Feedback Megathread: Saryn Revisited.

[ClockworkSpectre]

Please make the Spores pop on target death. It's very annoying when either a) the target dies the moment I cast, wasting my energy, or b) I have spores on a weak target that I could kill just shooting them *regularly*. I'd rather reserve the accuracy needed to pop spores for heavier units that can actually survive a single bullet. 

Also, given that my first playtests were done solo, I dread to think how difficult it is to get Spores going when you're teammates are killing everything around you before you can put them up, aim, and pop them or wait for them to pop.

This is one of the biggest problems with this "rework" (read nerf).  Warframe is a fast paced horde game.  Forcing us to take time to set up status effects on targets just so we can then do decent damage does not fit the game.  And like many others have said here, spores need to pop on enemy death as most enemy that will be hit by it are getting killed very quickly before some one has time to pop the damn things. 

[Exodess]

My complaints:

 

Forenote: Saryn is one of my two dedicated frames. I've taken some of these changes very personally. I rejoiced at the changes to Valkyr a couple months back. This is a shame because I had very high hopes for this adjustment.

 

For starters, I cannot in any good faith endorse the stat changes done on Saryn. I feel they are poorly researched, if at all, and even discounting the stirring up of builds due to power changes the stats are painfully felt across every conventional build standard for the proximity and form of combat that a Saryn is designed for. The ability functions lead an interesting premise, but stumble over each other because what works on paper mechanically does not always mesh in a live environment. The energy intensive nature of Saryn's setup, along with the massive nerf to Miasma, makes this a very hard pill to swallow. 

 

Take my insults with a grain of salt. I've had a very bad day, and this was the icing on the cyanide cake. I'm sure somebody over there worked very hard on this, but some of these changes boggle the mind and it feels like whoever came up with this didn't do enough live testing or play a Saryn enough to make a sound judgment on some of these ideas.

 

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HP and Armor changes - Saryn's Regenerative Molt made her high HP (1,100) combined with other healing methods a viable source of survival until level 80+ (and even then, it took a few lucky shots to drop a Saryn). Going off of that, my Saryn has lost 16% of her maximum HP, a value which the mere pittance of 25 additional armor does not help in the slightest.

 

Old effective HP w/ maxed Vitality: 1650

New effective HP w/ maxed Vitality: 1465.6

 

That's an 11.3% loss of effective HP, and a straight-up nerf. I am very disappointed by this change as it actually makes Saryn weaker unless an additional slot is sacrificed, in which case the additional HP gained from the 16.6% additional armor modifier is still too weak to make a difference due to exponential damage scaling, so by the time it might matter it becomes a moot point. This was a needless change that hurts Saryn build diversity. I can't begin to even comprehend a reasonable justification as to why this even occurred. Please either reverse this change or grant Saryn an additional 50 armor, bringing her default armor value up to 225 and giving her an effective HP value of 1618.75 without Steel Fiber. Oh, and let's not forget that taking less damage actually hurts Rage builds which are used to build energy... you know, the thing Saryn is going to need now that she has to rely on power synergies for everything.

 

Power/Energy value adjustment - This is a painfully weak attempt to make up for Saryn's new reliance on synergy, but it doesn't fix the main problem: Synergy requires more energy to be used. This means Saryn's moveset has become incredibly inefficient. Just having more storage space doesn't fix the fact that Saryn has to get that energy from somewhere first. Reducing power costs or having a weak innate power recovery mechanic would have helped considerably more. 150 base energy doesn't help in the slightest because she still needs a Flow mod to manage the amount of energy required to use all her powers, so that does not free up the slot for anything else like, say, putting in Steel Fiber to fix the aforementioned HP debuff. This is a smokescreen to trick players into forgetting the other negative stat changes, and yet it adds nothing to value to Saryn builds at all.

 

Personal note regarding stats: Seriously, did the person redesigning Saryn's stats ever actually play a Saryn for any amount of time? These are the kinds of changes you would see on an Excalibur or some other scrappy-focused Frame that can get away with popping one or two powers on occasion rather than relying on rapid-firing them much how Saryn's new focus on synergy requires. The stat changes are a pure nerf and interfere with any benefits that having her abilities modified should grant.

 

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Abilities - I'm still trying to wrap my head around all the synergy changes from a numeric viewpoint. One of the problems is you didn't give us hard numbers to work with so you're relying on subjective viewpoints to justify your changes rather than cold, hard data (which will crop up eventually as more research-intensive players start working their magic.) From a mechanics standpoint, I can tell you this doesn't end well no matter how much tweaking you do.

