[Update 22.2.0] Saryn Revisted 2.0 Feedback MEGATHREAD

[Lanaestra]

I think my personal fix for the observed issues would be something along the lines of:

1. Reduce/remove the range penalty when enemies die "naturally" to spores. Because of math, a 50% reduction in the radius of a sphere is a significantly more than 50% decrease in the actual area affected by the ability, and I suspect this wasn't accounted for. 

2. Remove the passive scaling of spore damage, make the damage over time scale only on manual spore pops. This lessens the "set it and forget it" style of play and encourages the active style that the current design currently wants to encourage with the range effect above.

 

The intersection of those two things are pretty much exactly what causes Saryn to be overtuned in ESO while being less effective in regular missions: ESO doesn't have the range issue so you're free to let the auto-scaling play the game for you. Meanwhile, in normal missions you don't have enough range and lose too much range when allies get kills (I might also suggest maybe having allied kills of spored enemies contribute to scaling, but that's more of a to-taste thing, how fool-proof do you want Saryn to be in parties).

[_Chambs_]

Lot's of people already posted feedback about Saryn, but let me trow mine in here too.

Currently Saryn feels great to play with, it's awesome to see enemies dying because of a disease that you brewed, but how it works it needs to be changed, it's simply too powerful.

My suggestions would be:
Spores no longer pop and spread when an enemy die, they just move to another enemy.
Spores no longer increase in damage by each instance of damage, they should only increase when popped and once per damage tick.
Recasting Spores shouldn't pop all of them (transfer that function to miasma), it should cast a single spore on whatever enemy you aiming at.
Miasma should pop all active spores and add a viral procc to enemies affected by them.
Increase it's spreading range!!!!

[Xyhon]

Spores die off way too quickly, and also, spores "self preservation" mechanism is removed - which makes things even worse. Please re-instate spores not being erased after death of enemy that carried it instantly. You "fixed" it before with this solution, time to give it back to us. Else, it's frustrating to cast spores on ONE enemy at a time, only to have them negated by, for example, other frame, weapon, whatever, that manages to destroy target before they mature and spread. 

[Bismarke]

I feel like the new Spores are just worse than the old ones...

Corrosive just isn't as useful as Viral. It sounded good on paper, but in practice the corrosive procs are only useful against like 3 enemy types (i'm exaggerating don't @ me). And sometimes the Spores simply won't cast (in Onslaught at least... i'm getting Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 flashbacks). They don't (or don't seem to) spread as far or as easily. I find I'm using them a whole lot less than I used to, and not at all in non-continuous missions.

The Toxic Lash changes are absolutely stellar, though. Love it to bits.

Still indifferent about the new Molt. I tended to use it more to draw fire as I shifted left, or block a bottleneck rather than run away. So for my playstyle the changes are basically meaningless, if not straight up worse. I don't miss the Spore+Molt synergy as much as I expected to, but I still catch myself trying to cast it out of reflex. It also seems way flimsier... It might be that I tend to cast before I'm in real trouble so it doesn't get the damage it needs to scale up, but on the other hand throughout an Onslaught run I don't think I had a single Molt last longer than a few seconds.

[SyBuhr]

45 minutes ago, CanadianGold96 said:

I feel like the new Spores are just worse than the old ones...

Corrosive just isn't as useful as Viral. It sounded good on paper, but in practice the corrosive procs are only useful against like 3 enemy types (i'm exaggerating don't @ me). And sometimes the Spores simply won't cast (in Onslaught at least... i'm getting Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 flashbacks). They don't (or don't seem to) spread as far or as easily. I find I'm using them a whole lot less than I used to, and not at all in non-continuous missions.

The Toxic Lash changes are absolutely stellar, though. Love it to bits.

Still indifferent about the new Molt. I tended to use it more to draw fire as I shifted left, or block a bottleneck rather than run away. So for my playstyle the changes are basically meaningless, if not straight up worse. I don't miss the Spore+Molt synergy as much as I expected to, but I still catch myself trying to cast it out of reflex. It also seems way flimsier... It might be that I tend to cast before I'm in real trouble so it doesn't get the damage it needs to scale up, but on the other hand throughout an Onslaught run I don't think I had a single Molt last longer than a few seconds.

