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

[DarkSkysz]

13 hours ago, Yasha-7HS said:

expend less effort commenting on my thread

Take your own advice. Spend less time crying on forum and more ingame to learn how to play excall :D

But I guess you are just frustated. Playing only one frame and still being bad with him. But don't give up, keep wasting your time. I doubt you will get any better, but keep trying ofc.

Edited January 6 by DarkSkysz

[Yasha-7HS]

12 hours ago, AsffluffyZ said:

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

Volt not only has higher base shields, all except one of his abilities are based on duration and have perpetual effects. Including his fourth ability which has no line of sight restrictions and seeks enemies through terrain and has a lingering effect that can capture enemies who enter the radius late. Thus, despite costing twice as much and having less than half the duration, he will have to use the ability less than Excalibur will. His shield can be picked up to block damage while meleeing, and speed which has an increase to attack speed for every melee in the game as well as his sprint speed, lasts for a duration. Volt does not need to use his abilities in relation to seeing enemies, or enemies attacking him to gain their effects, and needs to cast his abilities less to maintain their effects. 

12 hours ago, AsffluffyZ said:

Mesa is a ranged Warframe who needs high duration, efficiency, and and strength to be good along with needing to mod her peacekeepers.

Again, almost all of Mesa's abilities are based in duration, have perpetual effects, and her CC effects can seek enemies through walls. Despite only being able to hit 3 enemies at one time, it can continuously stun multiple enemies over a long period of time and not only gains range, but additional effect when there is even one more person in the lobby, regardless of what they are doing, and applies a damage bonus directly to the frame, rather than relying on an enemy debuff. Her shatter shield, regardless of its downfallings to explosive weapons and melee strikes, is a perpetual effect that requires her to cast once for a full benefit during its entire duration. 

12 hours ago, AsffluffyZ said:

Valkyr

Not only does valkyr have abilities that cost less for similar effects to Excalibur at a base level, she does have a chaining mechanic on her Ripline that was given to frames that have mobility and utility effects that may necessitate using the ability more than once. For example, Landslide which is analogous to Slash Dash in nearly every way. Rhino's Charge which is analagous to Slash Dash in nearly every way. Her Warcry is a perpetual effect that applies to the Warframe directly, increasing her survivability and melee efficacy for an extended period of time. As such, Valkyr needs to cast less to gain effects from her kit as a whole but even if she needed to cast just as much, her abilities don't even cost the same, the cost much, much less.

12 hours ago, AsffluffyZ said:

Ash has 2 abilities worth using that being smokescreen and bladestorm. 

Excalibur has one ability worth casting ever, how many abilities are worth casting is not the current argument at hand nor does it even matter within the scope of this part of the discussion. Ash's invisibility having a duration, but being a perpetual effect applied to him rather than enemies themselves means that he does not have to recast the ability multiple times during its supposed duration in order to gain the effect required for his survivability just because some enemies aren't affected or have recently shown up. In addition, invisibility is NOT ignored by Eximus units. While his Teleport and Shuriken are in the same state as the similarities in Excalibur's kit, Bladestorm is not only a more effective and efficient power, it also has the quality of life mentioned in the OP that Slash Dash AND Radial Javelin lack. Had you bothered to read it instead of wasting my time "cherry picking" part of one paragraph labelled "The Base Stats" which, unsurprisingly, covered the unmodded base stats of the warframe and then complain that it covered exactly what was talked about in the header of the paragraph, maybe you wouldn't bring up literally useless points.

The next paragraphs that are labelled for each ability, specifically, speak about the modding later, and the issue specifically that augments are not choices and do not open gameplay for this frame, but that they are mandatory similar to the removed Ability Cards that we used to have, which were removed as well as two mod slots.

12 hours ago, AsffluffyZ said:

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.

Charge, as previously mentioned, has the chaining mechanic which increases the efficiency and damage of the ability as it is cast more, making it more efficient than Slash Dash is at being cast multiple times, not that it actually needs to be. Iron Skin, as an effect that has functionally infinite duration applied to the Warframe itself, may be reactive but does not need to be recast multiple times in order to achieve its affect of protecting rhino during its own effect duration just because more enemies show up or are not effected, and it is NOT ignored by Eximus units making it more efficient than Slash Dash at providing the same thing.  Roar, again, being an ability applied to the Warframe and his allies rather than a debuff against enemies only needs to be cast one time in order to achieve its effects for its full duration. Rhino stomp not only has no LoS restrictions, it also affects Eximus units with nearly the maximum slow percentage from one ability allowed in the game. This makes it more efficient and reliable than radial blind despite costing twice as much, and having half of the duration, as Radial Blind can often necessitate two or more casts and does not even affect eximus units. Thus, Rhino in total needs to cast all of his abilities less than Excalibur, but even the few abilities that could need to cast just as much are not only more reliable, they are more efficient.

12 hours ago, AsffluffyZ said:

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

Except your point is a waste of everyone's time, as this is the first paragraph exploring that a poor foundation makes building up harder and inefficient, and that the base stats are part, but were not the only reason why having no base energy was an issue. 

You are not backing up anything with evidence, you are backing up strawmen and non sequiturs with arrogance and ignorance. In addition, you cannot even keep your replies within a single comment, which floods a topic and is against the community guidelines which I would assume you also have not read.

Quote

2) QUALITY STANDARDS – Use our forums to talk to us and talk to each other in a constructive and respectful way that encourages interaction and thoughtful discussion. Stay on-topic, be constructive and use descriptive Topic titles. Don’t rage/rant post, name and shame, have misleading topic titles, post spam, advertisements, unreleased Design Council information, pornography or any other inappropriate, offensive or irrelevant content to the Forums in text, image, or video form. We will delete/edit it, and there will be consequences as per our warnings.

Please, do me a favor and see yourself out of my thread if you cannot manage to add anything to the topic or follow proper etiquette.  

