Critical Infestation [Nidus] | Red Crits and Immortality | Steel Path
INTRODUCTION
This is a general use Nidus build for dealing insane crits, high range larva and high strength parasitic link which can decimate regular starchart as well base/early to mid levels steel path with ease (100-500). You don't need to use an umbral forma, but having one creates more build flexibility.
For endurance or level cap steel path (lvl 1000-9999) where enemies will one-shot Nidus due to lack of shields, remove Umbral Vitality, Teeming Virulence and adapation for Rolling Guard, Insatiable augment and Natural Talent.
BUILD SPECIFICS
Duration
Lower duration is fine for larva since you can cast it sooner again in case you don't manage to kill all enemies, and 3 still has a reasonable uptime of 40+ seconds. Larva is better with slightly lower duration so it can be spammed more often, unless you are running Larva Burst.
Efficiency
Lowest efficiency is fine for Nidus since 1 and 2 only cost 62 and 39, 3 and 4 cost no energy and 1 even refunds energy, gaining tons energy when efficiency is low and you hit many enemies. Optionally, hunter adrenaline allows for easy energy regen in case you miss virulence or somehow run out of energy and need to cast larva/virulence. However, you can always maintain your energy with careful management of the 2 +1 combo, only casting virulence when there are at least 5 enemies within the larva (Each enemy refunds 15.5 energy, so hitting 5 enemies refunds 78 energy. You only need to hit 12 enemies to fill the total capacity of your energy pool from 0 energy. If you run Primed Flow, you need to hit approximately 33 enemies to refill the whole pool from zero).
Range
Range is essential for larva to pull as many enemies as possible from across the map. . Range also helps maggot explosions and maximising the link distance on mobile missions. High range is slightly detrimental to virulence since you need to wait for it to end before casting again, but you can aim into walls if possible to shorten this and spam virulence. Once you hit max stacks, you only need to use virulence every 10s or so to refresh Teeming Virulence and any lost stacks.
Strength
High strength scales the damage of 1, but more importantly the crit chance boost of Teeming Virulence scales with strength. With Growing Power proc, ability strength hits 289% which gives a +346% increase to critical chance, which stacks additively to crit chance mods like point strike and critical delay/deceleration. Any primary weapon with a base crit chance of 31% therefore has a 200% crit chance which gives guaranteed orange crits with a chance for red crit. Furthermore, anything with a base crit chance of 16% can consistently achieve 100% CC which makes Hunter Munitions more consistent. Finally, Arcane Avenger adds a flat +45% CC after mod calculations. This allows any primary weapon with base CC of 24% to hit a final CC of 200%, and any weapon with base CC of 40% or more to hit a final CC of 300% which is Guaranteed red crits.
Flexible Options
The two non-polarised slots are flexible for:
Adaptation - good for lower level starchart and base steel path when you want to tank a bit more. [Adaptation] doesn't need to be max rank (could even be rank 0). The only difference is the ramp up to 90% is slower , which makes no difference to [Nidus] since he is inherently tanky, and the buff lasts shorter, which makes no real difference since stacks continuously get refreshed.Rage/Hunter adrenaline - can be useful if you somehow have energy issues, but 1 can consistently return you to full energy and energy orbs spawn quickly enough Augments:
Insatiable augment - faster stack gain while standing on ravenous (highly recommended for SP endurance for increasing stack gain)Larva Burst - low level nuking and allows larva to be spammed rather than wait for durationAbundant Mutation - increases stacks to increase 1 damage and scale 3, but gives undying a cooldown. Fine to use on low level steel path or normal starchart where survival is not an issue.Stretch (- slot): If you don't want such high range,
Streamline or Primed flow - if you still have energy problems, really only an issue in maps with LOW enemy densityAugur Secrets - for even more power strengthExilus slot is also flexible for Primed Sure Footed if you don't want to rely on link for knockdown resist, Power Drift, Vigilante Armaments e.t.c.
Aura is your preference e.g Enemy Radar, Steel Charge for capacity etc
Why no Umbral Fiber?
