BriefLegendary

I don't really like pillage all that much, because you need 400% strength to fully strip and to me its not worth it, since his DR is so high you should never die anyway. I actually just subsume over Baruuks 4 with Breach surge (so I can use precision intensify for mega damage) and build for high duration and range with the endless lullaby augment so I can just go for headshots with Kuva Chakkhurr for insane damage and infinite sleep. And I just use incanon hate for a much better melee performance anyways so I use restraint for damage reduction only. I can easily solo netracells with this it's super effective. I love incarnon hate with it's heat projectile since it outranges the normal waves and deals greater damage, but I don't have every incarnon melee adapter so there may be better options and most of them outperform Desert wind at least in my testing, especially against bosses and non fodder enemies. My Baruuk build has evolved so much that the playstyle is not even recognizable anymore, but I like the endless lullaby augment and I think it's extremely underrated. I just don't see the value in his 4th anymore, since if you put it away all combo build up vanishes, which is a problem to me at least and the lack of blood rush and arcanes I just don't get. He is my go to solo netracell warframe I just don't use his 4th.

I mean when people say that they can kill enemies no problem with a certain frame or weapon it always seems strange to me since anything can "shred" enemies in this game, you can melt basic enemies with any warframe and any weapon given the correct set up, I mean you can make Stug melt enemies with the correct set up. You can shred normal enemies with Serene storm, but it really gets stuck on Eximus enemies on steel path beyond lvl 150 and forget dealing ANY damage bosses like Archons and the new Murmur boss. Yes Desert wind can melt heavy gunners on steel path, but like what can't? The difference with Serene storm and litteraly any weapon in the game is that they added the restrain mechanic which severely limits its use in any mission that doesn't spew out enemies and not making up for it with anything extra.

My advice is to just forget Baruuk, to me he was cool, but you really needed this bug to justify the great cost to use his 4th and make it somewhat bearable, but now there is no need since you have Kullervo and I have recently switched to him and the difference is night and day, since all you need is energy which makes it such a smooth experience. You can probably build combo on Desert wind, but there are so many better options which can actually build combo normally and run blood rush. The difference between a normal melee building combo and Desert wind is almost a joke, I mean they even added Ruta - a primary which builds combo so you can just exclude normal combo based mods on any melee and build combo with Ruta (which of course doesn't work on exalted weapons). I used to main Baruuk, but I can no longer justify forfeiting other options which are better by miles.

Well they fixed the gladiator set bug now, so to me there is no reason to run Baruuk anymore, since Kullervo is just a straight upgrade anyway. Well it was fun while it lasted and now I don't have to work with the negative combo duration jank, which is honestly refreshing. Now I wait for a Kullervo skin.

I also dislike that the waves from exalted blade and desert wind don't build combo. It infuriates me.

We can include all exalted weapons I suppose, but non melee ones usually have something that distinguishes them from normal primary/secondary weapons. I will list them alphabetically and what I think about them: Baruuk is all about his 4th which is not as good as normal melee weapons in my opinion, his other abilities only allow him to use his Desert wind and don't do much else like most other fames that can use abilities to boost the performance of their weapons. All of his other abilities are bad on their own except desolate hands which do provide him with 90% dmg reduction. He is also on the lower middle tier of usage and I think with each new melee release he will just fall further down. Excalibur and exalted blade are iconic to this game so I don't think he will ever be forgotten and exalted blade is satisfying to use and he has other abilities that can do stuff on their own. Hildryn has her Baelfire, but I used that very little and it seemed underwhelming, but I am a huge fan of pillage. She also has decent usage stats. Ivara has just so much and her Artemis bow just seems like a bonus and the bow has many build potentials. Also decent usage rate. Mesa has Regulators probably the best exalted weapon. I mean its Mesa and she is one of the most used frames. Sevagoth has his shadow with claws. Another exalted melee and I never used it, since I subsumed Sevagoth the same day I got him. Very low usage rate Titiania has 2 exalted weapons, but that doesn't really matter since most people use her for the archwing to zoom around the map me included. High usage rate Valkyr has her Talons, which are another exalted melee weapon and also seem underwhelming. She also has low usage rate Wukong has his staff, another exalted melee that isn't that good, but he has other abilities that are kinda busted. And Wukong prime is the 2nd most used warframe in the year 2023. It is true that all exalted weapons can't use arcanes, amalgam and acolyte mods, but that is more important for melee weapons. This is supported by the usage rate since all melee ones are low in the lower half of the usage rates with the exception of Wukong and Excal and the non melee ones are all above average in usage or at least in the upper half. Excal is a special case with him being a starter and getting Excal umbra for free and he is also satisfying to use. Wukong has his twin and is a good low effort warframe and that is why I think they are the exceptions. The melee exalted warframe will simply fall behind with every new melee, every new feature that normal melee weapons get and exalted ones don't.

This is true. I don't think this is a massive issue by any means. It just makes certain frames seem almost obsolete, since they at minimum have at least one ability that is by all means outclassed, which isn't even that bad compared to some other frames like Caliban. I don't know the reason why they just don't add arcanes and certain mods to exalted melees, the solution seems to be just an arms length away. Anyway It's a niche balancing issue at most.

