Saryn's Toxic Lash

[Code4Seeker]

I really like playing saryn, but the main issue with her abilities especially when I'm using a melee build is the need to constantly stop (during attacking) to recast toxic lash.

Can you please kindly remove the cast animation so toxic lash can be casted on the fly?

Otherwise, I would much really prefer if toxic lash becomes a toggled channeling ability.

Reasoning:

Provides smoother gameplay for melee saryn.

Thank you.

 

[NezuHimeSama]

I can get behind this.

It would also be nice if the buff can be applied to allies as well, since it's a pretty modest buff and only to melee weapons.

[BigPapiPimp]

36 minutes ago, Code4Seeker said:

Provides smoother gameplay for melee saryn.

 

I agree, and though it’s a non-optimal, ill still miss my high power strength/duration low efficiency build.

Btw does ayone know if you get energy back for all spores popped while toxin lash is up, or just the ones you pop with melee? I’m away from my comp and the wiki is not specific enough to stop me from asking.

[Grimmstyler]

Using a Melee specific build?

36 minutes ago, Code4Seeker said:

I really like playing saryn, but the main issue with her abilities especially when I'm using a melee build is the need to constantly stop (during attacking) to recast toxic lash.

Can you please kindly remove the cast animation so toxic lash can be casted on the fly?

Otherwise, I would much really prefer if toxic lash becomes a toggled channeling ability.

Reasoning:

Provides smoother gameplay for melee saryn.

Thank you.

 

I  dont have any issues recasting when enemies are dead..

Maybe you havent modded Sayrn or Melee weapons right.. Or maybe you dont have the mods? Like [Continuity], [Primed Continuity], [Narrow Minded], [Constitution], [Auger Message] ?

[Syasob]

Channeling makes it much harder to replenish energy. And since Saryn is a caster, she'll run out of energy really fast without Zenurik dashes or Trinity/Harrow/Octavia running by your side to keep energy full. So you'll have to recast lash from time to time and that's even worse for the gameplay smoothness.

[lukinu_u]

I play Saryn a lot and the casting speed of toxic lash never bothered me.

And please, do not change the ability to channeling toggle, this would be the worst change ever as a good Saryn build need strength, so with the use of Blind Rage, it would use a ton of energy wihtout anyways to replenish it while the power is active, exept energy orb forcing to use Arcane Energize.

Just use Primed Continuity to get 46s duration and it's fine.

[Code4Seeker]

1 hour ago, NezuHimeSama said:

I can get behind this.

It would also be nice if the buff can be applied to allies as well, since it's a pretty modest buff and only to melee weapons.

Saryn's Venom Dose augment

45 minutes ago, lukinu_u said:

I play Saryn a lot and the casting speed of toxic lash never bothered me.

And please, do not change the ability to channeling toggle, this would be the worst change ever as a good Saryn build need strength, so with the use of Blind Rage, it would use a ton of energy wihtout anyways to replenish it while the power is active, exept energy orb forcing to use Arcane Energize.

Just use Primed Continuity to get 46s duration and it's fine.

Not the casting speed, I would have used natural talent if that's the case.

It's the constant interruption when I am doing combos with melee. Why can't you cast without interrupting combos anyway?

Why would channeling toggle be bad? Some warframe's channeling abilities allow you to get energy from EV etc

[EinheriarJudith]

12 minutes ago, Code4Seeker said:

Saryn's Venom Dose augment

Not the casting speed, I would have used natural talent if that's the case.

It's the constant interruption when I am doing combos with melee. Why can't you cast without interrupting combos anyway?

Why would channeling toggle be bad? Some warframe's channeling abilities allow you to get energy from EV etc

saryn has energy problems? you use spore on 1 target, kill it with toxic lash and every spore you pop with toxic lash gives back energy. by the time you need to refresh enemies are all dead. Condition Overload makes saryn lethal for melee. if you have issues with combo counter use body count or drifting contact.

Edited March 16, 2018 by EinheriarJudith

[Code4Seeker]

25 minutes ago, EinheriarJudith said:

saryn has energy problems? you use spore on 1 target, kill it with toxic lash and every spore you pop with toxic lash gives back energy. by the time you need to refresh enemies are all dead. Condition Overload makes saryn lethal for melee. if you have issues with combo counter use body count or drifting contact.

oh dear, i used the wrong terminology haven't I?

It's not combo counter i am complaining about.

It's the constant interruption that I face whenever I need to recast toxic lash. Why can't toxic lash be applied while attacking? Why do I have to stop attacking to cast it?

It doesn't make sense unless my goal is to make this skill unappealing.

