This Build Honestly Surprised Me! | Will It Build?

[@RD22x]

Let's see Paul Allen's build.

[@MacticsG1]

im doing pantheon carries all day today at twitch.tv/mactics and usually i do raffles to pick 5 people at a time per run. this comment was so good though that ill take you on a run anytime today, just hop in and let me know, thanks for the laugh!

[@RD22x]

@@MacticsG1 no way my G!! I'll log on in a bit and shout you. Legend

[@kaijukingofthemonsters1075]

​@@MacticsG1 so this is the "Good KZbinr Build" I've heard so much about, no wonder it's one of the best late game builds

[@BarryTalent]

I cant believe mactics prefers his build to mine

[@TheJay1979]

The tasteful thickness of it. Oh my God

[@youtubevoice1050]

Rules for Caliban's Hand: 1. Ads are your primary target. 2. Always try to get a direct knife hit (preferably a crit on majors), that's an important part of the damage. 3. Avoid throwing the knife on the ground, also because the explosion has damage falloff, so ads that aren't close enough might not be killed and the knife is wasted (then you don't even get the ability regeneration from a lingering knife that didn't explode). 4. Tankier targets like majors should be staggered with a few shots first (they can dodge otherwise) and then throw at the weak spot. Shields have to be taken down first. Elites need to be damaged (varies with difficulty), preferably to where they can be finished before using the knife for an ignition. 5. Never throw the knife at exploder-type enemies. They will self-detonate and you get nothing. 6. Pair your build with a hard-hitting special weapon for dealing with tankier targets.

[@Spooqi]

I've been following these exact rules with a Recombination Mountaintop and it's really fun

[@purp0susanoo99]

yes this is the way. he wasnt hitting crits you have to get your enemies low then hit them with it for the effect

[@youtubevoice1050]

@@Spooqi Yes, that will work nicely.

[@cjallenroxs6239]

You do get melee regeneration tf you talking about

[@youtubevoice1050]

@@cjallenroxs6239 Regeneration only happens as long as the knife hasn't exploded yet. So it's better if you miss completely, than the knife exploding without doing much damage, which stops the loop and the regeneration.

[@vindicatus1057]

"I made one change to make this build overpowered." I swapped to a different build.

[@ImDemi7]

Technically still 1 swap

[@megasiege2147]

@@ImDemi7 2. swapped out of the melee and the exotic. and Yes, since Caliban's is centered entirely on proximity and he swaps out of both the melee and the exotic, the build is completely different.

[@GloverGaming3]

​@@megasiege2147 3, since he also switched to Ashes

[@SterlingSanders]

Put’s on melee focused build proceeds to use guns as primary, even when melee ability is up. *smh* Also, Pugilist, alongside all other ability buffs, are tied to your ability stat for amount of return. So for you to get the most out of pugilist, you have to have a 100 strength stat, then pugilist will return the most point of strength possible per kill.

[@MacticsG1]

without a doubt an exotic armor piece is probably the top 3 factor in what makes a build unique, but changing the exotic armor piece doesnt inherently make it an entirely new build. the power fantasy of the build was "spam solar nukes", which remains the power fantasy and is actually accomplished more so with that exotic armor swap. with every single ability (sans 1), weapon, artifact mod, and armor mod remaining identical, and the playstyle remaining identical, feels fair to call it the same build

[@tmantoo]

im sure the build is great and all, but i am furious they didnt go with "Hoppenheimer" instead of jumpy Oppenheimer

[@jacobhilker7722]

Low key I didn't think of it

[@TheFirstDisciple001]

DUDE THAT'S LITERALLY WHAT IVE CALLED MY CALIBANS HAND BUILD SINCE OPPENHEIMER CAME OUT sick that someone else had the same idea lmao

[@blazingmalfunction]

As a Hunter main, watching him absolutely struggle with understanding how calibans hand works physically hurts. definitely using this build, though.

[@rickfsu22]

I thought the exact same thing, it was blowing my mind he didn't understand how the throwing knives worked on a build craft channnel.. it was like watching someone throw keys at a door and saying "why isn't the door opening" 😅

[@a.j9834]

@@rickfsu22so well put 😭

[@bl6628]

Yes. I used Calibans for 6 months after release in ALL content. Heritage > Mini tool w/ Incan > Lament/Parasite/Xeno/Sleeper. The build promotes aggressive play and forces you to be accurate with the knife throw. It's true you have to lower the health of enemies in harder content but once you get into that mindset it's really easy. Approach group while firing mini tool, once health gets low chuck knife at their head and boom. If the ignition doesn't kill everything, whatever is left is usually weak enough to immediately chuck another knife to clean up. If I had cracked teammates I would just watch health bars and throw my knife when my teammates lowered one enough. It's funny how people praise sunshot and don't seem to realize calibans works similarly (shoot to reduce health/kill and cause explosions) and doesn't lock your exotic weapon choice. It's not a meta exotic by any means but it's really strong when used correctly.

[@youtubevoice1050]

@@bl6628 True, I've been using it this whole season due to the Y.A.S.- nerf. There is a learning curve to it, but when played smart it can do very well.

[@horrorfan1415]

@@bl6628once I got it, after they did the slight tweaks to it it became my go to solar exotic by a large margin.

[@paperjam1451]

The real issue with Caliban's hand is that the only real value is the ignition on knife kill, which only really happens consistently on squishy red bars or really low enemies. So the other half is almost useless unless you have like four other ways to get scorch. So it's great in squishy ad dense areas

[@LeonShadow-yc8vo]

Fr though, the second part of the exotic (the regen) should be swapped to a stacking knife damage buff based on the number of ignition kills you get before using it.

