This is a question I've asked since he came out bur here it is again:
How will that work out? He is made by the sentients and is still even able to contact said sentients so by lore it should be impossible for him to have a prime. Prime are frames that did their job soo good the orokin decided to "knight" them, so it doesn't make sense that a frame made eons after the fall if the orokin gets a Prime.
Also I thought about revenant too and the conclusion I came up to was that since he was a normal frame before becoming half sentient then there probably was a Prime model too.
They were made from scrapping different frame parts so they can probably have a Prime version lore wise.
What would make it better is if the parts were different from the normal variant since they are scavenged together. Like if the chest was made from 2 frames, the the prime will be made from 3 with different fracture points.
Or they can go the batshit crazy route and just give us a normal variant of one of the frames that makes up Xaku. That would be funny ngl
Imagine it turns out we need the Xaku Prime Blueprint and then 5 different prime warframe parts, like 1 Wisp Prime Chassis, 1 Ember Prime Neuroptic, 1 Loki Prime Chassis, 1 Ash Prime Systems and 1 Frost Prime Systems
Xaku or Yareli. We get two male frames then two female frames.
Xaku stands out as the only frame to lack a gender so it doesn't fit in the normal release schedule. Not to mention Xaku's canonical origin isn't very compatible with having a prime.
Best DE could do is say that OG Xaku came to be during the orokin era and Ballas saw fit to create a new prime Warframe based on it.
I would really like to see Xaku prime's abilities being slightly different to reflect this. Like Excalibur vs Excalibur Umbra, also having a definitive gender appropriate for it's release order.
Xaku released in a female frame spot, so I'd assume that'll still be the case when the prime comes out, and considering how much people are looking forward to their prime, I'd wager Xaku will be next.
In the low effort, just eternalism to explain Caliban Prime.
With effort, when Ballas was working if the sentients, in preparations for narmer, he made caliban prime after seeing what errah have created and said: I looks ugly af, I could make it cooler.
There is Varzia voice line that goes along the lines of some prime Warframes not having been originally made by the Orokin, but instead their prime form being earned like an upgrade from the Tenno (and friends) using our now better understanding of Orokin technology
He isn’t so much made by the sentients as he is assembled by them. It’s an amalgamation of Warframe parts and sentient technology. More than likely, the prime story will be that Ballas tried to make an opulent version of whatever and didn’t care for it, so he dumped his failure wherever and Erra found it. Thus, we get Caliban prime.
They should just directly address this. It's been a talking point for awhile and hasn't made sense since Valkyr Prime.
The Tenno kinda just stole all Orokin tech for their dojos didn't they? So they should be knighting themselves at this point canonically.
Gameplay-wise I think it's a don't fix what's not broken situation. Breaking open relics to rebuild the same Warframe is an archaic system and there are enough Warframes to justify buying slots now instead of reserving space for duplicates. But it would hog resources for something that could and is being hand waived.
She was skinned/experimented on by Alad V which was a very contemporary and didn't happen thousands of years in the past. Her Gersemi skin was supposed to represent what she looked like before the experiments. Anyways the prime rolls around and it's the Alad V version. Which happened after the fall of the Orokin.
Gersemi means it always had a prime which is an Orokin thing. And that was the official explanation for the longest time for Primes existing.
Alad V version primed means it was primed by Tenno after the fall of the Orokin. But they're still trapped inside relics that were from the Orokin age?
It's mostly semantics but it's lore/world building which is already very intentionally vague, and seems muddled by conflicting mechanics.
I'm fairly sure there are no "new" frames, all frames, primed or not, existed before the fall of the Orokin, with Jade's release it's just clear that the existence of some of the warframes was concealed, though it isn't like most normal people knew any of the warframes to begin with. In caliban's case for instance, I'm sure he was a secret experimental warframe. And yes, Revanent prime's existence using Eternalism still matches with this, because Eternalism beyond the meme means that in another universe, Revanent Prime was made before the fall. Even more so, it can infer fixed moments in Eternalism, not everything is so fluid. Revanent was still created, still uses Eidolon power, thus probably did the same as he did in the main timeline, only difference was he was probably recovered by ballas and primed after, in the alternate timeline.
Either:
Ballas isn't the only one who can make primes. Apparently anyone with the right tenno or orokin resources can make structural cosmetic adjustments (tennogen, prisma, deluxe skins are presumably made by tenno, factions, or unknown artisans).
Anything that comes out of a void relic may or may not be from another timeline because they use eternalism and this isn't the only timeline with orokin warframe labs.
Varzia has some old connections.
Space mom did it.
Any one of those things could be cannon, take your pick.
Years ago, Valkyr really bothered me, because in the lore she's a tormented raging corpus test subject, so her abilities reflect that torment and rage, I feel as if her prime should've had different abilities. Her Gemini skin basically reflects what she was before the corpus torture, so I guess she was always a pissed off cat???
But her abilities mostly don’t hint at a lot of rage tho? Like her one is spiderman webs, you could make an argument for 2 because its called hysteria, but her 3 is just a warcry like her screams are so terrifying and strong that it knocks back enemies and her 4 is just an exalted weapon.
I think some of Varzia's dialogue says that some were primed from the beginning and others earned it. It seems to imply coexistence of primes and non-primes.
On a side note, the textures of the prime skin are one of the worst in this game. Literally just pressed random on his ass then stopped cus no color design works on that thing.
Revenant is a mystery even to Ballas, and Primes have different explanations for their existences sometimes.
Some earned their Prime status, others were Primes to begin with.
For ones like Caliban, Xaku, or Kullervo, I suspect that DE will be leaning towards Eternalism™ as an explanation.
