Inaros Rework Concepts

[Rovaeden]

Inaros Rework Concepts Megathread

Inaros is an excellent frame despite being called lazy, selfish or useless.
As someone who prefers the role of Tank in other MMOs, I gravitated towards Inaros right away.
I would like to use this forum post to explore the possibilities of updating Inaros to be the group support frame he could be while maintaining what he already has that makes him great and enjoyable for those of us who love him already.
I want to acknowledge all the other players who love Inaros and who don’t necessarily want to see him changed but perhaps wouldn’t mind to see him polished with some love and attention.


First of all, I think it is important to talk about Warframe and how it is played.


At first glance Warframe is a cooperative team game.
However, after playing it for some time it becomes clear that the team aspect is particularly lacking.
I would say it is more accurate to describe the game as one in which a loose group of individuals works individually towards a common goal and sometimes there is a happy accident of teamwork or team synergy or team support.

This concept is, I believe, at the heart of why Inaros appears to many to be useless.
His crowd control abilities are actually quite good and useful for other team members (not counting sandstorm) but they require those other players to allow the mobs they are affecting to live in order to work properly to the team’s benefit..
Given how much of the player base scoffs at crowd control, saying that it is more effective to kill enemies than it is to leave them alive but controlled, it is no surprise to me that Inaros is derided.

Now I want to take a moment to mention that it is flat out wrong to say that CC is worthless and it shows a clear ignorance of how the game mechanics work. Given how only a certain number of enemies can be in existence at once, if you CC them, they are dealt with. If you kill them then you get more waves of fresh enemies that you must then deal with as well.
It makes so much more sense to gather up and hard CC an initial wave, especially in missions in which the objective is something other than killing. With the enemies controlled the objective is no longer at risk.

However, it is abundantly clear to me that this is NOT how Warframe is played by the vast majority of players.

So, within that framework, let’s explore what is required for Inaros to be the Tank he currently is as well as the useful support frame that he should be.

I would like to note that I don’t have all the answers here. I have been thinking about this for a long time now and I have some notion of what sorts of things could be added or changed to make Inaros an actual team player, but I welcome input from others who love Inaros and want to see his potential realized.

I was going to go on and discuss various different Tanking tools from different games and how they could translate to Warframe but after pondering it for a bit I believe it doesn’t need to be said.
All we need to understand is that Warframe is a highly mobile game in which players are rarely grouped around a Tank who can protect them.
Therefore the only question worth asking is, what meaningful abilities could Inaros have that would benefit a team that is rarely standing next to him?

Ultimately the most effective single ability change that I could come up with that would give Inaros some serious value to a group is to be able to share his Scarab Swarm status immunity with his group, perhaps with the benefits of Adaptation baked in.

Example ability concepts.

Shield of the Sun God - Inaros sacrifices x% of his health to shield himself and his allies within range (affinity range? Map range? 30 meters? whatever) with the blessing of Ra (or whomever).
The Shield provides Status Immunity for as long as it lasts. The Shield additionally provides Damage Reduction of 5% (or whatever) upon initial cast with 100 shield points. Each hit upon the shield adds 5% damage reduction against that damage type while also consuming 3 shield points. Once the shield is used up it fades and must be reapplied. 
Perhaps this ability could be one of the few abilities in game immune to goddamn nulli-bubbles!

Devour tweak - The second most effective ability I can think of is making devour into a Nidus Larva-esque AOE centered on Inaros. 

Tap casting blasts out a wave that taunts all enemies in ability range to focus their aggro only on Inaros for the duration.
Hold casting works like Devour does now but in an AOE centered on Inaros, drawing enemies to him and holding them in sand for a duration. Continuing to hold devours them for health as it does now and could either be used by allies or perhaps instead the Devour could heal allies standing nearby while Inaros channels it.

