Inaros and a deep dive on reworks

[(NSW)BurninSatyr]

A resurrection for the undying god king

Inaros, like his sand, is a bit rough. It is clear to many that after Hydroids rework, he is next on the chopping block to have a good old fashion resurrection. There are many forum topics discussing his rework, ideas for how we change his abilities, what he needs and how he should play going forward. While I have my own suggestions, I would like to first dive into why he needs a rework and a number of important details I would like to draw attention to as I break down my rework process. This is going to be a long post, but I encourage all ever-faithful worshippers of the lord of sands to stick to the end and input your own thoughts on the subject.

To resurrect is not to simply breathe new life, but to retain what was once lost

With so much to be done to return this long dead frame to life, it is of most importance that we study how he is now to find the best way to perform this task. There are many things to consider when reworking a frame and in this section I intend to go through all of it. What is the identity of the frame, what are his characteristics, how does he play, all important factors for deciding what is needed to not only improve the frame but not lose sight of who they are and most importantly, please the ones who play them. It's a hard balance to strike so let's not delay any longer and begin by finding out who Inaros is.

What are his key attribute?
We must first look at what his abilities do in their current form, and how they make him identifiable amongst the many others we have.

• Tanky - It's pretty clear Inaros is meant to be tanky, his kit almost entirely revolves around it
• Uses health as a resource - Inaros is unique in that utilises health as a resource for the use of his scarabs, and has many abilities to regain health
• Master of the sands - A little on the nose but important to list. He has a clear theme of sand in a number of his abilities
• Finishers - A bit of a lesser part of his kit but there is some clear identity that Inaros likes using finishers. He has a clear 1+2 punch with his Desiccation and passive.
• True Damage - Very unique among his pears, Inaros is the only frame in the game with access to true damage
• Resurrection - Inaros is undying, coming back from the dead through the life force of others

What are his key characteristics?
While this might sound similar, characteristics are less of a look at how the frame plays, but a glimpse at the frames identity in the lore and how they are represented.

• Egyptian God King - There is a clear design in Inaros, both from how he looks and plays to how his story is presented. He borrows themes from Egyptian gods like Osiris and pharaohs
• Defender of the Weak - Throughout the Sands of Inaros quest, he is shown to be a great protector, saving the weak and oppressed
• Self Sacrifice - Inaros sacrifices himself in Sands of Inaros to save those he protects. This ties nicely in with his them of using health as a resource
• Command of Protectors - In his story, you will encounter many defences to Inaros' resting place. Aspects of his gameplay reflect this with sand clones
• Resurrection - While we already listed this in attributes, it's important as a characteristic as well. We complete Sands of Inaros we are returning him to life by completing the trials set out
• Through the life force of others, reborn - Throughout his quest we are tasked with slaying enemies to fill vessels and unveil his components. This is represented in gameplay by his passive

How do people currently play him?
A very important question to ask before changes are to be made is how people play him. It's important to remember this as ultimately a rework seeks to please these players.

• Gun Frame - Less so due to his design and more out of necessity. Inaros is reliant on his weapons to perform as a result of less than stellar ability performance
• Sandstorm - The other alternate to his Gun Frame playstyle is heavy use of Sandstorm. While people try and make it work it is clear this style underperforms and needs improvement
• Sand Clones - Very weak but still used by many, his sand clones offer a unique way to play Inaros but clearly needs some attention to help function

What abilities need attention?
This is pretty self-explanatory. What in his kit works and what doesn't? What is underperforming and what is lacking in feel and impact? I won't leave as much explanation here as these aspect, for the most part, explain themselves

      Passive

• His revive cannot work at higher levels
• Not all enemies affected by finisher/not all enemies can only be finished at certain angles
• Doesn't function with Last Grasp
• Finish heal doesn't work on parazon or ground finishers
• Anti-Synergetic with teammates
• Boring to use

     Desiccation

• Minimal health regen
• Only blinds enemies facing him/inconsistant
• Interrupts actions like reloading
• Does very little damage
• Sand Shadows underperform at high level

      Devour

• No damage
• Single target
• Slow
• Heals slowly
• Sand Shadows underperform at high level

      Sandstorm

• Low damage at high levels
• Requires augment to be viable
• Slow
• Anti-Synergetic
• Expensive
• Unreliable damage

      Scarab Armour

• Forced to stand still
• Slow to accumulate
• Low damage
• Miniscule spread range
• Corrosive damage but no armour strip
• Completely lost on nullifier and falling off level
• Lacklustre for an ultimate
• CC'd enemies anti-synergetic with spread

With knowledge, comes the tools to rewrite the future

Finally, with all this information, we now have what we need to begin designing a rework. We know who Inaros is, what he does, what is wrong with him currently and how those who still play him do so. It is imperative that we keep all this in mind as we figure out how to create a rework, to not only improve the frame, but to not lose his identity along the way. Without further delay I present my rework of Inaros

     Passive
Description: When Inaros dies, he is entombed within his sarcophagus. He steals the life force from those around him to resurrect himself. Finishers heal Inaros for 10% of his health.

Function: When Inaros dies, he is entombed within his sarcophagus. Scarabs seethe forth from his sarcophagus and latch onto enemies in a 15m radius. Finisher heal Inaros for 10% health.

• The scarabs function identically to those provided by scarab armour. Any health stolen by the scarabs returns health to Inaros. When Inaros reaches full health he is returned to life.
• Desiccation and Scarab armour may be cast while in the sarcophagus, costing health instead of energy. The cost is equal to 10 health per 1 energy needed
• Any true damage dealt to enemies by allies through the benefits of scarabs is granted as health to Inaros while in his sarcophagus
• While in the sarcophagus, Inaros cannot lose scarab armour from nullifier bubbles
• Any remaining scarab armour Inaros had in life is retained when entering the sarcophagus
• Inaros' revive time is reduced by the amount of health he has regenerated
• Inaros starts with 10% health when entering the sarcophagus

Explanation: Inaros' current passive ties heavily into his themes of resurrection, lifesteal, true damage and finishers, but is functionally so weak and anti-synergetic that it doesn't do what it intends. These changes are not only to provide synergy with other parts of his kit but to boost the power of his revive so it is actually able to work at higher levels and won't be prevented from functioning with teammates. The old way of self reviving was also very boring so some changes are to provide some more engagement for players. Lastly, it was potentially lethal at higher levels to revive as you will have lost all scarab armour and effectively a third of your survivability, the change to retain armour is so Inaros can get his kit functioning more fluidly after reviving

     Desiccation
Description: Inaros blasts enemies with a wave of cursed sand that blinds them.

