I feel Caliban Deserves a chance at a rework to make him a better frame.

[Terezmo]

He is a frame I been using lately and I think there is some potential buffs to his kit that could make him much more viable. His three should summon up to 4 sentients and be able to use different sentient types( such as symbilysts to defend you from incoming damage like how volt electric shields work, ortholyst to snipe enemies from a distant, while retaining the standard sentient allies he usually summons and etc..) this would allow Caliban's summoning game to be a lot stronger and better control the battlefield. His 4th can remain the same as its a good ability that does decent damage and applies immediate armor strip the those directly hit and leaves an aura around the area of the blast that effects others. His 2nd ability, which is an OK crowd control that lifts enemies and allows you to deal more damage to them, could add a property to it that also disrupts shields which can be useful against corpus enemies. Then there's his first ability that just sucks overall, spinning like a beyblade applying slash damage overtime, i'm not entirely sure what this could be changed to , but it could some ability that he channels into energy the longer you hold it. When released, it summons a massive light pillar, similar to the second eidolon's attack, that burns enemies within them. Finally, just make his passive the full adaptation effect at 90% instead of 50%, so it wont conflict with those with adaptation on. I feel these changes would make caliban a much better warframe instead of forgotten.

[Neo3602]

Agreed, Caliban could use some changes. Whats sad is that he didn't get any post launch changes like most frames do and was just forgotten. One thing I think they should also change about his 3rd is make it so that the shield regen he gets from his summons is constant instead of stopping when he loses his shields. This would really help him survive and IMO is pretty compariable to whisps 1st ability what gives constant health regen so I don't think it would be op at all.

[KitMeHarder]

1 hour ago, Neo3602 said:

so I don't think it would be op at all.

Except shields have shield gate. That change would make him functionally immortal, and it's the same reason Protea's shield orbs break on depletion. 

[trst]

I don't think he needs any changes other than finally getting some augments.

His summons, if you can maintain all three, paired with his passive makes him very survivable. His 2/4 both offer indirect forms of damage buffing. And even his 1, for as lackluster as it is, is at least a built in heal if nothing else.

Really his only problem is being a generalist frame. Which is something that'll never be popular in a community that favors min-maxing and/or trivializing things as much as possible. But buffing him enough to overcome that just creates yet another overpowered frame, which isn't a good thing.

[Neo3602]

2 hours ago, KitMeHarder said:

Except shields have shield gate. That change would make him functionally immortal, and it's the same reason Protea's shield orbs break on depletion. 

In that case maybe make it so that the constant recharge only applies when he's in his first so that it can be used to heal/deal damage with out worring about being one shot. Sure you're immortal but you're in Razor Gyre so it balances out.

[(PSN)robotwars7]

7 hours ago, Terezmo said:

His three should summon up to 4 sentients and be able to use different sentient types( such as symbilysts to defend you from incoming damage like how volt electric shields work, ortholyst to snipe enemies from a distant, while retaining the standard sentient allies he usually summons and etc..

I've always wanted this for him as well. there's just something satisfying about calling up a big "bodyguard" minion and siccing them onto your enemies. my idea was Conculyst, then Battalyst (friendly disco lasers for once) and then a Symbilyst.

his first agility either needs changing, or a major buff, where it could suck enemies in a la Mag's Pull, and deal significantly more damage, maybe with an armor strip component to it as well. Sentient Wrath isn't too bad for CC, his 4th could use a little more damage but the armor strip function on it is pretty nice.

4 hours ago, trst said:

I don't think he needs any changes other than finally getting some augments.

given the recent augment we got for Sevagoth, I reckon they can do a decent job with Caliban, whenever DE actually get around to him,, and I even have a few potential ideas

Razor Gyre Augment: Refracting Razors - while in Razor Gyre, Caliban gets a set amount of damage adaptation and will redirect a projectile back towards the enemy of the same damage type as was last dealt to Caliban.

Sentient Wrath Augment: Impending Wrath - enemies affected by Sentient Wrath take 300% damage from Caliban's next melee attack.

Lethal Progeny Augment: Protective Progeny - Caliban's summons cost additional energy, but will manifest as tougher Battalyst units that provide Caliban with Overshields.

Fusion Strike Augment: Fission Strike - Fusion Strike beam now irradiates enemies and causes them to explode on death, dealing high radiation damage and leaving a lingering radiation cloud.

