-SilverWolfPrime-

On this kind of topic, this is kinda what scares me about DE's thought process with Warframe reworks or buffs/nerfs to Warframes. They've said ever since Zephyr's rework that it's not worth doing because the play rate of a specific Warframe doesn't change significantly enough to be worth the time and effort. As someone who ADORES build crafting for Warframes, I really don't want to see a situation where it's just "oh, a bad Warframe was released or a Warframe needs some tweaks to be in a good spot? Oh well, better luck next time I guess when we get it right the first time." Case in point, Caliban hasn't been touched at all since his release and I'd say he could use a lot of help in the numbers department.

I don't think this is exactly a confirmation that Hydroid is going to get a rework post TennoCon. This seems like this is just addressing a question that was asked in regards to the status of potential Warframe reworks at some point in the future, or what plans they had for now. That being said, it is nice to hear that they're gravitating towards Hydroid as a possible rework were one to come up. Hydroid could definitely use it and I think that he needs one more at the moment compared to Warframes like Inaros, Loki, or Nyx.

Throwing my opinion in here, there is absolutely no reason not to allow people to just pick two of any Incarnon Adapter to farm in a week. Might be awhile to get them all, but it gives a player an opportunity to farm what they want while also giving ample time to play the gamemode. They still want to offer players the Incarnon Adapters through Platinum? Okay. That's fine.

Thank you for the hotfix. Excalibur Umbra's passive has been going through some serious bugs right now, including Transference position, loss of ally and toggle buffs aside from Exalted Blade, and issues with the Naramon skill tree. I've included some in the Bug Report section. Please look into this if possible.

Thank you kindly for the hotfix, especially the fixes to FoV and Overguard. Excalibur Umbra's passive has been going through some serious bugs right now, including Transference position, loss of ally and toggle buffs aside from Exalted Blade, and issues with the Naramon skill tree. I've included some in the Bug Report section. Please, please, please look into this if possible. It's becoming horrendous to run him in anything.

That is a good point. If it honestly has to be that way for now, I wouldn't be opposed to subsuming Exalted Blade like before, at least for the sake of optimization. It's honestly getting cumbersome how much I have to spec towards it for it to be effective and I think that's a big sign to me. I'm....still incredibly thrown off by how diminishing a passive Umbra's passive is. I think that's the worse part about the optimization because Umbra looks so badass :')

Honestly, if that's the case, I don't see a reason to switch to normal Excalibur when I can just build up Baruuk Prime and get potentially better results.

Excalibur Umbra's passive has been going through some serious bugs right now, including Transference position, loss of ally and toggle buffs aside from Exalted Blade, and issues with the Naramon skill tree. I've included some in the Bug Report section. Please, please, please look into this if possible. It's becoming horrendous to run him in anything.

Thank you kindly! I'll be sure to take a look but I'll also keep track of the map as well. I can't express how happy I am "Duviri" is an unlockable track XD

Solely asking as I really, really want to get these for my Orbiter and Dormizone, that last one in particular. Is this a similar situation to Fortuna where there's only one in the entire Duviri map, or is there a way to grind these out?

It seems like there's a general consensus that if I were to use Excalibur to a more optimized point, I'd need to both use the base Excalibur and then most likely subsume over Exalted Blade or Radial Blind/Howl for a survivability tool, neither of which I necessarily want to do. From a bit of testing, I don't think Exalted Blade is bad at all, but there's just this huge sense that I could use all the mod slots dedicated to it for something better in the long run, like the much needed survivability he doesn't possess. You end up dealing a ton of damage even with SP considered, but it takes so much to get it working when you could be utilizing another, potentially better melee weapon. The worst offender of the entire thing though is Umbra's passive. I thought at first "oh okay, it's glitchy, but honestly it couldn't be that debilitating", and I am so surprised by how wrong I was with that statement. All toggles that aren't Exalted Blade are turned off when you go into Operator, going back to your original location instead of the Operator when using Void Sling, bonuses shutting of immediately upon Transference (Furious Javelin, Roar, etc.), half of Naramon doesn't even function with him and I'm inclined to believe he's not really a strong enough Specter to go into Steel Path missions. It's literally an unusable passive. I wouldn't even mind if I had to suck it up and subsume Exalted Blade with something like Gloom to maintain survivability, but I'm thinking since Excalibur Umbra is as bugged as he is, Exalted Blade is as outclassed as it is, and the fact I already have a Voruna built up that I enjoy playing so much more, I think I might need to lay this dream down.