[@TheGraffiti600rr]

Try it in gambit. Works great. It's my go to for it.

[@DrZlow]

yeah and it must be a kill. Shanks and servitors just break. they don't die, it is not a kill.

[@sonnyankau9239]

it's just a lackluster exotic. too niche to ever worth using over something else. same as most exotics in the game. Bungie needs to just do a massive pass and buff/rework many of them.

[@charliebartlett5768]

​@@sonnyankau9239fr, so many cool exotic weapons and armour that should be amazing for build crafting but fall short of builds that focus on your super or just DPS. I would love exotics like centrifuse, lucky raspberry, mask of bakris, Caliban's etc. to actually feel strong.

[@Keolye206]

Hey Mactics, as a Caliban Hands lover, I absolutely was excited to see a build video about it. There's things I have noticed while running the exotic extensively. The ignitions on direct impact kills of proximity knife doesn't work when it kills something that already explodes on death, i.e. cursed thralls, shanks, servitors. So I generally don't try to use it on them and use it on normal mobs. Will definitely try this build, keep up the great work!

[@TheFirstDisciple001]

Exactly, he could def get better at running this build Also it might just be me but sometimes using your throwing knife on those explode-on-death enemies just does not refund your knife energy

[@youtubevoice1050]

​@@TheFirstDisciple001In fact, exploders do nothing. They self-detonate on impact, so you don't get anything at all. Never throw your knife at those.

[@ForeverLaxx]

It bothers me that so many things fail to proc against exploding enemies. It's like they're coded to "damage" themselves when detonating which seems to overwrite many effects that trigger on kill, particularly when that trigger is an ability.

[@DarkDemon259]

As a hunter main and Caliban enjoyer, this hurts to watch. Caliban's Hand is good anywhere with high ad density as long as you know how to use it. In this video, the perfect time to use it would be on waves with fallen dregs or near the end of the running section with the spark but he kept shooting those enemies and trying to proc the knife on shanks and servitors. To get the most out of the exotic: - The knife has to get the kill (either the direct impact or the proximity explosion) - The enemy has to leave behind a body for the ignition to happen. The ignition triggers on kill and uses the dead body as the source. No body, no boom. So fallen shanks/servitors, shadow taken thrall (spawned by taken wizards), cursed thrall, vex harpies, etc. Won't cause ignitions because they don't leave behind a corpse long enough to ignite. In casual content, you can just toss the knife at red bars and watch the fireworks. In at level/medium difficulty content where the red bars are a bit tankier, you want to weaken them first then kill with the knife. Especially useful with dense groups or when red bars are near tankier enemies. Proximity knife can do precision damage so there's benefit in aiming for the head. In GMs where knife trick falls off because you're typically playing from a distance: you want to throw it from long range (it has a bit of tracking) to get the kill on weakened red bar that's in a group. This is where you can chain ignitions with the right fragment set up to spread scorch on ignitions to everything that survives the initial ignition. When there's only one tanky target, you can still get an ignition for a bit of chunk damage by throwing a knife, dodging to refund the knife and immediately throwing another. Since the exotic makes proximity knife spread 60 scorch, two of them will cause an ignition. But basically it's as simple as "use powered melee to kill weak enemies". No need to think too hard because even if they don't ignite, you still get your melee back as long as you get the kill.

[@SeanAnon369]

Im a hunter main. It doesnt sound worth the price considering there's WAY better and viable exotic combos, also, having to remember all the "what not to hit" just sounds tedious...

[@DarkDemon259]

@@SeanAnon369 The don't use it 🤷‍♂️ As for the enemies that don't ignite, it's not much different that knowing which enemies can't proc dragonfly (shanks for example don't have a crit spot). You don't memorize them per say; you just get used to it.

[@Chaotic_H3LL]

@seanwilliams5826 Sounds like a skill issue tbh. Its a fairly braindead exotic to use. And yet people still don't understand it. Don't throw knife at something that blows itself up. (Which if you have any functioning brain activity you should already be doing, because any melee that isn't throwing knife is going to kill you if you do this) Don't throw your knife at shadow thrall (This is simple) Weaken enemies before pegging them with the knife (Again, if you use any build where killing something melee is the goal, you should already be doing this.)

[@ForeverLaxx]

@@SeanAnon369 Don't feel too bad. Some people are just married to builds that make them work harder for less output, convinced that if you're not willing to spend 110% of your energy on playing a build for 80% of another build's power that it's just a "skill issue." There's no reason to juggle everything for Caliban's when you can just run YAS + Gamble or Shards and get the same level of "nuke of world" for less work. You're doing it right.

[@DarkDemon259]

@@ForeverLaxx The irony of saying people are "married to builds" while advocating for just being a slave to meta builds. This video was simply a poor showing of the exotic and gives the impression that it's a bad exotic simply because he's not using it properly. Which is weird because Mactics himself has posted a much better Caliban's video showing him using it better in the Vexcalibur mission.

[@CoziestCozy]

Mactics if you throw the caliban’s knife at a full health elite again I’m gonna riot

[@pjilla629]

If you have to widdle a health bar down to 1/3 to make use of the melee ability why not just finisher? Finishing is free. To be a useful ability you shouldn't have to widdle it down first. If you do use something else that will kill or help you kill more consistantly

[@Fubbernutt]

@@pjilla629 because finishers don't nuke everything around them. The whole point is to get an enemy squishy enough to kill with the knife so they ignite and chain ignitions to the rest of the group.

