Utilise the power of the Mecha Set, Archon Mods and Heat + Gas Catalyze to nuke enemies as [Lavos], the Full Mecha Alchemist. [Lavos]'s Catalyze is a strong through the wall nuke that applies elemental damage and a forced status effect, applying heat damage at base and a second element that you can 'infuse'. We infuse Gas into catalyze because Gas procs linger across the map dealing damage in a small AOE, lasting longer than usual due to [Lavos]' passive, and works well with both grouping and Sickening Pulse helminth.

Update April 2024
[Valence Formation] is a new augment that applies a +200% elemental bonus to weapons, BUT, seems to also apply to statuses created by abilities including Catalyze. This means infusing Gas into Catalyze will allow subsequent Gas procs to benefit from a 3x multiplier.

The mecha set provides many benefits:

• [Mecha Empowered] gives +150% damage (2.5x damage multiplier) to a marked enemy (marked every 12s), which doubles dips on status effects for a final 6.25x on heat/gas DoT
• [Mecha Pulse] gives +60% armor for each enemy in 30m upon killing the marked enemy. In a dense map lke survival you can easily get 1000-2000% armor bonus, which scales extremely well with Lavos' high base armor, allowing you to hit between 3000 to 10,000 final armor.
• Mecha set bonus causes status effects to spread upon killing a marked enemy which basically applies whole additional set of boosted catalyze procs to 30m radius every 15s.

Archon mods work well with Lavos, but are NOT compulsory (the regular versions work fine too):

• Archon Vitality adds an additional heat proc created by Catalyze
• [Archon Continuity] adds corrosive status upon being hit by toxin procs via Ophidian Bite, which helps with Emerald shard armor strip and any additional elemental statuses boost Catalyze.
• [Archon Intensify] activates upon being healed by Ophidian [Bite], giving a total of +60% strength (compared to only 44% from [Umbral Intensify]). Since you will tanking hits and constantly healing by 1, this should remain active almost always.

Archon Stretch and Archon Flow are NOT usable on Lavos since he has NO energy and does not benefit from energy orbs.

PLAYSTYLE

NON-HELMINTH PLAYSTYLE
You can achieve great results with the same exact build but without Sickening Pulse or Ensnare subsumed. You will just need to infuse corrosive more often to achieve full strip, or simply use a corrosive primer eg [Bubonico] (which can prime both viral and corrosive). Since you now have Vial [Rush] back, you can even infuse Magnetic into abilities which can help proc Melee Vortex on a melee focused Lavos.

1. Try to group enemies with Magus Anomaly/Ensnare/Nautilus Cordon/Melee Vortex.
2. Shoot your primer (e.g. [Cedo] altfire) to inflict more statuses then hold 1 and 4 to infuse GAS or hold 4 to infuse HEAT, before immediately casting Catalyze (4).
3. Tap 3 immediately after to reduce the cooldown of 4, and ideally before enemies all die (optionally, hold 1 and 3 before hand to infuse corrosive to add 3 corrosive procs)
4. Infuse corrosive (Hold 1 and 3) into every cast of 1, 2 and 3 to proc corrosive for armor strip (with 2 emerald +corrosive stack shards).
5. Infuse Corrosive and Tap 2 to Vial [Rush] and charge through groups of enemies, dropping vials that rapidly stack corrosive status for full strip on enemies standing in the pools (14 procs in 3-4s).
6. Infuse Corrosive and tap 3 to Transmutation probe to reduce cooldowns and also stack corrosive status (9 procs over 3s)
7. Infuse Corrosive into Ophidian [Bite] and tap 1 ideally into the group of enemies. This will reduce cooldowns of both 3 and 4 further while also adding exactly 4 corrosive procs (three from infusion and 1 from Archon Continuity).

COMBOS
Sickening Sublimation (Gas and Sickening Pulse)

• Group enemies
• Hold 1 and 4 to infuse Gas
• Tap 4 to nuke with Gas + Heat
• Hold 1 and 3 to infuse Corrosive
• Tap 3 to reduce cooldown of 4
• Tap 2 to cast Sickening pulse which will add 10 corrosive procs (giving full strip with 2 emerald shards), multiply electric status damage by 10x (from Transmutation probe), multiply gas status damage by 10x and increase its AOE (from gas infused Catalyze), double heat status damage (from Catalyze) and double toxin status damage (from Ophidian Bite).
• Hold 1 and 3 to further infuse corrosive and Tap 1 to tag 1 Toxin and 4 corrosive and reduce cooldowns of 3 and 4
• Optional: Spam grouping to get new enemies into the existing Gas clouds

.

