Excalibur is one of the most poorly designed warframes in the game.

[Yasha-7HS]

 

Excalibur is a 'master swordsman' however, he does not have the base stats nor ability set in for him to reasonably stay within melee distance of enemies. He is flawed greatly in every part of his kit, and changes over the years have only made him worse comparatively to everything else, especially now that Tennokai and Melee Arcanes have been introduced to the game. This is particularly an issue due to Excalibur being not only a starter, but the most picked Starter frame. However, being a starter frame is no excuse for his lack of scalability, versatility, and conflicting design. Both Mag and Volt are extremely proficient at what they do, have clearly defined goals and synergies, and sometimes can even be considered meta for their tasks. Volt has always been quite adept at Eidolons, for example. 

The Base Stats

Excalibur has 240 armor, which allows him only 44.4% damage reduction to Health. Shields, by themselves, have 50% reduction to all damage and recharge. Within his ability set, there is no damage reduction, which causes this to be an issue. He has only 150 energy, yet almost all of his abilities need to be used reactively, and have no duration. This causes his logistical efficiency to be worse than most frames with such little energy, like Volt. He has 370 Shields and Health. This is roughly average for all frames. Excalibur is a frame meant to maintain a close distance to enemies, and cannot avoid or reduce damage, meaning that the average amount of survivability that he gets from stats is not enough to actually allow him to accomplish the design goal of being a 'master swordsman.' He only has 1 sprint speed. Being that he has so little energy max, and a movement ability that costs 25 energy and has no chain casting ability, and some of the poorest auto targeting, his base movement speed matters quite a lot. 

In summary, Excalibur fails to be a frame capable of staying close to enemies on the merits of his base stats alone, being averagely out-tanked by frames with just slightly higher shield stats. 

The Passive

Excalibur's passive is 'Swordsmanship' which allows him 10% additional Attack Speed and 10% additional Melee Damage on certain melee categories. Not only are the bonuses additive to mod bonuses with an order of magnitude more strength, it's such an inconsequential passive that most people don't actually know that it exists and feel no differences from using these melee categories on other frames. In addition to its insignificance, it cannot even affect all melee categories or even logical extension of the same weapon categories. This passive does not apply to Greatswords, Two Handed Nikanas, Dual Nikanas, or Daggers. These are all various lengths of the same type of weapon. 

In summary, Excalibur's passive fails to enhance his gameplay or usage of melee weapons compared to other frames to a high enough degree to be noticeable, and excludes most melee weapons at large.

Slash Dash

Slash Dash is an ability that propels Excalibur in the direction he's aiming with a certain velocity. It allows only his Health to be impervious to normal methods of attack. Sometimes, if enemies are eligible to be 'chained' to, Slash Dash will continue on and target another enemy for no additional cast cost. In addition, each targeted hit adds 1 melee combo count to the total counter. This costs 25 energy to use.

To start with, Slash Dash not being able to protect the shields of Excalibur -- which before any modification is more substantial than both his health and armor as shields have 50% damage reduction by default -- makes Slash Dash less efficient at preserving Excalibur's living status than regularly blocking with a melee weapon, since that includes his shields and reduces all damage by 100% or evading in various ways, since Slash Dash's velocity does not actually modify enemy accuracy graphs in any meaningful way.

Secondly, Slash Dash only adds or subtracts to the total velocity of Excalibur during this animation, meaning that the Range shown in the UI is nearly never accurate. In addition to this inaccuracy, the impulse velocity does not scale with the animation duration. Casting speed reduces the total distance of Excalibur's Slash Dash while also effectively shortening the amount of time you have invulnerable, creating negative synergy with his later abilities. This also means that if you are going in one direction with more velocity than Slash Dash currently provides, your Slash Dash will have effectively negative range. On top of all of those failures, it does not maintain momentum or change momentum. If you had been going in one direction with a strong enough impulse and use Slash Dash to correct that impulse, when the ability finishes you will simply continue in your original direction with the same velocity. As such, if you were say, being thrown off the map by a knockdown effect and wanted to use Slash Dash to get back onto the map, you simply waste 25 energy for no benefit. Slash Dash's base velocity is not much greater than a standard bullet jump, and is slower than an average movement chain. This is embarrassing to the state of parkour and movement as a whole, especially since Excalibur is the most picked Starter Warframe. It is unintuitive, actively detrimental, and serves no useful purpose. Coptering and the parkour 1.0 system was replaced due to how janky and bad it looked, yet Slash Dash is perhaps even worse than coptering ever had been in terms of the lack of control. 

Lastly, the ability is seemingly random. You do not know how many enemies are targeted in chains, and the chain cannot target enemies who had been affected a relatively long time ago. Long enough that the minor CC effect that Slash Dash has of knocking them down has worn off, and they have gotten up to continue shooting at you. When the chain ends, especially against heavy targets like Grineer Heavy Gunners and Bombards, you lack control of the character for 1-2 frames at 60 FPS. You cannot recast the ability within that amount of time, and you are effectively entirely defenseless as you cannot move either. This means that, due to how enemy reactions work, you will often dash into a heavy unit and be knocked down instantly as they completely ignore the knockdown effect and use a radial slam. There is no overhang of invulnerability, so if the Slash Dash ends in front of enemies who cannot be knocked down -- like Eximus units -- you can die before being able to do anything at all. As was discussed previous, your shields are not invulnerable to damage during Slash Dash, and shield gating is the only way to prevent being one shot in this game. This problem is exacerbated when fighting factions such as the Infested and the Murmur. You are not immune to any status effects during Slash Dash, meaning all of your available energy can be drained during this animation, especially by Ancient Disruptors who will always hit you during the Slash Dash animation. The Murmur faction often have enemies that explode, and enemies such as the Hollow Vein cannot be knocked down, and will use a magnetic AoE that guarantees a proc. 

An honorable mention to the poor thought that went into this ability is that it is considered a 'psuedo exalted.' This is the worst of this category of abilities, and the only way that it can manage to do reasonable damage is by exploiting Incarnon weapon evolution bonuses applying to it. For example, the ability is not meant to be able to hit critically, yes does when in the hands of something like the Magistar Incarnon. Hilariously enough, that addition is still not enough for Slash Dash to do reasonable damage. It is also required that you use an Operator Arcane like Magus Aggress to improve the critical damage of the ability by 300%. Even funnier, is how that combination is still not enough for the ability to do reasonable damage. You need to cancel the ability with a melee attack, roll or jump  -- all but the melee attack method hardly actually work and often send you careening far past enemies in a manner identical to coptering -- and recast the ability upward of a dozen times. This causes the cost of the combo to skyrocket, consuming multiple hundreds of energy every five seconds. 