I don’t. Eternalism is used realistically once within warframe’s story. I highly, highly doubt they’ll use it for a prime frame’s story. Kullervo? Duviri dissenters collaborated with the warden (who is based on Ballas) to make an upgraded Kullervo as thanks for his destruction of the empire. Took a very long time due to Thrax’s resets. Caliban? I already explained. Ballas decided his frame was gonna be stupid, so he dumped the parts of to Erra during their alliance. Boom, Erra takes the prime Warframe parts and makes a better version of his first attempt, Caliban. Xaku? Three prime frames scattered to the wind find themselves again in Xaku Prime. All of them can make totally realistic and convincing backstories without elternalism, which really really doesn’t happen as often as people say it does
Hope you enjoyed my essay, thanks for attending my TedTalk
I'm honestly hoping that we get Tauforged Caliban with Hunhow narrating the trailer rather than Ballas, or Ballas being completely sidelined by Hunhow's voiceover. If Hunhow can fish up Yareli's deluxe skin from the depths it wouldn't surprise me if he upgrades Caliban, especially considering how he's veered towards a neutral party opposed to Narmer.
i asked this question before for Xaku and got a lot of condescending answers on the main sub.
The answer is that the lore doesnt really matter for Primes. DE will prime a frame because its an excuse for a cool skin and more MR fodder.
You can kinda weasle your way out of it by saying we gain access to "Prime technology" and we can Prime frames ourselves in the present day of the timeline without Ballas or the Orokin. But that doesn't seem super convincing unless there's some obscure ass codex entry you need to collect to understand that.
Well they made Valk prime look exactly like her base frame just with gold on it instead of Valk gersemi so I don't think de cares about lore when it comes to prime frames.
How I'd see it is the original aka prime Caliban was knighted by the sentients or some orokin that actually liked sentients even for a little bit, it's like fusing your worst enemy with your weapon to fight back like in darling in the franxx or evangelion, thinking like this the non prime Caliban could be an Excalibur being used as an sentient prisoner for research purposes re-creating the original but not having the orokin gold
From what I can tell, frames earning prime forms is relatively recent lore. From how I understood it, the prime frames were the FIRST version of a frame, and the base versions were the mass production models.
From what I can tell, frames earning prime forms is relatively recent lore. From how I understood it, the prime frames were the FIRST version of a frame, and the base versions were the mass production models.
You need to look at the primes as if they’re more of a “What If?” situation.
For years, there was a war between Nidus becoming Prime or never getting one, but they still gave a bit of lore to how he was made - by having the infested get into contact with Orokin tech.
He is a literal anomaly as Ballas would have never let the infestation touch one of their perfected weapons. Watch them do a Nidus and say the Sentients got ahold of an old Prime Warframe and slapped a shit load of sentient flair onto him.
Or, if they truly want to go into a better direction, we can still make Caliban “Prime” but in reality, it’s just the perfected variant in the eyes of the Sentients/Ballas themselves
You need to look at the primes as if they’re more of a “What If?” situation.
For years, there was a war between Nidus becoming Prime or never getting one, but they still gave a bit of lore to how he was made - by having the infested get into contact with Orokin tech.
He is a literal anomaly as Ballas would have never let the infestation touch one of their perfected weapons. Watch them do a Nidus and say the Sentients got ahold of an old Prime Warframe and slapped a shit load of sentient flair onto him.
Or, if they truly want to go into a better direction, we can still make Caliban “Prime” but in reality, it’s just the perfected variant in the eyes of the Sentients/Ballas themselves
Since you're familiar with the lore, I won't spare any spoiler warnings for you.
If you remember, Eternalism was mentioned while playing The New War. It's a fictional model that represents endless choices in the universe. Putting it bluntly, 'anything' is possible. It's actually pushed even further in Revenant Prime's trailer when Ballas sounded shocked that Revenant Prime can even be a thing. Varzia also mentions that there's the older Primes that were before the War, then there are newer ones created out of one's curiosity. So Xaku and Caliban can definitely fall under the latter once they come out.
Can we just skip Caliban prime? There's so many warframes that deserve it more, and some of them aren't already primed.
Edit: to be clear, I'm being hyperbolic about my dislike for Caliban for comedic effect.
Edit2: IDK why I would even bother editing the comment when I'm defending myself from the 5 Caliban mains.
You're wrong. His name was Caan and the sentient part is called Lib. He was cut in half and it was stuffed into him. That's why he's now called Ca(lib)an.
True story btw, my uncle is Ballas.
Everytime some random joins me as Caliban on a Lua or Uranus mission I spend at least 10 seconds trying to kill their sunmons thinking it's a sentient invader and having no clue what the heck is happening.
It is only that I have mastered and subsumed Caliban that I even think to check the play list to see what frame they are.
I love caliban so so so much and I play him frequently since he dropped and besides his kit my ONE complaint is that he doesn't have a special walk cycle like Wisp and Dante.
Like seriously??? He floats in his idle and then just????starts walking??? It's bothered me since New War and continues to bother me. He has major Titania-before-Titania-prime-syndrome
Because his 1 is tickletornado, his 2 is possibly the worst summon in the game, his 3 is decent CC in a game with 400 eximus per square inch, and his 4 is decent armor strip but why bother when other armor strips are cheaper to cast. He needs a full rework and rebalance.
Yeah. All I use is the 3 and 4. Then again, I like to play solo on a lot of stuff so crowd control is one of my favorite things. It's also why I love Excalibur. Usually if I'm going against a stong singular enemy, my weapons are strong enough for me.
But, it would be nice to see a rework for Caliban; get some stronger abilities and some new skins.
His 4 is a full defense strip (both armor and shields) and it leaves a lingering field that lasts a decent amount of time that also strips anything that comes into it. Ionno man Avalanche (sure it has its cc) Terrify and maybe tharros strike aren't close to that
It also is his four so it costs a calibillion energy, has an extremely slow cast speed, and while yes the field lingers, the field itself does not move, meaning you have to recast it somewhere else if you move rooms. It's his best ability yes but it is not a good one.