 

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

7 hours ago, KitMeHarder said:

Except shields have shield gate. That change would make him functionally immortal, and it's the same reason Protea's shield orbs break on depletion. 

except protea's shield orbs give a 3 second shield gate and are effectively free with her kit so it's still insanely strong

[Waeleto]

I really hope they change his sentient summons so we don't have to click on it 3 times 

[Hexerin]

On 2023-08-04 at 10:52 AM, KitMeHarder said:

Except shields have shield gate. That change would make him functionally immortal, and it's the same reason Protea's shield orbs break on depletion. 

Have it restore a percentage of missing shields, rather than a flat amount. There, no worries about shield gate shenanigans. The regen would grow exponentially slower as shields get closer to being full, preventing the shield gate from resetting without significant downtime.

[Mieo_Mio]

I would like it's summons to be 3 different types of sentients with a hold rotation like Wisp. Perhaps an augment.

Heh, summon a Bloated Condrix... now that would be a good challenge for DE.

[KitMeHarder]

1 hour ago, Hexerin said:

The regen would grow exponentially slower as shields get closer to being full, preventing the shield gate from resetting without significant downtime.

That'd still make him functionally immortal. Any amount of shield regen still gives you 0.3 seconds of invulnerability, a full shield just gives more.

[(PSN)MYKK678]

Already gave it a go recently:

 

[Hexerin]

2 minutes ago, KitMeHarder said:

That'd still make him functionally immortal. Any amount of shield regen still gives you 0.3 seconds of invulnerability, a full shield just gives more.

So remove that micro invulnerability, it's not like players can make use of it anyways.

[rodrigerzZ]

Am 4.8.2023 um 17:13 schrieb Terezmo:

He is a frame I been using lately and I think there is some potential buffs to his kit that could make him much more viable. His three should summon up to 4 sentients and be able to use different sentient types( such as symbilysts to defend you from incoming damage like how volt electric shields work, ortholyst to snipe enemies from a distant, while retaining the standard sentient allies he usually summons and etc..) this would allow Caliban's summoning game to be a lot stronger and better control the battlefield. His 4th can remain the same as its a good ability that does decent damage and applies immediate armor strip the those directly hit and leaves an aura around the area of the blast that effects others. His 2nd ability, which is an OK crowd control that lifts enemies and allows you to deal more damage to them, could add a property to it that also disrupts shields which can be useful against corpus enemies. Then there's his first ability that just sucks overall, spinning like a beyblade applying slash damage overtime, i'm not entirely sure what this could be changed to , but it could some ability that he channels into energy the longer you hold it. When released, it summons a massive light pillar, similar to the second eidolon's attack, that burns enemies within them. Finally, just make his passive the full adaptation effect at 90% instead of 50%, so it wont conflict with those with adaptation on. I feel these changes would make caliban a much better warframe instead of forgotten.

actually many warframes don't make much sense at the moment. maybe you can still play them because of visuals, but that's it. You can import important skills and turn low def into a usable tank warframe.

there must be a niche for every warframe here. unfortunately this is hardly the case.

[TheGodofWiFi]

In my opinion, Caliban only needs some QoL tweaks, not a full rework. The changes he needs to make him actually worthwhile IMO are as follows;

• Passive - Change his passive to give the full 90% Damage Reduction. The fact it is only 50% was always ridiculous to me. Other frames can double-stack 90% DR, so Caliban should be able to do it as well. Right now Adaptation just renders his passive literally useless.

• Lethal Progeny -
  • Change Lethal Progeny so that it summons three Sentients at once as opposed to one at a time. I have never once understood why DE made it so you only summon one Sentient at a time, it's just needless time-wasting.
  • Change the Sentient summons from Conculysts to Battalysts. Melee summons in general suck, but the Conculysts in particular have a special place in the underworld. They seek out the nearest enemy and subsequently force the player to follow them around in order to keep the shield regen. This is awful as you are literally at the whims of your own summons since you have no control over them. Change it to Battalysts so they stay by Caliban's side and don't seek out enemies and you have some actual ranged summons.
  • Change the shield regen mechanic so that you are getting constant shield regen even if your shield gets depleted. Right now if your shield gets broken, the summons will nor recharge your shields until your passive regeneration kicks in. This also sucks as you have to wait two or more seconds for your regeneration to kick in, which is a long time in this game.

• Sentient Wrath - Change the wave so its enemy limit is removed. Enemy limits on abilities, suck. Everyone knows this. The Lifted status is also incredibly annoying due to the absurd ragdoll effects, so remove that as well. Maybe just make it similar to Rhino's Stomp.

• Fusion Strike -  Make the lingering AOE much brighter as it is very hard to see, even with bright neon energy colors. Maybe increase the base duration a little more as well.