In summary, Slash Dash accomplishes nothing but wasting your energy for something you can do for free via bullet jump and melee blocking, is reminiscent of the more embarrassing time of Warframe's lifespan in being near identical to Parkour 1.0's unreasonable and bad looking velocity changes, and cannot do damage or build melee combo count in a reasonable manner without exploiting multiple unintended effects.

Radial Blind

 

This is Excalibur most effective ability, and that cannot be contested. It provides synergy with at least one part of his kit, is the only survivability he can gain indirectly and casts in a somewhat reasonable time. Radial Blind costs 50 energy to blind enemies in a 25 meter radius for 15 seconds. However, due to many changes over the years, this ability has gotten weaker and weaker.

The Stealth Damage Multiplier has been changed many years ago to address the dominance of invisibility frames like Ivara, Octavia, and Ash. As such, the damage increase to melee weapons from Radial Blind is inconsistent. In addition, Radial Blind no longer goes through walls. While this might seem logical, this also has caused enemies to block other enemies from being affected by Radial Blind. Lastly, Eximus purely ignore this ability, shooting Excalibur through his entire animation. As this is Excalibur's only ability to keep him alive effectively, Eximus simply ignoring this ability is quite a large problem. His best ability is outpaced by simply subsuming Resonator, Breach Surge, or Quiver. This bodes poorly for the rest of his kit. 

In summary, Radial Blind fails to provide Excalibur with consistent survivability in situations where survivability is needed, does not consistently hit enemies, necessitating spam casting, and does not consistently increase his damage. 

Radial Javelin

This ability is an embarrassment in every possible metric. Radial Javelin costs 75 energy to deal 1000 damage and guarantee a Bleed Proc. This ability costs half of Excalibur's entire energy bar to deal pitiful damage that does not synergize with the rest of his kit.

Despite the ability summoning energy Skana or Exalted Blades, they take no properties from your melee weapon or Exalted Blade and its melee mods. There is no scaling, and the bleed procs are inconsequential. At the very slash, Slash Dash benefits from Pressure Point, allowing its damage to reach around 550. For 1/3rd of the energy, Slash Dash deals over half of the damage that Radial Javelin does. The animation of Radial Javelin takes nearly 4 full seconds to accomplish nothing, and does not even protect you from the most basic threats. Many frames have now been given invulnerability in order to cast their longer abilities, yet Radial Javelin which is one of the longest ability casts in the game does not. Dagath, who has the ability to deal 30,000 damage every 0.15 seconds from her fourth ability, which takes only 1.5 seconds to cast, has invulnerability during the entire cast. 

To step back and elaborate on the lack of synergy, Radial Javelin does quite literally nothing for Excalibur's kit in its entirety. It provides no opening, no mobility, no damage vulnerability, no damage buff, and no survivability. It is completely superfluous and shows an utter lack of care for the kit and its interactions in total. The common argument is that Radial Javelin has an augment of Furious Javelin. I disagree, Furious Javelin is not an augment, it is required for the ability to have a purpose in the game at all, what-so-ever. Many years ago, we had to install abilities as mod cards. Furious Javelin is simply Radial Javelin's ability card. There is no purpose in the ability existing without the augment being in play as well. When DE removed ability cards, they also removed two mod slots from the Warframe's upgrade menu. This effectively means that all these years later, I'm still using ability cards, but I still have two less mod slots. This is an embarrassing amount of lacking forethought, hindsight, and present awareness. Augments were supposed to open new playstyles. Excalibur's augments simply unlock the only playstyle. 

In summary, Radial Javelin is one of the most uninspired, and actively reductive abilities in the game. It serves no purpose other than to fill space, and this explains why it is one of the most replaced abilities in the game through the helminth system, along with Slash Dash. The fact that Excalibur has multiple abilities in the top ten most replaced abilities says much about the frame's overall design.

Exalted Blade

This is the only reason why people play Excalibur, however in the grand scheme of the game this manages to not only be one of the weakest abilities, but comparatively one of the weakest melee weapons in the game in total. Exalted Blade is the ability to unholster a melee weapon for 25 energy, and maintain its existence for 2.5 energy per second. 

This ability -- this weapon -- actively hinders the total design space for Excalibur, and limits his arsenal as he has to contend with either using a regular melee weapon or his Exalted Blade ability as he cannot use both at the same time. Thus, most players tend to build heavily into Strength and efficiency or duration to use and maintain Exalted Blade. However, even with such heavy commitments, the weapons that most people consider using as utility are simply better and more powerful than Exalted Blade will ever be. 

To begin, to simply look at the weapon being unholstered, it costs 25 energy, and to maintain its existence but not particularly use the weapon, it costs 2.5 energy per second. This lowers its viability against a weapon with the exact stats. Being that it is a channeled ability, it limits the synergies and build options that you have greatly, as energy regeneration sources are now limited, and many buffs that could affect regular melee weapons do not affect the Exalted Blade. This is a melee weapon with below average stats in everything other than base damage. While this generally would not be an issue, it also lacks the ability to use some 'Acolyte' mods. These 'acolyte' mods obtained their category name from the event that originally introduced both the acolytes and the mods themselves. These mods include Blood Rush, Weeping Wounds, and Body Count. As such, the lack of these rather fundamental mods on the weapon has put it in a category below a weapon with similar or even lower stats.

Additionally, it lacks the the capacity regular melee weapons get from equipping a stance, and lacks the options of having more than once stance for a single weapon type, disallowing the variety of doing different things for different build types or different purposes. Moreover, Exalted Blade the Stance has no forced procs, slow combos by default compounded on top of having a low base animation speed for the only weapon it is designed to be on and has a very low multiplier for all of its attacks. Two of the attacks are actively detrimental to the use of the melee weapon; The Slide attack costs 25 energy to cast Radial Blind with less than one third of the effect as it has 1/5th the range at 5 meters and 2/5ths the duration at 6 seconds. It also does not manage to open enemies to finisher attacks, and due to the way the stealth multiplier works likely will not grant you the damage bonus when you finally begin to attack the enemy in question. To reiterate, Exalted Blade costs 25 energy to unholster, and 2.5 energy to maintain. The slide attack additionally costs 25 energy to use. Performing these actions is around 2 seconds. I have spent 55 energy to cast radial blind with less than one third of the effect in total. As such, no one uses the slide attack as it reduces the amount of time that you can use the Exalted Blade and generally does not provide any benefit to you at all. This means your options to gap close enemies are literally reduced versus a normal melee weapon. The second attack that is actively detrimental is the standing block combo. This attack generally throws enemies multiple dozens of meters away, removing them from your sphere of influence. In addition to this, sometimes it can throw them so far away on more open tiles that it allows them to respawn closer to you, around corners. This functionally reduces the survivability of the frame and the damage output. 

