Dev Workshop: Spores Revisited (Saryn)

[MasaJin]

19 minutes ago, (PS4)Radehx said:

But then the problem is you refusing to be flexible...not the frame being an issue. Fact is, she works well at all levels, you just have to set her up correctly. 

Not doing that is like complaining you are driving forwards instead of backward while in the reverse gear. Since when does DE have to provide single setups that work for everything? That's not balance! They shouldn't have to adapt to players who are too lazy to gear their frames towards objectives. 

My saryn is fine i said this in a post already its just not fun anymore and requires way more work then there needs to be for 1 ability and they adapt to us with nerfs and rebalances thats what they are for thats what feedback and further changes do we dont comment to say goodjob and pats on back we comment to voice the how we feel about things its up to them if they do anything about it

When i say its fine it kills anything i go against i can keep my energy up and survive i have no troubles at all playing her my setup is fine. im not ok with the play style now it isnt fun its a game i wanna have fun this saryn isnt fun

[(PSN)Radehx]

Just now, MasaJin said:

My saryn is fine i said this in a post already its just not fun anymore and requires way more work then there needs to be for 1 ability and they adapt to us with nerfs and rebalances thats what they are for thats what feedback and further changes do we dont comment to say goodjob and pats on back we comment to voice the how we feel about things its up to them if they do anything about it

You can voice criticism, but to claim she sucks at low levels is not true...you simply have to use the correct ability for the level of enemy you are fighting. She has Miasma until level 25 because that kills stuff in one single cast which is more efficient than spores. As you rise in enemy levels, spores become more viable. This is fine, she allows players to scale into higher levels...but definitely works at all levels. 

And I wouldn't call having to click Miasma once every once in a while "way more work". And at higher levels, spores work perfectly fine.

[MasaJin]

9 minutes ago, (PS4)Radehx said:

You can voice criticism, but to claim she sucks at low levels is not true...you simply have to use the correct ability for the level of enemy you are fighting. She has Miasma until level 25 because that kills stuff in one single cast which is more efficient than spores. As you rise in enemy levels, spores become more viable. This is fine, she allows players to scale into higher levels...but definitely works at all levels. 

And I wouldn't call having to click Miasma once every once in a while "way more work". And at higher levels, spores work perfectly fine.

Im not saying shes weak at low levels ive said this multiple times its not about her damg tho her damg is to much for low levels and the mechanic of spores as her main ability doesnt work well i care about the function of her abilities not the power. High level saryn is to much work the fact i have to keep chasing spores just to keep em active is boring i dont think just adding miasma spreading them is a fix cus it leads to spam gameplay (the gameplay i see all the time and i dont use) in a functional way saryn is busted cus her skills kill themselves off in a power stand point shes at a all time high but power is not the topic of discussion or my feedback

[Purity]

3 hours ago, (PS4)Radehx said:

But then the problem is you refusing to be flexible...not the frame being an issue. Fact is, she works well at all levels, you just have to set her up correctly. 

Not doing that is like complaining you are driving forwards instead of backward while in the reverse gear. Since when does DE have to provide single setups that work for everything? That's not balance! They shouldn't have to adapt to players who are too lazy to gear their frames towards objectives. 

Fact is that when it comes to builds 2.0 was way more flexible than 3.576192---

 

Which is one thing that 2.0 has over 3.5

[(PSN)Radehx]

23 minutes ago, Heatie said:

Fact is that when it comes to builds 2.0 was way more flexible than 3.576192---

 

Which is one thing that 2.0 has over 3.5

Kind of...but at the same time, you now get much better scaling damage and more reliable CC. Being able to reliably strip armor and halve health is amazing. She's the grineer's worst nightmare now. She synergizes super well with a ton of weapons now, more than before imo. 

If I want more defensive gameplay, I can bunker up in a corner and cast molt as a distraction...letting me fire at stuff in pretty much perfect safety. You just have to watch the timer and place it correctly. If I want aggro gameplay, I can hit something with a spore and then run through hallways just whacking stuff as I go along to spread spores. In that case, I mostly use molt for its speed boost. 

