Dante Unbound - Dev Workshop: Inaros Rework

[TummyLover]

How does strength interact with scarab swarm’s damage? Does it treat the 1/10th health as base damage? Wondering if elemental ward would be a nice fit 

[VENDOMINUS]

I think it would be appropriate if his augment's "brief invulnerability" got increased duration based on how much he was overkilled by. For example if he's has 10k hp and the hit that kills him does 100k damage (unreduced) he'd get another 50%  from what it should be. Or maybe each attack received while invulnerable, would increase it's duration by 0.2 sec or something. That'd allow him to be alive more at higher levels and have more alive time.

 

Everything seems great, in general.

[CosoMalvadoNG]

En 13/3/2024 a las 14:56, (PSN)pookie4180 dijo:

Looks awesome can’t wait to try it hope you guys do chroma next. However how does the sand kavat dmg scale work? What’s stopping them from being fodder specters? Do they do 100% of scarabs swarm’s dmg and apply corrosive status or do they only do a percentage? I just don’t want them to just be trash like caliban’s conculyst, and since they’re kavats they cant use eximus abilities either.

The cats will simply cast your fourth ability  in one enemy while they are alive. Imagine 5 cats doing swarm with an inaros with 11k hp. like 1.1k of corrosive damage.  They also don't explain whether the ability strength makes any difference in the damage.

 

En 13/3/2024 a las 16:04, Somnium_Bellator dijo:

The obnoxious number of particles this game has these days ruins any and everything new you might want to implement within the game. Players are blinded left and right due to the huge massive clouds of particles. I strongly think this should be changed asap as a big QoL thing before the big update. That way we all will enjoy any future warframe changes, new visuals and FXs.

Keep rocking.

https://i.imgur.com/Pob09wV.mp4

 

En 13/3/2024 a las 15:01, SteveCutler dijo:

I'm very interested in this. Looks a lot better than the Hydroid rework, in my opinion.

it's good.
I think Arcane Deflection is going to be meta for inaros (in case it works with the slash damage of the Negation Armor augment)

 

Edited March 25 by CosoMalvadoNG

[Absolute_Kriatura]

13 hours ago, CosoMalvadoNG said:

https://i.imgur.com/Pob09wV.mp4

That means nothing, it's not how it should be by default.

[MarakViri]

On 2024-03-14 at 4:57 AM, [DE]Megan said:

PASSIVE

• Inaros still heals from performing Melee Finisher Kills on enemies. This is unchanged.

• Inaros' special bleedout state where he could pull enemies toward his Sarcophagus and leech their Health has been replaced: When Inaros dies, he turns into a Sand version of himself with normal movement and a Melee attack. Land a certain number of hits on enemies before time runs out in order to respawn -- but the more often you die, the more enemies you have to hit!

Well, it's nice to see that his finisher-heal is retained. The alteration of his innate death-resistance is glorious though, as it was completely unusable when playing solo at even average levels. (it could be used in squads due to the mechanics, but required a very specific level of team synergy that was often not accomplished). Obviously, this is dependant on the exact number of hits required, how it scales with consecutive bleedouts, and the rat of decay.

It has, however, retained the minor problem of squad reliability. As it is listed as being "normal" movement and melee-exclusive combat, the included clip indicates that this leaves you with no weapon (which is fine, as it is hit dependant and not damage dependant), which minimises your attack range along with having a slow attack speed (which I am seeing as an inbuilt balancing mechanic), as well as forcing you into what appears to be parkour-viable walking speed. If this allows full parkour (specifically Bullet Jumps) and/or allows Sprinting, then there should be no issue for the most part.

Having high KPS teammates may cause problems however (can't hit an enemy if there are no enemies), but with full mobility this should be manageable for the most part, especially on a base-counter phase. Without full mobility however, those high KPS teammates will likely prevent Inaros from activating his self revive mechanic more frequently than they would with it.

On 2024-03-14 at 4:57 AM, [DE]Megan said:

DESICCATION 

Largely unchanged, but we have fixed issues with certain enemies not being vulnerable to Melee Finishers! Now, this should be more consistent.

