Dev Workshop: Spores Revisited (Saryn)

[-HoB-AngelofRevenge]

after 2 run in star chart i can say for now that spread is batter, how ever i need to do few runs more and conclude if is batter than b4. anyway i do still dislike corrosive as elemnt dmg since we have many ways to remove armor. and viral is far more batter for me, you can go with slash wep, mods and by pass armor, so viral to half their HP is good for kills. i dont want for spores to take off their armor so they can walk in pyjamas around. in any case i will go for some runs than will rant about it if there is need for it.

[Zilotz]

6 hours ago, Windy_Wind said:

10 enemy cap is not good enough, it should be 15 or 20

In my opinion they should roll back to uncapped damage per spore variant, it took time to ramp up too but you could speed it up to be useful.

[MagentTanau]

While I wouldn't say I have a 'main'... Saryn was the frame I spent the most time in because

A: she was THE Damage over Time Frame 

B: Spores were thematic and matched her mechanics - an airborne disease that she spreads at will with her Spores, dead enemies become more vectors for the spread, just like an actual disease. With the Molt Turret she herself became a vector for the disease spread. 

C : The viral status proc of old spores HELPED YOUR TEAM, by reducing enemy effective health, they got kills quicker.

D  : I love being a front line caster that could also mix it up with melee, Molt's Augment really helps, healing after mowing through enemies with my Lesion.

E  : It really helped shorten the grind for Focus. Even put an Eidolon Lens on my Saryn... 

Now... I'll just have to build for a pure Melee Toxic Lash Saryn... Spores can join the long list of First Abilities that aren't worth the energy to even use. 😞

[KyrusDarkstrider]

12 minutes ago, MagentTanau said:

Now... I'll just have to build for a pure Melee Toxic Lash Saryn... Spores can join the long list of First Abilities that aren't worth the energy to even use. 😞

Which is funny, that's what I had made when I started playing the game, 76 days ago

[-HoB-AngelofRevenge]

ok what i do notice so far is that spores do spread batter, no by pass of enemy like afrter rework. spores are as mentioned in patch notes Quote: 

Removed spread on enemies that die to a Spore’s tick damage. Fixed inconsistent spreading ranges with Spores when killing an infected enemy by establishing a new base range of 16m across all spreading conditions.

in short if you kill enemy than spores spread. i did pop spores with weapon by aim,shoot at them and they do spread as well. usage of toxic lash also do spread them without kill enemy, notice this while i was doing def mission and got that confimed in simulacrum. How ever this was not mentioned in patch notes so i cant tell for sure if this was intended.  just want to point out this and if someone else can confirm this pls do it so. 

 

 

[ThelebK1]

Saryn : done.

 

Next, let's kill Equinox.

[Huanthus]

19 hours ago, Cibyllae said:

Toxic Lash has to be activated

That is obvious,  still dont see spreading on clouds

[Neara]

The new Spore mechanics are not fun to play against. That's what they do, they create a stressful "seek and infect the next enemy" minigame that feels unrewarding on success, and massively punishing on failure. Losing most of your stacked damage in a matter of seconds just feels rough.

[Slimspadey101]

I like the changes. I've run ESO as Saryn, with another Saryn in the party, and as Equinox with a Saryn ally, and she seems a lot more "friendly". Also I really like how duration interacts with the decay. It's nice being able and having a good reason to recast spores. Good job!

[ShadowFel]

So...as much I tried to avoid feeling this way, she feels awful everywhere besides solo Elite Sanctuary Onslaught now.  Fighting my own DoT for kills because it easily ramps up to kill faster than enemies enter their spread range is a nightmare.  In every mode besides Onslaught, spawns just aren't high enough solo for spores to not quickly overkill and dry out the area.  On a (relatively) balanced build, I was having trouble keeping damage above 100 on Selkie.  I felt trapped between killing enemies and trying to preserve my spores' damage.  I was alone and I somehow felt like there was too much competition for kills.  And in multiplayer, kill competition is so much worse, especially if there are multiple Saryns, since you're only hurting your team if you try to spread your spores while another Saryn does.  There's very much a "my spores vs your spores" situation going on right now.  So spores don't work well solo, and they don't work well in a team.

So, allow me to make a suggestion: abandon the scaling damage mechanic.  It was a neat experiment, but it isn't fun to play with.  I really tried to go into this with an open mind, but the old mechanic of carrying toxin procs (especially if it was integrated in such a way that it was more reliable) felt so much better, and if it was made to reliably transfer toxin procs between targets, it would probably deal similar damage.  It would still encourage players to go around shooting and smacking spored enemies with Toxic Lash on because of its innate toxin procs, but it wouldn't make playing in any mission where the map isn't flooded with enemies feel like a nightmare of micromanagement.  And it would mean Saryns would happily coexist, because instead of competing for spore damage buildup, they would all be contributing to the damaging buildup and spread of toxin procs.