  

27 minutes ago, DarkSkysz said:

Take your own advice. Spend less time crying on forum and more ingame to learn how to play excall :D

But I guess you are just frustated. Playing only one frame and still being bad with him. But don't give up, keep wasting your time. I doubt you will get any better, but keep trying ofc.

I'm simply stating the fact and reality of the Warframe, providing constructive criticism and aiming for improvement on the total design philosophy of the Warframe. You can simply do nothing but be reductive and throw worthless insults. 

Have fun.  

  

5 minutes ago, DarkSkysz said:

For you.

If you cannot rectify objective reality and the empirical effects of what has been detailed in the thread from the fantasy world that you live in where Excalibur does anything worthwhile, you are both delusional and ignorant.

Point out a single objective flaw with what I have described in Excalibur's kit. This is rhetorical demand, as you did not read and obviously wouldn't be capable of doing so.

5 minutes ago, DarkSkysz said:

Nothing that you don't deserve.

If you can't handle it, be gone.

"Deserving" insults is quite the logic for someone who not only apparently spends twice the amount of time on the forums compared to me and does not understand Excalibur's kit in any realistic fashion, but also seems to have gone into a toddler-esque tantrum when told that their opinion was not only predicated on nothing because they couldn't put forth the simple effort of reading, but are now refusing to leave my thread to be off topic and do nothing but attack characters and risk being warned or banned simply out of spite. 

Again, Have Fun. 

Edited January 6 by Yasha-7HS

[AsffluffyZ]

On 2024-01-05 at 10:07 AM, 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.
• 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. 
• 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. 
• 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. 
• 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. 
• 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.

1. Increasing base stats would do little to improve base survivability of excal because armor gives less of a benefit the more you have. Of the starters excal has the highest armor value getting more than 10% dr than them on health along with the 50% dr on shields so having fewer shields means nothing compared to mag and volt at base.

2. Slash dash does give survivability as you yourself stated and it does give mobility. Changing the momentum is your preference as there is no objective means to judge whether the ability have momentum actually improves gameplay for slash dash.

3. Yes blind should be the same throughout the whole game. If you are missing enemies with your blind I recommend using more range so you cast it less. Blinded enemies are vulnerable to finishers which have moddable damage multipliers; finishers also trigger arcane trickery and ultimatum for invisibility and high amounts of armor.

4. Radial javelin should pull enemies in more than giving bonus melee damage or damage reduction so that the ability enhances and reinforces the melee playstyle.

5. Your suggestion for exalted blade neglects that exalted blade and normal melees can have different builds that don't mesh well. Exalted blade also works with tennokai meaning you would have to mod all your melees to use tennokai to use it with exalted blade. The difference between garuda's claws and exalted blade is that one is always on the warframe and the other is SUMMONED not UNHOLSTERED. Your suggestion is to add blade waves to any and all melee weapons regardless of stance or what it would take to incorporate the effect to weapon types like polearms and rapiers that have non-slashing attacks.

6. Most melee oriented frames atlas, valkyr, baruuk, khora, wukong, voruna, and kulervo have passives that actually improve melee abilities. kulervo and voruna give heavy attack efficiency, and valkyr has warcry. Warcry being the only one to improve all melee weapons and heavy attack efficiency becomes pointless with tennokai giving free heavy attacks. 

18 hours ago, Yasha-7HS said:

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.

How does this apply to skill with daggers, greats words, and two-handed nikanas when excal gets bonuses to rapiers, swords, dual swords, and nikanas. Daggers are not swords they are knives and not used the same way a short sword is. Given the weapons that receive the bonus are all capable of being used with one hand it is logical to say excal is a master swordsman in one-handed and dual-wielding sword styles. Great swords and two-handed nikanas are weapon styles that appear to fall outside of excalibur's "master swordsmanship". I do agree that it does not make sense that dual nikanas do not get the benefit from the passive as it is a one-handed dual-wielding sword style (though I chock it up to the weapon not being prevelant in the game for them to add it to the passive).

It is actually less feasible to think a person can master all weapon styles rather than choose to excel in similar forms of weapon usage.

The proof to my pudding of martial mastery

  

4 hours ago, Yasha-7HS said:

Quote

2) QUALITY STANDARDS – Use our forums to talk to us and talk to each other in a constructive and respectful way that encourages interaction and thoughtful discussion. Stay on-topic, be constructive and use descriptive Topic titles. Don’t rage/rant post, name and shame, have misleading topic titles, post spam, advertisements, unreleased Design Council information, pornography or any other inappropriate, offensive or irrelevant content to the Forums in text, image, or video form. We will delete/edit it, and there will be consequences as per our warnings.

Please, do me a favor and see yourself out of my thread if you cannot manage to add anything to the topic or follow proper etiquette.

So report me if you think i'm spamming, I have responded to the original, replies quoting my own, and one response about slash dash and status effects. Anyone who wholly moderates this thread would see as much. If you can handle criticism constructive or not and if you can handle when someone calls out your flaws in logic and points of dishonesty then just block them. Concepts improve through clashes in ideology and free thought, not by living in an echo chamber with no new input. 😑

Edited January 6 by AsffluffyZ
Adding snide remark about conduct

[Yasha-7HS]

5 hours ago, AsffluffyZ said:

1. Increasing base stats would do little to improve base survivability of excal because armor gives less of a benefit the more you have. Of the starters excal has the highest armor value getting more than 10% dr than them on health along with the 50% dr on shields so having fewer shields means nothing compared to mag and volt at base.

Increasing the base stats would be the least that could be done so that Excalibur can begin to scale with better with health and armor mods. Again, without either the base stats or damage reduction within the kit, he cannot stay near enemies. Valkyr, Atlas, Gauss, Rhino, Baruuk, and Wukong either have very high base stats or ability sets that allow them damage reduction. Many of them have both, Excalibur has neither. Additionally, three of the frames listed have the ability to heal themselves, making building into health worthwhile innately and reducing the need for mod slots, arcanes or other equipment dedicated to doing so. 

Valkyr has nearly two and a half times the armor Excalibur does AND has an ability that grants her armor AND can become invulnerable with lifesteal. 