• Desiccation is now Inaros’ Railjack Ability (was previously Devour). 

Slightly sad about the lack of change on this ability. A more reliable blind, or at least an indication of a blind, would be vastly appreciated. Of course, "largely unchanged" doesn't mean "unchanged", so perhaps that is simply unlisted here.

Additionally, the minimal True Damage this ability inflicts is functionally useless. I would personally like to see it removed, as it provides nothing to Inaros himself, and has minimal effect as a Subsumed Ability. Of course, while it functionally adds nothing, it doesn't really take anything either, so there's snot really a need to do anything about it.

EDIT : @Mayhem-Ivory Has brought to my attention that this does, in fact, actively take something away, in that the True Damage DoT triggers Marked For Death, preventing Desiccation Finishers from dealing AoE Damage when paired with this Helminth ability. Therefore I am changing my opinion here from "not really a need to change" to "please change, it is more of a hindrance than a help". Granted, this is, as even they state, a rather niche use, but I argue that it has a more viable use than the minimalistic DoT (and even lower heal) in regards to its functionality on Inaros himself, which should be prioritised over the Subsume viability of Desiccation, wherein the consistent heal of 2HP/s per enemy may actually be helpful.

How exactly will this function as a Railjack ability? A cone of conditional blind? Or would it be a more interesting implementation, such as clogging engines if having correct targeting (with the same mechanic as the base ability's current blind)?

On 2024-03-14 at 4:57 AM, [DE]Megan said:

SANDSTORM (was Devour)

• Devour has been removed entirely and replaced by an improved Sandstorm.

• Inaros becomes a Sandstorm whirlwind, now with faster animations and movement, so it feels less punishing.

• Inaros is now invulnerable while in Sandstorm.

• Sandstorm now has a duration instead of being a channeled power. (Will not block Energy Regeneration while in Sandstorm mode). You can still choose to end the power early if you like.

• Instead of throwing enemies everywhere around the level, it drags enemies beneath your feet so you can use Melee Ground Finishers if you choose.

• Inaros regenerates Health per second for each enemy held in his Sandstorm.

Okay, first change is good. Devour was overly clunky, and slowed gameplay drastically. I mean, it could be beneficial in Endurance Defense, locking the last enemy of a wave in an unkillable trap for as long as it took for the Defense Target to regenerate, but that was basically the only use it had, and their are other (better) ways to play Defense that relying on a between-wave heal.

An increased movement and animation is wonderful, as it did feel punishing (though not exclusively for this reason). The invulnerability is also a nice touch, and I'm guessing is the reason for the extremely low duration (I think it was four seconds) on the ability. Removing it's channelled function is also a nice change. It might have some impact on Arcane choice (if anyone was running [Arcane Intention] that is), but I don't see that as anything close to a problem giving the trade-off.

Being an attraction rather than a repulsion is a wonderful change. Especially with the Ground Finisher synergy which pairs with his passive for very reliable heals, pairing with the innate healing of Sandstorm itself (though I'm uncertain as to how good of a heal that will be, even if it looked fairly good in the clip). A question I have is "how long will the enemies be prone/open to Ground Finishers?". The clip had them prone for 3 seconds before the last was killed with a Finisher, so I'm guessing it's around the 3-4 second mark, which is more than sufficient.

On 2024-03-14 at 4:57 AM, [DE]Megan said:

SCARAB SHELL

• Inaros' fourth ability has been split into two different abilities that are easier to use and reflect its two main features.

• Scarab Shell can be charged up by spending Health to give you Armor. There is now a unique indicator on your HUD that shows the current charge level of Scarab Shell.

• Charging Scarab Shell no longer stops you from moving around.

• Armor has been increased from 240 to 350 and scales with Ability Strength.

• The "Negation Swarm" Augment Mod has been retired, its special effect is now part of the base ability: While Scarab Shell is active, hostile Status Effects are ignored at a small cost in Armor.

