DE needs to stop indirectly nerfing Exalted Weapons

[KitMeHarder]

What's the point of having these cornerstone abilities (that basically carry the reason to use the frame), if they're just going to be worse than normal weapons once invested in? These exalted weapons take copious amounts of energy/resources to maintain, and dictate an ability slot; Power strength scaling is no where near enough to justify the below inconsistencies (and it's not even a multiplicative increase with certain weapons).

Back in the early days when I started this game, exalted abilities were some of the best in the game. Iron Staff was one of, if not thee best, conventional melee weapon in the game. Valkyr's Talons, while very short ranged, hit harder than basically anything out there. Even current day, Balefire was a competitive weapon... before the Sisters of Parvos update. But now, if something isn't truly unique like Peacemakers (and to a much less extent Desert Wind), then there's no reason to use it (from an effectiveness standpoint).

Below are some of the reasons why DE has (not so) slowly brought us to this point.

• Acolyte Mods - For some reason DE has barred Acolyte mods from exalted weapons, even the new Galvanized ones. Mods like Blood Rush, Weeping Wounds, Galvanized Scope, Body Count, etc... Massively pivotal mods, restricted for no reason but to kill viability.
• Stance Capacity - Exalted weapons used to all use "stat sticks" back in the day, but now they have their own mod config. But for some reason, the melee weapons gained no increased mod capacity from their exclusive stances, unlike every other melee weapon in the game. Making it near impossible to have loadouts such as Umbral builds, and just increasing the investment needed in general.
• Melee 3.0 - During the melee 3.0 rebalance, melees lost their ability to increase their normal attacks with the combo counter. In exchange, all melees had their damage increased by something like 100-500%... but not exalteds. Not only did they lose the ability to gain 150-200%+ multiplicative damage, but they gained nothing in its place. (As well as other nuanced stuff such as Iron Staff's massive range loss.)
• Exilus Mods - When primaries and secondaries gained the ability to equip exilus mods in a dedicated slot, did exalted weapons get it too? Nope. Admittedly, not many of those mods would improve exalted's indirect damage, but it can still be a nice QoL. And plus, you stay consistent to future proof things. Say an exalted shotgun comes out... welp, no projectile speed increase for you.
• Warframe Augments/Helminth - Helminth came out and allowed frames to equip another frame's ability. But guess what? Any augment like Shock Trooper or Smite Infusion that increases your weapon's elemental damage... they don't apply to exalted weapons.
• Primary/Secondary Arcanes - This is the big recent one. No matter how well abilities like Balefire or Peacemaker used to preform, it's incredibly hard to compete with a 360-480% damage increase (plus the other buffs). Especially when compounded with everything else above. It's just getting to the point where exalteds are dead abilities waiting to be helminthed off (if they weren't already).

Exalted weapons should be the best in their class, no ifs, ands, or buts. Not simply usable.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

“Exalted weapons shouldn’t be better or even as good as regaular melee weapons because they have gimmicks that are designed to assist in their effectiveness of killing”. -a forum user.

[Leqesai]

The only thing that confuses me about the state of exalted weapons (specifically melee) is that they don't increase in power based on combo (outside of those heavy melee hits). 

It should go without saying that exalted weapons are better than regular weapons because they have multiple layers of restriction (energy drain, separate combo, restrictions on mods/stances etc.) but DE have, for whatever reason, left them as is. Its so strange. Poor Wukong has the worst exalted melee IMO. At least Valkyr has the crazy crit bonus and Excalibur and Baruuk have the ranged component (and really powerful augments).

[KitMeHarder]

3 minutes ago, (XBOX)GearsMatrix301 said:

“Exalted weapons shouldn’t be better or even as good as regaular melee weapons because they have gimmicks that are designed to assist in their effectiveness of killing”. -a forum user.

Ah yes, Iron Staff's unique 0.5m range increase justifies it dealing a third of Orthos Prime's damage at similar investment. Truly the pinnacle of effective killing. 