Function: Inaros throws a cone of sand that blinds all enemies. If the blast hits any enemies effected by scarabs, all other enemies hit will have scarabs applied to them. Resets scarab durations.

• Plays nearly identical to the old Desiccation
• Removed damage over time
• Removed lifesteal
• Can be used while performing other actions like reloading
• Enemies facing away are still blinded, opening all enemies up to finishers (except those immune to blind)

Explanation: The old Desiccation is a core aspect of Inaros' kit and generally performed it's role well. Many of the changes made are to simply make the ability more synergetic and function better as a dedicated CC tool. The removal of the damage over time and lifesteal is to leave these aspects of Inaros' kit with scarabs, while gameplay wise retaining these aspects when used in tandem. The change to allowing Desiccation to spread scarabs is to solve Scarab Armours issues of being very slow to spread by giving the player a direct way to interactively spread them without the need to recast scarab armour on new enemies. With the ability now blinding all enemies and not just those facing him, it removes inconsistency with the ability being used as a CC tool, which is now it's prime role.

     Devour
Description: Inaros rushes toward an enemy, tearing into them with great ferocity.

Function: TAP cast, Inaros dashes at the target enemy, dealing high true damage and knocking them to the ground, opening them up to finishers. HOLD cast has Inaros dash to the nearest enemy in range. If the enemy is vulnerable to finishers, Inaros will perform one while adding true damage to the attack.

• Enemies finished while under the effects of scarabs will grant a percentage of true damage dealt as additional health for Inaros and nearby allies.
• If Sandstorm is active, Devour can be cast while performing finishers to go to a new target. A sand clone is left behind to complete the finisher. Small health cost per additional cast
• Killing an enemy effected by scarabs generates 5% scarab armour
• Does not summon Sand Clone on kill

Explanation: Devour is the main ability being changed drastically from it's previous version. There were simply too many things wrong with the original design along with so much overlap with the desire of other abilities yet zero synergy with them. The change to Devour is designed to not only give it a specific use case in Inaros' kit (performing finishers and dealing with high value targets that other abilities struggle to deal with i.e eximus units) but to keep elements of the core ideas of the old version being a dedicated healing source and a way to heal teammates. The change from a slow single target action to a finisher makes it function far faster and more effectively than previously, while offering great synergy with Desiccation and it's augment. The removal of it's ability to create sand clones is to leave that to Desiccations augment, providing an alternate playstyle that can provide a unique gameplay loop. The addition of area healing on killing scarab afflicted enemies is to retain the idea of providing team healing with the ability without having to decide who gets the healing, as well as honing in on Inaros' identity of a defender of others. The addition of generating scarab armour on kill is to provide a way to more intuitively regain armour without disrupting the flow of combat and rewarding synergistic play.

     Scarab Armour
Description: Inaros sacrifices health to gather scarabs to him, increasing his armour. Inaros hurl these scarabs at enemies, latching on to open up defences and drain life.

Function: TAP cast, Inaros uses 25% of his scarab armour to throw them at the targeted enemy. The scarabs will deal gradual true damage as well as give bonus true damage to all other damage sources. A small amount of true damage dealt to enemies effected is given to Inaros as health. HOLD to toggle sacrificing health for up 100% Scarab Armour bonus armour.

• Gaining Scarab Armour is slower than before, but no longer locks the player in place
• Nullifiers gradually reduce Scarab Armour and remove scarabs from enemies in bubble. Nullifier bubble toggles off scarab armour gain
• Falling off the level no longer removes Scarab Armour
• CC from scarabs is short lived
• Scarabs spread to nearby enemies (range remains small but effected by ability range)
• Damage of Scarabs is small, but is true damage and around that of old Desiccation and Scarabs combined
• Scarabs no longer deal corrosive, but true damage
• Scarabs provide bonus true damage to all other damage sources hitting the target
• Is now his 3, not his 4

Explanation: Scarab Armour has always been a key aspect of Inaros' kit, and while it performs the duty of increasing defences well, it's use cases beyond that are limited due to poor range and damage. A number of changes to other abilities are to help propagate the spread of scarabs and their effects. The major addition of scarabs providing true damage is three fold; it hones in on the theme Inaros has of being the only frame to offer true damage. It provides a significant boost to Inaros' ability as a gun frame as well as boosting the damage output of sandstorm and sand clones, providing key buffs to how players currently like to play him. The damage bonus helps drive Inaros towards more of a supportive focus, providing teammates with a damage bonus that scales with weapon power and furthering his identity as a protector of the weak.
The changes to how he accumulates scarabs is to provide more fluidity in his gameplay, allowing scarabs to be used more frequently as part of his kit and truly allowing him to use health as a resource. The changes for Nullifiers and falling off levels is to help Inaros not suffer from these very common occurrences that could otherwise shut down the flow of his gameplay. The lowering of the Scarab CC effect is to improve the general propagation of scarabs as well as leaving the role of dedicated CC to Desiccation. The change from corrosive to true damage is to further his identity of true damage. The overall changes to the amount of health Inaros is given by scarabs is to incentivise use of other damage sources or Devour, while having it not be anti-synergetic if teammates are getting kills. The move from this ability from ultimate to third ability is to have it accessible earlier, as well as to reserve his ultimate for Sandstorm, which is a far more impressive ability

     Sandstorm
Description: Inaros summons a sandstorm centred around himself. The sandstorm offers protection for allies and batters enemies.

