Inaros Rework Ideas

[BoredFinno]

Now that Hydroid finally doesn't feel like he is hitting like a wet noddle, I feel like the next frame that needs some love the most is Inaros.

Problem with Inaros is that his whole identity is that he just doesn't die. But unlike revenant who has 1 ability that makes it so, Inaros has 4 abilities out of which 3 fulfill a very similar role. Add to that that his tankyness rarely requires him to cast anything for himself, yet his utility for allies is so outdated for current state of the game, you rarely use any of his abilities. 

When thinking about Inaros and what role in a squad he'd fulfill, I started thinking about how typical tank works in most MMORPGs and noticed that we don't really have that kind of a tank in Warframe. A tank that pulls all the attention to himself, while reducing enemy damage and defenses. I think Inaros would snuggle into a similar role quite comfortably, since his kit doesn't require him to use it for himself very often.

I also wanted to preserve that fantasy of an undying mummy, commanding the desert's sands to devour its victims.

So, this is what I came up with:

-Passive:

His healing from finishers is probably the most functional and synergistic part out of his whole kit. He has no shields and is guaranteed to take damage and this passive gives him an on demand burst of hp. 

His resurrection passive on the other hand might as well not exist. It does pitiful damage that can't be scaled with anything but one mod and that doesn't even help it much. It also disables Last Gasp, the good self-revive mechanic. While it would be quite easy to remove it, I wouldn't go that route as it's quite cool. I think damage should scale with secondary damage and elemental mods. When you are downed, you already have the option to shoot and kill things with your secondary. If this made the self-reviving too easy(which isn't that hard nowdays anyways), you can always give it The Undying treatment and slap a cooldown on it.

-(1st ability) Desiccation:

As this enables the only functional part of his passive, this ability is mostly fine as is. Its a cheap and good cc, when it has its condition fulfilled, allows you to one-shot most enemies with the right weapon. I think its life-steal is quite pointless, as this ability deals no damage. Its the only think I'd remove from it.

-(2nd ability) Devour:

Just kill this ability. Nuke it. It's so pointless and annoying. I don't think i even need to mention why this shouldn't even exist anymore. The fantasy of devouring your enemies could be preserved with a custom mercy kill animation.

This ability would be replaced with:

-Pharao's Curse(the meme rises):

Nothing escapes The Pharao's gaze. On cast, Inaros conjures a golden eye symbol above his head. All enemies around Inaros have damage they deal reduced while also switching focus(aggro) onto Inaros. Cursed enemies are also leeched of their hp for duration, providing Inaros and his allies within his affinity range with a small heal over time. Enemies killed under the effect of the curse rise as Sand Shadows, up to 5.

This ability would work pretty similar to Sevagoth's Sow, but would be recastable. It would somewhat synergize with his 1st ability, as more enemies would in theory face Inaros. I also put the health stealing mechanic here, as I am changing the effect on his 4th ability and to keep the poorly supportive role his old 2 had. I'd also like to increase the cap on his sand clones, just for the coolness factor I guess. This ability I feel would give Inaros a very much needed squad role which I consider he lacks right now.

-(3rd ability) Sandstorm:

This ability is extremely awful. From its energy cost, its pitiful range and it flinging enemies across the map, this ability doesn't provide the cc it intended to, nor can you sustain it long enough to have that "feels good" factor. But I think this ability isn't too hard to fix.

Firstly, lets fix it's abysmal energy cost and channel cost. Its pointlessly expensive. Make initial cost 25 energy, channel cost 5 energy. Next, lets change its range to maybe 10/15m. This ability will no longer pick up and fling enemies around. This is now a sandstorm that will blind/stagger enemies in the zone, dealing slash damage/sec and applying slash every now and then, while slowly pulling enemies towards Inaros. Inaros can both cast his 2nd ability and 2nd part of his 4th ability while channeling. If it wasn't obvious, you are still mobile in this ability, just like in its current version.

This would give Inaros a harder cc ability and damage which should be capable of killing fodder enemies with no defenses in a reasonable time. I think it would work pretty good on a defense type of missions.

