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Thursday, 17 October 2024

Review: Sybaris Incarnon (U37.0.8)


The Sybaris Incarnon Genesis Adapter is a new addition in U37 Koumei, alongside several other new Incarnon adapters. The Sybaris being an old but obsolete favourite of mine, I was very keen to get this one, and I am quite pleased with the results.

NOTE: I installed the Genesis Adapter on a Sybaris Prime.


Acquisition

As standard for Incarnon Genesis Adapters, the Sybaris Incarnon can be acquired from Steel Path Circuit, being in the Week 8 batch. It can also be bought including all its requisite materials for 120p from Cavalero in the Zariman.

Stats

Please note that this screenshot includes +15 Base Damage from its Evolution 2.

Several of Sybaris Prime Incarnon's stats seem only moderately stronger than base Sybaris Prime - Base Damage increasing from 88 to 110, Status Chance increasing from 25% to 30%, and Crit Chance actually decreasing from 30% to 25%. Granted, the Crit Multi does get a big boost from 2× to 3×.
The biggest boost though comes from the burst size, increasing from base form 2-burst to Incarnon form 4-burst, effectively doubling Fire Rate. The net result is that Incarnon form packs a pretty hefty DPS increase over base Sybaris Prime.

Like with most Incarnon weapons, Sybaris Incarnon charges from landing Headshots. It charges 8 Incarnon ammo per hit, requiring 25 headshots for full charge. This is quite a high number considering the largest base Sybaris magazine is 20 (for the Prime), but in return gives a max charge of 200 Incarnon ammo, which is a huge amount. Again, Multishot counts as extra hits, so in higher level content it can usually be fully charged in a couple of well-aimed bursts.

Notably, in lieu of traditional AoE damage, the Sybaris Incarnon inflicts a guaranteed Blast proc on hit, despite not dealing any Blast damage. With the recent rework to Blast procs, this gives it a Status-reliant, but surprisingly potent, AoE effect. With Multishot, assuming the enemy survives long enough, it is very possible for a single burst to max out a Blast proc at 10 stacks.


Augments

None.

Evolutions

Both Evolution 2s give constant +15 Base Damage so the choice comes down to their secondary effects. WH gives up to another +15 Base Damage, which is a 12% increase for Incarnon form and roughly 15% increase for base Prime form. It is very easy to stack, and remains for the whole mission. BB gives up to +50% Multishot, which alongside Galv Diffusion is a roughly 15% increase. Again, it is very easy to stack, and remains through the whole mission.

The difference is very small; I prefer BB to increase Status output.

All three Evolution 3s are good quality-of-life options. EV is particularly nice for base form, as even the Prime has a base Mag Capacity of just 20. RR significantly cuts down reload time from empty, which again is nice for base form. MH is the only one that benefits both forms, and at least for the Prime is very valuable. Both base Prime form and Incarnon pack a surprising amount of recoil, and the only other options for cutting down recoil are Primary Deadhead (which locks your Arcane choice), Stabiliser (which locks your Exilus slot), or a Riven.

As I use both Deadhead and Stabiliser, I favour EV.
Note that ED was increased to +8% for Prime in U37.0.4, after this screenshot was taken.

RR sounds like it has potential, however in my testing it caps at just 4 stacks, for a maximum of +80% Damage - half of Serration and not even a quarter of the +Damage Arcanes. This immediately eliminates it and leaves the choice to ED or SE. I generally prefer SE for the extra bit of Crit Chance, which I find more impactful than a bit more Status Chance.

Builds

Once again, since Incarnon Genesis is an endgame activity, I've skipped straight to advanced mods.

Crit Delay vs Point Strike is usual choice to make, trading extra Crit Chance for a small Fire Rate penalty. With any +Fire Rate mod, this penalty becomes basically negligible, making Crit Delay the superior option.

Galvanised Mods

Galv Diffusion, especially for charging Incarnon.

