Reading the proposals and by the encouragement to have a look-see on having Inaros take in these new changes to his kit - I think I'm wholly onboard to giving Inaros a good refresher.
Where it stands, Inaros revolves around being the embodiment of "I ain't dying" - coupled with being a nuisance to enemy NPC's while providing minor utility and support with his abilities through disruptions, miniscule health regeneration, and blinding the occasional enemy NPC or group of enemy NPC's through his tactics.
At best, your job is to keep you and your team alive with health stealing and drawing enemy fire away while you wreck havoc from just being disruptive to the enemies ability to fight back, which can work if killing enemies isn't the M.O. - but outside of that, where laying down legions of opposing forces would take higher priority - you'd be relying on your allies or your own weapons, skills and companions to compensate for when laying out bodies takes higher priority.
This is prevalent during Steel Path or other end-game missions where being tanky is his main draw and not having enough life steal to compensate for it can be a problem.
Let's look over each of his abilities as he has presently - as is, unmodded and not taking into account of said personal experience and skill, weapons, companions, and the myriad of builds you can do to Inaros to suit various roles: Dessicate - Blinds enemies, minor health regeneration over time, and will take true damage over time; good for distracting enemies while giving your allies the ability to recover their health, but the problem is that allies will eviscerate them regardless -- plus the blinding effect only works when enemies are facing in the direction of the oncoming Dessicate (as far as I've known, casting Dessicate on enemy backs and sides doesn't blind them - it just jostles them, but I reckon there is an angle at the front which allows being affected by sight-affecting abilities); which finishers will only work if you blind them from the front.
The sad part is, this ability would work well if killing enemies under the affect would award whatever remaining health to whoever just got the killing blow, some fraction of the awarded health or something. Devour - In a way, it's a solid ability - you bind an enemy to energy-forged cords, soak them in sand and yank them in - allowing you to isolate an enemy while entering into an invulnerable state. Your enemy is pinned down, you rob them of health while their allies can't do anything to help you. Good right?
Well, the problem is that it's a slow process exiting the animation for Devour and once your invulnerability ends -- you best be quick to get out of danger, cause enemies that decide swarming you takes priority will wittle down all that health you got back like a hot knife through butter.
In addition, exceptionally tanky enemies will take a long time to kill, and at best are just there, under the effects, so you can have a 'meal' ready for restoring your health after you're sufficiently wounded - assuming they're still under the affect by then and you don't have to cast Devour again. Plus, Inaros and your Warframe is pretty occupied while in this state where mobility is high priority. Sandstorm - While this ability does seem to be handy as a "Oh shoot" ability when killing enemies probably isn't top priority, the damage on it is pitiful and relies on being disruptive. At best, the ability will induce Slash proc's when left on for long enough, but allies who might want to get the objective/mission done and over with will likely not like enemy targets being flung about. Would've worked if allies can shoot Inaros while in this state to distribute the damage to enemies caught in the tornado like how Zephyr's Tornado's work, but missed opportunity.
And to make it clear, even if I'm offering minor improvements to these abilities I go over, I think the OP's posts would be more substantial improves and would be better for Inaros overall. Scarab Armor - sacrifice an extent of health to get additional armor, sacrifice a quarter of Scarab Armor to trap enemies into a mat of sand and scarabs with Scarab Swarm; that provides life steal, which also makes a good way to disable enemies ability to fight; and both Inaros and his allies can stand close by to the victims to recoup health - but you can still see the glaring problem is that allies will eviscerate them regardless, and that means standing still in order to get healed in some scenarios where it's not a good idea to do so. By default, you do have 14 meters of breathing room when close to enemies that are under the effect of Scarab Swarm, but the effect is short; mobility is usually a key in Warframe and sometimes you can't huddle around a target like that before all enemy fire is focused on you and team mates - which can lead to an early wipe.
On top, the health returned is still pitiful.
In all, the way Inaros is right now, he's more suited to being that "Hey look at me" die-hard that tosses sand at everyone and is disruptive towards enemies in situations that aren't suited for - plus, there are enough people who only know him for taking direct hits from artillery fire, from Frohd Beck's personal flag ship, and not being phased by it (more or less).
With that said, @bangarang35's proposals and the feed back given thus far (as of this posting, for 4.3) seem like they'd give Inaros more of a spotlight and make it fun to play him.
I will say, the new iteration of Sandstorm looks solid, create some area denial that blinds enemies while also replenishing health for himself and allies in the 'dome'.
Also, using his own health as a resources is pretty genius - if Hildryn can do it, why not have Inaros do so instead? His health is used for a specific Sabotage(?) Grineer mission for moving a Fomorian Core to extract, why not capitalize on that for his abilities? Plus, "Health Gating" also seems like a nice step up to further compound how die-hard this frame is suppose to be.
10/10, would recommend the OP's proposals~