The only way to combat its low damage output and low base status is to equip the augment, Chromatic Blade. This wraps back to my argument previously in Radial Javelin: I'm using augments in a mandatory fashion to unlock the only playstyle available to Excalibur, yet I have two less mod slots than I should when we had ability cards. Hilariously enough, the augment is actually twice as good as it's supposed to be, since the bonus from the augment applies twice to Exalted Blade, but even with this exploit the weapon is less powerful than making a basic Zaw with Hok at around MR 4. 

Lastly, Exalted Blade does not have access to arcanes. The new melee arcanes allow regular melee weapons to be league more powerful than Exalted Blade can ever dream of being, but even one of the most simple arcanes help Excalibur's kit more than the entirely of Exalted Blade: Melee Fortification. This allows Excalibur some of the survivability he does not get from his own kit and his base stats. This is an extreme loss in versatility, and makes it so that subsuming off the most unique part of Excalibur's kit makes him a better frame it total, but still less than almost all other frames, including and especially those who are more melee oriented.

In summary, Exalted Blade is not a good ability or melee weapon, conflicts with the total intention of having an arsenal, lacks synergy or creates active anti-synergy with teammates that specialize in energy regeneration and buffing, and conflicts with the entirety of the melee system at large, from its stats, to its modding, to arcanes, to simply existing. This is Excalibur's second worst ability. 

A holistic view

Excalibur's entirety, from his base stats, to his passive, to his ability set, is at odds with everything the game stands for and is more than just neglected and forgotten to time. It was poorly designed from the start. His design is filled with contradictions, lacks cohesiveness, and creates  turmoil for modding not only within itself, but in terms of being within a team. He is the most picked starter frame not because he is powerful, but because he looks cool and has a 'glowy energy sword.' However, the reality of playing this Warframe is that he is an active step back in the development life cycle of this game, and represents things that have been reworked or reiterated. As the face and first interaction of many starts of the game, being in this embarrassing state speaks rather largely of the game's approach to balance and design within itself. Excalibur's kit doesn't know what it wants to do, and ends up doing everything it aspires for, wrong. It relies on unintentional features, glitches, and exploits to be on the level of any other Warframe at all. It goes beyond lacking polish in the name of being a 'beta' concept, and ends up completely lacking forethought entirely when it comes to the reality of playing the game at large. 

The future

Excalibur needs to be given treatment in all areas in order to be functionally worthwhile in the game. 

1. Excalibur's base stats and survivability should be increased in order to solidify his standing as a frame designed for melee who uses abilities reactively, instead of a frame designed for mediocrity.
2. Slash Dash needs to have a goal of doing anything at all. Whether that be gap closing, survivability, mobility, damage or utility. As such, shields should be protected, status effects and energy drain should be ignored, momentum and velocity needs to be adjusted more akin to Gauss's Mach Rush or Kullervo's Wrathful Advance, and the damage and the melee combo counter should be dealt and increased, respectively, no less than swinging the normal melee would accomplish. 
3. Radial Blind needs to have more consistency in all aspects. Enemies that I see less than one second after I've cast the ability should not require me to cast the ability again and again. The damage bonus should be applied as vulnerability rather than the stealth bonus multiplier when enemies are aware of Excalibur. 
4. Radial Javelin needs to either be removed from the game of have the effect of Furious Javelin innate, and Furious Javelin should provide some other benefit to the frame, likely damage reduction or survivability of some other sort. 
5. Exalted Blade -- and Exalted Melees in general -- have always been at odds with the design of the game and have led to many exploits, unintended interactions, and nerfs. Not to mention, as time goes on the need to channel the ability to hold the Warframe's signature weapon is more than just antiquated. Exalted Blade either needs to be a signature weapon usable when no other weapon is equipped similar to Garuda, or equipable in game by simply holding the Weapon Switch button, and this would thus replace the melee you are currently holding with the Exalted Blade and its mod set without costing energy to simply have and unholster.
   • In addition the ability itself 'Exalted Blade' should be a specific set of buffs and increases to the melee you're holding rather than than a melee weapon itself. This would allow the ability to scale into the future and not be constantly and consistently at odds with the balancing of weapons in total. Ideally, using this ability would grant a buff that allows the range to be extended by creating even shorter lived waves with higher speed and no fall-off for a percentage of the damage of the original melee swing. Going through walls was something that was problematic with the previous iteration of melee, and as such does not serve a purpose in the game anymore. 
6. Excalibur's passive should, at the very least, apply to all melee weapons that Excalibur uses and should be a modification of the base stats of the weapon. He is a melee specialist and a 'master swordsman' but almost every melee oriented frame uses every melee better than he does, even the weapon categories that he's supposed to excel with. This is pathetic. 

Umbra

This is simply an honorable mention to Umbra's existence, as he is functionally the 'Prime' of Excalibur for non founders. His passive has been the spark of issues, progression stopping bugs, exploits, and specter nerfs. If you would like to read and see all of the ways Umbra's 'sentience' has been ruining the game's experience for anyone who actually likes playing this warframe, please visit the patch history of Excalibur on the wiki. There have been seven bug fixes for Umbra's sentience alone in the last year. 

A currently unsolved, unaddressed or perhaps plainly ignored issue is that Excalibur Umbra's 'Sentience' passive causes him to purge a number of buffs, including Furious Javelin which logically should have been designed to work with Excalibur and all his various iterations. This, again, shows a lack of foresight in the design of such a passive. It was only recently that Excalibur Umbra was allowed to maintain Exalted Blade after switching to operator, but this still does not address the numerous issues that Umbra has going into the future of the game, especially as using the Operator and Drifter becomes more prevalent in the game and the story necessitates their inclusion into gameplay mechanics. 