I don't think we need to reinstate the molt spore culture system again.  It's fine that they can only exist on enemies.  Just change it from scaling damage to spreading toxin procs in a way that actually works.

[Zero_Awakening]

Not getting ANY spread on death to spore damage tic seems a bit like over-tuning her strengths in lower end content. I get that in stuff like Elite Sanctuary Onslaught, where things get super beefy, being able to scale so high is ridiculously strong. I really think the decaying mechanic is a smart way to handle things, and limiting the buildup rate are great ideas for making it not nearly as OP but sometimes it feels like the buildup is a bit slow. However.....

If spores could have any spread range on death, it would be helpful. When i'm using her just running normal content, it will be flashing at me that its decaying, i go to cast on an enemy, and i cant even get a hit in to spread it around. I've seen a few people say like 4-8m for on-death spread would be great. 4m with scaling with power range would be nice but honestly just ANY spread on death would be nice.

If giving her ANY amount of spread on death is out of the question, then not having enemies insta-kill or die before i can even shoot/hit them to spread spores to a new group would be nice. Two ways i could see going about this would be:

1) If you hit something with spores and its enough to insta-kill, it spreads to nearby enemies. In the case where the whole cluster of dudes are too weak to survive that single hit, what will happen in effect is that you will cast on 1, it will burst and hit however many nearby enemies and they would die quickly too. No crazy wave of spread, it'd be like a localized burst and you wouldn't be ramping up damage, but you would still be able to deal with groups.

2) Delay the first tic of damage -- not by much, but just enough so that its possible to hit/shoot the new target so you can spread with toxic lash.

 

[ShadowFel]

7 hours ago, den2k said:

Spores is the first ability. Some examples of first abilities:

* Iron Charge
* Blazing trail
* Fireball
* Freeze
* Shock
* Smite

Hardly the 'Nuke' Stuff.

Also among first abilities, though, are:

*Mallet

*Landslide

*Quiver

*Whipclaw

*Hall of Mirrors

*Desiccation

*Tempest Barrage

*Condemn

*Virulence

*Smite

While not all of those are nukes (Mallet, Virulence, and Smite are though), they're all really useful and strong parts of their respective frames' kits.  A 1 ability doesn't have to be an awful ability.  And, realistically, Spore had better utility beforehand because it could easily spread viral procs across a crowd, effectively doubling the damage they took.

[-HoB-AngelofRevenge]

spores wont spread if it kill enemy. only on you kill enemy or pop spore. read bit more aboit it in update 05

[KyrusDarkstrider]

which negates the entire purpose

[Aldrr]

Not one of my top used frame but here are my notes after a couple runs:

Spores: You want this. You want a 25-30m circle around you where these are ever-present, damaging enemies, and stripping armor (now picture a roomful of naked grineer - nope, not gonna apologize ^^). At this distance, they can get some shots at you, so Hunter Adrenaline / Rage can work its magic, but not enough to mow you down outright. The way Grineer hitscan weapons work, you want to be constantly on the move, be aware of cover and use it. Back to range: go overboard with it, and the enemies will get out of your reach as the spores ramp up their damage--- baddies will begin to die before you can get to them, and the plague burns itself out. Also, be proactive. Whenever possible, don't wait for the last infected enemy to die on its death bed. If you see an enemy that doesn't have spores on, cast. Even better if you can prioritize groups. Streamline can cut some of the energy cost.

Molt: Regenerative Molt or get out. To spread spores, you need to engage the enemy with weapons / melee. While you are doing this, they can see and shoot you, which means they can murder you. If you see a cluster of enemies, plop this down somewhere where they can't just nuke it so that it heals you as you might take in a few hits, especially if there is an ancient healer laughing behind the group. Maybe I'm building the frame wrong but this still feels squishy in some areas.

Toxic Lash: To boost your damage and to help you spread spores, you want this on at all times. I wouldn't risk melee range unless the enemy already has some kind of CC, either from Miasma or something else. Play it safe and use the guns, Ignis gets the job done amazingly.

Miasma: If things get hairy (and by that I mean too many enemies), cut their health in half with this to clean up faster. Also for CC. Use the stun to get to safety and put a regenerative molt down.

 

She always has to poke and prod the enemy to keep her spores going, which means inevitably getting hurt. Vitality and Steel Fiber are a must, and while you are there, you might as well make that incoming damage work for you; Rage or Hunter Adrenaline.

She got more energy hungry, and to keep her spores going, she can't allow the spores get too far from her >> one can cut back a little on the range and add some power strength.