[@hikarisigma]

Tired of trying calibers for little to no effect. Try instead my boy the ophidia spathe. The build revolves around scorching targets constantly exploding them and keeping the healing up With ember of Empyrean. Subclass: solar (of course) Super: blade barrage Abilities: gamblers dodge jump of choice Weighted knife Healing grenade Aspects: On your make and knock em down. Mostly for the 5 fragments but you can swap on your mark to gamble if you want. Fragments: Torches Singeing Ashes Empyrean Stats: resil>dis>mob>rest>int>str Weapons: Dealers choice in top slot. I use a disorienting grenade launcher THE SKYBURNERS OATH (mvp)/ incandescent primary Solar heavy or dragons breath Armor: ophidia spathe Gamplay loop is to drop a grenade to trigger resto, hip fire the oath to scorch an enemy then hit it with your knife. The knife will ignite them spreading scorch, keeping restoration up, giving radiant, restocking the knife and giving super and class energy. Mods: Head: siphon, hands on, dynamo Arms:heavy handed, impact and focusing strike Chest:res and charged up Legs: 2x surge and recoup Class: reaper and dialation

[@cochi2221]

14:45 And that's exactly the reason why I don't like Gunpowder Gamble

[@TheGraffiti600rr]

To be fair, they (bungie) reduced the self damage this last update I think it was? I dont think it's an instakill if you're at full health... I dont think.

[@sagenapier7480]

@@TheGraffiti600rryeah but the catch is, when is our muscle memory throwing a healing grenade while at full health?… pointless fix bungie 😂

[@keatonisballin]

Facts lol

[@tako158]

Same, but that timestamp does not truly show the problem with GG. In that moment he threw GG but it didn't explode and then he threw a healing nade, which healed him. Then he shoots GG with the gun, which kills him.

[@SeanAnon369]

I hadnt used solar much since 3.0 but started since it's meta now and for the longest time I couldn't figure out why my healing nade kept blowing me up and switching to a stick of dynamite. It hit me once I got caught up and started doing endgame build crafting to finally realize I needed to switch my aspects, lmfao...it's literally the dumbest ability aspect imo...

[@cognitivescience9924]

You’re using it wrong. Lower the enemy’s health (red bars) so when you throw the knife, you kill with it and trigger the AOE ignition.

[@ImMohammedAli]

Ikr he just tried to go for yellow bars and use primary for reds 🤦🏻

[@lonchidcr]

its fair to say that prox knife does not have enough dmge for endgame, but my guy took 15 minutes to figure out how it works and didn’t even give it a chance, literally got two caliban kills in the whole video. its meant to kill a group of redbars, the final blow is the key. not throwing it randomly at anything. for regular casual play its one of the most broken exotics.

[@Mr_Ruhl]

Seriously, I haven't even used calibans and was so annoyed watching this bot shooting all the red bars instead of throwing a knife. Smh.

[@charlesabuah2331]

@@Mr_Ruhl LMAO, this bot, as you put it, is supposed to be an elite PVE player.

[@Aurummorituri]

@@charlesabuah2331LMAO, this “Elite PvE Player” as you put it, was completely whiffing his knife throws with the wrong fragment setup and overall not doing anything right with the gameplay loop.

[@anubis1800]

I dunno about everybody else, but getting a red bar weak enough to use Caliban's to ignite a big group and watch the "nuke" go off is not that hard. I do agree that the proximity knife NEEDS a buff to be more useful in any game content.

[@megasiege2147]

i'd say the biggest problem about Calibans in Onslaught is that a fair percentage of enemies are either cursed thrall or shanks, which dont ignite on death. I wish Bungie would fix that.

[@Baguette18]

I don't have a name for it but I've been having a lot of fun in mid/low tier content with this: exotics: Huckleberry and Chromatic Fire subclass: all that matters is that you have feed the void on armor mods: all that matters is double kinetic surge with stacks on stacks and time dilation, and kinetic siphon. the build isn't super complicated, and fragments don't really matter since the main point is just mowing everything down with Huckleberry, void explosions everywhere, and never running out of health or ammo.

[@crmurray04]

I love Caliban's in theory. In practice, the damage can be lackluster and the ignitions can be iffy like it was mentioned. I played it so much once they "fixed" it a few seasons back but after a while the damage and doesn't hold up as well, especially if it is not enemy dense to make use of the ignitions.

[@Saito232005]

I thought the problem with Caliban's hand is that its extremely hard to get knife kills off knife. From what i think i remember, if you chuck a damage grenade and the knife, your ignition and kills count as grenade kills and not knife kills.

[@TheGraffiti600rr]

When calibans hand came out, it only refunded the knife if the knife got the kill, not the explosion. During haunted, bungie fixed this so the knife explosion can also refund the knife. Great right? Well... the knife isn't great at damage so you usually need to prep the target to get the kill in the first place. I love the idea and even in easy content like gambit, it really shines, but anything... sorry, everything else is about too much for calibans hand to handle imo.

[@SeanAnon369]

​@TheGraffiti600rr they need to make it where, intrinsically, it gives proximity knife an auto kill upon hit, at least for yellow and red bars or something. That way u can still f*** it up if u miss but its not completely worthless...

[@royalminnis9855]

@@TheGraffiti600rr you don’t have to prep any targets, proximity knife with calibans applies 45 scorch stacks alone with ashes its 50. All you do is don’t run gunpowder gamble, equip ashes, throw a knife if its a chunky target dodge, throw another knife. The target will ignite off proximity knife damage. Which all ads suffer from a melee multiplier. Meaning the ignition does more damage than usual. Also run benevolence so ignitions spread scorch. Essentially calibans replaces gun powder gamble.

[@TheGraffiti600rr]

@seanwilliams5826 I think your kinda right. It being an exotic, it should get a boost to proximity knife damage so it can 1 shot red bars like fighting lion use to before they "fixed it" so now it don't kill nothing.

