Saryn's DPS

[Rambit23Z]

1 minute ago, ThatOddDeer said:

Without naramon I'd have to run life strike to keep up with the sheer dps in-between regenerative molt ticks and I wouldn't be able to run my endlessly scaling melee builds and that would hurt saryn's endgame viability even more.

I run Life Strike but no Regenerative Molt. (#JustATinyBitOfHeresy) I rely on a very fine balance of damage dealt/taken and juggling between those two with energy. Blocking is also key to my strategy. For me corrupted crewmen (Shotgunners) are more threatening than Bombard and Gunners.

[Ivan_Rid]

4 minutes ago, ThatOddDeer said:

gas lanka and gas staticor would accomplish 2 things. You'd kill meaningless targets efficiently but slower than concealed explosives due to how spore works when spreading toxin procs, that 1 limit per instance of damage is brutal to gas builds. And two, you'd kill the high priority targets faster with corrosive or radiation lanka or corrosive/radiation staticor. It's just not efficient and the way spore works punishes gas builds/

By the way, about that limit.. cant I reset it with Miasma that conviniently pops all spores for me? Isnt it a workaround?

I cant really wrap my head about those needlessly compicated mechanics and feel all kind of dumb.

[ThatOddDeer]

Just now, Rambit23Z said:

I run Life Strike but no Regenerative Molt. (#JustATinyBitOfHeresy) I rely on a very fine balance of damage dealt/taken and juggling between those two with energy. Blocking is also key to my strategy. For me corrupted crewmen (Shotgunners) are more threatening than Bombard and Gunners.

Blocking caps at 95%, the defense boost on toxic lash is meaningless for 80%~ of melee weapon types, and 5% of a t4 crewmans shotgun blast is still a huge chunk of your hp. Your strategy can't go on as long as a truly optimal naramon build using only regen molt for backup, because eventually you will get shot in the 75% area where blocking doesn't work, it really should just be an armor increase or damage reduction like link/eclipse/shattershield. Even if you channel block rage isn't enough to sustain the energy cost at any point of the mission. Your build is mildly effective and would work on any frame, saryn's kit is just a worse banshee/nova for you in the grand scheme of things.

[ThatOddDeer]

1 minute ago, Ivan_Rid said:

By the way, about that limit.. cant I reset it with Miasma that conviniently pops all spores for me? Isnt it a workaround?

I cant really wrap my head about those needlessly compicated mechanics and feel all kind of dumb.

Miasma deals corrosive, not gas or toxin, and only pops spores if they're on the chest region, a 1/6 chance of being on that region for humanoid enemies. Spamming molt, 100 energy per explosion same as miasma, could reset the toxin proc but then you're paying 100 energy to do something lack luster in the first place. You only get 12.5% of the molt explosion as a toxin proc, in addition to the molt's toxin proc, and a 25% increase in the base damage of each spore. Hardly worth 100 energy when the same could be used to cast 4x the spores or compared to 100 energy on another frame.

 

Saryn is a complex ball of bugs, anti-synergistic mechanics and over-inflated energy costs for minimal effect that requires extensive game knowledge and investment to use at an adequate level. There are so many mod, knowledge and gear taxes to use saryn and perform at the baseline level of an un-optimized nova/banshee (frames that share her role) that the frame can hardly be called balanced.

[Rambit23Z]

8 minutes ago, ThatOddDeer said:

Blocking caps at 95%, the defense boost on toxic lash is meaningless for 80%~ of melee weapon types, and 5% of a t4 crewmans shotgun blast is still a huge chunk of your hp. Your strategy can't go on as long as a truly optimal naramon build using only regen molt for backup, because eventually you will get shot in the 75% area where blocking doesn't work, it really should just be an armor increase or damage reduction like link/eclipse/shattershield. Even if you channel block rage isn't enough to sustain the energy cost at any point of the mission. Your build is mildly effective and would work on any frame, saryn's kit is just a worse banshee/nova for you in the grand scheme of things.

It's actually only 90%. And I know.

