Feedback Megathread: Saryn Revisited.

[Hixlysss]

My only gripe with saryn at this point is that she doesn't do well when playing with others...It's happened before the rework and now after the rework. I put spore on an enemy and before I can even pop em to effect enemies around, someone up and kills that target and the spores don't spread. Maybe this a bug, but it's annoying as all frick.

 

Like, she is great when I can actually get her to work. Spore enemy, toxic lash and hit them, everyone around is affected by toxin and viral, UNLEASH MIASMA! Everything melts. It's why I still think Toxic Lash should affect all weapons, both yours and your team mates. This way you can do Spore, Toxic Lash, You and team mates shoot enemies and it just spreads among them like wild fire~ Then you Miasma and everything melts.

 

TL;DR, Team mates killing enemies before spore can spread is annoying, fix by making toxic lash a team buff to tall weapons.

[SnowBunnii]

After the rework, I still feel like she's lacking something or could be way better.

 

Some ideas:

 

-Make molt work like frost's globe where it has invincibility at the start

-Let miasma allow for finishers and stun for longer if enemy is afflicted with toxin or viral

-Let toxic lash bypass having to do finisher animations while still having the attack count as a finisher

-Add hp regen to molt

-Change regenerative molt to something that strips the enemy of their armor. Could be for any of her abilities. Maybe rename it to degenerative molt and have the explosion remove armor

-Make spores spread when killing an infected enemy

-Reduce energy costs

 

She just needs some kind of cc and better scaling imo

Edited November 5, 2015 by SnowBunnii

[akira_him]

Fine, let's not focus on miasma.

 

Spores: viral procs are damage multipliers. That's what they are. They cut enemy hitpoints in half, which is essentially a +100% damage bonus. Saryn, meet Banshee.

 

Molt: molt is a neat survivability trick, but it does nothing to really contribute to the team's success. I'm not saying survivability is bad, but if you don't have a solid way to contribute to the team (beyond carrying a gun), then who cares about your personal survivability? Also, Trinity and Mesa are already super tanks, and Trinity's kit has tons more overall utility than Saryn's.

 

Toxic Lash: It's a melee buff that makes her kill things faster and helps set up miasma. That's seriously all it does. But it's still a melee buff, and that's... pretty damning, given guns and abilities are almost always better.

 

Alright, so we aren't talking about miasma. We're talking about these three abilities. What about these three abilities stands out to you? What could we use them for that makes Saryn worth bringing along instead of another frame?

Molecular prime master race

 

 

I have a few comments, I don't want to start a rage war so keep in mind that in no way am i saying you're wrong i'm just giving you my observations

 

1: The procs help set up miasma, and while banshee does something very similar to this you can't compare the two based on one power given that the rest of their abilities are nothing alike, they both bring two separate skillsets to the table.

 

Let's NOT focus on MIASMA

[Drinniol]

No it's not.  It cuts enemy HP in half.

 

Late-game that's huge, especially against level 80+ enemies who probably have buckets of HP.

I don't think you understand his point.  Cutting enemy HP in half is exactly the same as having 100% more damage.  Doing double damage kills things in half the time, just like if they had half as much HP.

 

If you actually want to get real multiplicative damage synergies going, there are considerably better options than 100%.  And, keep in mind, even if you did decide you wanted viral procs too - Saryn isn't your only source.  Any AoE proc weapon like a torid or an Ignis is going to do the same thing.And that's the thing about viral procs - they don't stack.  You only need 1.  Heck, Red Veil weapon procs do viral in a huge radius.   A mirage with a viral weapon AoE status weapon also virals everything - you get no benefit having a Saryn.  But Mirage can ALSO easily bring a 500% damage buff for her entire team.  Which would interact multiplicatively with the 100% bonus from viralling everything.  And then add in Nova Mprime for another 100%, multiplicative, while also slowing everything down and giving death explosions, (also multiplied).