[@mercyrule]

Caliban's Hand should really buff Proxy Knife damage. I think something that would help this build is a One-two Punch shotgun in the kinetic slot, hit someone with shotgun then immediately throw your knife at someone else.

[@cmdrmeldoc59]

Honestly, for explosive ad clear and good burst damage, Young Ahamkara’s Spine works super well even after the nerf if you make two changes. Have Gunpowder Gamble and Ember of Blistering on. It makes a world of difference, and clears the battlefield! Basically just make sure you have a solar weapon (Luna’s Howl with Heal Clip and Incandescent is the best), throw more grenades, and you’re chillin’. Yas works on ability kills, Blistering works on ignition kills. Gunpowder Gamble is a throwable ignition that counts as an ability. One gamble can get your whole grenade back, and it counts towards the next gamble, so you can sometimes throw a grenade, gamble, grenade, gamble. It’s actually so fun for Onslaught!

[@Angel-fp5mi]

What are the other fragements and mods on armour to use?

[@cmdrmeldoc59]

@@Angel-fp5mi Not sure if I can post DIM links here, so if not here's the names of everything: Exotic armor: Young Ahamkara's Spine Fragments: Ashes, Torches, Singeing, Blistering. Preferred weapons: Hard-hitting special, Solar primary with incandescent, 1K Voices or other high burst/high total damage heavy. Preferrably solar. I did 1K voices because it scorches and ignites as well as having good total damage. Armor mods: Harm siphon, Ashes to Assets, Dynamo Firepower, Grenade Kickst, Impact Induct Two elemental resists, one Charged Up Stacks on Stacks, Innervation, Recuperation Reaper, Bomber, Powerful Attraction Preferred stats in order of importance: 100 Resil, 100 disc, 100 Mob. Prioritize the first two, then get the third as high as you can to help with dodge cooldown if you have no abilities up for some reason. Artifact mods is basically all the solar ones including Rays of Precision cause Ignitions really helps the build, obviously. Didn't mention which knife to use cause it doesn't matter. I use prox. because I solely use my knife for impact induction and thus don't mind leaving it somewhere instead of having to be precise with it. Also didn't mention Aspects but I feel like the other one being Knock Em Down is self-explanatory. Super is Blade Barrage as GG needs a complimentary exotic to make it good, and Knock Em Down makes Blade Barrage do more damage. :D

[@Angel-fp5mi]

@@cmdrmeldoc59 Thank you, I look forward to trying this out!

[@cmdrmeldoc59]

@@Angel-fp5miyou’re welcome! It’s really fun in Onslaught! :P

[@loudmcleod7127]

+500% melee regeneration while UNEXPLODED. Don't go for the direct hits. Throw it in front of where you know enemies will be and let it set a little bit. Between the increased rate and damage it should be spreading scorch like crazy and resetting pretty quick. Watching this video I've been resisting the urge to yell "READ IT! 🤬🤬🤬"

[@Iced_Tristan]

Honestly the best way for Hunters to build into ignitions is not Caliban’s or Gunpowder Gamble, it has been Ophidia Spathe for me. Throw two sets of knives into a beefy target to trigger the ignition and as long as it doesn’t have scorch from another source the AoE will get your knives refunded. Also the knife damage bonus applies to the ignition damage too so all that extra damage works much better in under level content.

[@k1sheare]

This build was a lot better around season of the haunted (think that was the season). It used to be able to constantly nuke rooms of red bars, and hit hard on majors.

[@eyeswulf]

Oh yeah, it was my go to post YAS nerf/rework. Still miss my YAS queen though...

[@TheFirstDisciple001]

Yup. The artifact mod that buffed ignition damage and i think range helped this build SO much

[@charliebartlett5768]

Ophidia Spathe with knife trick is just a better Calibans hand. The melee can actually kill things and you can toss both of your knives onto a big target to cause an ignition. + you get the stacking knife damage benefit.

[@WrathNebula321]

The issue with Caliban's hand is that it can be inconsistent with its ignitions when you land a knife kill, even on a red bar enemy. Sometimes the ignition happens, sometimes it doesn't happen and there will also be times where you will get a knife kill but you don't get refunded the knife even when you have Knock 'em Down. I loved running this exotic back when it first came out in Season of the Haunted, but after the changes to Celestial Nighthawk, Shards of Galanor, and even Foe Tracer, Caliban's hand has unfortunately been on my least used exotics list. Here's to hoping it gets a change in the future.

[@TheGraffiti600rr]

Well said.

[@DarkDemon259]

Some enemies (cursed thrall/exploder shanks/skreebs) don't trigger the "refund knife on kill effect" because they technically die to their own explosion. If the damage source wasn't the knife, it won't trigger the refund. Unshielded shanks will trigger the refund but when they are shielded, the solar explosion from the shield breaking usually steals the knife kill. Also, the ignition happens on the corpse of the enemy. Unshielded shanks will refund the knife on kill but won't trigger the ignition because they don't leave behind a corpse to ignite. Cursed thrall, skreebs, vex harpies, shadow thrall, servitors, etc. won't trigger ignitions for this reason.

