Finally, an augment! Razor Mortar is working very well so far in my testing!

Introduction

Caliban is an oft-forgotten and frequently misunderstood frame. This is the build I use with him and it's been serving me very well for pretty much all content. In this guide I'll go over the details of all his abilities and some alternatives to make him suit your playstyle.

Keep in mind for this frame: a lot of people try to build for nuking with Fusion Strike, but that's ultimately not a great idea, especially at higher level play. The ability just doesn't do enough damage, even when Conculysts mirror it. It's still a fantastic ability since it fully and permanently strips defenses and leaves a field behind that affects enemies that move into it, but it won't be what you're using for damage.

The gameplay loop for playing this build looks something like this:

• Keep Ortholysts summoned at all times
• Find a group of enemies
• Use Razor Gyre to group them up and buff your Ortholysts
• If the grouped enemies don't die fast enough, use Fusion Strike to strip defenses, or Sentient Wrath to increase their vulnerability.

Tau Damage

Tau damage is a brand new type of damage introduced with Caliban's rework. It is damage-neutral on all health types, so it will never deal additional or reduced damage against particular enemies, similar to Void damage. Tau status inflicts status vulnerability at 10% per stack, with a cap of 100% at 10 stacks.

Warframes can gain Tau resistance by equipping Umbral mods, but this doesn't affect damage to enemies.

Abilities

Passive

[Caliban] and all allies in affinity range gain stacking damage resistance against the same type that hit them. This functions similarly to [Adaptation] and does not stack with the mod, instead using whichever modifier is higher. The damage resistance starts gradually decaying after 5 seconds. Status effect damage over time will not build stacks (such as slash/toxin/heat procs).

This passive is more of a nice-to-have that gives additional EHP and survivability. 50% damage resistance isn't all that much compared to other options. It can be helpful for teammates that don't bring along [Adaptation] too.

Razor [Gyre]

Here's the first big part of [Caliban]'s rework. This ability went from a free Helminth slot to a solid tool in [Caliban]'s kit. Caliban spins and dashes forward, dealing Tau damage to enemies hit.

Razor Gyre additionally provides the following:

• A 25% status chance to inflict Tau status
• A 25% refund of the energy cost per enemy hit
• Double damage to enemies Lifted by Sentient Wrath (not including the damage vulnerability from Sentient Wrath)
• Health and shield restoration per enemy hit

The damage from this ability falls off very quickly at high levels, but the real winning part from it is the health, shield, and energy restoration on hit. With these, it functions very similarly to Pillage: press the button and your shields fully come back. This opens up a ton of options for modding making survivability is much less of a key concern for [Caliban].

Sentient Wrath

[Caliban] stomps the ground and causes a shockwave to spread out in all directions. The shockwave seeks out enemies (to a maximum affected cap) and Lifts them up in to the air, also providing damage vulnerability. Of note, you can't recast the ability until either if affects at least one enemy, or the shockwaves spread to their maximum distance.

This ability provides hard CC, a damage amp, and Tau damage, making it quite versatile. It benefits from Strength to increase the damage vulnerability amount, which hits 100% effectiveness (i.e. doubling your damage) with 287% Ability Strength. It's very useful to get some breathing room when lots of enemies are nearby. The damage amp is also quite handy but is honestly overkill a lot of the time.

Lethal Progeny

With his rework, [Caliban] also gained a couple new sentient friends to summon! You can cycle through the three types of summons, then cast the one you like and you'll get the full cadre in one cast (3 Conculyst/Ortholyst or 1 Summulyst). Summoned allies have a Rank based on Ability Strength, and work the same way that standard enemies scale with Rank, along with an additional multiplier to Damage and Health, also based on Ability Strength. All of the types of summons also provide shield regeneration for Caliban and allies within range.

There's a lot of stuff going on with this ability, so let's piece it together.

• Only one type of summon can be active at a time. Summoning a second type of sentient replaces the previous one.
• The final Rank of the summons is based on Caliban's Rank multiplied by his Ability Strength.
• The Damage and Health modifiers apply after Rank scaling.
• The AI for summons behaves very similarly to typical sentient enemies.
• Shield [Regen] provided by summons does not work immediately after taking damage, but can be resumed once natural shield regeneration starts. This can be accelerated by using an effect to restore shields, such as Brief Respite or Razor Gyre.
• Shield regen requires Line of Sight to function on a warframe
• Summons have adaptive Damage Resistance, the same as enemy sentients would.
• Passing through a nullifier field does not dispel the summons, but deals a percentage amount of their health in damage and staggers them.