This passive simply should be removed in its current iteration. Slash Dash states that you 'Slash and dash through enemies alongside a radial specter' which means literally nothing and is not correct, however it does at least open the possibility that when you use Slash Dash on Excalibur Umbra, it could leave a short lived specter per enemy hit that can use some of the abilities Umbra currently has, deal moderate amounts of damage over time, and distract enemies. In addition, shooting Excalibur Umbra while you are an operator or dying as the operator should create a copy of Excalibur Umbra for a short time that can use his abilities and his weapons. 

Instead of modifying and 'despawning' the Warframe itself which is likely what is causing these issues, creating a duplicate that can be killed off later similar to Nekros specters or Wukong's Twin is much less likely to cause the amount of issues in the future while still maintaining some of the lore's integrity of Excalibur Umbra being able to have autonomy. 

 

Helminth was not meant to be a replacement for proper balancing, and augments were supposed to open or create new playstyles, not be the only way to play a Warframe. These are things DE themselves have stated, yet their actions do not reflect such. 

[Harutomata]

Excalibur was my starter frame and I still play him sometimes for nostalgia.
For actual gameplay with an exalted melee weapon though? In that case my favorite Excalibur build is playing Baruuk instead. I'm half joking here but they're fairly comparable frames. so let's compare them.
The reason why I bring Baruuk up is that he easily can reach 90% DR with Desolate Hands while also providing up to 50% DR to teammates and he gets another 40% DR while using his ult. His ult also provides gameplay with more feedback, compared to the slower energy projectiles from Exalted Blade.
It's confusing Excalibur has no ability for damage mitigation, to make it worse you can't even use Slash Dash for shields to regen for gating because only your health is actually invulnerable. Would that be so much to ask for to be changed when Mesmer Skin is in the game?
A hold function for Radial Javelin for DR is overdue, either on augment, or better, baseline, because DE lot of times makes the mistake of making augments on older frames a must use, rather than an option. What I mean by that is that on modern warframe standards many abilities on older warframes without their augments are either useless because of lack of damage scaling or proper functionality or synergy, or simply a helminth slot.
Which brings up the "argument" from people that you should use helminth to fix warframes, which is, like you said, shouldn't be considered a bandaid.
If Excalibur does get a DR ability at any point I'd say it should also partly affect teammates, similarly to Baruuk's Desolate Hands (which also disarms ranged enemies), because blind CC is currently all the team utility Excalibur has right now, and people often helminth it away.

I always felt like the slide attack on exalted blade should be replaced with a 360° arc projectile, and I still stand by it. The current lower range blind is so anticlimatic and lacks the mobility literally all other slide attacks in the game have (except tonfas for some reason, which I also find annoying), and it was always a bit disappointing it's not a way to attack with the sword. If not that, then a projectile that with more effective range.

The most convenient way I found to play Excalibur so far was building him for shields and putting Pillage on him. Which probably doesn't say a lot.
It also showcases enemy damage is overdue for a review because HP and armor tanking is currently in a state that most frames with no innate DR excluding armor instantly die to any damage to health against enemies somewhere above base SP.
Currently no matter how much armor you build the most DR you can get is around 90-91%, while enemy damage has no limitations like that. It's a bit offtopic but it also highlights the reason why HP healing frames are becoming obsolete (and by extension CC frames like Nyx, whose Chaos' should actually ignore Overguard based on the currently set rules on other threat related CC abilities in the game like Octavia's or Loki's), and "kill the enemy fast" becomes the most viable way to play, which from a game design perspective takes away identity from normally established roles one can play in cooperative video games.

[DarkSkysz]

55 minutes ago, Yasha-7HS said:

Slash Dash needs to have a goal of doing anything at all. Whether that be gap closing, survivability, mobility

It can do all of that already...do you have negative range on your build or something?

 

1 hour ago, Yasha-7HS said:

Radial Javelin needs to either be removed from the game

You complain that excal have no way to protect himself, but you ignored the stagger from this ability completly...

Excal have two good cc's to use at any moment. Huge aoe blind and stagger but also good base duration, which won't hurt you if you have negative duration. Both give you more than enough time to retrigger shield gating.

1 hour ago, Yasha-7HS said:

Excalibur's base stats and survivability should be increased in order to solidify his standing as a frame designed for melee who uses abilities reactively, instead of a frame designed for mediocrity.

His fine for star chart and for content you really need survival, he can use shield gating like 90% of the frames and be totally ok. Normal dmg reduction is useless after some point (which is not that far in lvls). Your shields will break in one hit and your health will be damaged for over 400 per hit (that with 90% reduction).

[Yasha-7HS]

12 minutes ago, DarkSkysz said:

It can do all of that already...do you have negative range on your build or something?

 

You complain that excal have no way to protect himself, but you ignored the stagger from this ability completly...

Excal have two good cc's to use at any moment. Huge aoe blind and stagger but also good base duration, which won't hurt you if you have negative duration. Both give you more than enough time to retrigger shield gating.

His fine for star chart and for content you really need survival, he can use shield gating like 90% of the frames and be totally ok. Normal dmg reduction is useless after some point (which is not that far in lvls). Your shields will break in one hit and your health will be damaged for over 400 per hit (that with 90% reduction).

You did not read the post, have asked questions on things touched upon within the OP, and have ignored the entire premise. 
Your input is not only unwelcome, but actively reductive. Please be gone. 

[Waeleto]

Also excalibur is the ONLY starter warframes and one of the few warframes who have absolutely 0 survivability in their kit and not even with augments 
He's sadly one of the most uncomfortable warframes to play due to this 

[(XBOX)Big Roy 324]

I feel this is well thought out.

But I would like to break with your solutions slightly.

Just increase his base armor to 300 and Umbra to 350/400  Energy to like 175.

1. just protecting his shields in slash dash is sufficient.

2.  A damage vulnerability to melee and Excals abilities would be all the needed synergy for the blind. (allowing for greater functionality and scale as level increases)

4. I would simply remove the energy cost to the nerfed slide blind.  or remove it completely and just have his abilities have increased efficiency while active.

This would give you a synergy with his two and other abilities.  

Edit:  Didn't realize that you are still vulnerable to status effects while slash dashing.  So yes status cleanse and immunity should apply as well. 

Edited January 5 by (XBOX)Big Roy 324
Clarification

[Tiltskillet]

1 hour ago, Yasha-7HS said:

Lastly, Eximus purely ignore this ability, shooting Excalibur through his entire animation.

