Jump to content
The Lotus Eaters: Share Bug Reports and Feedback Here! ×
  • 1

All About The (Synoid) Simulor


DiosGX
 Share

Question

Before I get into this, let me preface this by saying I still don't think this is a good weapon. However, it's certainly pretty strong, but high numbers do not attribute toward being functionally effective in actual combat scenarios.

 

I decided to post this due to an encounter I had with a Draco-tard that was oblivious to game mechanics, and his statement that the "Simulor does more dmg by detonating and the vortex is completely useless other than to pick up items." Well, that's simply untrue, and him being Mastery Rank 19 is going to cause newer players to take his ignorant misinformation to heart.

 

People should decide on their weapon loadouts based on facts, and so, here's the skinny on the Simulor, and an argument on how the Synoid variant is capable of seeing some degree of use in certain situations. Again, though, it's these limiting factors of the gun that make me consider it factually not very good. But in these specific circumstances, it's a pretty massive and destructive force.

 

There will be no math present in this discourse other than rout algebra to some extent. Just an explanation of what this weapon actually does. I will be exploring this in more of an essay format than a technical document. If that's all you really want then check out the wiki

 

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Synoid_Simulor

 

Let's get down to brass tacks;

 

The Simulor's design was intended to be a crowd controlling-focused explosive-typed weapon with a gimmick ability; allowing its projectiles to fuse together and become stronger. Unfortunately, its original iteration fell short in the majority of the community's eyes for more than one reason. Now that the Synoid Simulor has been released, I decided to pick one up and take it for a spin and see how it stacks up (that's a pun) to the original.

 

Its basic functionally is derived from being a perfect-accuracy gun whose shots have a limited travel distance, modifiable by both Zephyr's Jet Stream augment and the Terminal Velocity mods. While the latter is going to result in less total damage and make the shots a bit more unwieldly to control, it does stand to warrant a mention for those who are only interested in using it for lower-level play and want to just use it as a mere toy. This becomes a factor due to the Synoid's incredibly limited range before its shots simply stop moving, at which point, its gimmick comes into play.

 

When two orbs fired by the Simulor come within a fixed proximity, they begin to gravitate toward one another. Upon fusing together, a damage AoE is created that ignores terrain and walls via unlimited punch through within its radius. The orbs themselves cannot pass through walls without a Punch Through mod added, however, the explosions created by them are capable of that as most explosive weapons are. Once a total of 5 orbs have been conjoined with the standard issue, or a total of 4 with the Synoid variant, the orbs will shift into a gravitational vortex that pulls in loot and corpses, has a higher chance of inflicting status, completely blocks all enemy fire that passes through it making it remarkably useful in hallways and tunnels, and will continually deal damage to anything that touches it.

 

It's at this point that most players have become confused about how to utilize this weapon for its highest damage potential. This gun possesses an Alternate Fire that allows you to detonate its projectiles at any time, as long as 8 seconds have not passed from firing at which point they will automatically detonate dealing 100% Shock proc regardless of elemental mods attached to it. Some users feel the gun's true damage begins to shine when firing and detonating incessantly, which is really only good for utilizing its crowd control function. In general practice, it would seem the user is intended to stack up orbs, create a vortex, and detonate it when enough enemies have come into range.

 

However, that is exactly what you do if you want to be terrible and not good at all like seriously you know who you are and I'm calling you out you son of a b...

 

...

 

In truth, the user is intended to use their vortex as a bit of an anchor point to start using the gun to live up to its real potential of dealing damage. As mentioned before, these orbs create a single AoE pulse of damage upon conjoining. However, when an orb joins a fully-formed vortex, the damage pulse is escalated substantially.

 

Now that's all well and good, but the problem stems from its actual use in standard missions. If your gun can only effectively damage an enemy 20 meters in front of you, why not just melee it? If enemies are too high level where melee is a bad idea, then certainly getting within 20 meters of them is potentially an even worse idea. Therefore, how can anyone use this gun to any real effectiveness in a mission that isn't endless defense in which enemies rush into it on purpose?

 

Well, all in all, that's the major downfall I mentioned earlier. This gun, and its Synoid variant, really only see a practical functionality in defenses and certain party set ups in Survivals. It's a shame, but in the end, it's a majorly limiting factor of how damage gets applied that determines if a gun is actually good or not—not simply the size of the damage number it can create. The "hows" and "whens" are equally as important to determining true DPS, especially for such an awkward gun.

 

Now, to begin closing this out, the main reason I'm even making this post is due to the apparent awesomeness of the Synoid Simulor variant. I liked the original, even if I knew it wasn't that great, and was stoked to have a reason to use this silly toy again. However, what I soon found out was that its enhancements are much larger in scope than the mere damage, fire rate, and estimated DPS this gun would create. The reason for that is it becomes very difficult to calculate DPS with AoE damage as a factor. In essence, the best way to do so was to just go use it and see how it felt.

 

My first foray was to go solo a T2D to wave 20 as Mesa. I would just take it out now and again to test its damage against enemies that would scale up in level enough to give it a legitimate measure. What amazed me was that completely unranked and with zero mods, it was able to kill T2D enemies. Of course, that's not really anything amazing in and of itself, but I was expecting to have to empty an entire clip to deal half of one enemy's health, as I've experienced with some out-of-the-box weapons in the past.

