Dev Workshop: Spores Revisited (Saryn)

[weirdee]

this is basically a worse nidus now lol

get ready for exclusive 4 spam builds

[MrSpark_]

58 minutes ago, [DE]Danielle said:

*We’ve outright removed spread on enemies that die to a Spore’s tick damage. Being the only wholly passive way to spread Spores, it allowed for that “set it and forget it” play style we were trying combat with Saryn in the original workshop. 

so instead of “set it and forget it” its now spam one. this just makes her unnecessarily clunky and completely destroys her flow

[amadeusgrim]

1 minute ago, SumBoady said:

I mean I could be wrong, but with the massive damage reduction, the capped damage ramping, the huge reduction in the ability for spores to spread I think she's gonna be in a poor place compared to many frames.

We'll see when the patch hits.

well asuming we have capped dmage and im doing like 10 damage ramp per tick on 3 spores for 10 enemies per second that is say an increase of 300 damage per second asusuming my math isnt off. painful thing is the range loss on death really. maybe reduces range to 4m or something would be fine. other than that im cool

[Neightrix]

I think it would have been better to tie damage growth directly to popping Spores yourself and with Toxic Lash, and make it ramp up faster than before by doing so, but have Spores LOSE damage per tick over time. This would solve AFK and greatly encourage active participation. Then you can allow Spores to spread when they kill an enemy and not get so many damned resets, and get rid of the recasting penalty since damage is already decreasing over time.

EDIT: Also, please make the Molt explosion not line of sight!

[PsiWarp]

57 minutes ago, [DE]Danielle said:

With this came the need to find a space where Spores’ escalating damage and its reinstated recast “sans detonation” can live harmoniously together. 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.

About this one. What happens if a team with multiple Saryns use this feature? Would their own spores fill in the vacant spots per enemy (max. 3 spores per infectee) or convert them into their own spores if that target is fully occupied, or cause spores to overlap (max 3 spores per target per player)? Or would it do nothing at all?

To me it sounds like the exchange for being able to recast on spored enemies is both 20% of periodic damage and halved energy cost. Hopefully this change also fixes Venom Does not being applied to allies due to the previous/current iteration of Spores causing detonation on recast.

[amadeusgrim]

22 minutes ago, [DE]Pablo said:

Main focus was on Spores at the moment, once that settles down I might touch up other things.

 

Unfortunately this led to people casting Spore once and hiding while Spores played the game for them, so that couldn't really stay.

Thanks for the good work. any plans for a diminishing range returns on spores at death ? but then again i can see where you are going by adding the decay on spore damage. also im not sure its a bug but all spores vanish on fissure enemies

[atejas]

I think a cap of 10 is too low. Changing it to per enemy rather than per spore (even if you double the base) already effectively reduces the base tick rate by 33%. imo a cap of 15-17 would be more reasonable.

Also how are spores going to interact with Growing Power now? does only the first cast need the extra strength (until the damage 'runs out') or does each spore have the potential to tick for separate damage amounts or something?

EDIT: Also, this would be a good time to look into reintroducing the energy refund on toxic lash.

Consider keeping the halved spread range on tick death (or even halving it again). If my spore has enough stored damage for me to instakill an enemy when I cast at it, I shouldn't be punished for playing mechanically well.

[retrosolid]

Changes look good but I'm a bit confused about recasting spores.  Does the 20% damage and 50% cost reduction apply for any recast, or only on recasting spore on an already affected enemy, if the duration is infinite I'm not sure why you would ever want to reapply on an enemy already infected anyway.  Why not just have spore only able to target uninfected enemies?

  Also, does over writting spores allow you to overwrite another Saryn's spores?  will we have dueling Saryns now each trying to recast spores over and over to have their spores stick to pad meters?

EDIT: I should also mention that I very much like the idea that spores don't spread if they are the ones to kill, promoting active gameplay choices is always a welcome change.

[Kalvorax]

1 hour ago, [DE]Danielle said:

When a Spore’s tick damage kills an enemy

8m

NA*

*We’ve outright removed spread on enemies that die to a Spore’s tick damage. Being the only wholly passive way to spread Spores, it allowed for that “set it and forget it” play style we were trying combat with Saryn in the original workshop. 

this is probably the only change that ticks me off....again, her one is useless low to mid level and only good for high level content....*goes back tp spamming 4 on said low to mid level content*
 

 

1 hour ago, [DE]Danielle said:

When hitting (but not killing) an enemy with Toxic Lash active

16m

16m

When killing an enemy with or without Toxic Lash on

8m

16m

so...even MORE aoe weapons needed then....ok

[(PSN)randy_lahey__--]

#*!% I dropped my beans https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiTsojg8JzbAhX8CTQIHaT8B8MQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.123rf.com%2Fphoto_24478515_baked-beans-on-toast-accidentally-dropped-and-creating-a-carpet-stain-on-beige-pile-floor-covering.html&psig=AOvVaw1fk80nEFkbECcoG7bx8y3S&ust=1527200874480954

[Chillinger]

The things I like about this:

• Damage growth scales with strength. This is a decent, reasonable change, and synergizes with other parts of her kit that want strength.
• Retaining built up damage when a wave of spores 'ends.' This should help with her consistency a bit in normal missions, and in SO when there's someone around who's hard nuking.
• Increased range on spore spreading on kill. More range is good.

Things I don't like about this:

• Spores not spreading when they kill people themselves. I understand the intent behind this change, but it's going to make playing Saryn a lot more finicky and inconsistent.
• The cap on spore growth is too low. 60/sec before is pretty slow, even scaling for power strength. There's no getting around that Saryn will still want substantial amounts of range for any practical build, so people running 300% power strength are going to be rare - and without that, the spores are going to take a long time to stack up to reasonable amounts of damage. This is particularly painful for the crucial first 45 seconds of a wave of ESO, where you really want to unload to get your focus.

