How do i build Excalibur as a solo beginner player

[ArkinKain]

I'll try to cut this short, as i really do appreciate the time you've taken to review my post. 
So here it goes, i'm still a new-ish player who started playing this exciting and wonderful game, which means i've got no experience in building frame(s) and i've always got this feeling that there's a better build to be acquired from better and smarter players, and that is why i came here. Here is my current Excalibur  build, and my Exalted Blade

I've got some basic and some of the corrupted mods, can you guys/gals help me to better my already existing build or to Forge a new one entirely, either way all help is greatly appreciated.

Edited April 26, 2019 by ArkinKain

[Zarcondi]

I haven’t got that much experience with excal even if i used him a LOT during my first days in warframe but my current build is based around exalted blade with as much efficiency as possible to make it last for the maximum amount of time otherwise i didn’t do anything special and didnt forma excal so can’t give anymore advices... i hope that i still helped you a bit

[MrTitan123]

9 minutes ago, ArkinKain said:

I'll try to cut this short, as i really do appreciate the time you've taken to review my post. 
So here it goes, i'm still a new-ish player who started playing this exciting and wonderful game, which means i've got no experience in building frame(s) and i've always got this feeling that there's a better build to be acquired from better and smarter players, and that is why i came here.  Here is my current Excalibur build, and my Exalted Blade

I've got some basic and some of the corrupted mods, can you guys/gals help me to better my already existing build or to Forge a new one entirely, either way all help is greatly appreciated.

I highly recommend going full efficiency if you’re going solo Excalibur. Exalted blade is stupidly powerful, and can have a bit of survivability. You’ll need a rank 0 mod called “life strike”. It was relatively rare, but with the fortuna update it became stupidly common. So, for your actual blade, you might want corrosive since it works against literally every faction. Get chromatic blade for your Excalibur. (Someone might be willing to give a spare if they have one. Possibly. Don’t bet on it though.) That will bump up your EB’s damage through the roof on its own. Get yourself condition overload if you can. If not, ignore it. Life strike will work on exalted blade. All you need to do is activate channeling and swing at things with EB and you’ll heal from a percent of damage you do. Keep an eye on your energy consumption though, as channeling uses 5 energy per hit, and with life strike unranked, it bumps it up to 7. Exalted blade itself uses energy too, so keep your eyes peeled. That’s about as helpful as I can be without going into builds. You’re a new player, so you probably won’t have access to those mods that make Excalibur extremely effective.

Edited April 26, 2019 by MrTitan123
Friggin typos

[Infirito]

When I was starting out I've built him around Duration, Range and Efficiency, that allowed me to blind all my problems away. Blade build would allow you to clear out missions faster, but for me it's always safety first. ^_^

[Artekkor]

Your Excalibur build is on the right path.

However, i found a couple of issuies. 

First of all, i find lack of [Redirection] problematic considering that  without shield you are bound to take health damage very often which means you need healing.
Which by itself is  not a problem... If your Exalted Blade wasn't also lacking [Life Strike]. 

If you are going for berzerk type of build with just health and armor you must get either [Rage] or [Hunter Adrenaline]. Either of those will provide Excalibur with essentially infinite energy source as long as he can heal  any damage taken back. Which he will be able to with before mentioned [Life Strike].

Your Exalted Blade build is... frankly disgusting. Crit chance of 15% is not worth investment. Not on Exalted  Blade. You don't need critical build on it anyway, since the core power of Excalibur is getting finisher attacks on enemies blinded by Radial Blinde.
Remove crit mods and replace them with [Life Strike] (unless you don't have one... in which case i highly recommend to find it ASAP) and [Drifting Contact].
Replace Berzerker with simple Fury, Exalted Blade is not that slow.
Once you get your hands on more Formas, try to replace [Vicious  Frost] and [Volcanix Edge] with their +90% no-status counterparts. Exalted Blade cannot into status.

I'll post my own Excalibur and  Exalted Blade builds for better refference once i get screenshots of them. Await them in 10-15 minutes.

[Artekkor]

Here's my Excalibur:

Спойлер

This is basically my "Jack of all trades" build.
If i'll feel like going melee berzerk i can just replace Redirection with either Streamline or Vigor for bonus health so that enemies wouldn't be able to oneshot me as fast.

 

And here's Exalted Blade:

Спойлер

This is all that Exalted Blade could ever need. Crit and status stats do not justify investing into them so i just go for raw power instead.
Spoiled Strike increases Melee Damage at the cost of Attack Speed, but negative is countered by Fury. However, that's just my personal preference.
You can replace  Spoiled Strike with +90% Heat  Damage mod, whatever its' name is. The DPS difference is next  to none (~5%), its just a matter of "do i hit faster or harder".