 

Multipliers in warframe are CRAZY.  But that's exactly why Saryn's viral proc spam is nothing to get excited about.  It's nice, but certainly nothing that can carry an otherwise weak kit PARTICULARLY as it is not even an ability unique to Saryn. 

[KendraHotz]

I honestly feel this was a completely missed opportunity by DE.

 

Saryn definitely needed a rework, as she had several issues. Most of her skills were rarely if never used, and her Miasma was too powerful once you dove into negative duration. (Personally, i see that as smart play, and that in itself shouldn't need to be punished, though obviously the end result shouldn't be this powerful)

 

However, instead of taking this opportunity to make new and interesting effects, making the other skills properly viable each on their own (just like frost. all his skills are actually worth using for each their own situation), they instead decided to stick to their old effects (yeah sure, there are spores now, but the general idea of targeting 1 enemy with a damage proc that can spread remains), and then force people to use those "worthless" skills to have any real damage on Miasma.

Sure, we'll actually use the other skills now, but only because we're forced to, not because the skills themselves are really interesting to use. On the whole, the new kit seems just as uninteresting as the previous one, with the added cumbersome trait of having to do forced skill rotations.

 

In itself, i don't think combo-skills are actually a bad idea. In fact, i very much like the ideology behind it, but it stops working when the skills aren't really viable on their own.

Instead they are more or less -required-, and are pretty much just used for the sole purpose of making Miasma deal a decent amount of damage. They might as well just have made miasma that much stronger, cost that much more energy and have that much longer cast time.

I heard several people claim that this made saryn "require more brainwork", but in fact, it simply changed from "press 4 to win", into "press 1-2-4 to... compete". That's not more intelligent play, it's just conveyer-belt spamming.

More "intelligent" play requires options, and your only real "option" here, is whether you want to pre-buff miasma with 1, 2 or 3 skills.

 

On top of that, the only skill i actually liked using beforehand (molt) have actually gotten worse from this rework, as it is popped early by using Miasma, completely defeating the purpose of staying safe while the poison finishes off the enemies. It actually became 100% a Miasma support skill, instead of before where you COULD actually use it in a bad situation, to narrowly escape death.

 

Concluding on that, i actually feel that this rework, which was intended to REMOVE focus from Miasma , actually ended up forcing your focus even more on Miasma. Everything in her kit is pretty much just about firing off that one "powerful" miasma. Which will probably kill like 2 enemies, because ember killed the rest while you were messing around.

 

<end of critizism, start of suggestions, which might be disregarded, but i don't feel i can simply say it's bad, without offering ideas of my own as to how it could be done better>

 

As a complete rollback is probably not in the cards (game companies can't lose face in front of their players and such), i'd rather see another rework, exploring more options into actual reworks of what saryns skills could do. Personally i think these ideas could make for some more interesting gameplay with a reworked Saryn:

 

Venom:  complete rework. probably needs to be renamed too.  <flavour> Saryn converts some of her blood to poison, to fuel her other abilities </flavour> saryn takes 50% of her max hp in damage. saryn recovers 100 energy/20% max energy. Saryn is slowed by 20% for 5 seconds. Saryns maxhp is lowered by 15% (stackable for multiple casts) for 60 seconds.

 

Molt:  Spawn several copies, with the ability to run around on their own (or even seek out and run towards the nearest target). Works to distract enemies, as well as make it actually possible for enemies to hit them for the poison proc.

Combo-effect: When casting Miasma, you'll actually cast a Miasma for EACH molt clone you have active (plus yourself), centered on each of them, but the power divided between the casts.

 

Contagion:  complete rework. even tanky, her kit isn't built for heavy melee. instead: Target enemy is disarmed (or some other effect causing it to want to melee, but without stealing loki's thunder) and get radiation proc. This spreads if the target successfully melee attacks another enemy.

 

Miasma:  buff base damage significantly, but reduce range somewhat, so it's not a room-clear, but she'll actually do enough damage to compete with other damage-focused frames.

Combo-effect: gain +10% damage per active Molt clone. (enough that it's worth using Molt to spread it out there, but not so much that you can't feel the damagedrop from spreading your damage across several smaller miasmas).