[Birdframe_Prime]

2 hours ago, Code4Seeker said:

Otherwise, I would much really prefer if toxic lash becomes a toggled channeling ability.

Sadly, as it's a persistent straight buff, with no variance in terms of what it adds or how it adds it, the only thing it could be is a toggle Drain ability. And by that I mean the kind that prevents energy regen, and the base problem is that interruption to regen on a frame as Energy hungry as Saryn would be too much of a downside.

You've got that balance to think about, you either put it on a Duration that limits how long you can use it, or you put it on an Energy Drain that limits how long you can use it, and in the world of Warframe, Energy Drain is a massive weight to tie to any frame, it's not a buff, ever.

As it stands the simple fact that you can recast a '100% damage buff to melee, guaranteed elemental status proc and energy regen when combo'd with your 1' ability before end of duration is pretty damn awesome. You can pick and choose when you want that animation, you don't have to wait until the end of the duration, and the obvious tactic is just to jump and cast while aim-gliding if you want to stay on the move (as aim glide will maintain your momentum even though the animation for the cast plays out).

10 minutes ago, Code4Seeker said:

It's the constant interruption that I face whenever I need to recast toxic lash. Why can't toxic lash be applied while attacking? Why do I have to stop attacking to cast it?

It doesn't make sense unless my goal is to make this skill unappealing.

This is what they call 'intentional limitation'. It's introduced to put some kind of penalty onto an ability to make the player actually consider using it in a risk vs reward setting.

Before, as I said, you couldn't recast until the end of the duration, which was a limitation to how much you could use the ability, and made the player actually think about whether they should start in on the next enemy or whether they should back off around a corner or cast their Miasma for the CC, or Molt, because the Lash buff will end before they'd reach the next enemy.

Now that the vast majority of that consideration has been taken away, the objective of the animation is to simply have there be a drawback to the cast. Something in there, according to everything I've seen of Warframe in over four years of playing it, and from the essence of game balance in reference to player buffs, something has to say 'if you want this buff, you will be interrupted and vulnerable for a short while in order to have it'.

That's it, that's how simple it is.

And you don't have to like that it exists, you don't have to think it's some master-stroke of game design, you can be free to hate it. But it has a reason to be there, according to the Devs, and so it's not likely to ever be removed.

[Code4Seeker]

1 hour ago, Thaylien said:

Sadly, as it's a persistent straight buff, with no variance in terms of what it adds or how it adds it, the only thing it could be is a toggle Drain ability. And by that I mean the kind that prevents energy regen, and the base problem is that interruption to regen on a frame as Energy hungry as Saryn would be too much of a downside.

You've got that balance to think about, you either put it on a Duration that limits how long you can use it, or you put it on an Energy Drain that limits how long you can use it, and in the world of Warframe, Energy Drain is a massive weight to tie to any frame, it's not a buff, ever.

As it stands the simple fact that you can recast a '100% damage buff to melee, guaranteed elemental status proc and energy regen when combo'd with your 1' ability before end of duration is pretty damn awesome. You can pick and choose when you want that animation, you don't have to wait until the end of the duration, and the obvious tactic is just to jump and cast while aim-gliding if you want to stay on the move (as aim glide will maintain your momentum even though the animation for the cast plays out).

This is what they call 'intentional limitation'. It's introduced to put some kind of penalty onto an ability to make the player actually consider using it in a risk vs reward setting.

Before, as I said, you couldn't recast until the end of the duration, which was a limitation to how much you could use the ability, and made the player actually think about whether they should start in on the next enemy or whether they should back off around a corner or cast their Miasma for the CC, or Molt, because the Lash buff will end before they'd reach the next enemy.

Now that the vast majority of that consideration has been taken away, the objective of the animation is to simply have there be a drawback to the cast. Something in there, according to everything I've seen of Warframe in over four years of playing it, and from the essence of game balance in reference to player buffs, something has to say 'if you want this buff, you will be interrupted and vulnerable for a short while in order to have it'.

That's it, that's how simple it is.

And you don't have to like that it exists, you don't have to think it's some master-stroke of game design, you can be free to hate it. But it has a reason to be there, according to the Devs, and so it's not likely to ever be removed.

Unfortunately, it's a 30% buff to dmg, not 100% unless you build her for str, and not everyone do that. Saryn is energy hungry if you max str on her which comes back to the question, "Why must I play saryn with max str?"

I can also fully utilize a max eff max dur build and either use her contagion cloud augment and/or condition overload. And this would actually benefit from toxic lash being a toggle ability.

