Are exalted melee weapons even worth using?

[BriefLegendary]

So I main Baruuk and I tried to mod him many times, but it does not matter since there is really only one real option and that is to use a pseudo-stat-stick with the gladiator mods and build combo on that weapon so you gain the 330% crit chance on his Desert wind, while you also run melee guidance so it has -1 combo duration, since if you lose combo on his Desert wind the gladiator bonus doesn't apply until you lose all combo and have to begin again. Your pseudo-stat-stick has other combo duration mods so you can keep it at 12x combo with Naroman. On the actual Desert wind you put normal mods like on any melee EXCEPT acolyte mods, amalgam mods and combo duration mods. 

So the problem begins with melee weapons:

• They can't equip all of the melee mods mainly blood rush and weeping wounds which is a massive downside to me already, since I think of those mods as the best melee mods 

 

• They can't equip melee arcanes, so another aspect of modding that they do not posses

 

• They have separate combo counters from normal melees which isn't a problem but they can interact via the gladiator set bonus, which seems unintentional

 

The advantage they do have is that they scale with strength, but to me that isn't worth it for the above trade off, I mean Khora's whip also scales off power strength and can benefit from all of the above with a stat-stick and also has a very good augment for whipclaw.

The problems for Baruuk don't really stop there since to build combo on Desert wind itself is a huge pain since his waves don't count, he can't get high combo duration and the fists blow away enemies, the only real option is to ground slam into hoards of enemies which isn't always possible and it's a huge pain + you have a very limited time since his restraint is constantly recovering and when your restraint fully regenerates you lose all combo, which is also the case on all exalted melee weapons, but on Baruuk especially since he doesn't use energy but restraint which is harder to manage. Also his waves don't benefit from condition overload or range mods and I think it's the same for Excaliburs wave attack from his Exalted blade.

I know that you need to balance these melees because the scale of strength and can get up to 750 base damage with 300% strength but why can Khora do it, I always thought the energy drain was the counterbalance to this but that probably isn't sufficient enough, since we have so many energy sources. Baruuk especially suffers from it since he has an alternative resource which cannot be maintained as easily and the only thing making his melee viable (in higher level content) is his augment + the gladiator set jank which I dislike. I mean all of his abilities lead into his 4th and I think it gets outclassed by Khora and any melee in the game if Kullervo uses it.

 

I guess I'm just a salty Baruuk main, because Kullervo can do outclass me with one press of a button, and Khora too. It would be cool if at least the waves of desert wind build combo and Exalted blade's waves probably too. I mean Desert wind gains a damage multiplier if itself has combo build on it (up to 3.5x), because you have to manage restraint and combo at the same time and if you at any time regain your restraint back you lose all combo on Desert wind. I mean the very concept of restraint suggests that Desert wind is powerful and needs to be restrained but that is not really true unless you heavily invest into Baruuk with 5 violet shards, which I don't recommend (as a Baruuk main) you are better of putting them on Khora/ Kullervo and probably even any frame that would use incarnon melees.

 

As it stands now I think it's better if a weapon is pseudo-exalted instead of pure exalted.

[Aruquae]

32 minutes ago, BriefLegendary said:

As it stands now I think it's better if a weapon is pseudo-exalted instead of pure exalted.

Oh 100%, which is why a lot were complaining when DE said they were going to make pseudo exalted weapons actual exalted weapons. What is the point of having a strong ability and strong "melee" if we're restricted too much? Any melee can outclass exalted melee (purely by themselves) at this point

[Almxce]

Prioritize ability strength and if you have some red tau shards use those as well, Reactive Storm augment is a must as well. He can rampage through SP without the youtube min/max builds, I guess if you're going into max level territory that's where those builds will shine so knowing what level content you're engaging with would provide additional context.

[Numerounius]

Yes!!!!!! Look at what tools they have got instead of their problems:

Helminth, there are plenty of helminth abilities that help them out, warcry w/eternal war is my fave since it allows you to not have to press your abilities as often. Gloom also works for this or wrathful advance if you want to press abilities spammer.

Archon mods, use the archon mods to further boost damage output. There are some nifty tricks you can do with them, archon flow to upkeep energy, prevision intensify allowing you to run archon vitality instead etc.

Precision intensify exists as a nice damage boost.

Archon shards, too many options to list out. You don't need to just use the new ones.