I still don't know which is more weird: that Radial Blind doesn't work through Overguard; or that almost all other blinds do... including the literal slide version of Radial Blind on his 4.  Oh, DE.

[Agall]

I personally rock >62% usage on Excalibur myself at LR1.

I think if DE made Radial Javelin a pseudo-exalted with similar scaling to Slash Dash, it would seal the deal on his kit. It would allow Radial Javelin to be the AOE damage Excalibur used to have and should have. It would equally tie into synergies with Exalted Blade as well.

Regarding Exalted Blade and likely other exalted weapons (don't use anything but EB, so its an assumption), if they added the ability to use melee arcanes, it would bring them back into relevancy (or at least let your melee arcanes on your equipped melee work passively for exalted weapons). Even something as useless as [Melee Fortification] would solve issues with Exalted Blade in a lot of scenarios.

Regarding Excalibur's passive, even if they did a simple change like making the damage bonus multiplicative would at least make it worth always prioritizing swords when playing him. Otherwise, I've suggested a few things, like even as simple as adding lifesteal or combo chance for swords to encourage players to use them while using Excalibur.

[DarkSkysz]

45 minutes ago, Yasha-7HS said:

Your input is not only unwelcome, but actively reductive. Please be gone. 

I don't remember needing your approval for anything. If you can't deal with comments you should be gone :)

Also, your huge wall of useless text is way too boring to read to understand you are just bootyhurt because you can't build correctly. Too sad.

One search on google and you can find slash dash build that hit for over 1m (plus slash dot).

Get gud.

Edited January 5 by DarkSkysz

[Agall]

34 minutes ago, Qriist said:

Wait what? That's hilarious. It means it's not just an alt-animation on the skill, but probably a whole new skill. Amazing. 

I've tested this recently and EB's slide radial blind doesn't work through overguard. It also doesn't work if you subsume off radial blind but will still consume energy if attempted from sliding with EB.

It also doesn't count as an ability for things like [Brief Respite].

Edited January 5 by Agall

[Agall]

One disagreement I'll make regarding Excalibur that changed very recently, the addition of [Primed Redirection] was a MASSIVE buff to Excalibur, especially when combined with [Arcane Aegis]. For me, its entirely replaced [Arcane Reaper] since shield tanking scales far better to the high end (excluding toxin).

[Tiltskillet]

33 minutes ago, Agall said:

I've tested this recently and EB's slide radial blind doesn't work through overguard.

It's still working  for me, both in the Sim and on the first eximus I encountered in Sortie1 just now.

Only obvious thing that occurs to me to explain the difference is the extremely short range on the slide version, but I imagine you'd have accounted for that.  Do you recall any details about how you tested?

[Agall]

Just now, Tiltskillet said:

It's still working  for me, both in the Sim and on the first eximus I encountered in Sortie1 just now.

Only obvious thing that occurs to me to explain the difference is the extremely short range on the slide version, but I imagine you'd have accounted for that.  Do you recall any details about how you tested?

Usual Titan, Saturn Grineer Survival SP. In this case, I would slide EB right into the face of an eximus unit which didn't CC them at all. I'll have to retest it if you got different results recently.

[Tiltskillet]

15 minutes ago, Agall said:

Usual Titan, Saturn Grineer Survival SP. In this case, I would slide EB right into the face of an eximus unit which didn't CC them at all. I'll have to retest it if you got different results recently.

As recently as 20 minutes ago! :P (And as far back as 2022, at least.)

Another thought that occurs to me is that the blind may not apply immediately during some Eximus specials or special animations for that unit.   For instance, I know that leech effects persist for a while even after a target is blinded, and I can have trouble inflicting certain CC's during CHG stomps.

I feel kind of bad hijacking this topic further though, so do you want to continue the conversation in this thread?:

 

[Fred_Avant_2019]

Poster boy needs a little love, but he's not the only one.

Warframe has evolved towards higher damage dealing standards.

As such, older frames are, for most, left in the dust when it comes to doing damage or mitigating it. Frames clearly not built to deal damage find themselves stuck to very niche roles and will more often than not just not reward the player for using their mechanics properly (sorry Limbo, but I don't need all this extra damage % while enemies are stuck in the rift and under the effects of rift surge, my weapon already oneshots, and your fun mechanics get me scolded by my squad :( ).

Balancing the frames is probably a hot mess considering how great or terrible abilities can be, even on a single frame. Prime example of this is Equinox in Day form, I'm sure everyone loves to abuse Maim, but who actually even uses Rage ? It's not even just her, and then there are frames like Nyx where you're like "where do I even begin here lol", specialized frames have it rough and just aren't popular anymore, unless we're talking some hardcore support like Wisp or Citrine (Citrine's only issue being her long farm).

 

 

Also that brings back the discussion to passives.

Excalibur and variants gain +10% modded damage and +10% modded attack speed on Swords, Dual Swords, standard Nikanas and the two Rapiers we've got.

Meanwhile, Ember gets 5% ability strength per enemy that's affected by any number of Heat procs while they are within a 50m radius of her.

Why aren't passives being adjusted before anything else?

I mean here's the full list of them and you'll see just how they range from pointless to really strong :