 

A tweak?

I think that the enemies that were killed by spores should remain on the map for a short bit with the spores still on them. This would allow Saryn to give her spores a "second wind" without having to recast. Reduce spore spread radius on these to balance it out?

[Kornot87]

Nice patch but I see one big cons , spereading spores when spores kill enemy . I think spores should still spread because if spore killl enemy on other side of room and not me then there aren´t any enemy with spores and then nothing corrosive dmg and then we need to recast and wait 10 seconds to kill enemy easly and I don ´t thnik somebody still use saryn with camping because we have banshee and other frames too. PS: in low level mission there is a big cons because a lot of times is a enemy killed by spore and then it´s not spread and then I have lower dps like I want

[Fallcaster]

After some playtesting i gotta say that the changes serve their purpose. Saryn is now more fun in regular missions other than onslaught.

Unfortunately the damage ramp-up feels too slow with the growth capped at 10 infected enemies. I liked the re-rework for the "minigame" you got when trying to infect as many enemies as possible and seeing it count damage wise. Would love a slight buff in that regard. Other than that - great work, Pablo!

Edit: I also dislike the complete removal of spores spreading when they kill an enemy. It feels odd. I think a 2-4m radius would be fine since the spawn mechanics wont allow afk gameplay with that

[Eutuxia]

Thank you! Spores seem to spread fine now 😄

[Purity]

11 hours ago, Kolchak said:

Saryn USED to have a different kit, now it's a S#&$tier version of his. Spore spread is limited to 16m from your reticle while you're firing (remember you'll always be reupping toxic lash from now on, just to babysit your spores, cause that's not annoying, right?) meaning you absolutely cannot bullet jump, keep situational awareness, interact with anything. The moment you stop hunting down a spored enemy, you're giving up your damage bonus, and starting all over. ALL of your attention is now focused on salvaging your spores from being a waste of energy as long as they are up. If you're playing alone, this is a manageable feat, too bad most of us never do that. Enemies killed by friendlies don't spread spores anymore, making every teammate you have a threat to your frame's usefulness. (Sound like anyone ELSE we've been mentioning?)

Spores: Within 16 meters of your reticle, 8 enemies are damaged until death. (And if I've prepped by spending 50 energy, and devote 100% of my attention and effort for the next few seconds, I can make the ability not a waste of 25 energy.)

Virulence: Within 16 meters of your reticle enemies die, especially bunched enemies (oh and lets not forget, if there's more than 4 enemies hit this costs NO energy at all, making it spammable, and I don't have to babysit it. I could get into synergy, but that's just beating a dead horse, this is just better already)
 

Molt: A decoy where you just were that disables and gathers things that are closer to it than they are to you. (Oh but it can explode for 400 damage! which actually makes it harder to spread spores since the effect would simply pop spores, reduce health, and either reapply the spores with the enemy having MUCH less health, making it more likely to see spore damage kill the unit, which ends spore's effects and your damage starts to decay. Is there such a word as De-synergize? Cause this thing's doing it. and all for 50 energy a pop.)

Larva: Within 12 meters of your reticle, you can disable and gather enemies for 7 seconds. And it literally synergizes with every other ability. And all for 25 energy, meaning recasting it should it wear off is no problem. 100% better in every way.

 

Toxic Lash: For 50 energy, you can reliably pop spores and get a situational buff. (This must be on, otherwise spores are useless, and will not spread with any consistency. This isn't synergy, this is the on button for your frame now. If this isn't up, you're doing it wrong.)

Parasitic Link: For NO energy, just a stack of the resource your free spammable virulence generates, you get to either boost a teammate's ability strength by 25% or disable an enemy and transfer 50% of the damage and all status effects that Nidus would take to that enemy. (Did I forget to mention that this also turns them into a turret, making them also launch virulence with each cast? Once again, 100% better.)

 

Miasma: For 100 energy you get a 5 second aoe viral proc and 350 damage viral a second, X3 if the enemy has spores. (Once again, another great way to prematurely end spores and lose your damage bonus for mediocre damage per energy cost. And boy does it cost.)

Ravenous: For NO energy just 3 stacks of the resource you get from your free spammable virulence, you create a healing field 16 meters wide around you that also creates 9 maggots that function like spores, but they're better cause you don't have to babysit them. Once again, getting further into the ability is unnecessary, It's already better by a wide margin.

 

This is why we're calling her a worse Nidus. She fills the same rolls as him, and has a similar degrading resource, but she's worse at that job, she restricts your options more, she has less synergy, she competes with allies more, and she's energy hungry to boot. She used to give you plenty of options, synergise just as much, didn't compete with allies at all, and was much less energy hungry. She filled a different role: constant reliable wide range damage without micromanagement, crowd control with high survivability. She used to have a point, now she's just obsolete.