Function: Inaros summons a sandstorm in a large area around himself. The sandstorm provides max health to Inaros and all allies within it's area. The sandstorm deals a decent amount of true damage to all enemies. Enemies outside the sandstorm cannot see anything inside and vise versa

• Sandstorm no longer picks up enemies or causes CC
• Sandstorm no longer prevents Inaros from performing other actions except Parkour Manoeuvres
• Health bonus lasts a few seconds after leaving Sandstorm
• Has small cast animation
• Sandstorm take a few seconds to expand outward to it's maximum range
• Slash damage changed to true damage
• Significant reduction of particles
• Can now pick up items while active
• Enemies move slower in Sandstorm

Explanation: Sandstorm doesn't need many changes to make it functional. A few simple changes turns it into Inaros' main damage ability and doesn't change the core of what makes people want to use it. The change from slash to true damage is to further Inaros' identity of true damage and help improve it's overall effectiveness. The removal of the mobility impairment is to allow more interactive gameplay as well as enable the use of Inaros' other playstyles of gun frame and sand clones to work in tandem with Sandstorm. The addition of a max health increase pushes Inaros further into his identity of defender of the weak and provides synergy with his ability to give health to allies. The addition of time for Sandstorm to reach maximum range is to lessen the spammability of using it in tandem with devour as well as giving a more aesthetic feeling of conjuring a storm. The removal of CC is to remove the anti-synergetic behaviour of enemies being made harder to hit for teammates as well as relegating dedicated CC to Desiccation. The addition of a slow is to show some amount of impact on enemies from the ability as well as provide easier targeting for Devour, Scarabs, weapons and further Inaros in a supportive role. The significant reduction of particles is to prevent the ability from impairing teammates from being able to see. The addition of a line of site blocker to the edge of the sandstorm is to give the ability more protective benefits while also giving the aesthetic and gameplay feel of impairing enemy vision.

     Summary

The culmination of all of these changes results in a number of core ways to play Inaros.

1. Gun Frame - Utilising the damage bonus from Scarabs, alongside extra resistances to gunfire with Sandstorm, Scarab Armour and Desiccation. Inaros is open to a very in and out gun frame style, swapping back and forth between ranged fire, bursts of ability usage to restore health with finishers and a prime 1+2 punch damage and CC combo of Scarabs into Desiccation. This playstyle is a improvement on Inaros' usability as a gun platform
2. Sandstorm - With improvements to damage, manoeuvrability and synergy with other parts of his kit, Sandstorm is a prime room clearing ability and a worthy swap to becoming his ultimate. Building ability strength, range and efficiency will be key to having the storm reek havoc on all enemies who dare appose the king of sand.
3. Sand Clones - With the new Devour become a finisher, and sandstorm able to provide multiple back to back combos after Desiccation, the true Sand Army will rise up with this new rework. The true damage provided by Scarabs will help improve Sand Clone damage in high level missions and finishers will provide them with the health to take a hit. The vast improvements to the fluidity of Inaros' gameplay will revitalize this often memed build into a true powerhouse
4. Defender of the Weak - With key gameplay changes across the board, Inaros is now a fully capable support frame. Offering great protection and damage bonuses to his companions, as well as tweaks to prevent occurrences of anti-synergetic gameplay, the new kit is chock full of ways for not only Inaros to help his teammates, but for his teammates to return the favour in the form of health recovery and assisting in the king inevitable return

For love of sand and all things balanced

This has been a long post so I will keep the conclusion brief. Inaros needs a rework. Be it with the changes I propose or something completely different, we all know he needs it. I have tried the best I can to convey why I have suggested the changes I have and truly believe that they can bring about a fully refreshed king of the sands, tying in all the aspects people like about his current kit and reworking it to be not only strong, fun to play and functional, but to keep the core aspects of Inaros' identity in tact. If you agree or disagree with a change, share it. Come up with your own ideas and give DE as much information as possible so they can provide the best rework possible.

I thank you all for taking the time to read through this, and I will see you all when Baro Ki'Teer's prayers are finally answered with a great new champion to protect his peoples legacy.

Edited November 2, 2023 by (NSW)BurninSatyr

[BoredFinno]

Dear Void, that is a lot of text for sure. You went quite in-depth and very articualte in it. 

I'm gonna leave my 2 cents on your ideas:

I really like the aspect of stealing hp from ally dmg on enemies affected by inaros' ability.

What i dont like is that your idea turns a relatively simple frame into a wall of text due to all intended synergies between all his abilities. I think inaros should stay relatively simple in his kit. You are also forgetting that true damage is kinda revenant's thing now, as his actually does something and i think it should stay that way. They way you designed his scarab armor just makes it very similar to doom in function and its spread is also affected by a 1st ability. While i dont have anything against some mechanics reappearing in other kits, this just feels too similar. I like the idea of inaros using his hp for some abilities and a neat idea could be to give him a nidus treatment: Some abilities cost energy, some cost stacks(in this case, hp). I'd still keep his sand clones inside his 2 and not exclusively on his augment, but id make the ability be more like a give or take ability: either take enemy hp for yourself (tap) or give your hp to spawn a number of sand shadows (hold). I dont have a strong opinion on his sandstorm, other that i dont really like it this way personally. I know that you wanted to keep ally healing on inaros, but healing by spinning sand really doesnt sound all that logical. It being an areal spinny ability that deals damage (and more) also basically sounds like revenants 4, just overloaded with features. His coffin passive, how would inaros fail the rez? In higher lvl content, you are guaranteed to be surrounded by enough enemies to always succeed a rez that is based on health stealing and you are already really hard to kill. The way it works with sevagoth makes more sense to me, since sevagoth is a squishy frame. Would you add a cooldown to it? If it has no cooldown and you are playing a tanky frame, how are you ever gonna feel the risk of dying? I'd keep the condition of his 1 opening enemies to finishers if they face him, unless they are affected by scarabs.

The quality of life on scarab armor is definitely needed and your ideas are quite nice ones: scarab armor decays inside nullies and doesnt reset when falling off the map.

Dont get me wrong, i dont mean to bash your rewrok, i think some of the ideas are amazing and are very though out as a kit, this is just my personal feelings towards what his kit should be. My sleep deprived brain might as well missed some points you made too. 

 

 

 

Edited November 3, 2023 by BoredFinno

[chainchompguy3]

On 2023-11-02 at 3:29 AM, (NSW)BurninSatyr said:

 Passive

• Not all enemies affected by finisher/not all enemies can only be finished at certain angles
• Finish heal doesn't work on parazon or ground finishers

First off, I have good news!

