Developer Workshop: Saryn Revisited 2.0

[MechaKnight]

I do feel guilty for this sass, but it does express the gripe I have for the consequences of the rework.

You like spamming Spores to deal weak damage across a bunch of enemies right? Well good news is you no longer need to spam. Bad news is you deal a lot less damage and have to wait a really long time for Spores to spread and build damage.

You want a more defensible frame? Too bad! Molt gives you a speed buff now so you can run away from enemies while you wish you had that 95% damage reduction like Mesa.

You wanted better melee benefits and survivability? Too bad, we gave up on that. Let's just give her more base armor and spread the damage effects across all her kit so you don't need to melee. We're removing the energy regeneration though, so you can fully commit to the mistake that is using Saryn to melee instead of running Valkyr.

You wanted a more reliable Miasma with Corrosive procs and maybe an enemy slowing augment? No, you're not getting that. Lets just remove the damage synergy with Molt and change the damage type to viral so you won't worry about status procs anymore because viral only needs one tick. However you can now only stun an enemy once while Miasma is active and have to wait for it to expire so you can stun them again. We're already ahead of you--we increased the duration so you have to wait longer.

I understand there are buffs. Spore can now chew through armor though it probably won't spread as fast if the spread is automatic. At least the developers are gradually coming to the understanding that decoys are lame defense unless you have a ton of them--Loki turns invisible because the Decoy won't live too long, Atlas was underplayed for a while because a couple rumblers won't take away all the incoming bullets and attention, so now he has a new rubble mechanic. Nekros does fine with it when he piles on a horde of temporarily living clones capable of moving and fighting with guns--something Contagion Cloud's little puffs don't do. Toxic Lash could have been a new dimension to Saryn but now it is generic--the developers want to entertain melee builds on Saryn while effectively admitted to giving up on the possibility since players don't utilize Saryn's kit as often towards melee builds as they do towards gun or ability builds. Miasma was the underdog of the kit even though it could perform reliably in dealing burst damage, but now players have to wait through its duration to stun. I actually found it entertaining temporarily that duration factored into Miasma's damage calculation better than strength, but now that players are being penalized by building for duration I find it less fun.

[cursedmoon13]

8 minutes ago, Urlan said:

Particularly, with Maiming strike as I recall from the videos of Youtubers claiming onslaught was too easy - as long as they used that loadout at least.

At the risk of being crucified, I almost think they should just nerf Maiming already. Something semi-creative, though, like the crit boost is the same but only applies to the first enemy hit by the sliding attack, or the boost is evenly split between the enemies hit. Basically so Long weapon + Primed Reach + crit mods + Maiming =/= empty room.

[Ozamchist]

49 minutes ago, Morthal said:

I've watched the pre-show, have posted a video clip of it for all to see here. If need to understand the basics of Viral v.s. Corruption status, check out the Warframe Wiki, then you won't even have to watch the clip, in order to know that this is a nerf. Just in case you're too lazy or reluctant to rereading the Wiki, 25% of current armor is removed per affliction of corrosive, which needs no refresh obviously. Viral status afflictions need to be refreshed but temporarily cut the enemies total health by half. Already, we can see that within the same time frame of 1 second/ one tick, that a Viral proc is more effective overall. 

Watch the clip I posted earlier to see that no matter what the enemy level is, even 9999, 25% of CURRENT armor will be reduced per tick of Saryn's Spore. This is highly ineffective at armor stripping in comparison to all the alternatives already in game. Making Saryn a redundant 4th skill nuke spammer, probably seems cool though, right? 😆

Surprise suprise I actually use her as a melee tank. Never used her for her 4 spam. Had to argue with dorks why her first rework would, and did, leave her in a better place  than before. And I'll do it here too if I have too.

Of course only 25% of armor get reduces per tick that's how corosive procs work, that's how they've always worked.

The corrosive procs stripped a level 1000 gunner of the entirety of its armor, so thinking that her new spore is going to be bad at reducing armor is just an incredible lack of critical thinking. This will give her more avenues to fight armored targets (and will help deal with some bosses and minibosses by reducing/stripping their armor)

Spores tick multiple times quite quickly and with near infinite duration in the mix you want a status proc that benefits being proced multiple times in a short amount and not just a timer refresh, so things like toxin, slash, or corrosive would be the best here. Viral shines with a short burst of aoe damage and good news it's attached to Saryn's miasma which is exactly that.