Reason for not going Naramon is because I don't like it. Perma-invis isn't fun for me. As for blocking. I also use Steel Fiber (~61% damage reduction) and with it I can reduce the damage of 5 level 130 Heavy Gunners to about 100/sec (Rough approximate) and I use Miasma for stun if I'm in the middle of enemies.

"Even if you channel block rage isn't enough to sustain the energy cost at any point of the mission."

I have Zenurik for the early levels and Rage is more than enough energy sustain lategame. I probably spend 200 energy per second in the really intense moments and it all comes back from the damage I take. I wouldn't recommend my build to anyone, but I really enjoy using it.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Rambit23Z
Missed a capital letter

[ThatOddDeer]

9 minutes ago, Rambit23Z said:

It's actually only 90%. And I know.

Reason for not going Naramon is because I don't like it. Perma-invis isn't fun for me. As for blocking. I also use Steel Fiber (~61% damage reduction) and with it I can reduce the damage of 5 level 130 Heavy Gunners to about 100/sec (Rough approximate) and I use Miasma for stun if I'm in the middle of enemies.

"Even if you channel block rage isn't enough to sustain the energy cost at any point of the mission."

I have Zenurik for the early levels and Rage is more than enough energy sustain lategame. I probably spend 200 energy per second in the really intense moments and it all comes back from the damage I take. I wouldn't recommend my build to anyone, but I really enjoy using it.

I wouldn't recommend it either because the room for error is massive. If you so much as get shot from behind you die almost instantaneously. Your build would work on any frame as tanky as saryn, excal comes to mind even without EB. Relying on zenurik to make up for rage not giving enough is roughly the same argument of relying on naramon to not need life strike. Also t4 enemies do 3x the damage of simulacrum enemies due to the hidden t4 multiplier so that's more like 300 damage a sec which will kill you incredibly fast. Not to mention how the build doesn't even really benefit from saryn's kit, rhino could do everything your build needs from saryn even better. 

TL;DR 

Your build isn't making use of saryn's wonky kit, it's just a build that's existed for a while, and another frame would do its(the kit's) job better.

[Rambit23Z]

11 minutes ago, ThatOddDeer said:

I wouldn't recommend it either because the room for error is massive. If you so much as get shot from behind you die almost instantaneously.

Which is why I have practiced a lot with it. I've been mainly a melee player since U6, and the release of Shadow Debt mods have only reinforced that fact.

11 minutes ago, ThatOddDeer said:

Your build would work on any frame as tanky as saryn, excal comes to mind even without EB.

But they're not nearly as fun to play or good looking IMO. #FashionFrame

11 minutes ago, ThatOddDeer said:

Relying on zenurik to make up for rage not giving enough is roughly the same argument of relying on naramon to not need life strike.

It's the opposite. When Zenurik isn't enough, that's when Rage comes into play.

11 minutes ago, ThatOddDeer said:

Also t4 enemies do 3x the damage of simulacrum enemies due to the hidden t4 multiplier so that's more like 300 damage a sec which will kill you incredibly fast.

I currently have every Prime in the game (-Founders), I am very well acquainted with the 3x damage. That's where Miasma stun and the truckload of knockdowns and mobility Blind Justice provides comes into play.

11 minutes ago, ThatOddDeer said:

Not to mention how the build doesn't even really benefit from saryn's kit, rhino could do everything your build needs from saryn even better.

I have a Rhino build with a similiar setup, but he only gets a 2x~ mutiplier. Saryn has that from Viral Procs plus a 50% boost from Toxic Lash. (47% if I'm being precise)
But that doesn't really matter to me because Saryn is one of the few frames where I feel I use every ability just enough without relying more on one or two.

 

TL;DR: The build isn't optimal, but unlike the optimal builds, it's fun. And in my book, Fun>Effectiveness. Yet it's effective enough to go into endgame.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Rambit23Z

[ThatOddDeer]

Just now, Rambit23Z said:

-snip-

TL;DR: The build isn't optimal, but unlike the optimal builds, it's fun. And in my book, Fun>Effectiveness

Fun and fashion aren't factors in balance. And the fact is not matter how much we like saryn the scientific consensus (it's an actual thing), and hoo boy 130 pages on the rework thread, we can ascertain that saryn's kit is not balanced in a fair way due to bugs/programming oversights/mechanics that go against synergy.