I never utilized the 2-1 combo much, but I can tell you that you really are not missing much.

The new molt, I think, is pretty great. You get a speed boost, and an Invincibility timer for the molt, similar to frosts' Globe. That's pretty sweet, and also quick-fixes an issue where regenerative molt only worked if the Molt was alive.The best part, is now it can block a bottleneck more effectively now, because of those changes.

I've had Molt last a while in SO, enough for regenerative molt to heal me from ~50 to full. The key thing to note is that, the invincibility timer can be decreased, and even 4 seconds can be a bit short of a frame to work with. If you use Corrupted mods to lower duration, that time can be even more strict to work with.

I also love the new toxic lash.

Corrosive is pretty useful, versus grineer, infested, and corrupted (that said, only due to armor. Void Fissures will cure spores, sadly). Grineer and corrupted obviously have some armor, and Infested actually get armor from swarm mutalists, and ancients. I find the ramping damage type to be just as useful as viral, but not as enjoyable to play with in star-chart, and think that if it was a permanent change, I could live with it.

All things considered, her viral was really ridiculous, at every stage of the game. Having it placed on a more costly ability that always procs the viral seems (to me, anyways) a fair trade-off, considering the buffs spores have received.

Hopefully, she won't get Ember'd

 

[SyBuhr]

6 hours ago, _Chambs_ said:

Lot's of people already posted feedback about Saryn, but let me trow mine in here too.

Currently Saryn feels great to play with, it's awesome to see enemies dying because of a disease that you brewed, but how it works it needs to be changed, it's simply too powerful.

My suggestions would be:
Spores no longer pop and spread when an enemy die, they just move to another enemy.
Spores no longer increase in damage by each instance of damage, they should only increase when popped and once per damage tick.
Recasting Spores shouldn't pop all of them (transfer that function to miasma), it should cast a single spore on whatever enemy you aiming at.
Miasma should pop all active spores and add a viral procc to enemies affected by them.
Increase it's spreading range!!!!

1. Spores no longer popping and spreading when an enemy dies is not the answer you want, because then it becomes a straight up nerf to burst damage potential.
2. I agree that spores need to some hard evaluation on how quickly they ramp up their damage. Spores already ramp up in damage per tick, but because there are three spores, you are technically seeing three damage ticks. Making it so that all three spores only have one damage instance would be a nerf, due to how damage types work in the game.
3. I think everyone here agrees that the Detonation mechanic is not useful, in any sense.
4. Miasma deals double damage with spored-targets, and already does a guaranteed viral proc regardless of spores... Soooo...
5. Increasing it's spreading range may be helpful. Someone on the forums made a topic on how to fix the spread inconsistency issues, but I forgot the title of the post.

[Old_Wulf]

There are some really good ideas in this thread, which is great. What is not so great is that DE has not yet acknowledged (unless I have missed it) that something is very wrong and in need of fixing pretty quickly. 

[Cibyllae]

On 2018-05-20 at 9:39 PM, Cibyllae said:

Make spores instead tick for x amount of constant corrosive damage with a chance to proc the status effect. Give us back the burst damage on spore pop, but have the burst damage be predicated on the spore counter that we have now. Meaning, instead of each spore ticking for 500, 1000, 1500, etc, etc, now every time you pop a spore it will do 500, 1000. 1500, etc, etc in an aoe. I have no clue about numbers, what the damage should be, or what it needs to be.

[EinheriarJudith]

there is something i realized with spore's deactivate function. it resembles too much equinox maim deactivate. you build up a good spore charge then deactivate to blow up the masses. i think in this it doesn't work for a frame that is all about proliferation and should just not have a deactivate.

people say she does not so well in missions that the enemies are very few. i can see how that can be. the only issue i have with her currently is that clunky single target activation of spore that requires a target. it would have been nice to turn it into a frontal AOE spray or some kind of homing projectile that doesn't need a target activation and then just have it spread like it does now. skills similar to this i find myself rarely using like nekros's soul punch, oberon's smite etc. this is just an issue with myself and not really with her.