Her strength in fighting corpus is unchanged... Wait actually it's not.. it's buffed because that actually came from saryn's abillity to deal toxin damage through molt or toxic lash (which apparently you dinguses don't use a lot, seriously what the hekk!?) and toxic lash is getting its effect doubled for melee and can now be applied to you guns, if you have any trouble killing the corpus before or especially after this rework you are...

just...

Don't play video games anymore...

The infested are actually interesting to this equation since they pretty much die quickly no matter what but spore will be just as effective against them, if not more effective, than before because while they get 50% less max hp they also have a 50% damage resistance to viral, but their fossilized units take a 75% damage bonus from corrosive.

So not only do the factions she fights get just as much if not more damage from this rework she actually gets considerably more utility against them, She also gets 1 more status proc, a better molt (which was good before you dorks), a toxic lash that can be applied to your guns (and is even better for melee now), and a miasma that does something useful.

But no, you have to go with the standard fair warframe community knee jerking bs and call it, of all things, a "nerf". You should be ashamed of yourself.

[(PSN)mannam15]

these changes sound... i don't know, we really need to get our hands on it before we can have any form of actual feedback.

first off, how fast will the spore damage ramp up now ? will detonating it be a discount equinox 4/nova 2 or will it just be a feature  we never use ?

beyond that, you rendered molt worthless. movement speed is just a bad thing to have compared to bullet jump, and the extra scaling health is not of use if this ability is just a distraction, not a proper aggro pull. i'd like to see it changed even further and have it be something that can stand on its own not just another feature that it dependency, rather than synergy.

i'd also like to see the augment's healing be changed to function like oberon's 3, instead of being in bursts as its just not a dependable form of healing like that.

as for miasma, im fine with the damage change, we just lose 50 damage but need to do a lot less to gain this damage (just having spores on target vs 2 different status effects), which i appreciate, but why restrict the stun, and essentially put it on a cooldown ? saryn does need this cc to be effective (speaking from the solo perspective). this will force us into low duration builds, which hurts her other abilities. 

didn't we literally do the exact opposite thing to xcal last update ?

this change in specific is something that i need scott, and the balance team to heavily reconsider.

[scourge213]

12 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

• When an enemy affected by Spores dies, they spread to surrounding enemies. This makes it much easier to keep Spores active.    
  • *Developer Note: We are particularly apprehensive about Spores behaving this way since we’ve paired it with an already experimental mechanic  - it is the most likely portion of the rework to be highly reconsidered before launch.   
• Recasting Spores will detonate all active Spores and will deal 2x the damage on an infected enemy based on the number of active Spores and their current damage per tick.
• A meter showing damage per tick and the number of affected enemies will be available in the UI to keep tabs on active Spores. 

 

The rewoks looks great on paper. Especially the synergy between spores and miasma. However this is what needs to be really closely looked at.

1) Will the scaling damage be kept when spreading to a new enemy and reset when there are no targets left? It most likely should.

2) Will the spreading be enough? Taking away the ability to cast on new target, the 'ex' reduced spread radius when target dies really should be tweaked accordingly.

Please DE, consider this.

Thank you.

[JDxBarracka]

Yeah could you increase the drop rate of saryn too .

I have one saryn prime and sold two saryn prime sets as well and still haven't gotten normal saryn

Would like to get my 6k Mastery just saying :)

Edited May 11, 2018 by JDxBarracka

[SolarDwagon]

Some interesting changes, but I think the forced Miasma usage by swapping viral and corrosive around in her toolset is going to make her a) less effective and b) MORE energy hungry than before for most people who main her.

[hexacypher]

I don't know about this rework. It seems interesting on paper, but it seems like it might in the end kill my usage of Saryn sadly. I particularly liked being a Spore Gardener.

I like the corrosive proc, the infinite nature of spores, the GUI additions and the sound rework, but not sure I'll like that spores just explode when you try and proc them again, or that they don't stick to molt (which really seems like what this rework was about). Even if it wasn't on molt, I did enjoy spamming Spores on enemies, even in run and gun situations.

In the thread, I do like the idea that Miasma should be an actual cloud, it is called Miasma after all. It'd be an interesting crowd control tool if it was like that with viral or even if it still had the ol' corrosive ability.

Personally, I'd rather have her 1st and 2nd remain the same and just work on making her 3rd and 4th more useful. I think for her 4th, the cloud idea seems appropriate for her.

