Are you still an Excalibur Fan? And should you still be?

[Prof-Dante]

Umbra is my second most used: Fun fact, Excalibur Umbra is my second most used Warframe after Vanilla Gauss, Yeah...right after the sacrifice quest this Warframe used to be all the rage for me. It was something about his aesthetics, lore and Excalibur's base Kit that made me use him a lot in 2018.

Gauss made Umbra obsolete to me: but then Gauss came and I discovered a better mobile frame that isn't restricted to one type of weapon only, and then it all converged to where we are right now. Excalibur shouldn't really be anything special, he's the starter Warframe, the base model for all Warframe designs and the poster boy of the game...he should be the basic of basics.

 

1999 rekindled the Starter frame hype: Due to the 1999 Hype, I have bought a regular Excal and played around with him for a bit, until I went back to Umbra and reforma'd that one instead.
This is all to say that after all these years, Is Excalibur still a fan favorite to anyone here?

Excalibur's theme is simple and that's great: he definitely has a simpler concept to grasp, if you're ever into embodying themes...When you're still trying to figure out how Dante's powers work, Excalibur's is just a guy who channels his Warframe energy into swords.

Umbral totality: Umbra is still very interesting, I hated him a bit because the three umbral polarity forced a certain build on him and I couldn't switch it around. now with Archon Shards, his build can actually be completed (Archon shards are the best thing to happen to me in this game tbh, opened so many possibilities)

Should we still care about Excalibur? It's not about whether he's a good frame or if there are ones that are better because there are. it's about If Excalibur as a Character still appealing to some people.

I wish I can actually see some hardcore Excalibur fans and discuss why they're still going for him all these years.

[Teletric]

I always bring Umbra when it comes to story missions, but almost never when it comes to regular farming because, well, there are much better options for that. He has a fun and well-rounded kit that definitely makes you feel like a space ninja, more than most frames at this point.

[rapt0rman]

I use Umbra almost exclusively, I switch it up when I need to, like lich element progenitors, specific riven challenges, or Duviri circuit, but then it's right back to Excal. 

The main trick is that I really just don't care about Warframe abilities. Regardless of what frame I'm using i'm making use of all tools available, but the abilities themselves are never the allure, which makes it pretty much impossible for another frame to usurp his spot.

[Prof-Dante]

1 minute ago, rapt0rman said:

The main trick is that I really just don't care about Warframe abilities. Regardless of what frame I'm using i'm making use of all tools available, but the abilities themselves are never the allure, which makes it pretty much impossible for another frame to usurp his spot.

Amazing Mentality!

[rapt0rman]

1 hour ago, Prof-Dante said:

Amazing Mentality!

Ha yeah I feel like it's probably a rare take for someone who's been playing warframe for 10+ years, but I suppose I do also just prefer a bare bones Kit. basic mobility, tacticool flash bang, subsumed Roar, and TBH even EB is just there when I need it as a last resort.

I'm also the the type who will bring a generic assault rifle (Braton Prime) to any mission.

Edited August 10 by rapt0rman

[Quimoth]

I picked Mag as starter.

Bought Excal Prime because of his looks and how good the game already looked and felt at that time, played him a lot but hated the constant energy issues when there were no void-orbs or Trinity players helping me out. No arcanes, no zenurik, only energy siphon.

I played Trinity the most because back in the day there were few good ways to restore your energy. I also liked her Link and Blessing builds. Haven't player her much since every single augment/configuration that made people call her the true God got removed/nerfed and the aforementioned energy issues became easy to fix with the new tools added.

I've been hopping to various different frames on and-off. Each open-world usually meant a new favorite frame for the open-world.

Unfortunately this very rarely meant Excalibur was being player, he is a great jack of all trades, but brings little to his squad other than just being that other guy committing atrocities in the name of our beloved Lotus.

Excalibur Umbra did provide a short lived moment where I played a lot of excalibur again, Prime, normal and Umbra it didn't matter. But at the end of the day my interests were often drawn to frames that were either faster or more support styled.

Still one of my favorite fashionframes to play around with and I can't wait to see what we can or cannot configure when playing as Arthur/Proto excal.

If you do have some interesting niche builds for Excalibur I am deeply interested. Right now I am mostly stuck on the more typical builds with chromatic blade and what not.

[Rixuel]

I like how excal shoot slash void laser

[Numerounius]

1 hour ago, Prof-Dante said:

Gauss made Umbra obsolete to me

For me, I swap between frames. I might like one frame for a period of time before switching to another frame. It doesn't make the other frames obsolete just gives me a refresher. For example I used to experiment a lot with Archon Gloom Excalibur before moving on to say Maim Equinox right now.

 

More about my Archon Gloom Excalibur build:

Archon flow grants energy orbs on cold ability kills.

Exalted weapon is an ability so by modding your blade and using cold on something like Chromatic blade you get the energy orbs which can then be turned around and used to sustain energy drain abilities. In this case, gloom but I've also done eternal war. There is also precision intensify if you want to forgo a subsume but the lack of naramon aura polarity on Excalibur doesn't make that option enticing to me since I'm not touching umbra on umbra.

This type of build is even more stupidly insane on Wukong since staff kills by the twin counts for archon stuff.

Tank with an Umbra set is still very possible so using the Umbra obtained from the quest could be a good option if you don't have many other frames in your arsenal.

[Thorham]

Never get tired of playing Excalibur.

[(XBOX)Graysmog]

My only real problems with Excalibur at this point are just that Umbra doesn't receive invulnerability for a short time after you use Transference, and that Excalibur doesn't heal by using Radial Javelin. 

