their energy cost at all.

If the 1 was a guaranteed Viral proc on every tick of damage then I'd bet my behind on that people would start using it and attempt to pop those bubbles like their lives depended on it once the tougher enemies starts rolling in.

And if the 3 had some sort of defensive addition or team wide application it may see some more use, I personally only use it when I have a thrown melee because while it adds damage it doesn't make me want to go rub elbows with the enemy, because unlike using Valkyr's Warcry, you're still only a semi-tanky frame with less than the base 1 movement speed.)
 

If I am to get a little bit more sidetracked here.
From the other replies in this thread I feel like she's well deserving of a Miasma augment that decreases the armor value of all enemies affected my Miasma by for example (12.5 - 25 - 37.5 - 50% if we want it to feel a little like Shield Polarise) or (15 - 30 - 45 - 60% if we want it to not neccesarily need many power strength mods) or (9.5 - 19 - 28.5 - 38% if we want to be modest and have it not reach a godly 100% armor reduction even with all the existing power mods when it already has corrosive procs) and that it is affected by power strength and only lasts for the duration of the ability.

[Neogeo]

It only looks OP when players wreck her other abilities using a backwards calculation. Fixing the calculation will fix Miasma, but she needs enough tweaks to consider an overhaul. This doesn't solve the problem of every other radial nuke wiping rooms of level 40 and under enemies. Excalibur's Radial Javelin dominated the Mutalist Alad V event from a few days ago, but his damage is on the weaker end of the spectrum. No ability is balanced around the fact we have three power strength mods and up to 90% efficiency in two mods.

 

Excalibur's Radial Javelin does 1000 damage within 25 meters. Most players spammed this ability with maximum range using Stretch and Overextended. They balanced the loss in strength by using strength mods, and kept maximum efficiency by meeting the 75% energy cap. Using these mods, Excalibur players beat just about every other warframe in the race to kill infested. Excalibur usually scored at least over 50% of total damage done, usually over 85% of damage done even in a squad with one or more Saryn players.

 

However, we all know the only ability weaker than Radial Javelin is Overload. The only reason RJ was able to be so strong in the first place was because the game is not balanced around our mods. This is the equivalent of chairs not being suited to have people sit on them, or trying to hammer a nail into a piece of glass. The game is not made to handle our abilities with the tools we are given to play with. It's an extremely fundamental problem that is simple to understand, but understandably hard to remedy once it is in motion.

No, the only reason that excalibur ult is so strong because of DE oversight. Originally, RJ was balanced with the number of target and travel time of the javelin. DE removed these two restriction yet still keep the range as 25m. The only other nuke power with 25m range is Stomp. Stomp cannot be cast rapidly and the damage is cut halve for target further away

[VentiGlondi]

The problem lies within power efficiency, not the ability itself. Every nuke is affected.

On top of that Miasma is some weird anomaly that's affected positively by minus duration.

Nuke ults need some different kind of limit on how often they can be used or need to be changed completely.

They could even deal more damage per nuke if there was a proper limit.

 

The only thing they care for is themselves.

Stop being a hypocrite.

Edited January 31, 2015 by VentiGlondi

[Awazx]

OP must be a troll.  If anything Saryn needs buffing.  She is a good frame but still falls behind. 

[(XBOX)Wolf Rome D A]

I think at a certain point, with games like these, it becomes disrespectful to just take away abilities because people complain. I've never been a fan of developers that overly nerf.

 

I probably put more money in than most, heck, all of my friends for sure. I do not want to put money in a game, get comfortable, and then have the developers just make changes because people who may have thrown no money on this game have a complaint.

 

If they continue to nerf things, then the game loses fun. I put a lot of time on my Saryn, and I even got things for her appearance. To ruin her best move would be a rude thing to do.

 

If people want them to fix anything, make pvp better. The rails oftentimes do not even connect on xb1, so my alliance could not defend our rail. =/ It showed there were 39 squads on Earth, but for most alliance members, we were stuck on a screen being told there are no players.

 

Fix that.

[(PSN)timbob90210]

Just put on overextended and use it for the stun.

 

Threads like these are the reason we can't have nice things.

[XxMAGGOTxX]

why would you want to water down the ability that makes saryn usable? why would you want to downgrade an op move in the first place?

So? They nerfed Frost's one good ability. 

[vaugahn]

The problem lies within power efficiency, not the ability itself. Every nuke is affected.

 

And there's the answer! +1

 

There's nothing wrong with those abilities. They're properly powerful, as a high-cost ultimate move should be.

 

However, when a high cost ultimate move become a low cost spam move, then we start to have problems.

[MechaKnight]

Just put on overextended and use it for the stun.

 

Threads like these are the reason we can't have nice things.

To describe the way Saryn's Miasma works as "a good thing" both says a lot about the game as well as our priorities.

 

The way it calculates duration puts all of her other abilities and augments at risk. However, the common sense player strategy is use the most effective ability, which is generally a radial x-ray ability with no target cap, or an auto-targetting ability that targets a lot of enemies with potent effect.

 

That said, players don't care about Saryn's other abilities because they are not nukes, which is objectively the best way to play the game. A lot of players don't use Venom because it requires duration, aim, and some luck. Players would use it if it dealt 750 base viral damage in a 10 meters, but while that's balanced with her Miasma that isn't balanced for general gameplay considering the non-infinite level cap we call "end game". Any optimized radial nuke from any warframe will trivialize those level 40 enemies on Pluto and Ceres.

 

The reason why Saryn even looks good with Miasma is because it gains a lot of its effect from a broken calculation that is ruining the rest of her kit. It would be sensible to simply lock its damage and use duration to scale a crowd control effect instead. Alternatively, make each tick add damage, perhaps interacting with Venom on the same enemy.