For Helmint I would use Nourish for viral damage and energy sustain or Wrathful advance if you would rather use Arcane Energize. Archon mods are not so good on Baruuk with the augment since he adapts damage, but I imagine they are better for other exalted melee frames. Precision intensify is very underrated in my opinion, but sadly Baruuk also wants strength with his 3rd ability for more daggers, which is probably my favorite thing about Baruuk. And Arcane Fury/ Strike would be my go to if not for even more strength with molt Augmented so I have to make use with only one and I chose Fury

I have 319% strength, 128% duration, 45% efficiency, 100% range with his augment and melee guidance to have -1 combo duration on Desert wind, I also have 5 violet archon shards (one being taoforged) for melee crit damage when energy max is over 500 (with primed flow) and I also run Arcane Fury and Molt Augmented (for final 376 strength). I have replaced his 1st with nourish (nourish is just so good with energy sustain and viral damage) and I also have venka pime for the gladiator set bonus which doesn't have to be on Desert wind (480% crit chance at 13x combo from 4 gladiator mods, since I also use gladiator Finesse on Baruuk). I used to think that the passive of venka didn't work with the gladiator set bonus, but apparently it does. And also Naroman for Melee combo counter decay. With that I can pretty much clear anything that isn't a boss or any weird enemy like a rouge voidrig in netracells. I have min maxed Baruuk for most content The reason I bring up Baruuk in the discussion of exalted melees is because he ultimately is the most powerful of the exalted melees which is not saying much, I mean I never heard anyone praise Wukong's Iron staff or Valkyr's talons. They are powerful given enough investment, they just aren't better then normal melee weapons and they require even more of an investment, because they are channeled abilities and at least required some thought when building the warframe itself while with normal melee weapons you just build them and they work pretty much on any warframe and if that warframe is Kullervo you can easily hit damage cap. Also pseudo exalted melee weapons such as Khora Whipclaw are better, because how they inherit mods and arcanes from your melee. To make exalted melees even worth talking about you just need so much more, for example with my build I must have Naroman, my Venka is utterly useless for everything except the gladiator set bonus on Desert wind , and I have to have Barruk with very high strength and Nourish for extra viral damgae. His augment also makes Desert wind worth it, without the augment its not nearly as good, since base status is only 15%. All of that while you use restraint instead of energy. Excalibur can probably be brought up to a similar or better performance, since he has a similar augment and requires only energy instead of restraint. This is more of a "Is it worth it discussion" and I think your resources are better spent elsewhere like Kullervo for example and Khora. Btw I mentioned Kullervo and Khora many times and this is not because I think they are overpowered and should be nerfed, in fact I think they are excellent frames and are actually worth the investment and they have more to them not just melee damage.

So I main Baruuk and I tried to mod him many times, but it does not matter since there is really only one real option and that is to use a pseudo-stat-stick with the gladiator mods and build combo on that weapon so you gain the 330% crit chance on his Desert wind, while you also run melee guidance so it has -1 combo duration, since if you lose combo on his Desert wind the gladiator bonus doesn't apply until you lose all combo and have to begin again. Your pseudo-stat-stick has other combo duration mods so you can keep it at 12x combo with Naroman. On the actual Desert wind you put normal mods like on any melee EXCEPT acolyte mods, amalgam mods and combo duration mods. So the problem begins with melee weapons: They can't equip all of the melee mods mainly blood rush and weeping wounds which is a massive downside to me already, since I think of those mods as the best melee mods They can't equip melee arcanes, so another aspect of modding that they do not posses They have separate combo counters from normal melees which isn't a problem but they can interact via the gladiator set bonus, which seems unintentional The advantage they do have is that they scale with strength, but to me that isn't worth it for the above trade off, I mean Khora's whip also scales off power strength and can benefit from all of the above with a stat-stick and also has a very good augment for whipclaw. The problems for Baruuk don't really stop there since to build combo on Desert wind itself is a huge pain since his waves don't count, he can't get high combo duration and the fists blow away enemies, the only real option is to ground slam into hoards of enemies which isn't always possible and it's a huge pain + you have a very limited time since his restraint is constantly recovering and when your restraint fully regenerates you lose all combo, which is also the case on all exalted melee weapons, but on Baruuk especially since he doesn't use energy but restraint which is harder to manage. Also his waves don't benefit from condition overload or range mods and I think it's the same for Excaliburs wave attack from his Exalted blade. I know that you need to balance these melees because the scale of strength and can get up to 750 base damage with 300% strength but why can Khora do it, I always thought the energy drain was the counterbalance to this but that probably isn't sufficient enough, since we have so many energy sources. Baruuk especially suffers from it since he has an alternative resource which cannot be maintained as easily and the only thing making his melee viable (in higher level content) is his augment + the gladiator set jank which I dislike. I mean all of his abilities lead into his 4th and I think it gets outclassed by Khora and any melee in the game if Kullervo uses it. I guess I'm just a salty Baruuk main, because Kullervo can do outclass me with one press of a button, and Khora too. It would be cool if at least the waves of desert wind build combo and Exalted blade's waves probably too. I mean Desert wind gains a damage multiplier if itself has combo build on it (up to 3.5x), because you have to manage restraint and combo at the same time and if you at any time regain your restraint back you lose all combo on Desert wind. I mean the very concept of restraint suggests that Desert wind is powerful and needs to be restrained but that is not really true unless you heavily invest into Baruuk with 5 violet shards, which I don't recommend (as a Baruuk main) you are better of putting them on Khora/ Kullervo and probably even any frame that would use incarnon melees. As it stands now I think it's better if a weapon is pseudo-exalted instead of pure exalted.