Galv Aptitude is a very strong option. Unlike many Incarnons, the +Base Damage effect from E2 is much smaller than the SybInc's initial Base Damage, so Galv Apt still scales off of the majority of damage (88% for the Prime). With all three Physical damage types and forced Blast procs, the SybInc can inflict four unique procs even before adding Elemental mods, easily giving enough damage to exceed Serration.
Additionally, unlike most AoE weapons, since the SybInc's AoE comes from forced Blast procs on single targets, Galv Apt also directly improves the SybInc's AoE damage.
That said, Serration still remains an option if you want a higher unconditional damage baseline, since Galv Apt relies on getting kills first.

Galv Crosshairs can also be quite strong. Obviously, all of the Sybaris forms benefit greatly from increasing Crit, and have reasonable precision. Even with Slash procs potentially stealing away Headshot kills, I find SybInc strong enough to attain direct damage Headshot kills, certainly enough to get multiple stacks of Galv Crosshairs.


Elemental Setups

The usual suspects are all here. Of course, you can always build for the damage types that deal super-effective damage as displayed in Navigation, amongst other places.

Viral is the default good-against-most-things, as its Health-damage-increasing proc is almost universally effective, even if its direct damage is not. Heat can be added to just about any Viral build for an additional damage-over-time and armour reduction, which again is effective against most targets.

Alternatively, if you want to focus on heavily armoured enemies, you can focus on Slash procs instead. Hunter Munitions is the classic option for any Crit weapon, adding an extra chance to inflict Slash procs independent of regular Status procs. Since the Sybaris Incarnon has good Status Chance and reasonable Slash bias though, you could instead use Fanged Fusillade, which provides a little more direct damage albeit overall lower Slash proc chance than a HM build. Truth be told though, with the recent weakening of armour and the overall firepower of Sybaris Incarnon, building for Slash procs may not be all that necessary.

Corrosive is a strong option for greatly reducing enemy armour, and is notably more useful against the subset of enemies who are immune to Viral procs (e.g. many Cambion Drift Infested). Additionally, it is extremely potent alongside Viral procs if you have other methods of spreading Viral procs (e.g. Panzer Vulpaphyla). Once again, Heat can be added alongside Corrosive, which makes for an exceptionally strong anti-Infested combo.

Magnetic is worth a mention for its Viral-like effect against Shields, but especially Overguard, which can at times be difficult to break through. Against Shielded enemies like the Corpus though, Toxin is also worth a mention as its damage bypasses Shields entirely, striking directly at Health. Once again, this is especially potent if augmented by Viral procs.


Radiated Reload can add a little Radiation damage to pretty much any build without interfering with elemental combos. This allows otherwise impossible setups like Corrosive + Radiation, which is particularly useful against Factions weak to Radiation damage.


Recommended Setups: Viral (+ Heat) vs everything, Viral + Slash vs armoured enemies, Corrosive + Heat vs Infested, Magnetic vs Overguard, Magnetic and/or Toxin vs Corpus.

Additional Mods


As always, I am a big fan of (Primed) Shred. The +Fire Rate offsets the penalty of Crit Delay, and especially with the recent change making all weapons pseudo-Full-Auto, is a significant DPS increase. Incarnon form cares a lot less about ammo consumption rate due to its enormous max charge, and non-reliance on actual ammo. More importantly though, the +Punch Through drastically increases the potency of Incarnon against groups. The forced Blast procs are already useful, but their efficacy is magnified significantly when hitting multiple enemies with each shot. It is not uncommon to see entire crowds explode from landing a full burst on multiple enemies thanks to Punch Through.

If you want to increase Fire Rate without adding Punch Through for whatever reason, Vile Acceleration is the strongest option, though Vigilante Fervor or Speed Trigger can be used to tweak speed. If instead you want Punch Through without the Fire Rate increase, instead consider Metal Auger or Vigilante Offence.