In Update 34 (Abyss of Dagath), All finisher types have been (mostly) Unified. Parazon-mods and their Lich/Sister Interactions remain locked to Parazon, but for Everything else, It's all counted as equal.

Applying this to Inaros specifically, means that Inaros's Heal-from-finisher triggers on Ground and Parazon finishers now.

Thus: Inaros can finisher-heal from any enemy he can knock to the ground.

(Oh, would you look at that, players can knock enemies down by kicking them with a mid-air slide. Huh, go figure.)

 

On 2023-11-02 at 3:29 AM, (NSW)BurninSatyr said:

Passive

• Anti-Synergetic with teammates

On 2023-11-02 at 3:29 AM, (NSW)BurninSatyr said:

boost the power of his revive so it is actually able to work at higher levels and won't be prevented from functioning with teammates

And I'm not sure if I'm the only one who liked to use it this way, but Inaros's Revival Passive can be Boosted by the inclusion of teammates, working at much higher levels. It just requires teammates to not immediately nuke absolutely everything, which most lobby's favor.

But just to make sure it's said: Inaros's Sarcophagus-revive meter fills up any time an enemy he is looking at loses shields/health, regardless of if his gaze-beam is doing the damage. So if Inaros looks at an enemy, and then an ally kills that enemy, Inaros gets full credit. Do this twice on full-health enemies, and Inaros gets revived, even if his gaze-beam did 0.0001% of the damage.

Heck, I haven't tested it yet, but it's possible that with all of the new Companion-focused builds coming from the QoL update, Inaros might be able to have a high-level self-revive-pet that kills enemies for him while he's down.

 

 

 

On another topic, though, I am a bit intrigued. I like your methodology of going through what Inaros has, and trying to preserve it through the rework, but making it better in the process. But you seem to skip a step that I personally find obviously necessary: look not at how players are currently making-do with Inaros now, but look at how the Devs Intended him to be used when they designed his abilities in a vacuum.

 

Passive:

• First ever iteration of self-revival, and thus the most clunky. If it were to be reworked, it could take cures from the modern-self-revive (Sevagoth/Last-gasp), or it could try to preserve some identity. Either is fine, as this first iteration clearly has its flaws. The Devs don't seem to have taken its failure hard.
• Finisher-healing, though, is very specific. It lines up with the whole "The Mummy" vibe of grabbing onto someone and draining the lifeforce out of them. It's very clear that it was intended to synergize with his 1, signaling that it's supposed to be rather prominent in his playstyle.
• The Fact that Inaros was the first to be released without any Shields is also worth mentioning. At the time of release, player-self-healing wasn't as diverse and powerful as it is today, and thus the Dev's could have conceived that Inaros would be constantly withering under enemy fire over the course of a mission. This again plays right into the "The Mummy" vibes, painting Inaros as needing to feed in order to sustain himself.

 

Desiccation:

• Aforementioned synergy asside, the fact that it has it's Facing requirement, and the fact that it does chip damage, helps to cement this ability as a Mid-combat boost, rather than any other use of an AOE blind (Stealth disqualified because damage alerts, Map-lockdown disqualified because facing requirement). It seems like the Devs intended the player to dive into combat as normal, and when things started to get a little rough, pop off a pocket-sand to turn the tides and potentially heal up. The restrictions feel like an intentional nerf, to prevent this cheap, quick, spammable ability from being too strong.

 

Devour:

• Unlike his other self-heal (passive), this explicitly makes him invulnerable (the fact that enemies stop shooting at a player who's performing a finisher might have slipped the Devs' minds). Also, and perhaps this is just how I personally think, but it seems to me that any ability that locks the player down in such a specific animation for so long mid-gameplay, is intended to use that animation-lock as a sort of non-energy-cost. Instead of paying a High energy cost, you pay a smaller amount, but have to sit and wait through an animation. This, on top of this ability healing far more than just 20% if given the chance, implies that this was probably intended as Inaros's "I'm at like 10% health left, I need to heal" "oh-S#&$" ability.
• Reward the player for proactively saving themselves with this ability by healing them up to full, but punish the player for nearly dying by making them sit through some amount of animation lock, but guarantee it works by making them invulnerable.
• Additionally, The "The Mummy" vibes are back in full force as well, clearly marking this as Inaros trying to sustain himself off of the energies of his foes, and it even synergizes with his Sandstorm, to let him drain people mid-storm.
• Quite frankly, I can't see the Sand-minions as anything other than a thematic add-on.

 

Sandstorm:

• It's unclear what Tactical merit the Devs had behind this ability, as it is so lackluster for its cost. It does help Inaros shake up a bad situation, ragdoll-ing any surrounding enemies, and granting a sizable (at the time of Development) 75% damage-reduction, and can still benefit from Devour's healing.
• But this ability was almost certainly designed Theme-wise First: any frame that has anything to do with "The Mummy" theming is going to have a Sandstorm.

 

Scarab Armor:

• This is the one that Interests me the most: The same way Players are constantly dreaming of way Inaros could have an endlessly-growing healthbar, or that Inaros could Over-Heal; The Devs had similar thoughts, and came up with this.
• It seems Inaros was intended to gradually siphon more health off into his Scarab armor as the mission progressed, allowing Inaros to Bank health that he otherwise wouldn't have the Health-bar space to keep. The Banked-away health offering armor instead of more health takes advantage of Armor's diminishing-returns, ontop of the fact that Scarab-armor has a cap, to helpfully make it clear it's just a nice bonus ontop of your Health, and not a replacement.
• But just storing the health away would be far too passive, especially if/when a player reached Scarab-Armor's cap. So they made a way for the player to be encouraged to spend the banked health.
• Healing that is far easier than his passive/Devour, CC that is stronger/wider-spread than his 1 or 2, and a cheap energy cost. Its healing often outstrips any damage Inaros might be taking during that time, making him psuedo-immortal for it's duration. The Devs tried to design as enticing of an ability as possible, to get players to spend their banked health, so that the players would have reason to try and siphon yet more health. It's a very interesting design concept.

