The Growing Exalted/Built-in Weapon Theme

[Zeclem]

oh and i must add that, "just make it a weapon and give the frame a real ability" is kind of a flawed argument. you can make any kind of effect on any weapon, does that mean no abilites are "real"? ofc not. theres nothing inherently wrong with exalted abilities. 

[LordPantaloonsthe3rd]

Do Garuda's claws really count as an exalted weapon though? they arent tied to an ability( meaning affecting the skills with equipped mods or their use being forced upon ability use) and dont use energy when in use, you cant even use them when you have a melee weapon equipped unlike Mesa's regulators, Excals sword or Valkyrs claws. I like the idea of some frames coming with built in weapons like Garuda but only if it really fits the style/theme of the frame but I dont think the idea itself is lazy.

I also dont see any relation between Garuda and Valkyr's claws outside of the fact that they are both claws. They work differently with Garuda's claws being another normal weapon that you can choose to use by not equipping a melee weapon and Valkyrs claws being part of an ability. I also dont want old frames to be retrofitted with exalted weapons ESPECIALLY ZEPHYR. Though I think it would be a nice addon to Zephyrs passive if she had a chance to summon a small tornado sized like they are when you use the funnel cloud augment when she does a melee spin attack with turbulence running.

As far as future frames getting them I'm not opposed to it in the form of ability specific weapons like the exalted blade or non ability weapons like Garuda's claws. In fact one of the frame ideas that has been floating around in my head is  "Weapon Master" type frame. No specifics like stats or anything just loose idea's around its 4 skills.

The first skill would be an exalted shield, it would work with guns like the shield lancer except it would be usable with primary and secondary weapons, offer damage reduction overall or complete damage mitigation from the front and maybe resistance or immunity to knockdown. It would have a built in affect like to Guardian Derision but it would reduce movement speed slightly. It would also be usable with the 2nd and 3rd skill which would also be exalted weapons.

The second skill would be an exalted one handed weapon, like a mace, axe or flail(no swords) and would deal the appropriate kind of damage based on what kind of weapon it is. Its ability would perhaps apply debuffs to enemies like armor sundering or slowdown/knockdown. This 2nd ability would also be usable with secondary weapons when not used in tandem with the 1st ability, like glaives are and like one handed weapons are supposed to be with melee 3.0.

The third ability would be a polearm or spear/halberd with two different attack types, when used without the shield it would work more like a normal polearm with sweeping attacks and spins but when used with the 1st ability it would instead use more defensive thrusting attacks and charges that could knockdown and pin enemies to walls or to the ground. This weapon would likely deal slash/puncture primarily and could perhaps debuff enemies in an area around enemies that have been pinned to something. Not super sure where I want to go with it though.

The 4th would be a large two handed exalted weapon, a giant axe or a hammer. The idea with this one would be large sweeping attacks that can knockdown everything but the largest enemies(jackal, juggernaut etc) , the impact from the hits would be such that from a single hit normal enemies that arent killed are left exposed to finishers and larger enemies like bombards and heavy gunnners have a pretty good chance of being knocked and left open for finishers, maybe following hits can increase the chance for heavy enemies to be left open for them. The idea behind getting these enemies open to finishers would be to have a radial buff be applied to all allies in range whenever an enemy is killed by a finisher with this 4th exalted weapon. Something maybe like healing pulse for X% of a frames health and shields or maybe apply a healing affect over X amount of time with maybe damage reduction on top of that. There could also be an attack speed or power buff for allies in range as well.

 

anyways, TLDR exalted weapons not bad, dont touch my birb.

[Loza03]

7 hours ago, DatDarkOne said:

You also forgot the Artemis Bow is classified as an exalted weapon that also has range, is unique, and spamable.  

Man, I completely forgot about Artemis bow.

That said, it would still be pretty different from some kind of exalted gun in terms of gameplay, so I'd still like that, but, alright, we DO have a traditional ranged exalted.

[(PSN)TertulSee]

Against the “Exalted weapons are lazy” argument. Exalted weapons are not lazy and frames that do have Exalted weapons have abilities wrapped around it. In my opinion, the frames with Exalted weapons have dedicated kits to serve the Exalted weapon rather than Exalted weapons are “lazy” design. For example, Ivara’s kit basically revolves around Artemis Bow. Her 1st ability can be quickly cast by holding secondary fire, there is no drain so you can use Navigator, and Prowl makes charging shots and slowly taking enemies out viable. While many of the earlier frames have 1 or 2 abilities that synergises with Exalted weapons, it’s definitely not “lazy”. Valkyr’s Warcry works wonders with Hysteria and Paralysis. Abilities are designed around the Exalted weapon rather than the other way around. They are meant to be used with the weapon but still be viable outside of using the Exalted weapon.

Edited December 25, 2018 by (PS4)godlysparta

[Banelingline]

One of the big things that causes potential issues with Exalted Weapons going forward is, ultimately, we don't see their nature being made use of. By that, I mean that they're all basically Whip Claw writ large, just an ability that shares some mechanics with weapons, now including independent modability. Nobody uses the Slash Dash augment that could get Exalted Blade to actually be using the combo counter, because that build space could instead be used for a guaranteed status proc with Chromatic Blade.

The next Exalted ability I want to see is one that makes use of chassis mods. Whether it's a change to Equinox to give the two forms separate mod slots (fat chance, thought it would be a wonder to see abused), a beast-themed Warframe packing Companion mods on a hulk-out-and-kill-everything mode or an Exalted Archwing as another take on the Equinox format, except this time the two "Aspects" are actually independently usable and get improvements once merged beyond getting to swap between them. Whatever the case, I want to see much deeper shenanigans actually taking advantage of the setup. Something where the Exalted form is actually a different basic statline in some way.

[(PSN)Mono-Pop]

On 2018-12-24 at 4:15 AM, trst said:

Well exactly, why do people want more of these? Khora's whip would have just been another melee weapon but you can change it's physical damage type. Personally that doesn't sound like very compelling design or gameplay.

Why do people want exalted weapons?

Because weapon mods embarrass raw abilities. Acolyte, corrupted, nightmare and prime mods all offer a LOT of power.

It’s often said that game development is learning to see where there is fire (a problem) from the smoke (people’s complaints.)

If you just fight the smoke, there will still be a fire, and more smoke to come.

Maybe people want exalted weapons because they find frames without exalted weapons to be less powerful and interesting? 🤷🏻‍♂️

Edited December 26, 2018 by (PS4)Mono-Pop

[(XBOX)ThermalStone]

Exalted weapons work because they are easy to balance.  They get their damage mostly from regular weapon mods, so they more or less scale like normal weapons.  Think of all the direct damage powers and how crappy they mostly are because they don't scale up to even moderately difficult content like Sortie 2.  Is it lazy design?  Maybe but it works.