Sword Alone

[Coatduck]

I made a little quest for myself. With the release of Melee two and Sword Alone, I decided that it was time to see just how well their claim of "You can do Pluto with only a Skana" holds up.

So here is a Cronical of me traveling through the solar system on solo, running every mission and killing every boss, with only a Freshly forma'd Excalibur and a new, unpotato'd Skana. I recommend you do the same, so far it's incredibly challenging and crazy fun.

The Rules:

Sword Alone. You can take whatever weapon you want in, but you can only use that sword the entire quest.

Go in Solo mode. Online not only makes it stupid-easy, it also affects the rate at which you get XP.

Sword and Frame must start unranked. Potatoes are up to you, I chose not to for the Skana, but Excal already had one. Might change my mind about the Skana once I hit 30.

No skipping missions. Don't just jump from Mercury to Ruk.

Stances and auras are cool, but you can't start off with damage related mods. Pressure Point can't be the first mod on if you use a stance. Shield/Health can't be the first mods if you use an aura.

No abilities! Your skill is based on your sword. This applies to all abilities. If it's got a slash polarity and it goes on your frame, it's a nono.

Not a rule, but I would recommend against the Glaive/Kestrel/Glaive prime. Makes taking out Cameras too easy.<br />

No sentinals. Not even with the attack precept removed, you've got to un-equip it.

Health/shield/energy restores and the like are up to you.

No revives.

Once you complete a mission, you're done it. You can't go do it again. Wouldn't be fun if you had everything max ranked by the time you left mercury.

Is Nightmare Mode available? Best hope it's not no shield (With the exception of defenses. I wouldn't put you through that, it's just impossible)

These are my rules, if you don't follow them, that's okay, it's up to you, but I will be following these exactly.

Starting Loadout:

Excalibur:
Enemy Radar, Reflection, Quick Rest
Skana:
Crimson Dervish, Fury

 

The Journey:

Added Pressure Point to Skana

 

Captain Vor
Excalibur: Level 5
Skana: Level 8
Failed twice. Damn that was intense. Even though he was only level 3, he could still take out my 120ish shields like they were nothing. Walked around the entire map. Left the boss room and got half way back to spawn with him chasing me while I healed up.

Learned that Laser Doors wreck your day without a shield mod. Taking out Cameras is fun. Takes a lot of creativity, and really gets you in touch with how your melee works.

 

The Jackal
Excalibur: Level 7
Skana: Level 12
Hilariously easy. Walked up, whacked him with my sword until he died. No challenge at all<br />
Marked by Stalker.

 

HELLIONS YOU CAN ALL DIE IN A HOLE
Added Redirection to Excalibur
Added Voltaic Strike to Skana

Nef Anyo
Excalibur: 11
Skana: 19
He did literally no damage to me. He went invisible and ran away. I whacked him with my sword and he slit in two<br />
Second mark from stalker. Haven't been attacked from the Jackal yet.</p>

Lephantis' Lover
Yeah, some awesome dude (RoboticApplesWithLasers) Offered to be a boss that drops an ODA key if I could beat him with my challenge gear in the Conclaves. It was a close battle, best out of 5, with me at 3 and them at 2. I finally beat him by knocking him down and using a finisher, then coptering past while channeling. With Life Strike on, it gave me that little health boost to keep the blade proc at bay, while the channeling damage was just enough to take them out. A well fought battle. Now to figure out how to take down Lephantis . . .

Added 8/10 Reflex Guard to Excalibur
Roche was Nightmare. Hellions wrecked my day pretty hard. Blade proc from any weapon was guaranteed death.
Grustrag Three showed up. I ran and cried.
Added Life Strike
Replaced Life Strike with Viralant Scourge
Grustrag Three again. I cried more.