Warframe arcane mods, arcane reaper, arcane fury, arcane strike etc.

[BriefLegendary]

24 minutes ago, Almxce said:

Prioritize ability strength and if you have some red tau shards use those as well, Reactive Storm augment is a must as well. He can rampage through SP without the youtube min/max builds, I guess if you're going into max level territory that's where those builds will shine so knowing what level content you're engaging with would provide additional context.

I have 319% strength, 128% duration, 45% efficiency, 100% range with his augment and melee guidance to have -1 combo duration on Desert wind, I also have 5 violet archon shards (one being taoforged) for melee crit damage when energy max is over 500 (with primed flow)  and I also run Arcane Fury and Molt Augmented (for final 376 strength). I have replaced his 1st with nourish (nourish is just so good with energy sustain and viral damage) and I also have venka pime for the gladiator set bonus which doesn't have to be on Desert wind (480% crit chance at 13x combo from 4 gladiator mods, since I also use gladiator Finesse on Baruuk). I used to think that the passive of venka didn't work with the gladiator set bonus, but apparently it does. And also Naroman for Melee combo counter decay. With that I can pretty much clear anything that isn't a boss or any weird enemy like a rouge voidrig in netracells. I have min maxed Baruuk for most content 

 

The reason I bring up Baruuk in the discussion of exalted melees is because he ultimately is the most powerful of the exalted melees which is not saying much, I mean I never heard anyone praise Wukong's Iron staff or Valkyr's talons. They are powerful given enough investment, they just aren't better then normal melee weapons and they require even more of an investment, because they are channeled abilities and at least required some thought when building the warframe itself while with normal melee weapons you just build them and they work pretty much on any warframe and if that warframe is Kullervo you can easily hit damage cap. Also pseudo exalted melee weapons such as Khora Whipclaw are better, because how they inherit mods and arcanes from your melee. To make exalted melees even worth talking about you just need so much more, for example with my build I must have Naroman, my Venka is utterly useless for everything except the gladiator set bonus on Desert wind , and I have to have Barruk with very high strength and Nourish for extra viral damgae. His augment also makes Desert wind worth it, without the augment its not nearly as good, since base status is only 15%. All of that while you use restraint instead of energy.

 

Excalibur can probably be brought up to a similar or better performance, since he has a similar augment and requires only energy instead of restraint.

 

This is more of a "Is it worth it discussion" and I think your resources are better spent elsewhere like Kullervo for example and Khora. Btw I mentioned Kullervo and Khora many times and this is not because I think they are overpowered and should be nerfed, in fact I think they are excellent frames and are actually worth the investment and they have more to them not just melee damage. 

[BriefLegendary]

13 minutes ago, Numerounius said:

Yes!!!!!! Look at what tools they have got instead of their problems:

Helminth, there are plenty of helminth abilities that help them out, warcry w/eternal war is my fave since it allows you to not have to press your abilities as often. Gloom also works for this or wrathful advance if you want to press abilities spammer.

Archon mods, use the archon mods to further boost damage output. There are some nifty tricks you can do with them, archon flow to upkeep energy, prevision intensify allowing you to run archon vitality instead etc.

Precision intensify exists as a nice damage boost.

Archon shards, too many options to list out. You don't need to just use the new ones.

Warframe arcane mods, arcane reaper, arcane fury, arcane strike etc.

For Helmint I would use Nourish for viral damage and energy sustain or Wrathful advance if you would rather use Arcane Energize.

Archon mods are not so good on Baruuk with the augment since he adapts damage, but I imagine they are better for other exalted melee frames.

Precision intensify is very underrated in my opinion, but sadly Baruuk also wants strength with his 3rd ability for more daggers, which is probably my favorite thing about Baruuk.

And Arcane Fury/ Strike would be my go to if not for even more strength with molt Augmented so I have to make use with only one and I  chose Fury

[Aldain]

I dunno about you but I still love my swooshing from Exalted Blade as much as I used to, though I do feel that its stance is kind of bad outside of the forward combo.

...I do wish it had a bit more base Crit chance and a better/unique heavy attack though, really all Exalted Melees should have a uniquely animated/functioning heavy attack imo.

[SneakyErvin]

Exalted dies more and more with every patch that introduces more options for normal melee.