[@WrathNebula321]

@@DarkDemon259 I'm talking about normal red bar ads, not the exploders, shanks, servitors, etc. There were times where I got a knife kill on a dreg or even a vandal, but the ignition doesn't go off and that chance of me not getting my knife back even with Knock 'Em Down + Ember of Torches

[@DarkDemon259]

@@WrathNebula321 Just an educated assumption based on my understanding of the game engine: In those cases, the scorch damage probably stole the kill. The exotic also applies scorch damage to proximity knife. Only two scenarios I can think of is the enemy had a pixel of health left after the proximity explosion and died to the scorch effect. Or the scorch was applied on the direct hit and the damage tick happened on the same frame/slightly earlier frame as the proximity explosion which would've both killed the enemy and the game prioritized scorch as the source of the kill. Not so different than when the knife explosion originally wasn't categorized as "knife damage" back in Season of the Haunted. The ignition/refund wouldn't trigger when the proximity explosion got the kill, only direct impact kills which caused a much worse "inconsistent" feeling since enemies that survived the impact but died to the explosion wasn't triggering any effects. This was later fixed by categorizing the proximity explosion as "knife damage". Unfortunately I doubt there's an easy way to have the game group scorch damage the same way as there's no way to separate it from other sources of scorch. They'd have to update the exotic perk to include enemies killed by scorch damage counts as a "knife kill" but that would mean scorch kills from any source would also refund your knife and cause ignitions. Alternatively, they could remove the scorch effect from the exotic. It would be a slight nerf but it should feel more consistent as it would eliminate those outlier cases of scorch from the exotic stealing the kills.

[@SeoulTeaTV]

Watching Mactics misuse the exotic for over half the video was infuriating. Don’t get me wrong Caliban’s struggles in high LL content, but I watched this guy throw the knife at full HP yellow bars when he knows the knife needs to get the final hit. It’s truly not that hard to get something one before throwing the knife

[@andrewparkhurst2520]

And then not use it on the 20 red bar fallen enemies and instead use the hand cannon to individually kill all of them taking 4 times the amount of time

[@joelkirkwood8224]

I’ve been using Caliban’s Hand with Dragons Breath a lot lately and find it very effective. However, my build works a little differently. I use incendiary grenades with it. Grenade =primer Proximity knife=detonator. For aspects I use gunpowder gamble and on your mark. For fragments I use ember of char, eruption, ashes, blistering, and wonder. The best part is you can swap out CH for Aythrys Embrace for higher level content. Heavy throwing knife also detonates scorched enemies on kill.

[@atibaadolphus178]

This video was helpful in that I've always thought about trying to make a Caliban's Hand build and now won't waste my time trying anymore 😅

[@fallen5983]

you shouldnt take this video as a reason to not use it, no hate to mactics, usually hes great with these videos but in this one he just really struggled to understand how youre supposed to use caliban. calibans hand is great, proximity knife doesnt need to do a ton of damage to whatever youre throwing it at, it just needs to get the kill. weaken an enemy with your weapons, then use the knife to finish it off and watch the fireworks

[@SterlingSanders]

Put’s on melee focused build proceeds to use guns as primary, even when melee ability is up. *smh* People should include the play loop as standard for their build submissions. Also, Pugilist, alongside all other ability buffs, are tied to your ability stat for amount of return. So for you to get the most out of pugilist, you have to have a 100 strength stat, then pugilist will return the most point of strength possible per kill.

[@Namisamas]

nice he used the build wrong then said it was ass lovely human he is

[@tonyt756]

As someone that enjoys Caliban"s Hand, watching you botch the knife kill over and over, was painful. You didn't know how it work, then switched to an entirely different build... Just put the Shards of Galanor in the thumb nail and call it a day! Other than that, great video. I'll try a Shard build on my next hunter Onslaught run.

[@gerardoayuso9002]

Big fan but, it’s way more value to the build when you understand all the mechanics first before jumping into an activity. Ex: dragons breath reloads itself when you get a second ignition off

[@charliebartlett7336]

one of my builds that ive been rocking in onslaught and recently pantheon is a support hunter build that makes use of speedloader slacks and a heal clip solar weapon (usually abyss defiant). mix it up with acrobats dodge, benevolence, singeing, emrpyean and either searing or mercy to keep everyone healthy and then just slot in some ammo finders or powerful friends, power preservation or radiant light to support fireteam supers to boosted levels and call it done.

[@rathscendance]

Yeah I like the shards build on hunter. It was what I used for solo Warlord's because you can get it really quick actually on the ogre to where if you leave enough ads that the dragon's breath killing them from the explosion you can do 2 blade barrages in one damage cycle. Evios is the goat.

[@2KLEGO2K]

If you want the same gameplay style of knifes that ignite and explode, ophidia spathe with weighted knife is better in high end content, you get 2 knives and knife kills buff knife damage, and weighted knife ignites targets when it hits a scorched target, which is really easy to get, plus gamblers dodge gives both charges back, so you have constant knives.

[@MashedPotatoes21]

Your tried really hard to get final blows with your melee when you switched to shards of galanor. I want to see that same effort with calibans hand.

[@EonstoEras]

Hey, I have a build that might be something. I’ve always felt that the stasis warlock super was one of the weakest supers, so I have turned to using Ager’s Scepter with Mantle of Battle Harmony. They synergize very well, and kills will extend the duration of the catalyst providing extremely good AD clear. With the right fragments, aspects, and this seasons artifact mods, I believe it to be very strong

[@Zenith_Zen139]

Cal's and is ment to be Final blows with it in general ment for Chipping enemys then Throwing at weak or low hp targets. I found when using this Build its Geninly good if you Chip a Target to low or half then Hit the knife to A. Stun everything with ignition. or B. Kill everything in proxy. Direct hit kills are Nice cause they Give the knife back Instantly. But the Aoe Side of it works well in Groups with One Enemy being low Hp

[@thrice1084]

IIRC one-two punch won't work on the detonation itself for the proximity knife, but it still will bump the base knife damage allowing you to maintain the ability to quickly melee kill most targets whether it be from the knife or the detonation. Not necessarily an ideal perk for harder content or scaling content like the higher waves of Onslaught, but still worth a try if you want to see Proximity Knife's full potential; And, it would be an option on his suggested build as no primary was really focused in on. If you wanted to be fancy with it you could even craft a shotgun with pugilist and one-two punch for when you shotgun does overkill what you are shooting at. =P (again not exactly top tier, but still a fun thing to play around with)

[@TheGraffiti600rr]

Calibans hand is great for entry level content. Its awesome for that. Anything at neptune level or higher is nearly unplayable for calibans hand imo.

