Why exalted melees aren't changed according to the melee 2.99?

[Eviluprising]

   As I said in title as the melee 2.99 dropped in all melee weapons received a huge buff in damage and some crit and status buff, except exalted melees.

  What this created is that exalted melees are extremely weak compare to before change. They can't use bloodrush, their damage about the same as other generic melees. There's no reason to use them. It's not too much for the likes of excalibur and baruuk since they don't really stack on combo counters. 

  Take wukong's staff as example, it's stats have not been changed in the rework, so while I usually maintain 3x combo before change, it's now just 1/3 of the damage before. Also I'm pretty sure the augment for the staff which is 150% crit chance does not count into gladiator mods now that's another huge crit change drop. So now it's damage is about any generic not good melee weapons. Which is sad.

  I don't know how DE overlooked this, or there's chance that's just how wukong's staff should perform considering the proximity of wukong's rework to the melee 2.99.

[Uhkretor]

We all appreciate the 9000th feedback thread about it, especially DE staff.

Spoiler

... Maybe they'll do something about it...

Spoiler

... Eventually...

Edited December 29, 2019 by Uhkretor

[Ailith]

Put set mods and stacking mods on your normal melee weapon (Gladiator set, Bloodrush, Weeping Wounds, etc.), they should still stack while wielding any Exalted weapon. I'm pretty sure this method works on Excal, but his sword beams don't contribute to the combo counter, so you have to physically hit enemies. You can get insane damage output by using Chromatic Blade though, so I'd argue you don't even need those mod buffs. Baruuk probably functions the same, but I don't own him and don't know how he works, so I can't say for sure. Others like Valkyr or Wukong are straightforward, smack enemies and get stacks.

One exception is Titania's Diwata, which can neither equip those mods nor benefit from having them on your non-Razorwing melee. You wanna talk about pitiful damage? Go test that thing in the Simulacrum.

[LascarCapable]

To be honest, it feels like you kinda cherry-picked your exalted weapon : Iron Staff is the most plain exalted weapon you can pick by a mile, and probably the weakest of them all.

It's very important to take the following in consideration when speaking about exalted weapons :

• Excalibur sends waves of energy having the same base damage than your exalted swords. This probably means that hitting enemies at melee range will effectively hit them two times : once from your sword, once from the energy wave, thus increasing the base damage from 250 to 500.
• Valkyr is invincible as long as Hysteria is running, and the crit chance of her talons are far above any other melee weapons. Also, they have a 5% lifesteal effect.
• Baruuk cumulates two traits from Excalibur and Valkyr : he can hit enemies two times at close range (once with the melee itself, once with the wave), while also having a much higher crit chance. Though in Baruuk's case, attacking enemies at melee range will very likely send them flying.

Wukong is the only outlier since his staff doesn't have any special property aside from its high base range. The issue isn't about exalted weapons being weak, it's about Wukong's staff not being good enough (and rather boring in my opinion).

[Leqesai]

5 minutes ago, LascarCapable said:

To be honest, it feels like you kinda cherry-picked your exalted weapon : Iron Staff is the most plain exalted weapon you can pick by a mile, and probably the weakest of them all.

It's very important to take the following in consideration when speaking about exalted weapons :

• Excalibur sends waves of energy having the same base damage than your exalted swords. This probably means that hitting enemies at melee range will effectively hit them two times : once from your sword, once from the energy wave, thus increasing the base damage from 250 to 500.
• Valkyr is invincible as long as Hysteria is running, and the crit chance of her talons are far above any other melee weapons. Also, they have a 5% lifesteal effect.
• Baruuk cumulates two traits from Excalibur and Valkyr : he can hit enemies two times at close range (once with the melee itself, once with the wave), while also having a much higher crit chance. Though in Baruuk's case, attacking enemies at melee range will very likely send them flying.

Wukong is the only outlier since his staff doesn't have any special property aside from its high base range. The issue isn't about exalted weapons being weak, it's about Wukong's staff not being good enough (and rather boring in my opinion).

While your points are valid, so is the TC's regarding exalted weapons being overlooked 

Exalted weapons benefiting from combo counter like some of the melee abilities would be a big step towards them being rebalanced for the new changes. 3x at 12 combo multiplier would bring them in line with their former power.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

13 minutes ago, LascarCapable said:

To be honest, it feels like you kinda cherry-picked your exalted weapon : Iron Staff is the most plain exalted weapon you can pick by a mile, and probably the weakest of them all.