 

Venom/Spore - Nothing new to report. Spore is now simply more reliable and scales slightly better, but its impact is altogether the same thing it was before the changes. This is not a nerf so much as an adjustment to increase its viability in the early levels, where it was nigh-useless. The ability to use it on the move is also moot because you still have to get a target dead on your reticle, and trying to hit that 1 key while aiming and moving goes against every natural motion your fingers were designed for. If you want to make Spore a mobile power, please make it auto-lock to the nearest enemy if you don't have one in your crosshair.

 

Molt - The Molt/Miasma synergy seems to occur naturally, as a player on higher content will rarely run around without Molt active in some capacity. The ability to cast Spore on it is mere flavor and seems to be a trick to get players to burn more energy when other, more efficient options are available. Like Spore, this is an all-round buff to be sure, but it doesn't really change anything mechanically, behaviorally, numerically or contextually; It seems to just be there.

 

Contagion / Toxic Lash - Probably the one single thing about all the Saryn changes I can say I'm very much happy with. The power now has decent reliability, and the ability to buff blocking makes it Saryn's tankier alternative to Valkyr's Warcry, but it's still nowhere near as good since it can't be used to replace mods (for example, on my Valkyr I don't use Fury on a Galatine because of Warcry's buff.) Instead, it actually causes heavy weapons to be much less useful for Saryn and promotes the use of smaller, faster weapons to stack Toxic buffs and block damage (since the block cap is only 90% anyway, a feat achievable with a proper build on even light weapons; their heavier cousins do not have any benefits by contrast.) If anything, this power creates an alternate build route for Saryn, but it favors a particular weapon tree and doesn't buff Saryn enough to compete with frames like Valkyr and Atlas to make it a truly viable option. Its synergy component is also nigh-useless, due to its single-target nature.

 

Miasma - Straight nerf, and a horrible one at that. You can't rapid-fire Miasmas to any discernible damage benefit, which means the power loses a lot of scalability. Furthermore, if you got enemies still alive while new ones come in and you need to use Miasma as a stun, you've still lost damage potential in contrast to the original Miasma. The only way to get any decent mileage out of it now is to waste precious time and energy trying to spore up enemies (and the Toxic Lash mentioned as part of this mechanic is useless in most scenarios here because melee weapons are single-target... nobody uses Miasma on single-target enemies unless they're absolutely desperate.) This is a full nerf even when you discount the awesome power of -duration builds of old, which I actually did not use. The stun duration should have been dramatically increased since the damage component now makes multiple uses a hindrance.

 

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25% duration boost - This doesn't scale, making it next to meaningless. After a certain level, enemies just one-shot or tear into you, and you want them dead as fast as possible - meaning, right now. Saryn has next to no real enfeeblement abilities beyond Miasma's stun, and spamming that power is now useless in the damage department which nerfs its overall benefit even as a stun component to a wider combo of attacks. A fair effort, but it doesn't take actual game-world situations into consideration.

 

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Final result - I am exceedingly disappointed to the point of disgust with these changes. The high points are negligible but do nothing to mitigate the failings. Saryn needed a buff, not a trashy makeover. I would very much appreciate it if the Dev team would put serious consideration into what they're trying to do with Saryn and not leave this half-baked change where it stands.

Edited November 5, 2015 by Exodess

[-Mr.Meeseeks-]

*looks at energy pool from 100 to 150*

 

Oh, I dont know.

Yes, that's all well and good, but due to the fact that in order to get the best damage out of saryn you now need to spend twice the energy as before, that's just compensation for how spammy you have to be with her first 3 abilities now.

[Hammahness808]

I would like to quickly compare Miasma to a lot of other (non-OP) AoE damage abilities because, I feel like the total damage on Miasma has been reduced too much for it's range and ability. It offers no procs, no cc, and has fairly low range for a 100 energy AoE damage ability (that offers nothing but damage)

Miasma - 15m, 1400 total damage over 3 seconds.

Avalanche - 15m, 1500 total damage, and armor reduction on enemies hit by 40%! (and freezes for a short duration).

Radial Javeline (costing 25 energy less) - 25m, potential to hit 12 enemies with 1000 total damage (and stuns enemies that it doesn't kill for a short duration).

Overload - 20m, 900 total damage over 4s but, stuns affected enemies the entire duration.

World on fire (for 100 energy used...) Lasts about 16.6 seconds - 15m, 400 damage per shot and hits maybe 4-5+ enemies PER SECOND, and has a 35% status chance (which will stagger for a short time).