Révélation

• Ash : Bleed procs deal 25% more damage and last 50% longer.
• Atlas : Gains up to 1500 armor as long as you do his main gameplay loop and is immune to knockdowns while his feet touch the ground.
• Banshee : Any weapon she uses is set to "Silent".
• Baruuk : Gains up to 50% damage reduction when restraint meter is emptied (by "dodging" stuff with Elude, putting enemies to sleep or disarming them with his 3)
• Caliban : Adaptation, except it's 50% and allies in affinity range gain his passive.
• Chroma : Flight +1 Extra jump lol.
• Citrine : Rejuvenation except it's based on affinity range and it's 5/s at base and up to 25/s and it only ever increases.
• Dagath : A selfish Arcane Energize but on steroids, with no cooldown and it procs on both health and energy.
• Ember : 5% Ability Strength per enemy affected by heat within 50m of her, no enemy cap.
• Equinox : Rank 0 equilibrium.
• Excalibur : 10% modded attack speed and damage on Swords, Dual Swords, Rapiers and standard Nikanas.
• Frost : 10% chance to freeze solid an enemy that uses his melee attack against you for 20s.
• Gara : Half range 2/3 duration Radial Blind that costs no energy.
• Garuda : Whatever damage you deal is multiplied by 2 as long as you do enough killing.
• Gauss : Battery system for his entire kit. Shield regen rate and delay increases based on battery level.
• Grendel : Armor per enemy in belly.
• Gyre : Her abilities can crit based on electric procs.
• Harrow : Max rank Preparation and overshield cap x2.
• Hildryn : Better shieldgate, no energy, shields are energy.
• Hydroid : Better corrosive proc.
• Inaros : Pointless sarcophagus on death, finishers restore health.
• Ivara : Better enemy radar.
• Khora : Extra movespeed, extra kavat.
• Kullervo : +75% heavy attack efficiency, cuts in half the time it takes to perform a heavy attack, among other things. Attempted Regicide.
• Lavos : Doesn't use energy, energy orbs make you ignore incoming status effects, cleanses those that'd affect you, can add elements to casts.
• Limbo : Roll to enter and exit the rift yourself and create a portal to let allies enter it for a limited duration. Rift gives energy per second. Enemies killed in rift grant Limbo 10 energy.
• Loki : 60 seconds wall latch.
• Mag : Not functionning Vacuum.
• Mesa : No melee = +50 hp; singlehanded secondaries +25% reload, akimbo secondaries +15% fire rate.
• Mirage : 50% faster Parkour, +85% slide.
• Nekros : +5 hp regen per enemy death within 10m of him.
• Nezha : +60% faster slide, +35% farther slide.
• Nidus : Press 1 & 2 to gain stacks so you're allowed to use 3 & 4. Also 15 stacks means you can cheat death for 5s when taking lethal damage.
• Nova : If you're knocked down, you knock down enemies within 6m, and you deal 250 blast damage to them.
• Nyx : If you're not in Absorb, enemy aimbotting capacities are 20% less effective.
• Oberon : +25% hp, shields and armor to companions.
• Octavia : Gain access to musical prowesses that amount to using a note on every slot or rick roll. Also, when you cast abilities, you and allies within 15m gain 1 energy/s for 30s.
• Protea : 4th ability casted gains 100% ability strength.
• Qorvex : +3 Punchthrough on anything.
• Revenant : Plains of Eidolons water doesn't blur your screen. Also deal 100 blast damage within 7.5m of you when your shield break, and that explosion has 75% fall off, so on the edges it deals a whole 25 blast damage, doesn't scale with anything.
• Rhino : Heavy Impact, except it has 90% damage fall off on the edge.
• Saryn : Any status effect you generate lasts 25% longer (7.5 seconds instead of 6).
• Sevagoth : If you die, you go in Sevagoth's shadow mode.
• Styanax : +1% modded crit chance per 40 shields you have. +2% on spearguns.
• Titania : +25% bullet jump, +25% roll distance. Casting an ability gives you and anyone within 15m of you +4hp/s for 20s.
• Trinity : Revive allies 25% faster and from 50% further away.
• Valkyr : Innate Kavat's Grace. Recover 50% faster from knockdowns.
• Vauban : +25% damage to enemies affected by Tesla Coils, Tether Mine, Vortex or Bastille.
• Volt : Walk to stockpile up to 1000 electric damage. Any attack (shooting a gun, doing a melee swing or casting an ability) consumes that, only applies once.
• Voruna : Freely select from +55% parkour OR status immunity OR +100% heavy attack efficiency OR cheat death.
• Wisp : Invisible if Airborne.
• Wukong : Cheat death 3 times per mission, gain a random buff when this happens.
• Xaku : Ignore damage 25% of the time, or 75% of the time if your 4 is active. Explosions generated by enemies are 25% weaker on you, or 75% if your 4 is active.
• Yareli : Move a bit to gain +200% modded crit chance on secondaries.
• Zephyr : Gravity affects you less. +150% modded crit chance on anything if you're airborne.

I've put in bold every passive that's at least somewhat significant or very strong. Outside of these, there's only pointless/garbage passives that serve no purpose in actual gameplay. Note that I didn't embold Banshee's passive due to her innate access to Silence, which already does that and that you always want to have activated anyway.

There is so much that could and should be improved there. Where's passives 2.0? Because some frames already do have such passives. More recent frames, or recently reworked frames all have actually good passives (only Vauban feels kind of lackluster), so what's the deal here?

 

 

[Tiltskillet]

40 minutes ago, Fred_Avant_2019 said:

Note that I didn't embold Banshee's passive due to her innate access to Silence, which already does that and that you always want to have activated anyway.

There's overlap, but they're not the same, especially with  modest, neutral, or negative range.  Silence prevents enemies  from reacting to most sounds, rather than preventing sound from being made.  Which is almost the same thing as 100% noise reduction mods inside its radius, but enemy hearing range can extend much further.

IMO it was maybe still an average passive when I started playing, but the trend in the last 7 years has been  passive inflation, and noise reduction itself has never been less important.  I wouldn't have bolded it either in that context. 

/another offtopic response that has been brought to you by Tiltskillet, the Offtopic Specialist...

[AsffluffyZ]

8 hours ago, Yasha-7HS said:

Excalibur has 240 armor, which allows him only 44.4% damage reduction to Health. Shields, by themselves, have 50% reduction to all damage and recharge.

You compare an unmodded damage reduction to that which can be modded. Nevermind the fact that Excalibur has shields not just health. As for base UNMODDED energy Excalibur is not a caster frame so they clearly have less than volt and mag who are.

8 hours ago, Yasha-7HS said:

This passive does not apply to Greatswords, Two Handed Nikanas, Dual Nikanas, or Daggers. These are all various lengths of the same type of weapon. 

The notion of all these being the same is actually dishonest to the people who make and use such weapons because it's like saying a chef could use a great sword with the same skill as a steak knife because they are the "same".

I find it embarrassing that you claim to play Excalibur as much as that picture you posted and only talk about a fully unmodded frame. Like comparing a kid playing T-ball to MLB professionals.

 

[Yasha-7HS]

8 hours ago, DarkSkysz said:

I don't remember needing your approval for anything. If you can't deal with comments you should be gone :)

Also, your huge wall of useless text is way too boring to read to understand you are just bootyhurt because you can't build correctly. Too sad.

One search on google and you can find slash dash build that hit for over 1m (plus slash dot).

Get gud.

If you can't be bothered to expend effort to read, expend less effort commenting on my thread. You don't need my approval to do any of these, but expecting your opinion to be appreciated or welcomed when you cannot be an adult and read before commenting on the topic at hand is hilarious, at best. Embarrassing, at worst. 

