Updates

1.2 - added math note about Theorem Infection vs More Ability Strength (see the Maximizing Summon Damage section); added note on On-Call Crew w/ Kitguns
1.1 - dropped Overextended, added Augur Secrets. Range 250 -> 160, Strength 209/269 -> 293/353. Added note about Violet Archon Shards

Introduction

This is a [Caliban] build designed to maximize the Ortholysts' damage via the [Razor Mortar] augment through various means, while also maintaining Caliban's core utility of widespread armor stripping, Tau status, and damage vulnerability

Mods

• Summoner's Wrath gives our summons a +75% faction damage bonus similar to Roar, which means it double dips on the [Razor Mortar] electricity status damage. This boost is invaluable when we're looking to boost our Ortholysts' damage. Remember you can swap the polarities with the aura slot now to easily have access to this after 1 forma.
• [Razor Mortar] is the crux of this build, grouping enemies with your Razor Gyre, while also forcing your Ortholysts to target and damage the grouped enemies, while receiving a juicy damage buff.
• [Primed Redirection] raises our maximum shields to just over 2000, allowing for overshields up to 3200. Combined with [Caliban]'s fully stacked passive, that's theoretically around 6400 EHP of shields, which can be restored very easily with either the summons or Razor Gyre.
• [Blind Rage] heavily increases our strength, which buffs our Ortholysts' damgage threefold: through the damage vulnerability on Sentient Wrath, the electric buff on [Razor Mortar], and buffing the summons' level. The negative efficiency is not as bad as it seems, since Razor [Gyre] refunds energy based on how much was spent on the ability, giving us much more energy back if we hit more than 4 enemies.
• Archon Stretch is a required range increase, as well as some extra energy sustain when the buffed Ortholysts damage an enemy.
• [Primed Flow] gives us a larger buffer of energy to cast some of our big abilities a few times before resorting to spinning around to restore
• [Primed Continuity] keeps our duration positive when running [Transient Fortitude]. Generally higher duration is good so you don't need to recast as often, but Caliban's base durations are pretty good already
• [Cunning Drift] gives us a bit more ability range in the exilus slot, as well as a tiny mobility boost. Flexible for whatever exilus you want
• [Overextended] gives us a boatload more range, at a heavy cost to our strength. In my experience, the only abilities that need this much extra range are Razor [Gyre] and the fallout zones from Fusion Strike. Everything else operates fine at 145% or 160% range, so this is optional IMO.
• [Transient Fortitude] helps make up the strength loss from [Overextended] if it's being used so we can stay around 200% strength for full armor strip from Fusion Strike. Without Overextended, this just serves as more strength to triple-boost our Ortholysts' damage

If you aren't running Overextended + Transient Fortitude, you have two free slots on this build that can be filled with any of the following:

• [Adaptation] doesn't stack with Caliban's passive, but is strictly better than it, so it's definitely worth slotting in to raise your EHP even further
• Augur Message / Augur Reach / [Augur Secrets] can give you a bit more duration, range, or strength respectively, while also supplementing your shield restoration, and are cheap to slot
• Energy Nexus / [Equilibrium] can supplement your energy generation if the enemy density isn't high enough for Razor Gyre's refund mechanic to get value
• [Natural Talent] can speed up your casts if you don't have access to many Amber Archon shards. Can still be valuable alongside them since Fusion Strike is so slow to cast
• Any Intensify variant (Standard, Umbral, Archon, not Precision) can give us more strength to fuel our ability damage
• Any future augments that [Caliban] may get would likely be good to slot here as well, or any augments from a Helminth ability, if you choose to do so