  • Please see “Augment Changes” below for more info on the retired Negation Swarm.

Splitting his previous fourth wasn't what I pictured from this rework, but I can certainly see the benefits to it. Providing it's own GUI is great, as trying to track your various buffs can be problematic, especially given the integration of [Negation Swarm]. Altering this from being a full-body animation to a two-handed animation (which is certainly what it looks like) is a great change, and honestly how it probably should have been, but this is an old frame, and the game was far less mobile back then.

Scaling. Oh good god, he finally has scaling armor. And it's buffed too! Oh glorious days. That said, I probably would have gone with a dual-scaling mechanic of Armor + Strength, wherein the base effect of the ability is determined by his Armor Value, to give the ability better scaling on already defensively-focused builds. Of course, that's probably biased because I have an Umbral Inaros, so take it with a grain of sand.

Integrating [Negation Swarm] has upsides and downsides. The main upside being the addition of a mod-slot on his build. The downside is that, if you weren't using the augment, you will now start losing your additional armor. Of course, that encourages player interaction, but includes an aspect of micro-managing that some players might not appreciate. Overall however, I see this as a net-positive.

That said, this depends on just how much armor is lost when negating a Status Effect, whether that depletion is affected by mods, and how long the Status Immunity it provides lasts for.

On 2024-03-14 at 4:57 AM, [DE]Megan said:

SCARAB SWARM

• Scarab Swarm no longer requires you to charge up the ability by investing Health.

• On cast, enemies in a cone are attacked by scarabs that do 1/10th of Inaros Max Health as Corrosive damage per second.

• Enemies that die while affected by Scarab Swarm turn into a Swarm Kavat (maximum 3 Swarm Kavats, but can be increased to 5 with the Desiccation’s Curse Augment).

• Swarm Kavats can move and attack independently, and their attacks cause additional enemies to be afflicted by the Swarm.

Okay, so the health cost is solely restricted to the defensive side. That's probably a good thing for Inaros' usage stats, though this ability will now be functionally spammable with some builds. Which, honestly, isn't the worst thing, given that this is an armor stripping ability (technically). It does kind of force Inaros into running with 2 Emerald Archon Shards if he wants a full armor strip though (but again, not the worst thing).

Health-Scaling damage is nice. The fact that it's entirely unaffected by Ability Strength is slightly disappointing given that the defensive side scales with it, but it's still decent. It should probably also be dual-scaling (Health + Strength), but maybe that would result in too high a DPS.

Sand Kavats are interesting, though their utility would be dependant on how exactly they function and what their stats are. And, of course, the AI.

On 2024-03-14 at 4:57 AM, [DE]Megan said:

INAROS AUGMENT CHANGES

• Desiccation's Curse: Instead of enemies turning into a sandy copy of their former selves on death, they become Swarm Kavats capable of applying Scarab Swarm on their targets.

• Elemental Sandstorm: No changes!

• Negation Swarm has been replaced by Negation Armor: When Inaros takes fatal damage, consume Scarab Shell to heal and become briefly invulnerable. Inaros is affected by a strong Bleed Status when this ends.

And on to the augments. I like [Desiccation's Curse], though I'm curious about a few things regarding it. Firstly, does this allow a spawning of up to the maximum number of Sand Kavats (five), solely through the use of this ability (instead of being three for Scarab Swarm and two for Desiccation)? Secondly, do they still apply Scarab Swarm if you have Subsumed over said ability?

[Elemental Sandstorm] is unchanged. I'm somewhat sad about this, as I was hoping it would be expanded upon to draw elements from Inaros' entire loadout (a fever dream, I know), especially given that his melee works best with Finisher viability (for his passive), which takes up mod-slots. It would probably be fun to turn this into a Heat-Nuke though, especially with [Archon Vitality], though the loss of triple-umbra may make this less used. Either way he is able to function as a self-primer, which could be good. Though, that said, there are still plenty of viable synergies I can think of.