I would like to mention that I am hesitant to suggest that Inaros’ abilities do more direct damage to enemies.
Inaros is virtually unkillable with little modding as he is now. If he could also map-wipe enemies nobody would play any other frame.
As it is, he already has an ability with which he can one shot virtually any single enemy with his Desiccation pocket sand and a finisher, not to mention the massive heal he gets when he uses this move. He really doesn’t need to map-wipe (no frame does, but that's just me).
However, he DOES need at least one ability that can meaningfully aid his team in Warframe as it is actually played in reality. Expecting people to stand still and twiddle their thumbs while being healed is utterly unrealistic. Thus his Devour and Scarab Swarm heals really do not effectively benefit anyone other than Inaros himself or a very coordinated group using voice chat.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy both abilities for my own gameplay purposes from time to time, but they in no way benefit a team who is going to zoom past and annihilate every enemy in sight.

Scarab Swarm tweak - Along those lines, the third effective change I can think of is making the initial enemy targeted by Scarab Swarm immune to being killed by teammates.
I actually used Helminth to replace Sandstorm with Blood Altar on my Inaros for this very reason. Not only does Blood Altar offer a useful and large heal to teammates but it creates an invulnerable pillar to cast Scarab Swarm against. This way, I can Devour pull an enemy to my position next to a defense objective, Blood Altar them in place and Scarab Swarm them to create a turret that automatically CCs any enemies that get close for a good long duration. I love it.
I would love it more if it were baked into the ability by default.
 

Sarcophagus tweak - One final change I would like to see is an update to Inaros’ passive.
After seeing that Sevagoth gets to insta-kill 5 enemies and come back to life I am left scratching my head about the uselessness of Sarcophagus.
I know it was designed for a version of Warframe in a very different state but it feels well overdue for an update to the now fully embraced (and wonderful) over-the-top power fantasy that is modern Warframe.

I don’t have a clear picture of what changes Sarcophagus should undergo.
Maybe allowing AOE Devour to be cast and channeled while in the Sarcophagus with a buff to the devour that eats percentage based enemy health instead of single digits?

Maybe instead of Sarcophagus (which I really like conceptually btw and don’t want to lose it altogether as I think it is a super cool downed ability) we look at Death Well for ideas. Perhaps Inaros fills a Phylactery with finisher kills. When the Phylactery is full he is protected from death. Should he happen to die he enters Sarcophagus and absorbs the energy from the phylactery over a few (5?) seconds and then automatically self resurrects. 

 

I would love to have a discussion with DE about what could be done to Inaros to make him stand out as “THE Warframe Tank” but not stand apart in terms like why play anything else.

I invite all others who love Inaros to pitch in their ideas into this as a megathread.


In closing I want to say I love Inaros as he is. 

I don't want to see him lose what makes him special and unique but I would really love for him to bring something more to my teammates than “well, everyone else is downed.. Guess I better go around and pick them all up”.

[Rovaeden]

-reserved-

[Rovaeden]

So many people love to *@##$ about inaros in region chat but no one has anything to add to be constructive? Really? Did I do such a good job that I hit it out of the park? I find that hard to believe.
No one has anything to add?

[(PSN)CommanderC2121]

7 hours ago, Rovaeden said:

So many people love to *@##$ about inaros in region chat but no one has anything to add to be constructive? Really? Did I do such a good job that I hit it out of the park? I find that hard to believe.
No one has anything to add?

No ones commenting because its almost impossible to read on dark mode. 

[Rovaeden]

17 hours ago, (PSN)CommanderC2121 said:

No ones commenting because its almost impossible to read on dark mode. 

huh?

[SweetAnubis]

here's my take on inaros rework.....

 

1. Desiccation: the ability itself doesn't need a rework.

2. Devour: Half the time it takes to use this ability, Turn the immunity during active devouring into a heavy damage reduction and turn the active devour action into an area taunt. This will give inaros the age old tank ability of taunting. Useful in defensive missions or to give an ally a needed break in emergencies.