Prism (for 100 energy used...) Lasts about 5 seconds - 30m, 750 minimum total damage to a single target with the potential to hit 20 enemies per second, and blinds all affected enemies upon prism death in a 25m radius.

Tentacle Swarm - 4000 total FINISHER damage over 20 seconds, potential to hit 12 enemies and pulls them out of the fight while killing them.

 

 

EDDDDDDDDIT:

 

I'll just start off by saying I don't care that Miasma doesn't kill most enemies any more with just a push of the button, even though, that's what drew me to her when I was MR8. Overall, I like the new changes and use spore and molt very heavily now and rarely fire off miasma anymore. However, I still think there need to be tweaks and changes to her abilities and would like to offer multiple suggestions.

 

Before continuing, would just like to offer some opinion on Dots in general. Warframe in it's current state is quite quick-paced. Dots, being damage over time don't really follow this pace. Players are generally trying to kill enemies as quick as possible (to finish the mission, farm, or as a form of defense), running through enemies to an objective, or trying to defend themselves from not being killed. Anything longer than past the 5-6 second range for damage, wouldn't really be relied upon, especially if it isn't incredibly high damage or didn't offer some form of defense/crowd control (stuns).

 

That being said...

 

Spore

I feel like is a great ability at the moment but don't think it would make it overpowered to give it a 3.5m or 4m ability radius on the affected target zone. To give it a chance to cover more than one enemy with it upon first cast.

 

 

Molt

It has the ability to remove status effects on self and provide a means to draw enemy fire and attention away from one's self. That being said, with it's amount of health, around level 40+, it dies very quickly and doesn't output a whole lot of damage. It should scale slightly better to higher levels. I have a couple of suggestions

 

-Increase the base range of the explosion (15-18m?) and give it a nice stagger effect to all affected enemies, so that even when it dies quickly at higher levels, it provides some relief from attackers.

-Have health of Molt scale to Saryn's mods like Redirection, Vitality, and Steel Fiber.

-I've seen it so many times suggested now, a 3-4 second invulnerability stage.

 

Toxic Lash

As far as I can tell, the damage, status chance, cost, and elemental combination on the ability is fine. However, forcing players to move to a melee stance (switching to melee weapon) in order to access block and therefore access the damage reduction on this ability, forcing them to get into melee range to deal damage, while giving it only a 40% damage reduction base on block is a bit weak. Many other frame abilities that cost 50 energy provide much better damage reduction. My suggestions below are for increasing the damage reduction in different ways

 

-Add an innate Reflex Guard at 10-15%, so not switching to melee still gives damage reduction.

-Split the damage reduction to 20% to Saryn while ability is active and keep the additional 20% to blocking.

-Innate chance of releasing toxic fumes that stun a nearby enemy for 1-2 seconds, having a 50% chance of releasing on a nearby (10m?) enemy every second.

-Simple way, increase the base damage reduction when blocking to something much higher.

 

 

Miasma

Now, to the ability that I really want to dig into, the 4th and generally "Ultimate!" ability. Usually expensive and meant to change the situation of the fight to the frame's advantage drastically. Miasma having no CC and meant to be a pure damage ability is fairly expensive or weak compared to other frame's similar abilities. The range is generally low and for the lack of defense/crowd control, it does poor damage by itself. Yes, the option to increase the damage through ability combinations makes it strong but, other frames don't have to do the same amount of work to be able to rely on their ability to do consistent and high damage.

 

It's total damage was reduced with the change and with the different status combinations, we can make Miasma do up to +200% of it's original damage before cast. However, straight damage abilities don't scale well and this method takes slightly longer to setup than casting it immediately. Giving the enemy time to receive more damage from allies or for them to damage you more. I think it should be more than just a straight damage ability and compared to other frame's AoE damage abilities, it's not worth the 100 energy cost. Below are some of my suggestions to change this.

 

-To better compare to similar AoE damaging abilities (for near the same cost), increase base range to 20m. It's better for me to reserve the energy I would spend on Miasma and just cast spore on a few opponents and hit them with weapons like Kohm, Amperex, Atomos, Ignis, or Synoid Simulor.

 

-To make it a better "High cost" ability and worth it's high cost, allow it to stagger enemies for each damage tick or debuff enemies by reducing affected enemy movment speed and damage.

 

-Miasma could benefit from being changed into a toggle ability, since it would have the bonus damage from status effects more actively. With that said, it would be awesome to add a corrosive proc chance (20%?) per second for better damage scaling.

Edited November 6, 2015 by TGKazein

[CGs_Knackie]

Unlike to words from the Community, Saryn has not been nerfed, we have to use every single ability in order to have a powerful Miasma.

