I have both of them in the foundry, but due to circumstances I can only claim one soon and the other one down the line.I myself am indecisive so I thought I’d come to the community for help. I main Octavia but have built her for steel path if that information is relevant in your comment of helping me choose. Thank you to those of you that help me choose.
I have two answers.
The first: fun factor.
Saryn is a great weapon platform that you can slap any weapon on and buff the heck out of. She can also spread spores that constantly degrade enemy health while they get in range of your guns. She’s great at every level of enemy durability, from star chart to long Steel Path runs. On scaling content, Saryn lives and dies by Molt and shield gating, although she’s very tanky for the first couple hundred levels.
Mirage is an evasive and parkour-based frame who necessarily locks you in to weapons with big hitboxes, radial effects, or homing and autoaiming capabilities, due to how her clones can’t aim. As long as you like moving a lot, I find Mirage a lot more chill on SP because I very rarely have to shield gate. Having to constantly be aerial and moving might be more taxing for some people though.
Having played both, I like Mirage a lot more. She’s one of the funny number frames of all time. I can’t argue that Saryn has some of the highest kills-per-minute potential in the game, though.
The second: functionality and numbers.
They both have their uses. Mirage can potentially balance personal power and party support with a range-based Total Eclipse build. I find she has a bit of a comfier pace due to the inbuilt evasion from Hall of Mirrors and her passive parkour boost. Both are good SO/ESO focus farmers.
I think the tie breaker is that Saryn can be built as an infinite scaling ability nuker for SP Circuit, whereas Mirage lives and dies as a weapon buffer.