[@FalloutFan011]

Wish Bungie would just REVERT the NERFS to Young Ahamkhara's Spine specifically in PvE! To me thst was this exotics bigger, better, stronger brother😅😂 Miss the days of grenade, melee, grenade, weapon damage with Spine😅

[@SkywardShoe]

Given that prismatic will allow hunters to pair the Caliban's perk with other melee's, such as combination blow, I think that is where the concept will really shine. I wonder if a stasis shuriken that kills several adds will be able to ignite all of them, or just the first one on a cool down? Same for threaded spike. There's potential with every melee aside from smoke bomb honestly.

[@charliebartlett3843]

I think it’s more of a pvp exotic tbh. I play trials and 3v3 as a golden gun hunter and the only melee I use is prox knife. I think caliban’s hands intended design is to be throwing the prox knife on a ghost or on a wall waiting for the opponents to trigger(similar to a trip mine). While it’s there waiting for someone to trigger the knife you also get increased melee regeneration (500% regeneration) so you can get a couple knives each round, then if you do happen to get a kill it also deals damage to those near the kill. I do wish it did more damage in pve tho.

[@TheGraffiti600rr]

It really shines in gambit.

[@MrTHUD03]

I was struggling watch mactics throw the knife into the ground lol and not tryna land direct hits..set up the enemies and then throw the knife..i haaaate that calibans hand isnt as endgame viable

[@jacobhilker7722]

OH SHIT MY BUILD! Thanks for running it! That's pretty much the build - while I like Ashes for more ignitions from DB, I was using the reload function from ignitions. The main thing was using it to nuke redbars.

[@dakotahuber6564]

I was only able to get proxy refunded by being radiant. With that being said, a group of enemies killed by the proxy grants more scorch stacks, which cause ignitions to occur and repeat. Groups of enmies killed by the knife grants gunpowder gamble instantly, so I think maybe having acrobat's dodge helps caliban significantly

[@Delta-l87]

As of current caliban’s is just not worth it over other better melee based exotics such as Ophidia spathe, shards of galanor, or even assassin’s cowl. It lacks in damage in higher end content, it’s kind of the opposite of the old YAS (young ahamkara’s spine) set from before the nerf where YAS preformed extremely well in higher end content it heavily lacked in lower end because of how squishy ads are in lower end. The main takeaway with hunter exotics on solar especially they’re very hit or miss depending on the difficulty of the activity for instance Ophidia it gives more damage based on knife kills but the issue it comes to is that it in lower end the knife’s getting all that extra damage (100% at 3 kills) is pointless because most of what you’re aiming to kill will die anyways and in higher end it preforms quite well because of how efficient the extra damage can be. The reason galanor and nighthawk have become the main choices for solar is because of the consistent super spam you can preform where exotics like Ophidia, caliban’s, and YAS all fall short in the realm of super generation the main buffs these exotics need are are things that help them catch up. caliban’s needs more damage if anything, YAS needs its old grenade gen back with it being nerfed on bosses and guardians so PvP’ers won’t have as many problems with it, And then Ophidia is just waiting for galanor to get a nerf in some way.

[@Ruuod]

The issue with the ignition/kill on sunbracers ahs to do with ticks and source of scourge. When you finished an enemy a tick dmg could take credit for the kill. same goes for things like melee kills with snap. usually that tick is scourge on solar and so the tick can take credit for kill. if the source of the scourge is not from the melee but from a grenade or incandescant the this wont proc your sunbracers. same for ignition. the source of the scourge gets credit for ignition kills that build up from that target. but this also means if your melee scourges an enemy and doesnt kill it and youre able to create a ignition from it you can proc sunbracers from that scourge tick

[@rickfsu22]

I think your supposed to finish off one enemy that you've weakened with the knife and it creates the nuke to kill everything around it. This one seemed like an user error rather than build problem, this exotic takes execution and set up that I dont think you were familiar with.. Or maybe the submitter person didn't explain the gameplay loop enough idk.. I agree that shards are better but shards are the better than every exotic for hord modes. 😅

[@nirifer7275]

I like how dragons breath went from "bad lol" to probably the most used heavy exotic in most non-raid environments.

[@Suigeneris999]

id still use it ina raid environment. the damage is good for damage over time. makes it alot easier to swap to scattered signal and damage the boss.

[@ForeverLaxx]

My only issue with Dragon's Breath is that the projectile speed is slow enough that some bosses will just casually side-step it and the final ignition can kill you if you're close enough. I hate that mobs seem programmed to charge down the player whenever you're holding a GL/Rocket or are currently set to detonate with an explosion that will damage a player. Having to play "the floor is lava" with an entire spawn about to explode isn't fun.

[@KevinMystery]

I was in the livestream, and the intro absolutely killed LMAO. One-take! No Edits!

