Dev Workshop: Spores Revisited (Saryn)

[VisionAndVoice]

10 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

Can be re-cast while active and will no longer detonate all active Spores

That's excellent.

11 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

We’ve outright removed spread on enemies that die to a Spore’s tick damage.

Unfortunate but bearable. Maybe give it a very small spread radius?

 

Now set Spores back to Viral and I'll love you.

[LordSebastian]

I am playing Saryn from almost her release and I am her fan.

I saw her in many shapes, both bad and godlike. She was Molt-Defence god, press 4 to win frame, press 1 to win frame and etc. And what i want to say - Now, her concept of kit is so perfectly fits her thematically. Really, i am incredibly happy how she looks now.

And i want to mention one funny thing - She is strong, yes, barely broken, yes. but she feels that mostly not only because of her mechanic(that is still strong) but because of that the other warframes barely have all their abilities useful. Noone uses fireball on Ember, Noone uses 1 on Volt, and etc, because it is just waste of energy. But Saryn now have 100% useful abilities (even though Molt looks too weird for me, with this speed boost).

Still, i do agree that she needs some....changes( "nerfs" ).

Spores
I do agree that damage should be fixed, but deleting ability to spread spores by death seems wrong on "Plague-based Warframe"  Let them spread by death at fixed value and it will fix the problem of AFK playstyle. But other changes seems good on a paper. Hope damage wont be just too low or too high. 

Molt
Absorbing mechanic is great idea, but speedboost - ain't (IMO)
It is her survival ability, but speed boost look sooooooo weird. Not only the animation is in Benny Hill style(i am speaking about movement). maybe it would be overpowered, but i think a 2-3 second invisibility would fit it perfectly both thematically and mechanically.(instead of speed boost). There would be simple logic, why enemies focuses Molt, instead of Saryn, and mechanically would save saryn much better, than a speedboost.

Toxic Lash
Perfect as it is right now.

Miasma
When i played her, the range always felt that a little bit too short. Now it is good, even though, i dont think that 5 sec stun instead of 3 was necessary, but its nice 😃

[Live4win1530]

I really like those changes! I suggest to put a decay on spores' range on kill (the decay is not modificable with mods) with the base range of 16m like in other cases. Aside that, I think she's perfect. Excellent work DE!

[SimonParker]

As I expected. anything could be make player easy to farm is unacceptable.  and the new Saryn is lack of survivability, but you just care about "oh no, they kill the enemy so easy we have to stop this".  LMAO

[Tarak]

Wait So... If I build up my damage to the point of killing enemies in one tick... I'll have to either waste energy casting one repeatedly on single enemies that are instantly dying and not spreading to get the damage down, or stand around and wait for the damage to passively drain?

Honestly the complete removal of does spreading on death is the only complaint I have here. Reduction? Sure. Damage decay on recast? Ick, but sure. Reduced damage build up? Okay. You're spores will cease being useful for an extended periodof time if you are physically incapable of killing an infected enemy before that very same ability does? ... WHAT?

I get that the decay is meant to combat this, but as someone that has had my spores stuck on a corrupted bombard eximus who was camped out in a wall before... Yeah, that only works until it doesn't.

Please don't do this one thing. Everything else looks good to me but... I'm concerned that one thing is going to change Saryn from being a supportive damage frame to instead being a self focused debuff frame.

[DeepskyScorpion]

So the most significant change is in the foot note of a chart now? WOW.

[MysteriousPixie]

Would it be useful to have spores detonate when you hold the key for it down? It could be a lot of fun 🙂

[SordidDreams]

12 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

Based on feedback, detonating on recast felt like an unnatural transition from Saryn’s original makeup.

I love the ability to detonate, the problem is it's very easy to detonate unintentionally. Spore requires aiming at an enemy to successfully cast, which means it's pretty easy to miss with it. To counter that, I used to just spam it. Can't do that anymore, since tapping again after successfully casting just removes the spore again. By all means make the spores recastable, but I'd love to be able to detonate by holding the button as well. That would pretty handily solve the above issue while keeping the interesting detonation mechanic.