Now that I think about it (and this is more the augment itself and should function even before the update), does this benefit from the Decrees in Duviri? Specifically, Venomous Touch, and Smoldering Strike.

UPDATE : Checked it with Smoldering Strike, which does indeed apply (pre-Dante at least). I have not checked it with Venomous Touch, nor the two in tandem. I imagine it would only apply if your next melee hit would apply it, and would factor in as a mod (and have very heavy weighting), allowing you to control when it triggered, but I have yet to test it.

[Negation Armor] should be fun. True Death Prevention is great for non-death modes, and Inaros already has a counter to the downside of this in the form of Sandstorm. I am curious if re-casting Scarab Shell before the Slash-proc applies would negate it (if you even can cast it before it applies that is), as well the actual mechanic of the slash proc. Is it a single tick of fatal damage, or is it a few ticks that will kill you if you don't work around it? If so, would [Rapid Resilience] make it survivable? Or even [Adaptation] or [Shock Absorbers]. Also, is it prevented by [Arcane Deflection]?

Edited March 22 by MarakViri
Minor Expansion and Update

[SteveCutler]

I see some people suggesting Emerald Archon Shards to let Inaros fully armor strip with Corrosive procs. So I just want to point out that that won't work, if Scarab Swarm only does one proc per second. I'm not clear on whether it will or not, but the dev workshop does say "attacked by scarabs that do 1/10th of Inaros Max Health as Corrosive damage per second".

If the enemies only get one Corrosive proc per second, then it'll have the same problem as Hydroid's Tentacle Swarm, where it's simply impossible to fully strip armor with that alone. The reason being that Corrosive procs have an 8 second duration. So the first proc expires and falls off before you can inflict the 9th. Even if you raise the cap, you still won't be able to do the 9th or 10th procs.

You can easily test this in the Simulacrcum with Hydroid. Just cast Tentacle Swarm and watch how the enemies only reach 8 Corrosive procs, despite Hydroid's passive.

 

Edited March 17 by SteveCutler

[MarakViri]

20 minutes ago, SteveCutler said:

I see some people suggesting Emerald Archon Shards to let Inaros fully armor strip with Corrosive procs. So I just want to point out that that won't work, if Scarab Swarm only does one proc per second. I'm not clear on whether it will or not, but the dev workshop does say "attacked by scarabs that do 1/10th of Inaros Max Health as Corrosive damage per second".

If the enemies only get one Corrosive proc per second, then it'll have the same problem as Hydroid's Tentacle Swarm, where it's simply impossible to fully strip armor with that alone. The reason being that Corrosive procs have an 8 second duration. So the first proc expires and falls off before you can inflict the 9th. Even if you raise the cap, you still won't be able to do the 9th or 10th procs.

You can easily test this in the Simulacrcum with Hydroid. Just cast Tentacle Swarm and watch how the enemies only reach 8 Corrosive procs, despite Hydroid's passive.

 

In the actual stream, it showed enemies getting maximum Corrosive Stacks with a few seconds.

I'm guessing that the Swarm does a fraction of the actual damage (let's say 1/30th of Inaros' Health, but they attack three times per second, equalling 1/10th of his maximum hp.

Now, this might have been because of the enemy grouping and the capability for spreading the ability has, but its definitely possible. It really doesn't explain that well in the post though.

Edited March 17 by MarakViri

[SteveCutler]

2 hours ago, MarakViri said:

In the actual stream, it showed enemies getting maximum Corrosive Stacks with a few seconds.

That's good then. I'll go back and look at that. Thanks.

[[DE]Momaw]

On 2024-03-16 at 10:41 PM, SteveCutler said:

I see some people suggesting Emerald Archon Shards to let Inaros fully armor strip with Corrosive procs. So I just want to point out that that won't work, if Scarab Swarm only does one proc per second.

 

On 2024-03-16 at 11:01 PM, MarakViri said:

I'm guessing that the Swarm does a fraction of the actual damage (let's say 1/30th of Inaros' Health, but they attack three times per second, equalling 1/10th of his maximum hp.

