So I had been looking at one of my favorite warframes more and more lately based on aesthetics alone, as the title suggests it's Inaros. He's neat in concept but...in practice he falls off so hard that he just becomes a weapons platform (and not the best one at that). Even then, at higher levels where immunities and invulnerability windows are vital to survival he's unable to participate without requiring a mod to do so...making his build paths very narrow.
I thought about it and adding scaling and tweaks to some abilities could make him a lot of fun, and a super tanky character as he was obviously intended to be. These are some of my own personal ideas, let me know what you think.
Passive: Keep the sarcophagus but make it either tether to more enemies at once by firing and making it do a small % of hp true damage to enemies (like .5%) and requiring 2 kills worth of HP to revive. This incentivizes getting in the thick of things...or, keep the single target beam and it does 5% hp making it ideal for hitting prime targets who are a bit tougher...still 2 kills worth of HP. As it stands his current variation of it is useless at higher levels if you're solo...you just kinda sit there unable to do anything, and most allies don't take advantage of the fact you just need to kill things around you to revive.
Passive Pt 2: Right now he heals for 20% hp when getting finisher kills...I feel this could be altered to add ally synergy. Make it an AoE curse that marks enemies around him (possibly in affinity range) with a scarab symbol, allies killing these units with a melee finisher heal for 20% hp, and doing melee attacks heals allies for 2% life steal per melee strike. (This makes him a tanky support at low lvl, and at high lvl it can be used to restore some HP that some toxin or slight hits through shields made.) At higher levels things hit so hard anyway that it wouldn't be too broken. (The aura can work as we have a couple frames who have passive auras. Caliban and Citrine are some examples. Also the new tome mods have some that affect enemies in affinity range.)
Desiccation: It's nice as is, but some damage scaling to make the heal better would be nice. Just add some %hp to it like .5% or 1% and it'll be fine, it's intended to be used on groups, so that'll make it more efficient for mobs of enemies. (Maybe adding damage vulnerability to it might help as well to give him some more utility with others.)
Devour: Make it have a spread feature so that it has a higher use, right now it takes more time and energy using it on more than one thing for the synergy it has with Sandstorm that it's not that great, plus the damage it does is weak so using it feels like a waste of time. Sure it's to heal you, but then when you just have this enemy trapped like a discount Garuda healing spire and it feels lackluster. The sit and drain while immune but inactive gameplay is contradictory to a fast paced game. Scaling damage would make the sand clone actually used, and having the sand clone damage heal him would be a nice touch too.
Sandstorm: Again, locks you out of fighting, which if improved can be fine, but as it stands it's just a weird version of Zephyr Tornado. It does less damage, does the old tornado CC which is annoying to others, and it's interaction with Devour sounds neat on paper, but is not worth using as they still have to die in the sandstorm for it to work. Make it do more damage, or make it spread Devour to incentivize some synergistic play. Most just helminth this off. (Could also make it so Sandstorm doesn't fling enemies, instead when it ends it'll yank them towards Inaros like Mag's pull so allies can also take advantage of it and bombard his location to help clear the map, removing an annoyance of his 3. Plus this helps him with grouping enemies for kills.)
Scarab Swarm: 2x armor is nice and all, at low to medium levels, but at higher levels it starts falling off too hard. Making it siphon armor from enemies would be neat and have an armor strip for him which will help his lack of high damage output. The heal for it is fine, it spreads as well, which helps it be useful unlike how Devour is 1 target. Having to stop and sit for a time while hitting an ability that not only hurts you, but doesn't do damage makes it feel clunky and boring.
One thing that might be a neat change, remove his energy and make him an HP cost caster tank, that way the high healing he has is used for more than just surviving enemies, but also fueling his combat. He's one of the ONLY characters who has no form of gating/immunity. Nidus consumes mutation to become invulnerable for 5 seconds and Kullervo has Overguard granting him a "shield gate"...making either "health gates" or Scarab Swarm grant Overguard much like Ironskin would be a huge boon to him, making the life steal CC ridden tank a good addition to groups.
I want to point out, if anyone does say this passive idea would be broken because he wouldn't die...I would like to point out Sevagoth who has the same thing, but it 1 shots enemies and he only needs 5, as well as everyone gets Inaros' passive but better if they have the way-bound focus ability from Unairu that lets them kill things as their operator to revive themselves. It does more damage and you get to use a modified amp with a major boost to your damage. This would make it so it's not necessary to use that for those who don't have it. On the health costs, we have that already and this would make him a bit more unique since ALL of his abilities would cost not just one. He takes 50% HP to make his Scarab Armor, Grendel's Feast augment does hp damage instead of costing energy so he can gain more armor, and Garuda's Bloodletting gives her energy at the cost of 50% HP. Despoil makes Desecrate take HP instead of energy and it works well with Nekros' passive plus the immense amount of health orbs.
All that said, let me know what you guys think, this is just a rough idea and I feel it'll breathe new life into a frame who has a good concept and I feel needs a bit more love, similar to how Hydroid got some nice changes that made him go from loot bot with meme builds to an amazing frame to play in high end content. (I wanna be clear I'm not focused solely on high end content, playing him in lower levels is also just kinda boring when it comes to his abilities, this will just let him be playable in all aspects not just a niche one that gets tedious quickly.)