It's very important to take the following in consideration when speaking about exalted weapons :

• Excalibur sends waves of energy having the same base damage than your exalted swords. This probably means that hitting enemies at melee range will effectively hit them two times : once from your sword, once from the energy wave, thus increasing the base damage from 250 to 500.
• Valkyr is invincible as long as Hysteria is running, and the crit chance of her talons are far above any other melee weapons. Also, they have a 5% lifesteal effect.
• Baruuk cumulates two traits from Excalibur and Valkyr : he can hit enemies two times at close range (once with the melee itself, once with the wave), while also having a much higher crit chance. Though in Baruuk's case, attacking enemies at melee range will very likely send them flying.

Wukong is the only outlier since his staff doesn't have any special property aside from its high base range. The issue isn't about exalted weapons being weak, it's about Wukong's staff not being good enough (and rather boring in my opinion).

No Valkyrs claws took a pretty big hit to its damage output as well.

before the latest melee changes Iron staff had the combo multiplier and condition overload. Now it doesn’t have the combo multiplier and never received compensation for that loss and the CO nerf has effectively rendered that mod useless.
Right now I have to put my Wukong at 300% power strength to get Iron Staff even remotely close to what it was before the latest melee changes.

The only reason Exalted Blade and Serene Storm performances were relatively unchanged (for better and worse) is because they never relied on the combo multiplier. Iron Staff and Hysteria did.

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

6 minutes ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

No Valkyrs claws took a pretty big hit to its damage output as well.

before the latest melee changes Iron staff had the combo multiplier and condition overload. Now it doesn’t have the combo multiplier and never received compensation for that loss and the CO nerf has effectively rendered that mod useless.
Right now I have to put my Wukong at 300% power strength to get Iron Staff even remotely close to what it was before the latest melee changes.

The only reason Exalted Blade and Serene Storm performances were relatively unchanged (for better and worse) is because they never relied on the combo multiplier. Iron Staff and Hysteria did.

CO isn't useless.  Literally every weapon barring a few exceptions uses CO as there is only 1 build that's actually applicable to end game content.  PPP exists until you no longer one shot enemies.  Then CO replaces it since basically all stances already force some sort of status proc.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

8 minutes ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

CO isn't useless.  Literally every weapon barring a few exceptions uses CO as there is only 1 build that's actually applicable to end game content.  PPP exists until you no longer one shot enemies.  Then CO replaces it since basically all stances already force some sort of status proc.

That’s funny because my nonCO builds have been out performing the CO builds that people are insisting are better.

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

1 minute ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

That’s funny because my nonCO builds have been out performing the CO builds that people are insisting are better.

You're probably just building wrong then. 🙂

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

Just now, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

You're probably just building wrong then. 🙂

Or maybe CO really is just useless garbage now.

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

Just now, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

Or maybe CO really is just useless garbage now.

Nope.  It's a you thing.

[selig_fay]

42 минуты назад, LascarCapable сказал:

hitting enemies at melee range will effectively hit them two times : once from your sword, once from the energy wave, thus increasing the base damage from 250 to 500.

42 минуты назад, LascarCapable сказал:

Wukong is the only outlier since his staff doesn't have any special property aside from its high base range. The issue isn't about exalted weapons being weak, it's about Wukong's staff not being good enough (and rather boring in my opinion).

Wukong has a clone that allows him to do the same, only with a group of enemies around him, unlike Excalibur. I think distance works better than waves. And in terms of fun, only Baruuk succeeded because of the unique techniques and the mechanics of the ability, which even in the off state gives a benefit.. The rest, it's press e to kill and nothing unique.

Oh, and you all forget about Divata.

Edited December 29, 2019 by zhellon

[(PSN)DidelphisV]

So are y’all not using Sacrificial Steel/Pressure? With the exception of Excalibur, all of the other exalted seems have ridiculous levels of crit. All very easily hitting orange crits, more than enough to wreck pretty much anything. They’ve never been stronger lmao

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

2 hours ago, (PS4)DidelphisV said:

So are y’all not using Sacrificial Steel/Pressure? With the exception of Excalibur, all of the other exalted seems have ridiculous levels of crit. All very easily hitting orange crits, more than enough to wreck pretty much anything. They’ve never been stronger lmao

I’ve been tempted to throw an Umbral forma on Desert Storm to get the best performance out of it with the Sacrificial mods, but that’s the problem. We shouldn’t have to Umbral forma these frames exalted weapons to get good performance out of them. 

[(PSN)DidelphisV]

6 hours ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

I’ve been tempted to throw an Umbral forma on Desert Storm to get the best performance out of it with the Sacrificial mods, but that’s the problem. We shouldn’t have to Umbral forma these frames exalted weapons to get good performance out of them. 

Oh 100% I get that. (Personally I just put buttloads of regular forma on them instead lol)
its absolutely worth it though. With Max crit Baruuk can just sit in the middle of a Defense and solo it without moving half of the time haha

 

i think making umbra forma more accessible would help a lot (adding it to the railjack drop table is a nice start I suppose) 

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

2 hours ago, (PS4)DidelphisV said:

 

 

i think making umbra forma more accessible would help a lot (adding it to the railjack drop table is a nice start I suppose) 

No, it’s supposed to be a unique reward, not the new meta push.

