Caliban Adjustments

[PrimeEnjoyer]

Caliban appeals to me because of his look and flavor, but his kit needs some adjustments in my opinion.

• Passive: Grants allies in affinity range an Adaptation-like stacking damage resistance, capping at 50%
  • Problems
    • The 50% cap is too low to matter in any kind of difficult content
    • Players who rely on damage resistance for survivability likely already slot Adaptation, which does not stack with this passive
    • Affinity range forces players who want to maximize this buff to run a certain focus school
  • Suggestions
    • Lower the cap AND have it stack with other forms of resistance to a max of X%
    • OR raise the cap to something more impactful
    • OR change it entirely and play off the Sentient adaptation theme and have damage dealt by Caliban ignore a % of enemy resistance
• Razor Gyre
  • Problems
    • The numbers on this ability are just too low. It is usually better to just shoot your target than to use this ability.
  • Suggestions
    • General
      • Increase all numerical values
      • All excess healing restores shields and overshields
      • Change damage type to Tau with chance of Slash and Impact procs
      • Add an untargeted activation to allow players to use it as a travel power
    • AND have all active Lethal Progeny rapidly converge on Caliban so they can all blender together
      • This should also refresh the duration/health of Lethal Progeny
    • OR replace this ability entirely with:
      • Becomes a teleport-to-enemy ability with an untargeted version for general travel
      • Summons all Progeny to target and deals a burst of Tau and Slash damage, and refreshes Progeny
• Sentient Wrath
  • Nice ability, no changes.
  • If I am being wishful, it would be cool if this ability cleansed negative status effects from Caliban, allies, and Progeny.
  • EDIT: Thinking about this more:
    • Problems
      • Has some overlap with Fusion Strike in that it increases the damage a target will take and it has a CC component. The way these two abilities arrive to these effects are different, but the end result is similar, with Fusion Strike being favored due to the stripping of shields and armor.
    • Suggestions
      • This ability may be meant to mimic, thematically, the Ground Smash attack an Eidolon uses, but again, it has too much functional overlap with Fusion Strike. So our strongest option is to change this ability to perhaps mimic another Eidolon ability.
        • Seeking Missiles: Shoots missiles around randomly but with large AoE strikes. Deals Tau, Impact, and Blast damage.
        • Summoning Scream: Summons all active Progeny to the player's location and releases and AoE attack. Would refresh the duration of the Progeny.
          • Could also draw in enemies within range, which would synergize with Fusion Strike.
        • Energy Spikes: A buff ability that shoots a homing projectile (with a short internal cooldown) at any target that damages Caliban's shields. Similar to the behavior of an Eidolon when a joint is destroyed.
• Lethal Progeny
  • Problems
    • This ability has a scaling and uptime problem, and as Caliban's primary means of survival, the protection this offers falls off quickly in difficult content
  • Suggestions
    • Progeny's level should scale more strongly with Strength so that their damage contribution and survivability are more useful
    • AND Progeny should pass some sort of damage resistance to Caliban based on the damage the Progeny receive, which should stack with Caliban's passive and/or the Adaptation mod.
    • AND there should be a method to refresh the Progeny's duration and/or health so that you don't lose ALL of the protection the Progeny offers at once such as you do now when their duration ends.
• Fusion Strike
  • Nice ability, no problems for me.
  • EDIT: Would be nice if the area of effect were more visible.

Edited November 21, 2023 by PrimeEnjoyer

[Mag_Gaming]

What´s a Caliban? 🤔

.

.

.

(yes, I had to say it)

[Harutomata]

Great takes. Status cleaning for allies would give him a bit more team utility. The passive reworked to be reasonably better would also help with that.
Lethal Progeny and Razor Gyre both could use level scaling. For Lethal Progeny it'd be adapting level to current enemy level in the mission (some deployable summons already have this feature so it could be applied to the Lethal progeny summons too). Lethal Progeny summoning more variety of sentients could also be interesting. Probably nitpicking but it'd be great if DE made the sentients' weapon also have Caliban's colors.
Razor Gyre could use level scaling damage besides the changes you suggested. Besides what you suggested I'd also suggest DE to consider Caliban airborne while channeling the ability, so mods about being airborne would interact with it.

Caliban still has no augments either. It could be fun (but probably broken) to add some augment that lets you shoot while channeling Razor Gyre, and the projectiles would circle around Caliban, dealing damage. Deactivating the ability or holding the ability key could shoot the projectiles at once where you're aiming. It'd be like a small, mobile Mag bubble.

[Tiltskillet]

4 hours ago, PrimeEnjoyer said:

Suggestions

• Progeny's level should scale more strongly with Strength so that their damage contribution and survivability are more useful

 

What level content are you playing where you have trouble with them surviving?  I don't play long endurance, but in SP they're functionally immortal for 30 minutes and SP Circuit  for 9-10 rounds.  (Maybe longer, but I haven't played Caliban further than that in hard content.)

 

4 hours ago, PrimeEnjoyer said:

AND there should be a method to refresh the Progeny's duration and/or health so that you don't lose ALL of the protection the Progeny offers at once such as you do now when their duration ends.

I don't have a problem with the proposal, but in case you don't know, the way to manage it now is to stagger their casts so all 3 aren't lost at once.  (Which is the achilles heel of proposals to summon all 3 with one button press that don't also make any adjustments for recasting.)