Edited May 23, 2018 by EinheriarJudith

[EinheriarJudith]

12 hours ago, _Chambs_ said:

they just move to another enemy.

this right here could replace the deactivation mechanic. just have the spores linger after enemy death and then latch onto new enemies.

[Purity]

12 hours ago, EinheriarJudith said:

this right here could replace the deactivation mechanic. just have the spores linger after enemy death and then latch onto new enemies.

That would probably be on of the most sit and prey abilities in the game..

[EinheriarJudith]

1 minute ago, Jebbers said:

That would probably be on of the most sit and prey abilities in the game..

saryn's abilities are about proliferation this just adds to that i don't see a problem. currently the deactivation mechanic hurts spores imo.

[Purity]

15 hours ago, Bleedz_Au said:

There are some really good ideas in this thread, which is great. What is not so great is that DE has not yet acknowledged (unless I have missed it) that something is very wrong and in need of fixing pretty quickly. 

Thats pretty much why i gave up. She gon get ember'd lol

[EinheriarJudith]

1 minute ago, Jebbers said:

Thats pretty much why i gave up. She gon get ember'd lol

get ember'd? smh another person who has no idea how to use ember. then uses her as an example of being bad.

[Rankii]

Was spore's range nerfed or something because I can't seem to spread spores anymore. I'm running 235 range and I still only see around 15 infected after striking an enemy with my toxic lash scoliac. In an infested mission where the room was full of maggots.

Honestly at least "turret saryn" had some interaction between abilities. This is how to play saryn now

Spore on enemy

Shoot enemy with high-powered gas weapon

Hide somewhere while spores do the work for you (assuming they even spread. Otherwise repeat until spores spread at least once)

Come out of hiding once in a couple of minutes to repeat the process.

[DeliciousDoob69]

Melee Finishes are busted (all melee weapons are using the same animation) PLEASE fix it DE. I want my old dagger finisher animations back please.

[Kolchak]

The point of Saryn was that she was a low maintenance frame with high versatility and survivability because her spores didn't need help, and her molt kept enemy attention. Things getting hectic, shields gone? Pop a molt, hit it with spores, then pinball around until your shields are back, knowing you're still doing your job. Need crowd control while you're focusing a nullifier? Toss spores and pop them with your primary, then focus down the nullifier any way you want. Forcing people to babysit their spores to make sure it isn't a waste of energy is not a 'solution' it's a sign of a badly designed ability. This isn't going to fix anything, it's just going to push her to being worse/unviable. Perfect example: Toxic Lash was unneeded and pointless, it tethered you to melee, only affected you, and had an easy workaround. We didn't try to fix Toxic Lash, we just ignored it. Nobody used it, for a reason, it was broken and pointless. Now the devs are trying to force use of Toxic Lash by breaking the mechanics of Spores. That's not how it's going to work though. We're just going to stop using her spores, or just stop using her, as the whole point of her is gone, she's just a terrible Nidus now. The new workaround to a broken Saryn: make Nidus, he does what she does, but better.

[Kromatia]

So my thoughts on Saryn's rework.....I hate being in a squad with a Saryn.

Her abilities are great and the buff was much needed, however, she has returned to being a Press 4 To Win frame with the ability to clear rooms with minimal effort given. I'm sure most people are happy that they can just AFK in a game, but I'm here to PLAY said game, not have it be played for me by a Saryn with stupidly high range that can clear an entire sanctuary onslaught tile with a single press of 4. Please limit this range to a maximum of say 50 meters or something. It's very boring and frustrating not being able to kill anything at all and watching the game be played for me. I come to enjoy my time and I'm adding Saryn to the list of frames I refuse to play with in Pubs.

[AlucardXVX]

6 hours ago, Rankii said:

Was spore's range nerfed or something because I can't seem to spread spores anymore. I'm running 235 range and I still only see around 15 infected after striking an enemy with my toxic lash scoliac. In an infested mission where the room was full of maggots.