-(4th ability) Scarab Swarm:

The 1st part of the ability is fine as it is, I wouldn't touch it. The part that could use some help is of course, the 2nd part. While HP regen it provides is nice, the range isn't great unless you mod for some range and most of the times, even if you cast it, for yourself and teammates, they would usually just die way too fast for it to even be worth casting. Not to mention, casting it and then channeling the armor over and over again does feel a bit eh, not so great imo. This is the reason I moved the life stealing part of it to his new 2.

The functionality of this ability would mostly stay the same - Inaros sends an infestation onto enemies that spreads around over its duration stunning infested enemies. Infestation will eat at enemy's armor over the duration of the ability. Once the enemy is fully stripped of their armor, they stop being stunned and infestation from that enemy returns to Inaros, replenishing x% of scarab armor on him. If enemy dies before it's fully stripped, scarabs replenish half the amount. Strip would be like 5%/s, affected by ability strength.

This would actually make Inaros WANT to use the 2nd part of his ability and make it more comfortable in doing so, since you are not constantly channeling his 4 over and over again. Not to mention that it removes the need to be in the range of the infested enemy to gain the ability's benefit. You can just shoot it in a direction and go do something else in the meantime. It would also make Negation Swarm a bit less annoying to use if you're constantly having enemies affected by his 4. Alternatively, augment could be changed to block the status effect and automatically infest the enemy that applied it, be it with maybe limited spread amount if applied that way.

 

Last thing I would do is increase his base energy to like 220/230. The current 190 really doesn't feel good.

With this rework, I wanted to preserve the good ol' braindead "set and forget" tank Inaros, while giving him some help, but also make a kit that would encourage him to actually build other stats like strength, range, duration. He is by no means in as bad shape as Hydroid was, he is just very bland. Which of course, not every frame has to be as complex and combo based as harrow, hence why I want to preserve his current playstyle as an option for those who want it. I also wanted to give him some purpose in group play and maybe some more survivability by reducing enemy damage for the higher level missions. Maybe this rework isn't a meta breaker some people are looking for, but it sounds fun and I believe that is much more important. I think meta usually kills the fun in games if you rely on it too much. I think that being functional enough to feel comfortable and fun is more important.

I am looking forward to your input and feedback.

[(XBOX)Mastermitchel89]

I am somewhat confused of this manner

On one hand there is little incentive to avoid the usual Health and Arc Grace

On the other hand the Abilities are given a more effective way to hit or affect enemies, but the lifesteal and dessication were supposed to replace Arc Grace

 

Its not that Inaros's Abilities aren't good, they're just untuned or bugged

Now the tank luring enemy attention part, that makes sense

[BoredFinno]

20 minutes ago, (XBOX)Mastermitchel89 said:

I am somewhat confused of this manner

On one hand there is little incentive to avoid the usual Health and Arc Grace

On the other hand the Abilities are given a more effective way to hit or affect enemies, but the lifesteal and dessication were supposed to replace Arc Grace

 

Its not that Inaros's Abilities aren't good, they're just untuned or bugged

Now the tank luring enemy attention part, that makes sense

The idea i had behind this rework wasnt really to channel inaros into one playstyle, it was to give him more tools and build flexibility. Since most of these abilities would scale with power strength, maybe you want to run molt augmented with arcane blessing, since u invested mod slots into range and duration or something else. Grace also give only inaros the heal, as would his passive. The idea is more to give you more options to build around his abilities and perhaps around helminth as well. Also, not all players have grace and having a functional kit that doesnt rely on arcanes sounds better than one that does. Not saying he right now does, i just think that having options makes theory crafting more fun. If one wants to slap all heath and armor mods and brainlessly run around with their favorite gun, so be it, but the tradeoff is that his abilities suffer then. Right now, nothing in his kit suffers as a trade off if you do this and you dont really have an ability to build around on inaros. Only one i can see as possible is his 3 and that ability requires so much investment its so hard to fit everything it needs into a frame.  