[@TheFirstDisciple001]

This has literally been my build since haunted (Calibans hand, just subbed out eyes of tomorrow for dragons breath this season). Glad to finally see Caliban's hand get the recognition it deserves

[@Chancellor-iy4fj]

I made a calibans hand build quite a while ago and one thing I’ve found is I only use one aspect from the caliban hand exotic and it is the improved proximity knife as the explosion it gives if used with the right fragments is amazing so I dw about the improved melee generation as when it does come to the chunky Hp enemies it doesn’t give the value that other melees do and, I only use it in when I’m above light or equal light as gminers said

[@danilopolar6476]

the season that scorching got introduced, a build with that exotic was soooo gooood we were getting so much ignitions the trick is use that on red trash targets that will die with 1 knife to the head and magic happens

[@tyler196792]

Best higher end use of Calibans I’ve ever had was the corrupted GM. A lot of super squishy ads and high ad density in the elevator and final boss room

[@BKAlamo]

Caliban's Hand was changed back in Season of the Haunted. From ignition on direct hit to ignition on kill proc. Thus changing it completely from what it used to do. Its was never a heavy damage dealer but you can get your knife back so much and proc ignitions just on a head shot. Also pre hands on nerf you got your super back really fast. Bungie made a small enough change that basically nerfed this exotic.

[@BKAlamo]

Apologies I meant the following season after Haunted.

[@duvinhewayaddehige9064]

If you use fusion nades with the fragment that gives grenade energy from ignitions you can insta ignite with knife and nade and give both back pretty fast

[@SavageD-qi2ti]

Love the collaboration, two of my favorite buildcrafters. Solid video!

[@RodWrecka]

Better nukage with ophidia spathe. Empyrean, singeing, torches, & char. Become radiant and scorch target with hand cannon, hit scorched target with weighted throwing knife, chains ignitions by hitting another target that’s scorched from ember of char.

[@dustinwoods4125]

With a prox knife buff of some sort, or a more consistent way to ensure that the kills are counted as "knife kills" and actually trigger it, then Caliban's would be much more useable. as is, it is fun to mess around with in lower level content, but can't hold up in legend or endgame stuff

[@TheCharlieDelta]

Caliban's is the greatest above light to at light exotic in terms of fun and devastation. Basically useless in legend and above

[@matthewg9467]

Athry’s Embrace > calibans. Weighted knife ignites scorched targets. Athry’s gives bonus damage. Toss in hip fire from Skyburner’s Oath for easy scorch and watch the world burn.

[@matthewg9467]

Alternatively, the exotic that gives double melees also works well with this build

[@KindaScuffed]

Caliban's is getting a BIG change in TFS to allow it to be paired with any knife you want, so if the damage is the problem, simply swap to Weighted. I'm going for a Caliban's/Synthoceps cloak when the time comes

[@Mcoombs4371]

If you want to make things go boom in higher content stuff I'd swap Caliban for Orphideous (spelling?) the weighted throwing knives ignite on precision hits on scorched targets instead of kills. Caliban is good when it gets going; like Assassin's Cowl you have to prime a red bar then melee. With CHand the grenade applies the scorch and the knife kills the target then they ignite. That ignition scorches and damages other targets and the knife kills them, causes ignition, scorching and damaging other target, repeat. The problem, like assassin's cowl, in a team environment your teammates will inevitably kill the thing you're trying to kill to get your build to work.

[@nickjaydar]

The point of calibans is to get ignitions not kills with the knife if that makes sense. Obviously you need the kills with the knife to get the ignition but it’s more for achieving ignition than killing a single target. Use an smg get a red bar low in a group with a major knife the red bar ignite the major repeat. Try as hard as you can to guarantee the ignition is the idea in my opinion.

[@tfewolf9410]

So... I love the original build, and I run something like it myself. The trick with it is to aim for red bars or weaken yellows, the ignitions go wild if you can get in the rhythm. I think it didn't click with you and that was just a mechanics thing, I think it's still a solid build.

[@SketchyMean08]

If you’re struggling to get a decent weapon with incandescent the Epochal Integration has a static role. I can’t remember exactly how to acquire it, but if you did have it and then dismantled it you can find it in your collections.

[@That_Ninja_Malik]

You get it from a quest on neomuna but as much as I love this HC, I swapped it out for luna's howl with heal clip / incandescent

[@gmeinersYT]

Peak Acting Debut 🙏

[@roaringkamakazi1854]

Yeah lowkey, I feel like the Caliban's in the thumbnail is a bait. This is a Galanor build by the end of the video.

[@TheTechMachina]

Skyburners works well with this for me. each hit already applies scorch, add knife, ignitions galore.

[@Menace-To-Humanity]

Caliban's hand is overall inconsistent with its refund and explosions. you throw the knife, get the kill and you have a 75% chance to get that knife back and for the explosion to happen. sometimes its 50/50 and sometimes its 0% on both the kill and the explosion. I ran this on the Moon's Gm and Cosmodrome's nightfalls and it was fun for the ad dense sections, but dragon's breath HEAVILY carries this build even with my own changes to it. Without heavy you're basically a sitting duck waiting for a low health target to pass by to use your ability on and make 1/4th of the room explode. And without your melee you're fine either way because you have heavy and a nade that scorches and does more dmg than your knife! Without both you're stuck to the GM bow gameplay experience, plink and plonking away until you get either or both back. This build without the extra fragments slots to help it sucks, and it only can thrive within squishy red bar ad dense content. Caliban's hand within PVE needs a dmg buff and a consistency fix because its less of "Caliban's hand" and more of "Caliban's Gamble." TO THIS DAY, the change to YAS could've easily been avoided and its still the stupidest change to an exotic I've seen thus far. why change the identity of an exotic that's been thriving since forsaken and hasn't been broken within either side of PVE or PVP? it had a rotation to it, it wasn't just spam 1 button and get tons of damage from it like bonk titan was. If you messed up the knife hit or dodge then you had to wait on either or to start the rotation again! all it needed was a Durability change within PVP so that it's easier to shoot down the grenade. EVEN THEN Stasis turrets and COTOD STILL takes half of your mag to down with PVP! And its worse that child is bound to the warlock's class ability, they can get it back every round because they don't have to sacrifice recovery for mobility or discipline! This was the only viable build for solar hunter's gameplay that let it compete against the other solar classes within harder content and they fucked it because of some minor complaints within the PVP side of things! we've seen them make changes like these based on the PVP perspective of exotics and not even give a second thought to the PVE side! Someone within bungie had the brightest idea to make this dumb change and thought it was gonna be just fine, now its just a husk of what it was supposed to be, collecting dust within my vault for the very first time within 2-6 years of its buff/ solar 3.0 launch DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED ON RESTORATION, MY GOD!!