I enjoyed Baruuk from time to time for massive AoE melee wiping. It kinda died off since I can just use guns for the same effect. Then came Dual Ichor, which uhm on its own wasnt that crazy, but then Melee Influence got released and turned Dual Ichor into insane melee AoE, and every other melee into crazy melee AoE without needing Baruuk.

DE should probably consider opening up more modding options for exalted melee and add arcanes slots to them aswell.

I mean, Baruuk has nice reach, but I can also just equip Nami Solo or Bo incarnon and get around 9m reach in total, together with Melee Incluence for a 20m spread, meaning you can effectively hit enemies up to 29m away with those weapons for a large part of their damage. While it is only the elemental status that procs a damage instance, that damage instance ignores follow through rules, so it still deals a nice portion of damage across that 20m area. And since you also smack/cut everyone within 9m or so, it ends up being alot of mobs hitting every other mod with an additional elemental attack aslong as your status and elemental eighting is high enough.

Edited February 13 by SneakyErvin

[UnstarPrime]

1 hour ago, SneakyErvin said:

Exalted dies more and more with every patch that introduces more options for normal melee.

This feels like a good overall summary of the situation.

I don't think many exalteds are contenders for "best melee in the game", but some of them are still "good enough" while having gimmicks that make them worth using.  Baruuk has reach and with his augment you can always be doing damage the enemy is weak to, and that's fun.  And while I haven't bothered to try it, Wukong's exalted has the interesting property of having a follow-through of 1, so I can see people still doing interesting things with it like the Kengineer did recently:

At the end of the day, I think the main issue most players will care about is whether the given weapon is good enough to effectively complete the content they want to do, and whether they're having fun while using it.  So whether exalted melee still feel viable is going to vary from person to person in accordance with their subjective needs.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Yes, but only for people that actually use more than 1 forma.

[(XBOX)zThulsaDoomz]

6 hours ago, Aruquae said:

Oh 100%, which is why a lot were complaining when DE said they were going to make pseudo exalted weapons actual exalted weapons. What is the point of having a strong ability and strong "melee" if we're restricted too much? Any melee can outclass exalted melee (purely by themselves) at this point

Finally someone came out and said it.  Exalted weapons can be extremely limiting on build variety.

And yet most people want more of them.  It's baffling tbh

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

1 hour ago, (XBOX)zThulsaDoomz said:

Finally someone came out and said it.  Exalted weapons can be extremely limiting on build variety.

And yet most people want more of them.  It's baffling tbh

It's not baffling at all....most people aren't doing 12 hour runs, so any properly modded exalted weapon will do the job. 

Some people also play for fun, instead of playing to make spreadsheets and ask for buffs to constantly overtake the most strongest build.

[(XBOX)zThulsaDoomz]

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

It's not baffling at all....most people aren't doing 12 hour runs, so any properly modded exalted weapon will do the job. 

Some people also play for fun, instead of playing to make spreadsheets and ask for buffs to constantly overtake the most strongest build.

So because someone asks for build variety you automatically default to endurance runs and the "strongest builds?" 

This is a weird response ngl

[ominumi]

This is alluding to the fact guns has before galvenize mods. Stacking buffs. The other issue is ability strength only buff exaulted damage. Not crit chance, not status chance, not even attack speed. Just one number: damage. Exaulted weapons need to be affected by other mods as well.

[BriefLegendary]

1 hour ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

It's not baffling at all....most people aren't doing 12 hour runs, so any properly modded exalted weapon will do the job. 

Some people also play for fun, instead of playing to make spreadsheets and ask for buffs to constantly overtake the most strongest build.

This is true. I don't think this is a massive issue by any means. It just makes certain frames seem almost obsolete, since they at minimum have at least one ability that is by all means outclassed, which isn't even that bad compared to some other frames like Caliban. I don't know the reason why they just don't add arcanes and certain mods to exalted melees, the solution seems to be just an arms length away. Anyway It's a niche balancing issue at most.

[(PSN)robotwars7]

4 hours ago, (XBOX)zThulsaDoomz said:

Finally someone came out and said it.  Exalted weapons can be extremely limiting on build variety.

And yet most people want more of them.  It's baffling tbh

I'm still processing how some people wanted Dagath to have an exalted Kaithe... yes, you read that correctly..