[St_Minorto]

How about add half effect of toxic lash to pets and sentinels ? 
And don't outright remove spreading on death from spore tick please. Add maybe small infectious cloud on death(maybe add this effect to toxic lash augment), or just leave short range that cant be moded.

[Bionicme]

Maybe consider implementing a "killsteal-secure" mechanic like League of Legends uses for the spore spread on-death;

If an enemy is killed by spore damage within ~1sec of being hit by a weapon attack, spread the spores as if it was killed by said attack anyway.

That way you won't have just barely enough damage to kill an enemy, only for the spores to finish them off and not spreading.

[(PSN)Timmy_642]

12 hours ago, UNeaK1502 said:

One thing that should change is (looking at your efforts to nerf her), that if the spores kill an enemy, it should still spread, otherwise, she will be a caster frame as she used to be

 

They wanted to remove the play style of using spores and walking away, not changing her from a caster.

[Chroia]

4 hours ago, amadeusgrim said:

i dont think you read that right

You're right, actually. I wasn't.
So thanks for that.

13 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

Changed: Damage growth is determined per enemy infected, so 2 damage (can be modded with Ability Strength) per enemy infected by Spores every second up to a maximum of 10 enemies

There's nothing said about 'per spore'.

In fact, it does say

13 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

• • Reaching 10 infected enemies would set the maximum damage growth at 20 every second.

which is a third of what I thought.

So, new vs. current - max growth of 20 per sec is just under 7 max-spored enemies, currently.

That's... actually a fairly steep step down in any game mode with serious spawns.

 

Welp, off to edit my reaction post.

[Ryuhouji]

I knew there was something up with the spores spreading. I'm not a fan of the tick damage not spreading, but we'll see how it plays out, cause I'm usually using toxic lash anyway. The cap for the damage just seems to remove saryn's ability to scale into higher levels. So, I guess we'll see how it goes.

[BiatrizLP]

that such detonating mechanics in skill 4 would help the skill not be so useless at high level. you accumulate a bit of damage with skill 1 and it bursts with 4

[Hamsterius]

9 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

 

• • Changed: Damage growth is determined per enemy infected, so 2 damage (can be modded with Ability Strength) per enemy infected by Spores every second up to a maximum of 10 enemies. So, using that same example, 5 infected enemies would set the damage growth to 10 damage every second (Modded damage growth of x * # of enemies infected up to 10). Reaching 10 infected enemies would set the maximum damage growth at 20 every second.
    • Edit: To clarify, the number of infected enemies is uncapped! You can infect more than 10 enemies, but the damage growth is dependent on that max. 
    • For the sake of best describing the intent of this change, we’d like to point out some of the unexpected irony between both workshops. While work on Saryn began very early on this year, the first assumption was that change was amidst her performance in Elite Sanctuary Onslaught. What actually ended up transpiring (post rework) was quite the opposite. Saryn as she is now continues to take charge in Onslaught (more so now than before). However, she’s a bit of a “one cast wonder” in Simaris’ realm. Sitting back and watching Spores destroy a map didn’t fall in line with that fun factor we were looking for with Saryn, and especially not for the other members in Saryn squads.

So you're nerfing it?

I was just in the Simulacrum. Unmodded, 10 damage start and each second the three spores add three damage so 10, 13, 16, 19, etc.
I'm going to be generous and assume that currently, even though I can infect 30 enemies at once if they're clustered, let's say only 10 to balance against the future limit of only ten enemies effecting damage growth.
The damage increase currently is also effected by ability strength. Just tested it in the Simulacrum. With 210%, it's roughly doubled with a slight +1 on top.
So we're going from 30 plus whatever ability strength you have, to 20 plus whatever ability strength you have. Again, assuming you currently only ever grab 10 enemies.