Additionally make the quicksand create a larger patch and gives a healing effect for allies standing in sand by automatically draining enemies in sand patches and feeding to allies standing in sand patches. The current heal ability is clunky and often overlooked or even not know about by many players due to its current use requirements. Giving it an automatic aoe healing/draining patch would make it more tactically useful in the fast paced warframe environment and give it a smoother more intuitive use.

3. Sandstorm: Give it two cast options, the quick cast  would be a stationary aoe much like snow globe or other defensive abilities. But rather give it an inner eye of the storm where enemies aren't affected so enemies who make it through still need dealt with. Remove ragdoll effect. Instead enemies are staggered and blinded while going through the storm, minor slash damage applied while in storm.

hold cast would still perform the old spinning inaros, additionally holding jump while it is active would allow inaros to lift up into the air for additional situational vertical maneuverability.

4. Scarab Swarm: Make Negation swarm a default trait for this ability. then replace the old augment mod with a toggle off trait similar to what has been done for other frame augments.

5. Sarcophagus: Make damage percentage based. That way it automatically scales with the enemies being faced.

[Azamagon]

While I'm somewhat ambivalent of most of your suggestions, you get a like from me simply from two important points: The invincible main target of a Scarab Swarm (that is really excellent), and that Holdcast Devour idea, it sparks some cool ideas in my head. I'd simply tweak your Devour-idea like this:

Devour - With the embrace of sand, move enemies quickly over to Inaros

Tapcast - Casts a far-reaching, but narrow cone of this gripping sand (similar to Pull, but far more controlled, obviously). Costs 25 energy.
Holdcast - Shorter reach, but casts in a 360 degree around Inaros. Costs 50 energy.

All gripped enemies are dealt minor damage, and produces a health orb at their feet when they land, along with being CC'd for a short duration (using the same quicksand and panic animation as current Devour).

This makes its primary function the pull-effect, rather than the healing effects (which he already has plenty of from his Scarab Swarm and Dessiccation+passive-lifesteal-from-finishers), but it still has some quick healing via the healthorbs, and it also keeps its current hard CC-effect, albeit not as longlasting.

That's pretty good, no?

Alternative idea, just to spitball some more thoughts:

Devour

• Now a pointcast ability. Creates quicksand in the targetted area. The area quite quickly grows in size over time.
• Enemies who touch the sand become incapacitated (like now) and are dragged in towards its centre.
• Killing enemies affected by Devour has a high chance to spawn health orbs.

 

Also, I'd suggest some changes to Sandstorm as well, as it is just no a very good ability:

Sandstorm

 

• No longer slows down Inaros, instead it SPEEDS HIM UP!
• Can jump (slowly) and aimglide while it is active.
• No longer ragdolls enemies, it instead just staggers them. Upon turning off the ability, all enemies in the area are knocked down.
• Can cast his other abilities wihle it is active.
• Teleports all owned Sand Minions over to Inaros as he activates Sandstorm (if sand minions are to even remain in his kit?)

[Rovaeden]

17 hours ago, SweetAnubis said:

2. Devour: Half the time it takes to use this ability, Turn the immunity during active devouring into a heavy damage reduction and turn the active devour action into an area taunt. This will give inaros the age old tank ability of taunting. Useful in defensive missions or to give an ally a needed break in emergencies.

Additionally make the quicksand create a larger patch and gives a healing effect for allies standing in sand by automatically draining enemies in sand patches and feeding to allies standing in sand patches. The current heal ability is clunky and often overlooked or even not know about by many players due to its current use requirements. Giving it an automatic aoe healing/draining patch would make it more tactically useful in the fast paced warframe environment and give it a smoother more intuitive use.

The healing you describe here is basically how Scarab Swarm healing works now. The problem is that it doesn't work in a team game as teammates are unable to NOT kill everything in sight. If a teammate stands next to enemies effected by Scarab Swarm they get very fast healing. However, if they just mindlessly zerg by and kill everything standing in sand, they get no healing, even if they needed it.