Wukong has more base health AND an armor bonus, status cleanse, true invulnerability and damage reflection + multiplication in ONE ABILITY AND an ability that makes him true invulnerability, invisibility, such high mobility that it needed to be nerfed multiple times, and health regeneration in ONE ABILITY. 

Baruuk has damage reduction on his passive and two abilities in addition to whatever they do by themselves, in addition to an ability that also makes him literally unable to be shot. He can build for either evasion or the ability to literally tank 9999 enemies better than anyone who isn't Trinity or Rhino with an absurd combination of interactions by putting on about three mods. 

Gauss from him passive alone was so tanky that DE had to acknowledge that leaving shield recharge delay uncapped was a mistake. Not to mention that he has the ability to reduce 100% of all common enemy damage types in addition to improving just about every speed based aspect of every part of his entire arsenal. 

Atlas not only has more than double his base armor, he has barriers, minions, and a passive that can heal him. He has two passives, effectively. So does Gauss, Baruuk, Voruna and I guess Wukong.

Asking for Excalibur to at the least have hardiness to be able to lose his shields without dying almost instantly before I start to build additional survivability on him is unreasonable because increasing armor has diminishing returns? Are you joking? 

5 hours ago, AsffluffyZ said:

2. Slash dash does give survivability as you yourself stated and it does give mobility. Changing the momentum is your preference as there is no objective means to judge whether the ability have momentum actually improves gameplay for slash dash.

Slash dash does NOT give the survivability required for a melee based frame. As was already described his shields are currently the best defense he has. They are not protected. Additionally, the invulnerability has no overhang like the similar, more useful and more powerful ability Landslide has.

Changing and fixing momentum are things that are present in nearly every dashing ability aside from Slash Dash, because using the dash and going the way you have cast the ability allows the ability to do what the ability should be designed to do. This is why almost every other frame with a dashing ability properly converts momentum because that is a better design than spending 25 energy to go backwards, or any direction other than specifically the direction in which you cast the ability. 

In addition, the fact that it cannot modify momentum properly objectively causes to to get stuck and miss enemies, or approach enemies even slower than it is properly meant to and literally time-out, completely wasting 25 energy. In fact, it's a common enough issue that it's labelled a bug in the fandom. There are multiple times where you can see Excalibur Slash Dash to an enemy, lose height, hit a wall and then awkwardly rub up and down the wall instead of going to the target that you spent energy to damage. 

5 hours ago, AsffluffyZ said:

3. Yes blind should be the same throughout the whole game. If you are missing enemies with your blind I recommend using more range so you cast it less. Blinded enemies are vulnerable to finishers which have moddable damage multipliers; finishers also trigger arcane trickery and ultimatum for invisibility and high amounts of armor.

Which entirely side steps the argument and objective reality that it is a Line of Sight restricted ability that has no overhang or persistent after effects that abilities such as Shooting Gallery, Breach Surge, and Lull have, being able to capture enemies after they have either walked slightly into range or out from behind enemies. There are more examples from all around the game, Molecular Prime, Pillage, Polarize, and Renewal. These were designed understanding that the game is hectic and a simple, binary "yes or no" Line of Sight checks are not good enough to properly effect enemies that are approaching from different locations or behind small obstacles.

Adding more and more range, even max range, does not fix the poor line of sight checks and lack of compensation for it at the base of the design, and thus would need to be changed to make the ability more reliable, consistent, and efficient at ANY range percentage.

5 hours ago, AsffluffyZ said:

ultimatum for invisibility and high amounts of armor.

4. Radial javelin should pull enemies in more than giving bonus melee damage or damage reduction so that the ability enhances and reinforces the melee playstyle

Radial Javelin doing anything at all for any benefit or synergy to the total kit is more than what it currently does now. Thank you for finally contributing something to forward the topic.

5 hours ago, AsffluffyZ said:

5. Your suggestion for exalted blade neglects that exalted blade and normal melees can have different builds that don't mesh well. Exalted blade also works with tennokai meaning you would have to mod all your melees to use tennokai to use it with exalted blade. The difference between garuda's claws and exalted blade is that one is always on the warframe and the other is SUMMONED not UNHOLSTERED. Your suggestion is to add blade waves to any and all melee weapons regardless of stance or what it would take to incorporate the effect to weapon types like polearms and rapiers that have non-slashing attacks.

This is completely wrong and doesn't relate to what was suggested for Exalted Blade.

The suggestion was to make Exalted Blade it's own weapon rather than an ability, which is what Garuda's Talons are. Then change the ability "Exalted Blade" to give buffs directly to the melee weapon Excalibur is using and allow Excalibur to either have the freedom to use any melee that he fancies with additional benefits or return to the exalted blade itself by unequipping others with an additional caveat that this could be expanded upon, being able to pull out Exalted Blade to replace whatever melee is currently being used so that he can effectively have two melee weapons for two definitive purposes with all of the proper scaling, mods, and balances changes that DE implements over the years.

Summoning the blade plays an animation where Excalibur physically draws the weapon. Whether or not that is summoning or unholstering, the point is that not only have unholstering animations been removed from melee weapons in total(they have not been removed, you can still view them. However, even during the animation of unholstering them forcibly by holding the weapon button, you can swing the weapon during any part of the animation, cancelling it immediately), you have to spend a minimum of 26.5 energy to swing the weapon ONE TIME and actually have real usage of the weapon. 25 energy literally does not allow you to even use the weapon for a single swing. It is 25 energy to look at the animation, and nothing else.

Casting this ability to start should not cost any energy, especially since it does not provide Excalibur any benefit what-so-ever other than being a different melee weapon. And if the weapon isn't in play, it is absorbing energy for literally no reason. It doesn't passively grant Excalibur any effects by default like damage reduction, invulnerability or maintain an actual growing effect like Mesa's focus and fire rate, or maintaining Valkyr's damage storage.

