Excalibur, Another Rework Suggestion (EARS)

[Ender140]

Stat Changes: 50 more hp and armor

Excalibur Passive(Sword Mastery): Using swords will now affect Exalted Blades' function. Also using a sword gives him innate life steal. Because his the only fighter class frame that has no hp recovery skills. Maybe Baruuk but he can ignore damge in more ways than 1

Sword and Shield: Exalted Blade will now have a shield with it. Adding the base block radius of your equipped shield on the exalted shield

Nikana: Gives exalted blade forced bleed procs.

Sword: Reduces Exalted blade energy cost by half. Gets additional 20% damage boost on both Exalted blade and equipped sword

Heavy Blade: Adds half of the base equipped heavy blade's crt chance and crt damage as it's own. However exalted blade's attack speed will only have 85% of the heavy blade's attack speed. Making it a slower but more devastating blow

2 Handed Nikana: Adds half of the base crt chance of the equiped weapon. Exalted blade's attack speed will be equipped melee's attack speed

Dual Sword: Gets 2 exalted blades on each hand. Will no longer have waves, but be like a whip (GOW style). Adds 25% base dual swords attack speed to it's own

Rapier: Exalted Rapier. Waves replaced by a more bullet like wave that moves 4 times the speed of the regular wave. Adds 50% of base rapier's attack speed to the Exalted Rapier.

Machete: Bigger faster waves. Adds 50% base crt damage of the weapon to the exalted blade.

-Skill changes-

Slash Dash: Animation changed to spinning like shown in trailer. Instead of linking to enemies, it will pull enemies near him to him, spinning them and if not dead, will ragdoll them in front of him.

Furious Javelin: Removed

Replaced with: Warrior's Rage/ Warrior's Vengeance (For Umbra's extra edge): A weaker version of Mesa's 3. Gives more attack speed. Adds TAU resistance for Umbra. Can be refreshed

Exalted Blade: Base crt chance increased to 25%. Base status chance increased to 35%. (Mostly because Exalted weapons were forgotten when melee were buffed to compensate with the rework)

-Augment changes-

Furious Javelin: Like Primal fury, but gives damage multiplier instead

Chromatic Blade: No longer removes Slash. Exalted blade status chance caps at 300%

[Marine027]

vor 11 Stunden schrieb Ender140:

Because his the only fighter class frame that has no hp recovery skills.

A lot not have such, are you high? This does not give him a free pass to include such in his passive. Excalibur is one of the last that needs a rework, he is at least more solid, more tweaks sure, but a rework? You probably not even know of his first rework, want the high jump back maybe?

Seriously those kind of reworks are unneeded and seem more power creep then any real fix. Not to speak of Umbra you get for free with his Umbra slots makign him very tanky and strong already.

[Ender140]

56 minutes ago, Marine027 said:

A ot not have such, are you high? This does not give him a free pass to include such in his passive. Excalivur is one of the last that needs a rework, he is at least more solid, more tweaks sure, but a rework? You probably not even know of his first rework, want the high jump back maybe?

Seriously those kind of reworks are unneeded and seem more power creep then any real fix. Not to speak of Umbra you get for free with his Umbra slots makign him very tanky and strong already.

Tanky? Umbra? My Volt Prime can tank better than Umbra. That's Umbra with adaptation, gladiator mods, and armored agility. And that volt only needs a knife. Or his shield recharge augment. Umbra can be tangier than Nezha? Tankier than ash? Oh yea, ash can go invisible. Is there any point of Umbra you can say he can shine at? Room clearing that can tank? Saryn and Mesa. CC? Loki, Baruuk, Equinox.

It wouldn't be bad if excal can't do those things very well if he can do those decently. But in order to do damage, you have to sacrifice efficiency which sacrifices your ability to cc. You want to cc, you have to sacrifice strength. You want to not get shredded in 3 seconds, you have to sacrifice both of those.

The super jump is basically given to every warframe when bullet jump was added. Now with melee rework there's no real point using any exalted weapons. Which is the only thing that makes excal special at that point?

The rework took Excalibur's main source of damage, the Condition Overload. Took his only survivability mod, life strike. And Healing return still can't do much because status immunity is still a thing.

Why use energy when 1, the regular weapons can out damage the exalted weapons, 2 don't cost cost energy, 3 doesn't need an augment mod to actually do it's job, 4 doesn't disappears all of the sudden when you run to a nullifier, which isn't the real problem, but those energy leeches that you won't see most of the time but drains your energy anyways.

Is there any reason for anyone to use Iron Staff, Valkyr's Talons, Exalted blade, when the Gram Prime exist. The Hate Exist. The Nikana Prime, Skiajati, literally any weapon above MR4 exist.

