What You Need to Know About Inscriptions in Anthem
Gameplay Designer Chris King and Lead Gameplay Producer Darrin McPherson walk you through the details of loot inscriptions in Anthem.
Hey everyone – Chris King (Gameplay Design Director) and Darrin McPherson (Lead Gameplay Producer) here. First off, thanks to everyone for your continued support and feedback regarding Anthem. We hope you are enjoying the recent updates to the loot system.
With our first batch of loot updates wrapped up, we thought it a good opportunity to dig into some details and talk about what we are working on next.
First off, let’s walk through how inscriptions work. Inscriptions are random modifiers that are applied to each loot item upon creation. Here is an example of some inscriptions on an Avenging Herald –a Masterwork Heavy Pistol (and a really good one at that)!
A couple things to note with inscriptions:
- If there is a Gear icon (
) in front of the inscription, that means it applies only to the item itself. - If it has a Suit icon (
), that means it applies to everything on the javelin.
So in the Avenging Herald example above, the following inscriptions were rolled:
- +15% Weapon Damage. This increases the damage dealt from the Avenging Herald by an additional 15%. In this case, the inscription has a Gear icon so the damage boost *ONLY* applies to this weapon and wouldn’t apply to your secondary weapon.
- +4% Repair Amount. All health drops that are picked up will replenish an additional 4% health.
- +30% Ammo Drop Rate. Increases the chance of a defeated enemy dropping weapon ammo by 30%.
- +15% Heavy Pistol Damage. Since this has a Suit icon, any Heavy Pistol the player is carrying (including this Avenging Herald) will do an additional 15% damage. So if you had two Heavy Pistols equipped, both weapons would get the 15% increase.
One other callout here is that the Damage Number shown (in this case 1044) doesn’t include the damage bonuses that came from the inscription rolls. This is an important consideration – inscriptions aren’t reflected in the stat block (currently at least) so make sure you are comparing apples to apples here. As an example, check out these two Avenging Heralds – they both show identical Power values of 45 and Damage as 1044. But the one on the right will do more damage because of the two Damage inscriptions it has.
How are inscriptions applied? We have the following buckets of inscriptions:
- Minor Primary
- Minor Secondary
- Major Secondary
- Major Primary
- Epic Secondary
- Epic Primary
The lower the tier, the less impact the inscription will have. The higher the tier, the higher the impact.
As an example, Minor Primary can modify weapon damage from +5-25%. But adding a Major Secondary inscription to weapon damage will modify it from +25%-175%.
Ultimately, the rarity of an item dictates which inscriptions it gets. Here is a table that visualizes how this works on weapons and gear:
General |
Minor Primary |
Minor Secondary |
Major Secondary |
Major Primary |
Epic Secondary |
Epic Primary |
Common |
||||||
Uncommon |
X |
|||||
Rare |
X |
X |
||||
Epic |
X |
X |
X |
|||
Masterwork |
X |
X |
X |
X |
||
Legendary |
X |
X |
X |
X |
Here is a list of our inscriptions with descriptions of what they do:
Inscription |
Description |
LB/Q +{X}% Dmg |
Increases the damage of the gear item in slot |
LB/Q +{X}% Speed |
Speeds up recharge time for the gear in slot |
RB/E +{X}% Dmg |
Increases the damage of the gear item in slot |
RB/E +{X}% Speed |
Speeds up recharge time for the gear in slot |
+{X}% Dmg |
Increases all damage done by the javelin |
+{X}% Force |
Increases the force applied to targets |
+{X}% Harvest Bonus |
Increases the amount of materials when harvesting |
+{X}% Pickup Radius |
Increases the distance that you will automatically pick up drops |
+{X}% Thruster Life |
Increases your maximum thruster time |
Acid +{X}% Dmg |
Increases acid damage |
Acid +{X}% Effect |
Increases the number of acid stacks that are applied |
Acid +{X}% Resist |
Increases your resistance to a specific element, lowering damage and decreasing the number of stacks being applied to you |
Ammo +{X}% Drop Rate |
Increases the chance that ammo drops appear from defeated enemies |
Ammo +{X}% Pickup Amnt |
Increases the amount of ammo that is gained by picking up an ammo drop |
A-Rifle +{X}% Ammo |
Increases the spare ammo of assault rifles |
A-Rifle +{X}% Dmg |
Increases all weapon damage done by assault rifles |
Armor +{X}% Dmg Resist |
Reduces all incoming damage |
Armor +{X}% Max |
Increases maximum Armor |
Autocannon +{X}% Ammo |
Increases the spare ammo of autocannons |
Autocannon +{X}% Dmg |
Increases all weapon damage done by autocannons |
Blast +{X}% Dmg |
Increases all explosive damage |
Combo +{X}% Aura Eff |
Increases the effect stacking rate of aura combos (Interceptor) |
Combo +{X}% Damage |
Increases the damage of Impact (single target) combo |
Combo +{X}% Damage |
Increases the damage of Explosive combo (Colossus) |
Combo +{X}% Imp Dmg |
Increases the damage of Impact (single target) combo (Ranger) |
Combo +{X}% Targets |
Increased the number of targets that are hit by a chain combo (Storm) |
