Long-awaited Caliban Warframe rework is finally coming today

Caliban, the sentient-themed Warframe, has been considered a substandard character for a while now. Even with a modern Warframe's kit that includes overshield generation and armor strip, its lack of internal synergy left Caliban with quite a confused identity. Thankfully, the Koumei and the Five Fates update is about to change all that.

The gist is that all of his Warframe abilities are much smoother to cast now, and no longer has past restrictions like a cap on affected enemies. Moreover, all Caliban abilities also inflict the Tau status, which makes affected enemies more likely to get status procs from all sources, including your allies.

All Caliban rework details in Warframe

Before we get into the abilities, note that Caliban's passive now grants stacks of Adaptive Armor even when he's invulnerable. Here are all the changes for Caliban's active abilities in the new Warframe update.

First Ability: Razor Gyre

Razor Gyre is a traversal tool that also steals enemy health, similar to Revenant's Reave. Tap to dash forward as a spinning vortex, hitting every enemy within your radius.

Caliban gains 30 Health for every enemy hit, and when your Health is overflowed, it becomes Shields. If your Shields overflow, it becomes Overshield!
Razor Gyre will also refund 25% of the Ability's Energy cost when hitting an enemy - allowing for it to be refunded!
Loot and Energy/Health Orbs can now be collected during Razor Gyre.

Razor Gyre now also inflicts Tau Damage and Status instead of Slash and Impact Damage and Status.

Razor Gyre inflicts 500 base Tau Damage and 1,000 base Tau Damage on lifted enemies.
These should allow Razor Gyre to become a synergetic staple by debuffing enemies for a low to no cost!

Second Ability: Sentient Wrath

Sentient Wrath has been brought in line with similar Crowd Control Warframe Abilities while removing the target cap to ensure that the Ability is reliable and effective at its job.

Enemies suspended by Sentient Wrath will now be locked in place to prevent them from floating away, similar to how Xaku’s Deny and Hydroid’s Tentacle Swarm hold enemies in position.
Sentient Wrath no longer has a target cap, similar to most Warframe CC abilities.
Sentient Wrath now inflicts only Tau Status Damage, instead of Impact, onto affected/lifted enemies.
Sentient Wrath deals 2,000 base Tau Damage with 35% Damage Vulnerability, in addition to the Tau Status Effect.
Increased the casting speed of the Ability by 25%
You can also re-cast the Ability even if the first “wave” hasn’t finished casting.
If the recast hits enemies, you’ll refresh their stun duration.

Alongside the changes to the Tau status effect, this will combo very well with Status Damage (Elementalist) mods and Gun-CO for single-target DPS.

Third Ability: Lethal Progeny

Caliban can now summon three types of Sentients: Ortholysts, Summulysts, and Conculysts. Instead of having to press the ability thrice, you summon three allies in one cast (except for a sole Summulyst spawn) but there's no mixing and matching. If you summon Conculysts, all three will be Summulysts, and so on. Recasting will replace existing Sentients and summon new ones where Caliban is aiming.

The energy economy is for this Warframe also much better, as the energy cost for Lethal Progeny is the same as a single cast before the change. However, note that these summon's abilities no longer scale with Ability Strength.

Conculysts: As Melee-oriented summons, the Concluysts retain their role as the primary damage dealers of Caliban’s trifecta.

Conculysts' “Tornado” Ability lasts six seconds and a cooldown of four seconds, and they’ll spin to win more often.
The Tornado Ability also had its base Damage bumped to 1,000 from the previous 50.
Concluysts will now cast Fusion Strike alongside Caliban for 0.5x the effectiveness of Caliban’s Fusion Strike.
Conculysts will target their Fusion Strike wherever Caliban’s was fired.

Ortholysts: As long-ranged summons, the Ortholysts inflict only Tau Damage and Tau Status Effects onto the field en masse with their Cannon and Mortar forms.

The Ortholyst’s Cannons have a 100% Status Chance, guaranteeing Tau Status Effects
The Ortholysts Mortar form has a 300% Status Chance

Summulysts: Summulysts are portal-based Sentients that summon Shield-regenerating Choralysts that’ll distract your foes while recharging your and your allies' Shields.

Caliban can summon one Summulyst at a time, but it will summon six Choralysts. These Choralysts, when killed, will be immediately replaced if the Summulyst is still active.

These Choralysts have the highest possible target priority, ensuring enemies target them whenever possible instead of the players.
Choralysts Shields recharge at a base of 25 Shields per second, scaling with Ability Strength.
Choralysts will also apply this Shield recharge to you and your allies.
The range to receive the Shield recharge scales with Ability Range!

Furthermore, a few QoL changes make the Lethal Progeny summons much easier to play with:

Caliban's Sentients will benefit from a 10x Damage multiplier against all non-Sentient Factions/enemies whenever a Sentient unit deals Sentient Damage.
All the Sentients will recharge your Shields! Summulysts just do it best thanks to their six extra Choralysts.
Base Duration of the Sentient summons increased to 45 from 25
Removed collision on summons so Caliban’s Progeny does not get in his way, similar to Nekros’ Shadows.
You can now see your Sentient summons through walls, similar to how Khora can see Venari.
Squad members will see Caliban’s Sentients with some dithering to make it clear they’re allies.

Fourth Ability: Fusion Strike

Fusion Strike is one Ability that benefits most from some quality-of-life changes, alongside a few recalculations of how damage is delivered.

Changed damage type from Blast to Tau and inflicts Tau Status Effects.
The beam itself deals a base of 15,000 Tau Damage per second, scaling with Ability Strength. In addition to the Beam dealing damage, struck enemies will explode with further damage after the cast!
The Convergence Explosion deals 750 base Tau Damage, scaling with Ability Strength.
The Enemy Detonation deals 5,000 base Tau Damage, scaling with Ability Strength.
The beam has a Status Chance of 20%.
Enemies can now be damaged by more than one Fusion Strike beam per cast.
Defense Reduction (Armor + Shields) strip occurs only once.
50% Defense Reduction at 100 Ability Strength or 100% at 200 Ability Strength.
Fusion Strike's beam will apply the Defense Reduction alongside the radial field (it's back—best of both worlds!).
Fusion Strike’s beam can now deal damage multiple times in one instance (meaning the Beam can proc multiple damage ticks in one activation) to support damaging enemies more than once.
Reduced the player’s turning speed when casting Fusion Strike.
The beam handles like Qorvex’s “Crucible Blast." The intention was to ensure that Fusion Strike felt like a committed cast while helping the player strike enemies effectively due to the beam's increased lethality.
Casting Fusion Strike now makes Caliban immune from damage for the duration of the cast.

To summarize, Caliban no longer feels clunky to play thanks to tighter control over his first and fourth abilities. Furthermore, the variety in his third ability may very well make him the de facto summoner Warframe, a role not many can occupy.

Check out other guides on this game from Sportskeeda:

Edited by Angad Sharma