IMO these are all the tweaks Caliban would need to be a truly decent frame.

[Marvelous_A]

His 4th has the worst casting animation in the whole game - unnecessarily long and clumsy for a potentially very powerful stripping ability. No converging please just magic beam from hand then target explodes, he will immediately be 500% better (and that's not saying much for him), trust me.

I think on paper he's a very viable warframe, but he has so many QoL problems. Other than his 4th there is also his 3rd not summoning 3 minions at once. Also his abilities are very hard to mod - in the sense that you literally need all duration, efficiency, range and strength for his abilities to work adequately.

Any experienced player knows warframe modding is all about trade-off, and how is trade-off gonna work on Caliban? Too little range his 2nd and 4th are useless, too little duration his 2nd and 3rd are useless, too little strength his 3rd and 4th are useless. Any efficiency under 175% makes him near unplayable from my personal experience because his energy pool is way too shallow to sustain a caster playstyle (and guess what Caliban is a caster and a very energy-hungry one at that).

For record, my current build gives him 212% duration, 175% efficiency, 109% range, 130% strength (190% with max Molt Augmented) and in turn his survivability solely relies on his 3rd and Aegis (because his 3rd stops working when you hit shield gate - which is weird AF because this ability is pretty pointless if it does exactly that for a shield focusing warframe, so hopefully the Aegis activates before the overshield and shield are depleted otherwise it's operator spamming to stay alive). The energy is supported by high efficiency and helminthed Nourish and it's just barely enough to sustain my Caliban.

If DE doesn't tweak his abilities, he'd require a much deeper energy pool (e.g. 300 at max level) and higher shield capacity to be viable which hopefully the prime variant will help him.

[KitMeHarder]

9 hours ago, Hexerin said:

So remove that micro invulnerability, it's not like players can make use of it anyways.

Riiight...

[Hexerin]

5 hours ago, KitMeHarder said:

Riiight...

If you're building for shield gate abuse, you'll always be getting the full 1.3 second gate. Can't make use of the 0.3 second gate.

If you're not building for shield gate abuse, then the 0.3 second gate is just an incidental gate that happens during play. However, since its condition is that your shield were depleted, then only partially recovered, it's highly likely that you're in a situation where you're going to end up getting downed anyways. Alternatively, it's because you're not running endurance and are built for health tanking (most likely something involving Adaptation as a core), so the 0.3 second gate is irrelevant to you anyways.

Either way, the player isn't making use of the gate. It's either never happening, or it's incidental and likely not impactful in any meaningful way.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

44 minutes ago, Hexerin said:

If you're building for shield gate abuse, you'll always be getting the full 1.3 second gate. Can't make use of the 0.3 second gate.

If you're not building for shield gate abuse, then the 0.3 second gate is just an incidental gate that happens during play. However, since its condition is that your shield were depleted, then only partially recovered, it's highly likely that you're in a situation where you're going to end up getting downed anyways. Alternatively, it's because you're not running endurance and are built for health tanking (most likely something involving Adaptation as a core), so the 0.3 second gate is irrelevant to you anyways.

Either way, the player isn't making use of the gate. It's either never happening, or it's incidental and likely not impactful in any meaningful way.

Armchair enthusiasts don't actually know how players play. 

If you and your clan created your own bubble, where you told yourselves "only this playstyle matters", that actually isn't some objective thing that people have to follow. 

[TARINunit9]

17 hours ago, Hexerin said:

Have it restore a percentage of missing shields, rather than a flat amount. There, no worries about shield gate shenanigans. 

Shield gate activates from as little as one shield HP.

The proposed change that we are talking about would give Caliban full immortality against non-Toxin damage. As soon as his shields drop to zero, a frame (any frame, regardless of max shields) gets 0.4 seconds of complete invulnerability, but the proposed change would give Caliban a couple shield HP back after only 0.016 seconds. The only counters to this are toxin damage (ignores shields) and magnetic procs (prevents shield Regen)

And yes I know Revenant is already immortal. He needs a nerf (only give Revenant the invulnerability if the shooter doesn't fall asleep), not for other frames to be buffed to follow suit

[KitMeHarder]

5 hours ago, Hexerin said:

Either way, the player isn't making use of the gate.

You can speak for yourself, but don't speak for everyone. I utilize partial shield gates all the time, and it's basically the only kind of shield gate I build around; Especially in the Circuit, where it's otherwise extremely hard to abuse a full shield gate build. 

I think you massively underestimate the ability to completely nullify any and all overflow damage, even on a health build.