@dage4524

Taxon giving Lavos back shots the whole time he in the arsenal screen

@gratianray2

any reason to not do steel path conjunction survival at this point? the enemy density there seems even higher, starts at lvl 200 basically, there's shielded and armored enemies so it's more of a balanced demonstration, and also how much nullifiers affect said warframe, Tav just seems too limited, just feels like the same enemy type with the odd eximus or heavy gunner in the crowd 
Or persto steel path since albrecht laboratory will be relevant content for a good while, if a warframe performs good there against the variety of enemies they'll perform good in netracells and deep archimedea too

@kingfury7492

DE should do a QoL on his passive so that if a status combo is made, then it stays for all ability use until another combo is selected, not have him static during ability casts, and lower his base cooldowns some.

@villepore7013

Important to note, Valence formation does also buffs the damage of DoT's procced by his abilities, meaning besides making infusing heat on his 4 a huge damage increase to it, but also makes it the only way we can buff gas procs through an elemental buff.

@nick30075

My usual test is 5-10min SP Circulus.  It's the hardest "normal" content, so anything that can do it can automatically do the rest of the game, and the Lua Thrax enemies do a good job distinguishing which builds are "just barely good enough" versus "can also handle tough eximus and other minibosses."

I think that sticking with Tav might be good for now, since it allows people to go back through your older guides and compare performance.  It keeps the same benchmark when comparing videos.

@zer0rama572

I main lavos and love his how his abilities Work. But his fourth needs to be 20 seconds instead of 30 and gives us a augment that gives cooldown everytime we use a ability

@tonycarbon994

Lvl 200 took in conjunction survival is being recommended a lot and I totally agree. Content just isn’t hard until you start running into 3 nullifiers and thrax.

@Purturtur

Careful or the Kengineer will come after you

@OrionTCB

I ain't a Lavos player by any means, the only time I ever used him was for leveling up, but I feel like those changes would do great for him considering his current state. My only legitimacy on this matter would be my ~5k hours. There is a TL;DR at the end.

AS , AR , AE and AD stand for Ability Strength , Range , Efficiency and Duration .

On a general note, Lavos should be able to move while casting any of his abilities and they should apply more status per cast ; each ability adds 3 stacks of its respective element and elemental imbuement. Also, someone suggested that his elemental imbuement should be kept until manually changed, instead of being used on ability cast.

Now, for each ability.
- Ophidian Bite 's base cooldown should be reduced to 4s (half of current) and have it reduce his others cooldowns by 0.5s for each enemy hit (AE). These changes would require a rework of its Swift Bite augment ; keep its bonus range while also increasing casting speed by 50% ("swift"). There could be another effect to add, like adding a random status or increasing already applied status stack by +1.
- Vial Rush 's residues should at least last 50% to 100% longer (8s → 12s or 16s) and their radius should also be affected by AR. Enemies standing on a residue receive 30% status chance vulnerability (AS) that lasts 10s (AD) after leaving it.
-  Transmutation Probe should keep its cooldown reducing effect (still only once per enemy) and gain 2 new effects. Firstly make it so that the probe taunts enemies (see Wisp's 2) for its duration and secondly, each enemy hit have all of their elemental status effects current duration increased by 33% of their max. Eg: an enemy has 5 stacks of Corrosion (corrosive damage status effect) that have a remaining time of 5s, cast TP at 100% AD and it increases to ~8s (5s + 8s × 33% = 7.64s), at 200% it increases to ~10s and at 300% it increases to ~13s. This also applies once per enemy hit. Keep in mind that Lavos' AD also affects Status Duration.
- My change for Catalyze may be a 50:50 case. I would suggest reducing its damage by half (still increased by the CO effect) but enemies hit now take 100% (AS) increased status damage for 10s (AD).

I tried to only expand on his existing kit, there could be more synergies to be had, like his 1 adding a new "special" status effect that stacks with CO and does something "special" when affected by another ability, idk.

TL;DR : 1 has a lower cooldown and also reduces others cooldowns. Augment changed to be "swift". 2's residues last longer, have a larger AOE and apply status chance vulnerability. 3 still reduces cooldowns, but now taunts and kinda refreshes status effect duration. 4 deals less damage but amplifies status effect damage.

@austingarrett3334

I generally use lavos as a caster frame and i havent had much trouble keeping him alive. Then again i generally use his other augment so i can bounce back and forth between his 1 and 3 to reset all their cooldowns. I think the biggest thing about playing him that way is making use of his 2 while mixing a bunch of different statuses. Its not as effective as a primer weapon, but it doubles as a movement tool.