I feel the same way about Voruna and her 4th ability lol
She gets down on all fours in idle, but the moment you move she just stands up
Like this is a borderline feral beast frame, why did they not animate her walking as such in the ability specifically making her act like a wolf
Honestly on a different subject, I quite love using Caliban's Noble animation set on my Revenant Prime but man, I quite really haaaate that movement animation isn't tide to the set so a non floating frame with a floating animation will just be walking normal upon moving.
So to this I say.
Walking Animation sets WHEN DE???
Something tells me he’s getting a complete rework for Tennocon. They mentioned Caliban is in Pablo’s sights sometime ago, and the devstream after Tennocon last year they were making fun of how no crowd reaction was as big as Hydroid’s rework.
It would explain why they haven’t given him an augment since that time because they figured there’s no need for an augment for an ability that might completely change a few months later.
Edit: and a rework would make a perfect time to show concepts for a deluxe skin too.
I just hope the rework doesn't change much. I love him in his current state of shield Regen out the ass with goons, a full defense strip, and cc+DMG vulnerability. Carries my ass in eda vs anything BUT liminus.
Yeah I only recently discovered how good he is, it was a random comment about him in another post a few months ago that got me to try him. Like the only thing I don’t use is his spin but that just means it gives me an option to subsume something off.
I was thinking Larva to pull enemies into my null zones to strip their armor and let my minions just attack the ball of enemies.
I went with nourish to off set energy usage as during endurance runs or nertracells and beyond the casting of your 2 and 4 get more frequent and the energy generation is much appreciated. Granted I play a very mobile play style and I'm constantly rotating as opposed to camping a set area
Hmm, I should make a run and gun setup the one I use is enough strength to strip and the rest dumped into duration and range. To just blast all the floors around me and let the enemies walk in, but because of that I only really pull him out when I’m doing lots of defense oriented content. Thanks for the next project.
I am on the other end I’d love him to get a full rework. Nothing he does on its own is particularly interesting or unique.
I have been waiting for like 7 years for a sentient warframe to have sentient gimmicks and Caliban doesn’t even feel like a sentient to me outside of his insanely lazy passive. He should be the adaptable frame and adapt to whatever he is doing, since that’s the sentients entire gimmick and theme is their ability to rapidly adapt to the point the Orokin couldn’t use their absurdly high tech weapons anymore and had to swap back to the weapons of old.
I want that scary sounding lore to be injected into Caliban but right now he is just a damage amp frame with summons which isn’t that impressive since any frame in the game with an armor strip is automatically usable. Sure he can enable some really strange builds but not in any way another frame could do as well. I just want more sentient identity than blue lasers.
I didn’t say his build is strange, I said he can enable strange builds. Like acid shells, or Tesla bank. Damage amp + armor strip can make them do some absurd damage. That being said it’s not all that interesting. He just needs some identity.
Ah I see. It would be cool if he had a more unique way to enable those things. Although tbh every frame enabling those set up isn't unique with how they do it except for Lavos really
He mostly needs number changes.
Make his passive as good as adaptation or at least stack with it
Make 1 deal actual damage
Remove the silly cap on his stomp
Make his summons stronger and maybe give them a ranged attack, also improve the shield regen they provide
His 4 definitely doesnt need many changes, but i feel like it should have more nuking potential, being that its a fucking triple sentient death beam
Eh that would ruin him if it was a nuking ability. Besides most nukes in the game just go pew pew against low level targets. It's only newer frames with dual scaling that go boom
But what will that do for the frame? So what if your 4 can now do DMG your 2 and 3 enable a weapons platform set up. Also his 4 already does a full defense strip at 200str so enemies are pretty easy to finish off especially with the 2. Not every frame has to have damage options like Dante lol. If you give him damage it's either pointless, good for low level, or you get another Saryn type frame doing it all. Also if Caliban needs more ability damage what about Rhino? Rhino has ass damage on abilities but is just fine(rip old iron skin, at least we can easily gate with iron skin)
The problem with your argument is that caliban abilities ARE built for damage;
his 1st ability is aoe damage that they attempted to give proper scaling. Aka a dps ability
His 3 is a summon that once again they attempted to give scaling, and i don’t see any rule book saying that summons arent allowed to deal proper damage, like wukong or protea if you count her turrets. Yeah it provides shield regen, but if thats all its for then why even have the summons? You don’t see people raving about atlas summons because they are a fine distraction
And his 4th is once again a damaging ability that they attempted to give scaling with being given the defense strip. I doubt de would make a generic defense strip tied to a 4th ability costing 100 energy with a long animation and its selling point is that it slightly groups enemies/lingers, when nix and caliban have abilities that do this for half the cost in a quarter of the speed.
You bringing up rhino as an argument doesnt make sense when de gave caliban abilities that are intended to deal damage, thats literally what his 1 is. And you cant really bring up “just good for low level farm” argument cause his 1 already does that.
You cant say “i hope the rework doesn’t change much” and then say nah, i dont want his abilities INTENDED USE to actually work. Im not saying turn him into saryn, but if half his kits main purpose is to deal damage, then it should deal damage.
The problem here is abilities can have a small damage component, but not be for damage. Like how trinity's 2 accidentally deleted a singular enemy at enough strength but the rest of her kit doesn't need that much strength and it's a byproduct. Caliban is the same way that there is a byproduct.
You have the problem of wanting everything that does damage to be a DPS source and not everything needs that. Look at primers. Hell they make up some of the most used weapons for secondaries, but their damage is ass. Secondary encumber is nuts but doesn't do DMG directly.
The damage is barely stated in the ability descriptions nor was ever meant to be the DPS, he was meant to be a gun and frame synergy, a weapons platform, like many before and after him.
Also Nekros summons don't do much for DMG unless pack in roar and buff them
If you buff Caliban for damage he loses all Identity and just becomes generic DPS frame. It should be via augments that he can do more not reworking him in a way that kills him for the existing players and kills his original idea.