Primed Combustion (Heat Inherit Catalyze)

• Alt-fire heat primer [Cedo] or Bubonico to prime enemies with multiple statuses to boost Catalyze, as well as prime enemies with heat proc for heat inherit
• Hold 4 to infuse Heat
• Tap 4 to nuke with Heat (3 heat procs total per enemy)
• Hold 1 and 3 to infuse Corrosive
• Tap 1 to reduce cooldown of 4 and add corrosive procs
• Hold 1 and 3 to infuse Corrosive
• Tap 3 to reduce cooldowns of 1 and 4 and add corrosive procs

Supermagnetic Vortex (Melee Vortex)

• Hold 1 and 2 to infuse Viral
• Tap 2 to Vial Rush for map traversal and to close melee distance and proc cold + viral everywhere
• Hold 2 and 3 to infuse Magnetic
• Tap 2 or 3 to reduce cooldowns more and prime with viral
• Hold 1 and 2 to infuse Viral
• Tap 1 to reduce cooldowns and proc tox + viral
• Repeat

BUILD SPECIFICS

Duration
Duration provides status duration to all of the statuses created by [Lavos]'s abilities. At 155% duration, every proc is increased to approximately 9s increasing the overall damage potential of a status. [Archon Continuity] is used because Toxin procs created by Ophidian [Bite] can then proc corrosive which boosts Catalyze in two ways, due to both minor armor strip (up to 80% at 10 corrosive) and because Catalyze scales with number of elemental statuses (2^status).

Efficiency
While efficiency technically has no effect on [Lavos]'s base cooldowns, efficiency is still very important because it affects the amount of cooldown reduction granted by both Transmutation probe and [Swift Bite] per enemy hit. At 100% efficiency, Transmutation probe reduces cooldown by 1.5s per enemy hit and [Swift Bite] reduces cooldown by 4s when at least 4 enemies are hit. This means casting a combination of [Swift Bite] (4s) followed by Transmutation probe hitting at least 15 enemies, allows you to reset [Swift Bite] for immediate recast. In total this combo reduces total cooldown by at least 30s, which allows Catalyze to be recast almost immediately after an initial catalyze cast. The second [Swift Bite] cast also reduces Transmutation probes cooldown so it is basically available for recast as soon as Catalyze finishes casting so you should be able to do the combination almost immediately again, provided there are enough enemies nearby and not dead.

Range
Range is essential for all of [Lavos]'s abilities, including his helminth options such as grouping abilities and Sickening Pulse.

Strength
Strength affects the damage of all abilities so we want to keep this positive and as high as possble allowing for the other stats.

Exilus
Flexible:

• Cunning Drift for more range
• Power Drift for more strength
• [Coaction Drift] double dips on aura, giving [Mecha Empowered] 198% status damage on marked enemies, which double dips for a final 8.9x multiplier.

ARCHON SHARDS

TWO Amber Cast Speed Shards to speed up cast animations
TWO Emerald +Corrosive Stack shards allows 14 Corrosive procs to full strip armor. Corrosive can be applied either directly by mixing 1 and 3 as well as indirectly through casting 1 due to [Archon Continuity].
Last archon slot is flexible, could add more duration or strength.

SURVIVABILITY

Tanking
Since Lavos does not spend energy, he is unable to reset shield gate with the normal methods using Brief Respite/Augur mods. For non-endurance content, you can commit to full eHP tanking using a combination of armor, health and adaptation and using Ophidian bite to heal.

Lavos has a high base health so Archon Vitality/[Vitality] boosts health to 1480. Transmutation Probe converts all orbs into universal orbs which activate Arcane Blessing so you can gain an additional 1200 health very quickly for a total of 2680 health.

[Lavos] also has a high base armor of 675, meaning [Mecha Pulse] after affecting just 10 enemies in a 30m radius gives a 600% armor boost for 3150 extra armor for 20s. Compare this to [Steel Fiber] which only gives +100% for another 675 armor. Since Mecha set has a cooldown of only 15s you should be able to upkeep a large armor buff permanently provided you kill dense crowds consistently. If you affect 20 enemies, you can get 1200% armor or 5850 armor for 95.6% DR. This multiplied with [Adaptation] gives 99.56% DR and applied to 2680 health gives an effective HP of 609,090.

Shield Gating

You can subsume a shield regenerating ability like Pillage or Condemn, and swap [Adaptation] for [Rolling Guard]. Pillage gives armor strip which is very beneficial to the [Lavos]'s damaging abilities, while Condemn gives crowd control which is very useful in Endurance and preventing you from getting hit in the first place. You will also want to run Vazarin protective sling for additional i-frames as well as [Huras Kubrow] or [Shade] for invisibility. [Shade] has the added bonus of having [Guardian] + [Manifold Bond] which allows it to constantly refill your shields passively whenever you get kills on enemies affected by multiple statuses, which is Lavos's specialty. An Endurance oriented variant using Pillage: https://overframe.gg/build/459333/lavos/pillage-lavos/

Another niche method is to use multiple sources of shield recharge delay reduction including warframe mods, Vazarin [Guardian] Break and [Grimoire] mod [Fass Canticle], allowing you to minimize recharge delay and just passively recharge shields while staying mobile. Simply swap out [Mecha Pulse] and [Adaptation] for [Vigilante Vigor] and Fast Deflection as seen here. Precision Intensify is also now optional over Archon Intensify since you wont be healing anymore. https://overframe.gg/build/604826/

HELMINTH OPTIONS

In most cases we subsume over Vial Rush, unless you really enjoy the mobility of vial rush.