 

This exactly.  Scarab Swarm does 1/10th of max HP per second in total damage, but it's applied in half-second intervals.  Two corrodes per second 👍

[TheKurtiStryke]

the only thing i'm worried, is the third ability damage output...

1) is for finishers, so, good cc, quick burst healing and good damage

3) is for increasing the armor

4) from what i could understand, is good in terms of damage, armor reduction and cc

ability N 3 is... i dunno, ok, you can "collect" enemies and create some sand cats, but i hope ithe damage  scales with the health,...i'm not so sure about this ability honestly.

[MetallicPulse]

There is a bug with sandstorm where in actual gameplay Sandstorm is half the radius than displayed in the game UI. I'm sure many Inaros users noticed this over the years. 

Can we get this fixed? Suspect that range was accidentally coded for diameter than radius as intended. 

Looking forward to the improvements and would love this to be fixed as radius!

[Cerenax]

On 2024-03-13 at 2:57 PM, [DE]Megan said:

Inaros' special bleedout state where he could pull enemies toward his Sarcophagus and leech their Health has been replaced: When Inaros dies, he turns into a Sand version of himself with normal movement and a Melee attack. Land a certain number of hits on enemies before time runs out in order to respawn -- but the more often you die, the more enemies you have to hit!

Please give us the option to override it with Unairu's Last Grasp.

[(XBOX)Big Roy 324]

I personally really like the look of this rework.

Sounds like lots of work went into this to incorporate player suggestions without it getting too bogged down with powercreep. 

While new sandstorm is getting lots of criticism I see something of great value there.

This ability sounds like it will work similarly to wukong's cloud walker. In that it will be a quick emergency heal and movement ability over something designed to damage enemies.

I think I'm going to remove my helminth choices in prep for this. 

[Cerikus]

20 hours ago, [DE]Momaw said:

This exactly.  Scarab Swarm does 1/10th of max HP per second in total damage, but it's applied in half-second intervals.  Two corrodes per second 👍

Please, PLEASE, reconsider this. If this is true, the ability is bad and worthy of immediate subsume. 

What this basically means is that Inaros' 4th ability is only able to strip 100% armor after 7 seconds. That's horrible.

Let's not forget that for this to work I need 2 Emerald Archon Shard which is 4 Shards in total. That's a lot of investment to have the ability be still bad. I mean. There are tons of abilities right now that are far better, without shards and without the abilities being the ultimate.

[Agall]

On 2024-03-13 at 11:57 AM, [DE]Megan said:

Hello, Tenno!

Devstream #177 outlined our plans for the upcoming Inaros Rework in the Dante Unbound update. We wanted to provide this Dev Workshop to house the information and note some development tweaks we have made since the Devstream. Let’s begin!

Upon downloading Dante Unbound and logging in, all players will receive an Inbox message containing 2x Forma (built) that can be used (at your discretion) towards experimenting with these upcoming changes.

For my visual learning Tenno - please enjoy this video breakdown from Lead Game Designer, Pablo, which we showed on Devstream 177: 

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2071736679 

 

PASSIVE

• Inaros still heals from performing Melee Finisher Kills on enemies. This is unchanged.

• Inaros' special bleedout state where he could pull enemies toward his Sarcophagus and leech their Health has been replaced: When Inaros dies, he turns into a Sand version of himself with normal movement and a Melee attack. Land a certain number of hits on enemies before time runs out in order to respawn -- but the more often you die, the more enemies you have to hit!

 

via GIPHY

 

DESICCATION 

Largely unchanged, but we have fixed issues with certain enemies not being vulnerable to Melee Finishers! Now, this should be more consistent.

• Desiccation is now Inaros’ Railjack Ability (was previously Devour). 

 

via GIPHY

 

SANDSTORM (was Devour)

• Devour has been removed entirely and replaced by an improved Sandstorm.

• Inaros becomes a Sandstorm whirlwind, now with faster animations and movement, so it feels less punishing.

• Inaros is now invulnerable while in Sandstorm.