Captain Vor and Lech Krill
Excalibur: 14
Skana: 23
This one was scary. I almost put a potato on my skana, but it turns out I didn't need it. I got Vor to go into his shield twice, and I got Krill to his fiery stage just by blocking with reflection. Unfortunatly they had a Heavy Gunner Leech Leader, so that made it substantially harder. But at that point, I lost the ability to attack with melee. I had to change my key bindings to a different key and then back again to get it to work, which was incredibly difficult considering I forgot to switch to Solo, and I was in fact on Private, meaning I couldn't pause. Had to do this all with Vor, Krill, and that Gunner attacking. First one to go down was the gunner, Coptered over, ground slammed, and the finisher took him out. Then Vor with a few whacks of melee, and the Krill, who was surprisingly easy. Got myself a Twin Gremlins blueprint, which I needed.
Marked By Stalker: For Krill

Phorid
Excalibur: 15
Skana: 24
Mostly just coptering and avoiding his one-hit-kill swipes. Wasn't hard. Got a Neural Sensor.<br />
Marked by Stalker

 

Alad V
Excalibur: 15
Skana: 25
Nightmare Vampire Ice Mission. Turned Zanuka and Alad into a Zucchini Salad
Marked by Stalker. Five marks, have yet to be attacked.

 

General Sargus Ruk
Excalibur: 16
Skana: 25
Next to impossible. If you skipped out on this one, I would not blame you for a second. Melee didn't work on his arm piece, making it almost impossible. Blocking his flamethrower with reflection seems to slowly eat away his health if he's got the weak spot in his arm open, but it took me maybe 10-15 minutes of just blocking to get him down out of that stage. After that it was pretty easy to dodge his attacks and melee him when his front/back weak spots were open<br />
Marked by Stalker.

Could be a while till next boss update. Have to work my way across all of Saturn and Uranus to get to Tyl, although I don't think he'll be too hard. Skana vs Skana you say? Cool beans.
Re-added Life Strike to Skana for survivability
Added unranked Sure Footed. Will rank it up as more space is available
Skana hit 30! :D
G3 AGAIN. THOSE CLONE-REJECT MUTANT SLUDGE-PUDDLES! Naturally I ran and cried.

Tyl Regor
Excalibur: 19
Skana: 30
Harder than I thought. Still pretty easy. Basically stun-locked him with my Skana and watched the Corrosive and Blade procs eat away at him.
Marked by stalker

Hyena Pack
Excalibur:20
Skana: 30
No. No. Never again. No. Nonono. That wasn't fun that was stupid. I beat them through shear luck, and I will never deny that. Must have done that mission 8 times before I got a combination that wasn't completely impossible. The Ice hyena has a freeze bomb that's pretty much a guaranteed hit, procing you for 10 seconds, and he has a freeze aura, meaning he hits you with an ice bomb, then gets close to you, and you are moving at about 10% speed. The disruptor, while energy isn't too important except for channeling, makes you blind, The fire one hits you with it's fireball and fire procs you for 10 seconds, meaning you die, and the gun one can one hit you with his big spinny thing. I finally beat them by getting the ice one into an elevator and basically getting it to F*** right off while I dealt with the gunner one. I reflected his bullets back at him until he stopped moving a bit, then whacked him a few times. Brought the ice guy back down and cornered him and whacked the S#&$ out of him.
First time since Vor I haven't been marked by the stalker.

Replaced Virilant Scourge with Molten Impact

Ambulus
Excalibur: 20
Skana: 30
Seems like a damage sponge, and by that I mean he sat there like a soggy sponge while I spammed 'E' for 45 seconds.
Marked by Stalker. Seriously are you just gonna send me fan mail stalker, or are you going to face me?

Lech Krill

Excalibur: 21 (He's ranking so slowly >.>)
Skana: 30

Tedious. Blocking his gorgon wasn't really an issue, but whacking the tubes was very difficult. After he went all fiery, the fight lasted about 15 seconds. I smacked him while channeling and that was pretty much that.

Marked by Stalker

Kayla De Thaym

Excalibur: 22
Skana: 30

Copter past while channeling->Avoid rollers->Copter past while channeling->Avoid rollers. Repeat until she is the dead.
Marked by Stalker. OKAY COME AT ME.