I just find it really strange that they let Umbra just get deleted at even basic levels of content while not considering the fact other summons, like Wukongs Clone, work really well because you can also heal them and yourself by extension.

As the basic starter Warframe, it's even weirder that Excalibur doesn't heal when healing in general is especially scarce for beginner players. 

Edited August 10 by (XBOX)Graysmog

[AzureTerra]

Never have been, never will be and I'm stuck with this useless lump of a umbra i cant get rid of in my inventory

[Thorham]

5 hours ago, (XBOX)Graysmog said:

I just find it really strange that they let Umbra just get deleted at even basic levels of content

How basic exactly?

[OniDax]

14 hours ago, Prof-Dante said:

I wish I can actually see some hardcore Excalibur fans and discuss why they're still going for him all these years.

I main Umbra because he looks cool and I like his simple set of abilities. I rarely use abilities anyway. Curious: Why does it matter if someone else still likes Excalibur or his variants? You don't need other people to have a reason to care about Excalibur. You don't need to have a community-wide opinion of whether or not you should still care about Excalibur. Use what you want to use, for whatever reason you want to use it.

Edited August 11 by OniDax

[sunderthefirmament]

22 hours ago, Prof-Dante said:

Should we still care about Excalibur? It's not about whether he's a good frame or if there are ones that are better because there are. it's about If Excalibur as a Character still appealing to some people.

Sure.  He's the poster boy of the game, after all.  And I am of the opinion that all frames deserve regular developer attention and touch-ups as needed.  Excalibur has some weird design decisions holding him back, but he's still a solid frame.  These include:

• outdated limitations on exalted weapons, like certain mods being prohibited and less than full integration with the new melee offerings in WitW
• semi-statstick system with his 1
• useless 3 without the augment
• shields being vulnerable during his 1 (while he's otherwise invulnerable, resulting in him arriving with no shield gate)
• almost no interplay among his various abilities
• Umbra deactivates his 4 when you go into operator mode.

 

I think if these issues were addressed, he would be in a much better spot.  Right now, I don't bother using him much because he fills the "generalist DPS" role that is extremely crowded already.

Edited August 11 by sunderthefirmament
Didn't realize Umbra keeps the 4 active.

[Thorham]

43 minutes ago, sunderthefirmament said:

Umbra deactivates his 4 when you go into operator mode.

That one has been fixed for a while now.

[sunderthefirmament]

26 minutes ago, Thorham said:

That one has been fixed for a while now.

Thanks!  I just tested this to confirm it, and you're correct!

[Prof-Dante]

21 hours ago, OniDax said:

Curious

it's not that, I just love to see other people's interests and the reason behind them, it opens my mind to discovering new aspects about a frame that I didn't know before.
for example, my top three qualities in a Warframe are theme, personality trope, and gameplay versatility.

for example, Dante's theme is a knowledge seeking Librarian who's empowered by an eldritch book of arcane power, his personality fits the Book-worm, curious Librarian which is really interesting, and his abilities just so happen to be one of the most versatile, visually pleasing and effective abilities in the game.

but a @rapt0rman here reminded me to not really care about what the abilities can do and accomplish as long as you like the frame themselves. which something new to me to be honest.

Recently I've been really bothered by Dante's tragedy, because it functions poorly against enemies who only take 4 stacks of any status procs.
but I don't think I should care anymore. as long the frame himself is appealing.

[Thorham]

On 2024-08-10 at 5:13 PM, rapt0rman said:

Regardless of what frame I'm using i'm making use of all tools available

Indeed, I'll use all tools so long as those tools are called Exalted Blade 😅

[Waeleto]

Excalibur always gets the short end of things ESPECIALLY his Umbra variant, I feel like DE needs to have a deeper look at his exalted and his sentience passive (which adds nothing except for a nerf to the warframe)

[Prof-Dante]

1 hour ago, Waeleto said:

Excalibur always gets the short end of things ESPECIALLY his Umbra variant, I feel like DE needs to have a deeper look at his exalted and his sentience passive (which adds nothing except for a nerf to the warframe)

One of my dream reworks for exalted blade is to not make it an exalted weapon, but the ability to channel energy into his melee weapon. with double the effects on Swords.

upon activation, Excal's melee weapon gets a new luminous look, similar to Jade-empowered Hate, or Incarnon weapons.

 

through this new power, Excalibur's melee attacks project waves of light energy, so it still retains it's former function, however with swords, the waves are larger and travel further.

swords get an extra perk as well while empowered, Excalibur's passive is 600% more effective, giving them 60% melee damage and attack speed during this ability. 

[Thorham]

2 hours ago, Prof-Dante said:

One of my dream reworks for exalted blade is to not make it an exalted weapon, but the ability to channel energy into his melee weapon.

Why could you possibly want this? It just reduces build flexibility.

[Prof-Dante]

1 hour ago, Thorham said:

Why could you possibly want this? It just reduces build flexibility.

oh would it? I thought it would do the opposite, I've always hated Exalted melee weapons in particular.

[Thorham]

36 minutes ago, Prof-Dante said:

oh would it? I thought it would do the opposite

Yes, because you're not entirely free to choose a melee weapon anymore. With my current build I use Praedos for mobility with a Carnis mod. Both choices would be sub optimal under your proposed change.

38 minutes ago, Prof-Dante said:

I've always hated Exalted melee weapons in particular

Why focus on changing what you hate while there's such a huge choice of frames? Exalted Blade works fine, it's just left behind because of certain mods and arcanes not being available. Same for the other exalted weapons.

[Prexades]

I think I am more excited about reworks of other early frames. Nyx and Trinity for 1999.