• Sandstorm now has a duration instead of being a channeled power. (Will not block Energy Regeneration while in Sandstorm mode). You can still choose to end the power early if you like.

• Instead of throwing enemies everywhere around the level, it drags enemies beneath your feet so you can use Melee Ground Finishers if you choose.

• Inaros regenerates Health per second for each enemy held in his Sandstorm.

 

via GIPHY

 

 

SCARAB SHELL

• Inaros' fourth ability has been split into two different abilities that are easier to use and reflect its two main features.

• Scarab Shell can be charged up by spending Health to give you Armor. There is now a unique indicator on your HUD that shows the current charge level of Scarab Shell.

• Charging Scarab Shell no longer stops you from moving around.

• Armor has been increased from 240 to 350 and scales with Ability Strength.

• The "Negation Swarm" Augment Mod has been retired, its special effect is now part of the base ability: While Scarab Shell is active, hostile Status Effects are ignored at a small cost in Armor.

  • Please see “Augment Changes” below for more info on the retired Negation Swarm.

via GIPHY

 

SCARAB SWARM

• Scarab Swarm no longer requires you to charge up the ability by investing Health.

• On cast, enemies in a cone are attacked by scarabs that do 1/10th of Inaros Max Health as Corrosive damage per second.

• Enemies that die while affected by Scarab Swarm turn into a Swarm Kavat (maximum 3 Swarm Kavats, but can be increased to 5 with the Desiccation’s Curse Augment).

• Swarm Kavats can move and attack independently, and their attacks cause additional enemies to be afflicted by the Swarm.

 

via GIPHY

 

INAROS AUGMENT CHANGES

• Desiccation's Curse: Instead of enemies turning into a sandy copy of their former selves on death, they become Swarm Kavats capable of applying Scarab Swarm on their targets.

• Elemental Sandstorm: No changes!

• Negation Swarm has been replaced by Negation Armor: When Inaros takes fatal damage, consume Scarab Shell to heal and become briefly invulnerable. Inaros is affected by a strong Bleed Status when this ends.

 

We’re looking forward to getting the newly reworked Inaros into your sandy hands with the Dante Unbound update!

Thanks, Tenno!

My elemental sandstorm build will now be viable?!? I didn't waste 2 Umbra formas on Inaros?!?

*intense salivation* 

 

1 hour ago, Cerikus said:

Please, PLEASE, reconsider this. If this is true, the ability is bad and worthy of immediate subsume. 

What this basically means is that Inaros' 4th ability is only able to strip 100% armor after 7 seconds. That's horrible.

Let's not forget that for this to work I need 2 Emerald Archon Shard which is 4 Shards in total. That's a lot of investment to have the ability be still bad. I mean. There are tons of abilities right now that are far better, without shards and without the abilities being the ultimate.

You can just run elemental sandstorm which I believe already works with the +corrosive melee arcane. 

[Agall]

15 hours ago, (XBOX)Big Roy 324 said:

While new sandstorm is getting lots of criticism I see something of great value there.

This ability sounds like it will work similarly to wukong's cloud walker. In that it will be a quick emergency heal and movement ability over something designed to damage enemies.

You mean spam recasting sandstorm and making Inaros go brrrrr?

[Circle_of_Psi]

7 hours ago, Agall said:

I didn't waste 2 Umbra formas on Inaros?!?

I'm sorry, why 2, you only need one UMbra forma to use all 3?!

[Agall]

31 minutes ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

I'm sorry, why 2, you only need one UMbra forma to use all 3?!

It depends, I've run into scenarios where you need two when I used to run my Excalibur build. You also get more starting energy which can be low enough to not be able to cast an ability like Nourish to start gaining more energy otherwise.

Edited March 19 by Agall

[Circle_of_Psi]

11 hours ago, Agall said:

It depends, I've run into scenarios where you need two when I used to run my Excalibur build. You also get more starting energy which can be low enough to not be able to cast an ability like Nourish to start gaining more energy otherwise.

