Suggestion : Quick summary of exalted weapons and suggestion

[Bakahung]

I just came up with the thoughts for this post while thinking about Titania , so here we go . I will keep this short .

 

So not all exalted weapon are being considered good by the community , most of the time due to they being " just a generic weapon " with slightly higher stats .

And I think to improve them , is to 

a) make them generic weapon , but with low or none energy cost , and not being their ult.

b) make them truly special , and give them cool abilities to make them a signature of the frame .

In my knowledge , most of the good exalted weapon are in these 2 category .

 

here's a quick walkthrough for all of them : 

( categorize by power level . Kind of like a tier list but not really )

(abilities that scale with melee mods are not on this list , since they are in a weird limbo between )

 

good :

Baruuk's 4 ( Desert wind )

Spoiler

good damage with gigantic range . Still considered to be really good despite being lock behind mechanics .

Hildryn 1 ( Balefire charger )

Spoiler

Even though being just an explosive gun , it's low cost and big damage number + decent area coverage make it a nice addition for her . 

Mesa's 4 ( Regulators )

Spoiler

One of the highest DPS ability in game , with aim-bot and have both room clear and boss killing potential , make it a god tier ability .

Excalibur's 4 ( Exalted blade )

Spoiler

Great damage on it's own , with great augment and an unique ability ( waves ) make it really good . Also synergize really while with other abilities .

 

decent ( should be at least here )

Ivara's 4 ( Artemis' bow )

Spoiler

Wide-spread attack and a fun augment , make this bow really decent .

 

Functional , but ... just a weapon 

Titania's 4 ( Dex Pixia and Diwata )

Spoiler

Pixia is the best thing that Titania has , but at the core it's just a dual pistol with big number .  And in most cases those high number really doesn't matter .

Will make a really good stand alone weapon , but with it's high energy drain and now special effect make it a little lacking .

This being the best thing Titania has doesn't help , either .

 

Diwata is just an arch melee that faceplant her into everything without meaningful effect .

 

And even though Razorwing do have some special effect , some squishy butterfly and just 50% evasion isn't doing that much .

 

The augment is nice though .

Valkyr's 4 ( Valkyr Talon )

Spoiler

Invincibility and life steal is great , but the energy cost and drawback is super big .

And after those nerfs , all we have is a normal claw with big numbers . Players just go using normal weapons + War Cry , since we have enough damage anyways.

 

And don't forget negative range is necessary for her just because those drawback . This limits her build , and it's a big problem .

Wukong's 4 ( Iron staff )

Spoiler

This used to have crazy range ( I could poke enemies from 20m ) , but after melee rework , it's just a normal weapon .

 

And now is some suggestion 

For Titania

Spoiler

Make it cheaper .

Make it stronger will just make things worse , since she will be more laser focus on her 4 and leave other abilities behind . 

And the face Titania's biggest selling point is this separate mode , making it more accessible will be great . Let's be honest , Titania IS Razorwing .

Valkyr

Spoiler

I didn't play enough Valkyr to have any ideas , sadly .

Making it high DR with lower drain may be good , since actually taking damage mean she can the life steal without it just being use as a quick heal .

Also the damage-ring-thing should be a fixed range that's equal to current minimal range.

 

 

I have no other ideas though ... Some Valkyr lovers might have the answer .

Maybe a small AOE stun effect every time she kills , to show enemies terrorized by her rage?

Wukong

Spoiler

Bring back the long range . 

If ultimately decided that his old range is too OP (for some reason ) , at least return it's range on some attack .

Like the final spin on neutral combo , or the fist poke of the foward-block combo . 

 

Or some move have special effect like Baruuk , make a vortex that suck enemies in every time he spin his staff ( exclude slide attack ) , or mini Rhino Stomp with block combo .

 

 

Baruuk and Excalibur

Spoiler

Despite they being good , I still have some suggestion ...

The waves them make should add to melee counter . Since they usually attack in range , and they need those combo to actually scale .

 

 

Conclusion:

So this is the post .

Some may argue that having big number is good enough .

But most of the time , in normal gameplay , those damage doesn't matter . Most of the enemies will just die by normal weapon alone , overkilling them don't have any benefit.

That's I think why Banshee , who also have giant damage , doesn't see that much play . Doing 8 digit number to a few enemies just doesn't worth all the trouble.

 

The only cases that matter are steel path and big bosses .

And if we based our balance on those difficulties ... Then most of the frame will be deemed underpower .

 

p.s. These may sound weird , but before trying to prove me wrong , maybe first considered , what if I'm correct ?