The Raptor

Excalibur: 24

Skana: 30
Tricked him in to flying into a small room with me, then channeled and hacked at his face. Got a few blade procs in, and doing 1k damage per slash affect is pretty damn effective against something at his level. This one was a tough one, don't get me wrong it involved a lot of running and hiding, but I got it.
Also Seriously Stalker? Still haven't touched me and that's what, 11 marks and you've yet to show your face?

With Life Strike on, I'm basically a vampire. So long as I deal 20x the damage I take, I can stay alive indefinitely. This Skana is way more powerful than it should be.

Councilor Vey Hek

Excalibur: 25
Skana: 30
Get ready to be disrupted. Constantly. For half an hour while you try to copter at Vey Hek's Face and pray for a blade proc. I managed to jump from a ledge on top of him to whack his transmitter a few times. After you get him into his tetra frame, he's pretty easy.

 

Put on Vitality

Lephantis
Excalibur: 25
Skana: 30
HAHA. HAHAHA. I WIN. First phase consisted of coptering and prayer. Blade procs again were what made this possible. In both phases it was important to take a break, channel, and whack some of the light infested to regain some health. If you time it right, you can hit a leaper in flight, and do 10x damage, and with channeling you can be getting upwards of 1000 health per leaper, which is more than enough to bring you back up to full. Phase two was a little frustrating at first, but once I took out the scithe head it became impossible. Or so I thought. I went at him trying to reflect his damage for about 10 minutes. And then I decided to just screw it. So you know what I did? I got up on one of the ledges, and I coptered onto his back. Now this wasn't easy, because enemies don't have friction, so you have to walk exactly in time with him. I managed to whack the ancient head's weak point from it's back. I guess my sword was able to clip through his neck. Once I got him down far enough, I climbed up the corpus head's neck, and did the same thing to it, again waiting for it to try to throw S#&$ at me and hilariously miss, because I don't think the programers excepted people to ride it. After it blew up, I fell and landed smack on top of his loot.

The Stalker
Coward finally faced me while I had this gear on. Was taking pretty minimal, all though consistent damage from him until I got him down about half way (All blocking of course, no up close and personal) and at that point he got in a good Dread shot and almost one hit me. I hid for a second and decided all or nothing, and then slam attacked and finished him with one big powerful channeling swipe. God that stance is satisfying. Well I'd about call that a wrap.

 

Void was fun times. Difficult, don't get me wrong. Didn't bother going too far in the survivals just because I had 4 to do and they got harder as I went, so why bother staying 30 minutes if you're just gonna have to fight those levels in t4?
Pretty much went off without a hitch. T4 I basically bailed as soon as extraction became available because I didn't want to have to fight void vor more than once while he's level 50

Void Vor

Meh. He dealt some damage, I smacked his tummy. it really wasn't too exciting. Well, it was exciting, but there wasn't much strategy involved. Hide when he gets annoying. Recharge a little, channel and smack something for some health, go back, smack him some more. Pretty straight forward to be honest. Fought him in an Exterminate, found a big room with lots of pillars. You know the one with the crates on the platform in the middle? Yeah.

What I've learned:

DE put a lot of work into making this viable that I don't think anyone realizes. Is there a security camera? Well I'll bet you that less than 6 feet away from it is a box, or something to stand on that will let you copter to it. You can always wall attack Sensor Bars. Yeah, it needs some creativity, but it's very possible to do this. I've now gone the entire star chart. Every mission, every boss, Skana alone. No abilities on my side. I have learned so much about melee in this game, and you think much more creatively about fighting after doing this. I honestly think it's an amazing thing to do, and I was so impressed by all the little things that no one notices, but were put in just for doing this.

I do have one issue. I've done every mission in the star chart and my excal is only level 25. I know abilities affect ranking speed, but like, seriously guys? I could have maxed out my Skana at least 5 times by now if I were formaing it.

This thread got moved to who-knows-where section last time I tried to post it, despite it perfectly fitting the description in the rules of "General" and not matching even slightly where it ended up. Please, to the mod who did that, do not do it again. It buried it at the end of a section that most people don't know existed, and after getting 35 posts in under two hours it hasn't gotten a single one in a week.