The summons behave differently based on their types:

Conculysts

• Use a whirlwind ability that deals damage in melee range
• The duration and cooldown of the [Whirlwind] are not affected by warframe stats, and will always be 6s and 10s respectively. So there will be about 4 seconds of downtime between uses.

Ortholyst

• Fire two different types of ranged attacks that inflict Tau damage and status
• Cannons have a 100% Tau status chance
• Mortars have a 300% Tau status chance

Summulyst

• Continuously summons Choralysts up to a maximum of 6
• Choralysts have an extremely high Threat level, making enemies prioritize them as targets
• Destroyed Choralysts are immediately replaced by the Summulyst if it's still alive
• Both the Summulyst and Choralysts have improved shield regeneration compared to the other summons

The different functions of the summons provide [Caliban] with a lot of flexibility in playstyle. In most cases you'll probably build for one type of summon to primarily use, but switching between them is a viable tactic if your situation demands it.

Fusion Strike

[Caliban] shoots 3 beams of energy that converge on your targeting reticle and cause an explosion. This creates a field that lingers and strips defenses off enemies that enter the field. Additional casts create additional fields that linger for the duration. Any enemies hit by the beams detonate and take additional damage when the ability finishes casting. The ability deals Tau damage with a 20% status chance from the beams.

If you have any summoned Conculysts, they will also cast Fusion Strike at 0.5x damage.

This remains a core part of [Caliban]'s kit after the rework. The damage is increased but still not useful as a primary nuking ability at high levels. However, the defense strip it provides is one of the best, leaving a large-range lingering area of effect that instantly strips armor and shields permanently for any enemies that enter it. The base effect is 50%, which means we only need 200% Ability Strength to fully strip in one cast. The biggest downside is a long casting time, which we'll want to mitigate through mod flex slots (using Natural Talent), or, preferably, through amber Archon shards.

Stats

• Strength: The key stat we'll want to focus on, as it improves all of [Caliban]'s abilities in meaningful ways. You'll want to target at least 200% for this to achieve full defense strip with Fusion Strike. You can push this as much as you like to increase the amount of damage your Summons do.
• Range: Since [Caliban]'s energy economy was vastly improved in his rework (no need to cast Lethal Progeny three times, and Razor Gyre is typically free or even energy positive), we can focus less on Duration and make Range our new secondary stat.
• Duration: Duration isn't a strictly necessary stat, but more is generally better. With it you'll have to recast Lethal Progeny less often, and enemies will stay Lifted for longer with Sentient Wrath.
• Efficiency: Realistically we'll only be truly spamming Razor [Gyre], and it has its full cost refunded if you hit at least 4 enemies with it. So Efficiency is mostly a matter of personal taste and comfort.

Mod explanations and alternates

In this build

This build uses components that attempt to capitalize on the Razor Mortar augment, setting up a big pile of enemies so your Ortholysts can rain hell.

• Summoner's Wrath: Increases the damage for your summons even further. This is a flexible slot if you feel like you don't need it. It's worth noting this is the same type of damage amp a Roar (i.e. a final multiplier), so it's a pretty significant damage buff.
• Primed Sure Footed: It's here for the same reason it's in any other build: a helpful quality-of-life mod that prevents you from getting one-shot while knocked down or staggered. If you don't have it, the build functions the same, but you open up some vulnerability. Consider an alternate source of knockdown resistance, such as a Wyrm sentinel, if you replace this.
• [Primed Redirection]: Significantly increases our stock of shields so that Razor [Gyre] has a bigger tank to refill, and it often will with overshields to spare on a single cast. With this mod alone, the shield gate is at 2.5 seconds, which is plenty to work with.
• [Archon Stretch]: You want some range to be able to zoop up more enemies. Archon Stretch is a natural fit, with the additional energy regen from your Ortholysts' Electric attacks.
• Transient Fortitude: More Strength. The downside is worth it.
• Primed Flow: Since Razor Gyre restores a good chunk of energy, it's useful to have an extra large energy pool.
• [Blind Rage]: Strength is important, and negative efficiency isn't a large handicap for the build since we're spamming Razor Gyre a lot and getting a lot of energy refunded.
• [Primed Continuity]: All of the abilities in this build benefit from more Duration. Regular [Continuity] is fine as well. The penalty from Narrow Minded is too harsh to be a suitable replacement, since you want a moderate amount of Range.
• [Razor Mortar]: The new GOAT. Lets Razor Gyre group up enemies into a ball, and provides big damage and attack speed buffs to your Ortholysts.
• [Umbral Intensify]: It's definitely not necessary to use this, but the extra bit of strength helps. Regular intensify is fine too.