At levels where spreading spores becomes a bit of an issue due to enemy density and health, I honestly don't really need spore damage to finish stuff off. By the time I do, using them becomes viable again and you can fully synergize abilities at that point. 

I think there are many frames that only really start to shine at higher levels. Nidus has it much harder to get his full potential at low levels too. Or take any frame that relies on Rage. If stuff is "too easy", you won't get all that much energy either if you kill efficiently. 

I kinda like that her damage scales. Not enough frames are good at that like she is. 

[Purity]

10 minutes ago, (PS4)Radehx said:

Kind of...but at the same time, you now get much better scaling damage and more reliable CC. Being able to reliably strip armor and halve health is amazing. She's the grineer's worst nightmare now. She synergizes super well with a ton of weapons now, more than before imo. 

If I want more defensive gameplay, I can bunker up in a corner and cast molt as a distraction...letting me fire at stuff in pretty much perfect safety. You just have to watch the timer and place it correctly. If I want aggro gameplay, I can hit something with a spore and then run through hallways just whacking stuff as I go along to spread spores. In that case, I mostly use molt for its speed boost. 

At levels where spreading spores becomes a bit of an issue due to enemy density and health, I honestly don't really need spore damage to finish stuff off. By the time I do, using them becomes viable again and you can fully synergize abilities at that point. 

I think there are many frames that only really start to shine at higher levels. Nidus has it much harder to get his full potential at low levels too. Or take any frame that relies on Rage. If stuff is "too easy", you won't get all that much energy either if you kill efficiently. 

I kinda like that her damage scales. Not enough frames are good at that like she is. 

I mean tbh both to me got the job done pretty well. It's just that it may be more tedious to spread than before since I hate running max range. I always ran 145, but since we can recast, if I come back I may run 175 and more duration. Honestly I would prefer viral over corrosive but I mean you can still get stuff done with x2 melee (cuz sarpa is bae). So meh all in all if melee 3.0 ends up being a hit I may just come back

[(PSN)Radehx]

17 minutes ago, Heatie said:

I mean tbh both to me got the job done pretty well. It's just that it may be more tedious to spread than before since I hate running max range. I always ran 145, but since we can recast, if I come back I may run 175 and more duration. Honestly I would prefer viral over corrosive but I mean you can still get stuff done with x2 melee (cuz sarpa is bae). So meh all in all if melee 3.0 ends up being a hit I may just come back

I run a 133/100/175/214 build that works fine as long as you use Zenurik. I kinda like the armor stripping because that's the pain in the ass at higher levels due to nutty armor scaling. And you still get viral with Miasma. 

I like that guns get a damage buff too now, making her more flexible. I always used to run melee Saryn, but currently love the flexibility of gun Saryn. 

I'm not too worried about spreading spores on the entire map either, I can ramp things up quickly with just a few by using rad weapons. Enemies help me to spread spores unless they instantly die. That makes it super efficient to spread them. Sometimes it also pays off to leave an enemy live for a few seconds to ensure his stupid mates get in range of his spores before you kill him.

I think she's viable with more weapons now, less reliant on energy (unless you play super low levels with her), has much more reliable CC and being able to take out both armor and health makes her damage scale amazingly well. I'm ok trading in a tiny bit of flexibility at lower levels to get all that. I'm just as fine with Nidus not being able to really use his full potential at lower level...because he too gets the same amazing scaling in return. Makes those frames a lot more viable at higher content.