Combo-effect: recover 5 energy for each enemy hit by miasma, affected by contagion

This.

[DSMatticus]

Maybe it's just me, but saryn seems to be a LOT more squishy than before.  Very noticably so.

Technically, her EHP has been reduced (the armor increase doesn't make up for the health decrease). But there are two more important reasons she seems squishier:

 

1) Because Saryn needs everything now, It's much harder to fit regen molt+rage into the build, which removes Saryn's sustain trick, which means her underlying fragility becomes far more obvious.

 

2) Because Saryn benefits heavily from opening with abilities OTHER than miasma, she no longer starts her fights by killing/stunning everything around her, exposing her to far more enemy fire than before, which means her underlying fragility becomes far more obvious.

 

Saryn was never actually a super-tank - she was just tanky enough to do her job under enemy fire, which was good, because given the range on miasma she was basically required to be under enemy fire. Now she is less tanky and her job takes longer, meaning she "feels" substantially squishier.

[DrBorris]

I think I was quite effectively nuking level 50 Grineer on Ceres earlier while COMBINING HER ABILTIES. And this was with a non-glaive bombing Gaive as my ony equiped weapon and without intensify. I think you all are crazy.

[Gurpgork]

I feel like a change that could stand to happen is making Miasma's multiplier for Viral/Toxin procs scale with Power Strength. That could go a long way toward making up for its current lack of power.

Then you could bring an Ignis or something modded for status and Gas damage and spread Toxin everywhere, maybe throw out a Spore or two. Build 60~80% duration and mostly Strength, whip that flamethrower around a bit, press 4, and watch everything go kershplitters.

Not pretending for a second that this one change would solve everything, though.

[Nighteyes5]

With the increased focus on skill combo's for Saryn, the casting speed base seems painfully slow. Other then that the frame feels a lot more casual and laid back then before. Nothing is instant damage, so it's a lot of cast and wait for things to keel over.

 

I do have to agree with some others though, Power strength needs to scale things that should logicly scale with strength. Same as how range should scale range, and duration should scale a duration. The tooltip for Spore lists a number of spores, and a number that spread, yet neither seem to scale with anything.

Edited November 5, 2015 by Nighteyes5

[DSMatticus]

No it's not.  It cuts enemy HP in half.

 

Late-game that's huge, especially against level 80+ enemies who probably have buckets of HP.

Have you ever even looked at the numbers on Banshee? Do you realize that molecular prime is exactly as much of a damage multiplier plus built-in slow? Do you realize that both of these abilities are huge AoE's that apply with no extra work required?

There is zero reason to grab Saryn because of her damage multiplier. Frankly, it's one of the worst damage multipliers in the game. I honestly might even take Rhino's roar over Saryn's spores.

[VoidNomade]

You can't block behind you.

 

Only noobs have no battle awareness.

[CelticMoss]

Only noobs have no battle awareness.

You can't always know when a gunner is coming they are the best assassins

[Sebastianx]

So are we... supposed to just stick to Gas Ignis now to be able to do stuff with Saryn? I mean... to combo, even with all those cons, all our skills when other frames just press a button to do the same faster and more efficiently? Mhhh.....

Less and less frames start doing that, it all started back with Nova, then Excal, now Saryn,and eventually no frames will be able to do it, it's the play style DE and most of us are sick off, the one trick ponies that nuke the map with little to no effort. They'll eventually tune out all the one trick ponies, removing power from the 1 trick skill and shifting it into the frame's other skills, which is a good thing.

 

Nova used to only be used to nuke the map, same for Excal and Saryn...well not anymore, Mag used to be used to pull loot, not anymore (she'll receive her changes soon-ish too), Trinity was used only to spam 4 and keep everyone invincible after corrupted mods were added, Frost was used only for his perma-invincible Snow Globe and so on...all of them changed, for the better once all the frames receive the same treatment.

