Excalibur's Radial Javelin: Ignored and forgotten

[Artekkor]

Excalibur is one of my favorite warframes in the game. I'm holding back on playing him patiently awaiting when melee rework will be complete. However there is one thing that needs to be adressed about him in the mean time: radial javelin.

Radial Javelin is one of those abilities that people just forget about. Why? Because it does nothing useful.
I thought we were kinda through this already?... Abilities that just deal fixed amount of damage and nothing else are worthless past enemies of  level 40 and higher.
If ability is to be used in higher level plays it needs to have either great scaling (probably from weapon mods) or at least provide some secondary effects like knockdown, ragdoll or any other types of debuffs. Maybe even some kind of synergy with other abilities.

But excalibur's radial javelin does nothing... I believe it sort of staggers enemies, but that's not very good since the staggering is too short to justify it, in my opinion. 

So... In order to be up-to-date the ability needs either a secondary function, or some synergy with other abilities, or something that will allow us to at least scale the damage.

Possible suggestions / solutions:

1. Radial Javelin could deal some bonus damage / apply some unique effect on enemies that were radial blinded. Maybe cause a forced slash proc?
2. "Furious Javelin" (bonus melee damage for each enemy affected) augment probably should be ability's default feature. (what to replace augment with?)
3. Radial Javelin could use Exalted Blade's mods in order to buff its damage (again - allowing us to scale it).
4. Radial Javelin could increase excalibur's combo meter for each enemy affected. But not by 1, but maybe 2 or 3 points, otherwise it won't be good enough.
5. Radial Javelin could knockdown enemies on their backs instead of just staggering them. The fact that corpses of killed enemies fly away confirm that the javelins have a powerful impact force, hence it would make sense if they could straight up topple enemies on their backs. This could allow us to use it as a AOE crowd control stun even in higher levels. Not to mention ground finisher opportunities.
6. Radial Javelin could leave javelins stuck inside surviving enemies which then would explode after some time dealing some bonus damage afterwards (as well as knocking enemies down with blast proc). Alternatively: could be detonated by radial blind instead. Being penetrated by energy blade is one thing, having one blow up inside you is a whole other level (alternatively - this would make for a great augment).
7. Radial Javelin could deal bonus damage proportionate to target's health. Let's say... 25%?
8. Radial Javelin could shred armor. Although what's the point when Radial Blind allows you to bypass it completely anyway... Scratch that.
9. Radial Javelin could deal finisher damage type to radial blinded enemies, instead of physical.
10. Radial Javelin could have a feature to be charged, allowing us to increase damage, like Hydroid's abilities. But i still think a secondary effect (like a proper knockdown) should be applied.
11. (OP's favorite) The description of the ability says "...and impaling them to walls." but it does that only to enemies that died from the cast. This is a different take on suggestion #5 but what if Radial Javelin actually did that? Nailing enemies that survived the initial cast to walls, floors and ceilings for some time (like 3-4 seconds) making them easy targets until they are finally released and droped on the floor in ragdoll state, giving us some extra time while they try to get up?
    On another note, this would make a great combination with part of suggestion #1 (forced slash proc on blinded enemies), allowing the player to blind > impale > watch them bleed.
    Or, alternatively, with suggestion #6 (javelins detonating / being detonated by radial blind). No particular function, just cool-factor.
12. Radial Javelin could increase excalibur's armor or simply give him damage resistance for each enemy affected.
13. Radial Javelin could cripple enemies, decreasing their accuracy and moving speed.

 

And that's where i ran out of ideas.

Edited April 2, 2019 by Artekkor

[Horonelius]

If it used the combo counter to determine damage that would help it greatly, and would work well with Surging Dash or whatever the augment for SD is.

Edited April 2, 2019 by Horonelius

[Yasha-7HS]

This is an archived topic that I started a while back. A few people in the dicussion had some really great ideas.  Especially the suggestions made by Teridax and Fallen_Echo.