The best Caliban build in Warframe
Caliban's rework has brought new life to the Sentient Warframe, and this is how to build him for late-game success.
Caliban has received a pretty amazing rework in Warframe’s Koumei and the Five Fates update. While his kit was not dramatically changed, it was changed enough to make him highly viable and move him closer to the top tier of Frames in the game.
The best Caliban build in Warframe
Source: Shacknews
Caliban is in a great place after the rework, no doubt about it. His passive is essentially a slightly worse, free version of Adaptation that gives up to 50% damage reduction to any damage source over time, so that frees us up from needing to use the Adaptation mod. He can also now inflict a damage type called Tau that leaves enemies vulnerable to status chance procs.
His kit is highly multifunctional, as he can heal and generate overshields with his first ability, crowd control and increase damage vulnerability with his second ability, do additional damage and recover shields with his third ability, and hit close to a full armor strip with his fourth ability pretty easily. As a big fan of weapon platform builds in the game, I have been having a lot of fun with him.
I’ve been running a pretty shield-heavy build, along with a Vulpaphyla to inflict Viral procs, freeing up spots on my weapons for more damage and alternative status types. I have also swapped out the first ability for Nourish, as that allows the ranged form of the third ability, Ortholoyst, to do both Viral and Tau procs, and energy economy is a huge deal for this build which Nourish also helps me with.
First, the abilities can be expensive to cast, and second, we want to cast them a lot to feed the energy back into our shields and aid our tankiness.
So, let’s take a look at the mods I have opted for.
| Mod | Effect |
|---|---|
| Brief Respite/Growing Power | While Brief Respite is central to my build, I do want to point out that you can, if you wish, switch to Growing Power and rely on Augur Reach to bring back shields, although it is far less effective. |
| Primed/Sure Footed | I think this has become a must-have for almost any build, as nobody likes getting knocked down. |
| Umbral Vitality | Improved ability strength. Will get a little boost from the next Umbral mod. |
| Umbral Intensify | Improved ability strength that is given a boost by the previous Umbral mod. |
| Fast Deflection | Improved shield values and much faster shield recharge. |
| Primed Continuity | Improved ability duration. |
| Blind Rage | More ability strength at the cost of some efficiency. This is really the only way to get a large bump to ability strength after your choice of Intensify mod, which is why this build goes to great lengths to pull back energy wherever possible and get shield benefits when we do use it. |
| Equilibrium | This is one of the best energy economy mods in the game. |
| Stretch/Augur Reach | Go for Stretch if you want the extra range, and go for Augur Reach if you are willing to give up a little range for improved energy conversion to shields, as this stacks with Brief Respite. |
| Rolling Guard | When you roll, you get a free Invulnerability, which removes all status effects. Has a 7-second cooldown. This tends to be my "oops, I messed up" option at higher difficulty levels. |
I also did something I almost never do, which is practically a full suite of blue Archon shards. Two of them are giving me improved shield values, while two more are giving me improved energy values. I have also opted for a yellow to give me better energy orb effectiveness. This might change over time, and for now, none of them are Tauforged because I am still not sure if Caliban is going to become a late-game mainstay for me just yet.
Finally, for Arcanes, I have opted for Arcane Aegis to help with my shield tanking and Molt Augmented to help ramp up my ability strength over time.
And there you go, a Caliban build that will hold up well into the late game. For more helpful guides, be sure to check out our Warframe page.
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