Hm, good to know

[Dreamnomad]

Hate to be that guy, but are we getting a Loki rework soon?

[Tiltskillet]

8 minutes ago, Dreamnomad said:

Hate to be that guy, but are we getting a Loki rework soon?

No rework, at least how I would use the word.  A couple of individual tweaks to Decoy and Switch Teleport.  And a very fun looking third(!) augment for Decoy.

[(XBOX)Big Roy 324]

On 2024-03-19 at 6:10 AM, Agall said:

You mean spam recasting sandstorm and making Inaros go brrrrr?

Exactly.

It sounds like it could be fun.

[Ikvan]

I wanted to make a 300% STR build with Elemental Sandstorm with Corrosive (Archon Continuity) + Viral (Nourish) + Slash/Toxin weapon. That should guarantee all 4 status effects to proc every time. But it doesn't work. I just get whatever is on my weapon to proc and nothing else.

The wiki says Archon Continuity is supposed to work with the augment but it doesn't work for me (pure toxin damage weapon or modded).

It really sucks that nothing works with that augment.

[MarakViri]

On 2024-03-21 at 11:23 AM, Ikvan said:

I wanted to make a 300% STR build with Elemental Sandstorm with Corrosive (Archon Continuity) + Viral (Nourish) + Slash/Toxin weapon. That should guarantee all 4 status effects to proc every time. But it doesn't work. I just get whatever is on my weapon to proc and nothing else.

The wiki says Archon Continuity is supposed to work with the augment but it doesn't work for me (pure toxin damage weapon or modded).

It really sucks that nothing works with that augment.

Okay, so I'm not sure how you're getting those problems. I literally just hopped into the Simulacrum with a 300% Strength half-build, with [Elemental Sandstorm] and [Archon Continuity], with a Nourish Subsume. The weapon I chose for this testing was the {Galatine Prime}, as it has 95% Slash-Weight at base. Modded with a max rank [Fever Strike], to keep the weighting about even. I'm guessing you're using a weapon with different IPS weighting, so that might be why.

Without Nourish active, the elemental weighting is 1.3% for both Impact and Puncture, 50% for Slash, and 47.3% for Toxin. My quick spin of Sandstorm ended (when I could look at the enemy), with 5 stacks of Slash, 4 of Toxin, and 3 stacks of Corrosive. So, [Archon Continuity] was definitely activating, but it would only activate once per instance, even if the number of Toxin status effects being applied by that same instance was 2, as the rotation would be;

1. Slash/Slash/Toxin(Corrosive)
2. Toxin(Corrosive)/Slash/Slash
3. Toxin(Corrosive)/Toxin/Slash
4. Repeat

With Nourish however, the elemental weighting gets demolished, with Viral taking 54.2%, Toxin taking 21.6%, Slash taking 22.8%, and Impact and Puncture taking 0.6%. With this cast (which was longer), I had 10 stacks of Viral, but only 3 of Slash and Toxin and Corrosive. Again, that makes sense numerically, as the rotation would be;

1. Viral/Viral/Slash
2. Toxin(Corrosive)/Viral/Viral
3. Slash/Toxin(Corrosive)/Viral
4. Viral/Slash/Toxin(Corrosive)
5. Repeat

Then I tried running with [Primed Fever Strike] and [Buzz Saw], which gave initial weightings of 0.6% for Impact and Puncture, a 43.5% for Toxin, and 55.1% for Slash. This had the same problem of double-procs on Toxin not being applied as Corrosive however. Activating Nourish alters the weightings, putting Impact and Puncture down to 0.4%, Toxin down to 27.3%, Slash down to 34.6%, and Viral at 37.2%. This particular combination resulted in equal distribution of Toxin and Corrosive in my test.