You want to see power creep, go to Steel Path Mot, equip any tank frame, and go in circles with any decent heavy blade weapon.

If you disagree with this, I want you to explain, what makes Umbra still viable when any other frame just EXIST. The only way my Umbra can survive this days is with a full Umbra set, Adaptation, Gladitor hp and armor, with armored agility.

I don't know when was the last time you used Umbra on any other nodes that even a base Excalibur can clear (I tried to think of a weaker frame but I really can't), but when you say his tanky, that confuses me. A regular mag thats modded properly can still do mot up to a decent time.

Also I want a passive like that because before melee rework came out  there was no real reason to use a melee weapon. You can go to a missiom with excal and Wukong without a melee weapon in hand. I wouldn't be against just down right removing his exalted blade along with every other exalted weapons as well. Because they would always compete with regular weapons. With this passive he'll at least bother using regular melee because it still benefits him. But like you said, would you like to see the return of super jump?

Let him keep his passive now, remove exalted weapons all together and switch his 4 to Volt's 2 I wouldn't mind. I only use him now cuz he looks cool anyways. Just wish he doesn't die every minute 

[Els236]

@Ender140

Don't bother reasoning.

You either have the Excalibro fanboys that say he is the best frame in the game and will slander you for saying anything bad about him, or the other players who realise that, actually, he sucks pretty bad and could use another rework.

His 1 was better in his first iteration.

His 2 and 3 are OK, but nothing to write home about.

His 4 is lackluster, like a lot of Exalted Weapons as it cannot use any of the Acolyte mods and is therefore worse than any other melee weapon. Yes it has a good range on the energy beams, but the falloff is bad and the damage just cannot keep up with any other well-built melee weapon.

[Ender140]

36 minutes ago, Els236 said:

@Ender140

Don't bother reasoning.

You either have the Excalibro fanboys that say he is the best frame in the game and will slander you for saying anything bad about him, or the other players who realise that, actually, he sucks pretty bad and could use another rework.

His 1 was better in his first iteration.

His 2 and 3 are OK, but nothing to write home about.

His 4 is lackluster, like a lot of Exalted Weapons as it cannot use any of the Acolyte mods and is therefore worse than any other melee weapon. Yes it has a good range on the energy beams, but the falloff is bad and the damage just cannot keep up with any other well-built melee weapon.

Yes there seems to be a blind eye for Excalibur. The veterans are usually fan boys or never uses him to actually realise that he can't really do much anymore. His 2 and 3 are the same ability. Except his 3 is worst

[Els236]

il y a 3 minutes, Ender140 a dit :

Yes there seems to be a blind eye for Excalibur. The veterans are usually fan boys or never uses him to actually realise that he can't really do much anymore. His 2 and 3 are the same ability. Except his 3 is worst

I'm in the category of "Veteran that never uses him", simply because, outside of his Radial Howl, almost everything about him sucks and is done better by a plethora of other Warframes.

Even his Radial Howl is done better by other frames, except for the fact it's good against Sentients, which are less than 1% of the enemies we face in the game.

[Xaero]

I disagree on removing Radial Javelin. Improving it will be plenty enough.

First of all, RJ should utilize line of sight to make it more reliable than it is now.

Secondly, it should pull all affected enemies towards Excalibur. Very useful for a melee-focused frame.

Lastly, Excal should gain temporary damage reduction depending on number of enemies hit by Radial Javelin.

_____________________

Exalted Blade doesn't have any real purpose. It's just a melee weapon taking an entire ability slot. So I suggest removing EB as an ability. It's better to replace it with something that can be helpful at all times. For example, a melee buffing ability (range, crit chance/damage, status) that works with any melee equipped. Maybe even add wave projectiles to appropriate weapons.

Exalted Blade doesn't have to be deleted completely though. Excalibur could wield it if no melee weapon is equipped. This comes with energy cost removed, access to all mods and no wave projectiles by default (they can still work upon activating the ultimate).

[GREF_TM]

20 hours ago, Marine027 said:

You probably not even know of his first rework, want the high jump back maybe?

It may sound funny to you at first, but unless blind had worse stats than it is now, replacing exalted blade with superjump won't actually make excal that much worse on a greater scale. It will make it worse for beginners, for sure, but not to players that have good melee options.

8 hours ago, Xaero said:

Lastly, Excal should gain temporary damage reduction depending on number of enemies hit by Radial Javelin.