 

Confused about what was going on and playing while incredibly inebriated, I took it into Seiminei, Ceres, which is my usual credit farming roost. The only mod I had placed on it was a Thermal Rounds fire/status. Absolutely nothing else. When this thing started averaging 2700 damage per pulse from every orb fired into the vortex, I felt like something else was going on under the hood that I couldn't quite pinpoint, and still kind of can't. By all means this thing's damage should be lower than the non-Synoid variant, and yet it was virtually one-shotting level 35 enemies.

 

That's when I noticed the two major factors that separate this gun so substantially from the standard version; the blast radius per pulse has doubled in size. It feels to be a rough 15 or 18 meters in size now, which is an excellent upgrade that is not listed in its in-game statistics in any way. Which is a shame, as mentioned previously, AoE is difficult enough to calculate directly on its own. When you're doubling the effective range of a limited range gun, it becomes even more difficult to determine how much damage it's actually putting out with math alone.

 

In closing, I'd like to say that yet again, this thing really can't entirely be classified as "a good gun," due to its inherit limitations. However, it does stand to reason that if you want a bizarre and interesting way to approach otherwise lethargy-inducing defenses, maybe see what this gun can do. I'm actually quite pleased with it myself, and it's a nice change of pace from other weapons I normally use.

 

TL;DR: use a damn gun before you judge how good it is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 answers to this question

Recommended Posts

  • 0

Well this info may be elsewhere now but since this topic was intended to give a rough overview of a rather fun gun if you want to avoid burnout of the grind... something else has come to my attention in that

 

The Synoid Simulor only deals headshot damage

 

I could not figure out for the life of me why it was doing way more damage than it should. Well, good ol' Vyrn laid it out straight: plug in headshot damage modifiers and all of a sudden it adds up perfectly. Whether this is a glitch or not, I dunno. However, this gun only deals headshot damage. No matter how it hits something or where it hits, it calculates as landing headshots 100% of the time.

 

I take back my previous comments to some extent. This gun F****** rules.

Edited by DiosGX
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

lol i think a lot of the players were sad when they saw it, based on how the normal version performed. but this new one, has replaced my tonkor (when the few times i use it) and id say can be more useful than it because of how the AOE is spread. the simulor seems like it can hit targets further out, without needing to hit a target to activate. this means you can focus on multiple groups of enemies if you throw the vortex in the middle of the 2 groups. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

Well this info may be elsewhere now but since this topic was intended to give a rough overview of a rather fun gun if you want to avoid burnout of the grind... something else has come to my attention in that

 

The Synoid Simulor only deals headshot damage

 

I could not figure out for the life of me why it was doing way more damage than it should. Well, good ol' Vyrn laid it out straight: plug in headshot damage modifiers and all of a sudden it adds up perfectly. Whether this is a glitch or not, I dunno. However, this gun only deals headshot damage. No matter how it hits something or where it hits, it calculates as landing headshots 100% of the time.

 

I take back my previous comments to some extent. This gun F****** rules.

 

Didn't DE try to fix AoE explosions dealing headshot damage, like from the Tonkor/Penta/Glaive and all that? It sounds like the headshot thing might be a glitch, sadly.

 

But yeah, regardless of that, your thread has successfully inspired me to log in and start farming some rep.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

There's a common misconception going around. The AoE nerf was only for Frame ability AoEs, not for guns.

That is probably the intent.

 

It may, however, be thoroughly bugged.

 

Honestly, I wish they'd use the same hit detection for frame AoE as they do for weapons, making you have to aim high with a Fireball, for instance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

There's a common misconception going around. The AoE nerf was only for Frame ability AoEs, not for guns.

 

Was it actually? I thought the patch notes mentioned explosive weapons as well, although it may just be my memory tricking me.

 

But yeah, whether or not it was for weapons, headshots still work. Noticed that while oneshotting Ceres enemies with an unranked Tonkor.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

But yeah, regardless of that, your thread has successfully inspired me to log in and start farming some rep.

 

A bit off-topic, but seven hours later, I've got a lovely single-forma'd Synoid Simulor and I think I might actually have a new favourite weapon. I mean, holy crap, this weapon is so good it's almost horrifying.

 

What I absolutely love about this weapon is that it does damage over a massive area and you don't have to aim at all-- the gravity system does all the work for you. Just find a cluster of enemies, fire two or three blobs at them, and then dash away towards another cluster of enemies as they all die a horrible bone-crushing-related death.

 

The massive AoE, the fact that you don't have to aim, and the incredible ammo economy make this an absolute beast for defensive gameplay (and by this I mean both defending objectives and keeping yourself alive). Soloing a high-leveled Defense mission? No problem; just turn your brain off entirely, and then run around like an idiot and tap M1 a couple times in the general direction of every cluster you see.

You almost don't need to use Warframe abilities in order to carry a high-leveled Survival, although that would be a waste since the weapon gives you a seemingly endless supply of energy anyways.

Edited by SortaRandom
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

Here's the precise wording in the patch notes:

 

Fixed AoE damage counting towards earning a ‘headshot’.

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/521781-update-1730

 

I just tested the Secura Penta and headshots/headshot crits still work with AoE damage.

 

The text makes it seem like they removed it from the headshot statistics, which might explain why AoE headshots are still a thing. Either that, or they completely messed up the bugfix.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

To use it, make the balls touch, over and over.       

 

 

I do! For whatever reason, the wierdness of this weapon intrigued me and I put a few forma on the original Simulor, dang, it hits hard, in very specific places and ways. Such a huge niche weapon, but, BUT, it sounds as if the syndicate version will compete well against the Torrid? Maybe?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...