[Rambit23Z]

3 minutes ago, ThatOddDeer said:

Fun and fashion aren't factors in balance. And the fact is not matter how much we like saryn the scientific consensus (it's an actual thing),

Don't get me wrong, I fully agree that certain things could use buffs/tweaks/fixes as long as I can still do what I've been doing with similar results. And the changes you have suggested are just that.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Rambit23Z

[Hemmo67]

i have been playing saryn here and there without almost 0 changes to my original build (except adding rage removing shield mod)

i know her damage is explosive with right timing and all but what bothers me is her looooong as crap cast times and the facts u need to use 3 skills (possibly 4)to get full use of her

firstly holy crap the energy problems ;_;

then u might get killed while casting

thirdly she is squishy ;-;

these are my main grudges with her and i hope she either gets speeded up animation or more armor so i could enjoy her bit more :|

[ThatOddDeer]

2 minutes ago, Rambit23Z said:

Don't get me wrong, I fully agree that certain things could use buffs/tweaks/fixes as long as I can still do what I've been doing with similar results. And the changes you have suggested are just that.

glad to know we're in agreement. I even have a, currently dead, thread detailing my first draft of possible changes to make saryn more logical in her kit. Since then I've learned even more about how buggy and strange her kit is and how it's loaded with hidden information that actually creates anti-synergy.

[Rambit23Z]

1 minute ago, ThatOddDeer said:

glad to know we're in agreement. I even have a, currently dead, thread detailing my first draft of possible changes to make saryn more logical in her kit. Since then I've learned even more about how buggy and strange her kit is and how it's loaded with hidden information that actually creates anti-synergy.

Indeed, I learned quite a bit from reading this entire thread.

[ThatOddDeer]

3 minutes ago, Hemmo67 said:

i have been playing saryn here and there without almost 0 changes to my original build (except adding rage removing shield mod)

i know her damage is explosive with right timing and all but what bothers me is her looooong as crap cast times and the facts u need to use 3 skills (possibly 4)to get full use of her

firstly holy crap the energy problems ;_;

then u might get killed while casting

thirdly she is squishy ;-;

these are my main grudges with her and i hope she either gets speeded up animation or more armor so i could enjoy her bit more :|

wait until you encounter armor on meaningful units.

her damage on miasma with the full combo is around 8400 without power strength and taking account viral proc's 50% hp as 2x damage and thats if you spend 162.5 energy to do it. That energy to damage ratio is so bad. 

I suggest you read the previous posts in this thread detailing all the hidden bugs and "features" that prevent saryn from doing what she's meant to do in the first place.

Edited April 6, 2016 by ThatOddDeer

[RealPandemonium]

14 hours ago, ThatOddDeer said:

I'll explain with an example I used earlier. 4 enemies labeled A-D. You cast spore on A and then hit it with toxic lash, the other 3 enemies have 3 spores that have 12.5% of the toxic lash bonus damage as a toxin proc and took 25% of the toxin proc's tick from toxic lash as bonus viral damage. Unless you hit enemy B, C or D the toxin proc on those enemies is "used up" and can't be spread any more. If you keep hitting target A you can't apply anymore toxin procs to the other afflicted targets as they already have 3 spores. If You do switch targets you'll pop 1 spore and then target A will have 3 spores again and 1+ the diminished amount from the inert toxin proc applied to it( the proc has diminished by at least 1 tick usually by the time to strike the nearby target unless they're in a clump). This series is repeated when over and over causes toxic lash and spore to scale linearly and very slowly and goodness you need a lot of toxin procs for it to even be relevant in the first place. 

I understand what you're talking about, but I don't think it has anything to do with the actual spores.  There's some code that keeps enemies from accruing more than one Toxin DoT from spore spreads at a time.  Chroma's Toxin Ward has the same kind of mechanic, where it won't apply its Toxin proc to an enemy that is already afflicted.  

Regardless of how it works, it's definitely unintuitive and unsatisfying.  On the other hand, exponentially stacking weapon-derived dots would get out of hand quickly.  What kind of compromise can we make?