I'd disagree that inaros' abilities arent bad, he has half the passive, one good ability (his 1st) you can completely ignore thx to grace, or use reave instead for even faster heal and half his 4 is good. His 2nd and 3rd might as well not exist.

[(XBOX)Mastermitchel89]

So i remembered a solution to the passive and the healthbar

Inaros can have as much health as he wants but has to heal it to full when self reviving ~250hp per second per enemy within sight/ range or beam, inwhich his healing abilities ie pocket sand and scarab swarm can assist

The enemies need to be lured to inaros' sarcophagus though and it cannot be percentage healing

Could the sarcophagus be a damageable object and that is the timer?

Maybe if he zer0s on health it starts the sarcophagus and if failed it crumbles into sand where inaros can still be revived or last grasp it like a third chance

Edited November 1, 2023 by (XBOX)Mastermitchel89

[Terridaks.]

Since no one is commenting on my rework, I'll comment on someone else's. In any case, the one that seemed to me the most adequate.

I'm fine with your resurrection passive. I don't think it even needs a cd, since you're essentially offering a natural toolkit to enhance the current ability, which is a good thing. Once you get to a certain level of enemies, Inaros can still run into self-resurrection problems. This is especially justified given how risky a position his new ability puts him in.

Yep, nuke Devour.

The new ability gives me conflicting feelings. On the one hand, it's great that you've thought to add damage reduction along with aggro, but on the other hand, if anyone needs this mechanic, it's warframes like Rhino or Nix. Unlike those two, Inaros doesn't directly benefit from enemies focusing on him. Sandbagging enemies has never been a big problem - enemies are facing the player 90% of the time.
Also, the ability suffers from the same disease as many other reworks on this forum - it suffers from a lack of brevity. How many tasks does it accomplish? Let's count: damage debuff, control, heal, minion summoning. Four tasks for one button is a lot. 

Sandstorm rework is ok.

Your Scarab Swarm could be a direct ability improvement, though it's not entirely clear what happens if you infect an enemy without armor? And why does the ability reward the player for not killing an enemy for as long as possible, while leaving Inaros himself in a more vulnerable position?

Edited November 4, 2023 by Terridaks.

[BoredFinno]

3 hours ago, Terridaks. said:

The new ability gives me conflicting feelings. On the one hand, it's great that you've thought to add damage reduction along with aggro, but on the other hand, if anyone needs this mechanic, it's warframes like Rhino or Nix. Unlike those two, Inaros doesn't directly benefit from enemies focusing on him. Sandbagging enemies has never been a big problem - enemies are facing the player 90% of the time.
Also, the ability suffers from the same disease as many other reworks on this forum - it suffers from a lack of brevity. How many tasks does it accomplish? Let's count: damage debuff, control, heal, minion summoning. Four tasks for one button is a lot. 

Okay, so i'd agree that such mechanic would be nice on rhino for scaling his iron skin, but once thats done, im pretty sure you would as any other frame like to avoid getting fired at. As far as im aware, Nyx should already have similar mechanic on her 4(cant remember if i read this on wiki or another rework idea), but if this ability was useful, this taunt would drain energy for it to remain active. Not to mention that her 4 is basically completely pointless without augment which gives her some use on it.

Now for the other issue. I dont think having one ability that does multiple things is that bad, as long as the value isnt too big. I said it would provide a small hp regen to keep his finisher passive relevant (even tho you could just slap arcane grace). And if you feel like having a heal is too much on it, you can always slap it back onto his pocket sand. When it comes to clones, i am not sure what purpose they would fulfill for inaros, thats still probably something to think about, but i do think its a very cool thing in his kit. 

3 hours ago, Terridaks. said:

Your Scarab Swarm could be a direct ability improvement, though it's not entirely clear what happens if you infect an enemy without armor? And why does the ability reward the player for not killing an enemy for as long as possible, while leaving Inaros himself in a more vulnerable position?