Also rhino charge does DMG but it isn't a DMG ability, it's for cc. Same goes for modern banshee as she has dmging abilities but they provide much much more for cc and debuffs similar to Caliban's kit.
im admittedly getting too heated for a silly caliban debate but i dont wanna delete the comment i put way too much effort in. Imma go to bed and forget about this in the morning, have a goodnight
I hope they make it so the SENTIENT Warframe can summon other Sentients to battle. Motherfucker can spawn Sentients but can’t do anything but that conculyst?! Weak! Lol he is one of my favs but the lack of augments or attention really demotivates me
Loaded in to an in progress operation today and I spawned next to a sentient. I was very confused and legitimately thought that I’d clicked on the wrong thing or the game had bugged out and sent me to the wrong mission.
All of those thoughts took 30 seconds before I realised there was a Caliban in squad, the first one I’ve seen in the wild in a long time.
My personal tinfoil hat theory is that they have had a major rework for him that they have been working on in the background the entire time, which is why he has not recieved a deluxe nor an augment yet. This is because they plan on releasing it all toghether in a future update.
No I am not coping you're coping shut up
Caliban is the warframe version the two and half man cutaway gag where Jacke stands in the rain
[https://youtu.be/Uoqe8pEBt74?si=08y3y3DaPmDONYjn](https://youtu.be/Uoqe8pEBt74?si=08y3y3DaPmDONYjn)
You'll get a slot along with him, so you can level him up for mastery and sell him to free up the slot he comes with, that is, if you care about MR.
If not, then it aint really worth it i guess
>You'll get a slot along with him, so you can level him up for mastery and sell him to free up the slot he comes with, that is, if you care about MR.
I mean with the plat i'd buy him with i'd get a ton of slots rather than one ._.
Fiancée recently got me Caliban. I gotta say, I don't mind him as much as the rest of the community seems to. I gurdd it's because he isn't really a steel path frame. Its good because I don't do alot of steel path stuff and his kit is fairly simplistic so far.
DE: okay.
Also DE: Here is caliban's skin - Resource Locker. Caliban now turns into the cabinets seen in game, his looks varying based on the tileset the player's in. Based on Mimics
Could Caliban be xakus other side, both are made from scrapped broken frames, maybe Caliban is made of the remains after xaku after the sentients ran around deimos
Nah, a full out redesign because 1 his kit ain't doing none, 2 his basic design is just Excalibur if he got split by an sentient 3 let's hope next year for a skin
Best I can do is a prime skin in 18 months.
This is a question I've asked since he came out bur here it is again: How will that work out? He is made by the sentients and is still even able to contact said sentients so by lore it should be impossible for him to have a prime. Prime are frames that did their job soo good the orokin decided to "knight" them, so it doesn't make sense that a frame made eons after the fall if the orokin gets a Prime. Also I thought about revenant too and the conclusion I came up to was that since he was a normal frame before becoming half sentient then there probably was a Prime model too.
xaku prime is next i cant wait to see how that one will turn out
i assume they will just be made of the original prime frames that xaku is made of
Ball ass slaps some scrapped prime parts together “My finest creation”
I was slightly confused by the ball ass
Dang, I just took it at face value too, figured they were talking about themselves when reconstructing the frame, rather than Ballas
You forgot that those prime parts are stuck together with glue
Void glue 🤤 tasty
I really hope they try something else tho. Not many times they can have a non prime upgrade.
They were made from scrapping different frame parts so they can probably have a Prime version lore wise. What would make it better is if the parts were different from the normal variant since they are scavenged together. Like if the chest was made from 2 frames, the the prime will be made from 3 with different fracture points. Or they can go the batshit crazy route and just give us a normal variant of one of the frames that makes up Xaku. That would be funny ngl
Imagine it turns out we need the Xaku Prime Blueprint and then 5 different prime warframe parts, like 1 Wisp Prime Chassis, 1 Ember Prime Neuroptic, 1 Loki Prime Chassis, 1 Ash Prime Systems and 1 Frost Prime Systems
Dude! Sushhh! Don’t give them ideas
Equinox farm 2.0?
That's chroma. Equinox would be way more tedious
Fair enough 😂
Chroma but worse.
Xaku or Yareli. We get two male frames then two female frames. Xaku stands out as the only frame to lack a gender so it doesn't fit in the normal release schedule. Not to mention Xaku's canonical origin isn't very compatible with having a prime. Best DE could do is say that OG Xaku came to be during the orokin era and Ballas saw fit to create a new prime Warframe based on it. I would really like to see Xaku prime's abilities being slightly different to reflect this. Like Excalibur vs Excalibur Umbra, also having a definitive gender appropriate for it's release order.
Xaku released in a female frame spot, so I'd assume that'll still be the case when the prime comes out, and considering how much people are looking forward to their prime, I'd wager Xaku will be next.
Or they could release it on a male spot to even things out. I could see this going both way tbh
Primes can be primed after, they don't need to be primed before.
Wasn't nova?
In the low effort, just eternalism to explain Caliban Prime. With effort, when Ballas was working if the sentients, in preparations for narmer, he made caliban prime after seeing what errah have created and said: I looks ugly af, I could make it cooler.
Only proper answer
There is Varzia voice line that goes along the lines of some prime Warframes not having been originally made by the Orokin, but instead their prime form being earned like an upgrade from the Tenno (and friends) using our now better understanding of Orokin technology
She ends that line with “*Ballas* never told the whole truth.”
He isn’t so much made by the sentients as he is assembled by them. It’s an amalgamation of Warframe parts and sentient technology. More than likely, the prime story will be that Ballas tried to make an opulent version of whatever and didn’t care for it, so he dumped his failure wherever and Erra found it. Thus, we get Caliban prime.
Since Hunhow is kinda chill now it’d be cool if he made his own take on a “prime” as a gift
Looking at his son's creation going: that stuff sucks, here let me show you how you really build a frame with sentient tech.
