I think 5 was the reference normalized cap, but the actual hardcap is 10. If you were to use Amalgam Furax and Lethal Torrent and not Semi Cannonade, you’d overcap.

Amazing. You can now fish for Chamber Cascade 13.4% faster!

I didn’t know about the cosmetic items before your post! Excited for the syandana.

Good catch! The Mutalists in question are limited to specific mission types, so I just totally missed that. In my experience the Charger projectile tends to be fairly limited, as it doesn’t always seem to be able to reach even if you trigger the behaviour by breaking their pathing to you.

Secondary Encumber for your arcane is the big one. Then I usually just use Primed Heated Charge so it can do some basic heat inherit priming.

When I started again on Switch, Lavos carried me through whatever I couldn’t do on Zephyr. He’s got a little bit of everything a new player needs: good survivability, bypasses energy economy, extremely high damage potential, decent CC. He remains good in non-scaling Steel Path too, although you’ll have a much smoother time using more specialised or versatile frames.

Ironically, as enemies scale in damage, Lavos transitions to a glass cannon, but what a glass cannon he is! Secondary Encumber heat primers like Hystrix, Epitaph, or Incarnon Furis can push Catalyze into the millions of damage per tick.

Catalyze also has some nice options for primers nowadays. Previously you were stuck with Cedo, which somewhat limited your maximum damage range to a mostly frontal range, but Melee Influence means that a primer Xoris can easily spread Electric, Radiation and your choice of a secondary element in a wide area, although I would recommend still using a Furis, Epitaph or Cedo for focused intensive priming on hard targets.

Valence Formation is an incredible augment. Being able to extend his priming capabilities with another secondary element, or force Heat when it comes time to dump damage into a target, is incredibly powerful.

Overall, I’d say Lavos is easy to play, easy to build, and welcoming to new players. He has some of the highest damage potential in the game, and can take a beating. He has scaling issues on higher level content, but by that very late stage you should have options available to you.

It also cancels all forms of scorpion wires, meaning Infested become a melee-only faction aside from non-scaling MOA goop and flies. I always keep a Silence helminth loadout handy on any frame I regularly fight the Infested with.

Here’s one: today I rediscovered that Nyx can mind control Acolytes, but I’m not sure if it bugs their damage reduction in the same way that Revenant’s Enthrall does.

Valence Formation kinda busted though.

ye, from the Gauss Prime trailer

That makes sense! I imagine it’s also why Mag is the most-used debuffer/CC frame by a long shot, since she has very straightforward survivability tools.

Caliban in general is really strong any time he gets to camp, namely conditions that can let his damage buffing shine and let him manage his ridiculous energy economy needs.

The difference in reception between Caliban and Xaku despite their similarities really does my head in. Excited for the rework though!

Good catch on Ash! Although Nyx also rips off shields in the few cases where shields are a significant health sink.

And Gauss! I guess pop culture has decided that there is Only One Speedster.

Nyx is one of my main frames because of how flexible and complete she is. If I’m doing Incursions or a lich hunt, Nyx is my easy lazy pick.

Psychic Bolts is unique amongst fullstrip abilities because it’s one-handed, so you can stay mobile on linear mission types, and Pacifying Bolts provides a very long stun on non-combat mission types like Captures. It also has extremely low power requirements which can be met with shards alone, so I have my Nyx built just for Range and Duration, and one of my Arcanes goes towards Arcane Consequence so I can get through linear missions faster.

CC is useful if an objective defense comes up, since nuke frames can’t always keep up. And unlike Loki, she brings a native fullstrip at the cost of very slightly less taunt power.

Absorb is in a weird place as I think it’s optional now that helminth exists. Chaos (+/- Chaos Sphere) and Condemn handles all my survivability needs. I only use it on my lich hunting loadout in case I get an early lich.

Mind Control is my only huge disappointment. Overguard kind of spoiled the fun of stealing eximus abilities for yourself, especiall Heat and Energy Leech eximus. I barely use Mind Control anymore, although it does have nice non-eximus targets still.

I would also love to see the (now broken?) Psychic Bolts function of removing infested auras expand to removing all Eximus abilities and doing so through Overguard.

I need the Eleanor Gemini skin emote yesterday. I’m glad Trinity and Nyx are getting looked at: Trinity because she’s kind of awful to play, Nyx because I thought she was already in a mostly good place and I’m eager to see what they do. “Light Rework” makes me think changes like the target cap on Psychic Bolts or changes to Mind Control (maybe have it work through Overguard?) or the energy consumption on Absorb.

December is going to be a long way away.

I’m also super excited to see what sort of Infested-themed weapons get updated. I had a bout of madness and went back and reviewed most of the old Bio Labs weapons, and there are some diamonds in the rough in there, notably Hema, Pox and Embolist. And of course an update to the Infested wing of the Entrati weapons, like Arum Spinosa and Sporothrix. Be interesting to see if they update some of the existing “secret boss” low-usage high-power weapons like Sporothrix and Catabolyst too.

It didn’t land well when it released, but a weapon with massive 360 degree sweeps is already really interesting. I recommend trying Kullervo’s Wrathful Advance with it so you can place those giant heavy attacks.

Vampiric Grasp doesn’t have unlimited scaling, but it does have very good scaling on Health Conversion builds, if you want a good tanky Xaku.

can’t wait for Domicile Detainment '99

I’d actually put him around about an “Equinox if she was a functional character”. Similar problems that make him unappealing unless you already like the frame or the concept too: he mashes together a whole lot of absolutely everything, but diminished with a “hybrid tax”. Other frames can do one or two things that Caliban does, and do it more effectively, but only Caliban does all of those things at once. I’d say it doesn’t help that he’s neglected and has a pretty bad bug too; currently Sentient Wrath is not applying properly through Overguard.

As an active Caliban player and having labbed him extensively recently, I’d say he has a lot more going for him:

The mini-Adaptation is only 1/5th as effective as the real thing, but it’s free and opens up a mod slot. It’s also twice as good as no Adaptation at all while you ease into the Arbitration farm!

With Arcane Aegis (and potentially Barrier on top), the mini-Adaptation shines with the Lethal Progeny to make him exceedingly durable. I tried a build with no defensive modding outside of Aegis/Barrier and pushed into the mid 200s on SP Conjunction Survival, which is more than my health conversion builds can do.

He has a good crowd control and personal defense kit with every single ability providing some kind of CC, including a moderate taunt from his Progeny.

Fusion Strike isn’t just full defense removal, it’s a large and persistent hazard that can be placed three times, so you can place it over potentially multiple choke points and fullstrip enemies as they come to you or an objective.

He definitely needs some augments and a bugfix pass though.

(I should say I love Equinox too, and mainly play Nightquinox, but DE has mistreated that poor frame so badly and half her kit is just inadequate nowadays.)