Why?... It's not from 1 to 2, it's from 3 to 2. You're bringing it down... What for? You've done your job with the changes prior to this section, imo. Saryn will no longer be an auto-pilot frame. Now why you taking away 33% of spore damage?

But it gets worse, because between that and the maximum 10 enemies contribution, the spore damage decrease can reach almost a 60% drop, since in the new conditions infecting 20~ targets will actually be possibly outside onslaught.

Some excel calculations show that a minute into spore spreading, spores that scale with infinite targets and gain 3 per target compared spores that only do 2 damage and are capped at 10 enemies will do 2.7 times the damage. This ratio is maintained even at the five minute mark. I assumed on average 18 infected based on personal experiences, change that and the ratio changes, but any number above 7 infected for old spores will give an advantage to the old spores over the new spores effecting 10 targets

So, let's do it like this. Lets raise the new proposed spore damage to 3 per infected, and if you insist on capping the number of targets contributing, let's raise it to a more reasonable 20 or at least 15.
How about that? Don't confuse "Let's make a frame less Auto-Piloty" with "Let's make a frame weaker".

[(PSN)xSweep66]

Sigh... This whole rework is starting to look over-thought and misguided.

Saryn Rework 1 had Spore Turret. Spore Turret was bad. But it also had wholly interactive Spores where players controlled damage via Toxin propagation. Sure, they had their issues, but you could spread weak Spores for use in lower level missions as well as empower those Spores with a strong weapon for higher level missions. Also the universal love that is Viral.

Saryn Rework 2 has many improvements to her whole kit as well has a new Spore mechanic that requires absolutely no interaction for high density high level play (such as in ESO) as well as creating a frustrating experience in lower level missions.

Saryn Rework 2.1 appears to be changing how that frustration comes to be. It's possible that I'm wrong, but this sounds like it will be just as frustrating and also very energy hungry for missions like Defense or Survival at low-mid level. Her Spores will kill too fast to spread. Eventually enemies will get to a point where they do manage to survive long enough for the manual spread, but then they'll ramp up and start to kill enemies before they can spread again. So now you have to wait for the damage to decay or risk burning energy on something for literally no reason (that's potentially a lot of energy to kill only a single enemy). Yes, you can argue stronger targets taking priority to be the Spores host, but honestly there really aren't enough of them to go around.

Here's a proposal to at least make it sort of work without feeling like a horrible chore. It keeps Saryn interactive even in low level missions in a way that feels rewarding. Only the cultures that Saryn specifically cast on enemies retain spread on death due to Spores, but at full or even just half range. That way you not having a chance to spread them at all isn't an issue.

Right now it looks that she will always have an issue in some form dependent on the level you are playing at. To me this new mechanic is extremely short sighted because, as I mentioned before, this was not an issue Saryn had in her original rework. She had a few opportunities before rework 2, yes, but now we've got a mess that will probably just never feel quite right.

[BiatrizLP]

il ya 28 minutes, BiatrizLP a ditar:

que tal mecanismo de detonação na habilidade 4 ajudaria a habilidade a não ser tão inútil em alto nível. você acumula um pouco de dano com habilidade 1 e explode com 4

that such a small scope of slash damage in 2 skill, you would motivate the player to use this habildade more than is currently used, do not know if cut damage would be the best but something of the genre maybe ...

[Chipboard]

Changes seem pretty good.

I approve of the recasting for detonation as sometimes trying to get a spore to find a valid target before someone with an atterax came through, only for you to mash the key again and watch it pop for no damage.

Probably already stated somewhere but will we see the Venom Dose augment fixed with these changes?