Good-bye. 

  

1 hour ago, AsffluffyZ said:

You compare an unmodded damage reduction to that which can be modded. Nevermind the fact that Excalibur has shields not just health. As for base UNMODDED energy Excalibur is not a caster frame so they clearly have less than volt and mag who are.

Volt has the same amount of base energy, but his abilities are logistically more efficient. Mesa has the same amount of base energy, but her abilities are logistically more efficient. Valkyr has the same base energy, but her abilities are more logistically efficient. Ash has the same base energy, but his abilities are more logistically efficient.  Rhino has the same base energy, but his abilities are more logistically efficient.

The issue was and is not only that he has a small energy pool. 

  

10 hours ago, Yasha-7HS said:

He has only 150 energy, yet almost all of his abilities need to be used reactively, and have no duration.

10 hours ago, Yasha-7HS said:

and a movement ability that costs 25 energy and has no chain casting ability

The term 'caster frame' means literally nothing. If Slash Dash is meant to be cast this often for him to have survivability, Excalibur is more of a Caster than literally any of the Warframes I've listed above based on the sheer number of casts he needs per minute alone. 

While armor can be modified to give higher amounts of damage reduction than shields do with mods, in order for health to even compare to shields you need: An armor mod, a health mod, and a method, likely multiple, of healing. Shields not only need none of that to begin with, they protect you from being one shot and recharge on their own, requiring little in the way of assistance.

With mods, it is more efficient to mod for shield gating than it is for health tanking as it not only requires less mods and is safer in all ranges of play, from low rank missions to level cap, the mods that shields use are more powerful and efficient at a base level.

Excalibur also having shields means nothing to the point that was actually made:  

10 hours ago, Yasha-7HS said:

Excalibur fails to be a frame capable of staying close to enemies on the merits of his base stats alone, being averagely out-tanked by frames with just slightly higher shield stats.

Without even having the base stats to begin scaling as well as shields do and requiring adding mod after mod just to increase his poor survivability as a melee based frame is poor design. There is quite a distinct reason why other frames who are melee oriented either have damage reduction built into their kit or have very high base stats. Usually, a combination of both. Excalibur has neither. Please consider, for one second, what you're actually arguing for instead of wasting my time. 

  

1 hour ago, AsffluffyZ said:

The notion of all these being the same is actually dishonest to the people who make and use such weapons because it's like saying a chef could use a great sword with the same skill as a steak knife because they are the "same".

Any swordsman, soldier, what have you, worth their salt can use anything from a short sword to a greatsword if they have trained with anything within the longsword category, as they are functionally, the same weapon with slightly different lengths and balance. In fact, the line where a longsword becomes a greatsword is in the realm of contention with people who do nothing but live and breathe swordsmanship and medieval history.

In terms of the game, take for example... That the Ceramic dagger is literally just as long as the Skana and Cronus while also being wider, thicker and likely heavier. The Fang Prime are almost the exact same size as the Dual Ichor and bigger than the Dual Cleaver. Dual Nikanas and Dual Swords are simply holding two of the same weapon that Excalibur already is apparently proficient with. In fact, some dual swords -- which Excalibur's passive includes -- are literally just holding the regular version and the dagger version of the same sword. This would logically mean that he has proficiency with both versions of the weapon. In fact, he would need to have extreme proficiency with both versions of the weapon in order to use them simultaneously. 

What is your point rather than being a contrarian and arguing for the sake of arguing, without actually having any real criticisms or adding to the topic in any way?

Edited January 6 by Yasha-7HS

[Fred_Avant_2019]

il y a 45 minutes, AsffluffyZ a dit :

The notion of all these being the same is actually dishonest to the people who make and use such weapons because it's like saying a chef could use a great sword with the same skill as a steak knife because they are the "same".

Cool beans, but that's not what they said.

Now correct me if I'm wrong but their point was that Excalibur is THE master of blades. A large nikana or standard nikana? That's still categorized as "blade". That's reason enough for the master of blades to have an affinity with these, is it not?

[AsffluffyZ]

In use of a sword style the type of sword matters greatly. Weight, length, balance, and curves alter how a sword can be used. It's not just grab the handle and swing the lump of steel. The weight of a great sword adds to large cleaving swings but requires the sacrifice of mobility. Rapiers are unable to block an attack as a broadsword does but is adept in quick slashes and thrust. Nikanas represent katanas which are made to parry strikes and must be balanced along the whole blade to keep from breaking.

Excalibur is written in the codex to have master swordsmanship not to a master of blades, and being the embodiment of martial excellence means being the best in a martial art. He is not state to be the Pinnacle of all bladed weapons. My point being you seem to have a false notion about Excalibur, and for the example of umbra a signature weapon does not have to mean the weapon someone is best at.

[nslay]

Yes! This is great! As an intermediate Excalibur player myself (I don't like Umbra), I completely agree with everything you wrote. Exalted Blade, even with its augment, is so bad that I subsumed a status immunity ability over it. If not for Furious Javelin, Radial Javelin would otherwise probably be the first to go. And I absolutely agree that Radial Javelin really should just be Furious Javelin!

I haven't tried to survive with Slash Dash. I just use it for mobility. My current workaround for survivability is to either use Gloom (my Umbra) or Shield Gating (normal Excalibur) where I cast Radial Blind to instantly restore all shields. But Eximus ignore Radial Blind as you noted... so I also have Arcane Ultimatum which works nicely with Radial Blind. That doesn't scale well though... I also have a sentinel that spreads Radiation status for a little extra CC to help Excalibur with Eximus. It's just not very good.

Not only does sentient Umbra lose buffs, he also deactivates skills like Gloom! It's very annoying! I've also been pulled out of Operator because his sentient form died! I was in the middle of fighting a Void Angel in its rift and bam, I'm in bleed out with Umbra! Maybe that's a bug though... I just avoid Umbra and play normal Excalibur. But you can't avoid Umbra in Circuit... He's the "best" variant of Excalibur in Circuit. Lucky founders...

 

[AsffluffyZ]

1 hour ago, Yasha-7HS said:

Volt has the same amount of base energy, but his abilities are logistically more efficient. Mesa has the same amount of base energy, but her abilities are logistically more efficient. Valkyr has the same base energy, but her abilities are more logistically efficient. Ash has the same base energy, but his abilities are more logistically efficient.  Rhino has the same base energy, but his abilities are more logistically efficient.