I'll be sure to look into this for sure, thank you for providing this info. I've been having this happen all day today and its probably the worst it's been for me in years playing Warframe.

Pretty much what the title says. I'm not sure if something wonky is going on with my PC or if DE servers are the wonky ones. If it's something on my end, does anyone have any possible fixing recommendations?

Excalibur Umbra contains a myriad of issues and bugs on his Sentience passive, and often go so far as to disrupt basic mod building. These issues should be observed and looked at as soon as possible as it is very disruptive to building Excalibur Umbra and takes away a lot of from Excalibur's strength as a Warframe. Here are a list of issues that have been observed with Excalibur Umbra through regular testing and in mission, namely coming from his Sentience passive. Upon transferring into the Operator, going a set distance away from Umbra, and then returning to him, you will appear at the previous location Umbra was at instead of at the Operator's new location. This tends to happen primarily in Client players and sometimes very rarely in Host players. This tends to disrupt a means of travel using Void Sling and makes movement feel much clunkier than it should be, and also affects builds that involve going into Operator mode and switching back often due to Focus trees like Naramon. This WAS looked into in Update 30.7.6, where Client side players who went through this bug were fixed aside from some rare occasions. This was the case then, but it begs repeating this bug again as this is becoming more prevalent as the years go by. My personal testing sees this happening in very specific mission types as a Client, such as Steel Path Duviri Circuit, Railjack missions (Void Storms or otherwise), Deimos missions, and basic Steel Path missions. There has also been evidence of players running into this shortly after this fix was posted, which I'll include as a video link below. https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Excalibur/Patch_History - Any toggleable ability on Excalibur Umbra that is used before Transferring into Operator will be toggled off upon returning to Umbra. This WAS fixed specifically for Exalted Blade, but this still occurs with subsumable abilities like Gloom, Blood Altar, etc. In a similar vein, ANY buff that is given to Excalibur Umbra, whether it is your own or an ally's given buff, is automatically removed upon going into Operator and returning to Excalibur Umbra. This includes buffs such as Furious Javelin melee buff, subsumed Roar, and any built up weapon mods where applicable. I am assuming this applies for basically anything that can be put on him as well, such as some Arcane bonuses, other subsumed abilities like Nourish or Eclipse, and ally bonuses like Wisp's Reservoirs. Sling Stun in the Naramon tree will not activate with Excalibur Umbra. Upon using the ability on an enemy and activating a Stealth Attack as the Operator, you'll simply switch back Excalibur Umbra and nothing will happen. This works sometimes but not very often, and when Exalted Blade is toggled on, a Stealth Attack will not be performed at all.

THIS I can definitely understand, then. This is exactly what I was picturing out of it. Apologizes for the skepticism, just never seen many builds like it so it's a bit refreshing to see stuff like this. Also noticed the decision to Helminth Exalted Blade. I'm starting to wonder if it's just more material than it's worth to build for Exalted Blade and just stick with something like running Roar/Gloom. Like, I'd need Efficiency/Flow/Energize/Amber Archon Shards/Chromatic Blade all in the build to maximize it, so I'm wondering how much I save on mod space ditching it. I definitely have been and I definitely will continue doing so. I'm really, really surprised at the variety of builds Excal can go for, to be honest.