14 hours ago, ThatOddDeer said:

That's just dual zoren being an amazing weapon. Toxic lash and spoore, being powers, can't  crit. Also if you've read how the wiki works or any of my explanations of spore+ toxic lash you'd realize that saryn herself is not supply much of anything and its much more likely to be your slash procs or crits from the weapons themselves

As to the silva and aegis mod, it'll probably be lackluster like almost all the weapon augments and won't fix that terrible weapon. 

Well, Toxic Lash crits when the weapon crits, and the Toxin proc spread through spore pops is also amplified by power strength.

10 hours ago, ThatOddDeer said:

wait until you encounter armor on meaningful units.

her damage on miasma with the full combo is around 8400 without power strength and taking account viral proc's 50% hp as 2x damage and thats if you spend 162.5 energy to do it. That energy to damage ratio is so bad. 

I suggest you read the previous posts in this thread detailing all the hidden bugs and "features" that prevent saryn from doing what she's meant to do in the first place.

If you have a Toxin proc weapon you only spend 125 (31.25) energy to perform a 3x Miasma.  Subsequent casts may not even require recasting Spore due to its constant spread, so they really only cost 100 (25) energy each.  

[SergeiTheBeast]

It's like watching to guys with deer antlers glued to helmets hit each other again and again.

 

[ThatOddDeer]

3 hours ago, SergeiTheBeast said:

It's like watching to guys with deer antlers glued to helmets hit each other again and again.

 

Useless message doesn't' add anything to the discussion. Please refrain from wasting our time

[ThatOddDeer]

5 hours ago, RealPandemonium said:

1.  I understand what you're talking about, but I don't think it has anything to do with the actual spores.  There's some code that keeps enemies from accruing more than one Toxin DoT from spore spreads at a time.  Chroma's Toxin Ward has the same kind of mechanic, where it won't apply its Toxin proc to an enemy that is already afflicted.  

Regardless of how it works, it's definitely unintuitive and unsatisfying.  On the other hand, exponentially stacking weapon-derived dots would get out of hand quickly.  What kind of compromise can we make?

2.  If you have a Toxin proc weapon you only spend 125 (31.25) energy to perform a 3x Miasma.  Subsequent casts may not even require recasting Spore due to its constant spread, so they really only cost 100 (25) energy each.  

1.  The code that prevents the satisfactory spreading of toxin procs via spore is called out in the wiki. This prevents the fantasy of saryn being queen of all DoTs by stacking up toxin procs. As to the problem of exponential growth via weapon usage, or something similar like modding, we already achieve that in so many ways on so many frames that for saryn to be left out is unfair.  Even when trying to maximize her gimmick of stacking poison with a weapon tailored to gas procs, goodbye fps, you're better off just using corrosive procs anyways because spore won't charge up all those gas procs properly. Despite me not liking when a frame is balanced around only using certain weapons, a frame should be equally effective in the hands of a skilled player no matter the weapon as long as there is one equipped at last (the only exception I can agree with is artemis bow), a saryn player should be rewarded for buying into her gimmick no?

 

2. Again, relying on weapons or outside bandaids to fix something wrong with a frame's kit is not a balanced kit and must be adjusted otherwise. A saryn player should be able to take a non-full gas loadout and achieve similar positive results as someone that mods somewhat differently on there weapons. A good example is ember, you can build fire on your weapons but accelerant does a good job of waking her damage relevant for a long time in endgame even without such weapons

[Gurpgork]

I'm wondering at this point if this discussion would be more productive in the bug report forum. 

[ThatOddDeer]

56 minutes ago, Gurpgork said:

I'm wondering at this point if this discussion would be more productive in the bug report forum. 

Well considering the wiki states the spore "bugs" I think we can assume the anti-synergy is purposeful.

Molt not scaling with range or taking saryns aggro away from her is a bug that doesn't seem to be listed.

Miasma's CC depending on the enemy type and being completely ineffective against certain enemy types is also probably intended since that's the way it has always been. 

So, where is the line drawn between bug, specifically made anti-synergy/weaknesses, and design oversights that the Devs didn't notice during play testing?