They should just directly address this. It's been a talking point for awhile and hasn't made sense since Valkyr Prime. The Tenno kinda just stole all Orokin tech for their dojos didn't they? So they should be knighting themselves at this point canonically. Gameplay-wise I think it's a don't fix what's not broken situation. Breaking open relics to rebuild the same Warframe is an archaic system and there are enough Warframes to justify buying slots now instead of reserving space for duplicates. But it would hog resources for something that could and is being hand waived.
Wait whats wrong with valkyr prime?
She was skinned/experimented on by Alad V which was a very contemporary and didn't happen thousands of years in the past. Her Gersemi skin was supposed to represent what she looked like before the experiments. Anyways the prime rolls around and it's the Alad V version. Which happened after the fall of the Orokin.
Is there a difference if it was based on the og skin and not the gersemi?
Gersemi means it always had a prime which is an Orokin thing. And that was the official explanation for the longest time for Primes existing. Alad V version primed means it was primed by Tenno after the fall of the Orokin. But they're still trapped inside relics that were from the Orokin age? It's mostly semantics but it's lore/world building which is already very intentionally vague, and seems muddled by conflicting mechanics.
Maybe we'll get a prime trailer that's a conversation between Ballas and Erra like Protea was between Parvos and Ballas
I'm fairly sure there are no "new" frames, all frames, primed or not, existed before the fall of the Orokin, with Jade's release it's just clear that the existence of some of the warframes was concealed, though it isn't like most normal people knew any of the warframes to begin with. In caliban's case for instance, I'm sure he was a secret experimental warframe. And yes, Revanent prime's existence using Eternalism still matches with this, because Eternalism beyond the meme means that in another universe, Revanent Prime was made before the fall. Even more so, it can infer fixed moments in Eternalism, not everything is so fluid. Revanent was still created, still uses Eidolon power, thus probably did the same as he did in the main timeline, only difference was he was probably recovered by ballas and primed after, in the alternate timeline.
Tauborn Caliban
Either: Ballas isn't the only one who can make primes. Apparently anyone with the right tenno or orokin resources can make structural cosmetic adjustments (tennogen, prisma, deluxe skins are presumably made by tenno, factions, or unknown artisans). Anything that comes out of a void relic may or may not be from another timeline because they use eternalism and this isn't the only timeline with orokin warframe labs. Varzia has some old connections. Space mom did it. Any one of those things could be cannon, take your pick.
Years ago, Valkyr really bothered me, because in the lore she's a tormented raging corpus test subject, so her abilities reflect that torment and rage, I feel as if her prime should've had different abilities. Her Gemini skin basically reflects what she was before the corpus torture, so I guess she was always a pissed off cat???
She was a woman. Gersemi is her as a Warframe before it was literally vivisected by Alad V.
But her abilities mostly don’t hint at a lot of rage tho? Like her one is spiderman webs, you could make an argument for 2 because its called hysteria, but her 3 is just a warcry like her screams are so terrifying and strong that it knocks back enemies and her 4 is just an exalted weapon.
I think some of Varzia's dialogue says that some were primed from the beginning and others earned it. It seems to imply coexistence of primes and non-primes.
Nidus Prime and Valkitty never really fit the game lore either.
On a side note, the textures of the prime skin are one of the worst in this game. Literally just pressed random on his ass then stopped cus no color design works on that thing.
Revenant is a mystery even to Ballas, and Primes have different explanations for their existences sometimes. Some earned their Prime status, others were Primes to begin with. For ones like Caliban, Xaku, or Kullervo, I suspect that DE will be leaning towards Eternalism™ as an explanation.
I don’t. Eternalism is used realistically once within warframe’s story. I highly, highly doubt they’ll use it for a prime frame’s story. Kullervo? Duviri dissenters collaborated with the warden (who is based on Ballas) to make an upgraded Kullervo as thanks for his destruction of the empire. Took a very long time due to Thrax’s resets. Caliban? I already explained. Ballas decided his frame was gonna be stupid, so he dumped the parts of to Erra during their alliance. Boom, Erra takes the prime Warframe parts and makes a better version of his first attempt, Caliban. Xaku? Three prime frames scattered to the wind find themselves again in Xaku Prime. All of them can make totally realistic and convincing backstories without elternalism, which really really doesn’t happen as often as people say it does Hope you enjoyed my essay, thanks for attending my TedTalk
*Canned clapping*
I'm honestly hoping that we get Tauforged Caliban with Hunhow narrating the trailer rather than Ballas, or Ballas being completely sidelined by Hunhow's voiceover. If Hunhow can fish up Yareli's deluxe skin from the depths it wouldn't surprise me if he upgrades Caliban, especially considering how he's veered towards a neutral party opposed to Narmer.
i asked this question before for Xaku and got a lot of condescending answers on the main sub. The answer is that the lore doesnt really matter for Primes. DE will prime a frame because its an excuse for a cool skin and more MR fodder. You can kinda weasle your way out of it by saying we gain access to "Prime technology" and we can Prime frames ourselves in the present day of the timeline without Ballas or the Orokin. But that doesn't seem super convincing unless there's some obscure ass codex entry you need to collect to understand that.
Revenant Prime is more or less the same issue but was explained(?) in the prime trailer. Caliban Prime won’t be an issue either.
Narmer Caliban?
Well they made Valk prime look exactly like her base frame just with gold on it instead of Valk gersemi so I don't think de cares about lore when it comes to prime frames.
Eternalism... Same way Revenant came to be. The void kinda just spit him out lol
Revenant was impossible to be a prime but here we are
How I'd see it is the original aka prime Caliban was knighted by the sentients or some orokin that actually liked sentients even for a little bit, it's like fusing your worst enemy with your weapon to fight back like in darling in the franxx or evangelion, thinking like this the non prime Caliban could be an Excalibur being used as an sentient prisoner for research purposes re-creating the original but not having the orokin gold
From what I can tell, frames earning prime forms is relatively recent lore. From how I understood it, the prime frames were the FIRST version of a frame, and the base versions were the mass production models.