Honestly at least "turret saryn" had some interaction between abilities. This is how to play saryn now

Spore on enemy

Shoot enemy with high-powered gas weapon

Hide somewhere while spores do the work for you (assuming they even spread. Otherwise repeat until spores spread at least once)

Come out of hiding once in a couple of minutes to repeat the process.

Noticed the same thing myself tonight. Defense missions rarely saw more than 7-10 infected at any given time. 

[Sasuda]

Just a heads up for those in this forum:

It's a new workshop detailing some of the next planned changes to fix the new changes to fix the old changes, specifically on Spore. Take a look so you can find ways which the new planned changes may need to be fixed so they know they might have to change the next planned changes to fix the new changes to fix the old changes. 😉

[ThePredicament]

After some extensive testing in multiple different scenarios, I find that the rework is just a mixed bag with lots of good stuff, some bad, and some need of QoL.

Spores)
Spores' new spread mechanic is great, especially since it doesn't involve having to shoot pods off of enemies, although starting and watching it's spread makes it feel like more of a chore instead. The damage gets a little weird, it's amazing in some cases like Onslaught, where it can easily go to 5k due to the spread but in mid to high, and some non-onslaught endgame, games, it just isn't enough to justify losing being able to cast on multiple enemies when there aren't enough to spread it properly.

The switch from Viral to Corrosive also puts it in a weird spot, at endgame content (lvl 150 armored enemy for example), Corrosive needs some time/ticks to catch up with Viral's instant 2x damage, and the status also only effects armored units which I'm guessing is about 35 to 45 percent of the game (Grineer, few from Corrupted, Corpus, Infested) compared to the 100% of viral.

QoL changes should be: Either recast and detonate on new target cast, so it doesn't have to be a two step thing, or let it just be recast on a different group of enemies to a certain extent, like three groups max until the build up expires. Let it spread and damage on enemies that already spore on them, balance it out by reducing build up time, no proc tick difference, and/or overall damage; every other damage skill in the game can stack damage when used on enemies, why not Spores?

Molt)
Molt isn't that much different to the old Molt in terms of functionality, it still doesn't draw aggro as much as it should, the speed boost is nice but unnecessary, and now can't cast Spores on it, even for the sake of holding unto a spore build up and not just for Saryn piñata smacking. A good way to balance "Spore Turret"-ing is just by disabling Saryn popping spores off of it but letting enemies smack it for Spore and Toxic procs. The spore turret thing doesn't even matter now that the spread mechanic has a huge range now anyway.

Let it be able to hold Spore but disable Saryns popping the spores and only allow enemies to do it, which mostly means infecting close range units, and don't let it factor into building up damage. Also, the health regen of Regen Molt is a much better utility than a speed boost and mostly a must have for Saryn, which should replace and or append on the current bonus. Change Regen Molt to add some kind of CC like blind/charm/confusion on explosion or a Djinn style attraction, instead.

Toxic Lash)
Actually my favorite part of the Saryn rework, this is what Toxic Lash should have been all along. The damage may not be as good as Roar or any other damage bonus skills on paper but it does give weapons great stacking damage from Toxic procs and, at the same time, a great utility to bypass shields with it's pure Toxin element. Double bonus for melee is great, extra time is great, the spore pop for energy mechanic being gone feels a bit trivial. While it sucks that Spores no longer carry the ridiculously huge ramp up from Toxic Lash hits, it would have been really broken with the new spread system. 

Just overall a really good change, great pros that outweigh the con of spreading Toxic damage through spores.

Miasma)
Still kind of meh and still severely underused. It just doesn't have the impact that other nukes have, especially not compared to the really old Miasma (negative duration) and definitely not as "ultimate" as Spores spread at high build ups. Viral proc is definitely much better for Miasma than Corrosive but it really didn't need to be swapped with Spores. This should have been the endgame "turbo boost button" for Spores, just like Accelerant is when used during WoF, Firewave, etc. Currently, it's just a bad wide area debuff masquerading as a nuke.