Critical +{X}% Dmg |
Increases the damage done when hitting weakpoints |
Effect +{X}% Resist |
Increases your resistance to all elements, lowering damage and decreasing the number of stacks being applied to you |
Effects {X}% Duration |
Reduces the duration of elemental effects on you |
Elec +{X}% Dmg |
Increases electric damage |
Elec +{X}% Effect |
Increases the number of electric stacks that are applied |
Elec +{X}% Resist |
Increases your resistance to a specific element, lowering damage and decreasing the number of stacks being applied to you |
Elemental +{X}% Dmg |
Increases elemental (category) damage ie: Ice, fire, and electric damage |
Elemental +{X}% Resist |
Increases your resistance to elemental (category) damage ie: Ice, fire, and electric damage |
Fire +{X}% Dmg |
Increases fire damage |
Fire +{X}% Effect |
Increases the number of fire stacks that are applied |
Fire +{X}% Resist |
Increases your resistance to a specific element, lowering damage and decreasing the number of stacks being applied to you |
Gear +{X}% Charges |
Increases the number of gear charges |
Gear +{X}% Dmg |
Increases gear damage |
Gear +{X}% Speed |
Speeds up recharge time for gear |
GrenLaun +{X}% Ammo |
Increases the spare ammo of grenade launchers |
GrenLaun +{X}% Dmg |
Increases all weapon damage done by grenade launchers |
Hvy Pistol +{X}% Dmg |
Increases all weapon damage done by heavy pistols |
Ice +{X}% Dmg |
Increases cold damage |
Ice +{X}% Effect |
Increases the number of ice stacks that are applied |
Ice +{X}% Resist |
Increases your resistance to a specific element, lowering damage and decreasing the number of stacks being applied to you |
Impact +{X}% Dmg |
Increases untyped damage to target |
Impact +{X}% Resist |
Increases resistance to untyped damage |
LMG +{X}% Ammo |
Increases the spare ammo of light machine guns |
LMG +{X}% Dmg |
Increases all weapon damage done by light machine guns |
Mch Pistol +{X}% Ammo |
Increases the spare ammo of machine pistols |
Mch Pistol +{X}% Dmg |
Increases all weapon damage done by machine pistols |
Melee +{X}% Dmg |
Increases the damage of melee attacks |
Mks Rifle +{X}% Ammo |
Increases the spare ammo of marksman rifles |
Mks Rifle +{X}% Dmg |
Increases all weapon damage done by marksman rifles |
Overheat {X}% Delay |
Decreases the time between overheating and when your stamina begins to cool |
Physical +{X}% Dmg |
Increases physical (category) damage ie: Acid, physical |
Physical +{X}% Resist |
Increases your resistance to physical (category) damage ie: Acid, kinetic / impact |
Pistol +{X}% Ammo |
Increases the spare ammo of heavy pistols |
Repair +{X}% Amnt |
Increases the amount of health that is gained by picking up a health drop |
Repair +{X}% Drop Rate |
Increases the chance that health drops appear from defeated enemies |
Shield {X}% Delay |
Increases the speed at which your shield recharges |
Shield {X}% Refresh |
Reduces the time between when your shield breaks and when it starts regenerating |
Shield +{X}% Max |
Increases maximum shields |
Shotgun +{X}% Ammo |
Increases the spare ammo of shotguns |
Shotgun +{X}% Dmg |
Increases all weapon damage done by shotguns |
Sniper +{X}% Ammo |
Increases the spare ammo of sniper rifles |
Sniper +{X}% Dmg |
Increases all weapon damage done by sniper rifles |
Supply +{X}% Drop Rate |
Increases the chance that ammo or health drops appear from defeated enemies |
Support +{X}% Luck |
Increases the chances that you will get better loot |
Support +{X}% Speed |
Speeds up recharge time for gear in your support slot |
Thruster +{X}% Speed |
Increases the speed at which your thrusters cool |
Ultimate +{X}% Dmg |
Increases the damage of your ultimate |
Ultimate +{X}% Speed |
Increases the rate at which your ultimate regenerates |
Weap {X}% Recoil Aim |
Decreases recoil while tight-aiming of the weapon |
Weap {X}% Recoil Hip |
Decreases recoil while hip-firing of the weapon |
Weap {X}% Reload Time |
Decreases reload time for a weapon |
Weap +{X}% Aim |
Increases the aim assist on a weapon |
Weap +{X}% Ammo |
Increases the spare ammo of the weapon |
Weap +{X}% Blast Dmg |
Increases the damage of explosive blasts (not impacts). Mislabeled as weapon specific, actually affect gear or weapon. |
Weap +{X}% Clip |
Increases the magazine size of the weapon |
Weap +{X}% Dmg |
Increases overall weapon damage |
Weap +{X}% Fire Rate |
Increases the firing rate of the weapon |
Weap +{X}% Mag Size |
Increases the magazine size of the weapon |
There is a lot to digest here so we will leave it at that for now. In the next week or so, we will follow-up with another post that digs into some of the details even further but hopefully this post has been a good start.
As for what is next up for in-game updates, we are planning on the following:
- Bumping the ranges of some inscription rolls so that players don’t get things like “+1% Dmg”.
- Increasing the inscription pools on a per item basis. Right now we have large pools that are shared, but that means they need to be a tad more generic than we would like.
Not sure yet when we will get these out, but we will follow-up when they are ready.
Thanks for reading!
Chris & Darrin