 

 

So, with all of this, I see a very strong leaning towards a melee caster-ish drainer-of-life playstyle, where the player is expected to be constantly losing health for lack of shields, and their up-close melee combat. But the player is expected to constantly counter this by Healing from their finisher kills, bailing out of nearly dying by grabbing an enemy and just feeding for a moment, and causing general mayhem with sandstorms and pocketsandblasts. The Scarab Armor is intended to be a "sort-of"-Ultimate, building his durability over time, until allowing Inaros to relax and not use his other options so much, and instead rely on the healing of his Scarabs, thus freeing him up to go "all out" with his other weapons, etc.

 

Of note is some amount of conflict in this: his In-game lore is very protector-y, but his Movie-monster theming comes from something very selfish and evil. This shows a bit in his design: Inaros CAN heal his allies, but it's kind of awkward, almost incidental in Scarab-Armor's case, and almost as an afterthought in Devour's case.

 

Inaros's reworks could take this Dev-intent in various ways. Some examples: Devour could be re-designed to once-again act as an "Oh S#&$" healing ability. Desiccate could be expanded upon to have different ways of being a mid-combat boost, without needing to rely on offering a conditional Blind. Scarab Armor could be converted into a genuine health-banking system, now that there is some degree of existing code behind the idea of gaining Overguard from excess-health, already in the game. Sandstorm...could be given a purpose.

 

I, personally, like the idea of trying to bring back Inaros's Withering. Make Inaros feel the tug of Entropy again, watching his Healthbar gradually slip through his fingers like sand in an hourglass. If this were the case, Inaros-players would be desperate to engage his various life-stealing methods, to try and sustain their gameplay. They would be in-character, as the mummy brough back from the dead, hungry for life.

I, personally, can only see this happening if Inaros can't effectively be healed by other means, and needs to lifesteal-specifically to survive. But I've already made a thread that goes over this, so I'll stop here.

 

 

Regardless, I just wanted to add that new perspective, if you were going to call this a Deep-Dive.

 

 

I'm also intrigued by your roundabout take on "Inaros is a Gunplay frame". Because it's not necessarily that Inaros specializes in gunplay: that honor probably goes to Chroma/Mirage/Rhino. Instead, it's that for current-Inaros, it's all he HAS. Very few people want to rely on his abilities, so they rely on their weapons instead. His non-nullifiable, non-energy-dependent, completely-passive, Massive Healthbar facilitates this: He's just as tanky, no matter how little you use his abilities, so long as you have equipped some manner of healing, allowing you to focus entirely on gunplay.

You seem to have built some amount of your rework, though, on making Inaros's abilities boost his weapon's damage, specifically to meet this "Gunplay requirement". It seems rather odd too me. It feels like taking a broken trolley machine that keeps spitting oil, and instead of patching the leaks, you instead convert it into a dedicated oil-spitting machine instead. It's interesting.

 

 

 

As for your rework itself, I must confess I haven't dedicated too much time to combing through it to see all the nuances.

It seems to accomplish all its goals: he'd be more usable in higher levels, would be a desirable team-support for any content with enemy hordes, and retains much of his theming and lore.

I, personally, have no desire for this new Inaros, though. But that's probably just because I want to take him in another direction, and thus I see this as too far of a departure from what I like about Inaros. So try not to take offense at my dispassion.

 

Nice work, all-in-all.

[Redrigoth]

15 hours ago, chainchompguy3 said:

First off, I have good news!

In Update 34 (Abyss of Dagath), All finisher types have been (mostly) Unified. Parazon-mods and their Lich/Sister Interactions remain locked to Parazon, but for Everything else, It's all counted as equal.

Applying this to Inaros specifically, means that Inaros's Heal-from-finisher triggers on Ground and Parazon finishers now.

Thus: Inaros can finisher-heal from any enemy he can knock to the ground.

(Oh, would you look at that, players can knock enemies down by kicking them with a mid-air slide. Huh, go figure.)

 

And I'm not sure if I'm the only one who liked to use it this way, but Inaros's Revival Passive can be Boosted by the inclusion of teammates, working at much higher levels. It just requires teammates to not immediately nuke absolutely everything, which most lobby's favor.

But just to make sure it's said: Inaros's Sarcophagus-revive meter fills up any time an enemy he is looking at loses shields/health, regardless of if his gaze-beam is doing the damage. So if Inaros looks at an enemy, and then an ally kills that enemy, Inaros gets full credit. Do this twice on full-health enemies, and Inaros gets revived, even if his gaze-beam did 0.0001% of the damage.

Heck, I haven't tested it yet, but it's possible that with all of the new Companion-focused builds coming from the QoL update, Inaros might be able to have a high-level self-revive-pet that kills enemies for him while he's down.

 

 

 

On another topic, though, I am a bit intrigued. I like your methodology of going through what Inaros has, and trying to preserve it through the rework, but making it better in the process. But you seem to skip a step that I personally find obviously necessary: look not at how players are currently making-do with Inaros now, but look at how the Devs Intended him to be used when they designed his abilities in a vacuum.

 

Passive:

• First ever iteration of self-revival, and thus the most clunky. If it were to be reworked, it could take cures from the modern-self-revive (Sevagoth/Last-gasp), or it could try to preserve some identity. Either is fine, as this first iteration clearly has its flaws. The Devs don't seem to have taken its failure hard.
• Finisher-healing, though, is very specific. It lines up with the whole "The Mummy" vibe of grabbing onto someone and draining the lifeforce out of them. It's very clear that it was intended to synergize with his 1, signaling that it's supposed to be rather prominent in his playstyle.
• The Fact that Inaros was the first to be released without any Shields is also worth mentioning. At the time of release, player-self-healing wasn't as diverse and powerful as it is today, and thus the Dev's could have conceived that Inaros would be constantly withering under enemy fire over the course of a mission. This again plays right into the "The Mummy" vibes, painting Inaros as needing to feed in order to sustain himself.

 

Desiccation:

• Aforementioned synergy asside, the fact that it has it's Facing requirement, and the fact that it does chip damage, helps to cement this ability as a Mid-combat boost, rather than any other use of an AOE blind (Stealth disqualified because damage alerts, Map-lockdown disqualified because facing requirement). It seems like the Devs intended the player to dive into combat as normal, and when things started to get a little rough, pop off a pocket-sand to turn the tides and potentially heal up. The restrictions feel like an intentional nerf, to prevent this cheap, quick, spammable ability from being too strong.

