Infested outside of the Cambion Drift are horribly out of date and could use a revisit

[MegaGrievous]

Overview

It's no secret that the Infested (at least outside of the Cambion Drift) aren't very challenging. Nearly all Infested units are exclusively melee (excluding the “spit” attack of Chargers and Leapers), they’re all weak to Slash, and they’ve only got raw health. They’re pretty easy to chew through. I think there are a few things that could be done to them to diversify them as an enemy race and make them less than “equip slash sword and spam E.”

 

Health Changes

The Infested, health class-wise, are very strange. For one, two of their health classes, Infested and Infested Flesh, are nearly identical. They both take significant damage from Heat and Gas, are both “flesh” classes, and seem to each take half of the non-Fossilized Infested.

Mutalist Infested also have strange health classes, as the Infested do not have a Robotic health class (even Grineer do).

Fossilized has rather curious elemental interactions. For one, I don't really think a petrified-feeling skin would be particularly weak to Slash, nor do I think it would be resistant to Cold.

Furthermore, Infested Sinew is simply a pain. Outside of the Cambion Drift, it's found on one relevant enemy: the Hemocyte. In the Cambion Drift, it's found on several enemies, though all of these enemies have Fossilized as their health type. While this post is about theoretically making Infested stronger, having Infested Sinew's weaknesses be directly opposed by Fossilized's resistances is frustrating, and I think some of the overlap should be changed so the two aren't interfering with each other as much.

This is my proposed new table of Infested health classes:

These changes would help diversify the weaknesses and resistances of the Infested and reduce the overlap of Infested Sinew and Fossilized.

 

Spawning Changes

On top of altering the weaknesses and resistances of the Infested faction's health classes, I think the Infested also need some additions to their ranks. These enemies should be added to the standard spawn set of Infested:

• Undying Flyers
• Venin Mutalists
• Leaping Thrashers
• Carnis
• Mitosids
• Saxums

In addition, the spawn rate of Infested enemies should be increased, seeing as their primary tactic is "swarm and destroy." This would allow for the more diverse cast of enemies to spawn in healthy amounts.

Ability Changes

As well as adding several Infested enemies to the typical spawns, various enemy types should receive new or updated abilities, as listed here:

• Swarm Mutalist MOAs’ swarms should grant Infested Sinew to any enemy with either Infested Flesh or Infested Robotics that walk through them.
  • This widens the pool of enemies capable of gaining armor and also further utilizes the armor class unused outside of a few bosses and Deimos units.
• Allow Boiler spawn pods to spawn Mutalist MOAs, Mutalist Ospreys, and Undying Flyers.
  • This diversifies the enemies capable of spawning from spawn pods, making them potentially more lethal.
• Give Venin Mutalist Ospreys the ability to make a cloud like Mutalist Ospreys, but of Heat-damage spores like those of the Spore Mutalist MOA.
  • This would allow both kinds of Mutalist Osprey to offer zone control, with the Venin Mutalist Ospreys also offering support to their grounded allies.
  • This cloud would deal damage every half second and have a 50% status chance.
• Make Tar Mutalist MOAs’ tar pools deal Corrosive damage and make them heal allied Infested units that walk through them.
  • This would increase the lethality of Tar Mutalist MOAs and pose the puddles as an actual threat as opposed to a mild inconvenience.
  • The pools would apply a buff to allied  Infested units that walk through them, healing the unit by 15% of its maximum HP per second for 4 seconds.
• Allow Chargers and Brood Mothers to shoot spine projectiles akin to Phorid.
  • This will give more Infested units the capability of attacking at range, along with the Carnis, Swarm Mutalist MOA, and Venin Mutalist Osprey.
  • These could apply both Puncture and Slash status procs.
• Give Boilers the ability to “battle cry,” granting all nearby allied Infested units with Infested Flesh or Infested Robotic health a buff.
  • Allied Infested affected would deal 25% more damage, take 25% less damage, and move 50% faster for 6 seconds.
  • Boilers would be able to do this once for every time they enter “Full Alert” and would use it once their target enters line of sight.
  • The cry would have a radius of 20 meters.
  • Infested spawned from a Boiler’s spawn pods would have this buff applied to them permanently.

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

Most of the ability changes seem fairly interesting, but if you're going to give ranged or AoE attacks to infested, they need to have very low base damage.
Venin Mutalists and Carnis are already broken with their 60 base damage projectiles.
 

2 hours ago, MegaGrievous said:

Make Tar Mutalist MOAs’ tar pools deal Corrosive damage

Already do, and a fairly high amount at 15 base damage per tick.

2 hours ago, MegaGrievous said:

Give Venin Mutalist Ospreys the ability to make a cloud like Mutalist Ospreys, but of Heat-damage spores like those of the Spore Mutalist MOA.

• This would allow both kinds of Mutalist Osprey to offer zone control, with the Venin Mutalist Ospreys also offering support to their grounded allies.
• This cloud would deal damage every half second and have a 50% status chance.

Yes to the general idea, no to the ticks every half second and a 50% status chance.

2 hours ago, MegaGrievous said:

Give Boilers the ability to “battle cry,” granting all nearby allied Infested units with Infested Flesh or Infested Robotic health a buff.

• Allied Infested affected would deal 25% more damage, take 25% less damage, and move 50% faster for 6 seconds.

Infested really don't need more buffers. They already have 3, and they're stupid strong.


Additionally, Undying Flyers would probably need to be toned down a bit. Right now they're pretty aggressive in terms of damage output and movement, especially since they have access to a toxin aura ability.