Bumping this thread some more since I'm still interested in strategies with Excalibur and some observations I've gone through that is being discussed. I absolutely love the Exalted Blade build @FiveN9ne showed and I think the playstyle is fun to utilize while giving me that high damage output I'm looking for, yet I'm a bit bugged by having to utilize the Reedeemer for combo count building on the Gladiator effect. I'm pretty sure it's fine for me to opt for another melee weapon though and build for combo count at the cost of efficiency, but....bleh. Would just really like to use a Nikana for preference. Radial Javelin is no way in hell a room clearing ability. Did some testing with a high Strength mid range Radial Javelin build in high level missions and it works sort of. In the sense that a lot of people recommend Panzer Vulpaphyla for Viral proc spread and maybe run a primer like Epitaph or Nukor, it makes sense that a cast of Radial Javelin would eventually get some kills through the Slash ticks, even on armored enemies and especially if you're running something like Roar. But at the same time, Steel Path bonuses on enemies kinda ruins this strat, and I just don't see the point of it at all. Nothing in Naramon really helps this build path either. So my conclusion on THAT so far is you CAN do it, but it honestly works only because the builds you could run synergize with it naturally (i.e. Panzer, armor strip/damage buff), and even then its falling off in the areas I want it to perform in. Survivability issues are getting worse and worse, and Excalibur is probably the worst I've ever had with just flat out dying instantly. No matter what I run, health or shield gating, I always just seem to die pretty quick to instantly and that's not even considering Slash procs coming in. Now, I'm aware this is because I suck at playing this game and I have never ever built for shield gating before, but it's kinda annoying how hard it is to build for survivability on this guy. Excalibur Umbra's passive I'm finding out is such a huge debilitation and I'm kinda upset it's as bad as it is. Aside from the stuff already listed on the wiki, I've also noticed that Umbra won't ever activate Killer's Rush on Naramon and any Furious Javelin bonus gets instantly removed when you transfer back to Operator. Out of anything I've had a hard time with, it's probably this, since Umbra is freaking cool.

Just a couple things I wanted to ask. I am perfectly fine using Nikanas since they're some of my favorite weapons and I have pretty much all of them built up except Syam and Sepfahn. How would I go about building Sepfahn in particular though? That Nikana in particular I have trouble using. (Exodia Contagion?) I'm intrigued by the idea of a "Radial Javelin" nuke build, if only because aside from the guaranteed Slash proc, I have no idea how this would possible work. In my experience, unless I'm just not paying attention, no amount of Strength saves the damage output. If there's a way I can build for that and Exalted Blade, I am definitely all ears on listening though. Do you have recommendations for build paths? Gotcha. For Umbra I suppose it doesn't hurt to have one or two Augur mods around in the spare Umbra polarities for when I'm not using Umbral Vitality/Fiber. Not to mention the situation you run into with Pillage is precisely why I hate running it: it seems like you tend to spam it to make it worthwhile. Regardless, I'd still like to at least attempt to build him up for longer missions. I don't typically let the fact that a better Warframe existing for a specific purpose stop me from building a specific Warframe. Say I were to build him for survivability, what mods/Archon shards would I need to set up to assist in that? Currently I run 2 Tauforged Blue for Armor, 2 Ambers for Energy Orb Efficiency, and 1 Red for Melee Crit Damage. EDIT: Also, I just realized. Healing Return for sustain on Exalted Blade. Just as an aside, is Steel Charge worth considering solely for the mod capacity it provides then, if other or better aura mods exist? This....this looks fun as hell. Red Critting Chromatic Blade Excalibur is legitmately a dream build of mine. I'd be absolutely down for running something like this on Umbra despite the drawbacks, though it looks like I'll have to work some stuff around for it, especially with the Umbra Polarities. Is that feasible in anyway? In addition, can I use something other than the Redeemer to utilize the statstick for that build? This isn't an issue at all if the answer is no, but I'd figured I can get the most out of a melee weapon when energy runs low, and I can use something like a Nikana or Skana Incarnon for Excalibur's passive or Furax Incarnon for Amalgam Furax Body Count.

So I'm assuming in the case of Excalibur Umbra, that's why Umbral Fiber might be a bit of a wasted slot, since shield gating is technically more efficient and I'm not able to use the Armor to the best of my abilities. I....probably wouldn't want to go that route with Skiajati+Arcane Trickery, solely because then I'd have to rely on a good Skiajati build and Trickery's low proc chance for damage and survivability respectively (not impossible, but it's a bit restricting I'd think). And yeah, it'd lower the DPS a whole lot. What about running Pillage as the subsume ability? You'd lose some DPS neglecting an option like Xata's Whisper, but it could be built towards and helps in shield gating, offers a shield and armor strip, and it clears negative Status Effects so he's protected from Slash procs? On top of that, a lot of what he builds for is Strength and Duration for Exalted Blade anyway, so he doesn't need much commitment to it.

