Let's see Paul Allen's build.

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

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 (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.

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Happy Birthday Mac!

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.

happy thursday mac

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MACTICS

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.

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.

merry christmas

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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

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

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 😅

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

great vid as always....ev1os is a goat!

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

On the bright side, Spirit on the caliband will allow solar ignitions on melee kills.

LOL with the melee!

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

I use ember of char and ashes, it just chains ignitions and makes gunpowder gamble also scorch

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.

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.

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

Hey Mactics, do you know any decent replacements for sunshot? I I don't have zhaoulis bane and I'd like to free up my exotic slot.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

the opening was so funny when it was live

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.

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

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.

I love the Calibans hand build but I almost always try to hit squishy enemies for the kills and explosions or I take the health down on harder enemies then finish with the knife. Just how I play it. It gets massive explosions.

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

I would swap in luna's howl heal clip/incandescent, hunter dodge works with heal clip so it's nice here

happy halloween!

Hey mac, i have an arc hunter build centered around arc staff i would love to see you try if possible. I would also love to hear any tweaks you may have for it if you think it needs any. I called it "Me and that stick i found" in the will it build channel. Awesome video btw and happy belated birthday boyo

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.

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.

Is there an ahamkara spine build coming? Would love to see that!

I have a similar build as this and I strictly use it for ad clear, I like to use 6 shot golden gun with ember of combustion for Even more ignitions

I was running this during the nightmare season

I'd be curious as to how this build would differentiate (if at all) between the other Shards build that was made a few months back. It looks to generally be the same, but I wonder if it feels any different

I can't believe they changed this exotic! Used to be able to use any knife , it was still weak though

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.

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. 😅

Calibans is about to be overthrown by the spirit of caliban giving you the option to use more powerful melees to cause the ignition

Peak Acting Debut 🙏

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 😂

Gmeiners and mactics combined. Great combo! Go abyss defiant for knife trick because of the OP intrinsic perk

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)

I like calibans hand but i cant help but feel like it absolutely does nothing unless your fighting red bars definitely needs a rework or a buff to make it better but could be me just using wrong

Damit mactics this happens every time I switch to my warlock... You got me goin back to my hunter main.... Guess I gotta go back.. I have no choice lol

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.

With Caliban's i use sunshot instead of dragonsbreath to have constant explosions, my build is similar to this but it is more effective in my opinion. its just destructive to myself as well...

any solar hunters male in sweat spot can prok ignition with current artifact mod (radiant solar precision kills ignite target)

I always have problems using the knife trick melee

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.