Exalted weapons as a whole need a rework. or at least I'd say they should all be given ludicrous stats, but drain a lot of energy, so they serve as a sort of "time to get serious" escalation mode for the warframes that have them, for combat situations that a player (especially newer players) might otherwise find more difficult. you wouldn't be able to run exalted melees for the entire mission non-stop, but then I'm not sure that was ever DE's intention with them to begin with.

at the very least they should be given all the same benefits that regular melee enjoys, and then DE can see how much the Exalted weapons improve and work from there, buffing or nerfing them as they see fit. 

 

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

4 hours ago, BriefLegendary said:

This is true. I don't think this is a massive issue by any means. It just makes certain frames seem almost obsolete, since they at minimum have at least one ability that is by all means outclassed, which isn't even that bad compared to some other frames like Caliban. I don't know the reason why they just don't add arcanes and certain mods to exalted melees, the solution seems to be just an arms length away. Anyway It's a niche balancing issue at most.

Because anyone that's played for awhile knows the masses are just going "buff melee, now buff guns, now buff melee, now buff guns."

It's an exercise in futility especially when people arent fully using the power.

[SneakyErvin]

13 hours ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

I'm still processing how some people wanted Dagath to have an exalted Kaithe... yes, you read that correctly..

Yeah that was... uhm... a shocking era in the life of the forums/game. Those people should imo have been dragged out back and beaten with a dead horse. While I dislike the infested fish stick of Yareli, the thought of having a horse instead gives me shivers and a deep feeling of wanting to throw up. I mean sure it's fun in Red Dead Duviri, but it is also open and slow paced. So it is possible to put up with the horse and it's clunky handling. I really wouldnt want to see that in a mode or map that cant even make a Necramech playable there. Then add the amount of enemies intop of that and you have a recipe for utter total disaster.

[Thorham]

14 hours ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

they should all be given ludicrous stats, but drain a lot of energy

No.

14 hours ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

you wouldn't be able to run exalted melees for the entire mission non-stop

The day on which they remove Exalted Blade's ability to be used for the entire mission is the day I quit Warframe.

[Aruquae]

9 minutes ago, Thorham said:

The day on which they remove Exalted Blade's ability to be used for the entire mission is the day I quit Warframe.

Cancel that, I can’t read

Edited February 14 by Aruquae

[Aldain]

24 minutes ago, Thorham said:

No.

The day on which they remove Exalted Blade's ability to be used for the entire mission is the day I quit Warframe.

Ditto.

And I don't even always use Exalted Blade, sometimes I feel like becoming a Tenno shaped blender and go swooshing all over the tileset.

[Xzorn]

Baruuk specifically was always better with a normal melee.
Well outside the period they reduced it to 1/3 damage output but now there's double hit arcanes. So we're back to 60-70% of the original.

• Desert Wind has always been questionable design with it's massive ragdoll.
• Valkyr's Talon's lack of status made her resort to slides and ground slams to get anything done but this was with old enemy scaling.
• Exalted Blade was and still is good. Using two different combo meters for Slash Dash was a bad move though.
• Titania's Melee was a great way to kill yourself. Now that she can get 90% DR I guess it's viable? Still don't use it.
• Wukong's Staff was similar to Baruuk. Normal Melee was better. Now that it can proc Bleeds. It's decent.

Exalted Blade and Titania's Guns are mostly what I've used since I came back. Esp now that Excal can at least take a hit.
Still needs Arcane Deflection though just like Chroma or any other frame that want's to use Armor DR.

Also can't believe they left the energy drain on Excal's slide blind. So pointless.

[Aldain]

1 minute ago, Xzorn said:

Also can't believe they left the energy drain on Excal's slide blind. So pointless.

Honestly it bothers me a lot, I do a lot of roll-into-slides to get between blobs of enemies when using it so it happens to me way too often.

I'd even give up the slide blind altogether if I had to, it's just such a pain.

[Xzorn]

6 minutes ago, Aldain said:

Honestly it bothers me a lot, I do a lot of roll-into-slides to get between blobs of enemies when using it so it happens to me way too often.

I'd even give up the slide blind altogether if I had to, it's just such a pain.

 

Yep. Just remove the Blind or something. Only DE cared about this. I slide attack all the time as openers into clumps of enemies.

[ominumi]

4 hours ago, Xzorn said:

 

Yep. Just remove the Blind or something. Only DE cared about this. I slide attack all the time as openers into clumps of enemies.

Yeah same here. I use slide attack as openers and gap closer since we can slide attack mid combo.