Drifting Contact is the only mod that can increase combo duration that can be put  on Exalted Blade. Let me explain:
Combo Counter is a system which gives your melee attacks bonus damage the higher your  hit-combo is. The  more often you hit enemies, the more damage you will deal.
However, by default combo counter only lives 3 seconds before reseting which is frankly makes it useless.
Drifting Contact  provides +10 combo duration seconds for 13 seconds  before melee combo counter resets to 0, which makes it easier to keep and maintain the combo  for a LOT of bonus damage. I mean double, triple and even more.

The choice of Corrosion + Cold elemental damage is also a jack of all trades elemental combo. Universally good against everything.

 

Edited April 26, 2019 by Artekkor

[-CdG-Zilchy]

17 minutes ago, Artekkor said:

Here's my Excalibur:

  Hide contents

This is basically my "Jack of all trades" build.
If i'll feel like going melee berzerk i can just replace Redirection with either Streamline or Vigor for bonus health so that enemies wouldn't be able to oneshot me as fast.

 

And here's Exalted Blade:

  Hide contents

This is all that Exalted Blade could ever need. Crit and status stats do not justify investing into them so i just go for raw power instead.
Spoiled Strike increases Melee Damage at the cost of Attack Speed, but negative is countered by Fury. However, that's just my personal preference.
You can replace  Spoiled Strike with +90% Heat  Damage mod, whatever its' name is. The DPS difference is next  to none (~5%), its just a matter of "do i hit faster or harder".

Drifting Contact is the only mod that can increase combo duration that can be put  on Exalted Blade. Let me explain:
Combo Counter is a system which gives your melee attacks bonus damage the higher your  hit-combo is. The  more often you hit enemies, the more damage you will deal.
However, by default combo counter only lives 3 seconds before reseting which is frankly makes it useless.
Drifting Contact  provides +10 combo duration seconds for 13 seconds  before melee combo counter resets to 0, which makes it easier to keep and maintain the combo  for a LOT of bonus damage. I mean double, triple and even more.

The choice of Corrosion + Cold elemental damage is also a jack of all trades elemental combo. Universally good against everything.

 

Nice build but depending on how far you intend to push in missions, consider healing return. Also I don't see chromatic blade which adds a heap of damage.

[Artekkor]

28 минут назад, Zilchy сказал:

Nice build but depending on how far you intend to push in missions, consider healing return. Also I don't see chromatic blade which adds a heap of damage.

Well, definetely not past level 100, that's for sure. I dont see how healing return is helpful since the status chance is only 10% and heal is only 11 points... Its created for fast 100% status melees, not slow 10% ones. Life Strike is simply superior and you should be using it in combination with Radial Blind anyway.

Chromatic Blade... I didn't know it increases overall  DPS, but i consider it being a preference more than anything, since i'll have to give up Redirection / Vigor / Quick Thinking or whatever im using.

Then again... Once enemies go past level 100 any attempt to increase survival is worthless, so might as well go for Glass Cannon.
Then again x2: there are better warframes to solo 100+ enemies. Like Inaros.

Edited April 26, 2019 by Artekkor

[Cobaltor_252]

43 minutes ago, Artekkor said:

Here's my Excalibur:

  Hide contents

This is basically my "Jack of all trades" build.
If i'll feel like going melee berzerk i can just replace Redirection with either Streamline or Vigor for bonus health so that enemies wouldn't be able to oneshot me as fast.

 

And here's Exalted Blade:

  Hide contents

This is all that Exalted Blade could ever need. Crit and status stats do not justify investing into them so i just go for raw power instead.
Spoiled Strike increases Melee Damage at the cost of Attack Speed, but negative is countered by Fury. However, that's just my personal preference.
You can replace  Spoiled Strike with +90% Heat  Damage mod, whatever its' name is. The DPS difference is next  to none (~5%), its just a matter of "do i hit faster or harder".

Drifting Contact is the only mod that can increase combo duration that can be put  on Exalted Blade. Let me explain:
Combo Counter is a system which gives your melee attacks bonus damage the higher your  hit-combo is. The  more often you hit enemies, the more damage you will deal.
However, by default combo counter only lives 3 seconds before reseting which is frankly makes it useless.
Drifting Contact  provides +10 combo duration seconds for 13 seconds  before melee combo counter resets to 0, which makes it easier to keep and maintain the combo  for a LOT of bonus damage. I mean double, triple and even more.

The choice of Corrosion + Cold elemental damage is also a jack of all trades elemental combo. Universally good against everything.

 

Redirection is a waste of a slot on any and all frames that aren't Hildryn, since there are many ways to get health back, shields don't benefit from armor's damage reduction, and there are many damage types that will just straight up bypass shields and damage your health directly.  Additionally, Redirection actively works against your build since you have Rage equipped.  The more time it takes for enemies to start damaging your health the less energy you'll have overall, and with life strike equipped it's easy for you to get that health back.

I'd also suggest replacing Rage with Hunter Adrenaline since it's just a better version of rage and only costs 2 more capacity.

