Warframe Lavos Guide - How to Obtain, Craft, and Best Builds

The alchemist Lavos is a very curious warframe that uses concoctions and relies on Elemental abilities to develop in combat. With no energy involved and a lot of survivability, Lavos is a great warframe in any context and a wonderful addition to any arsenal, whether you’re playing solo or with a team.

How to Craft Lavos?

Lavos's main and component blueprints are available from Father with Entrati standing. The main blueprint requires players to be at Rank 2 - Acquaintance, while component blueprints require Rank 3 - Associate. Each blueprint costs 5,000 Standing, totaling to 20,000.

Building Requirements
Lavos Blueprint Price - Father Entrati - 5,000 Standing
Lavos Neuroptics - Father Entrati - 5,000 Standing
Lavos Chassis - Father Entrati - 5,000 Standing
Lavos Systems - Father Entrati - 5,000 Standing

Building Time
Warframe- 72 Hours
Components - 12 Hours

Lavos Overview and Best Weapon Options

Lavos has an interesting pool of abilities, which not only play with the many elements in this game but also bring great survivability and HP/Energy Regeneration in the case of Ophidian Bite and Transmutation Probe, improved mobility with Vial Rush, and Catalyze being the only purely offensive skill.

Passive Abilities
Lavos cleanses all active negative Status Effects and gains status immunity for 10 seconds upon collecting an Energy or Universal Orb. Lavos can only collect a single Energy or Universal Orb every 5 seconds.

Lavos has no energy capacity and his abilities do not use any resource to activate. Instead, each of his abilities is free to cast with a cooldown in between uses. The Ability Efficiency stat will instead affect the cooldown reduction effect from Transmutation Probe.

Elemental Imbuement
Experiment and unleash volatile mixtures of the deadly elements. Hold down one of the four ability buttons default 1 ,2 ,3 ,4 to imbue a Primary Elemental damage type Toxin, Cold, Electricity, and Heat respectively into the mixing vial displayed above Lavos' ability icons. Imbuement has no cost nor cooldown between uses.

Abilities
Ophidian Bite
Lash out with a toxic serpentine strike, consuming the target to heal Lavos. Hold to imbue the next ability cast with Toxin damage.
Strength:
500 / 650 / 800 / 1,000 Toxin damage
500 / 650 / 800 / 1,000 Imbued elemental damage
7.5 / 10 / 12 / 15 % Damage to health conversion
Range: 10 Meters
Misc:
100° Cone angle
100% Status chance
100% Melee Finisher vulnerability

Vial Rush
Dash forward, crashing through enemies and leaving an icy trail of broken vials. Hold to imbue the next ability cast with Cold damage.
Strength:
100 / 150 / 200 / 250 Damage per second
100 / 150 / 200 / 250 Imbued elemental damage per second
Duration:4 / 6 / 7 / 8 Seconds of residue duration
Range:
30 m charge distance
14 / 17 / 20 / 24 vial charges
4 / 5 / 7 / 9 Meters of explosion radius
Misc:
2 Meters of residue radius
3 Cold status effect stacks per proc
0.5 Seconds of cancel delay

Transmutation Probe
Launch a probe that converts Health and Energy Orbs into Universal Orbs that provide both, and ammo pickups into Universal Ammo Pickups. The probe shocks enemies in close proximity. Each electrocuted foe reduces other ability cooldowns by one and a half seconds. Hold to imbue the next ability cast with Electricity damage.
Strength:
100 / 150 / 200 / 250 Electricity damage per second
100 / 150 / 200 / 250 Imbued elemental damage per second
Range: 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 Meters
Efficiency: 1.5 Seconds of Cooldown Reduction per enemy shocked
Misc:
15 Meters per second of probe speed
3 Seconds of probe duration
0.5 Seconds of halt delay
25 HP/Energy Universal Orb restore
10 % Universal Ammo restore

Catalyze
Catalyst Probes erupt from Lavos and douse combatants in a fiery gel. Damage is doubled for each element afflicting an enemy. Hold to imbue the next ability cast with Heat damage.
Strength:
1,000 / 1,500 / 1,750 / 2,000 Heat damage
1,000 / 1,500 / 1,750 / 2,000 imbued elemental damage
Range:
8.33 m/s probe speed
15 / 18 / 20 / 25 Meters of maximum distance
Misc:
9 number of probes
3 Seconds of travel time
5 Meters of gel mist reach
100 % damage increase per status effect

Recommended Weapons
Lavos doesn’t depend on any weapon setup, so as long as you use a loadout that’s comfortable for you, you shall be fine. However, since Catalyze acts better the more elements affecting the opponents, you want to proc as many elements as you can. For me, Ignis, Akstiletto, and Orthos will serve their roles, and of course, if you can afford the Prime versions, the better. Use as many Forma on them as you see fit to achieve the desired build, and you'll be good to go!

Primary Weapon - Ignis

Secondary Weapon - Akstiletto

Melee Weapon - Orthos

Lavos Best Builds

Lavos - Alchemist Build

Mods List
Aura Mod - Enemy Radar
Exilus Mod - Power Drift
Loadout

• Vitality
• Adaptation
• Intensify
• Blind Rage
• Continuity
• Augur Reach
• Fleeting Expertise
• Stretch

This build aims to prioritize the use of Catalyze, with Ophidian Bite and Transmutation Probe being more circumstantial, and Vial Rush basically non-important. To do this, you need to focus on Strength, Range, and Efficiency, with Adaptation and Vitality for sustain, and Continuity to mitigate the debuff on that stat. For dramatically better results, replace the mods in the setup with their Prime or Umbral versions.