Radial Javelin Rework

[waterboytkd]

11 hours ago, Yun_Woo-Seok said:

Also, if your Radial Javelin idea is an offensive style one, then I have to say three things about your Slash Dash changes. 1) It can be a heavy attack sure but don't change the animation for it. Besides the statistical stuff, Slash Dash coming out quick and snappy is why I, and I'm betting a lot of other people, use it. 2) Let it have 100% combo efficiency. We also use Slash Dash for the invulnerability and movement it provides, so consuming combo when my intention was to defend myself rather than attack, or get from point A to point B quicker, is a bad. Slash Dash already consumes energy anyway, so just giving excalibur the "freedom of choice" on how to reset his combo duration, whether it be with the melee weapon itself or Slash Dash, is a fair buff. 3) I'm still on the side that's saying excalibur needs survivability so maybe extend excal's invulnerability period after performing Slash Dash by one second? Or he gets some kind of defensive buff per enemy hit by Slash Dash? idk

Re 1) That was my intention. Using "Heavy Attack" was more for how the damage gets calculated and to use the Combo Counter for synergy with Javelin.
Re 2) There's currently a cap of 90% on efficiency. I don't know if that's something tied to weapons specifically, or tied to the very efficiency system. But, I could see allowing Slash Dash to break it. Not sure about 100%, though. I could also see buffing the baseline efficiency so you hit the cap with the full Umbra set and max ranks on the mods. That said, Slash Dashing for mobility wouldn't eat stacks if you didn't hit anything. The idea is, as you slash to each enemy and hit it, it counts as a heavy attack and deals the appropriate damage. If you hit zero enemies, it eats zero combo.
Re 3) Baseline lifesteal is actually pretty insane for upping survivability, especially with Adaptation thrown in the mix. That said, I could see getting 1 more second of Invuln from Slash Dash, or getting a Status Effect cleanse from hitting Javelin. Or, maybe better yet, just adding a Status Effect cleanse to the Invuln on Slash Dash, then also giving the same Invuln + Cleanse to Radial Javelin. Since both will heal you thanks to the lifesteal on passive, using either one represents a cleanse plus a big heal (almost certainly heal to full on Slash Dash, maybe the same on Javelin, number of enemies depending), with an Invuln to make sure you haven't taken any more damage before you're able to assume full control of your frame again.

[Yunjuwo]

21 hours ago, waterboytkd said:

Re 2) That said, Slash Dashing for mobility wouldn't eat stacks if you didn't hit anything. The idea is, as you slash to each enemy and hit it, it counts as a heavy attack and deals the appropriate damage. If you hit zero enemies, it eats zero combo.
Re 3) Baseline lifesteal is actually pretty insane for upping survivability

2) That's exactly the reason why I'm saying Slash Dash, if it would count as a form of heavy attack, would need to consume no combo. Slash Dash locks in on enemies within a cone; so rarely, even if it's not your intention, you may find yourself hitting enemies when you just wanted to use the ability for movement. The thing to understand here is that the current Slash Dash isn't used for its damage. It's used for its mobility and its invulnerability. Adding a new function to it is fine, but if that new thing hampers the current thing--with the current thing being "I have a 12x combo counter that I want to keep and not waste on a heavy attack"--then I'd honestly be without the new thing altogether to be honest. You're already using energy for this; It's fine to give Slash Dash 100% combo efficiency.

3) Again, lifesteal, or any form of healing/cleansing/etc., isn't "survivability"--it's recovery. Two very different things. Lifesteal is extremely useful yes, IF you can survive(hence the word "survivability") the damage in the first place. Defense on the other hand actually helps you survive the damage that hit you. The whole "oh god, life strike nerf, excal so weak now" slander is amusing to read considering that before the whole melee rework, I was running without life strike on excal for months and was usually just fine because like I said before: there are already so many ways to heal. However, where I was still dying, even before when I used to run with life strike, was in high level content where the threat of one-shot death was prevalent.

People asking for healing on excal instead of defense are like those who ask for dessert before dinner. Some things need to come first before others.

[waterboytkd]

31 minutes ago, Yun_Woo-Seok said:

2) The thing to understand here is that the current Slash Dash isn't used for its damage. It's used for its mobility and its invulnerability. Adding a new function to it is fine, but if that new thing hampers the current thing...