Meanwhile I must disagree with your rationalization of a cast animation for toxic lash because I believe toxic lash shouldn't have a cast delay drawback. Consider this, toxic lash is made for melee mode, and unless you're using slide attack meta which you would just run around spamming slide attack and won't even need to care about the cast animation, you would cringe whenever you're blocking and lose the buff but has to stop blocking because of the cast animation or when your dmg suddenly drops by 30-100% and you need to bullet jump away to recast.

IMO, this goes against what DE has been doing to improve the fluidity of gameplay for players. The skill feels unnecessarily clunky.

[Birdframe_Prime]

45 minutes ago, Code4Seeker said:

Meanwhile I must disagree with your rationalization of a cast animation for toxic lash because I believe toxic lash shouldn't have a cast delay drawback. Consider this, toxic lash is made for melee mode, and unless you're using slide attack meta which you would just run around spamming slide attack and won't even need to care about the cast animation, you would cringe whenever you're blocking and lose the buff but has to stop blocking because of the cast animation or when your dmg suddenly drops by 30-100% and you need to bullet jump away to recast.

IMO, this goes against what DE has been doing to improve the fluidity of gameplay for players. The skill feels unnecessarily clunky.

It's not my rationalisation, it's the exact reason that DE gave when they redid the skill to allow recasting, but didn't take away the fixed animation. Same with the very recent change to Chroma's vex armour recast, it still keeps the animation as an interrupt to anything you're doing.

It's also the reason why duration abilities like Zephyr's Turbulence have a recast delay on them too. The entire purpose is deliberate drawbacks to make the player pay attention to the cast, and not just mindlessly chug away at a single aspect of the game.

48 minutes ago, Code4Seeker said:

Unfortunately, it's a 30% buff to dmg, not 100% unless you build her for str, and not everyone do that. Saryn is energy hungry if you max str on her which comes back to the question, "Why must I play saryn with max str?"

Poorly worded on my part, I did mean the 100% status chance and the variable damage buff, but I was typing fast.

In any case, there isn't any reason to max strength on Saryn if you don't want to, there's no 'forced' about it, play her how you want, but you have to consider that Saryn can be built for strength, it isn't just a dump stat on her.

50 minutes ago, Code4Seeker said:

I can also fully utilize a max eff max dur build and either use her contagion cloud augment and/or condition overload. And this would actually benefit from toxic lash being a toggle ability.

That's good for you, you continue doing that, the fact is, though, that a toggle would even interfere with the base boost of Lash to your energy regen too. Energy regen from sources that are not orbs or the Rage mechanic is blocked by Drain abilities, it's that simple.

Even if you have a maxed efficiency/duration build, you'll still be using a lot of energy on Saryn for her basic Molt/Spores combo to ensure that you have those procs on enemies for Condition Overload to actually do the amazing job it does.

Saryn is a caster, all casters are energy hungry, doesn't matter how you build her, you need to make sure that you're spreading status procs, either by direct casts, or by the more fun method of putting Apores on Molt and letting the enemies spread them for you. The end result is the same, and the energy cost is still going to take you down quite fast if you're blocking incoming energy sources with a Drain.

No matter your build it doesn't change the simple fact that Drains are put on frames as a nerf to abilities. Every ability you can think of with a Drain on it is meant to be limited by that Drain, by virtue of not being able to regen energy, not receive it from Focus abilities or energy plates, other frame abilities... none of it.

Keep the Duration, it means that the nearest Disruptor or Leech Eximus isn't stripping your buffs from you in seconds, it means that you don't have to lose your buffs three seconds after casting your other abilities once too often.

As irritating as the animation is, there is no need to impose that kind of nerf onto Saryn.

[NezuHimeSama]

10 hours ago, Code4Seeker said:

Saryn's Venom Dose augment

Not the casting speed, I would have used natural talent if that's the case.

It's the constant interruption when I am doing combos with melee. Why can't you cast without interrupting combos anyway?

Why would channeling toggle be bad? Some warframe's channeling abilities allow you to get energy from EV etc

Takes up a precious mod slot and is a pain in the ass to cast on anyone. It also applies directly to all weapons' elemental stacks (for the duration of the mission? Flash Accelerant does), though it has a duration timer. Toxic Lash adds an additional 50% of the total weapon damage dealt at the time of attack as an additional stack of toxin damage with a guaranteed proc.

[Code4Seeker]

9 hours ago, Thaylien said:

As irritating as the animation is, there is no need to impose that kind of nerf onto Saryn.

I was asking for the cast animation of toxic lash to be removed. <--- stress this part infinitely

Though I would prefer a toggle instead, because saryn has an option to regain energy from popping spores.(buff this please, 2 energy per spore is too low for the hungry "caster" who is melee-ing stuff) <--asking for this part to be implemented as a compromise if the above cannot be done.