A proper rework would be: switch the Viral and Corrosive back, let Spores carry just the Corrosive, and let it spread to ALL the enemies in affected by Spores as long as they are within spore popping range. This way, Spores can still cause Viral procs to everything and when really hardcore enemies show up, then there's Corrosive ticks to strip armor and some damage. Not only that, this lets the damage portion of Spores take flight in mid to low pop endgame content.

[SolarDwagon]

Saryn is getting back to a good place, but the removal of Spores spreading on their own death is a problem. It punishes the player for using their spores effectively, and often dies out in random corners where the player couldn't get to the enemy to kill it.

[Erelas]

As one of this game's long time players and a fan of Saryn for years, I would like to give some feedback regarding Saryn's changes.

Firstly, after having done some play time with her post change she's feeling rather clunky, there's no natural flow of synergy with her powers.  

The lack of spread with her spores really leaves her being lackluster, spreading her spores around manually made her a lot of fun in the past, now with one target it's just kind of well, honestly, she's just kind of boring.  While her "toxic lash" is in a good spot I think her three other skills need to be tweaked some more if you're invested in changing her up.

Oddly enough, while playing in some higher tier games I found her to be just as squishy if not more so even after the addition to armor on her...is it due to an aggro effect based on miasma?  I'm not sure, but it's not fun falling over dead after miasma goes into effect (and by no means is molt able to take dmg in scaled situations which leave Saryn naked again to dmg).  Now, I'm not as adept as some players switching between operator and Warframe mode but I honestly should not need to rely on that to have decent survive-ability.  Please look into this.  

Currently, her dmg does not shine at all in lower level missions, heck, I hardly get to use her powers or see what they can do unless I'm in some sort of endless mission, before, I could spam her spores and run around with melee popping them (or with any weapon for that matter), but now I may get one set of spores off in a room if lucky and barely see the effects before enemies are nuked.  I don't feel like she's contributing to team mission unless I am just using toxic lash the entire time.

If you were planning to make her kit more interesting and less lackluster I don't think this was the right route, I think you guys can do better...no, I KNOW you guys can do better, you've proven that and being willing to listen and implement player ideas is one of this game's strong points!  

Here's an idea and I'm sure someone has come up with this already.  What about miasma or spore effects dampening enemy powers, dmg output, and hit chance?  Toxins like what Saryn produces should not only effect health but enemies' ability to function.  Additionally, what about allowing spores to be cast one multiple targets again but limit the amount of spores allowed per target and how many are allowed to spread?  As it is right now I'm reliant on miasma to make her fun and spread the "love".  This is what you guys were trying to avoid, having a one skill spam a lot and that's the direction she's headed in order to be of use in a mission or even "compete" with other Warframes in dmg output.  

A lot of folks have been looking for the recent hotfixes to include changes after this last update to her kit, the community would appreciate implementation of changes suggested post revisit update.  

Thank you!

[Varzy]

Saryn still feels very fragile in spite of her higher armor and health. Her escape skill, Molt, doesn't seem to have the impact it should have. My thoughts on some improvements:

- Make Molt draw enemy aggro much more aggressivly, to the level of Octavia's Mallet. Enemies within the range of Molt's explosion should almost always target Molt before Saryn. This would add more reliable soft CC to her toolkit.

- On casting, give Saryn 3s of invincibility alongside Molt (and optionally, add any damage Saryn takes either to Molt's health or to its final explosion damage). 

The invincibility period extending to Sayrn would really expand how useful Molt is as a defensive tool -- it would help Sayrn when being attacked by AoE effects like Bombards or Sentients, it would give her more room to reposition and avoid damage in a frantic firefight, and would seriously increase the value of Molt's augment by giving Saryn 3 guarenteed ticks of healing.

[CaliburxZero]

The new nerfs set in place Overall in my opinion, too heavy-handed as expected.  Damage scaling for only up to 10 enemies is too low.  It needs to be 15 or 20.  Furthermore, while I do believe the spore spread on death was necessary, completely removing it was a seriously awful and bad move.  They should've limited the spore spread range from the enemy dying by 50-75%, not take it out altogether.