Peak Alchemist

[(PSN)KyomaSatomi]

Does anyone have good builds for Lavos? I mean builds that can be used in things past normal starchart missions.
And since I still struggle with understanding builds (I recently reached MR28 tho), I'd appreciate anyone who would teach me on how to understand things better.

[(PSN)Pablogamer585]

"Good" is a bit complicated given his kit, fun however, and effective, that I can provide you with:

Have you ever wondered, how much health and armour is enough?
Have you ever wondered, can I even make (effective) use of Archon mods?
Have you ever wondered; can I truly, be breaking bad?

Probably, you have not, but fret not, for I am here to help you understand why these questions make sense for Lavos.
Throwing a build at ye would be far too simplistic so lets break this down step by step.

First:

Lavos is a cast-heavy frame with a very comfortable ability kit and stats + a passive that make him pretty tanky.
Unlike all other frames, he has no energy ( Hildryn does too in the form of shields for whoever dares say 🤓☝️), but cooldowns which his 3rd ability and 1st with the augment reduce. The logical gameplay with him is to spread some statuses on an area with his Vial Rush - we'll refer to it as ² to simplify during the explanations - cast his ⁴ to wipe out an area of enemies, and then his ³ to reduce all the active cooldowns.
Rinse & repeat.

Disgracefully this is slow, and weak, why?
Because it requires of quite the setup to be effective, while other frames can do more for significantly less, i.e: Gyre, Saryn.

Second:

Knowing what the frame does and how he has to be played, we need to then look at the stats & abilities + how do these work more profoundly.
We know ⁴ is meant to be our DPS ability, and it covers a nice area ignoring walls or covers, which is fantastic, though it fails a bit when it comes to covering vertically. We know our shields are very average at 370 and that our first ability heals us for a % of our total health, so going for an armour + hp build is the obvious, moreover when our passive provides us status immunity.
Our ³ is the one in charge of reducing how long we have to wait for the rest of our abilities to be ready, helps procs statuses, and converts orbs and ammo pickups into universal variants which benefit all of us, this is a core part of Lavos' gameplay loop.
Our ² is a massively powerful AoE CC that will slow down enemies and help spread statuses too, each vial detonation carries cold that will affect enemies over time, and whatever status have we blended in for its duration.

Analysing this information, we now have to look at our enemies, these have varying defences, and the higher we go, the worst these get, making it so Lavos struggles to DPS-cast at high levels due to his lack of innate defence strip. Now, I'm a purist, no shame on admitting it, so I do not like to slap a helminth ability to "fix" the issues of a frame and call it a day but instead to try and work around them with the tools we've been given, therefore for this explanation I will exclude helminth abilities and solely focus on the base frame.
 

Now that we know this, it's time to think:
We have no energy, therefore we skip mods such as flow, energy nexus and so on.

Our passive also increases status duration the higher our ability duration is, so we can choose two things here: Archon Continuity, or Primed Continuity.
Why not Narrow Minded? Well...

Catalyze, Transmutation Probe & Vial Rush massively benefit from having higher range.
Higher range on ⁴ means more enemies we can afflict, more range on ² means more area we can control, and more range on ³ means more enemies we can hit, reducing our casting time on the rest of abilities, plus more statuses we can inflict and drops we can convert. So, no brainer we at minimum need to slot in Reach, not Archon Reach since we won't gain any benefit from it, and, personally, Overextended, since strength which we will talk now is not too important on Lavos, and almost skippable entirely.

Negative strength, while not terrible, is not favourable, so we will need to remedy that 60% loss by adding in a least Molt Augmented, after that, if you've put an Aura Forma on Lavos (recommended on any frame), add Growing Power for a constant +25% since this guy is always proccing something.

Now, time to focus on our survivability, we can't do science if we are dead.
We need to increase our max health, so we have three options: Vitality, Umbral Vitality, or the better pick, Archon Vitality.
With Archon Vitality the heat procs from our ⁴ will duplicate which pretty much means having multiplicative 100% strength for it. ^{We will come back to this point a bit later.}
But lets push it further, add in Arcane Blessing for yet another 1200 health, making us sit at 2680 health points.

As for our armour, again options; Umbral Fiber, Fiber, or, Health Conversion.
If you do not plan on running more umbral mods, then Fiber is the better choice, but, what if you ran also Health Conversion? This would yield you 2700 armour for a damage reduction of 90%, perfectly round number, almost, intentional it would seem...
To double down on this then, equip Adaptation for yet another 90% damage reduction on top of that 90%.

We have then, two slots left on the build to fill, the exilus, which I personally would leave as is, but if you're feeling dedicated, I do recommend Power Drift for a bit more ability strength and a little knockback prevention for when you aren't status immune.
So, last mod slot, this is mostly a personal choice, you can put whatever here and it wouldn't be wrong.
I will give you two recommendations, Umbral Intensify, for overall more strength and an extra pinch of armour, or, a lesser known and used mod, Precision Intensify.

This last one, is why I said we will come back to this point.
With Precision Intensify, once you have all stacked up, your ⁴ will have 230% strength per cast, "doubled" by Archon Vitality, so virtually 460% strength.
 

