Dev Workshop - Exalted Weapon Changes + Ash Retouch

[[DE]Saske]

Hey Tenno!

As first mentioned in Devstream #184, we’ve been hard at work overhauling our “Pseudo” Exalted weapons while also giving current Exalted weapons a boost. This Dev Workshop is a deep dive into these upcoming changes! Also included are details for our changes to Ash —  he will receive some light adjustments, similar to the changes Nyx and Trinity received in the Warframe: 1999 Update. 

History lesson time! In Update 23 we introduced moddable Exalted weapons for six Warframes. Exalted Weapons are unique weapons summoned by a Warframe’s ability —  giving them access to an additional separately moddable weapon in the Arsenal. Exalted Weapons benefit both from its own equipped Mods and the Mods on the Warframe itself! 

In addition to Exalted Weapons, certain Warframes Abilities summoned weapons that did not have the Exalted treatment (i.e. be separately moddable in the Arsenal), but received bonuses from other moddable sources: your equipped Melee weapon! These are what we call “Pseudo-Exalted” weapons.

With these changes, we want to officially make “Pseudo-Exalted” weapons into Exalted Weapons! This ensures parity with how players interact with summoned weapons on Warframes. For fans of affected Warframes (Ash, Atlas, Khora, and Gara), your Arsenal may look a little different to accommodate these new Exalted Weapons, but our hope is to keep the end-result relatively unchanged on the battlefield. 

As always, everything listed below is subject to change before release. Please refer to the patch notes for official implementation of these changes in our upcoming Techrot Encore update!

Changes to Current Exalted Weapons:

Before we go over what is happening to “Pseudo-Exalted” weapons, Exalted Weapons as a whole are getting some changes —  let’s dive into the three major adjustments shipping with Techrot Encore: 

1. Arcane slots on Exalted Weapons.
2. Exilus Mod Slot on Primary & Secondary Exalted weapons.
3. Acolyte, Amalgam, and Melee Combo Counter Mods enabled for Exalted Weapons.

Arcane Slots on Exalted Weapons

Our first major change is the addition of Arcane slots to all Exalted weapons! 

*While Garuda’s Talons are part of her passive ability, and therefore not an Exalted Weapon, we are adding an Arcane slot to them nonetheless!

“Pseudo-Exalted” could achieve the effects of certain Arcanes on Exalted weapons by equipping them on corresponding regular weapons. With the changes above, these interactions have been removed.

• Specific Warframes that benefitted from these effects will be receiving a new Exalted Weapon, which is outlined later in this Dev Workshop!

Exilus Mod Slot on Primary & Secondary Exalted Weapons

Additionally, we have introduced Exilus slots to all Primary and Secondary Exalted weapons. This now matches functionality with existing melee Exalted weapons.

Acolyte, Amalgam, and Melee Combo Counter Mods Enabled for Exalted Weapons

Next, we are re-enabling mods that were previously disabled for Exalted Weapons. This means Acolyte, Amalgam and Melee Combo Counter mods can now be equipped on all Exalted weapons:

• Primary:
  • Amalgam Serration
  • Argon Scope (Galvanized Scope)
  • Bladed Rounds
  • Catalyzer Link
• Secondary:
  • Amalgam Barrel Diffusion
  • Embedded Catalyzer
  • Hydraulic Crosshairs
  • Pressurized Magazine
  • Sharpened Bullets
  • Targeting Subsystem
• Melee:
  • Amalgam Organ Shatter
  • Blood Rush
  • Body Count
  • Dispatch Overdrive
  • Gladiator Rush
  • Maiming Strike
  • Weeping Wounds

Note: If the Exalted weapon is unable to trigger the requirements for the mod, such as “when aiming”, “for Slide Attack” etc, you will not be able to equip that mod for that specific Exalted weapon. Example: Hydraulic Crosshairs on Mesa’s Regulators.