Edited April 7, 2016 by ThatOddDeer

[Djego27]

4 hours ago, ThatOddDeer said:

2. Again, relying on weapons or outside bandaids to fix something wrong with a frame's kit is not a balanced kit and must be adjusted otherwise. A saryn player should be able to take a non-full gas loadout and achieve similar positive results as someone that mods somewhat differently on there weapons. A good example is ember, you can build fire on your weapons but accelerant does a good job of waking her damage relevant for a long time in endgame even without such weapons

That is not really true, Ember without weapon fire damage scaling does not really good at high levels. The main reason why people actually called the frame bad is because they did not use it before the WoF changes and even in sortis I never seen another proper high dps Ember build(and I hate fire quake Embers with passion, since it makes it harder for me to land head shots what actually cost me most likely more dps then they do in total). It is also that Ember actually did take a massive hit in U17 with the shotgun nerfs, a boar prime did give you the scalability you did need past L100 vs armor even with just 69k dps(on a 230% power strength blind rage ember with arcane rage) while you nowadays have to resort to crit damage stacking and 300k+ dps to top the damage meters in L100 sortis. Secondary weapons are the same deal, there are tons of weapons you could use but you realistic only ever use a staticor(if you can man up the screen shake) or better mara detron, because this is what the hiku prime is for saryn, a weapon that is incredible good because of the way accelerant transforms it into a 120k dps status weapon while it provides the required radiation\viral procs to keep up the kill speed at high levels.

You can still get with Saryn to Drako and just use all weapons and do good, similar to what you can do with Ember but it will not provide reasonable scaling to your dps for high level content.

I actually think that the toxic proc should take ability damage + actual pure toxic damage on the weapon into account toxic lash should work with ranged weapons to really give you options to build at least one of your weapons to do good single target dps by the toxin dot stack. Other then that it is the lack of CC on spore, the lack of scaling survivability of molt that I really dislike on Saryn. To be absolute honest at L140 in invested excavation I really was just thinking, "This would be so much easier with Ember." because it takes you forever to take out L140 eximus healers and toxic healers that reduce your AOE damage to next to nothing. This is ofc a issue you would not have if you have a really heavy single target hitter in your group but we didn't. Saryn should still work okish for that with a weapon build around it. I do not expect Ember levels of damage output but there should be at least some reasonable options to keep CC up, to still use your molt and to deal with single targets even as a mostly multi target dps frame(because chances are a team at high levels does not use more then 1 or at max 2 dps frames at all).

Edited April 7, 2016 by Djego27

[ThatOddDeer]

19 minutes ago, Djego27 said:

That is not really true, Ember without weapon fire damage scaling does not really good at high levels. The main reason why people actually called the frame bad is because they did not use it before the WoF changes and even in sortis I never seen another proper high dps Ember build(and I hate fire quake Embers with passion, since it makes it harder for me to land head shots). It is also that Ember actually did take a massive hit in U17 with the shotgun nerfs, a boar prime did give you the scalability you did need past L100 vs armor even with just 69k dps(on a 230% power strength blind rage ember with arcane rage) while you nowadays have to resort to crit damage stacking and 300k+ dps to top the damage meters in L100 sortis. Secondary weapons are the same deal, there are tons of weapons you could use but you realistic only ever use a staticor(if you can man up the screen shake) or better mara detron, because this is what the hiku prime is for saryn, a weapon that is incredible good because of the way accelerant transforms it into a 120k dps status weapon while it provides the the required radiation\viral procs to keep up the kill speed at high levels.

You can still get with Saryn to Drako and just use all weapons and do good, similar to what you can do with Ember but it will not provide reasonable scaling to your dps for high level content.

I actually think that the toxic proc should take ability damage + actual pure toxic damage on the weapon into account toxic lash should work with ranged weapons to really give you options to build at least one of your weapons to do good single target dps by the toxin dot stack. Other then that it is the lack of CC on spore, the lack of scaling survivability of molt that I really dislike on Saryn. To be absolute honest at L140 in invested excavation I really was just thinking, "This would be so much easier with Ember." because it takes you forever to take out L140 eximus healers and toxic healers that reduce your AOE damage to next to nothing. This is ofc a issue you would not have if you have a really heavy single target hitter in your group but we didn't. Saryn should still work okish for that with a weapon build around it. I do not expect Ember levels of damage output but there should be at least some reasonable options to keep CC up, to still use your molt and to deal with single targets even as a mostly multi target dps frame(because chances are a team at high levels does not use more then 1 or at max 2 dps frames at all).