[BiatrizLP]

il y a 43 minutes, BiatrizLP a dit :

that such detonation mechanism in skill 4 would help the skill not to be so useless at a high level. you accumulate a little damage with skill 1 and explode with 4

2 skill needs more reasons to use, more synergy. How about a buff reach on it? Your melee weapon gains spores slash, would be visually amazing 

[MasaJin]

I don't understand the AFK spore play style with this past change I've had to hunt down mobs with spores just to hit them with her 3 active just to keep the spread going. is it just a max range thing i don't know about and if that's the case give spores a cap on how much range it can gain from mods instead of making death cancel the spread all together it really makes her less of a plague and forces us into managing the spores more than we already have to.

[Tau.]

13 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

That said, recasting on infected enemies will put new Spores on a target with a 20% decrease to its periodic damage for 50% of the Energy cost.

Wait what? Do you not mean to say 'increase' by 20%? That's got to be a typo. Barraging an enemy with more doses of poison ought to accelerate the effects, not set back the progress. I don't really follow logic that hinders progress for actively interacting with enemies, when the whole purpose of the rework was to get Saryn out of the time-out corner. 

 

Other than that odd bit this sounds fine... but it doesn't address the biggest grievance I still have with Saryn: her lack of defensive measures. Currently she still relies entirely on the abilities of teammates to keep enemies from shredding her, if they ever get to see her outside of camping a corner. 

Give her something to protect her from enemies to support a more involved playstyle. Just some ideas, any of these or like these would do:

-Evasion against enemies infected by Spores

-Damage Reduction/Evasion from Toxic Lash

-Greater range on, and blast proc upon detonation of Molt decoy, or damage reduction buff alongside the temporary speed buff

-Weapon jamming or massive accuracy debuff and movement slow on Miasma 

It makes no sense for a walking plague to harm only enemies' vitals, and leave their ability to kill her fully intact. I would imagine a mobile storm of poison would melt small parts in firearms, corrode optical sensors' lenses, jam audio comm equipment, hinder neural functions, generally obscure vision, and the list just goes on and on. 

[SneakyErvin]

Changes look good.

Nice to see a table on how spread really works. Good idea to remove the spread from spore-tick kills. Also good that you are upping the range on regular kills from allies and Saryn to 16m, this will mean that 1HK ranged weapons aswell as melee will again be viable without screwing up spread.

I'm an active Saryn player and have always been, so the no-spread on spore-tick wont effect me much now that allies can kill and spread at a consistant range in addition to myself.

Recast of spores, removal of detonation along with the cap of 20/sec and the added decay rate will probably make her pretty flarkin' awesome.

[FrostedMike]

Sounds great, the best part is fixing the inconsistent spread.

Just want to point something out about the decaying damage spores damage, if it's possible to make it more visible. I meen, showing a difference between the damage gorwing and decaying, like Nidus's mutation stacks that you can see it grow and decay. This is help the players know better what is going on with his spores and the damage he gained from it.

[SneakyErvin]

8 minutes ago, Tauni said:

Give her something to protect her from enemies to support a more involved playstyle. Just some ideas, any of these or like these would do:

-Evasion against enemies infected by Spores

-Damage Reduction/Evasion from Toxic Lash

-Greater range on, and blast proc upon detonation of Molt decoy, or damage reduction buff alongside the temporary speed buff

-Weapon jamming or massive accuracy debuff and movement slow on Miasma 

It makes no sense for a walking plague to harm only enemies' vitals, and leave their ability to kill her fully intact. I would imagine a mobile storm of poison would melt small parts in firearms, corrode optical sensors' lenses, jam audio comm equipment, hinder neural functions, generally obscure vision, and the list just goes on and on. 

Shes already been fine for us that have player her as an active frame. She already has one of the higher armor values in game, a decoy that can draw enemy fire aswell as the option to regenerate life through molt. She doesnt need more because she isnt fragile to begin with.

[BiatrizLP]

il y a 4 minutes, SneakyErvin a dit :

Shes already been fine for us that have player her as an active frame. She already has one of the higher armor values in game, a decoy that can draw enemy fire aswell as the option to regenerate life through molt. She doesnt need more because she isnt fragile to begin with.

well need more buff in 2 skill is useless