[@feircy]

Calibans is much better for solo play, with a team its hard to setup final blows in anything actually difficult. Also that was like 10 changes 😂

[@TheRockemsockm]

Caliban is a pure PVP exotic and gives you nothing you couldn't already do except PVP related trap regen. You can get the same effect on weighted knife. Athryss and Ophidia can do ignitions with actual damage increases. They all still suck pretty hard in PVE sadly. I wish we had a real decent throwing knife build that scaled content.

[@crabbypatty10fefrefe]

Yeah, I came to the conclusion LONG AGO that the Hunter's Knife melee is just NOT STRONG ENOUGH in PvE. Not sure why Bungie hasn't realized this too??

[@thelrproject257]

you should still take a look at the severance enclosure hammer titan its honestly like being a walking warmind cell as you can set chain explosions with either the hammer or the regular roar of flame melee and essentially never die by having overshield finisher mods and charged with light finisher mods on. best part is the weapons on it are supplementary on the build meaning use whatever you like and honestly for almost all content except gm's the build is a certified slapper for ad clear especially in master dungeons

[@loudmcleod7127]

According to the text of the exotic, the idea is not to score direct hits but to lay it like a mine melee regeneration is increased UNTIL it detonates.

[@jaydehuling600]

Ohpidia spathe is an amazing option for this type of build too. It nukes in endgame

[@heftyjongle2958]

With shards of galonor I’ve been running firepower since gunpowder gamble counts even if you’re running healing grenade I run reloader with it for fast cures on Luna’s Howl I run acrobats dodge so between abilities and luna’s I’m procking benevolence constantly The lightweight knife gives radiant on precision hits* so you don’t need to run torches if you’re good That said I’m not good

[@Ghettoparables5]

Bungie has to buff Caliban’s for high end content, it has too much potential

[@hotdogandahayride9823]

I LOVE the American Psycho reference. Overall not a great movie but that scene was epic!

[@dallastate8173]

You should be able to cause ignitions with the seasonal mod that makes you apply scorch while radiant. You would use your melee charge to get radiant then shoot something to scorch it, dodge to get melee and throw it. The scorch should cause a ignition

[@sagenapier7480]

PSA I love these arms and PROMISE after bungie even announced the patch fix you do NOT have to get the kill with the proximity knife from a direct hit the kill can come from the explosion now. When they first released and were bugged, yes it HAD to be the direct impact damage from the knife to kill, not anymore

[@r_eece07]

ev1os is a goat :) nice to see some appreciation from Mactics community

[@kuhakuhdisboard7471]

I used a lot of caliban in pve and pvp, in low level content its crazy good! I actually never tried it in legend onslaught because I figured too it would stuggle getting the final blow, or too much work.

[@dailymemer9965]

Greetings Mactics. I’d like to show my appreciation for the videos that you make. It assists in guiding beginners by showing them the basics of BuildCraft, and for that I thank you.

[@MarluxiaKH0014]

Running Ophidia’s with the heavy throwing knife does this 10x better this season but especially this season thanks to the mods in the artifact

[@xyeona9624]

everytime I think "maybe I could make a build with that exo, that could be cool" I check my notifications to see you just uploaded a video about that exo lmao

[@ryenmoore4606]

I'm actually upset that he only uses the knife on tanky enemies

[@Problem159]

You have to get precision throw a knife kills with the proximity for it to be very good

[@Bigmiketorres]

Wait… is this where Aztecross got his idea for “Build Battles”? This is the first time this Mactics series pops up on my algorithm.

[@NvME_GazaH]

Been using that same shards build for almost a year now … I use incendiary nade instead… absolutely nukes

[@_SimpleJack_]

It's terrifying how little you know about builds that aren't Omni void hunter.

[@danielwilson3225]

I love calibans conceptually but it needs a rework to any knife 😔 so much fun but is actually useless in anything but at level content

[@EvanLavender-vf7yx]

i have been playing this build into the final shape and it slaps pretty hard. I'll miss the artifact mods that made solar top of the class during SotWish

[@Draithan]

Calibans hand isn't really good since they nerfed it into the ground a year or so ago. Also, 3 things to note. First gunpowder gable counts as a grenade for almost all in-game purposes. Second ignitions scale off of what gave the initial scorch stacks not what got them to 100. Finally (for whatever reason) having an anti-champion modifier on a weapon that gives the initial scorch stack heavily reduced the damage of the scorch and the iginitions

[@tristenhernandez1338]

Whenever I use calabands hand I throw a granade first to start scorch stacks. Then I throw the knife to start ignitions.

[@GLUTENX]

tell me for 14 minutes my guardian in light did not read the fine text

[@ericsonbach5411]

celestial nighthawk kind of functions in a similar way, crazy damage and precision kills give super energy

[@blitz82]

not going to lie putting your face into the slots was hilarious and im a bitter old man.

[@Diehardgamer2001]

Caliban's gonna be a lot better in the form of an exotic class item imo. You pair Caliban's with a melee dmg boosting exotic, and it should be more usable against tankier enemies.