Caleb’s Farspace Colonel is a DEF scaling companion that has a very unique kit that specialises in stella matching boss/single target stages. His resonance skill differs from other companions because it can break twice as many protocore shields, but it requires tight timing to execute well.
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Strengths
Resonance breaks twice as many protocore shields as other companions
Massive nuke damage from his passive skill “Ground Breach”
Weaknesses
Rotation and timing are very strict, especially at lower ranks
There are no crowd control mechanics in his kit, so grouping can be difficult
Hard to build because he needs a lot of DEF and D2W
Quick Summary
If you don’t know what acronyms means, you can find them in Glossary.
R0: OO / Energy Orbit: 1 DEF/OS + 1 ORB 3* SHC & FOO: 2 DEF or 1 DEF + 1 OS or 2 OS
R1+: 2 DEF or 1 DEF + 1 OS or 2 OS
4 d2w OR 1crit rate + 3 d2w
Substats Priority
DEF% > D2W > flat DEF = Crit Rate > OS > Crit DMG
Brute Force
R0: OO / Energy Orbit: 1 DEF/OS + 1 ORB 3* SHC & FOO: 2 DEF or 1 DEF + 1 OS or 2 OS
R1+: 2 DEF or 1 DEF + 1 OS or 2 OS
4 d2w OR 1crit rate + 3 d2w
Substats Priority
DEF% > D2W > flat DEF = Crit Rate > OS > Crit DMG
Once your FA team achieves 5,000 DEF, it is recommended to start building for D2W/OS instead of DEF.
About Beta Cores:
Because Oath should always be used in weakened states, and FA’s best build it to maximise D2W, OS becomes a very good option to further increase the nuke damage, but only if your defence is already high.
In general, once you are at mid to end game builds, it is recommended to use 2 DEF in SHC & FOO because they usually have more than just a single boss. In these stages, FA will have to fight several waves and mobs - building with 2 DEF will increase overall damage against ALL enemies, instead of increasing OS to be used only once. In OO and Gravity Orbits, especially against bosses, 2 OS can be more beneficial since you will use oath twice. 1 DEF + 1 OS is considered a generalist build: play around with your available cores to see what works best, since substats are always RNG.
EEB is typically not recommended in general - even though having extra energy can give extra damage to your active skill, it is usually not worth the loss of damage that could be had with a DEF or OS core. If you have an EEB core with exceptional substats and your DEF and OS substats are terrible, it could be considered.
About Delta Cores:
In general, 4 D2W is FA’s best build, but in cases of brute force (or stages without shields), you may want to increase your Crit Rate to make sure you are still doing some damage outside of weakness. Crit DMG is not recommended even in brute force stages because the majority of FA’s damage will still be in weakened states.
Active — 2BA — [CA — 2BA] as needed — Ground Breach
Companion skills
Note
Combat Guidance
Passive skill
Caleb starts the battle with his resonance skill locked and 0 Firepower. Basic attacks, active skills and support skills can increase Firepower up to a maximum of 100. Once at 100, the resonance skill is unlocked. Firepower can be tracked by the bar below your HP. Enemy weakened states are extended by 2s, and every time you use his resonance or special resonance skills, you restore 0.3 energy.
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Skills
Note
Particle Beam
Support skill (10s CD)
Caleb leaps up and fires a particle beam at the enemy. Recovers 5 Firepower on hit.
Empowered support skill: Deals additional damage on top of normal support skill damage.
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Skills
Resonance is locked until you gain enough Firepower to fill the bar under your HP. Remaining Battlefront duration is indicated by the depletion of the Firepower bar.
Note
Deep Strike
Resonance skill (100 Firepower CD)
You and Caleb summon an aerial unit to strike the enemy. This skill breaks twice as many protocore shields compared to other companions (2 in brute force battles, 4 in stella match battles). After this skill is activated, you enter the Battlefront state - see below for details.
Signature Weapon: Skybreaker-SN
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Skills
Basic attacks combo
Charged attack
Skills
Swift Strike
Basic attack / Charged attack
Up to 4 attacks in a full combo string. On hit, BA 1-3 will recover 1 Firepower and BA 4 will recover 3 Firepower. Charged attacks deal damage in an AoE, and recover 0 Firepower.
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Skills
Note
Air Strike
Active Skill (12s CD) (1 energy cost)
Call down support from above to do damage in an AOE. Recovers 2 Firepower. If you have at least 2 Energy charges, you will consume an additional energy charge to deal extra damage. Once a second, hits from your active will restore 1 Firepower.
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Skills
Animation shows: Support (5 FP), Active (2+1+1+1 FP), 4BA (1+1+1+3 FP), Dash to gain 10 Zerom stacks, 4BA (2+2+2+4 FP)
Note
Blast Strike
Passive skill
Outside of Battlefront, dashing will give you 10 stacks of Zerom, and every Basic Attack will consume a stack to restore 1 additional Firepower. Dashing will only give you 10 Zerom stacks if you are at 1 or fewer stacks. Zerom stacks can be tracked by an icon above your HP bar.
Special State: Battlefront
Note
Ground Breach
Resonance Skill (5s CD)
In Battlefront, the resonance skill is transformed into Ground Breach, which has a 5s CD. When used, you and Caleb will deal massive damage and Battlefront will end. If you do not manually use Ground Breach, it will automatically execute once Battlefront has lasted for 15s.
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Skills
Note
Blast Strike
Passive skill
Inside Battlefront, immediately after using an Active Skill or a Charged Attack, the next basic attack will skip to the 3rd hit in the BA combo string. Pausing or dodging after an active or CA will cancel this effect. The 4th/last hit in the BA combo string will result in a Focus mark, to a maximum of 3 Focus marks. The first Focus mark increases the damage dealt by Ground Breach by 40%, and the others increase it by a further 20% each.