But it'll matter not if you have a lot of strength if the enemies aren't primed with more elements, defence stripped, or close to the area, therefore it's time to get into min-maxxing with Archon Shards.

Remember how I mentioned initially about using Archon Continuity?
Well, if you add in two Emerald Shards for higher Corrosive stacks, you can let a toxic Vial Rush passively armour strip enemies very quickly on an AoE* while also slowing them down. This will give them 3 different status effects further contributing to elevating Catalyze's damage, but we can go further than this.
With another two Emerald Shards we can increase our ability damage on enemies affected by corrosion by another 20-30%, or up to 45% if you decide to add a third Tauforged one, but realistically these are still a bit tedious to get, not even I have that many personally.
*_{Feel free to quote me on this, for I use it on Citrine too and Prismatic gems does proc it at an uneven rate, an enemy may have 5-7 toxin procs but only 2 corrosive, may be a bug.}

Last shard you may pick then.
As recommendation, make it also an Emerald Shard, but pick heal on enemy being affected by toxin status, as Vial Rush with this much range will create massive puddles of toxic & cold waste that will constantly harm many enemies that are within their range, giving you an unexpectedly high healing rate.

 

One last thing to solve then: pulling enemies close to you, close to danger.
Sadly, without a helminth ability, Lavos won't be able to do this himself, the aforementioned build is packed to the tops with mods and there's nothing the frame can do without sacrificing one of his abilities, which if you do, I highly recommend be his ¹, for as I've explained with the emerald shards, the healing part is well covered already!
Stills, I said I was a purist and I do believe we could do with some extra help spreading even more statuses, so instead of a helminth ability, pick a companion like Nautilus, or a Para Moa with a Tether Mine installed.
Both of these are robotic companions and thus can equip either Verglas or Helstrum which are the best companion weapons for priming enemies with elements, so add in viral + radiation and you'll have at least 4 elements covered by the Helstrum fire all the time.

A point in favour of the Para Moa is that the mine forcefully knocks down enemies and inflicts the ragdoll effect, which favours abilities that deal electric damage for this status has special properties on ragdolled enemies, while a point in favour of Nautilus is that it can group up enemies that have Overguard still.
Both Cordon and Whiplash Mine have 15s of cooldown, so installing Manifold Bond on both will yield similar results, making it totally up to player preference to play one or another. Nautilus will be more consistent as it sticks to the player constantly, while the Moa can be sturdier thanks to Link mods.
The pets of course will help upkeep a constant flow of health orbs both for Health Conversion and for you to convert into universal ones with the probe.

 

Aaand, that's it, I hope this helps you understand how to mod frames in the future (odd you don't being MR28?), and also brings anyone who comes check this post a refreshing and cool Lavos build straight out of my arsenal. There's an alternate version on config B that has Mecha mods instead of Health Conversion and uses a Predasite instead to re-spread all statuses (quite ridiculous), but this is more than enough text for now, feel free to ask for other frames.

Edited March 13 by (PSN)Pablogamer585

[RLanzinger]

Hey Pablo @(PSN)Pablogamer585, ou dear @(PSN)KyomaSatomi need some advice not a Thesis about "What to put in my magical Vase ?"

why Vase ? because it's the alchemist favorite item : an Alembic... I'm a bit digressing

I rarely use Lavos but :

• Health Conversion and Adaptation mean Effective Health multiplier x80 OR Direct Damage /80
• Archon Vitality double Heat status (less armor) and Archon Continuity make tox => Corrossive (less armor again)

That let you 4 slots to choose a tactics that suit your style Range/Strenght or Range/Duration ...

• I choose an damage on swap to pair with CEDO's glaives and a good ammo hungry secondary (incarnon)
• I had a Sancti Magistar because his heavy slam is a good CC and it give back Life to you n' your pals
• I keep a Kuva Gattler Rad+Tox, pair well with Lavos colors, that gimme time to get all my Universal Ammo when running around ...

[(PSN)KyomaSatomi]

vor 23 Minuten schrieb RLanzinger:

Archon Vitality double Heat status (less armor) and Archon Continuity make tox => Corrossive (less armor again)

I need to visit Chipper again. I have Archon Vitality, but not Continuity.

vor 25 Minuten schrieb RLanzinger:

I choose an damage on swap to pair with CEDO's glaives and a good ammo hungry secondary (incarnon)

What Incarnon secondary do you recommend?

[(PSN)Pablogamer585]

hace 1 hora, RLanzinger dijo:

Hey Pablo @(PSN)Pablogamer585, our dear KyomaSatomi need some advice not a Thesis about "What to put in my magical Vase ?"

Counterpoint:

They've also asked for help on how to understand builds better since they do struggle with them despite being quite high MR, and that's not something I can do with just three lines of text + a photo of my build, for that sake I'd just post photo and say "this mod because it gives more power strength, this mod because it gives more health" and anyone can understand that just by reading mod descriptions, this had to go further, so an explanation to a deeper level was in place.