[(PSN)AbBaNdOn_IGN]

😞 Never got to spend time with my Saryn Prime after learning about the molt/spore trick.....

I have ideas for Molt.....

-You cast it and it absorbs damage initially to gain more HP before it start taking damage and then exploding.....   Is it part of the math that the more HP it is able to attain affect how much damage is inflicted when it finally explodes???  That way it scales offensively with tougher enemies.   Tougher enemies cause waaay more damage to molt it gains way more HP initially and in turn deals way more damage when it finally explodes.......   like a charge up bomb.

-Probably not balanced but what if Molt still had some synergy to spores...  Specifically... enemies within a 8-10 meter range of molt take double damage from spores???   This would create a really cool death trap.   Enemies would die like moths to a flame... at the feet of a fake version of Saryn....  sounds pretty sick...

Otherwise I love that you swapped out some of those to corrosion and left toxic lash as toxin.  

I guess as far as Spores... infinite duration/ increasing power???  That seems like one of the reasons you changed Ember.....   If you keep Spore working like that then it shoud work like world on fire energy wise.   Initial cast cost.... and then continuous drain to energy that ramps up so eventually it has to end...... otherwise wtf...

[cursedmoon13]

I have an idea. If (part of?) the reason for this rework is stopping the safe spore-spamming strategy, maybe just make it so Saryn can apply Spores to Molt, but only enemies can pop them, not Tenno. This reinforces some of the more interesting strategies, while removing the ability to just tuck yourself and your Molt in a sheltered corner somewhere to nuke rooms, in near-complete safety.

[hexacypher]

After this rework is dropped. Is there any way that players can vote to get it rolled back if we don't like it?

[krodha36]

• not sure about the damage type switch between miasma and spores
• instead of completely disallowing spores to spread multiple times, can u make it so that only spores that are popped spread? (by popped i mean the tenno shooting it)

[sleep]

5 minutes ago, cursedmoon13 said:

I have an idea. If (part of?) the reason for this rework is stopping the safe spore-spamming strategy, maybe just make it so Saryn can apply Spores to Molt, but only enemies can pop them, not Tenno. This reinforces some of the more interesting strategies, while removing the ability to just tuck yourself and your Molt in a sheltered corner somewhere to nuke rooms, in near-complete safety.

They want it so you dont "forget and leave it", your suggestion is basically "forget and leave it" lol

[cursedmoon13]

Just now, krodha36 said:

• not sure about the damage type switch between miasma and spores
• instead of completely disallowing spores to spread multiple times, can u make it so that only spores that are popped spread? (by popped i mean the tenno shooting it)

But I thought spreading multiple times was the whole point of how it works now... Did you read it wrong, or did I?

[cursedmoon13]

2 minutes ago, Sleepepe said:

They want it so you dont "forget and leave it", your suggestion is basically "forget and leave it" lol

That doesn't track with the changes they proposed, though. The new way Spores work is even more "fire and forget" (which is how I interpret "forget and leave it") than it is now.

[LuckyCharm]

I'm hyped for this and it should be great. Really looking forward to the toxic lash changes too. Toxic lash with augment + lenz = all the poison clouds

[Issxi]

@[DE]Pablo Can you please fix the broken texture that covers Saryn Prime when Toxic Lash is activated? If you do that then you will be my hero, as this rework looks fantastic. Thank you so much for what you've done for my favorite frame. I've been using her less and less ever since her rework because I hated the stationary playstyle she was used for. Now I can return to her. Thank you so much. ❤️

[(PSN)OmegaSlayer]

Hmm...while the changes might be ok, removing the spores on molt cast Saryn in that dump where you have to race against other players to get a kill or buff yourself, like Ash (targeting enemies with Bladestorm just to have them killed by team mates), Atlas (enemies you need for rubble), Inaros (if you're not on enemies before your team you can't heal with finishers), Nidus (good luck building stacks with people firing with Amprex on your larva), especially if you have in the team an Octavia or a Mesa.

I don't complain for players killing faster in a PvE game and I don't want other frames nerfed, it's just that DE guys, you shouldn't rework a frame only thinking about what it does, but how your rework might hinder it because of what other frames do.

Also, think about Wukong and making Ember useful again before touching other frames.