I actually didn't know any of this about Armor, so this is very informative, thank you. I was wondering why shield gating seemed so popular with everything. This poses a bit of a problem then because I was kinda hoping to get some recommendations for longer mission runs, so I'm gonna have to figure something out for that.

What about adding defensives through blue Archon shards and defensive mods like Health Conversion or Adaptation? If you run all three Umbral mods, he can get quite a bit of Armor and Health out of the deal and he can run something like Hunter Adrenaline to maintain some of the steeper Energy costs? My logic here is, if shield gating isn't working out, stockpiling on Armor and Health is the next best thing, and Umbra in particular gets a lot of it through the Umbral mods, but I don't know how well this holds up. 1. It's a combination I love on a bunch of my other frames, Nekros and Voruna in particular. Find it pretty damn useful even without Panzer or Synth Set. 2. Oh shoot, I didn't realize you were running Excalibur Prime! So this could easily be applicable to Excalibur Umbra as well, just with that additional Umbra polarity. My bad! 3. Gotcha, gotcha. I'm really wondering if I can get away without subsuming anything onto him, but I'm wondering if this is ending up not likely. 4. Got it. I was originally thinking Thermal Sunder because you could do something like Exalted Blade with Heat Damage, Slash Dash for heat transfer, and then cast Thermal Sunder, but it sounds like a HELL of an investment for it to be worth it. So definitely something like Radiation/Toxin with Continuity. ----- I also want to see if I have some ideas right based on what's been discussed so far. Mainly blue Archon Shards for Shields or Armor based on build since Excalibur has very few defensive options. For build paths, it seems like I have to specialize in a certain ability in order to effectively play him, with Radial Blind/Howl or Slash Dash often being Helminth'd. So if I wanted to go Exalted Blade, I need to specialize the build around that (i.e. invest in Ability Efficiency, energy economy, Xata's Whisper as Helminth, etc.). Chromatic Blade definitely worth it, but ONLY if I'm building for Exalted Blade. Furious Javelin DEFINITELY worth the slot no matter what. Surging Dash probably worth the slot in a non-Exalted Blade melee, maybe more so with an Incarnon weapon. Archon Continuity >>> Archon Vitality, no contest but again only in an Exalted Blade build.

Amazing build, thank you for showing me this! Did not even think of Amalgam Daikyu Target Acquired + Nikanas, actually brilliant! I noticed on your Excalibur build you did end up replacing one of the Umbra polarities. I asked this in the original post, but is it worth it to replace one of the Umbra polarities to make a build like this work? I noticed you went for replacing Radial Howl instead of something like Slash Dash, would it be alright for me to ask why? Since your running Archon Continuity, would you be able to provide insight on Archon Continuity vs. Archon Vitality?

I get that, but I also find it a solid weapon in Steel Path any time I have used it, and I think the energy drain isn't horrible by any means (spamming the Radial Blind I'd say is the worst of it but....radial blind). I won't deny the problems are there and can be glaring, but I don't think it's a USELESS ability either (subsuming that means I still have Radial Javelin, given I'm not running Furious Javelin). That said though, I can see the perspective on it. Would probably save some mod slots and I don't really need to worry much about Efficiency or energy costs. I'll have to think about it.

Absolutely fair. Personally, I'd rather keep Exalted Blade on me just because I love the ability, but I'll keep that in mind for a potential build I can put on. Makes things a bit more interesting.

I wasn't aware subsuming Exalted Blade was even something players did. I certainly wouldn't mind making a build to give it a shot, but wouldn't subsuming Exalted Blade gimp some power on Slash Dash, and since Exalted Blade benefits from the Combo meter? Also for survival, Shields in the Archon Shard and Brief Respite/Augur mods?

My knowledge of Excalibur tells me that having Exalted Blade up does buff Slash Dash damage output, but I'd like an Excalibur man to absolutely confirm that for me.