Edited September 11, 2014 by Coatduck

[xlraistlx]

Meh, I'll just post it again.

 

"I feel like you're already cheating due to the 3x damage given by Crimson Dervish"

 

If https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/241003-sword-alone/'>the original thread was moved to the Fan Zone subforum is because it belongs there, this thread will probably be locked or merged into the first one.

 

Edit:

Also, staker death marks don't stockpile.

Edited June 9, 2014 by xlraistlx

[immolator1001]

I have mad respect for you. Mind if I see your final build for the skana?

[Coatduck]

Meh, I'll just post it again.

 

"I feel like you're already cheating due to the 3x damage given by Crimson Dervish"

 

If the original thread was moved to the Fan Zone subforum is because it belongs there, this thread will probably be locked or merged into the first one.

And I'll say it again too. The attack speed is 1/3 of what it would be stanceless or with Iron Pheonix, meaning your DPS doesn't change. In fact, Crimson Dervish gets you stuck in combos, making it arguably harder, however, the Skana comes with a V stance polarity, meaning that the skana was designed for Crimson Dervish. I'm using it how it was designed.

[Panser_Nes]

This sounds like a lot of fun. I will try this.

[Coatduck]

I have mad respect for you. Mind if I see your final build for the skana?

Absolutely! I've got a potato on it now, I figure if the stalker does decide to sneak up on me I'll probably need it.

[RoboDoge]

You are forcing people on Excalibur. If there are 3 starting frames, any of them should be available.

[immolator1001]

Absolutely! I've got a potato on it now, I figure if the stalker does decide to sneak up on me I'll probably need it.

Nice!

[Arxiun]

Grats, now I wanna try and do this with a dagger, seems a lot more fun

[Coatduck]

You are forcing people on Excalibur. If there are 3 starting frames, any of them should be available.

The rules are very flexible! It's not like it really matters how you do it, so long as it's more or less the same thing. I said go full excalibur because of his stats. The rules say you aren't allowed to use abilities, even just ones for utility, so it doesn't hugely matter anyway. Loki would be a handicap in this case, because he's got paper-thin defenses, and mag would be a little too powerful in the way of shields and health. That's just how I feel about it, but if you want to use any frame it's up to you. Not like I'm going to track you down for it. It's all about having a good time, and if that's how you want to do it, I encourage it :)

[Coatduck]

Grats, now I wanna try and do this with a dagger, seems a lot more fun

I find daggers too slow for me. They either need a damage buff to balance out the slow attack rate (Like Crimson Dervish) or you need to un-equip the stance, which seems a little pointless to me (Pun highly intended)

My next goal is to get 8 forma onto my Skana, and then same for my Glaive, just because I can.

[RoboDoge]

The rules are very flexible! It's not like it really matters how you do it, so long as it's more or less the same thing. I said go full excalibur because of his stats. The rules say you aren't allowed to use abilities, even just ones for utility, so it doesn't hugely matter anyway. Loki would be a handicap in this case, because he's got paper-thin defenses, and mag would be a little too powerful in the way of shields and health. That's just how I feel about it, but if you want to use any frame it's up to you. Not like I'm going to track you down for it. It's all about having a good time, and if that's how you want to do it, I encourage it :)

If i go on my alt i would be cheating a bit because Loki is already MR 2, and i sold my Skana. But i can say that with proper stance and some basic mods ( one elemental and Pressure Point unranked ) meleeing through levels is quite possible.

 

 

And stagger from Skana helps a lot.

[Sunder]

Didn't do the entire star-chart but I did do a boss rush with just the Nikana and Excalibur Prime.

No guns equipped and my sentinel was the carrier with no attack. Just vacuum cause I'm lazy and didn't want to miss any loot that might pass me by.

 

I had tons of fun with it. So much that I've taken up just using melee weapons for now (Till I get platinum to buy more weapon slots. 26 weapons in the foundry waiting to be claimed...) Gave him stamina mods and such to keep the fight going and now I usually come out with most kills in a mission. Hell it's possible to do T3 missions with just a properly modded sword.