Edited May 11, 2018 by (PS4)OmegaSlayer

[SinKershel]

Nothing against Danielle but I don't want to hear a voice everytime I cast something.

I could maybe deal with a nerf, but a voice is something that is going to make me shelve Saryn.

Valkyr scream got on my nerves two missions deep.

Also : LOTS of issues with her skin. Her hands are literally going through the skirt.

Edited May 11, 2018 by SinKershel
skin

[Fitboy93]

As a Saryn main I love the direction that DE is taking with this rework. Spores are getting a HUGE buff as it seems, although it probably makes a little bit difficult to hit them (or it now) seeing as recasting spores makes them explode and you need to hit it to make spread. What I'm not quite eager about is the damage type change of spores. Of course we shall wait and see how it turns out but viral was universally effective in terms of affecting enemies from different factions (not infested but infested is the weakest faction in the game so no probs) seeing as corrosive will be THE MOST effective against ferrite armored targets. Corpus units have alloy armor so it doesn't affect them and I see that as a downside. This is probably the only reason why I am a bit sceptical about the damage type change.

Regarding Molt I am also a little bit sad that you lose the ability to cast spores on them and I understand why DE does this. Whenever I started playing Saryn I was doing that same scheme 2-1 and spread the spores. When I got more advanced in using Saryn I used it as an escape route, place molt and use spores on it so that the attracted enemies get infected. Another use was actually placing molt so that the spreading ability of spores is the most efficient. In maps like Hydron it doesn't really matter since max range Saryn affects everyone in the spawn points but a bit larger maps like Draco on Ceres. Placing molt and casting spores was actually good for infecting as much enemies as possible and that's 1 time use (at least for me). The other job gets done by the spores spreading themselves from enemies to enemies.

Toxic Lash is getting a nice buff as well although I was pretty happy with how it worked but who doesn't want protein shakes when someone offers them to you, right?

Other than that it seems really promising. Saryn was already strong and this rework might give her even more devastating power. 

 

[Fitboy93]

As a Saryn main I love the direction that DE is taking with this rework. Spores are getting a HUGE buff as it seems, although it probably makes a little bit difficult to hit them (or it now) seeing as recasting spores makes them explode and you need to hit it to make spread. What I'm not quite eager about is the damage type change of spores. Of course we shall wait and see how it turns out but viral was universally effective in terms of affecting enemies from different factions (not infested but infested is the weakest faction in the game so no probs) seeing as corrosive will be THE MOST effective against ferrite armored targets. Corpus units have alloy armor so it doesn't affect them and I see that as a downside. This is probably the only reason why I am a bit sceptical about the damage type change.

Regarding Molt I am also a little bit sad that you lose the ability to cast spores on them and I understand why DE does this. Whenever I started playing Saryn I was doing that same scheme 2-1 and spread the spores. When I got more advanced in using Saryn I used it as an escape route, place molt and use spores on it so that the attracted enemies get infected. Another use was actually placing molt so that the spreading ability of spores is the most efficient. In maps like Hydron it doesn't really matter since max range Saryn affects everyone in the spawn points but a bit larger maps like Draco on Ceres placing molt and casting spores was actually good for infecting as much enemies as possible and that's 1 time use (at least for me). The other job gets done by the spores spreading themselves from enemies to enemies.

Toxic Lash is getting a nice buff as well although I was pretty happy with how it worked but who doesn't want protein shakes when someone offers them to you, right?

Other than that it seems really promising. Saryn was already strong and this rework might give her even more devastating power. 

EDIT: I absolutely forgot miasma. I think miasma gets the least useful changes in this rework. Not really keen on damage type swap as already mentioned before viral should be attributed to spores imo (but again we shall see) but what would really benefit miasma is a bit of added range. The range on this ability even on max range Saryn is limited and added 5-8 meters would benefit a lot (10 would be better of course but it might end up being OP)

 

Edited May 11, 2018 by Fitboy93

[OSik83]

Seems nice for survival but really bad for defence ? - each wave resets spores basically, so defence would require molt being able to be infected by spore spread it seems ?