While alot of builds use triple umbral and Nidus Prime is a prime candidate for this, the benefit of adding it only provides 674 extra armor (resulting in total 80%DR), 22% extra power strength and 385 extra health. The health is practically a negligible increase while arcane Guardian already provides 900 armor (resulting in 82.6%DR, and has constant uptime due to the lack of shields). Stacking armor only provides an additional 5%DR, which is easily closed by the 90%DR from parasitic link and Adaptation. 22% power strength is even lower than that provided by Augur Secrets, so you would be better off putting either that or Transient Fortitude for more strength.
Helminth
Nidus has a reasonably synergistic kit so is best run without helminth.
If you really want to subsume something, you will probably subsume into 4.
Options that synergize well with high strength/ or high range (although you may need more duration to sustain):
Roar - universally goodFire blast - AOE armor stripResonator - mass crowd controlElemental ward - more health or armorGloom - CC and healingYou can even subsume ensnare over larva for an alternate style of play. Multiple ensnares can be cast at once, and while the mechanics are much slower/gradual compared to larva, and don't group them as tight, the crowd control offered by ensnare is slightly superior to larva due to it's spammability. Furthermore, you are able to headshot enemies easier and electric procs can even headshot easier compared to when enemies ragdoll in larva.
Here is a fun meme option using Reave to oneshot/nuke enemies within larva : https://overframe.gg/build/221813/nidus-prime/viral-reaver-nidus-one-shot-reave-steel-path/
Arcanes
Any arcane that triggers "on damaged" is ideal for nidus due to the inherent lack of shields:
Arcane Guardian - provides basically the same amount of armor as Umbral Fiber pumping up damage reduction by 20%.Arcane Avenger - gives flat +45% crit change after all other bonuses, which pushes the crit chance even higher with teeming virulenceArcane Grace - passive healing for lazy immortalityArcane Agility - parkour fast!PLAYSTYLE
Cast 2 to group enemies, making sure you catch at least 5 enemies at the minimumCast 1 into the ball of enemies to kill and build stacks, as well as generate energyOnce you have a single stack, cast 3 on a nearby enemy for 90% damage reduction and status immunity, or nearby ally for strength boostCast 4 when enough stacks for passive crowd control, healing and some AOE damageRepeat 2 + 1 combo, until you hit max stacksRecast 3 and 4 on expiryOnce at max stacks, cast 1 every 10-15s to refresh [Teeming Virulence] and and regain any lost stacksWEAPONS
Obviously you can use anything you enjoy, but there are a few weapons that fit nidus thematically as well as synergizes with Nidus abilities.
Bubonico : Infested arm-cannon shotgun with regenerating ammo that looks cool and feels cool. The secondary fire lobs three balls of innate viral damage with very high status chance. If you mod the weapon with electric and shoot alt-fire into a Larva ball full of enemies, all enemies will be 'primed' with viral status and electric status which will chain electric damage within the ball. Any enemies that don't die immediately can be finished off with the primary fire that has higher crit, higher damage, raw corrosive damage and slash procs from [\[Hunter Munitions\]](/items/arsenal/688/hunter-munitions/). Paired with teeming virulence and arcane avenger, Bubonico's primary fire crit chance hits approximately 180%.Anti-grineer build: https://overframe.gg/build/210444/bubonico/bubonico-grineer/Anti-corpus build: https://overframe.gg/build/217932/[Zymos]: Infested pistol that releases homing spores on headshots. Linking an enemy with parasitic link stuns them and makes them immune to knockdown and direct damage, meaning you can spam [Zymos] into a stationary target and let it release multiple homing spores to nuke nearby enemies.Insane crits and hemorrhage build: https://overframe.gg/build/218337/[Caustacyst] : Infested scythe with innate corrosive damage with a heavy attack gimmick that releases a relatively narrow wave of corrosive sludge which can stun enemies. Perfect for heavy spamming into a Larva ball. Furthermore, scythe heavy attacks have forced slash procs meaning it can actually kill heavily armored units in addition to a gimmick. Paired with arcane avenger and sacrificial mods [Caustacyst]'s relatively low base crit chance of 9% becomes a more reasonable 103.5% on heavy attack.Caustacyst Heavy Spam build: https://overframe.gg/build/218031/