Overall, I can see the intent, but it's a bit frustrating to see a frame that went from being a boring turret to an angel of pestilence get hit hard. Some possible ideas to alleviate potential issues caused by these changes:

• If the intent is to make toxic lash the defacto method for spreading spores, reinforce that. Give it the highest spread range, or a bonus to subsequent damage growth, or both.
• Increase the cap on damage growth. Please. There are a number of possible ways to do this, from diminishing returns (rather than a hard cap), to increasing the base growth per infected enemy, to increasing the number of enemies that count for the growth cap.

[retrosolid]

2 minutes ago, Kalvorax said:

so...even MORE aoe weapons needed then....ok

Actually now that killing an enemy outright and hitting a spore have the exact same spread range, you dont need AOE weapons at all now.  Killing a single infected enemy and hosing down a group gives you exactly the same spread.

[amadeusgrim]

Just now, Kalvorax said:

so...even MORE aoe weapons needed then....ok 

personally i use kohm has punch through to get to spores behind enemies does good damage with and i have a riven for it for status so viral and rad so im good and it stacks toxic lash pretty fast cuz pellets you should give it a whirl.

[Rankii]

Okay I know you guys don't like "turret saryn" but I really would like if you at least let spores be cast on molt. Just because some twats $&*^s S#&$ters people sat there and spammed it, doesn't mean the rest of us should be punished for it.

[Huanthus]

27 minutes ago, PhobosAnimus said:

I am not particularly happy (absolutely livid in fact) with the idea that enemies will no longer spread spores upon death from tick damage, This defeats a large portion of Saryn's staying power.

The thing is that spore damage does not reset at the moment there are not infected enemies it just starts decaying so the staying power would remain the same while being active,  also it eliminates the necessity of going only range and enables other builds,  i had a fairly balanced build even fitting in 2 augments on it but had to change it to a more glass canon one due to not being able to Compete in damage or kills per secind to full range Saryns.  I actually welcome These changes

[amadeusgrim]

Just now, Huanthus said:

The thing is that spore damage does not reset at the moment there are not infected enemies it just starts decaying so the staying power would remain the same while being active,  also it eliminates the necessity of going only range and enables other builds,  i had a fairly balanced build even fitting in 2 augments on it but had to change it to a more glass canon one due to not being able to Compete in damage or kills per secind to full range Saryns.  I actually welcome These changes

arcane guardian should set you up

[ScarredFist]

If possible, please make the damage ramp up cap a soft cap instead, for example, ramp up is 2 per enemy for the first 10 enemies, then 1 per enemy afterwards. That way we can get around 1800 damage per second (by infecting 30 enemies, which is rare by the way) within the first 45 seconds, which is a lot more workable for Saryn in ESO. Note that this will still likely mean dropping a range mod for strength, which allows for players to choose between greater spread (for larger tiles), or faster ramp up (for smaller tiles), rather than forcing Saryn into building for high strength as the proposed changes would require.

[Revantis]

She is going to have to be in the line of fire more so now then ever, If you are pushing for more power strength less range, kill in packs and carry the "infection damage" with you to the next pack i'm all for it, but its time to allow her heal from regenerative molt to also scale with power strength. Shield of shadows for instance scales its damage reduction with power strength, and if you want to solo farm higher end missions on him you get that max damage reduction. I dont see what the issue would be if a 200+ power strength sayrn could double the healing power of the mod to allow her to stay in a fight longer in higher end missions with this newer play style.

Edit:well apparently it does get some scaling after looking it up 0.5 rounded down, tbh even on high strength builds with her i could never tell so maybe buff the scaling

Thanks for all your work as well, your passion for the game and the frames you work on is appreciated.

[DrBorris]

Only thing I am questioning is the changes to the damage scaling. I am not a huge fan of arbitrary caps but I will have to play-test before final opinions.

 

Also, the damage decay does seem a bit steep.

[Averath]

Any chance we can give Saryn's Molt a little more oomph? Maybe some damage absorption on Saryn as well, as she still feels very squishy.

[Shifted]

This looks weak, but I'm hoping that's just how it looks on paper.

I had the same thought on the initial workshop but it turned out to be some of the most fun I've had in Warframe.

Seeing the entire map suddenly get infected is great, and that "Plague Inc. Simulator" feel should still be there once the dust settles after the reworks. 
It really gave Saryn a unique identity.

[kyori]

I’d like to suggest having a team to discuss upon (if there isn’t a team already), so as not to again commit oversighted mistake like letting spores spread on enemy death. 

[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.

[P_Johann]

1 hour ago, [DE]Danielle said:

• • We’ve outright removed spread on enemies that die to a Spore’s tick damage. Being the only wholly passive way to spread Spores, it allowed for that “set it and forget it” play style we were trying combat with Saryn in the original workshop. 

•  

This kills the main fun of Saryn. It was so satisfying to observe that uncontrolled chaotic spread of spores.

[CF_HoneyBadger]

First off YAY!!! RECAST-ABLE SPORES!! This makes me very happy because the spread just seemed so limited to enemies in a small cluster and not the map as a whole. WF is such a fast-paced game that staying and babysitting one cluster of mobs was painful.

On the other hand... The damage ramp up seems a little low from the description.  A max of 20 per second?  Yikes.  However, I'll withhold judgment until I can test these changes out. I hope I'm wrong though.

And can I request a QOL change? Can infected mobs show up as GREEN arrows on the mini map instead of red ones? It will make keeping track of the affected mobs easier.