[ThomasBrody]

8 hours ago, spacerocks said:

8 hours ago, Chroia said:

While I don't know why these changes are happening, I'm (almost) not embarrassed to say that I literally squeed when I saw this.
I missed Saryn under Damage 1.0.
I found OG Saryn under Damage 2.0 to be 75% useless (1-3), 25% niche (min dur Miasma).
I liked the idea of the interactions in Saryn Revisited. (An incarnation of an infection, spreading a disease that grows more powerful as the infection spreads - essentially the debuff counterpart of what Nidus later came to be. Nidus' spreads his Infestation to make him stronger, Saryn tends her Infection to make it stronger.)
But the implementation felt so forced and power hungry that I just couldn't. Which was sad, because while I didn't love Saryn, Saryn Prime is absolutely gorgeous. Granted, some if this is simply due to Warframe's technical state (or standards?) improving in the 3ish years inbetween.

So yeah, Saryn getting a better implementation of an appealing concept, on a frame that's already visually appealing?
I'm (trying to remain cautiously) quite excited.

 

Amen. Glad to see this changed.
If multiple tools don't work independently, it's a dependency not a synergy.

 

Amen.
See Molt note, but having some guaranteed uptime is an immense improvement - and might make Molt worth using in level 60+ missions that aren't a turtle mode..

 

While I never saw the point of this (Spores + Torid/Gas Lanka all the way), I can live with Sayrn being less braindead.

 

*Shrug* honestly.
This is an opaque change, and as far as I can tell not very significant, which just contributes to general stat bloat.

 

Hrm. Interesting.
Does it still interact with toxin procs? Edit: Stream says 'no' 😞 This is a pretty darn big deal.

Also, I'm honestly surprised to see infinite duration, given that it was explicitly removed from Gara's Mass Vitrify, with an extreme reduction to its survival time and a scaling mechanic that's of dubious use.

 

This makes sense to me, given the much higher proc rate of Spores over Miasma, as well as Spores now working as setup, letting Miasma act as a crescendo.
Assuming that the damage is there. Otherwise it's just a anticlimax.

The corollary, of course, is that Spores is now hugely less effective against Infested and Corpus, due to no longer halving their health while not benefiting from the Corrosive procs either. 😕
And Miasma doesn't really have the range for wide area Viral application, I don't think. Maybe stop it popping Spores and have Spores extend the Viral proc's range? Then they still interact, though it's no longer the same 'set them up and knock them down'.

 

Since tone doesn't carry in text: this is a bewildered question.
(Given that Spores is now infinite, and scales by time,)  Why would I ever rather this happen rather than letting me seed spores in a new place if I'm afraid of the infection burning out where it currently is? 

 

Erm... why?
If you have Spore stripping armor, Corrosive to allies is both unneeded; and loses the Damage 2.0 multiplier.

 

Cheers.
If nothing else, all things being equal, this gives molt 8+ seconds of uptime. (4 invul, 4 sec to drain the time the damage absorbed, plus time to drain the innate HP.)
Which is up from the <1 sec past starchart.

 

Amen.

Ah!
Contagion Cloud's pretty much never been worth using, as melee already had ~equal range to the cloud.
But if it works with guns, and keeps its ability to proc toxin and pop spores, I am suddenly able to use so many more weapons than just Torid/Lanka/Ignis/Pox. (Some other possibilities, such as M Cernos exists, but are mostly sub-par.)
This makes me happy.  :)

Edit: Scratch all that. I use Contagion CLoud so infrequently that I forgot that Contagion Cloud is a flat (tiny) amount, disconnected from your weapon's damage.
Welp, sticking with the current arsenal.

 

Replies inline in red

Looking forward to seeing this, and fingers crossed.

The spore popping second cast is to make sure you cant spam it on molt.

The augment change relates to the damage type change... Why would corrosive spores give allies viral damage? Its extra damage. The spores dont kill armour instantly. Its good regardless...




 

[NecromancerX69]

Everything looks good on paper... But, what about the Corpus?

The proto shields are really resistant to corrosive damage, Id say just keep Virus on Spores and Corrosive on 4th.

[DjKaplis]

I have a question that worries me.. how much spore spread range will be have after these changes? Is it going to stay the same? In the devstream it looked as if it is reduced.

With already it being harder to spread spores in this new system it would certainly kill her current playstyle if also the spore spread range got reduced. (current playstyle of course is already going to change since spores will now have different damage type, not sure how that will work in terms of team synergy). 

 

Can surely say that although some changes like molt survivability or Toxic lash applying to other weapons might be nice, the big changes in her basic mechanics worries me quite a lot and only time will tell if she will survive this rework... as 5min Mot survival showcase is not enough to understand how her kit will work now. #prayforsaryn