 

Devour:

• Unlike his other self-heal (passive), this explicitly makes him invulnerable (the fact that enemies stop shooting at a player who's performing a finisher might have slipped the Devs' minds). Also, and perhaps this is just how I personally think, but it seems to me that any ability that locks the player down in such a specific animation for so long mid-gameplay, is intended to use that animation-lock as a sort of non-energy-cost. Instead of paying a High energy cost, you pay a smaller amount, but have to sit and wait through an animation. This, on top of this ability healing far more than just 20% if given the chance, implies that this was probably intended as Inaros's "I'm at like 10% health left, I need to heal" "oh-S#&$" ability.
• Reward the player for proactively saving themselves with this ability by healing them up to full, but punish the player for nearly dying by making them sit through some amount of animation lock, but guarantee it works by making them invulnerable.
• Additionally, The "The Mummy" vibes are back in full force as well, clearly marking this as Inaros trying to sustain himself off of the energies of his foes, and it even synergizes with his Sandstorm, to let him drain people mid-storm.
• Quite frankly, I can't see the Sand-minions as anything other than a thematic add-on.

 

Sandstorm:

• It's unclear what Tactical merit the Devs had behind this ability, as it is so lackluster for its cost. It does help Inaros shake up a bad situation, ragdoll-ing any surrounding enemies, and granting a sizable (at the time of Development) 75% damage-reduction, and can still benefit from Devour's healing.
• But this ability was almost certainly designed Theme-wise First: any frame that has anything to do with "The Mummy" theming is going to have a Sandstorm.

 

Scarab Armor:

• This is the one that Interests me the most: The same way Players are constantly dreaming of way Inaros could have an endlessly-growing healthbar, or that Inaros could Over-Heal; The Devs had similar thoughts, and came up with this.
• It seems Inaros was intended to gradually siphon more health off into his Scarab armor as the mission progressed, allowing Inaros to Bank health that he otherwise wouldn't have the Health-bar space to keep. The Banked-away health offering armor instead of more health takes advantage of Armor's diminishing-returns, ontop of the fact that Scarab-armor has a cap, to helpfully make it clear it's just a nice bonus ontop of your Health, and not a replacement.
• But just storing the health away would be far too passive, especially if/when a player reached Scarab-Armor's cap. So they made a way for the player to be encouraged to spend the banked health.
• Healing that is far easier than his passive/Devour, CC that is stronger/wider-spread than his 1 or 2, and a cheap energy cost. Its healing often outstrips any damage Inaros might be taking during that time, making him psuedo-immortal for it's duration. The Devs tried to design as enticing of an ability as possible, to get players to spend their banked health, so that the players would have reason to try and siphon yet more health. It's a very interesting design concept.

 

 

So, with all of this, I see a very strong leaning towards a melee caster-ish drainer-of-life playstyle, where the player is expected to be constantly losing health for lack of shields, and their up-close melee combat. But the player is expected to constantly counter this by Healing from their finisher kills, bailing out of nearly dying by grabbing an enemy and just feeding for a moment, and causing general mayhem with sandstorms and pocketsandblasts. The Scarab Armor is intended to be a "sort-of"-Ultimate, building his durability over time, until allowing Inaros to relax and not use his other options so much, and instead rely on the healing of his Scarabs, thus freeing him up to go "all out" with his other weapons, etc.

 

Of note is some amount of conflict in this: his In-game lore is very protector-y, but his Movie-monster theming comes from something very selfish and evil. This shows a bit in his design: Inaros CAN heal his allies, but it's kind of awkward, almost incidental in Scarab-Armor's case, and almost as an afterthought in Devour's case.

 

Inaros's reworks could take this Dev-intent in various ways. Some examples: Devour could be re-designed to once-again act as an "Oh S#&$" healing ability. Desiccate could be expanded upon to have different ways of being a mid-combat boost, without needing to rely on offering a conditional Blind. Scarab Armor could be converted into a genuine health-banking system, now that there is some degree of existing code behind the idea of gaining Overguard from excess-health, already in the game. Sandstorm...could be given a purpose.

 

I, personally, like the idea of trying to bring back Inaros's Withering. Make Inaros feel the tug of Entropy again, watching his Healthbar gradually slip through his fingers like sand in an hourglass. If this were the case, Inaros-players would be desperate to engage his various life-stealing methods, to try and sustain their gameplay. They would be in-character, as the mummy brough back from the dead, hungry for life.

I, personally, can only see this happening if Inaros can't effectively be healed by other means, and needs to lifesteal-specifically to survive. But I've already made a thread that goes over this, so I'll stop here.

 

 

Regardless, I just wanted to add that new perspective, if you were going to call this a Deep-Dive.

 

 

I'm also intrigued by your roundabout take on "Inaros is a Gunplay frame". Because it's not necessarily that Inaros specializes in gunplay: that honor probably goes to Chroma/Mirage/Rhino. Instead, it's that for current-Inaros, it's all he HAS. Very few people want to rely on his abilities, so they rely on their weapons instead. His non-nullifiable, non-energy-dependent, completely-passive, Massive Healthbar facilitates this: He's just as tanky, no matter how little you use his abilities, so long as you have equipped some manner of healing, allowing you to focus entirely on gunplay.

You seem to have built some amount of your rework, though, on making Inaros's abilities boost his weapon's damage, specifically to meet this "Gunplay requirement". It seems rather odd too me. It feels like taking a broken trolley machine that keeps spitting oil, and instead of patching the leaks, you instead convert it into a dedicated oil-spitting machine instead. It's interesting.

 

 

 

As for your rework itself, I must confess I haven't dedicated too much time to combing through it to see all the nuances.

It seems to accomplish all its goals: he'd be more usable in higher levels, would be a desirable team-support for any content with enemy hordes, and retains much of his theming and lore.

I, personally, have no desire for this new Inaros, though. But that's probably just because I want to take him in another direction, and thus I see this as too far of a departure from what I like about Inaros. So try not to take offense at my dispassion.