Do you think she should be reversed back to 2.0 with the changes of 2, 3 and the armor still prevalent? (I mean he'll the change of 4 can be welcomed going back to corrosive)

[Purity]

1 hour ago, Slimspadey101 said:

I like the changes. I've run ESO as Saryn, with another Saryn in the party, and as Equinox with a Saryn ally, and she seems a lot more "friendly". Also I really like how duration interacts with the decay. It's nice being able and having a good reason to recast spores. Good job!

have you tried her in anything on the star chart, like anything besides ons elite? (Not trying to staet beef just wondering how far you tested, because im just going off the comments as the game broke for me lol).

[Slimspadey101]

13 minutes ago, Heatie said:

have you tried her in anything on the star chart, like anything besides ons elite? (Not trying to staet beef just wondering how far you tested, because im just going off the comments as the game broke for me lol).

Not since the Spore change but I have played her a lot in the star chart after the rework. In star chart missions Miasma melts everything so I'm not too worried about Spores. I guess if you're doing long Survival maybe you'd be against the Saryn rework in general so not much new here. In Defense this is almost definitely an improvement over the previous post-rework Spores since you can retain stacking damage between waves and to a good degree if you build for higher duration.

[Camelslayer]

On 2018-05-23 at 5:26 PM, [DE]Danielle said:

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

I do very much appreciate this, but there's something you've done previously that could work here:

Why not hold the button to detonate if it's a mechanic you guys want? I myself very much like the idea of it, but only if I can re-cast Spores and detonate.

[PrPlump]

58 minutes ago, Heatie said:

have you tried her in anything on the star chart, like anything besides ons elite? (Not trying to staet beef just wondering how far you tested, because im just going off the comments as the game broke for me lol).

I have. It's almost too efficient, spores spread and kill ennemies too easily, meaning you're chasing your own spores to try and avoid the "disapearance" of the last infected enemy.

On higher level enemies, the spread/damage are now really good, and actually feel rewarding. You have to be active with your casting though. Good thing she's not that hungry on energy: with zenurik on, 100% efficiency works fine.

Every ability feels useful (but Molt really needs its augment). I'd ask for one tweak though: given how Miasma is now a panic button to get a bit of CC in, could we get a slightly faster animation? There's not point in spamming it anyway, so it won't hurt any kind of damage balance.

[-HoB-AngelofRevenge]

spores work in term of spread good, far batter than first rework 3.0 if DE can tune it a bit for less lose dmg stack i think it would be just fine. i do preffer to recast and spread spore eaven more than hold it for 2x dmg. in any case still corroisive spore are much disliked by me, so viral is far batter in my opinion (would preffer pure toxin also). keep enemy walking in pyjama is not good since so far we got mechanic for remove armor. for star chart this is far batter than just eos and "end game". i mean do you want to play 3h+ so you can actualy have good use of those spores? since i am playing this for 3y and to be honest everything above 40min is useless, waste of time. i do play for tone of fun and i want it in some shorter time up to 1h for example. 

[-HoB-AngelofRevenge]

3 hours ago, Zero_Awakening said:

Not getting ANY spread on death to spore damage tic seems a bit like over-tuning her strengths in lower end content. I get that in stuff like Elite Sanctuary Onslaught, where things get super beefy, being able to scale so high is ridiculously strong. I really think the decaying mechanic is a smart way to handle things, and limiting the buildup rate are great ideas for making it not nearly as OP but sometimes it feels like the buildup is a bit slow. However.....

If spores could have any spread range on death, it would be helpful. When i'm using her just running normal content, it will be flashing at me that its decaying, i go to cast on an enemy, and i cant even get a hit in to spread it around. I've seen a few people say like 4-8m for on-death spread would be great. 4m with scaling with power range would be nice but honestly just ANY spread on death would be nice.

If giving her ANY amount of spread on death is out of the question, then not having enemies insta-kill or die before i can even shoot/hit them to spread spores to a new group would be nice. Two ways i could see going about this would be:

1) If you hit something with spores and its enough to insta-kill, it spreads to nearby enemies. In the case where the whole cluster of dudes are too weak to survive that single hit, what will happen in effect is that you will cast on 1, it will burst and hit however many nearby enemies and they would die quickly too. No crazy wave of spread, it'd be like a localized burst and you wouldn't be ramping up damage, but you would still be able to deal with groups.

2) Delay the first tic of damage -- not by much, but just enough so that its possible to hit/shoot the new target so you can spread with toxic lash.

 

read hotfix/update 05, cant spread on spore kill. jost pop spores and killed enemy.