Now, with the upcoming changes to Nourish, the weighting on a 300% Strength build will drop, as the Viral Damage addition will drop from 225% to only 135%. On the same (first) build, this would change the weighting to 0.7% Impact and Puncture, 29.2% Slash, 27.6% Viral, and 41.5% Viral. This will still result in a similar loop of Viral priority however. The second build however would maintain an initial weighting of 0.6% for Impact and Puncture, 55.1% Slash, and 43.5% Toxin, but would shift to 0.4% Impact and Puncture, 40.6% Slash, 32.1% Toxin, and only 26.2% Viral. This completely removes the double activation of Toxin, which would give an even distribution of Toxin and Corrosive, and a fairly even spread of Viral as well.

However, the upcoming changes to Inaros himself means that he has an alternative means of applying Corrosive status in the form of Scarab Swarm, so there is no need to rely on [Elemental Sandstorm] for this particular purpose (especially since Sandstorm is being reworked from a channelled ability to a Duration ability (and one with a fairly short base duration at that)).

 

That all said, I'm actually very much looking forward to the update, especially when it comes to Inaros on Duviri (My SP Circuit Inaros just ... doesn't right now). His new Scarab Shell works really well with Fortified Will, specifically at Rank 3, which will let you get the 500% Strength bonus even if you have 40% Strength and no additional armor, and Molten Mettle adds scaling Heat damage to [Elemental Sandstorm]. His survivability might still be a bit problematic, but I might actually be Polarizing over some Umbral slots on him, which brings tremendous pain.

Of course, then there's the further synergetic nature of Luscinia's Suffering, Shattering Frost, and Baneful Harmony, as well as Twofold Torment and Close Contagion, which will give him potentially ludicrous amounts of damage. Add Roar into that, and not much will be surviving his Sandstorm.

Went a bit off topic there.

 

Theoretically, in order to get all 3 every time, with a zero chance of failure or inconsistency (theoretically), you would need a 300% Strength Inaros (for [Elemental Sandstorm] to apply 3 status procs each tick), Nourish, and a Dorrclave (the only 100% Slash melee) modded with a rank 3 [Buzz Kill], a rank 2 [Rending Strike] or [Jagged Edge] or [Carnis Mandible], a rank 10 [Primed Fever Strike], and a rank 3 [Virulent Scourge]. This mod combination would give you 499.5 (+125%) Slash and (+225%) Toxin Damage, which is the exact amount of Viral damage that Nourish would give you. I can't test this however, as I do not have those mods at those ranks, nor do I desire to (I already don't like using the non-max mods I do use (such as r9 [Blind Rage] on certain builds). Of course, these numbers are for the current iteration of Nourish. After the rework, you'd need to drop that to +35% Slash and +135% Toxin. This would require the same mod combinations for Slash, but with both of the mods being r0. Toxin, however, would need regular [Fever Strike] instead of ita Primed counterpart, and one of the two mods would need to be one rank below maximum (r4+r3 or r5/r2), putting both damage values at 299.7, which is what the new Nourish will provide.

You could also use [Masseter] / [Masseter Prime] with a Riven possessing -100% Impact (which the Prime doesn't have the disposition for) to get a 100% Slash melee, though you would need to balance the stats differently, getting both Toxin and Slash damage to exactly 542.3 Damage, which I'm not even certain is possible (in fact, I actively don't think the balance can be made an exact 3-way split).

 

TLDR; It should work as long as you are applying Toxin, but might not apply at an equal ratio if your Toxin weight is too high.

Edited March 22 by MarakViri
Further Math

[Mayhem-Ivory]

Am 17.3.2024 um 02:56 schrieb MarakViri:

Additionally, the minimal True Damage this ability inflicts is functionally useless. I would personally like to see it removed, as it provides nothing to Inaros himself, and has minimal effect as a Subsumed Ability. Of course, while it functionally adds nothing, it doesn't really take anything either, so there's not really a need to do anything about it.

Not entirely true. While niche, I tried putting Marked for Death on him to fill out his lack of room-clear abilities, and the 10 dps true damage ticks trigger it. So you can't use it with finishers to deal AoE damage.

Now this might not be neccessary after the rework, and would already have been mediocre after the Marked for Death nerf, but it does stand out as an option being taken away because of that useless function.