Excalibur's Passive isn't impactful or unique enough, compared to today's Zephyr's 150% crit chance in air (and other recent unique passives)

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

38 minutes ago, Tesseract7777 said:

I think that's an unnecessarily reductive way to look at it. 

I looked over all the passives recently, and the vast majority of them have been updated to a point where I don't feel the need for more additions or upgrades, but Excal is one of the few I think could still use something more. 

It's like the opposite of the same reason DE should be defended for nerfing king of the hill weapons. If a handful of frames have a really weak passive compared to everyone else, I see no reason we cannot revisit them and make them feel a little more up to speed with the scale of the rest of the game. That doesn't mean we need huge buffs, but it needs to feel like it does something. Can you tell me Excal's passive is really even noticeable? 

Whereas stuff like Nova, it doesn't scale, isn't impactful damage wise outside of insanely low level, but I'm fine enough with it because it does something useful (knocks down enemies) that you can actually notice happen. 

Excalibur's passive has a damage bonus that is almost never going to make any real difference in your kps. 

No I agree, I still think it's kinda silly to play this "but this frame got something so go fix the other 40 frames" game, but it is what it is. 

[(PSN)Unstar]

On 2021-04-05 at 3:49 AM, (PSN)Hopper_Orouk said:

so a 10% sword swing speed and damage boost is not really something you'd notice today in Warframe, when Melee damage is more than enough and melee attack speed is extraordinary fast

Wait until the melee attack speed nerf is complete, your view on this might change! ^^

[Tesseract7777]

11 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

No I agree, I still think it's kinda silly to play this "but this frame got something so go fix the other 40 frames" game, but it is what it is. 

I understand what you are saying, trust me. 

My issue with passives in particular though, is that (and while I was on a break, to be fair, DE really did fix this already for the most part with most of the classic ones already imo), but passives greatly changed their purpose in the devs eyes over the years. 

When passives were first added to all the big amount of frames that didn't have them at the time, a lot of people complained they hadn't gotten to give feedback about them first, and that a lot of them were mostly inconsequential. 

Scott defended this by saying their purpose was supposed to be just a fun bit of flair and not really impact gameplay that much anyways.

Since then though, they've made frames where the passive was a huge and integral part of the design, and implemented some pretty powerful passives. Mind you though, like I said this is a problem mostly already solved. I went through them after my break and found there were only a handful left I truly felt needed attention anyways, they had already taken care of the vast majority of it over the years. 

[Aldain]

1 hour ago, Tesseract7777 said:

My issue with passives in particular though, is that (and while I was on a break, to be fair, DE really did fix this already for the most part with most of the classic ones already imo), but passives greatly changed their purpose in the devs eyes over the years. 

Compare and contrast Rhino to someone like Ash or even Atlas for example.

One has Heavy Impact for free, one has a noticeable buff to Slash, one of the strongest status and one can't be knocked over while grounded.

The issue isn't that they all aren't equally powerful, the issue is that far too many passives like Rhino's are bad jokes at best, thankfully frames like Excalibur don't fall into that "joke tier".

That's why the only real change I'd like to see to Excalibur's passive is making 2-hand Nikanas benefit from it because it makes sense for it to do so (and totally not because I like using the Pennant).

[Tesseract7777]

9 minutes ago, Aldain said:

Compare and contrast Rhino to someone like Ash or even Atlas for example.

One has Heavy Impact for free, one has a noticeable buff to Slash, one of the strongest status and one can't be knocked over while grounded.

The issue isn't that they all aren't equally powerful, the issue is that far too many passives like Rhino's are bad jokes at best, thankfully frames like Excalibur don't fall into that "joke tier".

That's why the only real change I'd like to see to Excalibur's passive is making 2-hand Nikanas benefit from it because it makes sense for it to do so (and totally not because I like using the Pennant).

I mean, this is mostly how I feel. 

I don't think all of them need to be equal, I just don't want any of them to feel like an actual joke. Thankfully there aren't many left like that, and overall I think they have been going in a better direction with them over the years. 

Excalibur isn't so bad because at least it's biggest crime is simply being boring and mostly unnoticeable. It isn't much worse than Ash's in that sense, as it is simply a direct buff that you only notice if you play close attention to damage numbers on your screen (I am not one of those people). Boring is okay, joke/gimmick status is a problem, like Ember's old passive where you got energy by standing in fire... that one was... inexact. 

Cool thematically, but practically it was really... silly designwise. 

[Aldain]

Just now, Tesseract7777 said:

Thankfully there aren't many left like that, and overall I think they have been going in a better direction with them over the years. 

True, though I can still pick out a solid 5 that are just tragic.

Rhino being one of them, followed by Loki (because lol wall latch), Revanent (seriously it is an anti-synergy passive that relies on the player NOT using Mesmer Skin), Frost (get hit by a melee attack for a CHANCE to freeze the enemy) and Oberon (mostly because pets aren't in a good place at the moment so it kind of doesn't do much).

Hydroid's is also not that good, but honestly Hydroid isn't that good overall (imo) so I'm not sure if calling it a bad passive is saying much.

[Tesseract7777]

12 minutes ago, Aldain said:

True, though I can still pick out a solid 5 that are just tragic.

Rhino being one of them, followed by Loki (because lol wall latch), Revanent (seriously it is an anti-synergy passive that relies on the player NOT using Mesmer Skin), Frost (get hit by a melee attack for a CHANCE to freeze the enemy) and Oberon (mostly because pets aren't in a good place at the moment so it kind of doesn't do much).

Hydroid's is also not that good, but honestly Hydroid isn't that good overall (imo) so I'm not sure if calling it a bad passive is saying much.

Frost is definitely one of my top three, maybe my top one when it comes to silliest passives still remaining in the game. 

Almost literally ANYTHING even remotely ice themed would be better and make the players happier, literally almost anything you could imagine, it's that bad. 

Hydroid's passive has it's uses though if you are focused on loot farming:  

•  Pilfering Swarm applies to tentacles formed by this passive.

When I'm on a Hydroid kick I run around using hammers to get easy slam attacks and create extra tentacles for more Pilfering Swarm loot. It's not great, but it least it has uses. 

[Aldain]

3 minutes ago, Tesseract7777 said:

Almost literally ANYTHING even remotely ice themed would be better and make the players happier, literally almost anything you could imagine, it's that bad. 

7m 10% enemy slow effect that stacks with Cold procs.

...Wow you're right, even the first stupid idea that popped into my head is miles better.

[Exreverun]

What about the umbra passive?