Holy crud this is hard to read and decipher but I'll do my best to answer your posits.

If you miss the power of the boar prime take a look at the strun wraith. Easy to mod for corrosive+fire and 100% status chance before multishot. Combine that with guarenteed stagger on every shot, 100% chance for 20 pellets of status and 20% chance for 30 pellets, add seeking force and now you can strip armor incredibly quick and CC lock around 3-4 enemies per trigger pull

 

Back to the topic of saryn and ember. Despite your hate for fire quake it is an excellent augment that gives ember a reliable and effective crowd control in a massive area. And while there are weapons that benefit more from having fire built on them rather than corrosive and there many that build both you CAN build fire on any weapon and make it work with Ember. Saryn, in theory, needs gas on CERTAIN weapons only and that doesn't even work due to the unintuitive limits that spore puts on spreading procs. Your idea of making toxic lash work with ranged weapons goes against what saryn is intended to be, the melee debuffer frame and the idea of making it work better if the weapon has innate toxin damage (at least that's what I got from that confusing sentence) would further limit saryn's effective weapon choices. 

At the moment saryn provides neither the raw dps of ember or the CC potential of ember or the debuff potential of ember, if everyone brings fire weapons(and possibly 4x cp) and Ember is still not considered a top-tier frame. I feel your examples demonstrating the power of ember, highly powerful in organized groups, but still outclassed, with builds centered around fire, parallel the problems saryn faces but with saryn the problem is even worse.

Edited April 7, 2016 by ThatOddDeer
spelling

[Kharn-The-Betrayer]

 

 

Not to mention that with this build, i can also buff my teamates with a +239% toxin damages added to their entire loadout + some abilities

Saryn dps is fine / strong and the buff is insane for the team.

[ThatOddDeer]

1 hour ago, Nesisphira said:

 

 

Not to mention that with this build, i can also buff my teamates with a +239% toxin damages added to their entire loadout + some abilities

Saryn dps is fine / strong and the buff is insane for the team.

Your're killing mostly weak enemies and armored ones with slash procs. Saryn's kit isn't doing anything for you, just red crit melee and dual sword ground finishers

Also frames should not be balanced around augments

Edited April 7, 2016 by ThatOddDeer

[Kharn-The-Betrayer]

2 hours ago, ThatOddDeer said:

Your're killing mostly weak enemies and armored ones with slash procs. Saryn's kit isn't doing anything for you, just red crit melee and dual sword ground finishers

Slash proc with dual ichor on my video?

Also, do you always see 20 eximus at the same time? the video show a classic situation

 

i think that you do not like Saryn at all, and you keep trash her on every single thread about her. this is rare that a player can out dps me and at least, i can buff my entire team with the awesome "Venom dose" mod=> this buff adds pure toxin damage and do NOT combine with the elements of their weapons, SO this is more toxin proc for ME = bigger spores burst.

I would like to see your build, please take a screenshot of your loadout + saryn + arcanes.

Edited April 7, 2016 by Nesisphira

[Djego27]

3 hours ago, ThatOddDeer said:

Holy crud this is hard to read and decipher but I'll do my best to answer your posits.

If you miss the power of the boar prime take a look at the strun wraith. Easy to mod for corrosive+fire and 100% status chance before multishot. Combine that with guarenteed stagger on every shot, 100% chance for 20 pellets of status and 20% chance for 30 pellets, add seeking force and now you can strip armor incredibly quick and CC lock around 3-4 enemies per trigger pull

 

The Strun Wraith does not really work for high levels, even with both reload speed mods. I did run a lot of solo survival tests both with the boar prime and the strun wraith after U17 and they are both similar bad for it. In the end I switched to the prisma grakata what does the same thing without the issues(reload speed or 9s ability cast window + playing zoomed in non stop) and then to the vaykor hek/rakta cernos, that still does miles better at L100+ then any of the status guns.

