Overview: Infused with elemental essence, Lavos launches deadly cocktails of energy to eradicate his foes. You can buy his components from the Entrati Family in the Deimos Necralisk.

Special: When collecting an energy or universal orb, clear any ongoing status effects and become immune to further effects for 10 seconds. In addition, ability duration mods apply their bonuses to all status effects caused by Lavos and his weapons.

The powers used by Lavos do not consume energy, using a cooldown mechanic instead. This has an additional benefit in Railjack, since any battle intrinsic will also use a cooldown – meaning you can use them a lot more often and for no cost. In addition, Lavos gains bonus armour instead of bonus energy as he increases in level, making him surprisingly chunky.

Furthermore, Lavos can imbue powers with further elemental damage by holding down one or two ability buttons prior to casting. This will add the associated element to his mixing jars (if you select two elements, they will become their combination element i.e. fire + toxin = gas) and will be added to the next ability you cast.

Pros: High base health and armour, no reliance on energy, can pick and choose the elements attached to powers and can deal huge amounts of damage. The fact that his powers are based on a cooldown rather than energy is great in Railjack missions, as this puts Intrinsic powers on a cooldown system as well. Rather than having to manage the hefty energy costs, you can launch veritable swarms of missiles every few seconds!

Cons: The cooldowns based playstyle may not be for everyone, and you may find charging your vials with elements an awkward mechanic.

Powers: Lash out with Ophidian Bite (8 second cooldown) striking forwards in a cone with toxin damage and restoring health based on the damage done. This will briefly open those struck to finisher attacks – though you have to be pretty much on top of the target to have time. It’s an ok power, but not really something to build around.

Charge forwards with Vial Rush (5 second cooldown) hurling icy elemental bombs either side of you and in a final flourish at the end of the rush. This ability can cover a significant amount of ground, but you can cancel it and trigger the final burst by recasting the ability. The slowing effect of the vials has a lot of utility – if you want to pin a target in place to scan it, alternatively you can go zooming down a corridor and leave a path of status-effect inflicting ice that will cripple anything trying to follow you.

Electrify your foes with Transmutation Probe (10 second cooldown) that drifts forwards for a few seconds, zapping anyone caught in the area. Everyone electrocuted by the probe will reduce your cooldowns by one second – this is affected by your efficiency mods. The probe will also change electrified pickups into universal orbs (i.e. they restore both energy and health) and universal ammo packs. Hurl this into groups for maximum recharge, or use it for a decent sized crowd control effect due to the electrical status effect!

Reduce foes to ashes with Catalyze (30 second cooldown) launching probes in all directions that spray incendiary gel over anyone nearby. The damage inflicted is doubled for every type of status effect present on the target, leading to massive damage in some cases. Consider hurling Transmutation Probe (3) into a crowd to stun them, prime them with electrical (or more if you’ve been using your passive abilities) status effects and finish the cooldown on Catalyze (4) setting you up for massive area effect damage.

Opinion: Reasonable tough, adaptable and capable of extreme elemental damage and crowd control in a wide area, Lavos is certainly a strong frame. However, you will need to make use of your powers in combination to get good use of them – mix different elemental combinations and Vial Rush (2) into groups before launching Catalyze (4) and hurling a Transmutation Probe (3) into a group to speed up your recharge. While reasonably effective in any mission type, Lavos will shine in exterminate and survival.