[Numerounius]

29 minutes ago, KitMeHarder said:

• Warframe Augments/Helminth - Helminth came out and allowed frames to equip another frame's ability. But guess what? Any augment like Shock Trooper or Smite Infusion that increases your weapon's elemental damage... they don't apply to exalted weapons.
•  

Wait what? They don't get buffed from augments? That is news to me, that would have lead me down a hole of theory crafting and testing out different possibilities if I had the forma to put on my exalted weapons and there was decent exalted weapons. Might need to create a bug report for that now.

29 minutes ago, KitMeHarder said:

• Stance Capacity - Exalted weapons used to all use "stat sticks" back in the day, but now they have their own mod config. But for some reason, the melee weapons gained no increased mod capacity from their exclusive stances, unlike every other melee weapon in the game. Making it near impossible to have loadouts such as Umbral builds, and just increasing the investment needed in general.
•  

I don't think this is an issue per se but rather creating new exalted weapons with zero polarities. Sevagoth shouldn't require 16 forma to make function and one of the contributing factors is having a no polarity exalted weapon. Not one that has some stance capacity. At least they don't need a catalyst to work luckily.

In-before whipclaw becomes an exalted weapon with zero polarities.

29 minutes ago, KitMeHarder said:

Exalted weapons should be the best in their categories, no ifs, ands, or buts. Not simply usable.

I think that it should stand out and synergize well with the frame and its use in combat. I don't think that it needs to become a BIS weapon to use. After all most are to the warframe fourth ability slot which is supposed to be their signature ability.

Now with that being said I don't think this is a top priority issue for DE to look at but it would certainly be nice after other stuff is taken care of like assessing Hydroid or other outdated warframes.

 

Dex Pixia is really good, so is Desert Wind, so is Regulators so they aren't all bad and doesn't need these buffs but rather a select couple that needs to be evaluated like just upping the damage on Iron Staff or Balefire Charger.

[Leqesai]

3 minutes ago, XHADgaming said:

Wait what? They don't get buffed from augments? That is news to me, that would have lead me down a hole of theory crafting and testing out different possibilities if I had the forma to put on my exalted weapons and there was decent exalted weapons.

News to me too. I'm not sure why it wouldn't benefit the exalted weapon. It would just need to be active prior to turning on the exalted weapon if it follows the logic of other buff to channeled ability restrictions.

[Numerounius]

5 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

News to me too. I'm not sure why it wouldn't benefit the exalted weapon. It would just need to be active prior to turning on the exalted weapon if it follows the logic of other buff to channeled ability restrictions.

Actually speaking of that,

I actually have something similar happen where total eclipse won't apply to my twin if I cast it beforehand but only after my twin is out. No channeled abilities here.

I wonder if the same situation is happening here., will have to test when I get a chance later.

This also makes me wonder shock trooper works with the twin wielding the iron staff or just the twin in general. 

Ok , got some theory testing to do! 

[KitMeHarder]

5 minutes ago, XHADgaming said:

Wait what? They don't get buffed from augments? That is news to me

3 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

News to me too. I'm not sure why it wouldn't benefit the exalted weapon.

On release and last I checked, they don't work. But someone can let me know if something has changed.

6 minutes ago, XHADgaming said:

so they aren't all bad and needs these buffs

I'm not even asking for buffs, I'm just asking for the inconsistencies between them and normal weapons be removed.

[Leqesai]

2 minutes ago, XHADgaming said:

Actually speaking of that,

I actually have something similar happen where total eclipse won't apply to my twin if I cast it beforehand but only after my twin is out. No channeled abilities here.

I wonder if the same situation is happening here., will have to test when I get a chance later.

This also makes me wonder shock trooper works with the twin wielding the iron staff or just a weapon in general on the twin.

Eclipse works differently than Smite Infusion and the other elemental damage augments though. It would be nice to have some clarification on this topic because it seems weird that they don't work the way it seems they should.

[KitMeHarder]

@Leqesai

@XHADgaming

Etc...