It's easy to misjudge people with the assumption of they being wrong , since those biased will easily influence our judging ability . Human mind are not that reliable .

If we try to prove other is right first , we will make up point try to defend them . And by valuating those points , is easier to make a more neutral argument against anything .

This is a completely unrelated rambling , and you can start flaming me in reply for me trying to be a philosopher and really bad English .  

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

More range isn’t going to help Iron Staffs pitiful damage.

[xombob89]

4 hours ago, Bakahung said:

make them truly special , and give them cool abilities to make them a signature of the frame

This is the most important part I think. Most exalted weapons are quite boring, for example I cant really tell much difference beetween exalted blade and skana lol, besides damage. 

They should really have some more unique visual effects to give you a feeling of power, and have a wider range of combos and some unique abilities tied to them like you said. 

[Kaggelos]

For me, Iron Staff's problem is the stance's animation and movement. Feels clunky, especially the "falling flat on the floor" part, and the forward jab as well.

Also it's pretty weak.

Garuda's Talons also feel slow and the animations are not interesting, unlike Malicious Raptor, which is one of my favorite stances animation and feel wise.

For Exalted blade, i wished for it to be more like Dante's Rebellion Sword from DMC, plus Getsuga Tensho all the way, but alas, this will never be the case.

[Solarsyphon]

I think they need to do a model where every exalted weapon has a gimmick and a special attack or gameplay change.

For example exalted blade from excal has the gimmick of the blade waves but also probably needs some special on heavy attacks. Like doing one really big wave

Titania has the game play change in her razor wing but the weapons lack a gimmick to make them interesting. You can kind of make one with the increase attack speed on the dex pixia with ability casts but the diwata has no such feature. 

Previously all exalted weapons have relied on a gimmick alone but as more normal weapons accumulate gimmicks they increasingly loose their shine to the point where now they can no longer just be good weapons but need to be an ability and a weapon. The ability component coming from the special attack.

[Andele3025]

First fix needed is to un-nerf exalteds by removing the fake combo counter they now have and make them use the OG combo counter again with benefits of gladiator set mods.

Then remove valkyr energy drain (as a whole) and LOS circle to instead have her leak some 3~ hp per second after not damaging anyone increases its cost by % based on damage stored (every 1000 damage stored = +100% drain speed or so) which is reduced by x% on kill and fully cleared on finisher kill.

Then re buff both said claws and staff with smoother animations (along with all stances fixed so that forward combos are free movement and dashes get keyboard steer back like slide attacks still have).

[Tiltskillet]

On 2020-11-15 at 6:42 AM, Bakahung said:

Valkyr

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I didn't play enough Valkyr to have any ideas , sadly .

Making it high DR with lower drain may be good , since actually taking damage mean she can the life steal without it just being use as a quick heal .

Also the damage-ring-thing should be a fixed range that's equal to current minimal range.

 

 

I have no other ideas though ... Some Valkyr lovers might have the answer .

Maybe a small AOE stun effect every time she kills , to show enemies terrorized by her rage?

Depending on how it was implemented and what came along with it, I'd probably enjoy Hysteria without invulnerability.  But it's a change that would almost certainly disappoint a lot of people.

Anyway, Valkyr's claws could be helped immensely just by improving the numbers on all of its combos other than the slide attack.

[Tiltskillet]

On 2020-11-16 at 8:42 AM, Kaggelos said:

Garuda's Talons also feel slow and the animations are not interesting, unlike Malicious Raptor, which is one of my favorite stances animation and feel wise.

Unless there's a bug of some sort, you can equip any claw stance on her Talons, and these change the animations accordingly.   It sounds like you might have no stance equipped, which is indeed pretty awful (with any claw, not just the talons.)

[Kaggelos]

37 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

Unless there's a bug of some sort, you can equip any claw stance on her Talons, and these change the animations accordingly.   It sounds like you might have no stance equipped, which is indeed pretty awful (with any claw, not just the talons.)

For real? Imma try it out now!

[xombob89]

On 2020-11-17 at 8:39 AM, Solarsyphon said:

For example exalted blade from excal has the gimmick of the blade waves but also probably needs some special on heavy attacks. Like doing one really big wave

Yep exactly my point as well, they need more visual effects and special attacks to really stand out from other weapons, so you would actually want to use them thinking "wow this is awesome". 

To balance them out, they could have their own "power meter" that filled up on kills and when it's full you can perform a powerful attack, like the big wave you suggested that would knock back enemies and deal a lot of damage and/or status effects. 

This could potentially fix mesa too, have her "aimbot" only work when the meter is full, on other times they would just be high powered revolvers you have to aim yourself (with some unique animations and attacks still).