If the weapon is being swung, it is entirely reasonable for it to consume energy either at a per second or per hit rate, assuming it were actually worth using or more powerful than other melee weapons, but considering it is just currently a worse Hate incarnon and provides no benefits other than existing, it makes no sense that it consumes 25 energy to be literally useless, and then 2.5 energy per second to simply exist.

AKA: The same channeling that Gloom currently has or channeling more similar to Ash's Blade Storm. Gloom even, when no enemies are within its radius, still allows you to regenerate energy from all regeneration effects and still gives you lifesteal. Exalted blade costs 2.5 energy per second to sit in your pocket. Blade Storm not only costs nothing to simply activate, it effectively banks the energy, but if something happens and nothing is actually executed, it refunds your energy. This actually means that if you're smart, Ash has DOUBLE the energy capacity he's supposed to have or more. Excalibur spends 25 energy to do literally nothing but stun lock himself for 0.7 seconds. 

5 hours ago, AsffluffyZ said:

6. Most melee oriented frames atlas, valkyr, baruuk, khora, wukong, voruna, and kulervo have passives that actually improve melee abilities. kulervo and voruna give heavy attack efficiency, and valkyr has warcry. Warcry being the only one to improve all melee weapons and heavy attack efficiency becomes pointless with tennokai giving free heavy attack

Valkyr, Atlas and Voruna also have the ability to recover from knockdown quickly and or be unable to be knocked down, respectively. Even though Voruna has multiple passive, so I suppose she can be excluded, the point again is that the passive is not only entirely insubstantial, it doesn't improve Excalibur total gameplay as a melee frame. Almost all other melee oriented frames do have passive that apply to their entire identity as a melee frame.

At least if Valkyr does get knocked down while in melee range, she's able to get back up more quickly than most other frames. At least if Atlas or Voruna are close to enemies, they cannot be knocked down and that allows them to ignore mods like Primed Sure Footed, saving them a mod slot for anything else that can possibly go in the exilus slot like speed in any of its various iterations or set mods to synergize with an overall loadout. 

5 hours ago, AsffluffyZ said:

How does this apply to skill with daggers, greats words, and two-handed nikanas when excal gets bonuses to rapiers, swords, dual swords, and nikanas. Daggers are not swords they are knives and not used the same way a short sword is. Given the weapons that receive the bonus are all capable of being used with one hand it is logical to say excal is a master swordsman in one-handed and dual-wielding sword styles. Great swords and two-handed nikanas are weapon styles that appear to fall outside of excalibur's "master swordsmanship". I do agree that it does not make sense that dual nikanas do not get the benefit from the passive as it is a one-handed dual-wielding sword style (though I chock it up to the weapon not being prevelant in the game for them to add it to the passive).

It is actually less feasible to think a person can master all weapon styles rather than choose to excel in similar forms of weapon usage.

Because of what was already said under the video of the same post that you quoted this from: The difference between all of these categories are not logical in the game. Excalibur's passive applies to dual swords, yes? Dual Cleavers are dual swords. AKA literal chef's knives. Excalibur uses them with the exact same proficiency as a Katana. The Dual Cleavers are also smaller than the Fang Prime. The Ceramic dagger is literally a Cronus that is the same length, but both wider and thicker, held backwards. The difference between the Dual Ether and the Ether Dagger is that one of the total four blades is slightly longer. So despite having great proficiency with a Dagger and Sword combo, suddenly he forgets how daggers work when one of the two blades he was already holding is slightly shorter?

The Dual Zoren are Dual Swords. You're gonna argue those are actually axes and not swords? Excalibur's passive says they're actually axe shaped swords.

The Dual Kamas are Dual Swords. You're going to argue that those are actually Kamas and not swords? Excalibur's passive says that's actually kama shaped swords. Yet Excalibur for some reason forgets how to use Kamas when it's just one, because the Kama itself isn't actually part of his passive, but the Dual Kama are. Because that makes sense. 

Hell, the Machete is literally just one Cleaver but bigger, and has the exact same profile and size as the Broken War, which he can use under his passive, he just swings them both differently for no reason so Machete is apparently not a sword while broken war is because Excalibur just likes the look of the broken war more, apparently. 

The Nami Skyla are two of the weapons he can't use under his passive, a Machete(Nami Solo) and a Dagger(what most closely resembles the Karyst but small enough to actually be called a pocket knife instead). Yet you put them together and suddenly they're just Dual Swords, and Excalibur can use them both extremely well.

Instead of doing this awkward waddle of adding weapons to Excalibur passive every time they create a new logical extension to a category and excluding categories for... No real reason, include all categories of melee weapons so that the frame that has the namesake of the sword of legend actually is a master swordsman.

Instead of DE doing this utter nonsense of adding melee categories, forgetting Excalibur's passive even exists, and then needing several thousand people to scream at them just to finally remember to add the weapon category to his passive, they could give him his insignificant buff to all melee categories so that the frame that is named after the sword of legend, which doesn't even have a definitive description and has been depicted as almost literally every type of straight sword, from long sword to short sword to greatswords, can wield any melee that the Tenno can use.

5 hours ago, AsffluffyZ said:

So report me if you think i'm spamming, I have responded to the original, replies quoting my own, and one response about slash dash and status effects. Anyone who wholly moderates this thread would see as much. If you can handle criticism constructive or not and if you can handle when someone calls out your flaws in logic and points of dishonesty then just block them. Concepts improve through clashes in ideology and free thought, not by living in an echo chamber with no new input. 😑

When you reply to the same topic multiple times in a row using different comments rather than editing the ones that you have created less than a few minutes prior, you are flooding. The point is not reporting you, but that you lack respect and self-awareness, are ignorant not only of the contents of the OP -- or almost any of the things you have quoted since you have only looked at them piecemeal -- but the basic etiquette of replying to a post and have thus wasted time AND space, as it matters much less how long a single comment is, but more how many comments there are per page.