Ensnare/Grouping
Grouping is ideal on [Lavos] as it lets Gas procs from Gas infused Catalyze overlap and create exponential damage on groups of enemies, and also allows more enemies to get hit at once for both [Swift Bite] and Transmutation Probe in order to reduce cooldowns more efficiently.

Ensnare is a bit slower than the other grouping abilities but provides longer crowd control by keeping enemies locked in place for longer durations. This is ideal on [Lavos] as you often need to perform an ability rotation before you can nuke with catalyze, so you need to keep enemies in place for at least a few seconds. Coil Horizon is a good alternative as it provides electric status procs in case you didnt cast 3.

Sickening Pulse
This sends a spreading wave that basically doubles heat DoT, doubles toxin DoT, adds 10 stacks of corrosive (to help with full strip from 2 green archon shards) but multiplies gas and electic DoT by 10x. This is the best subsume for smaller maps with tight corridors or where you can force enemies to naturally group up as they come in, or if you have an alternate form of grouping like Magus Anomaly, Vazarin Snare, [Telos Boltace], [Nautilus] [Cordon], Melee Vortex etc.

Roar
Boosts all DoT status effects and double dips the roar bonus. Less spammy and applies passively to all damage from both your weapons and abilities.

Expedite Suffering
Compresses the total duration of slash and toxin procs and deals it in one instance, then applies a multiplier. This is a great tool for disruption when paired with a good natural slash weapon such as [Flux Rifle], [Convectrix], Spectral Vandal or any decent slash Melee weapon (e.g. nikana prime, dual ether, kronen prime etc).

For a specific Expedite build, use this: https://overframe.gg/build/458639/lavos/endurance-disruption-lavos-expedite-suffering/

Thermal Sunder
The cold cast of Thermal Sunder acts like expedite suffering but for heat procs, so it compresses all heat procs created by Catalyze into one big blast damage instance. This also gives grouping because applying cold sunder to heat procs with sunder causes an implosion. AOE cold procs also contirbute to catalyze damage even in the absence of of Vial [Rush]. UNFORTUNATELY THIS IS IMPRACTICAL IN ACTUAL USE BECAUSE THERMAL SUNDER HAS A 15s BASE DURATION, MEANING THE ABILITY ACTUALLY HAS ABOUT 30s COOLDOWN

Pillage
Pillage lets [Lavos] shield gate more effectively and also strips armor which allows status effects to scale more effectively against armor.

ARSENAL

MECHA SET KUBROWS
The mecha set requires a kubrow, ideally Huras kubrow which will allow you stay invisible as long as you don't shoot:
https://overframe.gg/build/268129/huras-kubrow/huras-mecha-synth-stealth-doggo/

Pharoah Predasite is a reasonable alternative:
https://overframe.gg/build/268098/pharaoh-predasite/pharoah-predasite-mecha-synth-doggo/

SENTINELS
Sentinels are capable of using [Guardian] and [Manifold Bond], which is highly effective at keeping Lavos alive via shield gating.
Nautilus can be a useful passive grouping tool: https://overframe.gg/build/540870/
Helios can provide passive armor strip if you don't use emerald shards or pillage: https://overframe.gg/build/542050/

PRIMER
An AOE primer can spread status procs to enable Catalyze even further (the missing status procs are viral, magnetic, blast, cold, because corrosive is provided by [Archon Continuity]):

Bubonico allows you to prime for both Viral AND Corrosive, which allows green shards to full strip much quicker: https://overframe.gg/build/379795/bubonico/corro-viral-heat-primer/

Cedo is able to proc the most unique status effects in an AOE to boost Catalyze: https://overframe.gg/build/320186/
Kuva Ogris is also able to proc alot of unique status effects in an AOE: https://overframe.gg/build/235335/

The [Grimoire] is a useful utility weapon that can double as a primer, an armor strip and stat buffer. [Jahu Canticle] can be used to strip 5% armor per kill in 50m range (note [Grimoire] doesnt need to get the kill, simply damaging an enemy then killing with [Lavos] abilities will activate this effect). Instead of [Xata Invocation], make sure to run one of the other Invocation to get bonus duration, efficiency or strength, all of which benefit [Lavos]. I would recommend going with efficiency since it is usually the stat with least amount of available sources and greatly improves the spammability of abilities.