Sorry, I think I have not communicate this part quite clearly since ppl are focusing on the compromise instead of my original request.

3 hours ago, NezuHimeSama said:

Takes up a precious mod slot and is a pain in the ass to cast on anyone. It also applies directly to all weapons' elemental stacks (for the duration of the mission? Flash Accelerant does), though it has a duration timer. Toxic Lash adds an additional 50% of the total weapon damage dealt at the time of attack as an additional stack of toxin damage with a guaranteed proc.

Point taken!

[jfhsanseiIII]

I definitely could get behind this.  I have always hated the casting animation.  Instead of a flat drain how about a drain on the number of targets you hit.  Since it is just a flat perk and not really something like Ivara, exca, or Mesa.  I also wouldn't mind something that lets it scale to enemy level or to the combo bar.

[NezuHimeSama]

40 minutes ago, jfhsanseiIII said:

I definitely could get behind this.  I have always hated the casting animation.  Instead of a flat drain how about a drain on the number of targets you hit.  Since it is just a flat perk and not really something like Ivara, exca, or Mesa.  I also wouldn't mind something that lets it scale to enemy level or to the combo bar.

I think that would be fairly hard to balance, since it would favor slow, heavy hitting weapons, and would make it drain too quickly with larger numbers of enemies. Maybe have the energy drain stop is nothing's been hit in the last 5 seconds or something?

[jfhsanseiIII]

16 minutes ago, NezuHimeSama said:

I think that would be fairly hard to balance, since it would favor slow, heavy hitting weapons, and would make it drain too quickly with larger numbers of enemies. Maybe have the energy drain stop is nothing's been hit in the last 5 seconds or something?

Fair point.  

You could also increase the amount nteraction with spires.  Or have it refresh with ten or more spores hit.  It could be anything to keep it interesting.  

[blaes]

you can recast toxic lash while it's active, which means you can take a second to recast it any time there are less/no enemies. if you need to constantly recast it while you're mid-combo, it means either that you don't have enough duration or you're not killing enemies fast enough. toxic lash's base duration is 30s, if in that time (or more if you put a few duration mods on) you can't find one second to recast when you're not combo-ing enemies, the problem doesn't come from the skill.

 

the only change i could support on toxic lash would be to make the damage reduction while blocking always active as long as you're using your melee, even if you're not blocking.

[(PSN)Lei-Lei_23]

Toxic Lash is a 1-handed cast skill. It’s already very good because you can use it on the fly as it is.

The way I built my Saryn is go 155% Duration, 45% efficiency, 235% range, 154% Power Strength, base health, base shields, base armor, 850 energy. Mods goes: Growing Power, Power Drift, Blind Rage, Primed Continuity, Primed Flow, Quick Thinking, Overextended, Stretch, Regenerative Molt, Contagion. Use a Plague Zaw or whatever melee of your choice, my preference is a Plague Polearm Zaw spec’d for Healing Return, Condition Overload, Primed Reach, Blood Rush + Drifting Contact. No Maiming Strike.

I only ever use Miasma as emergency CC and Molt as emergency heal. Keeping up Spores is a priority, and since Contagion procs Toxin Clouds enemies that are Spored interacting with the cloud will have their Spores popped. The whole point is keeping Spores up, keep popping Spores with melee, and keeping Toxic Lash active up until its duration comes to an end for a recast. With 155% Duration you have 46.5 seconds to keep Toxic Lash up, which is enough time for you to continue popping Spores on your enemies.

Even though this setup has 45% efficiency on the build, it’s actually extremely energy efficient if you go with the mentality I listed above. And as I’ve said before, Toxic Lash is a one-handed cast, which is technically the best cast-type animation a Warframe can have with little animation lock as a downfall.

Now, if you ask me on how Toxic Lash should be improved I wish it had Nidus’s Virulence special mechanic where the more energy is invested on the ability, the more stacks you can achieve per target. If something close to that was implemented on Toxic Lash where the more energy you invest in casting the skill, per Spore popped with it would grant more energy back in return. That would technically make Saryn more economical on her energy consumption.

[Sloan441]

On 3/16/2018 at 5:19 AM, Code4Seeker said:

 

Can you please kindly remove the cast animation so toxic lash can be casted on the fly?

Otherwise, I would much really prefer if toxic lash becomes a toggled channeling ability.

 

The change to the casting animation would be welcome. That or even more base duration. Or both. 

Toggled...I used to think this, but it's been hashed out before and ultimately it has been argued effectively that's it's a bad idea for mostly one reason: cutting off energy recovery while active. There are ways around it, but it's simply better in the long run if it remains on the timer and Saryn can use more methods of energy recovery.