 

That being said, every boss IS completely possible to take out with JUST melee. Save for Lephantis which has silly invisible barriers...

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/242857-lephantis-and-unnecessary-invisible-barriers/

(Feedback thread regarding said invisible barriers)

[Magnanimous_Max]

Glorious. I will follow in your footsteps and abstain from shooty-shooty in favor of cutty-cutty.

[Coatduck]

Didn't do the entire star-chart but I did do a boss rush with just the Nikana and Excalibur Prime.

No guns equipped and my sentinel was the carrier with no attack. Just vacuum cause I'm lazy and didn't want to miss any loot that might pass me by.

 

I had tons of fun with it. So much that I've taken up just using melee weapons for now (Till I get platinum to buy more weapon slots. 26 weapons in the foundry waiting to be claimed...) Gave him stamina mods and such to keep the fight going and now I usually come out with most kills in a mission. Hell it's possible to do T3 missions with just a properly modded sword.

 

That being said, every boss IS completely possible to take out with JUST melee. Save for Lephantis which has silly invisible barriers...

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/242857-lephantis-and-unnecessary-invisible-barriers/

(Feedback thread regarding said invisible barriers)

I managed to get past them, I did tend to notice that sometimes my attacks just didn't land for some reason though. Perhaps that was why.

[Sunder]

I managed to get past them, I did tend to notice that sometimes my attacks just didn't land for some reason though. Perhaps that was why.

Get past what? The barriers? If so you'll have to enlighten me on how it's possible...cause I couldn't wall run and slash dash the heads, I couldn't do the wall attacks, I couldn't super jump up to them. Nothing. And this was with the Nikana which if I'm correct has longer reach than the Skana.

 

Lephantis is the last boss in my roster to take out melee only and it's driving me bonkers that he's melee proof (Least his first stage)

Edited June 9, 2014 by Smac

[Coatduck]

Get past what? The barriers? If so you'll have to enlighten me on how it's possible...cause I couldn't wall run and slash dash the heads, I couldn't do the wall attacks, I couldn't super jump up to them. Nothing. And this was with the Nikana which if I'm correct has longer reach than the Skana

Most of my work was done with blocking and reflection, but I waited for them to get pretty low down, like when the corpus head is spitting, or the scythe is swinging or what have you, and coptered at them. Then I hoped for a blade proc.

[taiiat]

to be honest, i'm slightly confused as you used Life Strike on unranked items, which led me to believe you're pretending to be fresh off the boat.

 

don't really see where that player gets Life Strike from... but... :p

 

 

ultimately, i think (atleast mine) the major concern is that while you theoretically can break cameras and Et Cetera with only Melee - it takes a lot, lot, lot, lot longer to do. 

a gun just, bang. Melee, find a perfect height object, find the right spot on the wall, or just cry if they were Orokin Drones (and partially cry if Shield Ospreys).

 

 

I find daggers too slow for me. They either need a damage buff to balance out the slow attack rate (Like Crimson Dervish) or you need to un-equip the stance, which seems a little pointless to me (Pun highly intended)

i'd just make Daggers fast like they should be :v

interesting how Digital Extremes seems to think you can wildly swing a Sword around faster than you can a Dagger.

 

 

and mag would be a little too powerful in the way of shields and health.

Mag has sub standard Health though. 150 Shields, but only 75 Health. depending on situation then, i'd say Mag would be 'squishier' than Excalibur.

especially those Magnetic Enemies :p

[Letter13]

This is kind of fan zone material, as you're sharing your experience from the game.

[dragonboss]

What I've learned:

DE put a lot of work into making this viable that I don't think anyone realizes. Is there a security camera? Well I'll bet you that less than 6 feet away from it is a box, or something to stand on that will let you copter to it. You can always wall attack Sensor Bars. Yeah, it needs some creativity, but it's very possible to do this. I've now gone the entire star chart. Every mission, every boss, Skana alone. No abilities on my side. I have learned so much about melee in this game, and you think much more creatively about fighting after doing this. I honestly think it's an amazing thing to do, and I was so impressed by all the little things that no one notices, but were put in just for doing this.