Can I gets some stats on this logistic efficiency of apples and oranges. You can cherry pick examples I'll still address them. Volt lacks survivability methods when unmodded (as per your preference) his 1 is single target damage that works with his 4 both requiring lots of energy, his 2, 3, and 4 need duration, range, strength, and efficiency to become anywhere decent all the while weak to high armor enemies. Mesa is a ranged Warframe who needs high duration, efficiency, and and strength to be good along with needing to mod her peacekeepers. Her 1 is useless as it wastes energy to double the damage of 1 shot. Her 2 and 3 are limited in protecting her from melee units as shatter shield only reduces ranged damage and shooting gallery has a limit to how many enemies can be stunned at once. Her 4 is lethal but come at immense energy drain causing most people to toggle it on and off. Valkyr's ripline and paralysis have weak effects in keeping the frame alive. Ripline pulls you in a straight line with no damage mitigation or pulls 1 enemy to you. Paralysis does cause affected enemies to take more damage at the cost of your shields aka your health. Warcry is good no problems their. But her 4 gives lifesteal and invulnerability as long you attack enemies at the cost of one of the highest energy drains in the game while also altering your jumps. It lacks exalted blades range and duration and is actually less efficient. Ash has 2 abilities worth using that being smokescreen and bladestorm. His 1 attacks up to 2 enemies for an amount of energy wholly unworth it. Teleport allows you to to to a enemy and sometimes do a finisher on one enemy for a lot of energy. His invis has the shortest duration at 8 seconds if I remember correctly. And bladestorm cost 2 the energy if your not invis meaning one cast can drain most of it. With rhino his charge has less range than slash dash and ragdoll enemies everywhere a general negative. Iron skin requires modded to achieve meaningful amounts of overguard. Roar is great no problems with the ability. Stomp needs range and duration to serve purposes in cc'ing enemies but doesn't matter towards rhinos survival because he has iron skin.

The point being without moding most frames are inefficient contrary to your claim, as I am backing up with EVIDENCE.

[AsffluffyZ]

10 hours ago, (XBOX)Big Roy 324 said:

Edit:  Didn't realize that you are still vulnerable to status effects while slash dashing.  So yes status cleanse and immunity should apply as well. 

This already exists as an augment. (Purging slash) Sadly only effects allies.

Edited January 6 by AsffluffyZ
Added name of augment and fact that only effects allies

[--Leyenda-yight6]

hace 8 horas, AsffluffyZ dijo:

Can I gets some stats on this logistic efficiency of apples and oranges. You can cherry pick examples I'll still address them. Volt lacks survivability methods when unmodded (as per your preference) his 1 is single target damage that works with his 4 both requiring lots of energy, his 2, 3, and 4 need duration, range, strength, and efficiency to become anywhere decent all the while weak to high armor enemies. Mesa is a ranged Warframe who needs high duration, efficiency, and and strength to be good along with needing to mod her peacekeepers. Her 1 is useless as it wastes energy to double the damage of 1 shot. Her 2 and 3 are limited in protecting her from melee units as shatter shield only reduces ranged damage and shooting gallery has a limit to how many enemies can be stunned at once. Her 4 is lethal but come at immense energy drain causing most people to toggle it on and off. Valkyr's ripline and paralysis have weak effects in keeping the frame alive. Ripline pulls you in a straight line with no damage mitigation or pulls 1 enemy to you. Paralysis does cause affected enemies to take more damage at the cost of your shields aka your health. Warcry is good no problems their. But her 4 gives lifesteal and invulnerability as long you attack enemies at the cost of one of the highest energy drains in the game while also altering your jumps. It lacks exalted blades range and duration and is actually less efficient. Ash has 2 abilities worth using that being smokescreen and bladestorm. His 1 attacks up to 2 enemies for an amount of energy wholly unworth it. Teleport allows you to to to a enemy and sometimes do a finisher on one enemy for a lot of energy. His invis has the shortest duration at 8 seconds if I remember correctly. And bladestorm cost 2 the energy if your not invis meaning one cast can drain most of it. With rhino his charge has less range than slash dash and ragdoll enemies everywhere a general negative. Iron skin requires modded to achieve meaningful amounts of overguard. Roar is great no problems with the ability. Stomp needs range and duration to serve purposes in cc'ing enemies but doesn't matter towards rhinos survival because he has iron skin.

The point being without moding most frames are inefficient contrary to your claim, as I am backing up with EVIDENCE.

When you modify them the gap between the warframes is even more noticeable, volt and mag are far superior in everything that excalibur can do (imagine the difference with excalibur if we include augments in that comparison). Regarding the issue of sword mastery, the passive affects several types of swords but not all, the passive doesn't mention which ones it works or doesn't work with and it's not very easy to check when their stats are absurdly weak, so it should at least work with any weapon labeled "sword" so as not to cause confusion.

[AsffluffyZ]

1 hour ago, --Leyenda-yight6 said:

When you modify them the gap between the warframes is even more noticeable, volt and mag are far superior in everything that excalibur can do (imagine the difference with excalibur if we include augments in that comparison).

I agree that moding makes the world of a difference in how a warframe can play. The thing is the original post specifically points out unmodded Excalibur, which is a problem to me because moding is how you can overcome the shortcomings of a warframe. Especially with the introduction of tennokai you can easily get free healing on exalted blades and pair it with rage for easy energy, this it's also funny that Excalibur barely needs to mod his abilities for them to be useful leaving room for the use of augments to really boost his power.

In terms of what the passive affects yes DE should strictly say what melee classes are affected and the only one not included that doesn't fully make sense is dual nikanas as per the wiki. This being because dual swords, swords, and nikanas, and rapiers are all included. In the term of great swords and two handed nikanas they fall out of the box of being being able to be used one handed as Excalibur exalted blades is (aka the fighting style the frame is proficient in). Daggers also fall out of the box as they knives not swords hence my reference to comparing great swords to a steak knife in how they are used.

22 hours ago, Yasha-7HS said:

Exalted Blade is the ability to unholster a melee weapon for 25 energy, and maintain its existence for 2.5 energy per second. 

Excalibur SUMMONS the weapon which takes energy, they do not unholster it. The drain is the price for maintaining the summoning. 

Exceptions are Mesa who visibly has her guns on her, and ivara who uses energy to summon her bow and to fire each shot (something that wouldn't work well for exalted blade)