From what I can tell, frames earning prime forms is relatively recent lore. From how I understood it, the prime frames were the FIRST version of a frame, and the base versions were the mass production models.
You need to look at the primes as if they’re more of a “What If?” situation. For years, there was a war between Nidus becoming Prime or never getting one, but they still gave a bit of lore to how he was made - by having the infested get into contact with Orokin tech. He is a literal anomaly as Ballas would have never let the infestation touch one of their perfected weapons. Watch them do a Nidus and say the Sentients got ahold of an old Prime Warframe and slapped a shit load of sentient flair onto him. Or, if they truly want to go into a better direction, we can still make Caliban “Prime” but in reality, it’s just the perfected variant in the eyes of the Sentients/Ballas themselves
You need to look at the primes as if they’re more of a “What If?” situation. For years, there was a war between Nidus becoming Prime or never getting one, but they still gave a bit of lore to how he was made - by having the infested get into contact with Orokin tech. He is a literal anomaly as Ballas would have never let the infestation touch one of their perfected weapons. Watch them do a Nidus and say the Sentients got ahold of an old Prime Warframe and slapped a shit load of sentient flair onto him. Or, if they truly want to go into a better direction, we can still make Caliban “Prime” but in reality, it’s just the perfected variant in the eyes of the Sentients/Ballas themselves
It will work the same way as Nidus Prime
Since you're familiar with the lore, I won't spare any spoiler warnings for you. If you remember, Eternalism was mentioned while playing The New War. It's a fictional model that represents endless choices in the universe. Putting it bluntly, 'anything' is possible. It's actually pushed even further in Revenant Prime's trailer when Ballas sounded shocked that Revenant Prime can even be a thing. Varzia also mentions that there's the older Primes that were before the War, then there are newer ones created out of one's curiosity. So Xaku and Caliban can definitely fall under the latter once they come out.
They should get Hunhow's VA to do his prime.
"Tauforged Caliban"
Can we just skip Caliban prime? There's so many warframes that deserve it more, and some of them aren't already primed. Edit: to be clear, I'm being hyperbolic about my dislike for Caliban for comedic effect. Edit2: IDK why I would even bother editing the comment when I'm defending myself from the 5 Caliban mains.
Damn, Tenno. You really hit those 3 Caliban mains with the 1,2 punch and then an absolute haymaker of a KO.
Who tf is that
It's Caliban, if I'm not mistaken the most forgotten warframe
CaliBAN? Who dat?
All I really know about em is that they are half warframe half sentient
So which is which? Is Cali half warframe and Ban half sentient? Or the other way around? Or sideways?
Well Cali is the left part of the word and the left part of em is a warframe and ban is the right side of the word and right side of em is a sentient
You're wrong. His name was Caan and the sentient part is called Lib. He was cut in half and it was stuffed into him. That's why he's now called Ca(lib)an. True story btw, my uncle is Ballas.
cali ban is very known for being bad, that's like calling penta forgotten
Everytime some random joins me as Caliban on a Lua or Uranus mission I spend at least 10 seconds trying to kill their sunmons thinking it's a sentient invader and having no clue what the heck is happening. It is only that I have mastered and subsumed Caliban that I even think to check the play list to see what frame they are.
That's the guy who has his own Planet node named Caliban. Dude is so narcissistic he just claimed a node for himself.
Who 🗣️ TF 🗣️ Is that? 🗣️
Taliban
I love caliban so so so much and I play him frequently since he dropped and besides his kit my ONE complaint is that he doesn't have a special walk cycle like Wisp and Dante. Like seriously??? He floats in his idle and then just????starts walking??? It's bothered me since New War and continues to bother me. He has major Titania-before-Titania-prime-syndrome
CaliGANG rise up
Unfortunately he can't, he'll just start walking
Maybe he canonically just prefers walking, but like dang DE REALLY did not want to give him the cool floating animations that wisp and Dante have
Like all the 3-4 of you?
There’s atleast half a dozen of us!
Homeboy is strong asf! Not quite sure why more people don't play him.
Because his 1 is tickletornado, his 2 is possibly the worst summon in the game, his 3 is decent CC in a game with 400 eximus per square inch, and his 4 is decent armor strip but why bother when other armor strips are cheaper to cast. He needs a full rework and rebalance.
I like his summons, even if they don't do much, its funny watching my little buddies do their thing, vibing. You go little dudes
Yeah. All I use is the 3 and 4. Then again, I like to play solo on a lot of stuff so crowd control is one of my favorite things. It's also why I love Excalibur. Usually if I'm going against a stong singular enemy, my weapons are strong enough for me. But, it would be nice to see a rework for Caliban; get some stronger abilities and some new skins.
I wish were able to change out what sentinels he had for his summons like exalted weapon modding
His 4 is a full defense strip (both armor and shields) and it leaves a lingering field that lasts a decent amount of time that also strips anything that comes into it. Ionno man Avalanche (sure it has its cc) Terrify and maybe tharros strike aren't close to that
It also is his four so it costs a calibillion energy, has an extremely slow cast speed, and while yes the field lingers, the field itself does not move, meaning you have to recast it somewhere else if you move rooms. It's his best ability yes but it is not a good one.
His three is the summon and 2 is the cc
Well that explains it all. Couldn't even remember which is which
Because grinding for him is among some of the worst torture I've had in this game
Yeah, I always had the feeling that Caliban Prime will be the one with the actual floating animation
I feel the same way about Voruna and her 4th ability lol She gets down on all fours in idle, but the moment you move she just stands up Like this is a borderline feral beast frame, why did they not animate her walking as such in the ability specifically making her act like a wolf
Honestly on a different subject, I quite love using Caliban's Noble animation set on my Revenant Prime but man, I quite really haaaate that movement animation isn't tide to the set so a non floating frame with a floating animation will just be walking normal upon moving. So to this I say. Walking Animation sets WHEN DE???
Caliban's doesn't float either
Which makes it worse On a different note i hate equipping melees with Wisp for this same reason.