It wouldn't really be as long as possible. The speed of the strip would depend on your power str. To maybe keep him a bit safer, you could make the cc last some time (scaleable with duration) past armor strip. We already have an armor strip that takes some times thx to hydroid's rework and i think it works pretty good. It would still suffer from the problem of "why wait when can kill now", which is why there is a partial refund on non stripped enemies. He is the defender of the weak, part of his kit is providing cc. If allies decided to kill them while still cc'd thats their choice. This would still grant inaros biggest benefit as a weapon's platform. Mind you, the ability still spreads around, so while you are killing that one dude, other dudes are getting stripped. The ability has a strip rate that can be boosted to strip before the duration ends, so depending on your str, it could be 3 seconds, it could be 5, or it could be 20.

[Terridaks.]

56 минут назад, BoredFinno сказал:

It wouldn't really be as long as possible. The speed of the strip would depend on your power str. To maybe keep him a bit safer, you could make the cc last some time (scaleable with duration) past armor strip. We already have an armor strip that takes some times thx to hydroid's rework and i think it works pretty good. It would still suffer from the problem of "why wait when can kill now", which is why there is a partial refund on non stripped enemies. He is the defender of the weak, part of his kit is providing cc. If allies decided to kill them while still cc'd thats their choice. This would still grant inaros biggest benefit as a weapon's platform. Mind you, the ability still spreads around, so while you are killing that one dude, other dudes are getting stripped. The ability has a strip rate that can be boosted to strip before the duration ends, so depending on your str, it could be 3 seconds, it could be 5, or it could be 20.

I still can't figure out what happens if the ability is used on an enemy without armor.

The whole point of the Hydroid is that he expends energy to deal increased damage with armor removal. The contradictory point of your ability is that Inaros gets a penalty for him or his allies killing an enemy before the swarm removes all armor. That is, he gets a penalty for doing something well. The opposite mechanic would be much more logical - that Scarab Armor is returned in full if an enemy is killed before all of their armor is removed. Well, or the earlier you kill, the more armor is returned.

[BoredFinno]

4 minutes ago, Terridaks. said:

I still can't figure out what happens if the ability is used on an enemy without armor.

The whole point of the Hydroid is that he expends energy to deal increased damage with armor removal. The contradictory point of your ability is that Inaros gets a penalty for him or his allies killing an enemy before the swarm removes all armor. That is, he gets a penalty for doing something well. The opposite mechanic would be much more logical - that Scarab Armor is returned in full if an enemy is killed before all of their armor is removed. Well, or the earlier you kill, the more armor is returned.

Thats a fair point and an oversight from my part. I did write that when i was quite tired. It does need some more fiddling around

[kerozen666]

Pharaoh's caurse is honetly pretty amazing. kinda tricky when it comes to the level cap question, but we'll ussume it's going to be adressed externally (as it should, hopefully with a mod to make all tanks able to use it). The sand shadow part might need some touch up. their main usage is being damage sponge, so if you make them share that elevated aggro, they will be fine, but if not, you miss a great opportunity

your sandstorm it's that right tho. it's a CC ability that miss the point of the role of CC post eximus rework. now, the goal of cc is to manage the swarm while you take care of what is now a mini field boss. being kept in an animation who can only do so much damage and only cabable ofability casting isn't gonna be great. it's why i'm going for an "aura" version on my take, so that you can deal with big bad bombard eximus and not care about the other enemies around. Also, putting blind on it is redundant, your 1 does it already for cheap while giving you wall hack with it's DoT. put bonus for your team or other types of debuff. the slow pull is also tricky, as moving enemies makes if hard for your team to shoot, but if they move to slow, then why even bother, you either group fast or you don't.

your take on his 4th tho... i'm going to be honest, it's not great. the worse part of the ability is charging it, as you have to stay in place while your team will clear the room without you, and just falling off the map force you to refuel it again, and that's without even considering he fact you are not invulnerable while casting. You also made the ability take time to be at full effect, which is a recipe for not wanting to casting unless you solo, and even then, it's still you having to wait for the effect to go through before jumping on enemies, otherwise you'll have to yet again, stand in one place to charge up. If you want to make an CC ability worth casting, you need it to take effect instantly, have the initial effect still worth it, or be actually strong enough to be worth the SLIGHT wait, on top of not being wasted if your allies just kill affected enemies. Again, sincde you got me from my own post, look at my 4. instant effect, no standing around, so always in action with your team, and team killing proof.