Almost none of the suggestions from others in this thread have I agreed with, but they at least put forth effort into improving the total design of Excalibur for the sake of improving Excalibur and I've respected their effort and commended them because even if it's not my changes specifically or even if I disagree with the total idea, any improvement or attempt to improve this frame would be more than what he currently is. They did not argue with the most basic logic in the beginning of a total deconstruction of an entire character, that touches on every part of every aspect with large headers that specifically denote what's to be addressed, based on 'but unmodded is different than modded.'

You have literally read the cover of a book and imagined both the middle and end to say that it's a bad book.

You have NO constructive criticism, and have called out flaws in logic that you created through not actually reading the topic you're responding to. The only 'dishonesty' here is you pretending you have any understanding of what this topic is about.

You meant disingenuous, my claims that someone worth their salt would be able to use anything in the longsword category if they trained with anything in the longsword category. This was a disingenuous claim, as it is not possible for a human to be able to use and do everything.

But we're not talking about humans, we're talking about Excalibur. A fantasy space ninja assassin samurai infested techno soldier who can defy gravity and summon a glowy lightsaber. Being slightly more proficient with the melee arsenal is a small ask when he literally violates thermodynamics because he feels like it. 

Edited January 7 by Yasha-7HS

[Xaero]

As a fellow Excalibur player, I absolutely agree. Let's hope this will get more attention.

 

Though regarding Umbra's passive, I'd leave it as is but with one simple fix to losing all active buffs and abilities.

It's obvious that sentient Umbra is a different entity from Umbra used directly by the player. Since Umbra's introduction in 2018 and up to some point not too long ago (this year I think) there was a way to keep the buffs after transferring: wait for sentient Umbra to "die" from enemy fire. After receiving critical damage sentient Umbra was replaced by stationary Umbra - the very Umbra used directly by player. And that stationary Umbra kept everything, like any other frame after transference.

One of the recent updates changed the process by keeping sentient Umbra on screen - after receiving critical damage he just kneels, and stationary Umbra never appears. So whatever you do, you lose your buffs.

So what's the simple fix? Bring back stationary Umbra, but not upon sentient Umbra's "death" - tie his return to transference button.

Player enters operator form > sentient Umbra appears > player presses transference button again > sentient Umbra is replaced by stationary Umbra and at the same moment player regains control of the frame > all buffs and active abilities are kept.

Edited January 9 by Xaero

[Lightningluster]

I've been trying to make Excalibur work for months now, and seem to keep hitting issues, usually either doing middling/pathetic damage or just losing survivability almost entirely to try and fix that. Kullervo's subsume helps a lot with damage, but his base kit is just not good enough to tank steelpath if you want to build into strength whatsoever. Gloom feels like his best helminth option, but he still dies semi regularly if you aren't actively trying to shieldgate, which again kills your damage output.

I feel like all he needs is a buff to his 4, and either a rework or replacement to his 1 or 3 that gives some kind of strong survivability tech and he'd be alright. Radial blind is good as is, but it isn't enough to keep him alive, like, at all by itself.

Those two things would probably be enough to make him viable, but some stance combo changes (like the slide mentioned), and maybe building in stuff like chromatic blade would help a lot. The fact he basically needs that augment sucks, and he already has strong competition for his mod slots.

[K1LLZ0NE]

Yeh, my boy is in a bad spot rn.  Needs some serious attention but then again, many do so I doubt we'll see anything any time soon.  Expectations for Excal are low, as he is considered a "starter" warframe, so no one really mentions how bad he is.  Focus is always drawn towards others.

[Famecans]

You have 400 thousand kills with excalibur, awesome.

Exalted blade is a slow attack with projectile path, have a AoE but is limited compared to other AoE skills so 400 thousand kills is a very large number for Excalibur. I have 600 thousand kills with Atlas but Landslide has a much larger hitting area than Excalibur. Atlas Landslide has 1 second of invulnerability(also fails like Excalibur), it is an obvious mechanic as Atlas is inevitably forced to touch enemies face to face like Excalibur skill 1 2 and 3.

I agree with the topic focus, for me Excalibur is a frame completely focused on short-range attacks, Exalted is a AoE but is slow with projectle path, for me Excalibur necessarily needs evasion or endurance survival skills as it is constantly in close proximity to enemys.

 

[(XBOX)CravingStream87]

Good post, well written, regardless of which points I agree or disagree with. Excalibur could certainly use some retouching. Much of his kit is still viable for most of the game content, but he is falling behind a bit. I agree that his abilities lack somewhat in today's meta. Some of his abilities need to be clarified in their text to better explain to us what the purpose and result of each ability are. So many revisions have happened and resulted in a kit that is "all over the place" so to speak.

In defense of Excalibur's passive, I have spent many years learning various swordfighting styles and forms, and I can assure you, to master one is not to master all. A longsword (by majority definition) has a straight, dual edged blade, where a katana (obviously we all know what they look like) is curved and single edged. The grips, guards, and pommels are different by a large degree. Attacking or defending in a form that works for a katana will not deliver the same effect with a different blade type, trust me you can test this yourself (safely).

Excalibur could certainly have mastered a katana and curved blade, and still hold a longsword like a baseball bat. Any sword can be swung, but they all cut and wield in their own design. I have personally seen people transitioning from one art to a new one and experience extreme clumsiness until getting a real feel for the weight and balance. In essence, a skilled hibachi chef or backyard barbeque master is unlikely to wield a heavy longsword with the same ability they would exhibit with a santoku or butcher knife..

You do have valid points and I appreciate that you gave so many examples and possible solutions. 

[Xaero]

3 hours ago, (XBOX)CravingStream87 said:

In defense of Excalibur's passive, I have spent many years learning various swordfighting styles and forms, and I can assure you, to master one is not to master all. A longsword (by majority definition) has a straight, dual edged blade, where a katana (obviously we all know what they look like) is curved and single edged. The grips, guards, and pommels are different by a large degree. Attacking or defending in a form that works for a katana will not deliver the same effect with a different blade type, trust me you can test this yourself (safely).