So I had been looking at one of my favorite warframes more and more lately based on aesthetics alone, as the title suggests it's Inaros. He's neat in concept but...in practice he falls off so hard that he just becomes a weapons platform (and not the best one at that). Even then, at higher levels where immunities and invulnerability windows are vital to survival he's unable to participate without requiring a mod to do so...making his build paths very narrow. I thought about it and adding scaling and tweaks to some abilities could make him a lot of fun, and a super tanky character as he was obviously intended to be. These are some of my own personal ideas, let me know what you think. Passive: Keep the sarcophagus but make it either tether to more enemies at once by firing and making it do a small % of hp true damage to enemies (like .5%) and requiring 2 kills worth of HP to revive. This incentivizes getting in the thick of things...or, keep the single target beam and it does 5% hp making it ideal for hitting prime targets who are a bit tougher...still 2 kills worth of HP. As it stands his current variation of it is useless at higher levels if you're solo...you just kinda sit there unable to do anything, and most allies don't take advantage of the fact you just need to kill things around you to revive. Passive Pt 2: Right now he heals for 20% hp when getting finisher kills...I feel this could be altered to add ally synergy. Make it an AoE curse that marks enemies around him (possibly in affinity range) with a scarab symbol, allies killing these units with a melee finisher heal for 20% hp, and doing melee attacks heals allies for 2% life steal per melee strike. (This makes him a tanky support at low lvl, and at high lvl it can be used to restore some HP that some toxin or slight hits through shields made.) At higher levels things hit so hard anyway that it wouldn't be too broken. (The aura can work as we have a couple frames who have passive auras. Caliban and Citrine are some examples. Also the new tome mods have some that affect enemies in affinity range.) Desiccation: It's nice as is, but some damage scaling to make the heal better would be nice. Just add some %hp to it like .5% or 1% and it'll be fine, it's intended to be used on groups, so that'll make it more efficient for mobs of enemies. (Maybe adding damage vulnerability to it might help as well to give him some more utility with others.) Devour: Make it have a spread feature so that it has a higher use, right now it takes more time and energy using it on more than one thing for the synergy it has with Sandstorm that it's not that great, plus the damage it does is weak so using it feels like a waste of time. Sure it's to heal you, but then when you just have this enemy trapped like a discount Garuda healing spire and it feels lackluster. The sit and drain while immune but inactive gameplay is contradictory to a fast paced game. Scaling damage would make the sand clone actually used, and having the sand clone damage heal him would be a nice touch too. Sandstorm: Again, locks you out of fighting, which if improved can be fine, but as it stands it's just a weird version of Zephyr Tornado. It does less damage, does the old tornado CC which is annoying to others, and it's interaction with Devour sounds neat on paper, but is not worth using as they still have to die in the sandstorm for it to work. Make it do more damage, or make it spread Devour to incentivize some synergistic play. Most just helminth this off. (Could also make it so Sandstorm doesn't fling enemies, instead when it ends it'll yank them towards Inaros like Mag's pull so allies can also take advantage of it and bombard his location to help clear the map, removing an annoyance of his 3. Plus this helps him with grouping enemies for kills.) Scarab Swarm: 2x armor is nice and all, at low to medium levels, but at higher levels it starts falling off too hard. Making it siphon armor from enemies would be neat and have an armor strip for him which will help his lack of high damage output. The heal for it is fine, it spreads as well, which helps it be useful unlike how Devour is 1 target. Having to stop and sit for a time while hitting an ability that not only hurts you, but doesn't do damage makes it feel clunky and boring. One thing that might be a neat change, remove his energy and make him an HP cost caster tank, that way the high healing he has is used for more than just surviving enemies, but also fueling his combat. He's one of the ONLY characters who has no form of gating/immunity. Nidus consumes mutation to become invulnerable for 5 seconds and Kullervo has Overguard granting him a "shield gate"...making either "health gates" or Scarab Swarm grant Overguard much like Ironskin would be a huge boon to him, making the life steal CC ridden tank a good addition to groups. I want to point out, if anyone does say this passive idea would be broken because he wouldn't die...I would like to point out Sevagoth who has the same thing, but it 1 shots enemies and he only needs 5, as well as everyone gets Inaros' passive but better if they have the way-bound focus ability from Unairu that lets them kill things as their operator to revive themselves. It does more damage and you get to use a modified amp with a major boost to your damage. This would make it so it's not necessary to use that for those who don't have it. On the health costs, we have that already and this would make him a bit more unique since ALL of his abilities would cost not just one. He takes 50% HP to make his Scarab Armor, Grendel's Feast augment does hp damage instead of costing energy so he can gain more armor, and Garuda's Bloodletting gives her energy at the cost of 50% HP. Despoil makes Desecrate take HP instead of energy and it works well with Nekros' passive plus the immense amount of health orbs. All that said, let me know what you guys think, this is just a rough idea and I feel it'll breathe new life into a frame who has a good concept and I feel needs a bit more love, similar to how Hydroid got some nice changes that made him go from loot bot with meme builds to an amazing frame to play in high end content. (I wanna be clear I'm not focused solely on high end content, playing him in lower levels is also just kinda boring when it comes to his abilities, this will just let him be playable in all aspects not just a niche one that gets tedious quickly.)