[BoredFinno]

Thank you for your feedback, im glad to have your opinion here. I want to add to some of the stuff i wrote above to articulate myself better:

2 hours ago, kerozen666 said:

Pharaoh's caurse is honetly pretty amazing. kinda tricky when it comes to the level cap question, but we'll ussume it's going to be adressed externally (as it should, hopefully with a mod to make all tanks able to use it). The sand shadow part might need some touch up. their main usage is being damage sponge, so if you make them share that elevated aggro, they will be fine, but if not, you miss a great opportunity

Thank you, i really like this one and is probably my favorite part of this rework. As i said before, i dont believe every frame has to be able to do level cap as very little player venture there, but making it possible is definitely nice. To that end, something about health tanking in general has to change. I had the exact same idea when it comes to sand shadows, but part of me was thinking "maybe thats too effective". Having you say the same makes me think perhaps its actually quite ok.

2 hours ago, kerozen666 said:

your sandstorm it's that right tho. it's a CC ability that miss the point of the role of CC post eximus rework. now, the goal of cc is to manage the swarm while you take care of what is now a mini field boss. being kept in an animation who can only do so much damage and only cabable ofability casting isn't gonna be great. it's why i'm going for an "aura" version on my take, so that you can deal with big bad bombard eximus and not care about the other enemies around. Also, putting blind on it is redundant, your 1 does it already for cheap while giving you wall hack with it's DoT. put bonus for your team or other types of debuff. the slow pull is also tricky, as moving enemies makes if hard for your team to shoot, but if they move to slow, then why even bother, you either group fast or you don't.

When I 1st concepted this ability, i mostly wanted to leave it very similar, especially cause i wasnt sure how other inaros players felt about it. Im gonna expand a bit on its intention: i wanted to give inaros a more consistent and constant cc(not reliant on duration and need of constant refreshing) and also an ok ability at somewhat passively killing trash enemies, if anyone chose to build around it and its augment. The reason behind that slow pull was to make enemies somewhat follow inaros as he moves around, which would be enough to loosely keep them in his range as he moves with reduced movespeed as it works now. Blind is pointless in inaroses finisher passive sure, but this blind was never meant to replace his 1 and would also only last as long as sandstorm. I also mentioned that stagger is also an option over blind. Thx to his massive health pool, i think that still blendering while having an eximus or 2 look at you wouldnt be a massive issue, but i havent played inaros in higher leveled content in a while. All that said, i really liked your idea on how his sandstorm would work. It would definitely feel less powerful as this devouring sandstorm of death, but utility it gives more than makes up for it and it would be somewhat core to his kit. As it also reduced enemy accuracy, it would work wonders with Pharao's Curse from my rework. I am honestly not sure which one i like more, tho i am leaning more towards your idea when it comes to usability. Maybe the base works as your idea and augment trades some of that comfort for more damage and status from melees. I wouldn't keep the DR on it as Pharaos Curse already reduces enemy damage, if it was to be implemented with it.  

2 hours ago, kerozen666 said:

your take on his 4th tho... i'm going to be honest, it's not great. the worse part of the ability is charging it, as you have to stay in place while your team will clear the room without you, and just falling off the map force you to refuel it again, and that's without even considering he fact you are not invulnerable while casting. You also made the ability take time to be at full effect, which is a recipe for not wanting to casting unless you solo, and even then, it's still you having to wait for the effect to go through before jumping on enemies, otherwise you'll have to yet again, stand in one place to charge up. If you want to make an CC ability worth casting, you need it to take effect instantly, have the initial effect still worth it, or be actually strong enough to be worth the SLIGHT wait, on top of not being wasted if your allies just kill affected enemies. Again, sincde you got me from my own post, look at my 4. instant effect, no standing around, so always in action with your team, and team killing proof.