All that being said id still be ok with a buff. It can only help

@aidenhodge5569

I honestly think hed be a great early frame because he helps fight the early energy economy issues while having good survivability while making players start to think about status effects

@sladikk

Lavos is fun, just needs a few QOL additions. Like making Swift Bite a passive, making Vial Rush wider, and adding more natural range to Catalyze. All in all he's a lot better than people say he is, though.

@DragonaxFilms

I've been having a huge amount of fun using Lavos as a gun platform with this Augment. It gives him the start of a really cool playstyle. He just needs a little more oomph to push him into solid territory.

@mikesbasement6954

The thing I like about Valence Formation is that you can adapt the elements you are using on the fly.  Running a lich and it's immune to corrosive?  No problem, switch to heat.  Need some CC?  Switch to cold or radiation.  Lots of flexibility and ability to adapt quickly.

@Darthmufin

Its so good but its hard for me to survive as lavos since shield gating doesn't work, and his heal has a cooldown significant enough that he almost acts like a nidus or inaros where youll just get one shot eventually since you are always taking health damage. He can last a little longer with gloom over his first or third ability but then you lose access to viral and corrosive respectively.

@Bampaloudu64

I think it's just better using his abilities as "tools" and use your weapons for killing. Lavos has good HPs and armor and can easily be tanky enough for base SP. I've been playing him with the augments and the Praedos and his abilities were just here for the comfort.

@TheEvanDude112

I feel like if Lavos’s 3 was changed so that it gives cooldown by killing enemies hit with it, and maybe given a little more cooldown, and probably even changed so it’s range is changed from a cone to a ring, then it would be much less punishing to use his 4, considering you can’t cool it down if everyone is dead. And if it worked on kill, then you could probably even throw several of them out and chain his 3 and his 4 one after the other

@BamaMophi

This augment mod feels like a great way to buff Chroma to be relevant, but they just gave it to Lavos instead

@Glamador

Of note: His 4 has a built in Condition Overload effect.  By not priming with the Cedo/Nukor/Epitaph before throwing it out, you are losing a LOT of damage.  Also, the only elements to ever infuse for DPS with Catalyze is Heat or Gas, especially with how those elements interact with Valence Formation.

I use him as a weapons platform though, personally.  I don't like how long I have to wait when enemies aren't dense enough for his 3 (or augmented 1) to recover his cooldowns enough.

@sonny259

as much as i agree that lavos could use some touch ups (since not much is needed) i still think he is way better than he is made out to be here.

1. lavos' other abilities are still good outside of his 4, though in weird ways. vial rush with enough range can do a lot of damage since each vial is it's own damage instance and range increases the amount of them, so with exodia hunt or another grouping tool, you can do pretty good trash clearing with it. his 3 allows you to cast multiple vial rushes back to back, making it stack up even more. 

2.  i feel like his 4 is being downplayed, you aren't using it for the heat proc, you're using it for the exponential damage, and it's more effective to infuse the damage type the enemy is weak too as the procs from it gets put on AFTER the damage check, thus making it not matter. also archon continuity gives him a free damage boost to his 4 by giving an extra proc for free. this isn't too say that the heat infused variant is bad (it's good 80% of the time) but it can be optimised.

3. the thing that makes the augment good to me, is that it gives lavos something to do while waiting for his 4 cooldown and gives him away to use niche damage types in the situations where they're useful. like it can make gas and electricty a nuts damage type because he isn't bound too whatever weapon mods he's using. also the augment breaks the fuck out of shotguns which is funny.

potential buffs that i would personally enjoy (not that it matters):

make his 1 and 3 cast while moving.

make his 4's cooldown slightly shorter. (kinda shaky on this one.

maybe give his 1 damage scaling so he has a damaging ability while waiting for his 4 (maybe this is too busted idk)

shorter base cast time on his 4.

ability too store elements and swap them out (this is a common suggestion and i'm only worried that the implementation will make it harder to do status rotations for his 4 which is pretty relevant)

his 1 cooldown could be a bit shorter so it's just a sustain tool.

these buffs are taken from all over the place (including the comments here) and i think all of them are needed (i would personally just take cast while moving and 1 scaling and that would already make him really good). i don't know how to credit who came up with what, so i'm sorry about that.

also typing an essay like this makes me look a bit crazy. i think the video is fine, i disagree a bit with the justifications behind the build and subsuming out vial rush (because it's my favorite ability in his kit), but i get where it's coming from because lavos is conceptually cool but clunky.