Currently she's better than before so thank you DE, nicely done!

Edited November 5, 2015 by CGs_Knackie

[Pyus]

Sigh. Another [retracted] spewing doomsday threads. Her EHP was not nerfed, it was buffed. Her energy was very well buffed. her other skills were made viable. Her Miasma is still perfectly good, it just does it's job in a different manner over time that makes it not able to be abused by draco sc- I mean farmers. Her skills now have modding synergy. This was not a nerf. This was a rework. This was a DIRECT BUFF to her 1-3. This was a CHANGE to her 4 that made it more powerful overall- but removed the insta-damage nuke capability that "forced" people to use a stupid build on her so that people "could" have freedom in modding.

What was her EHP before and what is it now?

[Helch0rn]

*looks at energy pool from 100 to 150*

 

Oh, I dont know.

because energy will protect me from damage right? /sarcasm

[BlackCoMerc]

So you are telling me you have not actually tried to synergies her powers? To me it seems that the synergy makes her the highest DPS frame in the game, not sure what you are perceiving.

 

However she now heavily pushes for melee play. The synergy is great but I would have liked her to not be dependent on melee.

 

To you it SEEMS the synergy makes her the highest DPS Frame.

 

To me, I KNOW (from testings) this is NOT the case. For multiple reasons:

 

-Spores do not pop or spread reliably

 

-Making sure multiple enemies are tagged with various status effects BEFORE casting Miasma is a good way to die, or have some more efficient frame come along and kill them first, making Miasma and Saryn obsolete

 

-Depending on Melee to deal DoT when you have access to Atlas, Excalibur, Rhino and Valkyr, is pointless and inefficient by comparison to a degree that defies explanation in words.

 

In THEORY the new Saryn is quite good. On paper I am absolutely certain this looked amazing. But in practice it turned out an underwhelming Nerf.

 

Can I have my Forma back? The one I used on Saryn? I want to put it on something more useful. Like Braton MK1.

[(PSN)mstortz]

Just tried her out on an alert capture in the sealabs. She performed quite well especially considering my melee weapon was only half ranked and not modded for damage. Also took a good amount of hits with my rejuvenation on

 

keep us updated

let us know how she performs on E-Prime

[TopMaverick]

All i gotta say- level 27 grineer leech eximus didn't die from miasma, both duration and no duration builds. Syndicate weapon proc killed it instantly, syndicate procs is what we have left of classic saryn.

Edited November 5, 2015 by TopMaverick

[Omega-Shadowblade]

because energy will protect me from damage right? /sarcasm

 

Some people are capable of some pretty Quick Thinking.

[(PSN)mstortz]

Absolute trash rework.  

 

They made her powers work better together, but all of them are now hurt by lower duration.  So they made her more energy intensive, but made modding her for energy efficiency destroy her.  Its like they didn't even think it through. 

 

She went from a one trick pony to a crippled pony that burns energy like mad.

 

Miasma needs its corrosive proc back to start with.  And if they really want us to use her abilities in conjunction with each other, we need better efficiency mods(they have been actively destroying the usefulness of fleeting expertise) or her powers need to use less energy.  

 

 

To make it clear, you don't make a kit have synergy between abilities while wrecking the ability to mod for power efficiency. 

 

Really really really poor job DE. 

 

it's expected

that's what happens when you don't play your own game at a high level

[CelticMoss]

What was her EHP before and what is it now?

It was around 2800 with steel and vit now it's like 2200 with steel and vit.

[Helch0rn]

Some people are capable of some pretty Quick Thinking.

I am already busy modding for Efficiency, Range, Strengh, Duration and Survivability.

Where am I supposed to fit QT?

[xRufus7x]

because energy will protect me from damage right? /sarcasm

[BaneOfOrion]

Okay a few more pints to make that i've noticed.

One-The fancy PBR on the oprhid skin means that i cannot mix and match orphid and non-orhpid parts,as the radiacally different textures look like garbage.

 

Secondly i have lost over 200 health due to this rework, cmon DE, Let valkyr and chroma play the armor game. With saryn, especially with regen molt, the point, at least as i've always considered it was to have a tank with a large pool of health to soak up damage, rather than armor. The health/armor change makes regen molt less effective and takes away from the frame as a whole. Also, while i appreciate the damage boost on spore, i don not like the much decreased number of pods. Givent he choice, i would rather stay with the original many weak pods that spread faster and farther, as it was possible to keep a loop of spores flowing through a room, without having to recast.

