Caliban tweak suggestions.

[TheGodofWiFi]

Caliban is a really good frame who has unfortunately been largely forgotten by the community since his rushed release with the New War. After spending some time talking to others about the small but crucial issues present within Caliban's kit that hold him back from breaking into the meta, I think the following small tweaks could help put Caliban in the limelight and make him a frame people like to see in late-game missions.

Firstly, I would buff some of Caliban's base stats;

• Health - 300 at max rank (unchanged)
• Shields -  Change from 525 to 1200 at max rank
• Armor - 275 at max rank (unchanged)
• Power - Change from 187.5 to 300 at max rank.

Caliban is shield based caster frame, but IMO he does not currently have enough shields or energy to help with his survivability later on in late game activities. His shield's should be much much higher IMO and so I've buffed them up to just 300 points below Hildryn and given him a bigger energy pool so he can freely spam his abilities without needing to worry about getting low on energy so frequently.

Now onto his kit itself;

Passive - Adaptive Armor

Right now Caliban's passive gives a flat 50% DR reduction to both Caliban and his allies. The changes I would make to it are;

• Give Caliban himself the full 90% DR.
• Fix it so that it works with Adaptation. Right now putting Adaptation on Caliban just renders his passive pointless as it has a higher value which means the game ignores the 50% DR you get from Adaptive Armor.
• Fix it so that the DR applies even when you haven't taken direct damage. Adaptation allows the resistance buffs to stack even when you haven't taken damage, only from being hit in general.

IMO there was never any logic behind DE deciding not to just give Caliban the full 90% damage reduction in his passive. Other frames can double-stack 90% damage reduction with their abilities and Adaptation, such as Nekros with his Shield of Shadows, Gauss with Kinetic Plating, Gara with Splinter Storm etc etc. Caliban also doesn't have any additional DR abilities in his it so its not like upgrading his passive to 90% DR would be overpowered.

Razor Gyre

This is the ability that everyone agrees is the worst in Caliban's kit. It simply does not do enough damage and the healing it gives you simply isn't worth it when compared to other self-heal abilities. The changes I would make to it are;

• Make Caliban invulnerable while the ability is active.
• Remove the hold-to-increase damage functionality.
• Add enemy damage storage into the ability's damage output. Basically make it a functioning version of Danse Macabre and/or similar to Octavia's Mallet. This would make it a worthwhile scaling ability that people would want to use.

Obviously you still wouldn't be able to pick up/replenish energy whilst the ability is still active otherwise you could technically stay in it all mission, so there needs to be some kind of caveat. The ability drain would also be slightly higher to offset the damage output to make it a kind of panic button that you can use to quickly clear out a room then take a breather, but not use it exclusively throughout the mission. The energy drain is not affected by enemy damage though, it's a flat drain rate that isn't affected by outside factors.

Sentient Wrath

This ability is on the cusp of greatness IMO. It just has a few things holding it back. The changes I would make to this ability are;

• Remove the 16 enemy limit. 
• Increase the travel speed of the AOE wave so that enemies get locked down very quickly once the ability is activated.
• Changed the enemies from being Lifted to simply being frozen in mid-air like how Rhino's Stomp affects enemies, which makes enemies much easier to hit and keep track of.

To be honest, the main problems with this ability is the completely arbitrary enemy limit that is not present in similar abilities in the game and the speed at which it affects enemies. Rhino's Stomp can lock down whole room on its initial cast whereas Sentient Wrath's wave expands much more slowly. If these main issues were addressed, the ability would be great. Lifted enemies are annoying to deal with, but it's mainly the enemy limit and speed of the wave that hold this ability back from what its supposed to be.

Lethal Progeny

Like Atlas, Caliban has the misfortune of summoning melee-only allies to fight alongside him who do not do any kind of damage and have painfully poor AI. The Conculysts are great in terms of being able to survive, but they do not do enough to help Caliban himself as due to being melee-based, they often leave Caliban's side and wander off looking for enemies to fight on their own which leaves Caliban more vulnerable to enemies who now prioritise him over the Sentient summons. The Shield regeneration they provide is also a bit too slow which is especially notable in Steel Path. Honestly, this is the ability I've thought about the most when it comes to changes, since it is the only self-defence/buff ability in his kit. I have a few universal suggestions such as;

• Summing all three Sentients in one cast. No button holding or anything, just a simple one button press and all three get summoned at once, and for the same price as summoning just one.
• Being able to freely refresh the timer similar to Nekros Shadows.
• The shield regeneration rate is increased drastically so as to be worth something in late-game missions. This would synergise well with Adaptive Armor as it gives it a chance to ramp up.
• Summons also continue to provide shields even if they become depleted, which means the only way Caliban runs out of shields is if the player looses concentration and lets the summons die from the timer.

These are the main universal ideas that would apply to all variations of the ability I have in mind. For the other ways I would tweak this ability would be 

1. First idea
   1. Instead of summoning three Conulysts, Caliban summons three Battalysts who do not leave Caliban's side at all and follow him around while he moves. Similar in principle to Sentinels really. That way Caliban never gets out of range of the shield regeneration as the Battalysts never leave his side and they can shoot enemies from afar.
2. Second idea
   1. Keep the Conculysts but remove the shield regeneration range of 25m and just make it so that wherever they are, they are still always recharging Caliban's shields until they die or time-out. This removes the annoyance of having melee-focused summons entirely since they still provide Caliban with survivability even if they aren't in the same room as him. Also make the Conculyst draw much attention/aggression from enemies so that they will prioritise shooting at the summons instead of him even if he happens to be closer. So basically you have to get in an enemy's face for them to prioritise you over the Conculysts, as right now it seems to be the opposite.