Active Pair Bonuses
R0 - After using Charged attacks or Active skills in Battlefront, you and Caleb’s damage increases by 20% for 5s.
R1 - Focus mark limit is increased from 3 to 5. Active skill grants 1 Focus mark on hit and reduces the Active skill CD by 6s.
R2 - Consuming a Zerom stack grants 0.5 additional Firepower. Using resonance and special resonance skills restores 0.2 energy each.
R3 - Damage against shielded enemies is increased. Instead of getting 1 Focus mark from the last BA in the combo string, gain 2 instead. Once you have the max number of Focus marks (5), triggering additional marks will deal extra AOE damage instead.
R0: OO / Energy Orbit: 1 DEF/OS + 1 ORB 3* SHC & FOO: 2 DEF or 1 DEF + 1 OS or 2 OS
R1+: 2 DEF or 1 DEF + 1 OS or 2 OS
4 d2w OR 1crit rate + 3 d2w
Substats Priority
DEF% > D2W > flat DEF = Crit Rate > OS > Crit DMG
Brute Force
R0: OO / Energy Orbit: 1 DEF/OS + 1 ORB 3* SHC & FOO: 2 DEF or 1 DEF + 1 OS or 2 OS
R1+: 2 DEF or 1 DEF + 1 OS or 2 OS
4 d2w OR 1crit rate + 3 d2w
Substats Priority
DEF% > D2W > flat DEF = Crit Rate > OS > Crit DMG
Once your FA team achieves 5,000 DEF, it is recommended to start building for D2W/OS instead of DEF.
About Beta Cores:
Because Oath should always be used in weakened states, and FA’s best build it to maximise D2W, OS becomes a very good option to further increase the nuke damage, but only if your defence is already high.
In general, once you are at mid to end game builds, it is recommended to use 2 DEF in SHC & FOO because they usually have more than just a single boss. In these stages, FA will have to fight several waves and mobs - building with 2 DEF will increase overall damage against ALL enemies, instead of increasing OS to be used only once. In OO and Gravity Orbits, especially against bosses, 2 OS can be more beneficial since you will use oath twice. 1 DEF + 1 OS is considered a generalist build: play around with your available cores to see what works best, since substats are always RNG.
EEB is typically not recommended in general - even though having extra energy can give extra damage to your active skill, it is usually not worth the loss of damage that could be had with a DEF or OS core. If you have an EEB core with exceptional substats and your DEF and OS substats are terrible, it could be considered.
About Delta Cores:
In general, 4 D2W is FA’s best build, but in cases of brute force (or stages without shields), you may want to increase your Crit Rate to make sure you are still doing some damage outside of weakness. Crit DMG is not recommended even in brute force stages because the majority of FA’s damage will still be in weakened states.
Recommended Rotations
At all ranks, FA’s gameplay centers primarily around his Ground Breach mechanic: in the normal state, you build Firepower to be able to enter the Battlefront state, and in the Battlefront state, you collect Focus Marks to maximise Ground Breach damage. All damage outside of Ground Breach should still be optimized, but will tend to do considerably less damage than Ground Breach.
FA works best with his signature weapon because none of the hunter weapons can be used to build Firepower well enough to effectively use the resonance skill (meaning you cannot use Ground Breach). If you use the Hunter Claymore, you will be depending solely on the claymore’s raw ATK damage.
DO NOT use other weapons unless you are just looking for some fun.
Claymore + r3
FA’s R3 bonus grants increased damage against shielded enemies. It is possible to take advantage of this buff to use the Hunter Claymore - you still will not achieve Resonance or use Ground Breach, but the raw Claymore damage will be buffed and can be a possible tactic in battles. If using the Claymore, make sure to build with ATK substats and EEB cubes 1 EEB + 1 OS/ATK% cube.
The main difference between ranks is timing. R0-1& R-1 have extremely tight timings while R2 grants a bit of relief: additional Firepower per Basic Attack means you can unlock Resonance about 2s earlier when using the same rotation. This means that having to dodge an incoming enemy attack won’t ruin the whole battle.
Normal state
Active dash + Support — 4BA dash spam — Reso
Battlefront State
Active — 2BA — [CA — 2BA] as needed — Ground Breach
Take care when using your Active skill. While you should try to dash cancel the animation, doing so too early will result in the active skill not landing at all. You will waste the energy charge(s) and do no damage. Practice the timing in the training room.
Always execute the full basic attack combo to make use of the additional Firepower restored on the last hit in the string from Caleb’s passive skill. The fourth Basic Attack animation is long and should be dash cancelled - as long as the animation starts, you will restore the additional Firepower.
About Battlefront & Ground Breach
Battlefront can be ended anytime Ground Breach is ready, but should only be done once you have the maximum Focus marks to optimize damage. Depending on the type of stage you are fighting, you can either use Ground Breach as soon as its damage is maxed out, or you can continue to do damage in Battlefront.
Using Ground Breach at the last possible moment
This is the most common option and for bosses that have lock mechanics and cannot be weakened 4 times. Within Battlefront, you can use Charged Attacks, which deal more damage than basic attacks. The longer you are in Battlefront, the more you can use Charged Attacks instead of Basic Attacks.
Using Ground Breach Immediately
This is usually preferred in battles where you are trying to get 4 weakness states (or 4 Battlefront states) on bosses during a 2 minute battle. Leaving Battlefront early will let you start building Firepower again for your next resonance. You will deal less overall damage in a single weakness state because you must use more Basic Attacks than Charged Attacks, but an extra weakness state means more overall damage for the whole battle. In this option, R0 and R1 have extremely tight timings - aim to use two supports when building Firepower. At R2+, supports should be saved to use within Battlefront to maximize weakened damage.