Other changes to Exalted Weapons include:

• All Exalted Stances now grant Mod Capacity just like regular Stances. Additionally, we have applied the Zenurik Polarity to all Exalted Stances and their corresponding Melee Stance slots, providing a +10 capacity boost. 
• Removed the restriction preventing Set Mods equipped on Exalted weapons from contributing to or benefiting from Set Bonuses.
  • With this change, Set Bonuses are now calculated based on the Active Weapon. This means that if you have three Set Mods equipped on your Warframe, three on your Melee weapon, and none on your Exalted Melee, then you will only benefit from the three Set mods on your Warframe while your Exalted Melee weapon is active.
• Removed the interaction that caused the Combo Counter to reset when using the Xoris, Tenet Livia, or Tenet Grigori alongside an Exalted weapon.
  • This interaction was added in Update 28.1.0 due to it being an overly dominant mechanic that offered infinite Combo on Exalted Weapons when used with Gladiator Mods. Now that Set Mods only apply to the current Active Weapon, this restriction is no longer needed. 
• Excalibur’s Exalted Blade and Baruuk’s Serene Storm abilities can now gain Melee Combo Counter and trigger Tennokai from their Exalted weapon’s wind/energy waves, instead of only from direct hits.
  • For balance reasons, Desert Wind’s Critical Chance has been reduced from 50% to 35% to accommodate the above buff. In testing, Serene Storm was overperforming when used with Blood Rush.
• Excalibur's Slash Dash now scales with Mods equipped on his Exalted Blade instead of Mods equipped on his regular melee weapon.
• Removed the interaction of Razorflies scaling with Melee Mods equipped on Diwata. This interaction was never intended, alongside only a few mods working with it. 
  • To balance this change, we’ve made Razorflies invulnerable, reinforcing their Support role rather than their damage potential. We are open to considering additional adjustments as needed.

New Exalted Weapons:

As mentioned above, we are adding new Exalted Weapons to the following Warframes:

• Atlas
• Gara
• Khora
• Ash (more details in the Ash Changes section!)

These four new Exalted weapons will have a base range of 2.8 meters, which adds directly to the Modded Ability Range on your Warframe, and can also be enhanced with Melee mods like Reach. 

With their new Exalted status, these weapons are now separately Moddable and will benefit from Mods that were unavailable to them previously (namely Condition Overload, Melee Elementalist, and Smite Faction Mods). These new Exalted weapons will receive the same treatment as the changes mentioned above, and should function like all other Exalted Weapons — with a few exceptions we’ll go over below. 

• Note: these new Exalted Weapons will not include an Exilus slot, as the relevant abilities can not perform Heavy Attacks, Tennokai, Parry or Block.

Atlas:

Atlas now wields a Moddable Exalted weapon —  Landslide. 

Landslide has a pre-installed Orokin Catalyst, along with two Madurai polarities.

• Landslide's Critical Chance has increased from 5% to 35%, and its Status Chance from 5% to 15%.
• Landslide retains its unique Combo Counter mechanic instead of using traditional Melee Combo —  learn more about this in the Ability Combo Counter Changes section.  

Gara:

Gara has received an upgradeable Exalted weapon called Shattered Lash. 

Shattered Lash has a pre-installed Orokin Catalyst, along with one Madurai and one Naramon polarity

• Shattered Lash now has a Critical Chance of 20%, a Critical Multiplier of 2x and a status chance of 30%, while its base damage was reduced from 800 to 400 damage.* 
• Unlike traditional Exalted Melee Weapons, Shattered Lash uses the same Combo Counter mechanic as Landslide. Learn more about this in the Ability Combo Counter Changes section below. 

*These are balancing adjustments for added strength with new Combo changes. More about this in the Ability Combo Counter Changes section below.

Khora:

Khora’s new Exalted weapon is aptly named Whipclaw! 

It comes with a pre-installed Orokin Catalyst, along with one Madurai and one Vazarin polarity.