I specifically mentioned this as a problem with Inaros.
The problem is not because the power is weak or ineffective in and of itself, but because it is not useful in its current design as it relates to how Warframe is played by most players.
In other words, One could try to force other players to stop playing the way they play (not going to happen) or DE could design Inaros to help his team in a realistic way considering players prefer to move and kill rather than stand still and wait.

I like your idea of making Sandstorm a stationary effect like Snowglobe that staggers and blinds enemies entering and moving through it. Cool idea.

[Rovaeden]

13 hours ago, Azamagon said:

 

Devour - With the embrace of sand, move enemies quickly over to Inaros

Tapcast - Casts a far-reaching, but narrow cone of this gripping sand (similar to Pull, but far more controlled, obviously). Costs 25 energy.
Holdcast - Shorter reach, but casts in a 360 degree around Inaros. Costs 50 energy.

All gripped enemies are dealt minor damage, and produces a health orb at their feet when they land, along with being CC'd for a short duration (using the same quicksand and panic animation as current Devour).

This makes its primary function the pull-effect, rather than the healing effects (which he already has plenty of from his Scarab Swarm and Dessiccation+passive-lifesteal-from-finishers), but it still has some quick healing via the healthorbs, and it also keeps its current hard CC-effect, albeit not as longlasting.

That's pretty good, no?

Alternative idea, just to spitball some more thoughts:

Devour

• Now a pointcast ability. Creates quicksand in the targetted area. The area quite quickly grows in size over time.
• Enemies who touch the sand become incapacitated (like now) and are dragged in towards its centre.
• Killing enemies affected by Devour has a high chance to spawn health orbs.

I really love your ideas for Devour particularly creating Health Orbs. Provided Inaros doesn't immediately suck them up himself, this could be a decent team helping mechanic.

I also like the idea of Devour being point cast and creating a pool of quicksand that drags in enemies and holds them for a duration.
This is kind of how Scarab Swarm blast works when cast at an enemy, but again it only stays useful as long as the enemy it is cast upon is allowed to live. Having Devour create a patch of sand that sucks in enemies but itself continues to exists for its duration could solve part of the problem of Scarab Swarm blast.


Having sandstorm give Inaros a move speed buff and stagger / blind enemies caught in it would be amazing.

[SweetAnubis]

5 hours ago, Rovaeden said:

The healing you describe here is basically how Scarab Swarm healing works now. The problem is that it doesn't work in a team game as teammates are unable to NOT kill everything in sight. If a teammate stands next to enemies effected by Scarab Swarm they get very fast healing. However, if they just mindlessly zerg by and kill everything standing in sand, they get no healing, even if they needed it.

I specifically mentioned this as a problem with Inaros.
The problem is not because the power is weak or ineffective in and of itself, but because it is not useful in its current design as it relates to how Warframe is played by most players.
In other words, One could try to force other players to stop playing the way they play (not going to happen) or DE could design Inaros to help his team in a realistic way considering players prefer to move and kill rather than stand still and wait.

I like your idea of making Sandstorm a stationary effect like Snowglobe that staggers and blinds enemies entering and moving through it. Cool idea.

scarab swarm honestly feels like more of a defensive ability than a healing ability right now....

my ideas were an attempt to keep with fairly similar skills but improving on them at same time without completely replacing them. devour already has a heal effect. infact your team mates can even devour enemies trapped in your sand to heal themselves already.... but much like you and i have already pointed out it takes to much time and effort to take advantage of and most players arent even aware of that function.... so making it more an aoe heal and giving the devour function a taunt instead would provide more aid to the team and allow skilled inaros players to take advantage of the devour function as well.

 

in regards to players blitzing through the enemies the quicksand area could simply absorb all lost enemy life force and store it in a "healing pool" that is then given to allies in the area... so even if enemies are killed quickly their total life lost in the quicksand area would be added to the available healing in the area... think of it as the sand devours the blood and life force lost rather than letting it escape and then funnels it to allies in its area of effect.