If you're looking to truly min-max, a (Primed) Bane mod is often put forward as the best-in-slot. On top of the significant increase to direct damage, Faction damage effects are applied multiple times to damage procs like Slash and Blast - especially potent for a weapon like Sybaris Incarnon. The primary downsides are the significant cost to max all the Primed Banes, the inconvenience of switching them per-Faction, and the lack of Primed Banes for certain Factions like the Murmur.
If you want a Faction-agnostic boost to damage procs like Slash and Blast, Rifle Elementalist is a great option, notably being far cheaper than a Primed Bane to max.

If you're instead looking for a simpler, Faction-agnostic overall damage boost, Bladed Rounds offers a solid conditional Crit Damage increase, and Proton Jet conditionally increases both Crit and Status Chances. Hammer Shot offers a weaker Crit Damage boost than Bladed Rounds, but is unconditional and also increases Status Chance.


For the Exilus slot, my main recommendation is Stabiliser. While the base Sybaris form recoil can be manageable with their two-shot bursts, I find the four-shot bursts of Incarnon form to kick quite a lot more, especially on the Prime. Significantly reducing or entirely eliminating recoil allows you to make the most of the increased effective Fire Rate.
If recoil management is not an issue, Vigilante Supplies is the next clear choice, more so for the marginal Crit buff than the actual ammo mutation effect.


Arcane

+Damage options:
  • Primary Merciless - The standard, simplest option to take and never outright bad, but not always optimal. Stacks from any kill including all damage-over-time proc kills, and the +Reload Speed can be nice to cut down Incarnon transformation time and reloading in base form. Decays quite quickly though, which can be problematic when not wading through swathes of enemies.
  • Primary Deadhead - Stacks from Headshot kills, which you will likely achieve just charging Incarnon form anwyay. Stacks faster than Merciless and decays slower. +Headshot Damage is always appreciated, and -Recoil is particularly helpful as both Sybaris Prime forms have surprisingly high recoil.
Other Damage-increasing options:
  • Primary Frostbite - According to my calculations, on a build with Galv Shot, a maxed Pri Frostbite will just beat out the +Damage options for total damage output, albeit not significantly. Notably, can be stacked by other Cold-proc-inflicting equipment (e.g. Frost Warframe, Sentinel weapon), allowing you to minimise the time and burden for getting maximum damage output.
  • Primary Blight - Slightly stronger than Pri Frostbite, but can only be triggered by Toxin procs from SybInc itself, and not other equipment. This limits build options significantly.
Non-Damage-increasing options:
  • Fractalised Reset - Offers very limited value when Incarnon form has a huge amount of max charge.
  • Primary Exhilarate - Can offer some nice Energy regen, as SybInc can reliably inflict Impact procs, on the assumption that you don't want/need more damage.
  • Primary Obstruct - Requires building for Magnetic, which is only useful against a subset of enemies, and offers a relatively niche effect with a long cooldown.

As mentioned, in the right build, Pri Frostbite/Blight will slightly beat out the +Damage Arcanes, but require specific equipment/builds for optimal performance. Otherwise, I favour Deadhead over Merciless.

My Builds

This is my standard Viral + Slash build for general use. Note that the +Damage on my Riven allows it to replace the Serration slot, although I somewhat miss the effects from Galv Apt. To be honest, the better option might actually be to drop HM for Galv Apt.


This Rad/Cold build is intended for use against the Murmur in Elite Deep Archimedea, who are resistant to Viral damage.

Combat Use and Summary

The Sybaris Incarnon's increased Burst size, coupled with its forced Blast procs and massive max charge, give it a surprisingly effective degree of AoE. With Blast procs guaranteed to deal AoE damage upon death of the enemy or hitting 10 stacks (which SybInc does easily with Multishot), it will deal a surprising amount of AoE damage around any enemy that lives more than a single pellet. Particularly when coupled with added Punch Through, SybInc excels against tightly packed groups of moderately or very tough enemies, exploiting their survivability to maximise AoE damage.