• Whipclaw’s base damage has been reduced from from 300 to 150 damage.*
• Unlike traditional Exalted Melee Weapons, Whipclaw uses the same Combo Counter mechanic as Landslide. Learn more about this in the Ability Combo Counter Changes section below. 

*These are balancing adjustments for added strength with new Combo changes. More about this in the Ability Combo Counter Changes section below.

Ability Combo Counter Changes:

Since Bladestorm, Landslide, Shattered Lash, and Whipclaw are not channelled Exalted Melee Weapons, we have devised a new Ability Combo System specific to these weapons, based off of Altas’ existing Combo mechanic. Recasting their respective Abilities within 5 seconds of the previous cast will grant you 20 combo points which will increase the Combo Multiplier by 1x. 

We’ve also increased the Ability Combo Counter cap from 4x to 12x to align with the Melee Combo Counter — meaning subsequent casts can be buffed up to 12x the damage! By increasing your Ability Combo Counter, your Exalted Weapon will receive increased Damage based on the Ability Combo Multiplier.

Ability Damage now scales 1:1 with this new Ability Combo Counter, instead of 0.25x the Melee Combo Multiplier with “Pseudo-exalted” weapons. As a result, we have reduced the base damage of Shatter Lash and Whipclaw to balance with the ability to scale higher with the new Combo system. These balance adjustments increase the overall damage output when combined with the new Combo changes.

Mods like Blood Rush, Weeping Wounds, and Body Count as well as Focus abilities like Naramon’s Power Spike now work with this new system. 

Ash Changes:

We felt Ash needed a boost to compete with stronger choices. Below are changes that retain the core theme of Ash, but should help to bring him up to speed.

To start, there are no changes to Ash’s Passive ability. 

Ability 1 - Shuriken:

• Base damage increased from 500 to 750.
• The number of thrown projectiles increased from 2 to 5 Shurikens, which release in an arc in front of Ash, and home toward enemies.
• Enemies hit with Shuriken now contribute towards the Melee Combo Counter.

Ability 2: Smoke Screen:

• Increased the base duration from 8s to 12s.

We’ve also increased the max base duration of the “Smoke Shadow” Augment from 8s to 12s.

Ability 3: Teleport:

• The ‘Fatal Teleport’ Augment is now a part of Teleport, and automatically performs finisher on cast with a 200% finisher bonus.

The “Fatal Teleport: Augment has now changed to “Quickend Teleport”:

• Executing a target with Teleport increases Parkour Velocity by 30% for 12s. The duration is doubled with a Mercy Kill.
• Finisher kills performed by Ash will extend Smoke Screens duration. Mercy kills will reset Smoke Screen duration.

Ability 4:  Bladestorm:

• Bladestorm is now an Exalted Weapon with a pre-installed Orokin Catalyst, along with two Madurai polarities.
• Bladestorm is now considered a Dagger, allowing you to equip weapon-specific mods like Covert Lethality.
• Bladestorm has a Critical Chance of 5%, a Critical Multiplier of 1x and a Status Chance of 5%
  • Before Bladestorm could neither crit nor apply statuses (outside of the forced slash proc), since finisher damage is already very strong, Bladestorm received a nominal increase for balance.

Additional Bladestorm changes include:

• Ash can mark targets with an increased radius around the reticle.
• Bladestorm now marks each target only once. Clones will no longer perform three Finisher attacks on enemies; instead, they will execute a single attack, allowing the ability to resolve faster.

_________________

Again, everything listed above is subject to change before release. Please refer to the patch notes for official implementation of these changes in our upcoming Techrot Encore update on March 19th!

[InfiniteNothingness]

Unfathomably based. 

[-Haxboi-]

lets gooooooooooo

[Dark_Lugia]

Looks interesting, especially being able to use arcanes and previously disabled mods

 

Edited February 28 by Dark_Lugia

[DiBBz]

bit odd that bladestorm has a base CC and SC of 5%

Edited February 28 by DiBBz

[BrandNewEyes]

great change

[Lycoris-Kage]

Will Garuda's talons be usable in melee only missions, get melee buffs from relics, and her 1 not block her own melee slam as well?