I fully understand how Slash Dash is used right now. But that's because it fails as a damage dealing ability, which was its original design, and players have found that its side perks are actually better than it's primary purpose.

Making it a heavy attack that gets to use your Combo Counter is a very significant increase in damage output, and doesn't require you to warp your build. Heavy Attacks when you have a x12 combo counter will break seven digits. I don't think you can give it that kind of offensive power for just 25 energy. Maybe I'm wrong there, but that seems crazy good.

I mean, it *might* still be OP the way I pitched it. With a built up combo counter and efficiency, it'll 1-shot everything caught in there.

In the end, I would also totally be okay with Slash Dash just becoming Dash, being pure mobility + defense. As long as his kit felt complete and well-rounded.

1 hour ago, Yun_Woo-Seok said:

3) Again, lifesteal, or any form of healing/cleansing/etc., isn't "survivability"--it's recovery. Two very different things. Lifesteal is extremely useful yes, IF you can survive(hence the word "survivability") the damage in the first place. Defense on the other hand actually helps you survive the damage that hit you. ... People asking for healing on excal instead of defense are like those who ask for dessert before dinner. Some things need to come first before others.

Out of curiosity, what level enemies are one-shotting you? I've had no issues with actual one-shots up over at least level 150, maybe as high as the 160s. I've never actually experienced one-shots, either, but then I don't get to stay in Arbitrations for *that* long (haven't done runs longer than an hour).

In my experience (and this is just *my* experience), Excal's problem isn't surviving a hit, it's not getting burned down by a bunch of hits coming in rapid succession. This is why I use Daikyu Amalgan mod with a Nikana on him. The constant stream of healing from the Life Steal undoes the damage as fast as it comes in. And, that's why I think giving him Life Steal on his Swordsmanship passive would be the defensive buff he needs. 

[Yunjuwo]

Like you said, around lv150s is where I get one-shot. Granted I rarely go long in endless anymore, maybe an hour for fun. I also use amalgan daikyu but the part where it fails is when a huge burst of dmg ignores the healing all together and downs you anyway. Some examples off the top of my head are sniper crewmen, exo eviscerators, sortie bosses. And they're all fairly common too, not like some event exclusive enemy or something.

edit: if you just change slash dash to a heavy attack there wouldn't really be a need to put lifesteal in there since in that case it would count as a melee attack and would be capable of using life strike, in which case the healing issue is already taken care of via excal and life strike, now with more synergy than ever before

Edited January 22, 2020 by Yun_Woo-Seok

[Yunjuwo]

A thought occurred to me. In the case of a RJ rework where it keeps to its current theme but actually works... should the ability be a cycle with a hold-to-cast?

"Radial Javelin should be a map nuker"
"Radial Javelin should be something defensive"
"Radial Javelin should heal you"
etc.

With everyone having their own thoughts and ideas, why not combine them so that Radial Javelin can be cycled to "attacking javelins",  "defending javelins", "buffing javelins", or whatever(like Ivara's Quiver), and just hold the button to use whichever mode the ability is in? Everyone gets what they want, the ability now plays to excal's "master of the blade" theme where he now has full control over all those skanas, and a simple but effective nerf is increasing energy cost to 100 if the ability seems too OP.

[CopperBezel]

It'd definitely help his kit to feel less one-dimensional. If it's too close to Khora having the same modes on her 3, in the same order even, make Khora permanently in heal mode because you know we're not using anything else, DE. = P (And then you could hold to dispel Venari in spy vaults or for an instant health reset like Celestial Twin!) Realistically, Excalibur has two abilities that are brief moves and one that's just a weapon; making that last ability something persistent with built-in modes would make his play feel a bit more like other more recent warframes. Nuking in any form seems like a bad fit for his style, though. Attack mode could be the Toxic Lash of Slash or something instead.

I definitely think the idea that he needs more damage soak because he's a starter frame for beginners is incorrect. It's only the damage scaling at higher levels and the expectation of always-on defensive buffs that leaves him in the cold. Up to sortie levels (which again is just shy of the point at which DE stops caring about how things balance because level 150 does not exist in regular content) he's entirely decent at surviving and taking some hits to the face when needed, particularly in the case of Umbra with that extra armor. If you played Excalibur throughout the star chart and switched to Umbra once you got access to him and sorties - and arbitrations, which you'd need for ranking up those new mods anyway - while never going past level 120 enemies, you'd still think of him as a reasonably buff boy.