[LascarCapable]

22 hours ago, zhellon said:

Wukong has a clone that allows him to do the same, only with a group of enemies around him, unlike Excalibur. I think distance works better than waves. And in terms of fun, only Baruuk succeeded because of the unique techniques and the mechanics of the ability, which even in the off state gives a benefit.. The rest, it's press e to kill and nothing unique.

Oh, and you all forget about Divata.

True about Wukong : Wukong's clone does wield the staff if you do wield it. But I think the general consensus is that Wukong's clone is better is a gun. I don't play Wukong though so I'm not 100% sure of what I'm saying.

And yeah Diwata exists. Titania's Razorwing is just that much its own thing I tend to always forget it. I think the fact that it's Archwing in normal mission on demand is enough to justify its uniqueness and its exalted weapon status though.

[MysticDragonMage]

there needs to be just some way exalted melees should utilize the new heavy attack and combo system.

in the case for all exalted melee's, they still cant use acolyte mods, specifically weeping wounds and blood rush.

in the case of just exalted blade (coming from a fan of excalibur) its extremely hard to utilize the system when the actual heavy melee lacks range and has just about as much impact as a any other heavy attack. it does have a unique quality where enemies hit are instantly raised in the air, but what does that compare to simply using a heavy slam with the same effect, AOE, and less execution time. it also makes exalted blade with life strike far weaker than it was before, where players could previously channel and gain heath from a distance as opposed to charging-up an attack and hitting an enemy at close range.

i'd like it if either EB's heavy melee attacks also had its own energy waves, the animations were replaced with ranged lunge attacks, or the first heavy melee attack would cast the original slash dash.

[Tyreaus]

4 hours ago, LascarCapable said:

But I think the general consensus is that Wukong's clone is better is a gun. I don't play Wukong though so I'm not 100% sure of what I'm saying.

That's what I find. Besides taking blocking away from the player, the clone's almost impeccable aim and max semi-auto fire rate, and its lack of combo usage, a lot of it comes down to the fact that the clone starts where the player is and has to reach a given target. Fact of the matter is, bullets are way faster than feet. Were the clone made to teleport to each of its targets instantly—right now, it can teleport if a target is marked, but only after a handful of pathing attempts—it'd probably have much greater melee efficacy, improved only further with tweaks to its combo usage and things like adding to the player's combo counter.

OTT:

Question is: was exalted melee ever overbearing enough that they needed global nerfs?

Exalted melees retain their special effects and their energy costs and inability to use Acolyte mods. They no longer scale off of combo counter, and (I would say) largely broke even with the changes to Condition Overload and the True / Sacrificial Steel mods. If we can agree that Condition Overload and the Steel mods effectively break even (speaking on exalted melees as a whole: obviously Steel mods effect Desert Wind more than CO and vice versa for Exalted Blade), then the main difference lies in the combo counter, because nothing else really changed.

If exalted melees were in a good spot before, then they should probably have a damage increase to make up for the combo counter loss. That's just applying the formula DE gave regular weapons when they lost the combo counter bonus, thus they keep the same relationship they started with. And given feedback I've seen regarding Desert Storm (and other exalted melees) in the past, I don't get the sense that exalted melees, as a whole, were really that overbearing to require a global nerf. I.e., the relationship between exalted and regular melees worked and should be maintained.

Edited December 30, 2019 by Tyreaus

[selig_fay]

6 часов назад, LascarCapable сказал:

True about Wukong : Wukong's clone does wield the staff if you do wield it. But I think the general consensus is that Wukong's clone is better is a gun. I don't play Wukong though so I'm not 100% sure of what I'm saying.

In most cases, Yes. That's why I think the staff feels fine in the set. You give up the usual melee so that the clone is always with the main weapon, but if you need a melee, the staff works well in this case. At 166% strength, the clone can quickly kill 165 heavy gunner. (approximately 3 seconds). Your damage is less, but it still works.

So the problem is that in most cases you just don't need it. Well, this is the problem of all exalted weapons, not just Wukong. Peacekeepers feel good, but in most cases they are simply not needed and can be replaced with normal AOE weapons. Yes, I would like exalted weapons to perform special mechanics, but the problem is that only barruk has this. About Valkyrie and Titania, I would say that their special modes have nothing to do with their exalted weapons. Hysteria is more invulnerability, it would feel better with other melee weapons. Razorwing-it's just archwing mode, there is the same problem, other weapons in most cases would feel better. I can say the same about Excalibur, because it just adds waves, that sad. 