I had a similar idea before, something 15% DR per javelin (up to 90% hard cap) and forced status proc based on your EB dominant element - gives you much needed survivability and stuns + softens some enemies around you at the same time. Suddenly, it's not a waste of 75 energy but actually a very good ability, eh? But after thinking about it for a bit more, i'll say that just having 80-90% DR given to you on cast, regardless whether javelins hit anything or not, is overall a better option, simply for consistency's sake. Enemies that can't be targeted, boss fights where you won't have enough enemies, you name it. Duration can scale with number of hits though, something like base 20-25s + 1s for each javelin hit (so up to 37s)

As for mechanical changes to how ability works, my fav probably will be something akin to heavy rain swords from DMC: swords fall downwards, knocking enemies down and pinning them for a short duration. But i like your idea with pull effect too.

8 hours ago, Xaero said:

So I suggest removing EB as an ability.

IMO it'd be easier (and better IMO) to rebalance existing EB than to scrap it. Personally, i'd prefer something like this:

- much bigger wave hitboxes (at least 4.5m wide, and more importantly, hitbox size should not be based on sword attack angle - it should always cover 4.5m area) with visuals changed accordingly (thicker, bigger waves)

- much faster travel speed (15m/s > ~45m/s), but lower max range (~38m > ~25m);

- waves increase combo counter (1 per enemy hit, hard capped to 5 per wave);

- heavy attacks finally have waves, allowing to build EB for all three melee build archetypes - combo, heavy attack, hybrid;

- (universal change) acolyte mods are now equippable, gladiator mods bug fixed;

Hope i haven't forgot anything.

I see it as a nice little middle ground between baruuk that basically has two hitscan plasmors with no falloff duct taped to his hands (his waves cover 10m wide area, allowing for very efficient crowd clearing) but has manage special resource to use it, and normal weapons  that rely on their natural range and reach to deal with stuff, but cost nothing to use. But having Exalted Blade to be a toggle ability that just adds current EB waves to any sword type melee (including greatswords) while keeping their original stats and stances will be very good too, though it'll be a nightmare for them to implement and balance waves on all current and future sword type stances, compared to just isolating one melee sword and one unique stance as they do now.

But personally, seeing how they completely ignored exalted melee weapons as a whole in melee 2.9 patch, and still haven't even added an energy wave to heavy attack, i don't believe in them buffing excal in any reasonable way in foreseeable future, which simply made me swap to baruuk. Almost the same gameplan/gameplay as excal, but frame itself is way better: far superior 4, while also has enough survivability to just have fun playing with normal guns.

[Xaero]

6 minutes ago, GREF_TM said:

IMO it'd be easier (and better IMO) to rebalance existing EB than to scrap it.

I'm not suggesting to scrap it entirely, only make it a weapon and free up the ability slot.

[GREF_TM]

10 minutes ago, Xaero said:

I'm not suggesting to scrap it entirely, only make it a weapon and free up the ability slot.

I meant scrapping its current concept. Of course you can keep the sword itself (with stance but without waves) in a melee slot akin to talons (which kinda doesn't make sense though, considering that, unless my memory fails me, originally it was just a manifestation of energy rather than a physical object, yet for some reason it was changed in one of patches, but whatever), but at the same time it won't be the same thing.

[Xaero]

1 minute ago, GREF_TM said:

I meant scrapping its current concept. Of course you can keep the sword itself (with stance but without waves) in a melee slot akin to talons (which kinda doesn't make sense though, considering that, unless my memory fails me, originally it was just a manifestation of energy rather than a physical object, yet for some reason it was changed in one of patches, but whatever) , but at the same time it won't be the same thing.

Well, the thing is, if a new melee-buffing ultimate is used alongside equipped EB, it will gain the waves as long as the ability is active and will function as before (excluding deactivations due to nullifying abilities or energy drain), so its current concept doesn't really suffer.

[GREF_TM]

3 minutes ago, Xaero said:

so its current concept doesn't really suffer

It will immediately go from a 'signature, special, one of a kind spectral/energy sword' to a 'just some piece of junk that nobody in their right mind will ever equip' though.

[Xaero]

1 minute ago, GREF_TM said:

It will immediately go from a 'signature, special, one of a kind spectral/energy sword' to a 'just some piece of junk that nobody in their right mind will ever equip' though.

IMO that entirely depends on its rebalance.

[GREF_TM]

Well, at least we'll be able to swap javelin for something different when deimos hits lol.

[Ender140]

On 2020-08-02 at 10:54 AM, GREF_TM said:

Well, at least we'll be able to swap javelin for something different when deimos hits lol.

IKR. Been waiting for something like this

[Thorham]

Why would anyone want to get rid of Exalted Blade? I play an Exalted Blade build almost exclusively and would insta quit the game if it got removed or ruined by bad changes. I also don't get what's so awful about Exalted Blade. Seems to work fine to me.