INTRODUCTION

Standard AFK [Octavia] build utilising mallet to attract, multiply and release enemy damage for AOE nuking, metronome for essentially permanent invisibility as well as speed and multishot buffs and amp to boost your weapon damage and mallet damage/range. Resonator is the subsume slot if you have helminth.

[Rolling Guard] is optional due to Eximus abilities eg fireblasts, as well as if you are dispelled by Violence. This can be flexible for more range, duration or strength.

UPDATE JULY 2024
With the armor changes, [Octavia] mallet can now kill levelcap enemies nearly instantly with zero armor strip. Instead of subsuming Pillage, we can consider alternatives like [Rage] to increase enemy movement and DPS to boost mallet damage, Silence to shut down eximus and acolytes, Nourish to further boost weapon damage and give more energy.

Variants
One cast full strip Pillage variant: https://overframe.gg/build/492034/

Gameplay video in level circuit. Note I used Breach Surge specifically for circuit defense but now it no longer stuns enemies through overguard, and is infact not really necessary even in levelcap defense due to Mallets aggro draw.

BUILD SPECIFICS

Duration
High duration allows easier upkeep on all abilities and buffs, all of which have decent base durations. Any duration of 200% to 250%+ is good.

Efficiency
Since duration is so high and each ability only needs to be cast roughly once every minute, we can drop efficiency completely. You only need to spend about 300 energy to refresh all skills, which can be easily regenerated with arcane energize combined with the rate at which enemies die from mallet. [Primed Flow] is necessary to store a large amount of energy. Also remember that [Octavia] regenerates energy on ability cast with her passive (30 energy over 30s per cast which can be refreshed but does not stack higher than 1 energy/s).

Range
High range is used to scale the range of mallet, which is further doubled by amp, almost to a 40m radius. Any range between 145 to 200% is fine.

Strength
High strength scales the damage multiplier on mallet (approx 5x) so enemies receive much more damage, the multishot/speed/armor/melee bonuses from metronome and the damage multiplier from amp. Any strength between 150-200+ is fine.

Aura
[Brief Respite] is useful for shield gating in case of acolytes or random damage that hits your through invisibility
[Enemy Radar] is best in slot to monitor enemy movements and optimise casts of mallet to hit areas of highest density
[Corrosive Projection] is ideal if you use Pillage and want to full strip armor in 2 casts or less
Growing Power for more strength

Exilus
Cunning drift/power drift are optional
Primed sure footed/handspring are safe options to reduce random knockdowns

Flexible Slots
Rolling Guard - this is personal preference, but there will be times where you may be accidentally visible, disrupted by Violence, hit by an eximus fire blast or surrounded by nullifiers and you just need little breathing room with i-frames + status cleanse. I find [Rolling Guard] is highly valuable particularly in endurance, and you can replace either Augur Message or Stretch for rolling guard.

Partitioned Mallet - can come in handy for blocking off two chokepoints or defending two different sides of an objective. Note you cannot place two mallets within range of each other.

Arcanes
Molt Efficiency - Bonus duration while shields active which is easy to maintain while invisible
Energize - nearly mandatory with negative efficiency
Aegis - decent backup survival tool
Weapon fire rate/ damage - as needed
Status resistances -e.g. toxin for infested missions

Archon Shards
Completely up to personal preference.
Crimson shards: can add 2 or more duration shards for even more duration. If you want to be able to full strip in ONE cast of pillage, you can swap [Augur Reach] for [Transient Fortitude], Molt Efficiency for Molt Augmented and add at least 3 crimson strength shards to hit the 328% str threshold (after mold augmented).
Azure shards: can add HP regen to help sustain against incidental environmental slash/toxin chip damage or energy max
Amber shards: can add 1 or more cast speed shards, energy orb effectiveness or maximum energy filled on spawn for quick missions

HELMINTH OPTIONS

Subsume over resonator:

• Nourish - add free viral to weapons and boosts energy generation (could allow you to drop Equilibrium)
• Wrathful Advance - add flat cc to melee weapons
• Pillage - armor strip, status cleanse and shield regen for shield gating - doesn't cause knockdown or reduce enemy DPS onto mallet
• Dispensary - good for camping gameplay for energy regen, may need equilibrium for optimal use
• Rage (from rest and rage) -If you subsume rest & [Rage] over resonator, replace augur secrets with calm & frenzy augment, umbral intensify with streamline and primed continuity with transient fortitude: https://overframe.gg/build/241245/octavia-prime/rage-against-the-machine-mallet-rage-octavia/
• Breach Surge - double dips Amp damage boost
• Xata's Whisper - can only be subsumed over Amp, but is a mobile buff that can double dip melee stealth multiplier (+700% dmg additive to crit multiplier, active with invisiblity)

MANDACHORD

For easiest buff activation, fill every note in the melody section (for metronome invisibility and other buffs) as well as every note in the percussion section (for mallet to do damage). If it sounds bad, you can turn the volume of the melody to mute. If you have a pre-existing song, you can fill every empty note in melody with the lowest note while leaving the background melody. It doesn't really matter what pattern of percussion you make, as long as every bar has a note so that damage is done consistently.

The music I used in the video below: https://imgur.com/a/57KAoXR

For example, you can arrange the notes in the pattern of a flower, as long as every it is completely FILLED:

PLAYSTYLE

1. Cast 3

• Crouch to beat to activate Nocturne buff to go invisible for 38s, don’t forget to refresh buff BEFORE it runs out to stay invisible
• Jump to the beat to activate Vivace buff for movement speed boost
• Shoot to the beat to activate Opera buff for multishot boost
• Melee to the beat to activate Forte buff for melee damage boost

2. Cast 4 to boost damage of your weapons, your allies and the mallet damage + range
3. Cast 1 , let enemies shoot it and watch the room get nuked
4. Don’t cast resonator since it might carry the mallet around to where you don't want it to go or simply draw aggro away.

ARSENAL

[Octavia]'s metronome actually plays 8 notes per second when the mandacord is filled as above. This means if you want to spam an automatic weapon and activate the Opera multishot buff effortlessly, you will want the fire rate to be exactly 8. A fire rate of 4 also works but takes about four times as long to activate the buff.

This excel spreadsheet I found from reddit user u/VerinSC shows how to mod many weapons to achieve 8 fire rate: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1olJat0jMuKxqiUnsSuclmmK7tvCkmquVArjdo27Oinc/pubhtml#

Interesting good weapons that have exactly 4 or 8 fire rate but also have an optimal build include:
[Laetum] : with only [Lethal Torrent] on and no other fire rate buffs (e.g. rapid wrath perk), the incarnon mode has exactly 4 fire rate.

The multishot buff is also extra beneficial for status beam weapons as multishot double dips status damage on beams. Note to get the Opera buff on a beam, you just need to rapidly tap the fire button rather than hold it down.
Ocucor: https://overframe.gg/build/483134/ocucor/surging-tendrils-ocucor-sentient-surge/
Atomos Incarnon: https://overframe.gg/build/498123/atomos/atomic-scorcher-viral-heat-atomos-incarnon/
Flux Rifle: https://overframe.gg/build/320500/flux-rifle/flux-rifle-slash-overdrive/
Phantasma: https://overframe.gg/build/374667/phantasma-prime/phantastic-phantasma-steel-path-face-melter-with-variant-options/

Another interesting thing is that [Octavia]'s Amp damage buff, while being additive to base damage mods, double dips on Exodia Contagion AND all Glaives:
Corrosive Dokhram Contagion build for Grineer/Corrupted/Infested: https://overframe.gg/build/241631/dokrahm/exodia-contagion-grineer/
Toxin Dokhram Contagion build for Corpus: https://overframe.gg/build/241632/dokrahm/exodia-contagion-corpus/
Glaive Prime: https://overframe.gg/build/270712/glaive-prime/glaive-prime-heavy-spam-detonation/