Arcanes

• Arcane Camisado gives our summons a bit more movement speed, while also boosting our ability strength when they whack stuff. I don't like relying on the strength from this to hit the armor strip breakpoint personally, but you can technically lose some strength from the build if you want to keep stacking this up before Fusion Striking
• Theorem Infection is the single largest boost we can give to our summons' damage, a maximum of a 360% damage buff, which multiplies with Summoner's Wrath and our power strength, at the cost of being insanely clunky to use. It requires that you run a kitgun in either your primary or secondary slot with a Residual Arcane, which makes this not a reliable option for Archimedea or Duviri content. You also need to pretty consistently get kills with said kitgun to keep this buff active, so I completely understand if you don't want to do this. However, this is still one of the largest boosts we can give our summons, so I'd highly recommend giving this a try.
• Molt Efficiency is another solid option for [Caliban], since more duration helps him keep all his abilities up longer, and he has no trouble keeping up his shields thanks to summons and Razor Gyre
• Molt Augmented can give [Caliban] a substantial strength boost as well, which is always useful.

If you are looking to use this build into Archimedea level content, I'd highly recommend putting Arcane Aegis in the Theorem slot, as the extra emergency sustain is usually needed in higher levels. Look to possibly slot [Fast Deflection] as well if doing this to help you out in a pinch.

Helminth

I don't think there's any ability worth helminthing over in [Caliban]'s reworked kit, as each ability provides important value to his damage. The only slot I'd consider doing something with is replacing Fusion Strike with a different armor strip ability, or a non-stripping ability if the enemies have no armor, like Techrot/Corpus/Infested. The sustain, grouping, and summon-buffing from Razor [Gyre], the damage vulnerability and CC from Sentient Wrath, and the summons are all too valuable to give up IMO.
If you want to though, here's some potentially helpful options to consider.

• Roar is additive to Summoner's Wrath, but is still another boost to your summons' damage
• Pillage is an alternative armor strip that also restores your shields
• Nourish can be used to buff your summons with Viral damage, as well as viral AOEs when they are damages. Works best with the Summulyst, if they ever add an augment to make that one better.
• Eclipse with the [Total Eclipse] augment is a base damage buff for your summons, which I think is additive with Theorem Infection. You can also turn it into a damage reduction buff if need be.

Archon Shards

[Caliban] gets a lot of value out of casting speed, since Fusion Strike has a long cast time. I'd recommend always running at least 2 tau amber casting speed shards
With [Overextended], we are usually just under the 200% strength full armor strip threshold, so 1 tau crimson ability strength shard patches that up
The other 2 slots are flexible. I personally use 1 tau crimson ability duration + 1 tau amber starting energy, but you can use something else to suit your preferences.
Note: Ability Damage archon shards DO NOT seem to work on the summons' damage as of current patch. I don't know if this is intended behavior, but if this ever changes, then 3 tau violet shards for ability damage on electric would be best in slot

Maximizing Summon Damage

Your ability strength factors into the damage of your Ortholyst summons in a lot of different ways. Four different ways, to be exact, five if you count fire rate. Those factors are:

• Level of summons increases damage by 1+0.015x(30x(strength)−1)^1.55
• Lethal Progeny further scales summon damage by 2.5 x strength
• Razor Mortar gives our summons an electric buff, which, as an elemental buff, is a multiplier of 1+(0.7 x strength)
• Sentient Wrath's damage vulnerability is another multiplier of 1+(0.35 x strength)
• Razor Mortar also boost fire rate by the same factor, 1+(0.7 x strength). However, our goal is to one-shot, so I'm not considering this

So naturally, we want to make our ability strength as high as possible without sacrificing our other stats. However, Theorem Infection makes this tricky, as when fully stacked, it is an independent 3.6x multiplier to our summons' damage. After some complex calculation, the breakpoint where Theorem Infection becomes better than a 60% strength arcane in the same slot is at a mere 120% ability strength (before the extra 60% from the arcane). Any value higher than that, Theorem Infection's new multiplier is strictly better if you can keep it active.

With this build as it is, sitting at 353% strength with a stacked Arcane Camisado and Theorem Infection, our summon damage is multiplied by 5260x, compared to a 413% strength setup without Theorem Infection, which has a multiplier of 2652x. Factoring in fire rate, the multipliers are 18257x and 10319x respectively

There is absolutely justification to not use Theorem Infection because it is clunky to use, but the boost in damage from it is strictly better than more strength at all relevant strength values, so if you're looking to maximize, I'd recommend giving Theorem Infection a try.