Some things you didn't mention for Progeny that I'd really like:

 - A shorter tether.  It's silly that they can wander outside their shield restore range.  Or at least increase the shield restore range to match the tether, but really I'd like the tether to be 25-30m

 - Make them intangible to player movement and weapon fire.

 - Make their models more transparent and maybe a bit smaller.

I also think Sentient Wrath and Fusion Strike definitely need some changes and fixes, but I won't go into that here.

Edited November 20, 2023 by Tiltskillet

[PrimeEnjoyer]

1 hour ago, Tiltskillet said:

What level content are you playing where you have trouble with them surviving?  I don't play long endurance, but in SP they're functionally immortal for 30 minutes and SP Circuit  for 9-10 rounds.  (Maybe longer, but I haven't played Caliban further than that in hard content.)

I don't have a problem with the proposal, but in case you don't know, the way to manage it now is to stagger their casts so all 3 aren't lost at once.  (Which is the achilles heel of proposals to summon all 3 with one button press that don't also make any adjustments for recasting.)

Some things you didn't mention for Progeny that I'd really like:

 - A shorter tether.  It's silly that they can wander outside their shield restore range.  Or at least increase the shield restore range to match the tether, but really I'd like the tether to be 25-30m

 - Make them intangible to player movement and weapon fire.

 - Make their models more transparent and maybe a bit smaller.

I also think Sentient Wrath and Fusion Strike definitely need some changes and fixes, but I won't go into that here.

I guess it's less "surviving" and more just plain being around. Your tether suggestion would help.

And yeah, staggering the summons would help, but I feel that, compared to the survivability tools of other frames, it is a bit much to manage for its benefit.

Wrath and Strike could be tweaked sure, but I feel they are in a better spot than the others.

[PrimeEnjoyer]

Thought about it a bit more - edited original post with some additional feedback.

[Tiltskillet]

On 2023-11-20 at 8:02 AM, PrimeEnjoyer said:

Sentient Wrath

• EDIT: If I am being wishful, it would be cool if this ability cleansed negative status effects from Caliban, allies, and Progeny.
• Thinking about this more:
  • Problems
    • Has some overlap with Fusion Strike in that it increases the damage a target will take and it has a CC component. The way these two abilities arrive to these effects are different, but the end result is similar, with Fusion Strike being favored due to the stripping of shields and armor.
  • Suggestions
    • This ability may be meant to mimic, thematically, the Ground Smash attack an Eidolon uses, but again, it has too much functional overlap with Fusion Strike. So our strongest option is to change this ability to perhaps mimic another Eidolon ability.
      • Summoning Scream: Summons all active Progeny to the player's location and releases and AoE attack. Would refresh the duration of the Progeny.

Pretty cool idea.  Any ideas on the particulars for the vortex effect?    It's Caliban's Helminth ability, so it'd be ideal to give it some design space where it offers something compared to Ensnare, Airburst, etc., without making the other options obsolete.

OTOH it's currently the only damage vulnerability Helminth option besides Rest & Rage, which has a couple of odd restrictions of its own.  Also I think it's the only ability source of true Lifted status, though  few people will care about that.  Anyway, perhaps it's best to preserve one or both of those functions.

 

[PrimeEnjoyer]

On 2023-11-21 at 12:10 PM, Tiltskillet said:

Pretty cool idea.  Any ideas on the particulars for the vortex effect?    It's Caliban's Helminth ability, so it'd be ideal to give it some design space where it offers something compared to Ensnare, Airburst, etc., without making the other options obsolete.

OTOH it's currently the only damage vulnerability Helminth option besides Rest & Rage, which has a couple of odd restrictions of its own.  Also I think it's the only ability source of true Lifted status, though  few people will care about that.  Anyway, perhaps it's best to preserve one or both of those functions.

 

The exact mechanism would be up for balancing, look and feel, ect. But it could still include a Lifted status at the nexus of the vortex - it doesn't make too much of a mechanical difference unless I am not thinking of something.

It would be a loss to the Helminth system to not have a second damage vulnerability power, but I don't see too many builds slotting Wrath.

[KindleBlaze]

I love Caliban... Never had problems with his minions (lethal progeny). They simply do not die.... but they also do not make any real damage. They are good at standing at the door and making a jam there :D.

 

His first ability... I see it as a good one to be replaced by helminth.

 

Can't agree more about the passive.

Everything else said is totally fine and would be nice.

 

ALSO... can we speak about the fact we have 0 lore about Caliban in game? Can we get... at least a note of some kind in the codex or something?

Edited November 29, 2023 by KindleBlaze

[(PSN)kpjk11]

I agree with your suggestions. Also I'd just like to add my two cents here since I recently obtained and played with Caliban for a couple of days.

Razor Gyre (1) needs a complete overhaul. It's too slow and does no meaningful damage. In fact I'd say it's probably the worst ability in the game.

Sentient Wrath (2) is pretty good, I think it can be good in all game modes at any level as a CC ability, though it's pretty slow.

Also like yourself, I think Lethal Progeny (3) is ok. The AI is a bit clunky at times and they could do with being a little stronger.

And I also think that Fusion Strike (4) is pretty good. My only gripe with it, is that it's quite hard to tell where the fallout field/vortex will be from a distance. Maybe this is just a me problem but I often have to jump into a group of enemies and look down to make sure the vortex strips the enemies around me.