  We examine a wide class of multi-field inflationary models based on fields
that decay or stabilize during inflation in a staggered fashion. The fields
driving assisted inflation are on flat, short stretches, before they encounter
a sharp drop; whenever a field encounters such a drop due to its slow roll
evolution, its energy is transferred to other degrees of freedom, i.e.
radiation. The rate at which fields decay is determined dynamically and it is
not a free parameter in this class of models. To compute observables, we
generalize the analytic framework of staggered inflation, allowing for more
general initial conditions and varying potentials. By searching for generic
situations arising on the landscape, we arrive at a setup involving linear or
hilltop potentials and evenly spread out initial field values. This scenario is
not more fine tuned than large-field models, despite the fact that many more
degrees of freedom are involved. Further, the $\eta$-problem can be alleviated.
  The additional decrease of the potential energy caused by the decay of fields
provides leading order contribution to observables, such as the scalar and
tensor spectral index or the tensor to scalar ratio, for which we derive
general expressions. We compare the predictions with WMAP5 constraints and find
that hilltop potentials are borderline ruled out at the $2\sigma$-level, while
linear potentials are in excellent agreement with observations. We further
comment on additional sources of gravitational waves and non-Gaussianities that
could serve as a smoking gun for staggered inflation.