 

3 hours ago, ThatOddDeer said:

Back to the topic of saryn and ember. Despite your hate for fire quake it is an excellent augment that gives ember a reliable and effective crowd control in a massive area. And while there are weapons that benefit more from having fire built on them rather than corrosive and there many that build both you CAN build fire on any weapon and make it work with Ember. Saryn, in theory, needs gas on CERTAIN weapons only and that doesn't even work due to the unintuitive limits that spore puts on spreading procs. Your idea of making toxic lash work with ranged weapons goes against what saryn is intended to be, the melee debuffer frame and the idea of making it work better if the weapon has innate toxin damage (at least that's what I got from that confusing sentence) would further limit saryn's effective weapon choices. 

At the moment saryn provides neither the raw dps of ember or the CC potential of ember or the debuff potential of ember, if everyone brings fire weapons(and possibly 4x cp) and Ember is still not considered a top-tier frame. I feel your examples demonstrating the power of ember, highly powerful in organized groups, but still outclassed, with builds centered around fire, parallel the problems saryn faces but with saryn the problem is even worse.

It gives you a 100% chance for a knock-down on WoF compared to a 80% of a fire proc in a proper Ember build. On top of that you really need that high power strength for your weapon dps so you trade a ton of dps for making a unreliable CC slightly less unreliable(less fire procs, weaker fire procs, weaker weapon dps, knock-downs that prevent head shots). I simply don't get it why anybody would ever use Fire quake.

Nobody uses Saryn as melee frame outside of shadow step cheese at higher levels, the CC and survivability of the frame is just not feasible for that(yes it is worse then Ember for that). Ember got less HP and less armor, however your 1 does CC, your 2 does CC and you spam it for the damage bonus, even your 3 does CC and knock-downs what you can use for ground finishers. You don't even use your 4 in a melee build at all, since it prevents rage to work, what is your main source of building up enught energy to keep CC up. Even with steel fibre and QT that is more or less limited to L100 ish, because many things will just one hit you after that.

Saryn is a good frame for pure AOE dps, it is a good team damage buffing frame since you keep up the viral. However it is a rather bad single target damage frame(especially with the weapons that make you a good AOE dps frame) and ok for damage but just not survivable enught at melee range outside of shadow step. I don't think there would be anything wrong with applying toxic lash to ranged weapons(excluding all the melee AOE cheese, just the extra damage and toxin dot) to help with single target damage, since this is really a issue with Saryn currently at higher levels.

Having 3s stagger when casting spore on a unit for the first time and the first time it spreads to another unit gives you the desperately needed CC without spamming miasma. Having another 1s of stagger when you pop a spore by a melee attack or direct gun fire(no AOE or gas effects) would really give saryn a similar lock down as Ember got. On top of that interesting mechanics where you can massively amplify your damage with finishers at melee range(at the cost of exposing yourself) and overall become just as interesting for melee play as Ember to a point where you die in a single hit(this ofc should only be done after a shadow step nerf).

Saryn does fairly well for raw dps if you have a sufficient amount of targets and no de buffs(toxic healers, normal healers). If you add the 100% damage buff for all your team members it is quite useful. However the frame is not enjoyable as melee frame by the lack of CC, it got issues at high levels if you don't have a frame with high single target damage and overall feels less flexible and complex then Ember.

You don't need a 4 man team for Ember(different to Saryn where the lack of CC and single target damage is something you need other frames for), the frame is very good at solo, even if you don't build your team around fire damage weapons you still do a solid 70%+ damage in a T3 60 wave void defence. It is in my opinion what a dps frame should be, interesting to play, requires a lot of attention and the correct weapons/modding to get your damage done, while it does not require instant kill finishers or just AOE spam to be effective in the late game. Ember is not perfect but better designed then most other damage frames.

Saryn on the other hand feels lacking. She is ok when you have a team build around her or spamming hiku prime/gas Ignis to nuke drako. The frame does just as good if not better at this then before the rework. It is just that the rework aiming at scalability and making Saryn more interesting to play did not really work so well because the frame more or less suffers the same issues(lack of CC and single target damage). At least I can not see why anybody would main saryn.

 

Edited April 7, 2016 by Djego27