Just with her abilities, she can get 3 status procs onto enemies. Think about how well that synergizes with some weapons. Anything with condition overload destroys stuff with ease for example. She makes enemies so much weaker 🙂

[blaes]

22 hours ago, (PS4)Radehx said:

Kind of...but at the same time, you now get much better scaling damage

absolutely not. in 2.0 you could ramp up spore's damage to tens of thousands of damage per tick in seconds (30k per tick in 9s through all the armor of lvl155 heavy gunners here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HSEqyMRk7M ), and there was no cap on the damage/tick you could reach (millions per tick with melee on enemies of sufficiently high level, compared to the currently "infinite scaling" capped at 100k).

the scaling capabilities were way better then than they are now, whether it be in the speed at which it scales or the amount you can reach.

and that's nothing compared to the infinite exponential scaling we had in the old days of saryn 1.0 before they butchered venom (ancient name of spores) when you couldnt spread toxin procs but you could stack an infinite number of spores on the same enemy and pop a whole stack at once with a punch through weapon to spread them to nearby enemies (the only limit was what people's computers could handle before crashing). and man those days were fun.

 

but as i said several times, i rather like the direction she's taking, i just wish we could actively ramp up spore's damage instead of waiting for it to go up on its own.

[(PSN)Radehx]

12 minutes ago, blaes said:

absolutely not. in 2.0 you could ramp up spore's damage to tens of thousands of damage per tick in seconds (30k per tick in 9s through all the armor of lvl155 heavy gunners here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HSEqyMRk7M ), and there was no cap on the damage/tick you could reach (millions per tick with melee on enemies of sufficiently high level, compared to the currently "infinite scaling" capped at 100k).

the scaling capabilities were way better then than they are now, whether it be in the speed at which it scales or the amount you can reach.

and that's nothing compared to the infinite exponential scaling we had in the old days of saryn 1.0 before they butchered venom (ancient name of spores) when you couldnt spread toxin procs but you could stack an infinite number of spores on the same enemy and pop a whole stack at once with a punch through weapon to spread them to nearby enemies (the only limit was what people's computers could handle before crashing). and man those days were fun.

 

but as i said several times, i rather like the direction she's taking, i just wish we could actively ramp up spore's damage instead of waiting for it to go up on its own.

The armor stripping is what makes her (imo) scale better for a lot of content now...not the actual tick damage on its own. As a single frame, she can strip armor and halve health now. That's insanely powerful in terms of scaling. Having corrosive procs on her 4 never made sense to me because it's usually the first thing I remove. Putting it on her 1 makes sense imo.

[TANTO_17]

After playing and playing with Saryn for quite some time now I have developed an opinion on this spores rework. I was going to post my own thread but this seemed to be an appropriate place.

Saryn as well as a few other warframes seem to undergo these buff/nerf cycles. Her most recent rework changed some things for the better and introduced some new things that I think need to change. She was my favorite frame before the rework but now I'm not so sure. I would like to go through her rework, specifically spores, and examine it from a fun gameplay perspective while making some suggestions on how I would like to see her change. I know she has received a lot of attention lately and poor Pablo is probably happy to not be dealing with her right now, however I don’t think Saryn is in a good place right now.

Let’s look at what spores use to do and why it was changed. This ability was changed because it was used by most to stand still and cast on your own molt to nuke maps. Spores used to spread viral around very quickly and detonate when popped. Viral is a proc that scales endlessly, it is an extremely sought-after proc. This viral proc was combined with a team using all corrosive projections it could make the game easy. A less widely used aspect of spores was that it also used to spread the highest toxin proc around to all those affected. This was a very buggy interaction but was quite fun to play around with and mod for (see Frozenballz old Saryn video).

Now let’s examine the reworked spores. Swapping Spores and Miasma’s damage type was a brilliant balancing aspect of her rework. But since corrosive does not automatically half an enemy’s health (Viral proc) some instance of damage was implemented. This is where the “endless scaling” damage comes into play.