 

Nice work, all-in-all.

Check my rework instead. I think it properly reworks him to make him unique and give players a reason to play him instead of other frames. It also preserves his current desirable features but the changes give a fresh playstyle rather than add bandaids to his current issues. Also I think it would make him viable all the way up to lv9999 and beyond with scaling properties. It also allows some build variance depending on what a person wants to do with him:
https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1371402-suggestion-for-inaros-rework-to-make-him-viable-and-original/

 

[(NSW)BurninSatyr]

On 2023-11-07 at 2:17 PM, chainchompguy3 said:

First off, I have good news!

In Update 34 (Abyss of Dagath), All finisher types have been (mostly) Unified. Parazon-mods and their Lich/Sister Interactions remain locked to Parazon, but for Everything else, It's all counted as equal.

Applying this to Inaros specifically, means that Inaros's Heal-from-finisher triggers on Ground and Parazon finishers now.

Thus: Inaros can finisher-heal from any enemy he can knock to the ground.

(Oh, would you look at that, players can knock enemies down by kicking them with a mid-air slide. Huh, go figure.)

 

And I'm not sure if I'm the only one who liked to use it this way, but Inaros's Revival Passive can be Boosted by the inclusion of teammates, working at much higher levels. It just requires teammates to not immediately nuke absolutely everything, which most lobby's favor.

But just to make sure it's said: Inaros's Sarcophagus-revive meter fills up any time an enemy he is looking at loses shields/health, regardless of if his gaze-beam is doing the damage. So if Inaros looks at an enemy, and then an ally kills that enemy, Inaros gets full credit. Do this twice on full-health enemies, and Inaros gets revived, even if his gaze-beam did 0.0001% of the damage.

Heck, I haven't tested it yet, but it's possible that with all of the new Companion-focused builds coming from the QoL update, Inaros might be able to have a high-level self-revive-pet that kills enemies for him while he's down.

 

 

 

On another topic, though, I am a bit intrigued. I like your methodology of going through what Inaros has, and trying to preserve it through the rework, but making it better in the process. But you seem to skip a step that I personally find obviously necessary: look not at how players are currently making-do with Inaros now, but look at how the Devs Intended him to be used when they designed his abilities in a vacuum.

 

Passive:

• First ever iteration of self-revival, and thus the most clunky. If it were to be reworked, it could take cures from the modern-self-revive (Sevagoth/Last-gasp), or it could try to preserve some identity. Either is fine, as this first iteration clearly has its flaws. The Devs don't seem to have taken its failure hard.
• Finisher-healing, though, is very specific. It lines up with the whole "The Mummy" vibe of grabbing onto someone and draining the lifeforce out of them. It's very clear that it was intended to synergize with his 1, signaling that it's supposed to be rather prominent in his playstyle.
• The Fact that Inaros was the first to be released without any Shields is also worth mentioning. At the time of release, player-self-healing wasn't as diverse and powerful as it is today, and thus the Dev's could have conceived that Inaros would be constantly withering under enemy fire over the course of a mission. This again plays right into the "The Mummy" vibes, painting Inaros as needing to feed in order to sustain himself.

 

Desiccation:

• Aforementioned synergy asside, the fact that it has it's Facing requirement, and the fact that it does chip damage, helps to cement this ability as a Mid-combat boost, rather than any other use of an AOE blind (Stealth disqualified because damage alerts, Map-lockdown disqualified because facing requirement). It seems like the Devs intended the player to dive into combat as normal, and when things started to get a little rough, pop off a pocket-sand to turn the tides and potentially heal up. The restrictions feel like an intentional nerf, to prevent this cheap, quick, spammable ability from being too strong.

 

Devour:

• Unlike his other self-heal (passive), this explicitly makes him invulnerable (the fact that enemies stop shooting at a player who's performing a finisher might have slipped the Devs' minds). Also, and perhaps this is just how I personally think, but it seems to me that any ability that locks the player down in such a specific animation for so long mid-gameplay, is intended to use that animation-lock as a sort of non-energy-cost. Instead of paying a High energy cost, you pay a smaller amount, but have to sit and wait through an animation. This, on top of this ability healing far more than just 20% if given the chance, implies that this was probably intended as Inaros's "I'm at like 10% health left, I need to heal" "oh-S#&$" ability.
• Reward the player for proactively saving themselves with this ability by healing them up to full, but punish the player for nearly dying by making them sit through some amount of animation lock, but guarantee it works by making them invulnerable.
• Additionally, The "The Mummy" vibes are back in full force as well, clearly marking this as Inaros trying to sustain himself off of the energies of his foes, and it even synergizes with his Sandstorm, to let him drain people mid-storm.
• Quite frankly, I can't see the Sand-minions as anything other than a thematic add-on.

 

Sandstorm:

• It's unclear what Tactical merit the Devs had behind this ability, as it is so lackluster for its cost. It does help Inaros shake up a bad situation, ragdoll-ing any surrounding enemies, and granting a sizable (at the time of Development) 75% damage-reduction, and can still benefit from Devour's healing.
• But this ability was almost certainly designed Theme-wise First: any frame that has anything to do with "The Mummy" theming is going to have a Sandstorm.

 

Scarab Armor:

• This is the one that Interests me the most: The same way Players are constantly dreaming of way Inaros could have an endlessly-growing healthbar, or that Inaros could Over-Heal; The Devs had similar thoughts, and came up with this.
• It seems Inaros was intended to gradually siphon more health off into his Scarab armor as the mission progressed, allowing Inaros to Bank health that he otherwise wouldn't have the Health-bar space to keep. The Banked-away health offering armor instead of more health takes advantage of Armor's diminishing-returns, ontop of the fact that Scarab-armor has a cap, to helpfully make it clear it's just a nice bonus ontop of your Health, and not a replacement.
• But just storing the health away would be far too passive, especially if/when a player reached Scarab-Armor's cap. So they made a way for the player to be encouraged to spend the banked health.
• Healing that is far easier than his passive/Devour, CC that is stronger/wider-spread than his 1 or 2, and a cheap energy cost. Its healing often outstrips any damage Inaros might be taking during that time, making him psuedo-immortal for it's duration. The Devs tried to design as enticing of an ability as possible, to get players to spend their banked health, so that the players would have reason to try and siphon yet more health. It's a very interesting design concept.