Excalibur could certainly have mastered a katana and curved blade, and still hold a longsword like a baseball bat. Any sword can be swung, but they all cut and wield in their own design. I have personally seen people transitioning from one art to a new one and experience extreme clumsiness until getting a real feel for the weight and balance. In essence, a skilled hibachi chef or backyard barbeque master is unlikely to wield a heavy longsword with the same ability they would exhibit with a santoku or butcher knife..

I don't think the game, and its melee system in particular, is trying to cater to real life logic.

[(XBOX)CravingStream87]

19 hours ago, Xaero said:

I don't think the game, and its melee system in particular, is trying to cater to real life logic.

You're certainly right, but I was throwing out a possible reason the restriction could be explained, since the OP referenced the concept that any blade wields the same

[Yasha-7HS]

On 2024-02-02 at 8:35 PM, (XBOX)CravingStream87 said:

You're certainly right, but I was throwing out a possible reason the restriction could be explained, since the OP referenced the concept that any blade wields the same

I did make a rather disingenuous claim, and I apologize for the way that it was said. The only reason I don't edit the OP is that I don't want to be accused of changing my words/altering my meanings to make it seem like someone was wrong if they weren't. 

What I really meant was that I just want more consistency between his passive and weapon types if the passive is so weak. The simplest way would be encompassing all melees due to DE's inability(due to the scope of the game) to hyperfocus on one Warframe's passive every time they make new content. 

On 2024-02-01 at 9:42 PM, (XBOX)CravingStream87 said:

Some of his abilities need to be clarified in their text to better explain to us what the purpose and result of each ability are. So many revisions have happened and resulted in a kit that is "all over the place" so to speak.

And yes, this is what I would like solved mainly. They changed him a LOT but unfortunately I feel he got left at "good enough" and then EB's exploits at the time, before they had their own mod config, took over and forced changes on just that aspect instead of his whole kit. 

Fun fact is that a lot of the tips in his ability page in the game aren't actually correct, and reference things that don't exist anymore. :P 

On 2024-01-24 at 10:14 AM, Famecans said:

Atlas Landslide has 1 second of invulnerability(also fails like Excalibur), it is an obvious mechanic as Atlas is inevitably forced to touch enemies face to face like Excalibur

Funnily enough things like this was how this topic grew into a deconstruction on Excalibur in total. I was going to originally make a thread on how Slash Dash needed true invulnerability, then how many dashing abilities needed true invulnerability and overhang.

I'd have made more threads but I wanted to leave the more in-depths for people more familiar to those other frames than me. But I hope they take a more measured approach: If they fix Slash Dash, at the same time they could fix things like Rhino's Charge, Landslide and Wrathful advance with a bit of invulnerability overyhang. 

Focused on Excal, but a lot of these criticisms apply to other frames, too. 

[Sarge38]

Going to revive this again because I’ve been playing excal for the past three weeks and will likely continue to do so, as he is the best looking melee frame imo.

 

I'm running him with arcane reaper, and umbral vitality, fibre and adaption for survivability, which while reaper isn’t maxed (yet) as long as I’m keeping my daikyu life steal up with nikanas I’m relatively okay, I’ve subsumed his 4 to kullervos 1, and as far as damage goes meshing that with his javelin augment I don’t have an issue with damage.

the things I do have an issue with however:

Radial blind takes too long to cast, for limited benefit which has already been covered

slash dash while I use it for survivability and a touch of mobility, is otherwise useless - pitiful damage, no crits, even the slash it procs is piss tier (I know it’s weapon dependent but still, my nikana does stupid high bleed so) and without the augment, as I switched out for adaption, doesn’t REALLY serve much of a use so it’s basically locked to survival.

radial javelin is pointless without the augment - utterly and totally. I run something stupid like %250 ability strength and it still does no damage which would be fine if you didn’t take 10 years to cast it, and it actually had a benefit outside of the augment. Giving him something like an extra %90 dr during the animation, and maybe evoking some weakness in hit targets (if not just make the augment base) then you’d be set imo. Hell you could make javelin synergise with slash dash if say once you javelined, each target is “marked” and hitting slash dash would zip between each target at a high pace (assuming slash dashes damage is also buffed) then Atleast you keep the charm of a blade master frame while giving him an option to deal with groups at ultra high level rather than just primer + con overload build.

 

lastly his exalted blade. Hard for me to comment as I don’t use it but still my thoughts. As an exalted weapon, I feel it completely removes the charm of having a melee frame, but this is a personal opinion. The moveset actually feels really good, but most if not all people use it exclusively for sword beams - taking away from the melee aspect. I would like to have exalted blade be THE premier exalted sword, with sword beams perhaps being grouped in with chromatic blade, with the downside of no longer being able to slot acolyte mods. Hell power fantasy here but having exalted blade be a channeled buff to your main melee similar to the old channeling system could also be a cool way of increasing synergy across his whole loadout. 

It would be fantastic for the melee frame, to have some level of grouping or reliable multi target damage. Slash dash could very easily fill that roll, but personally would like the animation and speed for slash dash to be sped up rather than a slow meander over to a pitiful slash.

as it stands, kullervo is basically a straight upgrade in all aspects but visual appeal, having solid survivability, insanely good group killing, a stupidly funny gap closer / buff, and a combo building aoe which promotes heavy attack usage on top of his passive.

 

comparing both side by side and you’d find that kullervo just seems to be better in every regard - and even more fitting of the title blade master. But this isn’t a kullervo thread so lmao.

excal doesn’t need much, but certainly needs something to keep up I think. 

[MisterHalt]

It hurts that my boy feels so lacklustre. I kept trying to take him out on missions but he's slow, weak and brittle. He's in desperate need of a major overhaul. Nowadays all I really use him for is linking in chat and wandering around hubs.

I don't have access to the subsume thing (I keep taking breaks from this game for other things. Only 2286 hours), but I reckon if you're stripping out his abilities for those of another frame to make him viable... just play another frame.