I really dislike the scaling damage that is now on spores. Saryn was changed from a debuff frame to a killing frame. And in my unpopular opinion she kills way too fast and in a very boring way. If you get a player who has modded Saryn for her spores on your team you know that it will be rare for you to see an enemy until you are past one hour into the mission. Most level 100 and under enemies simply disappear once spore has been cast. Lets all acknowledge that most content in the game is under the level 100 mark (not my preference but hey that’s where we are). While this is effective and does help in survivals when trying to keep up life support, it is not fun, nor is it engaging. If you are the Saryn, casting spores, waiting for it to ramp up and then chasing the damage numbers so that you can spread the spores using toxic lash feels more like a chore than an engaging gameplay mechanic. If you are a team mate, well good luck trying to find an enemy with enough health left to shoot at.

In my opinion warframe at its core is an shooter game with an amazing movement system. Warframe powers should be used to supplement this core. It takes skill and time to learn how to effortlessly parkour and aim at the same time. But once you have played for a while it becomes so much fun. When you have mechanics in game (be it warframe powers or things like spin to win) that do so much damage that they detract from the ability of other players to experience the core of warframe (the shooting and the movement), then you have people complaining that those mechanics are over-powered. This is a seemingly absurd statement since it is a pve game and all players benefit form the supposedly over-powered mechanic. My philosophy is that powers should help you do the work, not do the work for you.

 

Lets now explore a few suggestions for how we can make spores more engaging.

1.      Increase the base status chance to proc corrosive from 50% to >60%. [ % is affected by power strength (currently this is in game)]

This is to help return Saryn to her roll as a debuffer.  Has the issue that teams with CP or fighting most infested will find this useless.  Does open the ability to not run CP (nani!?) and explore some of the other auras in the game.

2.      Remove the increasing damage from Saryn altogether.

This is due to the previously mentioned issues. Don’t worry we will get damage in another way.

3.      Spores now have X% chance to spread Z% of toxin damage (not proc) received by the infected host to all other infected individuals.

This is where Saryn’s main damage will come from. It synergises well with the changes to toxic lash (awesome change). The corrosive procs and viral proc form Saryns 1 and 4 will also synergize will with this (condition overload and potential reduction in armor).  The reason why I suggest toxin damage as oppose to toxin status proc is because it caters to crit weapons such as snipers which are not as commonly used in tough missions. This system puts the onus on the player to hit things like headshots. But it is not only the Saryn player who can deal toxin damage. Team mates can also deal toxin damage to the infected individuals and spread their damage around. The augment [Venom dose] could also be changed to apply toxin damage to allies. This results in an astonishing amount of damage inflicted. It essentially multiplies your one damage instance by the number of enemies infected by spores. This system however relies on player input and encourages skill (getting headshots for more damage). It also encourages other players to contribute. Enemies would not appear to die for no reason, there would be player feedback; when enemies died you would know, oh yah, my team mate just shot one.

Issues with my idea:

A.    Should the toxin damage that gets spread be affected by warframe powers? If a Vex Chroma or Roar Rhino, a Harrow and a Banshee are the Saryn’s team mates this could lead to nuking maps very easily. However, this kind of frame synergy and pre-mission planning that does make warframe powers fun. I would suggest that damage Mesa’s Peacemaker be excluded. Mesa’s power is already automated and discourages player input buffing it in this way would not be conductive for team play.

B.     How the spores handle two simultaneous instances of damage (either from different players, from multishot or from punch through) would need to be properly organised. Either they add together, or the largest source of damage takes priority (the latter is a bad solution as it discourages team play but may work well for damage caused by multishot and punch though).

C.     Fire rate may cause a problem. If you were to shoot a toxic twin grakata at an infected enemy the math that would need to be done to spread that damage around to each enemy could cause serious performance drops.

 

Overall I think that changes need to be made to Saryn’s spores power. Currently it discourages player input and does not encourage team play. The changes I propose would really spice up the current Saryn and make her more engaging to play. However, my idea is not without issues and suggestions for overcoming these issues are welcome.

 

[TANTO_17]

Honestly I would love an augment that increased the status chance of her 1 while removing the scaling damage. I know her DPS would go down but she would be more fun to play and play with.