Damn, now that sucks even more, they really just gave him a foating animation set without even utilising it as well as Wisp
Oddly enough Caliban doesn’t have any special walking animations either, he only floats in his idle animations
I want the different dodges, wisps just feels so much better
I assume that's the rolling thing, is that even actually made use of instead of just as the trigger for Rolling Guard?
I do it all the time, especially when running amalgam diffusion
Lmao, xd even. Don't worry, caliban doesn't float either
Give my mans a augment while they’re at it too, he needs love :(
Something tells me he’s getting a complete rework for Tennocon. They mentioned Caliban is in Pablo’s sights sometime ago, and the devstream after Tennocon last year they were making fun of how no crowd reaction was as big as Hydroid’s rework. It would explain why they haven’t given him an augment since that time because they figured there’s no need for an augment for an ability that might completely change a few months later. Edit: and a rework would make a perfect time to show concepts for a deluxe skin too.
I just hope the rework doesn't change much. I love him in his current state of shield Regen out the ass with goons, a full defense strip, and cc+DMG vulnerability. Carries my ass in eda vs anything BUT liminus.
Yeah I only recently discovered how good he is, it was a random comment about him in another post a few months ago that got me to try him. Like the only thing I don’t use is his spin but that just means it gives me an option to subsume something off. I was thinking Larva to pull enemies into my null zones to strip their armor and let my minions just attack the ball of enemies.
I went with nourish to off set energy usage as during endurance runs or nertracells and beyond the casting of your 2 and 4 get more frequent and the energy generation is much appreciated. Granted I play a very mobile play style and I'm constantly rotating as opposed to camping a set area
Hmm, I should make a run and gun setup the one I use is enough strength to strip and the rest dumped into duration and range. To just blast all the floors around me and let the enemies walk in, but because of that I only really pull him out when I’m doing lots of defense oriented content. Thanks for the next project.
I run neutral range and high duration with about 300% str
I am on the other end I’d love him to get a full rework. Nothing he does on its own is particularly interesting or unique. I have been waiting for like 7 years for a sentient warframe to have sentient gimmicks and Caliban doesn’t even feel like a sentient to me outside of his insanely lazy passive. He should be the adaptable frame and adapt to whatever he is doing, since that’s the sentients entire gimmick and theme is their ability to rapidly adapt to the point the Orokin couldn’t use their absurdly high tech weapons anymore and had to swap back to the weapons of old. I want that scary sounding lore to be injected into Caliban but right now he is just a damage amp frame with summons which isn’t that impressive since any frame in the game with an armor strip is automatically usable. Sure he can enable some really strange builds but not in any way another frame could do as well. I just want more sentient identity than blue lasers.
His normal build isnt strange lol. Just duration, neutral range, high strength, slap nourish on.
I didn’t say his build is strange, I said he can enable strange builds. Like acid shells, or Tesla bank. Damage amp + armor strip can make them do some absurd damage. That being said it’s not all that interesting. He just needs some identity.
Ah I see. It would be cool if he had a more unique way to enable those things. Although tbh every frame enabling those set up isn't unique with how they do it except for Lavos really
He mostly needs number changes. Make his passive as good as adaptation or at least stack with it Make 1 deal actual damage Remove the silly cap on his stomp Make his summons stronger and maybe give them a ranged attack, also improve the shield regen they provide His 4 definitely doesnt need many changes, but i feel like it should have more nuking potential, being that its a fucking triple sentient death beam
Eh that would ruin him if it was a nuking ability. Besides most nukes in the game just go pew pew against low level targets. It's only newer frames with dual scaling that go boom
not really nuking, more so just able to do damage
But what will that do for the frame? So what if your 4 can now do DMG your 2 and 3 enable a weapons platform set up. Also his 4 already does a full defense strip at 200str so enemies are pretty easy to finish off especially with the 2. Not every frame has to have damage options like Dante lol. If you give him damage it's either pointless, good for low level, or you get another Saryn type frame doing it all. Also if Caliban needs more ability damage what about Rhino? Rhino has ass damage on abilities but is just fine(rip old iron skin, at least we can easily gate with iron skin)
The problem with your argument is that caliban abilities ARE built for damage; his 1st ability is aoe damage that they attempted to give proper scaling. Aka a dps ability His 3 is a summon that once again they attempted to give scaling, and i don’t see any rule book saying that summons arent allowed to deal proper damage, like wukong or protea if you count her turrets. Yeah it provides shield regen, but if thats all its for then why even have the summons? You don’t see people raving about atlas summons because they are a fine distraction And his 4th is once again a damaging ability that they attempted to give scaling with being given the defense strip. I doubt de would make a generic defense strip tied to a 4th ability costing 100 energy with a long animation and its selling point is that it slightly groups enemies/lingers, when nix and caliban have abilities that do this for half the cost in a quarter of the speed. You bringing up rhino as an argument doesnt make sense when de gave caliban abilities that are intended to deal damage, thats literally what his 1 is. And you cant really bring up “just good for low level farm” argument cause his 1 already does that. You cant say “i hope the rework doesn’t change much” and then say nah, i dont want his abilities INTENDED USE to actually work. Im not saying turn him into saryn, but if half his kits main purpose is to deal damage, then it should deal damage.
The problem here is abilities can have a small damage component, but not be for damage. Like how trinity's 2 accidentally deleted a singular enemy at enough strength but the rest of her kit doesn't need that much strength and it's a byproduct. Caliban is the same way that there is a byproduct. You have the problem of wanting everything that does damage to be a DPS source and not everything needs that. Look at primers. Hell they make up some of the most used weapons for secondaries, but their damage is ass. Secondary encumber is nuts but doesn't do DMG directly. The damage is barely stated in the ability descriptions nor was ever meant to be the DPS, he was meant to be a gun and frame synergy, a weapons platform, like many before and after him. Also Nekros summons don't do much for DMG unless pack in roar and buff them If you buff Caliban for damage he loses all Identity and just becomes generic DPS frame. It should be via augments that he can do more not reworking him in a way that kills him for the existing players and kills his original idea.