 

Yeah, props to you for using the half-broken melee system throughout the solar map, but lets be realistic here, you shouldn't have to do a clunky as hell copter just so you can hit a sensor bar or flying enemy. I have always felt the copter looks stupid and should be changed for air.

 

I can assure you that coptering was not put in the game for you to be able to hit airbourne enemies. It was just a glitch someone discovered and it was left for so long, people thought it was a mechanic, and DE later decided to make it a "tweakable mechanic" because some people liked it.

Edited June 9, 2014 by dragonboss

[Sunder]

Most of my work was done with blocking and reflection, but I waited for them to get pretty low down, like when the corpus head is spitting, or the scythe is swinging or what have you, and coptered at them. Then I hoped for a blade proc.

 

No matter how much I've tried, even dead on it's been impossible to hit him with melee spin attacks.

I brought it up in Council chat when running it and everyone just repeated to me that it's impossible unless you use a throwing melee weapon.

I decided to try and lo' and behold it was just as they claimed.

 

And I tried blocking and reflecting. The spores they shoot out never reflect.

One head shoots the spores that grow into the spawners for lesser enemies

And the other things shot, even when blocked, just stick into the ground at your feet and detonate

Wasn't even able to get the Scythe/Grineer head to spawn =/

 

EDIT :

 

I'm in the fight at this very moment.

I have the parry mod on (Deflect 96% damage back at attacker)

 

The infested Ancient spits the exploding bombs which don't deflect

The Infested Corpus head spits the "eggs" that spawn more enemies. This too, cannot be deflected.

I've attacked all sides of the rock formation that pops up around them with no luck, no damage is being dealt, even with the "mouths" open

I've continued to try and jump atop them with no luck as I encounter the dreaded invisible barriers

I've gotten spot on slash-dash and spin attacks on the heads but again...invisible barriers just push me out of the way when I connect the attack

 

Can anyone actually enlighten me on how it's possible to take this thing out with JUST melee?

Edited June 9, 2014 by Smac

[Coatduck]

to be honest, i'm slightly confused as you used Life Strike on unranked items, which led me to believe you're pretending to be fresh off the boat.

 

don't really see where that player gets Life Strike from... but... :p

 

 

ultimately, i think (atleast mine) the major concern is that while you theoretically can break cameras and Et Cetera with only Melee - it takes a lot, lot, lot, lot longer to do. 

a gun just, bang. Melee, find a perfect height object, find the right spot on the wall, or just cry if they were Orokin Drones (and partially cry if Shield Ospreys).

 

I didn't really do this to emulate a new player, I did this to see if it could be done. Also, Life Strike is surprisingly common if you look for it. Honestly the hardest mod to get would be Crimson Dervish.

Also, as for the cameras and sensor bars, it took me a bit to learn, but I can now take out most cameras and sensor bars in about the time it would take you to pull out a pistol, which certainly is handy. You can even keep your hit counter going if you're good enough

[Coatduck]

No matter how much I've tried, even dead on it's been impossible to hit him with melee spin attacks.

I brought it up in Council chat when running it and everyone just repeated to me that it's impossible unless you use a throwing melee weapon.

I decided to try and lo' and behold it was just as they claimed.

 

And I tried blocking and reflecting. The spores they shoot out never reflect.

One head shoots the spores that grow into the spawners for lesser enemies

And the other things shot, even when blocked, just stick into the ground at your feet and detonate

Wasn't even able to get the Scythe/Grineer head to spawn =/

I don't mean to try to toot my own horn, but it was the last mission I did. I went through the entire star chart with only a skana, learning to take out flying/high up targets. Perhaps it's more about clever timing and well aimed shots than you'd think. You really have to know where the hitbox of your sword is.

[4MostlyHarmless2]

Oh... 

Oh my. 

I have nothing but respect for you, and what you have accomplished. 

 

This is what DE must have wanted to encourage when they introduced the new system: that people would be brave (or crazy) enough to try and do something like this. 

 

My hat off to you, good sir.