[DSMatticus]

I have a few comments, I don't want to start a rage war so keep in mind that in no way am i saying you're wrong i'm just giving you my observations

 

1: The procs help set up miasma, and while banshee does something very similar to this you can't compare the two based on one power given that the rest of their abilities are nothing alike, they both bring two separate skillsets to the table.

 

2: you're right it is good survivability, especially with the augment. It does contribute to the team, if you put spores on it and then detonate it it spreads those spores to everything within its range which, as you said, is a debuff to the enemies. Which helps the team. Again, please stop comparing frames that have nothing to do with Saryn, Trinity is a healer, of course her kit is going to have more utility, it heals us and gives us infinite energy. Mesa doesn't even have any similar powers to Saryn, so i'm not sure why this comparison is even there.

 

3: This one makes 1 much more useful, guaranteeing the spore to explode and spread further, also, damage buff yay

But now we're talking about miasma again. I thought we weren't going to do that? But if we are going to talk about miasma again, I want to point out that WoF + the occasional accelerant is better damage per second for less energy with better crowd control as a bonus.

 

Look, you can't have it both ways. If we're supposed to talk about how the rest of Saryn's kit stands up on its own, we have to talk about how incredibly lackluster that kit actually is. If we're supposed to talk about how the rest of Saryn's kit synergizes with 4, we have to talk about how lackluster, how expensive, and how time-consuming that synergy is relative to other frames who can get better results in less time for less energy. It's bad either way.

[Kappa64]

Uh no i can't be the tank frame i like to be like she used to be ash is more fitting as the tank now 

she's slow

has no stun on her ult to get away in bad spot 

her spores seem still poor 

and her 2 will still be useless.

1. Ash and Saryn are completely different frames.

2. She's always been slow.

3. If you'd actually played her before complaining, you would know that it still stuns enemies, even if there is no wombo-combo from toxin/viral.

4. You still haven't even tried it.

5. You complain about her not being able to get away in a bad spot, but you think Molt is useless?

 

Are you sure you've been playing Saryn?

[Silverton]

Okay so I just did some testing on level 60 enemies in the simulcar. Now before this change Miasma ticked for 8k damage on a full damage build or 5500 damage minus Blind rage. After this patch full damage build is between 800-1100 damage and minus blind rage is around 600 damage. Now I know that you have to add the other abilities into fray now to get more damage so I did some of them tests also. Now with the 1/2 combo into her ultimate it went upto 3600 damage for her ulti with constant dot ticks of around 12 full damage build. Minus blind rage it went down to around 2400 and ticks of around 17. Now the cream of the crop is 1/2/3 combo into miasma on the full damage build with only like 3 seconds on the timer it goes upto 4300 damage. Minus blind rage it drops down to around 3600.

 

So let me put it in a none paragraph form.

284% damage just ulti 8k became 800-1100

minus blind rage 5500 to 600

 

1/2 combo full damage 3600 ulti with ticks of around 12.

minus blind rage 2400 with ticks of around 17

 

1/2/3 combo full damage 4300 ticks at around 24

1/2/3 combo minus blind rage 3600 ticks also at around 24

 

None of this is counting the energy cost needed to get to about 1 half the damage needed to reach it. Now going with more duration makes her 2/3 more useful now, but with how enemy AI behaves the enemies never really get close enough to receive the toxic debuff. They kind of just see molt standing in the middle of the room and keep 20m away from it. Even going so far as to parkour around it. Her 3 though for some reason nerfs my Galatine. Without her 3 I hit for between 3-5k and with her 3 depending on the build I hit for between 1k-1.5k.

 

I know that the press 4 to win aspect of old saryn was considered not fun for people, but this new form is a lot of micromanaging. That is the exact reason I don't play Chroma is I don't like having to balance my ability timers. With this rework though I don't see how in the devstreams this was being called stronger than her old form. Also, the health nerf was a bit silly. 

 

Now onto what I think needs to change.