[Sephylon086918]

8 hours ago, MisterHalt said:

It hurts that my boy feels so lacklustre. I kept trying to take him out on missions but he's slow, weak and brittle. He's in desperate need of a major overhaul. Nowadays all I really use him for is linking in chat and wandering around hubs.

I don't have access to the subsume thing (I keep taking breaks from this game for other things. Only 2286 hours), but I reckon if you're stripping out his abilities for those of another frame to make him viable... just play another frame.

But you do know his slash dash is capable of critting and can 1 tap even sp mobs while making you immune to hp damage, yes? Excal/prime excap is better than umbral for this since they don't have 3 umbral slots and they don't need an augment to not wander off and turn off your buffs when you go operator mode to wait out a status or deal with an angel or something.

 

Also why not look at the helminth is an expansion of his kit? You were saying his 2 or 3 is useless anyway, so why not take one of them out (incase it needs to be said, you can only swap out 1 skill per loadout) for a skill you find useful; Find him too squishy? Slap on eclipse to get dr, or gloom to get lifesteal and an aoe slow.

Also without the helminth segment you don't have access to archon shards, so you can't full strip armor with just corrosion and lose out on crit damage on melee weps, more shields/armor/health regen. Basically a whole other world of options for you.

Edited Monday at 06:38 PM by Sephylon086918

[Thorham]

For which content is Excalibur (Umbra) so bad then?

Edited Wednesday at 06:03 PM by Thorham

[Mr_Stach]

Honestly if they just made you fully immune during slash dash instead of just health immune, that would fix a bunch of issues I see people talking about. I personally really enjoy the new Slash dash and building a ton of combo and such. I definitely don't have as many hours into excalibro as you guys but the only I see is that it feels like Slash Dash basically powercreeped exalted blade, it's cheaper, is more fun to use (for me) and you can use The Ceramic Dagger Incarnon to buff its crit and such.

Anyways that's my 2 cents from a place that isn't thousands of hours on Excal. Maybe I'm wrong but at least I have fun every time I play Excalibur, not every frame can say that (I'm looking at you Oberon) 

[Agall]

1 hour ago, Mr_Stach said:

Honestly if they just made you fully immune during slash dash instead of just health immune, that would fix a bunch of issues I see people talking about. I personally really enjoy the new Slash dash and building a ton of combo and such. I definitely don't have as many hours into excalibro as you guys but the only I see is that it feels like Slash Dash basically powercreeped exalted blade, it's cheaper, is more fun to use (for me) and you can use The Ceramic Dagger Incarnon to buff its crit and such.

Anyways that's my 2 cents from a place that isn't thousands of hours on Excal. Maybe I'm wrong but at least I have fun every time I play Excalibur, not every frame can say that (I'm looking at you Oberon) 

That doesn't fix the effectively useless damage of Radial Javelin past lvl 50 or so enemies. The shield damage he takes during Slash Dash can be entirely mitigated and can be beneficial with the right setup. It'll still proc [Arcane Aegis] if that's a strong hint.

Radial Javelin needs to be a pseudo-exalted. It'll seal the deal on his kit and put him back on the board for AoE nukes, whether thats with EB or with an incarnon stat stick.

I only recently learned that polarizing your stuff resets the XP counter, me having over 50 polarizations of my Excalibur. I think I'm at 65% usage at the moment and about 500M affinity. I must've gotten to like 250M affinity dozens of times by now since I'd usually polarize ever couple months over the last decade. Once I hit 1B affinity, I'll probably go back to polarizing him to test other builds fully.

[Mr_Stach]

33 minutes ago, Agall said:

That doesn't fix the effectively useless damage of Radial Javelin past lvl 50 or so enemies. The shield damage he takes during Slash Dash can be entirely mitigated and can be beneficial with the right setup. It'll still proc [Arcane Aegis] if that's a strong hint.

Radial Javelin needs to be a pseudo-exalted. It'll seal the deal on his kit and put him back on the board for AoE nukes, whether thats with EB or with an incarnon stat stick.

I only recently learned that polarizing your stuff resets the XP counter, me having over 50 polarizations of my Excalibur. I think I'm at 65% usage at the moment and about 500M affinity. I must've gotten to like 250M affinity dozens of times by now since I'd usually polarize ever couple months over the last decade. Once I hit 1B affinity, I'll probably go back to polarizing him to test other builds fully.

I wonder if they made it additionally scale with Combo Counter, you could utilize building up combo counter quickly with Slash Dash then having a big Bomb Javelin, could be an interesting gameplay loop 

[Agall]

5 minutes ago, Mr_Stach said:

I wonder if they made it additionally scale with Combo Counter, you could utilize building up combo counter quickly with Slash Dash then having a big Bomb Javelin, could be an interesting gameplay loop 

I have a thread discussing various ideas, including coding it as a heavy attack similar to Wrathful Advance.

Slash Dash damage does scale off of combo counter and would synergize with [Surging Dash] if they did so.

I think at the root, the ability needs to be a pseudo-exalted to keep up.

How they go about it, like if it works almost exactly the same as Slash Dash and scaling off combo would be nice synergy. The idea of making it coded as a heavy attack would keep people from spamming it without having to add a cooldown. Part of the idea being that it can get a free heavy attack with a tennokai proc like Wrathful Advance. Effectively being coded as a 'heavy slam' or such.

If they did that change, I would actually have to make a hard choice on what ability to subsume off for Wrathful Advance, if its even worth it at that point. It would likely be trading Radial Blind or Exalted Blade, depending on if I wanted to run a stat stick build or an EB build. 

I feel like the goal of every Warframe should be to have subsuming over an ability a compromise. I think Dante is a perfect example of this, where he really has no ability that's so terrible that you're removing it. Excalibur could be the same with Radial Javelin being a pseudo-exalted.

[Agall]

3 hours ago, Thorham said:

For which content is Excalibur (Umbra) so bad then?

Its not that's he's bad in any particular way, I think primarily there's just a giant hole in his kit where Radial Javelin sits currently.