 

Also, i have not had any problems with energy, save for a unfortunate suda spectre attack, streamline and a maxed equilibrium were still enough on ceres at least.

edit-someone pointed out that the passive is status duration and not chance, i apologize for my complaint in an earlier post.

Edited November 5, 2015 by BaneOfOrion

[CelticMoss]

 

because energy will protect me from damage right? /sarcasm

 

high level corrupted will take you out faster then that can save you. 

[321agemo]

Some people are capable of some pretty Quick Thinking.

And im sure everyone runs quick thinking :)

[Omega-Shadowblade]

I am already busy modding for Efficiency, Range, Strengh, Duration and Survivability.

Where am I supposed to fit QT?

 

I was answering your sarcasm with a joke. Also regen molt plus rage gives me as much efficiency as I really need plus survivability if that helps.

 

Also can we get a mod in here to look at this soon, all this thread is doing is going toxic. Applicable to saryn yes, but really not something we need on the forums.

Edited November 5, 2015 by Omega-Shadowblade

[Xarteros]

I know lots of people have posted this already, but reposting might help flag this as an issue instead of just 'liking' similar posts

Saryn is now far too dependent on basically every stat. 

You can't sacrifice strength or all of your damage just plummets, leaving you with basically nothing but the ability to spread viral procs

You can't sacrifice efficiency or your now-powerful abilities become too expensive, since you need to cast so much

You can't sacrifice range or almost all your abilities become preposterously useless, spores won't spread and you'll effectively have no AoE damage

You can't sacrifice duration because now literally everything benefits from duration.



I'd say buff the base range values and the base damage of everything she has, so tanking a little in those areas won't be as impacting, and keeping them at standard values is still ok. This would let you build for efficiency/duration, which are now much more essential than before. It also means that running higher strength or higher range becomes a more worthwhile sacrifice for the efficiency/duration you're losing, since better base strength/range would make those builds much more effective

Edit: Because Miasma now can't do burst DPS, the fact that it only affects targets present at the time is incredibly detrimental. To compensate, make it an AoE effect that persists in the area for its duration, stunning enemies as they enter. This reduces the effective damage loss it has suffered, and also means its low range is slightly less detrimental. To make it much better, make it stackable, so multiple zones overlapping deal multiplied damage. This lets high duration/efficiency builds create cheap superzones at choke points that deal very high damage, and give the player a bit more time to focus on spreading spores (and further increase the miasma damage).

Also make it so once an enemy has entered the Miasma cloud, they take the full amount of remaining damage even if they leave the area (otherwise it would become even worse)

Double Edit: Because of how difficult it is to make use of the new synergy (it's hard to stack spores on something while keeping it alive, then hitting it with Toxic Lash at an opportune time to maximise spreading) the mechanic needs a quick fix. Spores should pop instantly on enemy death and spread at its normal range. Spores popped by Toxic Lash need to spread at an increased range. I'm thinking an extra 50% range, to reward players who play smart and react quickly, but without penalizing other players. I like difficult mechanics to master, but not when every other warframe's mechanics are so much easier and more effective.
 

Edited November 5, 2015 by Xarteros

[xRufus7x]

high level corrupted will take you out faster then that can save you. 

Saryns lost effective HP wouldn't help in that situation either

[CelticMoss]

I was answering your sarcasm with a joke. Also regen molt plus rage gives me as much efficiency as I really need plus survivability if that helps.

Yes that combo is great too bad it's less effective now 

[painterman]

The new sinergy betwen powers is good, and the thing that now negative duration is pointless, we can run her in mele-tank mode, but, the lost of 25(200~ at lv30 with vitality) health for a "useles" 20 armor( the diference in reduction is minimal, not even worth it) its something that should not happen. if that loss of 25 health was compained with at least 75 armor we could talk more, i even think that she should have 175 health and 150-175 armor to be a counterpack to frost( 150-175 shield + defensive spots vs evading fire and more health to witstand toxins).

 

But overall, the rework is good, more interesting that anything because it opens a new spot on high lv content(lv 40+), and that is that she can stun the enemys, change the focus of the fire to the molt( that dies in a brief period of thime despite its long duration) and toxin proc the enemys for easyer dispaching. Maybe the new meta will be spore+molt spam and convined with the fact that she can also take a more melee oriented theme(despite de health being lower) we may see her in more in action.

[Generalsherman]

Eh, I'm willing to take a hit to the 4 in exchange for some skill synergy.

[CelticMoss]

Saryns lost effective HP wouldn't help in that situation either

More hp more survival with rage and regen molts