[--Ayden--]

Ash mains, ARISE.

[Spirto1]

What will happen to interactions like secondary outburst and jade/mesa? Will they effectively have access to two arcanes or will their interaction with actual secondary weapons be removed?

[Writhix]

That Ash retouch is amazing! Brilliant for keeping what he’s all about while ensuring he’s still viable. 
 

HOWEVER

I think that the teleportation needs to be amended so that it doesn’t need a target to be executed, similar to Kullervo’s. I love Ash, and love playing him. But I see no reason at all why anyone would keep Teleport when they could subsume Kullervo’s teleport onto the same space for a downright upgrade to everything except range. 
 

Honestly, a variant of Kullervo’s teleport would work just fine, just make it so that he performs a finisher instead of a heavy attack and it’ll be absolutely perfect. 

Edited February 28 by Writhix

[TheKinginCrimsonRed]

Curious question, will this have any effect on Mastery XP or is the XP gathered for them not counted?

[Redeemr]

you guys forgot about Atlas' Rumbled

[SB15SKG]

Could we get Excalibur Exalted Blade skin selection please? I was really hoping we'de be able to use the Deluxe blade seperate from the skin.

[JatchYT]

Ash is gonna be soooooo broken!

[Metal_Sign]

I'd like to bring up that Slash Dash naturally has 0% Crit and Status chance (guarantee slash status,) making it incredibly weak without wearing something that gives it base value additively. Are there any plans to change this with the update?

[Inquiring_Raven]

So, no love to Titania's Razorwing Drones? This makes me very sad.

 

[DellMafia]

Ash, Thank u!  sz

[[DE]Saske]

1 minute ago, TheKinginCrimsonRed said:

Curious question, will this have any effect on Mastery XP or is the XP gathered for them not counted?

Exalted weapons have never given mastery rank points.

[Hypernaut1]

I know its faster and all, but i enjoyed seeing the clones go crazy, stabbing multiple times. Oh well. 

[Yulfan]

So nothing about Venari, the EXALTED Kavat?

I'm humbly linking this topic I wrote a few months ago about the QoL changes Venari really needs to finally feel like a true part of Khora's kit. One example amongs many, Venari can't attack almost any enemies caught in Strangledome:

Please, don't forget Venari.

[SquiffyPrime]

Is it possible that with the exalted/psuedo exalted weapons rework we could get the ability to customise them from the navigation menu quick loadout?

[nothegarden]

FREEDOM

[(XBOX)FlumpyFoz]

EXALTED BLADE IS BACK

[dice]

Is Ash’s Smokescreen recastable or not? Please don’t forget to fix this.

 

Edited February 28 by dice

[ThrinagaBattleheart]

I've recently put more work into my Ash Prime, to make him the Stabby Boi that he deserves to be (especially after the release of Arcane Crepuscular, etc). So far I very much like these planned changes, both to pseudo-Exalteds and Ash's kit specifically. 😁

Bladestorm has needed a larger reticle for marking for a long time, so I'm very glad he's getting that now; Smoke Screen's base duration being increased to 12 s is a very good change IMO, to let him do more with Bladestorm, Arcane Crepuscular, etc; Fatal Teleport becoming baseline is a good thing as well; And, the Exalted weapons gaining Arcane slots is equally good too, along with normalizing what mods do and do not work on them now. 😁 Though, I am a tiny bit sad that, since Bladestorm will use an Exalted now instead of the equipped melee weapon, I won't be able to use a Zaw arcane as well... But, that's just going to mean a bit more of a rework to my build.

In all honesty, I'm all for these changes, and I think they'll do decently well to bring Exalteds/pseudo-Exalteds back into the meta a bit more.