This however has a number of weaknesses compared to traditional AoE. It is entirely reliant on enemies being vulnerable to Status, and is quickly shut down by any enemy with Status caps or outright immunity. The SybInc's AoE also cannot spread Status procs, and is reliant on enemies actually surviving a few pellets to stack Blast procs - extremely weak enemies make it rather inefficient.


With its various stat increases over base Sybaris forms, particularly including doubled burst size, Incarnon form deals roughly triple the direct DPS of its corresponding base form. Considering the base Sybaris forms already dealt respectable single-target direct DPS, particularly on Headshots, this puts the Incarnon form well above almost all "normal" weapons, and on the same level as Sniper Rifles. SybInc will tear through almost all unarmoured/Status-resistant single enemies when modded with the right damage type(s).


With solid base Status Chance and Slash bias regardless of variant, Sybaris Incarnon is decently effective at naturally inflicting powerful Slash procs. Additionally, it is adept at quickly stacking Viral procs if modded for such, drastically increasing Slash proc damage dealt. Against heavily armoured, Status-vulnerable enemies, a full Incarnon burst will usually leave them with a couple of Viral procs and strong Slash procs, assuming they survive the direct damage in the first place.

Of course, when augmented with Hunter Munitions and combined with its very high base Crit Chance, SybInc significantly increases its Slash proc output. Landing a single full burst on just about any Status-vulnerable armoured enemy will leave them with sufficient Slash procs to bleed them out, well into Steel Path and beyond. In fact, with the SybInc's already excellent firepower, HM is arguably overkill for a lot of content.


Recoil can be problematic for at least the Prime variant. The Prime kicks up a surprising amount with each shot, exacerbated by Incarnon form's larger burst. At longer ranges, this can result in subsequent shots missing entirely. If you do not handle recoil well, I strongly recommend some kind of -Recoil equipment.

Sybaris Incarnon greatly benefits from the recent accessibility changes, giving all Semi-Auto and Burst-Fire weapons pseudo-Full-Auto. With any +Fire Rate mod, its Fire Rate increases to a surprisingly high value, to a point otherwise requiring rapid clicking to maximise.

Relative to its Mag Capacity, I find Sybaris Incarnon takes unusually long to fully charge. 25 Headshots is actually larger than even Prime's base Mag Capacity, which I don't think is the case for any other Incarnon/Genesis. This is of course mitigated with Multishot, as well as SybInc gaining decent charge-per-hit.


Overall, the Sybaris Incarnon is largely a drastically improved version of the Sybaris, while still behaving like a Sybaris. Its base stats are of course very strong, with several good Evolutions to choose from, and a unique forced Blast proc giving it a unique and surprisingly powerful AoE effect. While I don't think it quite reaches the same peak DPS as weapons like the Phenmor or Felarx (granted I haven't run the calculations yet), it effortlessly tears through Steel Path level enemies and even fares very well in Elite Deep Archimedea.

As a long-time Sybaris fan, I am very pleased with the power of the Sybaris Incarnon.

Scores

Vs Trash Mobs: 4/5 - The SybInc's forced Blast procs gives it a unique degree of AoE that puts it far above any of the base Sybaris forms. However unlike most AoE weapons, it is reliant on enemies surviving long enough to stack Blast procs, and is notably worse against large groups of exclusively weak enemies. Additionally, SybInc is still not a particularly fast firing weapon.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 5/5 - As with so many Incarnons, SybInc has very high direct DPS, allowing it to blast through unarmoured and Status-resistant/immune enemies very quickly.
Vs Armoured Heavies without Forced Slash: 4.5/5 - With usable Slash bias, solid native Status output, the SybInc can naturally inflict a decent number of strong Slash procs. These natural Slash procs scaling from the SybInc's very high DPS allows it to damage Status-vulnerable armoured enemies quite effectively.
Vs Armoured Heavies with Forced Slash: 5/5 - Very high Crit Chance coupled with Hunter Munitions results in inflicting even more strong Slash procs, rapidly tearing through any heavily armoured enemy who survives the initial burst of damage.