This one comes down to my personal fondness to this ability. What i forgot to mention before is that changes id want to see implemented to avoid its current clunk is that:

• falling down a hole no longer removes the armor
• entering a nullifier would slowly drain the armor instead of flat out removing it

I dont mind standing and channeling his 4 from time to time, the problem becomes when its too often, as falling down the map. Thats y i also wanted to include a "return" value on using it, to avoid constant channeling. Its channel rate could be a bit faster. This armor strip over time can be a problem perhaps, but we got hydroid that basically does a pretty similar thing - strips armor over a period of time. The possibility of losing the armor value thx to allies quickly killing them would i hope be fixed by how fast the thing actually spreads, as its spread rate is somewhat slow right now. The issue is as mentioned before, how it would interact with non-armored units. Would there be a return, would it cc, how long would it cc for, etc. As you stand by your 4th idea, i will stand by mine as i dont really like having another weapon buff ability and would rather see his 4 adjusted to work as it is, addressing its issues as they come up. Its really just a personal preference.

Edited November 12, 2023 by BoredFinno

[kerozen666]

7 hours ago, BoredFinno said:

Thank you for your feedback, im glad to have your opinion here. I want to add to some of the stuff i wrote above to articulate myself better:

Thank you, i really like this one and is probably my favorite part of this rework. As i said before, i dont believe every frame has to be able to do level cap as very little player venture there, but making it possible is definitely nice. To that end, something about health tanking in general has to change. I had the exact same idea when it comes to sand shadows, but part of me was thinking "maybe thats too effective". Having you say the same makes me think perhaps its actually quite ok.

When I 1st concepted this ability, i mostly wanted to leave it very similar, especially cause i wasnt sure how other inaros players felt about it. Im gonna expand a bit on its intention: i wanted to give inaros a more consistent and constant cc(not reliant on duration and need of constant refreshing) and also an ok ability at somewhat passively killing trash enemies, if anyone chose to build around it and its augment. The reason behind that slow pull was to make enemies somewhat follow inaros as he moves around, which would be enough to loosely keep them in his range as he moves with reduced movespeed as it works now. Blind is pointless in inaroses finisher passive sure, but this blind was never meant to replace his 1 and would also only last as long as sandstorm. I also mentioned that stagger is also an option over blind. Thx to his massive health pool, i think that still blendering while having an eximus or 2 look at you wouldnt be a massive issue, but i havent played inaros in higher leveled content in a while. All that said, i really liked your idea on how his sandstorm would work. It would definitely feel less powerful as this devouring sandstorm of death, but utility it gives more than makes up for it and it would be somewhat core to his kit. As it also reduced enemy accuracy, it would work wonders with Pharao's Curse from my rework. I am honestly not sure which one i like more, tho i am leaning more towards your idea when it comes to usability. Maybe the base works as your idea and augment trades some of that comfort for more damage and status from melees. I wouldn't keep the DR on it as Pharaos Curse already reduces enemy damage, if it was to be implemented with it.  

This one comes down to my personal fondness to this ability. What i forgot to mention before is that changes id want to see implemented to avoid its current clunk is that:

• falling down a hole no longer removes the armor
• entering a nullifier would slowly drain the armor instead of flat out removing it

I dont mind standing and channeling his 4 from time to time, the problem becomes when its too often, as falling down the map. Thats y i also wanted to include a "return" value on using it, to avoid constant channeling. Its channel rate could be a bit faster. This armor strip over time can be a problem perhaps, but we got hydroid that basically does a pretty similar thing - strips armor over a period of time. The possibility of losing the armor value thx to allies quickly killing them would i hope be fixed by how fast the thing actually spreads, as its spread rate is somewhat slow right now. The issue is as mentioned before, how it would interact with non-armored units. Would there be a return, would it cc, how long would it cc for, etc. As you stand by your 4th idea, i will stand by mine as i dont really like having another weapon buff ability and would rather see his 4 adjusted to work as it is, addressing its issues as they come up. Its really just a personal preference.