Just imagine if Radial Javelin did capable damage, how much more useful Excalibur would be.

 

Beyond simple that would be a massive rework would be something like this: 

 

New Passive: Excalibur's abilities inherent the stats of his equipped melee if that melee is a sword. 

That would make any sword type weapon (with the current list hopefully to include two handed swords/nikanas) directly affect Slash Dash and Radial Javelin and their CC/CD/SC, where Exalted Blade would be an inherent option. Ideally then, Exalted Blade would work similar to Garuda's claws and be a basic form of sword until you cast his #4 which turns it into a proper Exalted weapon (that would eliminate the waves and not have [Chromatic Blade] be applied, the slide blind, energy drain, etc). 

[Vermillion-Code]

On 2024-01-06 at 7:19 AM, DarkSkysz said:

Take your own advice. Spend less time crying on forum and more ingame to learn how to play excall :D

But I guess you are just frustated. Playing only one frame and still being bad with him. But don't give up, keep wasting your time. I doubt you will get any better, but keep trying ofc.

You really should have taken his advice and stuck to yourself. Nobody cares about your input in any capacity whatsoever.

On topic - If you take a look at "melee frames" I'm sure, as OP touched on, he is by far and away the worst. It's not even funny.

Baruuk has almost entirely all of his function, range and all, and does it with supreme tankability. Even has an adapting element/status based augment (sound familiar?)

You have Voruna, who is either a fantastic stealth frame or completely and utterly immortal while buffing the weapon she uses to absurd levels with +100% flat Status, Crit, Crit Multiplier and forced slash procs on ANY melee weapon she uses.

You have Kullervo, who again brings survivability (like all the other frames NOT named Excalibur), mass amounts of AoE and absolutely absurd weapon buffing in the form of flat crit chance.
 

Excalibur absolutely is weak, regardless of what a certain individual lacking in intelligence wants to claim. His exalted is weaker than a normal melee weapon with a melee arcane and Tennokai, his survivability is terrible, his weapon buffing is non-existent without an augment, and his CC, while good, is CC in current day Warframe.

I see no reason outside of aesthetics to use Excalibur, and even then you're doing several times the work in order to do several magnitudes less than other frames. His survivability is downright insulting in Steel Path even compared to (or especially compared to) the other starters.

Edited Friday at 01:35 AM by Vermillion-Code

[Mr.DaburuKaramu]

MR8 min maxer and meta slave here (also SP circulus survival level cap enjoyer) with an irrational love for tha poster boy, my bro excal. What some if not most people fail to realise is that ever since Whispers in the Walls, excal can be modded in a way that trivializes SP survival with a KPM far beyond a 100. His effective damage output is so high that most frames without a damaging ability fall far behind, excal however can now easily scale to any enemy lvl imaginable. Key to making all this possible is to thoroughly understand the strengths of his 4 while making excal survive with a modern shield gate build using his 2 as a spam ability (which in fact isn't required at all). He doesn't even need much strength to do all this, in case anyone is interested I can elaborate on how to make him probably the most powerful exalted melee frame in the game. And very gladly I'll back up all of it by inviting you to my game or perhaps even uploading a vid some time. 

 

All in all, excal is by far my favourite frame and he is the most chill right now to mow through steel path blindfold with infinite scaling - not breaking a sweat with him. Even my ultra efficient volt build doesn't feel as nice to play compared to him. He is extremely rewarding when you finally master him and can take him anywhere which most wouldn't believe could be done. 

[--Leyenda-yight6]

hace 32 minutos, Mr.DaburuKaramu dijo:

MR8 min maxer and meta slave here (also SP circulus survival level cap enjoyer) with an irrational love for tha poster boy, my bro excal. What some if not most people fail to realise is that ever since Whispers in the Walls, excal can be modded in a way that trivializes SP survival with a KPM far beyond a 100. His effective damage output is so high that most frames without a damaging ability fall far behind, excal however can now easily scale to any enemy lvl imaginable. Key to making all this possible is to thoroughly understand the strengths of his 4 while making excal survive with a modern shield gate build using his 2 as a spam ability (which in fact isn't required at all). He doesn't even need much strength to do all this, in case anyone is interested I can elaborate on how to make him probably the most powerful exalted melee frame in the game. And very gladly I'll back up all of it by inviting you to my game or perhaps even uploading a vid some time. 

 

All in all, excal is by far my favourite frame and he is the most chill right now to mow through steel path blindfold with infinite scaling - not breaking a sweat with him. Even my ultra efficient volt build doesn't feel as nice to play compared to him. He is extremely rewarding when you finally master him and can take him anywhere which most wouldn't believe could be done. 

All warframes can reach the maximum level and trivialize it, that's no surprise, since you are MR 8, I imagine you haven't played with many warframes, because Excalibur's 4 is not even close to being the best exalted in the game, also, As As already mentioned, other melee-focused warframes are much stronger and more versatile. If you think Excalibur does a lot of damage, you should try what Voruna and Kullervo can do.

[Mr.DaburuKaramu]

vor 4 Stunden schrieb --Leyenda-yight6:

All warframes can reach the maximum level and trivialize it, that's no surprise, since you are MR 8, I imagine you haven't played with many warframes, because Excalibur's 4 is not even close to being the best exalted in the game, also, As As already mentioned, other melee-focused warframes are much stronger and more versatile. If you think Excalibur does a lot of damage, you should try what Voruna and Kullervo can do.

I'm quite convinced my Excal build can kill high level enemies quicker than any kullervo build currently out there. Or even better: why don't you compare your kullervo with my excal in the simulacrum or a mission? 😉 I'm not gonna lie, the build is not only about sheer damage. Sheer damage doesn't scale all that well afaik. With that being said, I'm pretty sure kullervo won't scale that well either if no slash based builds or additional sources of armor strip are used. On top of that, it's more difficult to keep kullervo alive once you hit high level enemies as he can't shield gate and overguard gate is much shorter as well.

Edited 10 hours ago by Mr.DaburuKaramu