Viral Damage

Damage is one of the six secondary elemental damage types, composed of and elements. It deals increased damage against and bodies, but reduced damage to most light foes.

The status effect is Virus, which reduces a target's current and maximum health to 50% for 6 seconds. The damage of the infecting shot is applied before the proc reduces the health. Multiple procs do not reduce the health further, but only serve to refresh the time spent with halved health.

As of Update 17.2 (2015-08-19), the health lost by any type of enemy due to the proc is restored after the effect ends, thus making consistent in both PvP (Conclave and Duels) and PvE. Consider the following examples:

1 Proc, 50 Damage	2 Procs (within 6 seconds), 50 Damage (each)
Target's original health is 500/500. Damage occurs : 450/500. proc occurs: 225/250. Once the proc wears off, health returns to: 450/500.	Target's original health is 500/500. Damage occurs : 450/500. proc occurs: 225/250. Second damage occurs, proc refreshes: 175/250. Once the proc wears off, health becomes: 400/500.

Type Effectiveness

Health	Modifier	Health	Modifier	Health	Modifier
Cloned Flesh	+75%	Flesh	+50%	Infested	–50%
Ferrite Armor		Shield		Infested Flesh
Alloy Armor		Proto Shield		Fossilized
Machinery	–25%	Robotic		Sinew

Viral Sources

Weapons

InfestedBurstRifle.png

Hema

InfestedLongGunTwo.png

Phage

Plague Keewar (Zaw Strike)

Plague Kripath (Zaw Strike)

RVBallistica.png

Rakta Ballistica (Blight Effect)

SyndicateRVCernos.png

Rakta Cernos (Blight Effect)

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Mods

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Abilities

	1 25	Spores Inflict a target with a pox of Corrosive spores. Spread spores to nearby enemies by destroying them or killing their host. The longer the Spore spreads, its damage will increase. Introduced in Update 7.0 (2013-03-18)	Strength:6 / 8 / 8 / 10 (initial damage) 1 / 1.25 / 1.5 / 2 (damage growth per enemy) 50% ( Corrosive status chance) 20% (reset decay)
			Duration:10% (damage decay rate)
			Range:30 / 40 / 50 / 60 m (cast range) 10 / 12 / 14 / 16 m (spread radius)
			Misc: ∞ (duration) 7 (damage growth enemy cap) 0.5 s (damage decay interval) 2 / 2 / 3 / 3 (initial spores) 1 (transmitted spore) 3 (max spores per enemy via spread) 12 (max spores per enemy via recast) 4.0x (miasma damage multiplier)

• Info
• Augment
• Tips & Tricks

Info

• Saryn expends 25 energy to infects an enemy target within 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 meters with 2 / 2 / 3 / 3 virulent spores for an infinite duration. Each individual spore inflicts  Corrosive damage per second with a 50%  Corrosive Status Chance, lasting until the spores themselves or the infected enemy is destroyed.
• Saryn's disease spreads its infection rapidly, grows evermore lethal, and decays in the absence of hosts over the course of the epidemic:

• Spread
• Growth
• Decay

• Shooting or hitting a spore directly bursts its membrane to release infectious pus, which regrows the spore on its host and transmits 1 spore to all nearby enemies within 10 / 12 / 14 / 16 meters; infected enemies can carry up to 3 spores via transmission from another enemy.
  • Spores can spread by directly bursting them with weapons, abilities, and Bullet Jump. Enemy attacks can also burst spores on contact.
  • Spread bypasses obstacles in the environment and damage does not diminish with distance.
• All spores on an infected enemy will burst and spread if any of the following conditions are met:
  • Spores' initial target is killed by any source.
  • Players landing the killing blow on any infected enemies.
  • Infected enemies are killed by  Molt's explosion damage.
  • Saryn's weapons hitting anywhere on the infected enemies' body while  Toxic Lash is active.
  • Infected enemies are killed by any source while sickened by  Miasma.
• Spores do not spread if enemies infected via transmission are killed by Spores' damage over time.

When the outbreak first begins, damage per second starts at 6 / 8 / 8 / 10  Corrosive damage; for every second Spores remain active, damage per second increases by 1 / 1.25 / 1.5 / 2  Corrosive damage per infected enemy, up to a damage growth cap of 7 infected enemies. Current damage per second is uniform across all active spores and will apply to newly infected enemies.

• Current damage per second is hard-capped at 100,000 damage.

While Spores is active, a stylized infection meter appears above Saryn's ability icons on the HUD, indicating the current damage per second and tracks the number of infected enemies in the mission affected by spores belonging to the player.

When zero infected enemies remain, Spores' current damage per second is instantly reduced by 20% then decays at 10% of the new total every half second until it reaches the initial damage amount. Damage decay stops when at least one enemy is infected by Spores.

• Nullifying effects (such as entering Sanctuary Onslaught Data-Conduits) increases the decay rate to 30% per half second.
• Reset decay is inversely affected by  Ability Strength, meaning more Strength reduces the amount consumed.
• Damage decay rate is inversely affected by  Ability Duration, meaning more Duration reduces the amount of damage decay per half second.

Current damage per second is visibly subtracted from the meter whilst a red flashing "decaying" warning message replaces the counter for number of infected enemies.

The infection meter disappears when it reaches the initial damage amount.