Give her back that 10% hp. Adjust the cost values for all her abilities so we can use them without hitting zero energy for one combo (I'd hate to do this without a max Primed Flow). Adjust the damage numbers some get her closer to prepatch Saryn. Make her 3 affects other weapons and give some extra health to her Molt. Trying to set all this up in the 2-3 seconds that Molt's life lasts for (not timer) is kind of a pain. 

 

Final thing though if you are trying to eliminate ability spamming like I have heard you guys say why did you make saryn super spammy.

[fatpig84]

No rage, just helpful feedback

 

1) Make her tanky

Bring her base health back to 450 at R30.

The extra 25 armor doesn't warrant the loss of nearly 200 Hp with maxed vitality.

The EHP gain for her is actually lower so it is not a good trade off at all.

 

925 x 1.36 = 1258 (New EHP value with maxed vitality)

1110 x 1.33 = 1476 (Old EHP value with maxed vitality)

 

 

2) Spore's cost.

Spores should be made cheaper or turn into a toggle since she needs to spam this often. VERY often.

All her abilities synergize with Spore, so cost reduction is a must.

 

I know people get around it by using Rage or Flow, but again it needs to be cheaper, because of it's role now.

A small 3 second stun on infecting the target is nice as well as Saryn still lacks crowd Control.

 

Energy cast per cast should be 8 to 12 energy.

If it is a toggle, cast cost should be 5 energy and drain 2 energy a second.

 

 

3) Molt is still fragile

Molt only has 500 hp at maxed rank which is still kinda low.

Give it a small invulnerability for 4 seconds and aggro during invulnerability.

This should let it do it's job decently.

Basically a decoy while saryn takes cover or lays a trap.

 

 

4) Toxic Lash is not working with thrown melee.

 

Is this intended ?

If yes I would appreciate an official statement, if not, please fix this.

There is no reason why one class of weapons cannot work with Toxic Lash when the Redeemer works fine.

 

5) Increase Miasma base range

Bring it up to 20m to 25m. It is no longer a super nuke on it's own, so DE can safely increase the range. 

And also allow Saryn some CC with it's stun AOE.

 

This also helps it work better with spore.

 

 

Overall I am quite happy with the changes, but Saryn being extremely reliant on Spore means the cost of it must come down. So hopefully DE can consider this minor adjustments.

Edited November 5, 2015 by fatpig84

[Unjustifed]

Change made me decide I should actually brave the forums and post.  Saryn has been my most used frame for a long time, basically because I liked a nuker with a bit of toughness, self-heals and in a pinch even some cc from the stagger, particularly in my earlier ranks.

 

I think this redesign represents a general design philosophy that AoE nukers either shouldn't exist or should be 'hard' to pull off/conditional - not suggesting this is right or wrong.  Equinox is an example of a design for an 'alternative' style nuker that kind of works, but, in general, I think  that warframes shouldn't be designed around AoE nukes - people will hate on them compared to more straightforward cc/utility/tank frames, unless they are really great at it, in which case they will be nerfed because everyone wants to share in killing things. 

 

Lots of people have raised lots of good reasons around efficiency, mod space, difficulty of execution around why this new build is a bit disappointing, but ultimately, I think the reason for this is stated above: I don't think the game wants to have good nukers in it, so a frame designed to be a nuker is really likely to not be good at it.

 

But that's not the only reason I don't like this design direction.  So, why else do I find this redesign underwhelming?

 

One of the key issues that I see is that the changes to lash and miasma are contradictory: a DoT-based damage system implies that you can buy time for the damage to play out , say through distance/kiting to wear enemies away.  A melee build makes you very exposed to enemy fire, so needs to be coupled with near invulnerability, application of great CC so they can't hit you, or the ability to kill near-instantly.  Melee and DoT alone don't compliment one another.  Also, as a general principle, I think DoT should do (significantly?) more damage per energy spent, as otherwise what are you gaining from the trade-off for having to wait for the damage to play out ? Particularly relevant with the current miasma design, where you may have to recast before it has played out due to new enemies arriving in range - think chaos for nyx.

 

So, how would I rebalance her?