HEAT INHERIT PRIMER
A heat secondary Inherit primer can significantly boost the heat procs created by Catalyze or heat infused catalye:
Bubonico/Cedo : https://overframe.gg/build/440064/bubonico/heat-inherit-primer-alt-fire-nuke-for-citrine/
Epitaph/Nukor : https://overframe.gg/build/376162/epitaph/heat-inherit-primer-epitaph/
Dex Furis Encumber: https://overframe.gg/build/460202/

MELEE WEAPONS
Telos Boltace - this weapon has a special ability where slide attacks group enemies with a 14m radius and 6s cooldown. [Telos Boltace] is also a Tonfa meaning it deals significant damage due to neutral combo on Sovereign Outcast and has very high status chance meaning it is a very strong user of Melee Influence.
Telos Boltace: https://overframe.gg/build/602481/

Dual Ichor Incarnon - this is currently the strongest light spam melee weapon in the game. You can pair this with Melee Vortex for grouping (use magnetic primer such as kuva nukor or infuse magnetic into abilities) or Melee Influence for AOE nuking.
Dual Ichor: https://overframe.gg/build/580783/

GAS GROUPING CATALYZE CALCULATIONS

Using a [Cedo] Primer giving blast, viral, rad, tox, electric, cold with heat and gas from catalyze gives about 8 unique status effects. If you apply this to a mecha marked enemy with 10 viral statuses, the highest gas proc that can be spread is

2000 x 1.45 x 0.5 x 2^8 x 4.25 x 6.25 = 9,860,000 gas damage per second

If you then apply this to 10 enemies ensnared together within 3m, each enemy will deal this amount of damage per second to each other enemy in a 3m radius, meaning each enemy actually takes about 99 million gas damage per second.

If you apply Sickening Pulse and use another form of grouping, we can max this to 10 gas procs which deals 99 million damage/s per enemy but in a 6m radius i.e. 990 million damage/s if 10 enemies grouped or about 2 billion damage/s at 20 enemies.

Without Mecha Empowered active, we deal about 1.6 million gas dmg/s per enemy, or 32 million gas dmg/s in 6m area if 20 enemies are ensnared.

HEAT INHERIT CATALYZE CALCULATIONS

Heat Inherit is a special characteristics of heat procs that causes heat proc damage to inherit the +heat% mods and +faction% mods from the very first heat stack applied to an enemy. This means you can give Catalyze heat procs an additional 5x damage multiplier from weapon mods even though it is not a weapon but priming enemies with a heat primer first.

Catalyze has a base heat damage of 2000 per cast and creates a guaranted heat status proc.
Self infusion with heat basically creates an additional instance of heat damage and a second guaranteed heat status proc per cast.

After casting all abilities and priming with a viral rad heat inherit nukor - you could get magnetic, radiation, viral, heat, elec, tox and possibly cold statuses for a maximum of 7 non-physical status effects to a small group of enemies, which magnifies Catalyze damage by a special multiplier of 2^7 = 128x. If you could swap primers or use secondary encumber to apply all 10 non-physical statuses, then you will get a multiplier of 2^10 = 1024x.

The viral applied by the primer gives a multiplier of 4.25x

On an enemy affected by mecha set mark, the bonus damage of [Mecha Empowered] (2.5x) actually applies twice to status effects for a final multiplier of 2.5x2.5 = 6.25x

Using a heat inherit primer, we can give allow catalyze to inherit the +heat% mods giving 1+1.65+0.6 ([Primed Heated Charge] + [Scorch] with no riven) = 3.25x as well as one faction mod of +55% giving a total of 3.25 x 1.55 = 5.03x

Finally Grineer enemies with cloned flesh and many Infested enemies take +25% increased damage to heat giving 1.25x multiplier.

Therefore, the final possible heat proc damage per second inflicted by one cast of Catalyze on a FULLY heat primed enemy (with 10 statuses and max viral) and affected by [Mecha Empowered] is:

2000 (base dmg) x 1.45 (strength) x 0.5 (DoT modifier) x 3 ([Archon Vitality] + self infused heat) x 2^7 (status modifier) x 4.25 (10 viral stacks) x 6.25 ([Mecha Empowered]) x 5.03 (heat inherit) x 1.25 (cloned flesh bonus) = approximately 92 million damage per second. With 10 statuses, this becomes 740 million damage per second.

Assuming the enemy doesn't die INSTANTLY (which would probably only be possible against levelcap armored grineer/corrupted enemies - for example a level 9999 corrupted heavy gunner has about 3.2 billion EHP), each cast of sickening pulse would double this allowing it to hit damage cap 2.14 billion dmg/s procs after 3 casts (not really practical due to cooldown).

In comparison, a single cast of cold sunder would compress the 9 seconds of heat procs into a single 8 billion damage instance of blast damage.