 

 

And there's the answer! +1

 

There's nothing wrong with those abilities. They're properly powerful, as a high-cost ultimate move should be.

 

However, when a high cost ultimate move become a low cost spam move, then we start to have problems.

The fact that we can spam all of our abilities equally with the same efficiency is the problem. Radial nukes hit all targets in a 2*pi*r^3 sphere. No other ability in Saryn's set does that. Players would prefer more warframes worked like Mag, who has 3 infinitely targeting wide-range damage abilities. However Mag is an extreme.

 

Cooldowns did not work in closed beta because cooldowns are generally featured in more limited games where you can't escape or hide from your enemy--you are locked in combat to the death with completely inescapable enemies, something open-world MMOs tend to do. Shooters are a more free medium where you are always "combat ready" and can escape or hide from enemies. That said, the limiting system needs to rely on freedom and some RNG.

 

Energy orbs were an okay idea, but have some problems as of currently. Most importantly, efficiency mods were a bad idea. The fact that we can choose to spam our abilities more often off a pool of energy is a false choice--we would always do it. The fact that we are efficient enough past corrupted mods to raise efficiency to 90% (75% capped) means we can spam our most expensive ability off the cost of one energy orb.

 

That leads into the next problem: energy orbs are too common. Think about weapons. For most weapons, ammo is balanced, but there are outliers. Let's consider Boltor or Karak. These weapons spit out shots at a rate where ammunition drops can keep up, but don't allow us to be extravagantly wasteful. That said, don't spray and pray if enemies are balanced to your level. Then there are hyper expensive weapons like Amprex and Kohm, which consume ammo at a rate where upkeep is difficult but the effect of the weapon is potent. The idea is that you will not use such a potent weapon all the time, so you fall back on other options. You can make them more tolerable at the cost of a weapon or aura slot, which seems like a balanced trade. Then there's weapons like the Latron series, which never really run out.

 

Our abilities universally scale with the same efficiency, which is the problem. They expend energy like Latrons spend ammo--they are extremely cheap. However, would you use a gun that was 50 times better if it only cost 4 times as much ammo to use? Of course you would. Hence ability spam: you wouldn't use ability #1 at all considering you'd only need four times that cost to use ability #4, which is an infinitely targeting radial. Having the power of the Kohm at comparable cost of a Latron's ammo is extremely unfair. That said, having our nukes at the cost a tiny bit more than our weakest abilities is very unfair.

 

In short, Saryn's problem is that she can trash her kit to optimize her best ability. It's simple--the other abilities were never worth using anyway in comparison. It would be the right decision to just remove the broken damage calculation in exchange for some fair and helpful support, but of course players fear for her performance compared to the overall game--nuke spam is the only way to play this game well, and that calculation makes her nuke good.

 

The solution? Energy 2.0. It should be more rewarding to use our other abilities, and we shouldn't have such easy access to something which makes all of our other abilities and weapons useless. Or else we would be optimizing for just that one thing, hence the game's meta as of now.

[akira_him]

We need a duration build for Saryn as a whole for utility, including Miasma

and then nuke Miasma can stay (least duration build)

Venom and contagion just doesn't worth building duration towards them and Miasma stun doesn't even scales with +ve duration mods

Molt is fine in both builds, acting as either a bomber man's bomb or a decoy trap

[ThePresident777]

The purpose of the game is to win.  Killing the win button isn't going to make anyone press the lose button.  It'll make people press the sell button instead.

[Inarticulate]

Radial nukes hit all targets in a 2*pi*r^3 sphere.

 

This has been bugging me for a while. That's a cylinder with radius r and height 2r. Or one and a half spheres with radius r.

[(XBOX)Wolf Rome D A]

Some characters are going to be more OP then others.

 

If you want a game where all the characters are so balanced, play something boring like Destiny. How about Halo, where there are no skills except what you equip.

 

I like games where there are OP weapons or items to try and acquire. This stuff: "Let's nerf everything until all frames are equal" sounds dangerously like communism to me.

 

This game supports a free market, which I love. So if you're a commie, go somewhere else comrade. o_o

[Duyet]

"Miasma- Through noxious exhalation, Saryn pollutes the atmosphere with a lethally poisonous mist that corrodes all enemies in range, effectively disintegrating organic and synthetic matter instantly."

 

For starters, put LoS into this ability. Instead of 'noxious exhalation', she shoots poisonous acid through her pores or whatever( think cobra.) So if something is behind something, it doesn't get affected. (Ex. A Grineer behind another Grineer doesn't get affected, or a Grineer taking cover isn't affected.) Not only does this goes with her snake theme with the molt and all, it makes this ability less P42W.

[Gilmaesh]

If you give me any valid reason to why you want Saryn Nerf and any valid reason to how it harms you i will give you an upvote, otherwise you are just trying to ruin Saryn user's fun.

she can kill all the ennemies in extermination/invasion, other player can't keep up with her.

1 player is having fun while the other 3 just have to endure it until the end of the map.

should be the same in other mission type unless endgame content kicks in.

 

then again, the problem is always endgame content vs all other content.

 

By the way, what's the fuss about nerfing? Is it that life changing? Sometimes this word seems like we are talking about the end of the world here.

[taiiat]

just fix negative Duration adding total Damage for no reason whatsoever instead of just making the Damage more frontloaded.

that fixes that problem.

though it doesn't fix how bland and generally not useful Miasma is, because it does basically nothing but Damage. the short stun is not... significant.

but that's a different story i guess.

maybe one day my Saryn can be one of the cool kids and have 4 Abilities too. since she has 2.5 Abilities. Miasma is half an Ability and Contagion.... no comment.

[Zaniux]

A damage ability OP? lol...