[Leqesai]

1 minute ago, KitMeHarder said:

@Leqesai

@XHADgaming

Etc...

Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

41 minutes ago, KitMeHarder said:

Ah yes, Iron Staff's unique 0.5m range increase justifies it dealing a third of Orthos Prime's damage at similar investment. Truly the pinnacle of effective killing. 

Wait, you actually want your melee weapons to kill things?

It is insane how Iron Staff went from being the best exalted melee to the absolute worst in a single update. Literally like 6 months after Wukong got his rework.

 

[Cazzzz]

2 hours ago, KitMeHarder said:

Exalted weapons should be the best in their class, no ifs, ands, or buts. Not simply usable.

Say it louder for the people in the back. 
 

2 hours ago, KitMeHarder said:

Warframe Augments/Helminth

I've been an avid user of Venom Dose practically since it was released (WELL before the current Saryn iteration) and this was practically one of the only major downsides to using it compared to other damage steroids like Rhino Roar. DE was surprised by the absolute MASS of people who flocked to Roar as a subsume option and ignored the fact that Exalted users gain nothing from the +Weapon Damage augments, which would be otherwise incredibly desirable to them. 
 

Everything about this, upvote upvote upvote. 

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

2 hours ago, KitMeHarder said:

Back when I started this game in 2018, exalted abilities were some of the best in the game. Iron Staff was one of, if not thee best, melee weapon in the game. Valkyr's Talons, while very short ranged, hit harder than basically anything out there.

Nice joke. Exalted weapons where still bad even back then. Exalted Blade was "good" by the virtue of gas being strong and Chromatic Blade enabling it.
Iron Staff best melee in 2018? What? It had some extra range going for it was all.
Valkyr Claws are basically unchanged, so you can see for yourself that surprise, never great, not since melee 2.0.

Dex Pixia have remained the same or gotten stronger.
Diwatta has always been bad

I think you're confusing gas being good with Exalted weapons being good.
Regular melee weapons still pulled way ahead back in the day.

2 hours ago, KitMeHarder said:

Even current day, Balefire was a competitive weapon... before the Sisters of Parvos update.

SoP brought nothing that directly competes with Balefire, so idk wtf you're talking about there.

2 hours ago, KitMeHarder said:

(As well as other nuanced stuff such as Iron Staff's massive range loss.)

Did it really though. Range increase was 20% per combo level according to wiki, modified by ability range. So let's say it had a 3m base range back then.
235% ability range at 3x combo with Primed Reach would put it at 10.77m, vs today's 7.5m range with Primed Reach. A loss for sure, but massive? I dunno about that.

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

2 minutes ago, Cazzzz said:

which would be otherwise incredibly desirable to them. 

None of the infusable ones at the time where particularly desirable though. You had Smite infusion and Shock Trooper.

Radiation is undesirable in such massive quantities for most melees and guns. Peacemaker is the exception kinda, but even then, you already have a large amount of elemental damage thanks to a primed mod, plus it messes up your proc weight still.
Shock Trooper is similar, but not as undesirable.

Roar has none of those issues, and doesn't mess with anything. Plus it saves the inconvenience of swapping.

[AntifreezeUnder0]

Imagine that all exalted like weps were to change to be modable, so it kills stat stick meta. Good side all exalted would act same, downside more frames go into furthest corner collecting dust.

[KitMeHarder]

1 hour ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

Iron Staff best melee in 2018? What? It had some extra range going for it was all.

I insinuated to his rework in 2019, where it was. So yes, technically I said 2018 but it's not what I meant.

1 hour ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

Valkyr Claws are basically unchanged, so you can see for yourself that surprise, never great, not since melee 2.0.

It has definitely been changed, even one of my bullet points shows how. And for how good it was, an example would be how almost nothing in the game killed the Wolf of Saturn Six (the random spawn) as fast as it (if anything even really competed).

"never great, not since melee 2.0" Melee 3.0 (Old Blood) didn't happen until the end of 2019.