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• If Spores is still active, recasting Spores on any enemy consumes 20% of current damage per second from the infection meter and casts Spores for 50% reduced energy cost. Recasting on an infected enemy grows a new set of spores on the target, which carries up to 12 spores via recasting Spores on it.
  • Recast decay is inversely affected by  Ability Strength, meaning more Strength reduces the amount consumed.
• All spores destroyed via melee weapon contribute to the melee combo counter.
• Each instance of Spores has its own Ability Strength value from when it was casted, and be independent from other instances.
  • For example, if an instance of Spores is casted when  Energy Conversion is activated, that instance will retain Status chance and Damage Growth with Ability Strength bonus.
  • If another instance of Spores is casted, when there is no bonus, the second instance will have lower Status chance and Damage Growth, even while the first instance from above is still active.
  • All spores share the same accumulated damage per second, though each instance could contribute Damage Growth at different rate.
  • When Spores spread to other enemies, the subsequent instances will retain Status chance and Damage Growth from their original instance. Strong instance spreads strong instances, and vice versa.
  • Spores being carried by enemies will not be replaced by another spore via transmission.
  • If an enemy is carrying spores from multiple instances with different Strength values, damage per second will be contributed by the instance with the highest Damage Growth.
• Ability Synergy:
  •  Toxic Lash can make spores burst with every attack, even without direct hits.
    • Hitting a spore while Toxic Lash is active applies an additional  Toxin proc.
  •  Miasma deals 400% damage to enemies affected by Spores.
• Spores is a one-handed action. As such, it can be used while performing various maneuvers and actions without interruption.
• If the initial target dies before the spores appear, energy used for Spores will be refunded.

Augment

Main article: Revealing Spores

Revealing Spores is an Exilus Warframe Augment Mod for  Saryn's  Spores that causes enemies affected the ability to show up on the mini map.

Revealing Spores

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Main article: Venom Dose

Venom Dose is a Warframe Augment Mod for  Saryn that allows  Spores to be held on cast, creating a wave of energy traveling outward from the user that temporarily grants the caster and nearby allies additional  Corrosive damage to all attacks.

Venom Dose

Tips & Tricks

• Cast on an enemy in the middle of a crowd and promptly kill it or use one of the many methods to spread the spores.
• Each spore inflicts damage per second and  Corrosive status effect on proc, which is tripled on an enemy carrying three spores from a max rank Spores cast or accumulated from transmission from other infected enemies.
• Infect at least 7 enemies to maximize damage growth, allowing Spores to reach higher damage per second counts over time.
• Mod for Ability Strength to increase initial damage, damage growth per enemy, status chance, while reducing the reset decay on recast or on zero infected present.
  • Status chance can reach 100% with 200% Ability Strength.
• Recast Spores several times to inflict an enemy with up to 12 spores to strip its Armor quickly, deal more damage per second instances, and provide more spores to spread.
  • However, note that each recast will consume a percentage of damage per second stored in your infection meter.
• Using melee to hit enemies makes it easier to burst spores, compared to firearms, especially with Range mods, e.g.  Reach ( Primed).
• Use  Toxic Lash to spread spores on an infected enemy on every hit using your gun or melee.
• Cast  Miasma to inflict quadruple damage to all enemies infected by Spores within range.
• Can be used to destroy Corpus cameras and (active) turrets. A spore will appear but a camera dies on the first tick.
• When combined with AoE weapons (such as  Ignis and  Embolist, which both deal DoT, increased by Saryn's passive), the spores will pop very easily, quickly spreading  Corrosive procs.
  • Thrown secondaries loaded with  Concealed Explosives are also effective and economical at quickly popping Spores, especially when combined with  Fulmination ( Primed).
• The ability synergizes well with Nova's  Molecular Prime, both spreading and weakening enemies until one dies and causes a series of chain explosions and effectively quartering enemy survivability.
• Spores is excellent for bosses with shields to prevent them from recovering.
  • This is quite effective against Ambulas since it targets the torso and, like all MOAs, he takes three times damage on that body part.
• Sentinels can also pop Spores.
  • Equipping a sentinel with the  Sweeper weapon increases this chance.
• Spores that are popped on a target's weak point, like the head, will do extra damage based on the respective damage multiplier.
  • For example, if you pop a Spore on an enemy's head, it will deal 50 damage (25 x 2 damage multiplier).
  • Spores' DoT ticks are unaffected by weak spots.
  • AoE damage from popping spores is unaffected by weak spots. Nearby enemies will still only take 25  Corrosive damage from popped spores on weak spots.
• A Range-based Spores build is good for earning Focus points in stage-less endless missions such as Survival, Disruption and Void Flood, as long as Saryn can keep it from decaying.
• Active spores can help fill the self-revive gauge from the  Unairu school's Last Gasp.

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Enemies

Powerfist can perform uppercut with Furax

The destruction of Infested Gas Hives

Media

• Using a viral-modded Brakk, Kril is afflicted with the Viral status effect as seen in the screenshot. Note Lech Kril's health bar.
• After the viral proc expires, his health is immediately halved.
• It is possible to stack the health reduction further, as shown in the screenshot.
• What viral damage looks on Dual Zoren.

1/4

Testing Viral Status Effect Mechanics on Trinity with Blessing

Media

WDR 13 Viral Damage (Warframe)

See Also

• Blight