Spitballing a Radial Javelin replacement

[Ventura_Highway]

DISCLAIMER: It has been six months since I have played Excalibur. Sorry if this seems out of touch.

Generally, Radial Javelin is ineffective and outdated. The stagger and puncture proc are inferior to Radial Blind, the damage is mediocre and the 75 Energy would have been better spent on Exalted Blade. I think it could be fixed by itself but I had an idea that was awesomer than throwing around a bunch of swords like a lunatic.

Severing/Slaying Strike: 75, or 100 energy.

Excalibur delivers a tremendous 360 degree slash with a larger Exalted Blade. The size and strength of the blade increases with combo level, but it expends the current combo total. Excalibur regains health based on damage inflicted during the strike. Enemies killed are cut in half, and survivors are launched backwards from Excalibur. Damage scales based on mods, but whether the melee slot weapon's mods or exalted blade's mods are used vary based on whether or not Exalted Blade is equipped.

Optional properties

Slash dash synergy 1: Slash Dashing during the cleave enables Excalibur to charge and cleave at the same time, covering a larger area and potentially doing more damage.

Slash dash synergy 2: Slash Dash and Severing Strike can be linked so that as long as only a small, 2-4 second long period exists between Slash Dashes and Severing Strikes, Severing Strike may be executed repeatedly and retain the combo magnitude increase.

Aerial Strike: Casting Severing Strike in the air instead causes Excalibur to launch the enhanced Exalted Blade at a targeted ground area. Instead of pushing enemies away, it may cluster them together, or summon more Skanas to lock enemies within the affected area in place. Likely to not retain health gain in exchanged for the enhanced mobbing and ranged properties.

Status Strike: Whether Severing Strike is using EB or Melee mods, a status proc associated with the highest weighted stat occurs. Reminder that IPS damage types have stronger weighting than Elemental types. Strong likelihood that this encourages slash damage.

There is a certain degree of Caliburn-associated mythology lost here but I think this is cooler than Radial Javelin. I think a more recent Excalibur main would prefer stronger defensive effects, but I have tried to avoid a duration buff everyone would simply mindlessly cast over and over again. I am going to test run Excalibur again to judge how sorely the lack of defensive properties would bother people.

 

EDIT: Cleaning up grammar and making things look generally nicer.

Edited December 5, 2018 by Ventura_Highway

[(PSN)teacup775]

Em i like this!

[Neo3602]

Looks like a pretty interesting replacement for his radial javelin, I really like the synergies with his other abilities. IMO excal is really lacking in inter-ability synergy. 

[Birdframe_Prime]

What I like about this is that it plays into the way DE have said the new Combo Counter system is going to work in Melee 3.0. Instead of charging up your counter and then doing a Heavy Attack to expend it, you would extend this theory to his abilities (like the rest of his Swordsman theme) and say, charge it up and press 3 instead.

Built in Life Strike function, always good for self sustain, and expending the counter encourages you to not spam it for consistently mediocre damage.

The simplest way to handle the in-air would be to make the effect have no scenery punch-through, like regular melee, but a Sphere of Effect instead of a Radius so you can both take out flying enemies in range (those damn Ospreys and Shield Drones need a beating), and so that if you're above an enemy in the air you can still deal damage.

I think that maybe the effect would work a little better as multiple spins. Three full rotations in place in quick succession, this would give players the time to press 1 and still get the effects, and it would also allow us some lee-way as to catching enemies within the range if we did mis-judge it a bit, letting those enemies run into range as we spin.

The multi-spin would also mean that the base damage wouldn't be OP, but the total damage possible to an enemy in range would be significant. Taking on the base Damage and Elemental types of Exalted Blade would be great, and also the Crit and Status chance (meaning that Chromatic Blade would help there too).

Not a bad try for a spit-ball thread, I like it ^^