Other mods to consider

• Growing Power: Another alternate source of Strength.
• Natural Talent: If you don't have (or want) amber shards on Caliban, this is huge quality of life.
• [Rolling Guard]: The invulnerability time from this is mostly overkill considering how well Caliban can survive off of Razor Gyre, but the status cleanse can be helpful.
• Augur Reach: Extra Range is helpful, but not enough of a priority to make this a must-take.

Not recommended
I don't recommend using health mods such as (Umbral) [Vitality] alongside armor increases for defense. [Caliban]'s passive isn't strong enough to make him a true health tank on his own, and since it doesn't stack with [Adaptation] you lose the (personal) passive benefit entirely if it's equipped. The investment required to get his armor high enough to health tank isn't really worth it either. It's a much lighter investment to shield tank with a long gate time.

Arcanes

1. Arcane Camisado: Not strictly better than Molt Augmented but it's close. The bonus is better (since it includes 20% summon speed) but it takes a nonzero amount of effort to keep up. Since you should always have summons out, it's thankfully not a hard thing to do.
2. Arcane Augmented: You don't really need an arcane for energy management, so the extra strength just helps boost your summons.

Other considerations

• Arcane Aegis allows for further shield gating shenanigans, and helps your summons start restoring shields faster after you hit gating.
• Arcane Steadfast will trigger fairly often since this build casts Razor Gyre very often.
• Arcane Energize fills a similar role to Steadfast, but is less effective since you're often fully refilling your energy off Razor Gyre.
• Arcane Barrier is a less-reliable version of Aegis. It's most useful when taking many instances of light damage (such as from automatic fire weapons).
• Arcane Blessing can help with survivability if you're having trouble maintaining shield gating.

Helminth

You can use this build effectively without touching the Helminth, but it does give you some additional options.

Ability Subsuming

Since Razor [Gyre] is the lynchpin of this build, either Sentient Wrath or Fusion Strike are probably the ability of choice to subsume out. I wouldn't recommend subsuming anything until you get a chance to mess around with his abilities a bit and find your playstyle. Here are a few options you can explore for the slot:

• Sickening Pulse: Since this build is status focused, you can help spread the procs even more with this ability.
• Nourish: Lets your summons apply Viral status, and increases their damage even further. Giving the effect to your companion and squadmates is just icing on the cake. The increased energy restore is also useful, but the energy economy on this build is good enough that it's not critical.
• Condemn: Additional CC and shield restore. The shield restore is redundant with Razor Gyre, but the CC is a good alternative to Sentient Wrath.
• Roar, Eclipse: The old standbys. Bring if you want even more damage.
• Empower: If you want to focus on gainsmaxxing your summons, this along with shifting around some mods for additional Strength can get their Rank into the 140+ range. It can be amusing but I find it's not worth the additional setup.
• Breach Surge: If you want to turn Caliban into a nuker, this is probably the most effective way to do it.
• Smite, Reave: The damage vulnerability in Caliban's kit make these an option to spam for percentage health damage to enemies. It's a very one-trick build but can be fun.

Shards

There's a decent amount of flexibility on shards with [Caliban], though if you're not running [Natural Talent] you're going to want to use two amber casting speed shards. Otherwise there aren't really any required shards to implant. Here are some options for any free slots you have left:

• Ability Strength (Crimson): More strength scales abilities. If you're struggling to kill enemies, this is a consideration.
• Ability Duration (Crimson): Not having to recast abilities as often helps with energy economy.
• Maximum energy on spawn (Amber): Makes it so you can start off missions with summons ready to go.
• Parkour Velocity (Amber): Helpful for moving around faster.
• Maximum Energy (Azure): If you swap out (Primed) [Flow], this becomes a necessity to avoid wasting excess energy refunds.

Loadout

Any weapon that can capitalize on the Tau status you're giving out incidentally will work great. Most status-based weapons will do just fine.

For your companion, use it to shore up whatever difficulties you're experiencing.

• Kavats have some helpful unique buffs, and increase pickups with Loyal Retriever.
• Hounds provide fantastic amounts of damage and some utility with Audit mods.
• Any robotic companion with a Tazicor/Verglas brings good utility, either by being a primer or heavy soft CC with Shivering Contagion.
• [Wyrm] can provide (limited) status immunity

Conclusion

Razor [Gyre] is a great mod to build around. It brings more strength back to [Caliban]'s kit rather than relying on him as strictly a weapons platform.