1 hour ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

SoP brought nothing that directly competes with Balefire, so idk wtf you're talking about there.

It brought gun arcanes, which meant 360% damage Balefire couldn't get. Again, the bullet points.

1 hour ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

Exalted Blade was "good" by the virtue of gas being strong

Triple dipping Gas was nerfed in early 2017? So before my time.

[gamingchair1121]

1 hour ago, Cazzzz said:

 DE was surprised by the absolute MASS of people who flocked to Roar as a subsume option

theres no way

[KitMeHarder]

1 hour ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

vs today's 7.5m range with Primed Reach

*6.5m 

Primed Reach is only +3m, and Iron Staff hasn't gained range from combo since Wukong's rework.

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

I insinuated to his rework in 2019, where it was. So yes, technically I said 2018 but it's not what I meant.

Where did you insinuate that at all? Also lol at "I said this but didn't actually say what I meant"

So you're trying to say his rework made Iron Staff the best melee in the game? For all of 4 months till the Old Blood hit?
Yet you lament his range loss, which happened with his rework?

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

And for how good it was, an example would be how almost nothing in the game killed the Wolf of Saturn Six (the random spawn) as fast as it (if anything even really competed).

Maiming Strike Ohma deleted him pretty fast and didn't need a specific frame.

The only thing Hysteria lost was the combo counter, which you never really utilized on it anyway. You have Enraged now to compensate.

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

"never great, not since melee 2.0" Melee 3.0 (Old Blood) didn't happen until the end of 2019.

Yes I am aware when it happened, dunno why you bring when melee 3.0 was, when my point is Exalted melees where bad/mediocre ever since melee 2.0 back in 2016.

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

It brought gun arcanes, which meant 360% damage Balefire couldn't get. Again, the bullet points.

Sporelacer already made it obsolete before that, Bramma if you don't mind hopping gun slots. Balefire's only draw was its range, which it retains, and now that it has 0% falloff. But even then, it wasn't desirable or really good. Other explosives have almost always been better. The gun arcanes weren't the real kick, it was always poor.

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

Triple dipping Gas was nerfed in early 2017? So before my time.

Stealth procs where nerfed then yes. You think that stopped gas from being strong?

  

56 minutes ago, KitMeHarder said:

*6.5m 

Primed Reach is only +3m, and Iron Staff hasn't gained range from combo since Wukong's rework.

Yes, 6.5m my bad. But you can make that 8.5 with Spring-Loaded Blade now that you can offload/don't need combo duration.

[KitMeHarder]

18 minutes ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

Where did you insinuate that at all?

Because I assumed it was pretty obvious Iron Staff sucked before the rework. So if I called it good, the only time it even remotely could be is during those 4 months. 

25 minutes ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

Maiming Strike Ohma deleted him pretty fast and didn't need a specific frame.

His assassination node was significantly easier than his random spawn in case you're thinking of that. And I understand the merit of not being locked into a specific frame, but it doesn't detract from the power Talon's had.

Also, Valkyr had that power without the Acolyte mods your Ohma example was crutching on. Image if she did.

31 minutes ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

Other explosives have almost always been better.

Not really, but you're welcome to your opinion. Its upsides (in relation to Hildryn) more than outweighed its subpar scaling when high level armor comes into play. Is it one of the weapons that IMO also needs a buff to deal with that armor? Yes, but that's not what this thread is for (I already made a thread about that).

Also, everything I've said is from the point-of-view of a player that does the incentivized/rewarding content, and how things scale and preform there. If you're someone that does 4 hour long pointless endurance runs, then this thread is really meaningless to you and you are correct. But 95% of the game only wants you to get to a single C rotation, with very few modes encouraging a 45-60min run (and definitely nothing longer).

38 minutes ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

You think that stopped gas from being strong?

Not strong enough to say it clouded my judgment of what made exalteds good. Gas was great before the 2020 RRR patch, but it definitely wasn't worth mentioning in this context. And often times without grouping abilities, Corrosive preformed better than it. 