Helminth abilities will make this much more complicated, as they all factor in strength differently, and might multiply or add with certain things. Like nourish, as an elemental buff, adds to the electric buff from [Razor Mortar]. While Roar would normally be a separate multiplier, it is additive with Summoner's Wrath, so its effect is a bit diminished. Eclipse with its [Total Eclipse] Augment might be additive to Theorem Infection, as I believe these are both base damage buffs, but I have yet to test this. I encourage you to do your own research/math on whatever buffing Helminth ability you are using

Loadout

If you are looking to maximize your Ortholysts' damage, you're going to need a kitgun, specifically one that can kill a lot of enemies quickly to roll that 20% residual arcane chance.
My recommendation is a secondary [Sporelacer] with Haymaker and Splat, for maximum AOE damage per shot. A primary Tombfinger with Tremor and Splat can also serve this purpose. Mod either for +AOE with viral/electric
Out of the residual arcanes, I'd recommend you use Residual Shock, since it has the easiest pool to see with its giant spire. But any of them can work tbh, the element doesn't matter for what we're doing

Technically, you can further optimize your Theorem procs by putting a kitgun with a Residual arcane on your On-Call Crew. It can be the same Residual Arcane, or a different one, just so long as the crew member can actually get kills with it, that will be even more zones to charge up Theorem Infection

For your other ranged weapon, I'd recommend some kind of precision weapon, to counteract the violent AOE of your kitgun. Lifting enemies with Sentient Wrath also makes them easy targets for any precision gun. I personally like using a Burston Prime incarnon, modded for Acuity w/ Blast, but there are plenty of other precision weapons that will work just as well. [Caliban Prime]'s new signature sniper, the [Vadarya Prime], could be a good option for this, and was likely designed as such.

Your melee can be anything in all honesty. Technically the [Coda Pathocyst] has the best thematic synergy with this kit, since it provides even more summons. (and also I'm not sure but the maggots spawned by it might benefit from our summon damage buffs. if anyone knows for sure lmk in the comments) Realistically, any melee with Melee Influence will appreciate all the Tau status being thrown around for more guaranteed procs.

Your companion can be anything that either does a lot of damage on its own, or primes for you. Your companion will be getting all the buffs we're giving to our summons, so they might end up doing more than you expect. I personally run a Hound for priming, since Synergizied Prospectus can proc [Archon Stretch] for us, and it has respectable damage. However, if you want a damaging companion, a [Vasca Kavat] or any sentinel with the [Verglas Prime] can do a good job too.

For focus school, I'd recommend Zenurik if you don't have any other energy sustain mods in your build. Being caught with your pants down with no energy to cast Razor [Gyre] is a rough feeling, so your focus abilities can help in those moments. Otherwise, if you have enough to cast Razor [Gyre], you should be able to cascade your energy back up. If you're confident you won't need to rely on this, then Madurai for operator damage, or Vazarin for more affinity range for your passive are other good options.

Playstyle

Your general ability [Flow] should be as follows:

1. Keep your Ortholysts summoned at all times through Lethal Progeny. Wait a bit before casting anything else to get Arcane Camisado stacked up
2. Cast Sentient Wrath on a crowd to apply damage vulnerability and Tau status
3. Cast Fusion Strike on the lifted crowd to strip their armor (if they have any) and apply more Tau status
4. Use Razor [Gyre] to spin into the crowd to group them up, restore your energy, and let your Ortholysts go to town

Alternatively, you can swap the order of abilities around to cast Sentient Wrath after Razor [Gyre] onto the pile of enemies, as there's barely enough time to apply the vulnerability before the Ortholysts blast away.

Between full ability rotations, look to kill some lifted & stripped enemies with your kitgun to get your Theorem buff going, and you'll be feeling good. The Ortholysts should be doing damage in the millions if you have everything stacked up.