 

I think the viral change to her 1st power is great. If miasma were better at clearing trash mobs without synergy and the bonus damage from stacks of viral and toxin provided a nice single target spike, saryn would be better balanced towards late game content.  But, as above, there's a design reason why this kind of build won't get off the ground.

 

So, my advice: forget about Saryn being a straight up nuker and redesign again.  Change miasma to a corrosive projection-like power.  Keep the synergy with viral and toxin, so that enemies with procs have even less armor.  Use viral procs from 1 to spike down hard targets.  Consider changing either or both of the 3rd or 4th powers to channeled abilities to help with energy efficiency and mod space.  Consider changing the 3rd power to provide a lesser buff to ranged weapons, so you don't have to make her a full out tank for melee to not be suicidal and still have good synergy with the 4th power.  Makes her a corrosive/viral/toxic hybrid, with a mix of gunplay, skill and team support - in theory, anyway.

 

TLDR; redisgn her  into a utility/support frame by: 4th power to be a corrosive projection-like ability, let the synergies with procs buff the armor reduction effect and fix her energy issues by making 3rd and 4th powers channeling.  Steer clear of designing AoE nukers if AoE nukes are against your design philosophy (rightly or wrongly).

[Judgebanks]

All of Saryn's abilities seem a bit under-tuned. I was kinda hoping for a bit more. I can't even fit an augment mod on my build.

[LilLemay]

Molecular prime master race

 

 

Let's NOT focus on MIASMA

Focusing and mentioning it are two entirely different things man..

 

 

But now we're talking about miasma again. I thought we weren't going to do that? But if we are going to talk about miasma again, I want to point out that WoF + the occasional accelerant is better damage per second for less energy with better crowd control as a bonus.

 

Look, you can't have it both ways. If we're supposed to talk about how the rest of Saryn's kit stands up on its own, we have to talk about how incredibly lackluster that kit actually is. If we're supposed to talk about how the rest of Saryn's kit synergizes with 4, we have to talk about how lackluster, how expensive, and how time-consuming that synergy is relative to other frames who can get better results in less time for less energy. It's bad either way.

I agree that the kit isn't exactly the greatest damage dealing set of abilities out there, i'm all with you on that i'm only trying to say that this rework did ALOT of good for her. I was hoping she'd get the Excal treatment and get some new abilities

[VoidNomade]

You can't always know when a gunner is coming they are the best assassins

 

I know.

[GallyYum]

my Initial thoughts have changed

 

Here are my suggestions.  here

Edited November 6, 2015 by Turboski

[Synitare]

The entire rework was focused on Miasma. All of her abilities focus on Miasma; not a single one of them is worth using on its own. The entire rework was designed around a specific combo culminating in Miasma. So yeah, we should definitely focus on it.

[CelticMoss]

1. Ash and Saryn are completely different frames.

2. She's always been slow.

3. If you'd actually played her before complaining, you would know that it still stuns enemies, even if there is no wombo-combo from toxin/viral.

4. You still haven't even tried it.

5. You complain about her not being able to get away in a bad spot, but you think Molt is useless?

 

Are you sure you've been playing Saryn?

Ash prime has more effective hp then saryn making him more base tanky then saryn guess what he's a assassin so he does more damage and runs faster.

 

Miasma does not stun anymore

 

Saryn pollutes the environment with a caustic mist. Enemies within 8 / 10 / 12 / 15 meters are dealt 187.5 / 237.5 / 312.5 / 375 corrosive  damage per tick, with one tick occurring instantaneously followed by one tick every second for a duration of 4 seconds for a total of 937.5 / 1187.5 / 1562.5 / 1875 damage.

 

spores still need to shot or meleed to work and in the middle of battle it can be hard hitting one target in a middle of a group.

 

molt isn't useless but the fact now miasma blows it up and the fact miasma can't be used as a stun it's very poor by itself.

[BattledOne]

So I take it noone noticed the bonus to blocking with her 3? 

Going from 85% to 90%, such wow. It still means you have to be in melee mode and block only protects from the front. 

Edited November 5, 2015 by BattledOne