Though I do agree that as per usual my awesome wall-building skills are threatening, and it seems Kyoma couldn't with it.
I wish I could do videos for a more appealing format but I lack the privacy to record.

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

My personal view of Lavos, is that your gameplay loop, and understanding of how his abilities interact with each other and the enemy, can be more significant than his modding necessarily.

Like just as far as modding, the laziest and most concise advice I can think of, is to just slap a lot of range on him, strength and duration aren't super vital, but you don't want negative duration, because some of your abilities rely scale off how much status is still on an enemy, so you don't want to undercut that, but the default amount is generally enough to combo from. This can also be a preference thing, I know some people prefer investing in duration. Sometimes its nice to take a Warframes strengths and maximise them, especially if some tools like mods work off percentages. Lavos has high health and armour, so is a good candidate for being a tank, and you have a passive that acts similar to Rolling Guard so you don't necessarily need that, also unlike Inaros you do get some shields, so whilst his health may not be as high, for some like myself, I find Lavos as easier or not easier to tank with. My overall point is that there is a lot of room for preference and playstyle. 

Arguably in harder missions, like Steel Path, Lavos actually performs better, because many of his abilities are radial/AOE, and some benefit the more enemies you hit (your 3 which lowers cool downs, so the more enemies you hit...). Your 4 also scales off how much status is inflicted on enemies, and your 2 and 3 can put statuses on enemies... i tend to use 1 more for health top offs when necessary, but you can use the augment as well, for potentially more ability casting. I personally never felt I needed that. 

Back to what I mentioned about gameplay loop? Knowing how your 4 works and then using it well, knowing that your 3 reduces cool downs, knowing how to slide around with your 2 to hit as many enemies as you can, ensuring you hit as many enemies as you can with your 3 and 4, thats as important as modding. Cold for example, as a single element is actually pretty strong, it just isn't often talked about because Viral is so much more useful in most other general situations. With Lavos though you can have both easily, its a great CC and slow to many enemies, and your 2 comes with it innately. Then as far as enemies? Well one obvious example of how Lavos can interact with enemy factions, is that Corpus can be very weak to Toxin, because it can bypass their shields, so just having that knowledge and implementing is a thing. 

This is why your proficiency and effectiveness with Lavos, does require decent modding, but make sure to experiment around, and try to understand the pros and cons with the kit, your gameplay loop, and enemy interactions. Like putting infusing Viral to use with your 2 to prime a bunch of enemies with Viral and Cold, and then using Corrosive on your 3 to get Corrosive and Electric, then using 4 with Gas and Heat to "Nuke", (some people may prefer using 4 and then 3, but thats where your preference and play style comes in). Or if its against Corpus, putting more emphasis on Toxin. 

Hope that was easy enough to understand. Sometimes it can help to figure out your play style and preferences then adjust your build. I play with low efficiency, since I use Blind Rage, and since Lavos doesn't use Energy... but low efficiency can impact how your cool down reductions work... but I also play on Steel Path where the maps are often very enemy dense, so I hit many with my 3 and enemies die frequently enough, and then I like to have them accumulate, but... you might like to cast more frequently so may not want negative efficiency, or you might like longer duration... I do think range is important to mod for. Health and armour as well. Adaptation if you really want to be even more tanky. 

Good luck and hope you have fun! The Kengineer has a relatively short and simple video on Lavos that may be of assistance. I think its more general overview but I believe there is a modding section. 

[(PSN)KyomaSatomi]

vor 54 Minuten schrieb (PSN)slightconfuzzled:

Back to what I mentioned about gameplay loop? Knowing how your 4 works and then using it well, knowing that your 3 reduces cool downs, knowing how to slide around with your 2 to hit as many enemies as you can, ensuring you hit as many enemies as you can with your 3 and 4, thats as important as modding. Cold for example, as a single element is actually pretty strong, it just isn't often talked about because Viral is so much more useful in most other general situations. With Lavos though you can have both easily, its a great CC and slow to many enemies, and your 2 comes with it innately. Then as far as enemies? Well one obvious example of how Lavos can interact with enemy factions, is that Corpus can be very weak to Toxin, because it can bypass their shields, so just having that knowledge and implementing is a thing. 

Yeah, my biggest problem with understanding builds is my inability to get synergies within a frame's kit or between frames/weapons/companions/etc. I don't consider myself stupid, but you can see me as "slow on the uptake". And add in a certain hesitation to look up guides for help.

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

40 minutes ago, (PSN)KyomaSatomi said:

Yeah, my biggest problem with understanding builds is my inability to get synergies within a frame's kit or between frames/weapons/companions/etc. I don't consider myself stupid, but you can see me as "slow on the uptake". And add in a certain hesitation to look up guides for help.

 

No worries, I can actually remember some of our previous conversations, I actually think you are quite bright and intelligent, but that you seemed a bit harsh on yourself, or perhaps a bit critical. I can remember you having an aversion to guides for help. So another way of framing it, is that you are playing on "hard mode", since Warframe can be the sort of game, where most people do look up information. 

I hope you are well, and enjoy building and testing out your Lavos build. I think they are quire underrated, but also understand why people don't like having to press and infuse abilities constantly. Take care!