Vs Variants


There are three Sybaris variants - base Sybaris, Dex Sybaris, and Sybaris Prime. As is tradition, the different variants have slightly differing Evolution values, but oddly the base Sybaris doesn't get the strictly highest values despite being clearly worst. Interestingly, despite being higher MR, the Prime has several Evolutions that are on-par with, or even stronger than, the Dex Evolutions.

Based on the stats on the Warframe Wiki, the Dex Sybaris Incarnon compared to the Prime Incarnon is much like comparing their non-Incarnon forms. Dex has higher Crit Chance and Slash bias, while Prime has higher Status Chance, total base Damage, and effective Fire Rate (hidden in the "Burst Delay" stat).

Personally, I consider the Prime Incarnon slightly better than Dex Incarnon, in large part because of its superior Status capability. Realistically though, the two are pretty close and both will perform very well with Incarnon.

Competitors


In their base forms and without Evolutions, the Sybaris family has quite extensive competition from a range of other Burst-Fire and slow-ish firing Rifles, and in my opinion do not compare particularly favourably. Besides its worse Slash bias, I consider the Tiberon Prime to be largely superior, and the Slash-heavy Kuva Hind even more still. The Kuva Quartakk is another interesting option that packs a hefty, if rather slow-firing, punch. Evolutions give the Sybaris' a bit of a boost, bringing them up to a more favourable, though still not exceptional, standing.

Incarnon Form has similarly heavy competition, but fares much better in part because of its superior stats, and also partly thanks to its forced Blast procs. Thanks to the latter, SybInc possesses far superior AoE to most of its contemporaries, potentially dealing AoE in a 5m radius - larger than many of the small-AoE weapons like regular attack Trumna, Braton Incarnon, and Burston Incarnon. That said, the SybInc can't inflict Status procs in an AoE like those ones can, and it is reliant on Status-vulnerable enemies, so it's not all upside. While I don't think the SybInc is a contender for best weapon in the game, I think it is more than good enough to carve its own decent playstyle niche, while still delivering excellent firepower.

Rivens

All three Sybaris variants have above-average Dispositions - Prime 4/5 (1.2), Dex 4/5 (1.25), and base 4/5 (1.3), reflecting the relative unpopularity of the Sybaris family in the current meta. While the Incarnon is obviously far stronger, DE have previously indicated that they don't intend to adjust Rivens based on Incarnon Genesis Adapters, unless they become problematic.

+Damage/Multishot/Crit Chance/Crit Damage are the usual nice positives, with the former being the least valuable. +Slash can be nice to eke out a few more natural Slash procs, but isn't as impactful as other options. +Elemental Damage can be particularly useful to save a mod slot. +Faction Damage can be a strong multiplier of damage procs like Slash and Blast, which of course the SybInc excels at inflicting. This is generally considered most impactful against Grineer out of the three base Factions, as their armoured units are generally the toughest. +Fire Rate can significantly increase DPS, particularly for Incarnon form which has a huge max charge, though beware of the corresponding recoil increase. -Recoil can be helpful particularly if not running Pri Deadhead, Stabiliser, or E3MH. +Punch Through is a significant boost against groups of enemies, particularly thanks to the forced Blast procs.

-Impact/Puncture are decent negatives to have. Neither is a particularly strong damage type or proc (granted Puncture procs are nice to have on a Crit weapon like SybInc). -Slash is less desirable since Slash procs are strong, but Hunter Munitions can be used to mitigate this issue. -Faction Damage to the weaker Factions (Infested, and arguably Corpus) can be manageable with strong positives, but note that this drastically weakens SybInc's AoE from Blast procs. -Mag Capacity has no effect in Incarnon form, but is problematic for base form. -Projectile Speed has no effect. +Recoil can be manageable if you handle recoil well, or equip other -Recoil items. -Zoom is ideal for close quarters.

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