And the only way it pertained to exalteds is because of the IPS weighting back then. But there were plenty of purely elemental (melee) weapons before the Old Blood.

43 minutes ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

But you can make that 8.5 with Spring-Loaded Blade now that you can offload/don't need combo duration.

Because it definitely does enough damage now to warrant dropping a mod for that range (not to mention the Follow Through nerf it also got, causing that range to be detrimental at times). And even then, Spring-Loaded Blade still gave more range back then (3.5*(0.3*2)) = 2.1m compared to only 2m now.

-------------------

 

I do this all the time too, but I'm guessing you're just arguing this point because you feel like it. If you truly think exalteds suck, then I see no reason why you'd be against rectifying these inconsistencies? As that's what this thread is really about.

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

29 minutes ago, KitMeHarder said:

Because I assumed it was pretty obvious Iron Staff sucked before the rework. So if I called it good, the only time it even remotely could be is during those 4 months. 

There’s some joke to be made about assuming. I assume you know it? So you insinuate it nowhere, and lament its range loss, which leads one to believe you talk about pre-rework Wukong.

29 minutes ago, KitMeHarder said:

Also, Valkyr had that power without the Acolyte mods your Ohma example was crutching on. Image if she did.

Well she didn’t, so moot point.

29 minutes ago, KitMeHarder said:

Not really, but you're welcome to your opinion.

Not really, but you’re welcome you your opinion.

29 minutes ago, KitMeHarder said:

Not strong enough to say it clouded my judgment of what made exalteds good. Gas was great before the 2020 RRR patch, but it definitely wasn't worth mentioning in this context. And often times without grouping abilities, Corrosive preformed better than it.

You know that primers existed before melee 3.0. 

29 minutes ago, KitMeHarder said:

(not to mention the Follow Through nerf it also got, causing that range to be detrimental at times).

Ah yes that magical time when it had follow through > 1. I remember the unicorns fighting by my side then.

29 minutes ago, KitMeHarder said:

And even then, Spring-Loaded Blade still gave more range back then (3.5*(0.3*2)) = 2.1m compared to only 2m now.

Why are you stacking it. It only stacked once when it was percent based.

Also worth noting that melee no longer went through walls by the time Wukong was reworked. So excessive range had already lost part of its value

[KitMeHarder]

4 minutes ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

Ah yes that magical time when it had follow through > 1. I remember the unicorns fighting by my side then.

Why are you stacking it. It only stacked once when it was percent based.

My mistake

6 minutes ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

You know that primers existed before melee 3.0.

And were usually a DPS loss at the level ranges I brought up.

Especially when you had to manually equip your melee weapon, as there was no instantaneous weapon swap for much of old Gas' life cycle.

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

5 minutes ago, KitMeHarder said:

And were usually a DPS loss at the level ranges I brought up.

Especially when you had to manually equip your melee weapon, as there was no instantaneous weapon swap for much of old Gas' life cycle.

At starchart, everything worked. All that matters is range there. So exalted where simultaneously fine and bad. Fine because they did the job, but bad by relation because Spin2win outpaced it. So the removal of combo multiplier doesn’t matter then. So it’s a catch 22. You lost damage, but that damage didn’t matter in the range you talk about.

So like I said, always bad since 2.0. If you just do “rewarding” content nothing has really changed for exalteds compared to other weapons.

Also has it been so long that people have forgotten quick melee?

[KitMeHarder]

5 minutes ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

If you just do “rewarding” content nothing has really changed for exalteds compared to other weapons.

Rewarding content included sortie 3, arbitrations, toroid farming, etc... it's not just level 40-50 content on Sedna. And nowadays it includes parts of the Steel Path anyway.

7 minutes ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

Also has it been so long that people have forgotten quick melee?

Yes, the attack that almost never had multipliers/force procs and was only optimal on like two stances out of the dozens we had. Look dude, if you just want to argue and fight over the minutia, go do it somewhere else. You're not even on topic and I already tried to point that out for you.