These are the two main ways the ability could be changed outside of the universal tweaks suggested beforehand. Both options are good and either one of them would serve Caliban amazingly well. I guess it's just a matter of preference really; do you want melee summons, or gun-based summons? Personally I'd go with gun-based summons, I've always found melee summons to be very annoying even if the shield range is removed as they tend to go off and do their own thing which I really don't like.

Fusion Strike

This ability is great so I don't have much changes for it. The only thing I would do is increase the casting speed and add some more base range to the ability. Right now it feels just a little bit slow to cast and the range is a bit small. Other than that, perfect ability.

So these are my suggested tweaks to Caliban's kit. Now I will happily admit that Caliban is not in dire need of some updates since he functions pretty well as he does right now and frames like Hydroid are in far more desperate need of DE's attention. However, Caliban does need just little more fine-tuning in order to really make him shine and IMO, these tweaks would do that for him.

[Circle_of_Psi]

Great ideas all around!

[TheGodofWiFi]

6 minutes ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

Great ideas all around!

Thanks!

[Mediloric]

Yeah I like these ideas a lot. Would really help him! 

[Tovon]

Instead of three battalysts, I would prefer one conculyst, one battalyst, and one symbolyst for variety and style. Maybe in the form of an augment so that it's optional. Other than that, love the ideas. As a side note, I much prefer rumblers to conculysts, I enjoy watching them chuck boulders and run at high speeds towards enemies. Maybe have lethal progeny speed affected by range similarly to rumblers.

[AegidiusF]

Il y a 1 heure, TheGodofWiFi a dit :

Passive - Adaptive Armor

Right now Caliban's passive gives a flat 50% DR reduction to both Caliban and his allies. The changes I would make to it are;

• Give Caliban himself the full 90% DR.
• Fix it so that it works with Adaptation. Right now putting Adaptation on Caliban just renders his passive pointless as it has a higher value which means the game ignores the 50% DR you get from Adaptive Armor.
• Fix it so that the DR applies even when you haven't taken direct damage. Adaptation allows the resistance buffs to stack even when you haven't taken damage, only from being hit in general.

IMO there was never any logic behind DE deciding not to just give Caliban the full 90% damage reduction in his passive. Other frames can double-stack 90% damage reduction with their abilities and Adaptation, such as Nekros with his Shield of Shadows, Gauss with Kinetic Plating, Gara with Splinter Storm etc etc. Caliban also doesn't have any additional DR abilities in his it so its not like upgrading his passive to 90% DR would be overpowered.

I totally agree with this. 50% DR isn't enough, so you'll need Adaptation in your build anyway, but this makes the passive useless for you (and for your squad mates that are also using Adaptation). At least, if the current passive (50% DR) could stack with Adaptation, it would be nice and much better.

Il y a 1 heure, TheGodofWiFi a dit :

• Health - 300 at max rank (unchanged)
• Shields -  Change from 525 to 1200 at max rank
• Armor - 275 at max rank (unchanged)
• Power - Change from 125 to 185 at max rank.

For the shields : perhaps you should make a distinction between base shields and rank bonus shields, because Mods (like Redirection) will apply to base shields and stack additively with rank bonus shields. Caliban's base shields are only of 175 (525 only on level 30 due to rank bonus shields, that are not affected by mods). So, on the 1200 shields you want for Caliban, what's the amount of base shields and what's the amount of rank bonus shields composing it ?

Also, Caliban already has 187.5 energy points at max rank. 125 energy points is Caliban's base energy level (the amount affected by mods).

[TheGodofWiFi]

1 hour ago, Tovon said:

Instead of three battalysts, I would prefer one conculyst, one battalyst, and one symbolyst for variety and style. Maybe in the form of an augment so that it's optional. Other than that, love the ideas.

Good idea definitely. I have seen some people suggest that Lethal Progeny should be a rotation ability where you get the choice of three different Sentients to spawn. That could work but I feel like it might be unnecessary since Caliban would only need some tweaks and this would be a bit more than that. Good foundation for an augment though.

1 hour ago, (NSW)AegisFifi said:

I totally agree with this. 50% DR isn't enough, so you'll need Adaptation in your build anyway, but this makes the passive useless for you (and for your squad mates that are also using Adaptation). At least, if the current passive (50% DR) could stack with Adaptation, it would be nice and much better.

For the shields : perhaps you should make a distinction between base shields and rank bonus shields, because Mods (like Redirection) will apply to base shields and stack additively with rank bonus shields. Caliban's base shields are only of 175 (525 only on level 30 due to rank bonus shields, that are not affected by mods). So, on the 1200 shields you want for Caliban, what's the amount of base shields and what's the amount of rank bonus shields composing it ?

Also, Caliban already has 187.5 energy points at max rank. 125 energy points is Caliban's base energy level (the amount affected by mods).

Yea 50% just isn't enough. Even if it did stack with Adaptation it just wouldn't be as good as enemies that can have two 90% DR going at the same time. DE should just tweak the number up to 90% and make it stack with the mod, that way Caliban can be on par with other frames who have that capability.

Hmm good point on the shields. Since Hildryn's base shields are 450, I would say his base shields would be raised to say maybe 300, with each rank bonus giving 150 shields which will end at 900 extra shield on top of the base to give 1200. 

Just double checked the wiki and you are indeed correct on the energy, I read it wrong my bad. Edited the the post so it now states that Caliban's energy pool would increase to 300 at max rank to put him alongside other frames like Wisp and Baruuk.