Of all this company, Wukong doesn't feel as bad as the players describe. Yes, it can't destroy 300 levels in seconds now, but we almost never see 300 levels. In most cases, the staff has an excellent ability as a utility than as a main damage dealer. Of course, the ability needs to be corrected, but this is a problem not only in Wukong, but in all exalted weapons, because the equipment in most situations will be better at least by the fact that it does not waste energy and does not require a special build..

Edited December 31, 2019 by zhellon

[CopperBezel]

1 hour ago, zhellon said:

In most cases, Yes. That's why I think the staff feels fine in the set. You give up the usual melee so that the clone is always with the main weapon, but if you need a melee, the staff works well in this case.

What other people are talking about when they say this, myself included, is that it works better to stick to your regular melee weapon as Wukong, and leave the gun to the Twin. What you're describing is a bizarre niche case strategy for Wukong that you made the previous thread about exalted weapons entirely about. Please don't do it again, it's exceptionally irrelevant. 

Edited December 31, 2019 by CopperBezel

[MadMattPrime]

Given how this is still Melee phase 2 and not the final version of the melee overhaul and with all the bug fixes they need to do on Railjack, its going to take a while before they start working on exalted weapons. All we can do is wait for Melee 3.0 and see if exalted weapons are still mediocre.

I rather they work on the melee overhaul completely first rather than tossing a bandaid and screw up like most of this year releases which were a total bugfest.

There is over 100 melee weapons to revisit in the meanwhile.

Exalted weapons have become more a utility tool as of now.

Excalibur Chromatic Blade: Armor Stripper

Valkyr: Quick life steal.

Baruuk: YEET!

 

[selig_fay]

8 часов назад, CopperBezel сказал:

What other people are talking about when they say this, myself included, is that it works better to stick to your regular melee weapon as Wukong, and leave the gun to the Twin. What you're describing is a bizarre niche case strategy for Wukong that you made the previous thread about exalted weapons entirely about.

This niche strategy is useful in most cases if you use a powerful main weapon like kuva ogris for example. Stick only to melee and give the clone a gun, it's just another strategy that works in narrow corridors, but a double main weapon is useful and works always and in any conditions, because you don't have to run, you just shoot.va ogris for example. Stick only to melee and give the clone a gun, it's just another strategy that works in narrow corridors, but a double main weapon is useful and works always and in any conditions, because you don't have to run, you just shoot.

On the other hand, we can talk about Valkyrie again. Most tactics are based on increasing the speed of normal melee weapons. Hysteria doesn't matter and is currently a panic button and fan mode. My friend plays the Valkyrie in Hysteria because he likes the way she spins in the air. This is literally the only reason.

8 часов назад, CopperBezel сказал:

Please don't do it again, it's exceptionally irrelevant.

I'll do it as long as I want to. Because the forum is about opinions and arguments. 

[CopperBezel]

I've never played Valkyr. Haven't even built one. Let's talk about Valkyr. Channeled invulnerability with a chance to heal does indeed sound like a panic button, like a weaker, more expensive version of Cloud Walker without the mobility that makes it so useful. It certainly falls in line with all the exalted weapons worth mentioning, which are really an ability that comes with the drawback of being required to use a particular weapon, or in the case of Titania, two of them.

I guess I'm more curious about your motivations though. Why don't you think it's a good idea for exalted weapons to get reassessed somehow, particularly since you seem to have a very low view of them?

[selig_fay]

34 минуты назад, CopperBezel сказал:

I guess I'm more curious about your motivations though. Why don't you think it's a good idea for exalted weapons to get reassessed somehow, particularly since you seem to have a very low view of them?

It depends on what you mean. If just increasing the DPS and nothing else, then it makes little sense, because the weapon works against 100 levels now. The problem is that conventional weapons also work against 100 levels no worse, but do not require a special build for warframe, do not require energy, can have a unique mechanic or property, can create a synergy with the ability and can be used to fine-tune playstyle or power against a specific situation.

The problem is not the force, the problem is the weapon system itself. And here you can only either increase the DPS, but it does not make sense, because at level 100 the effect will be the same, or nerf is a normal weapon, but this is not a good idea, or change the exalted system as a whole.

Personally, I would prefer a regular weapon slot, which would give unique effects, as Excalibur can equip any one-handed sword, which would be endowed with the ability to create waves. There are two benefits here, you can use the weapon parameter setting and you can use the passive ability of the weapon and the wave at the same time. Similarly, if DE releases a better version of the one-handed sword, the ability automatically gets a buff. This makes sense for a long time. On the other hand, a normal DPS buff is fun for 2 weeks.

Oh, and I remember they wanted to add a special rage mode for melee 3.0. Maybe this will radically change the situation for exalted melee, but exalted ranged combat will remain in the same ass.