A way to make your 4th ability better would be to make the first part of the ability a passive, as in you slowly gain scarab charge when playing, and overheal, kiills and/or assists yould make it grow back faster. With somwething like that, you'd be able to cast it more without having to worry about waste, since you never have to interupt gameplay to partch a missed cast. You would then be able to really beef it up, because as it stand right now and with your idea, the ability is way too weak for the time it take to get into effect. the duration could be refreshed as it spread, the armor strip could be made near instant, you could bring some true damage in the mi, etc. you can allow yourself that since the ability just stop the second scarab affected enemies dies. Otherwise, if you keep it this way, you are better to just subsume fireblast od terrify, as your 1 can stun for cheap, and terryfy can armor strip. hell, even fireblast become a better option, as you can full strip in 2 cheap (thanks to rage) cast on top of priming with heat. so make it beefier, while remembering that to His core, inaros exchange a destructive kit for passive sturdiness and a more support oriented kit. that bit is why i went with lifesteal and puchthrough on the weapon buff btw. the bonus you get from that won't turn you into a destruction machine like the others, but will make your gunplay feel better. 

a point i forgot for your sandstorm, making it a channeling ability that can do enough damage to kill mobs is not the best in inaros. That'S because he has no shields. what makes the big killer channeled ability work is that they drain energy and you have to build around contering that drain. Inaros tho... he has rage, and thus, infinite energy under fire, so givcing him a powerful destructive ability like that would be busted. to make it work like you desire, you should tie a secondary resource to it, make it THE special ability.  Personally i would recomand going the same way as me and make it a support ability, that way you avoid having to adjust power and deal with cooldowns.

[BoredFinno]

Since Inaros has been a frame that's on my mind lately a lot i was thinking about how to make him non-oneshotable in higher level content and how to improve his 4 that i proposed and that way in a way, his current one as well. So my sleep deprived brain came with a little concept inspired by a game i played way back. There was an ability on a certain class, a shield that gave it some stats and power, and would completely nullify damage that would exceed %hp of the character, after which the bonuses would vanish and ability would go on cooldown. 

So, where does Inaros come in here? I dont have a full concept planned out, just some random ideas that i think could be puzzled into a pretty fitting ability and would like some of you to join on some concept crafting to figure it out:

It would work somewhat similar to how his 4 works now. You would channel for a time  consuming your hp to grant you Scarab Armor. His 4 no longer grants him armor (i would buff his base armor to compensate for this).  Instead, this armor would function as following: any damage exceeding some %hp(lets say 30% at this point) would be completely nullified and would drain some amount of his Scarab Armor (lets say 25%). This would make up-keeping his Scarab armor annoying tho, thus there should be a way to replenish it as well, other than rechanneling his 4 and some possible ideas could be :

• finishers replenish scarab armor as long as its active
• attacker would be infested with scarabs siphoning armor back(would spread to nearby enemies, maybe do armor stripping, maybe deal bonus true dmg to enemies affected by scarabs)
• some kind of combination of theses 2: preforming a finisher on a scarab infested enemy would restore some of the armor. It would somehow debuff the attacker to make him easier to kill, because he would be a priority target since he was able to trigger your defense. 
• could be somehow combined with 4 i proposed in the main post.

Any damage below the trigger threshold would just be tanked as any other damage, allowing for nice energy management with rage/hunter adrenal, preserving his health tanking identity, while preventing one shots.

This idea, just like the original one would require some QoL changes to how his 4 works right now:

• No longer resets when falling from the map
• Is drained instead of immediately removed upon being in nullifier's bubble.
• There are probably more, but im too tired right now to remember any.

This concept is very much in the air, i havent put too much thinking into it as of posting this. I am not sure how sustainable it would be on level cap, since i never did it myself, but i do think this could be made to somehow work. I also want to add that Scarab Armor should look at post-mitigated damage, damage that would be dealt after applying DR onto it to make it more level cap viable.