To comment on your opinion on Chromatic blade, from a purely number-based standpoint, Chromatic blade is the best mod for Excalibur, and is what makes him actually do damage to enemies that are level 60+.  Paired with condition overload you basically get free damage, and can kill most starchart-level enemies in 1 swipe.

[ArkinKain]

2 hours ago, Cobaltor_252 said:

Redirection is a waste of a slot on any and all frames that aren't Hildryn, since there are many ways to get health back, shields don't benefit from armor's damage reduction, and there are many damage types that will just straight up bypass shields and damage your health directly.  Additionally, Redirection actively works against your build since you have Rage equipped.  The more time it takes for enemies to start damaging your health the less energy you'll have overall, and with life strike equipped it's easy for you to get that health back.

I'd also suggest replacing Rage with Hunter Adrenaline since it's just a better version of rage and only costs 2 more capacity.

To comment on your opinion on Chromatic blade, from a purely number-based standpoint, Chromatic blade is the best mod for Excalibur, and is what makes him actually do damage to enemies that are level 60+.  Paired with condition overload you basically get free damage, and can kill most starchart-level enemies in 1 swipe.

I'm hearing a lot about the chromatic blade AUG and i believe you that it is an important , or dare i say even a necessary one for late(endgame). After picking it up fairly cheaply, i've been  wondering how would i implement that mod into my current build or should i mod only around the AUG? I am not experienced enough to craft my own builds or to even experiment with them because i am fairly certain that i'm going to eff things right into the ground, so i just adapt to whatever greater players run with. Btw, thank you for your time 😊

P.S. Is CO necessary with the Chromatic Blade build?

 

[elemme]

dont overlook a surging dash (augment for slash dash) build.  It is much more forgiving than an exulted blade build.  I just tested using most of what you have and it was taking level 40 heavy gunners without a problem.

Like other people have said excal needs rage or hunter adrenaline to recover energy  and some way to heal.  life strike is not as easy to use as it used to be because you will have to turn channeling on  and off or it will burn through all your energy.

A furis with the winds of purity mod works much better now and might be the easiest healing solution.

[Mr.SpookSpook]

YouTube is absolutely full of guides for every frame. Use it.

[-CdG-Zilchy]

7 hours ago, Artekkor said:

Well, definetely not past level 100, that's for sure. I dont see how healing return is helpful since the status chance is only 10% and heal is only 11 points... Its created for fast 100% status melees, not slow 10% ones. Life Strike is simply superior and you should be using it in combination with Radial Blind anyway.

Chromatic Blade... I didn't know it increases overall  DPS, but i consider it being a preference more than anything, since i'll have to give up Redirection / Vigor / Quick Thinking or whatever im using.

Then again... Once enemies go past level 100 any attempt to increase survival is worthless, so might as well go for Glass Cannon.
Then again x2: there are better warframes to solo 100+ enemies. Like Inaros.

Ah see healing return doesn't return +11 health, it returns +11 health for EVERY STATUS currently affecting the target. So since Exalted blade has infinite punch through, imagine how much health is instantly returned when you swing your exalted blade through a group. This is also why chromatic blade helps because not only does it add an extra status damage just by choosing an energy colour, it also increases status chance by 50%. I prefer healing return to furis healing because in later game having to cancel exalted blade and pull out a pistol can take too long to keep you alive. Here is my build, it's my umbra excal but the mods are the same, just swap the umbras for the normal version. Give it a try. The only thing I sometimes change is Arcane Guardian instead of Arcane Fury. Note that you might want to drop Transient Fortitude for an efficiency mod. I just find I don't need it and Radial blind is often cast for free while using Exalted Blade.

Edited April 27, 2019 by Zilchy

[George_PPS]

To Zilchy, those are great builds but a new player won’t have access to most of these mods nor Excal Umbra. 

I suggest to put in as many survival ability mods to make the Excal tanky and also build around his 2nd ability for crowd control and then build the Exalted Blade with Healing Return if you can find one but it’s not necessary for early missions. 

[-CdG-Zilchy]

30 minutes ago, George_PPS said:

To Zilchy, those are great builds but a new player won’t have access to most of these mods nor Excal Umbra. 

I suggest to put in as many survival ability mods to make the Excal tanky and also build around his 2nd ability for crowd control and then build the Exalted Blade with Healing Return if you can find one but it’s not necessary for early missions. 

I know it was aimed at Artekkor to help improve his. 

[-CdG-Zilchy]

Here's some beginner builds, Max out Fury though lol, embarassingly I don't have any forma on my standard excal exalted blade because Umbra was introduced when we could add forma to it. Which gives you an idea what I think of the frame. Do try to get chromatic blade, IT IS THAT GOOD.

Edited April 27, 2019 by Zilchy

[Lutesque]

17 hours ago, MrTitan123 said:

So, for your actual blade, you might want corrosive since it works against literally every faction.

The blade itself works well for every faction.... Corrosive is Meh against the Corpus.