 

 

So, with all of this, I see a very strong leaning towards a melee caster-ish drainer-of-life playstyle, where the player is expected to be constantly losing health for lack of shields, and their up-close melee combat. But the player is expected to constantly counter this by Healing from their finisher kills, bailing out of nearly dying by grabbing an enemy and just feeding for a moment, and causing general mayhem with sandstorms and pocketsandblasts. The Scarab Armor is intended to be a "sort-of"-Ultimate, building his durability over time, until allowing Inaros to relax and not use his other options so much, and instead rely on the healing of his Scarabs, thus freeing him up to go "all out" with his other weapons, etc.

 

Of note is some amount of conflict in this: his In-game lore is very protector-y, but his Movie-monster theming comes from something very selfish and evil. This shows a bit in his design: Inaros CAN heal his allies, but it's kind of awkward, almost incidental in Scarab-Armor's case, and almost as an afterthought in Devour's case.

 

Inaros's reworks could take this Dev-intent in various ways. Some examples: Devour could be re-designed to once-again act as an "Oh S#&$" healing ability. Desiccate could be expanded upon to have different ways of being a mid-combat boost, without needing to rely on offering a conditional Blind. Scarab Armor could be converted into a genuine health-banking system, now that there is some degree of existing code behind the idea of gaining Overguard from excess-health, already in the game. Sandstorm...could be given a purpose.

 

I, personally, like the idea of trying to bring back Inaros's Withering. Make Inaros feel the tug of Entropy again, watching his Healthbar gradually slip through his fingers like sand in an hourglass. If this were the case, Inaros-players would be desperate to engage his various life-stealing methods, to try and sustain their gameplay. They would be in-character, as the mummy brough back from the dead, hungry for life.

I, personally, can only see this happening if Inaros can't effectively be healed by other means, and needs to lifesteal-specifically to survive. But I've already made a thread that goes over this, so I'll stop here.

 

 

Regardless, I just wanted to add that new perspective, if you were going to call this a Deep-Dive.

 

 

I'm also intrigued by your roundabout take on "Inaros is a Gunplay frame". Because it's not necessarily that Inaros specializes in gunplay: that honor probably goes to Chroma/Mirage/Rhino. Instead, it's that for current-Inaros, it's all he HAS. Very few people want to rely on his abilities, so they rely on their weapons instead. His non-nullifiable, non-energy-dependent, completely-passive, Massive Healthbar facilitates this: He's just as tanky, no matter how little you use his abilities, so long as you have equipped some manner of healing, allowing you to focus entirely on gunplay.

You seem to have built some amount of your rework, though, on making Inaros's abilities boost his weapon's damage, specifically to meet this "Gunplay requirement". It seems rather odd too me. It feels like taking a broken trolley machine that keeps spitting oil, and instead of patching the leaks, you instead convert it into a dedicated oil-spitting machine instead. It's interesting.

 

 

 

As for your rework itself, I must confess I haven't dedicated too much time to combing through it to see all the nuances.

It seems to accomplish all its goals: he'd be more usable in higher levels, would be a desirable team-support for any content with enemy hordes, and retains much of his theming and lore.

I, personally, have no desire for this new Inaros, though. But that's probably just because I want to take him in another direction, and thus I see this as too far of a departure from what I like about Inaros. So try not to take offense at my dispassion.

 

Nice work, all-in-all.

Thanks for taking the time to post your own extensive thoughts on the subject. I salute you, fellow Inaros lover.

You put forward some great points about his original dev-intended design that I did miss in my original overview. I particularly found the idea of “Scarab armour being a health bank” interesting and enlightening.

As for your rather well worded notes on Inaros’ “Gunframe” identity, I can see your perspective. Perhaps there is an amount of bias coming from my perspective as I quite enjoy Inaros as a gunframe, even without any real assets to directly assist with that. While I did propose the idea of giving him something to assist in this identity (to allow that play style to still exist, as some like myself have grown to like it), I did try to keep in mind that that is not his original design and should not overshadow his other play styles. I do believe the access to a true damage bonus from his scarabs would not only enable a gunframe style, but as it is a damage bonus to all sources, benefit any given style one desires. In the current warframe landscape, it is difficult to compete without at least some source of damage built into ones kit, be it from a damaging ability or a way to increase the damage of other abilities or weapons, and I feel the best place to do that with Inaros is through his scarab armour.

On the topic of Inaros’ entropic pull (lovely vocabulary) and constant sway between low and high health, I could not agree more. It is an aspect of Inaros that I seldom find in his current gameplay, not for lack of his kit, but for lack of damage. With scarab armour combined with a few decent mods (particularly adaptation), I find it a rare occurrence to use anything besides his finishers as there just isn’t enough incentive to do so. Perhaps a further exploration of his unique ability to use health as a resource, not dissimilar to the likes of Hildryn or Harrow with shields. Maybe even a complete removal of energy and simple use of his health to use abilities is an interesting route to go that may prove to bring back that Eb and Flow of times before Umbral mods and Adaptation. I think if we are to return to that though, we cannot maintain his current kit, as so much of it is centred around regenerating health I can’t see myself ever feeling in any real danger, let alone need to use his devour in its current state.

Lastly, I agree wholeheartedly with your “The Mummy” line of thinking. That is why I do think that my original ideas for Sandstorm should more or less be scrapped. I feel if we want to drive for a more ability/melee style we truly need something that not only packs more punch than a simple sandstorm, but an ability that feels more interactive and satisfying to use. I tried my best to keep sandstorm as part of his kit, as it is one of his few currently existing play styles, but perhaps a different ability altogether may be a better option. I haven’t any ideas at present (as I am writing this at 2:30am), but I’d like to give it some thought. Maybe something that goes into that idea of expending health as a resource a bit more heavily, or at the very least point to that feeling of sand through fingers.

Thank you so much for your input and even if we may not agree on some things, I hope the inevitable Inaros update satisfies us both. 

[(PSN)Gi_raffe2]

all of these concepts are soooooo amazing!