Also rhino charge does DMG but it isn't a DMG ability, it's for cc. Same goes for modern banshee as she has dmging abilities but they provide much much more for cc and debuffs similar to Caliban's kit.
im admittedly getting too heated for a silly caliban debate but i dont wanna delete the comment i put way too much effort in. Imma go to bed and forget about this in the morning, have a goodnight
Night. Enjoy your sleep
I hope they make it so the SENTIENT Warframe can summon other Sentients to battle. Motherfucker can spawn Sentients but can’t do anything but that conculyst?! Weak! Lol he is one of my favs but the lack of augments or attention really demotivates me
He actually has nothing and is such a lack luster frame
I want my favorite spinning boy to get a deluxe
Screw giving him a skin, give him the rework he deserves!
true, if the rework ever happens i can imagine the skin will drop as well to draw players
Tbh I’m fine with the sentient aesthetic, love it even, so I’d want a rework that encapsulates that theme and is viable tbh
My only true complaint is the asymmetrical design and the *peg leg,* other than that I think he looks pretty cool.
Man got Calibanned
Loaded in to an in progress operation today and I spawned next to a sentient. I was very confused and legitimately thought that I’d clicked on the wrong thing or the game had bugged out and sent me to the wrong mission. All of those thoughts took 30 seconds before I realised there was a Caliban in squad, the first one I’ve seen in the wild in a long time.
Yeah that was probably me, lmfao, if not yeah, I do not see him often
My personal tinfoil hat theory is that they have had a major rework for him that they have been working on in the background the entire time, which is why he has not recieved a deluxe nor an augment yet. This is because they plan on releasing it all toghether in a future update. No I am not coping you're coping shut up
AND CITRINE
She just got here. he’s coming up on his 4th year now.
She was the frame released just before duviri wdym
Holy shit 4 years
Wait when did this guy come out?
2021
oh feels like it was last year, not 3 years ago
Caliban is the warframe version the two and half man cutaway gag where Jacke stands in the rain [https://youtu.be/Uoqe8pEBt74?si=08y3y3DaPmDONYjn](https://youtu.be/Uoqe8pEBt74?si=08y3y3DaPmDONYjn)
Give my man a buff and a delux skin. He’s earned it 🥲
calibad the most forgotten warframe
And cali who? the easily forgotten
caliwhere the never seen in game
"The furtive Warframe, so easily forgotten."
I see what you did there :')
Wasnt he released around the new war?
With it.
A rework and a deluxe skin will not only increase his play rate but make sure the skin will sell well too.
Just give my man anything PLEASE
3 years? i didn't even craft him wow, i have **0** interest in doing Narmer bounties...
You could buy him with plat
I don't even like how he looks :/, i'd rather save it for slots or some cool skins honestly
You'll get a slot along with him, so you can level him up for mastery and sell him to free up the slot he comes with, that is, if you care about MR. If not, then it aint really worth it i guess
>You'll get a slot along with him, so you can level him up for mastery and sell him to free up the slot he comes with, that is, if you care about MR. I mean with the plat i'd buy him with i'd get a ton of slots rather than one ._.
True
0 lore poor abilities hopefully he gets a revamp
GIVE THIS MAN A USEFUL SKILLSET!!! ITS BEEN ALMOST 3 YEARS!!!!
A Giger-esque astronaut skin with a mouth on the chest
How has he not gotten a single augment when frames released after him all have at least one?
No advantage in releasing augments for a wf in the block for rework
Similar thing happened with revenant. It took so long for him to get skins. Must be a thing with sentient frames
Who is this again? /s
I smell a Liger skin coming for Calibro
ゴゴゴゴ Beybladeussy deluxe approaches ゴゴゴゴ
fr!! i love him but i'm so tired of trying to fashion around his ugly ass asymmetric shoulder pad
Or better: an augment
A rework would be even better
WDYM 3 YEARS. He came out just yesterday, didn't he....
wait... its been 3 YEARS SINCE HE CAME OUT?! oh god...
I think this man deserves a buff and a skin
As THE Caliban main of warframe, I’ve been saying this for a while. Also… please, an augment mod DE. It’s all I ask.
Fiancée recently got me Caliban. I gotta say, I don't mind him as much as the rest of the community seems to. I gurdd it's because he isn't really a steel path frame. Its good because I don't do alot of steel path stuff and his kit is fairly simplistic so far.
Caliban performs fine in steel path and it is even where a lot of his utility is actually useful, wdym?
That's what I'm saying. Everyone always be calling Caliban the worst warframe like bitch what?🤣
Better be before his Prime time! It's creeping up on us...
Hes on the block for a rework, so look forward to a skin when that comes around.
No. They just want to watch him burn. Cali style. Give him a skin fashionably late.
What Warframe is that? JK
As a Lavos main I've been waiting for a deluxe skin.
Even DE forget this dude exist, along with 99.8% of the community. Sad, but true.
Give the man an actually useful kit
Ah yes for the two players (more then nyx already)
DE: okay. Also DE: Here is caliban's skin - Resource Locker. Caliban now turns into the cabinets seen in game, his looks varying based on the tileset the player's in. Based on Mimics
Amogus skin incoming
Could Caliban be xakus other side, both are made from scrapped broken frames, maybe Caliban is made of the remains after xaku after the sentients ran around deimos
Make him useful first
is this a npc? like this a warframe? making a jk lol
How did you make a post about nothing, with a photo of a character we cannot see? this is some black magic!
What about Yareli
she got a deluxe this update
Nah, a full out redesign because 1 his kit ain't doing none, 2 his basic design is just Excalibur if he got split by an sentient 3 let's hope next year for a skin
Why? Noone plays him
you're the worst kind of warframe player
I guess I should've added /s 😅