My Ideas To Improve Excalibro

[Beas7ie]

Moar love for Excalibro

[(PSN)theelix]

I love Excalibur, he was my first Warframe, and I even bought Founder's package so I can get Excalibro Prime.

 

Even though he can be fun to play as, he needs some love, after all he is not only a beginner frame but he is also the "mascot" and poster boy.  He's in forums off to the side, he's on the main site where you download the game standing front and center, in the devstream 32 link he's once again standing front and center with loki and ember off to the sides.

 

Hell there's even a large statue of him in the background of every devstream.  Whenever you need them, he's always there to kick @$$, look cool, and stand proudly.  Now it's time to thank him for that with some much needed improvments.

 

Nothing too extreme just some slight tweaks.

 

First of all, he is supposed to be "The Swordsman, yet he's not really tanky enough to get in close at high levels to effectively use melee, unlike other frames such as Rhino, Valkyr, and Ash.  As "The Swordsman" he needs the tankiness to get in the bad guys faces and hit them with his sword without being CCed or instagibbed in higher levels.  I know he has Radial Blind and it's a great skill but I don't want to have to basically rely on it all the time and turn what can be a very fun frame into a one trick pony.

 

First his base stats.

 

Health 100 to 120.  Not a huge buff, just something to help his tankiness

 

Shields   These can stay the same.   A slight increase wouldn't be out of the question but it's probably not necessary

 

Speed - Slight speed increase.  Maybe 1.1 or 1.2.  Let him run fast so he can run up and hit the bad guys with his sword.

 

Stamina - Stamina drains melee FAST, so increase to 130 so after he runs up to the bad guys, he can hit them more times with his sword and block more shots coming at him

 

Power - This is good as is for now.

 

Armor - Definitely needs an improvement.  Change from 65 to 150 or so.  Give him some much needed durability to get in the thick and cut people into little pieces.

 

Now for his skills

 

Slash Dash - It needs some tweaks.  First other than an armor ignore, it is outclassed by Rhino's Charge in every way shape and form.  It has a windup time, it's slower, does less damage, and has no CC for the enemies that aren't killed.  I really enjoyed using this skill back when I was a newbie and remember getting all giddy when I was able to get in a position where enemies were lined up perfectly to hit 3 or more at a time.  It's time to bring that back.

 

Mainly, remove or at least decrease the cast delay.  Make him move faster, after all he is trying to cut people up as quick as possible,  and let it scale with your melee weapon.  

 

This will give it some good buffs without directly increasing the damage and will make it fun without making it mega OP.

 

Radial Blind-  It works great as is, though perhaps let it leave enemies open for finishers like Valkyr's Warcry and Ash's teleport.  

 

 

 

Super Jump - Ok, so you can jump high.  YYYAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!!!! /end sarcasm

 

I see how this skill has some useful utility in some limited instances but it is honestly really lame compared to most other skills and in many cases can be rendered obsolete with good parkouring, coptering, etc.

 

What this needs is to be made similar to Zephyrs ground slam skill, though on a smaller scale.  First you activate it and jump like always, that remains unchanged.  But then you can activate it again and bring you weapon slamming down hard.  This will be much stronger than a regular air attack slam, and has a few extra bonuses.  First of all if you directly hit a nonboss enemy, they get split in half vertically.  If you played LoL then it's a lot like a Darius ult.  

 

Secondly, regardless of whether an enemy is hit and split a shockwave is split out in a close proximity and all enemies nearby, take damage and are stunned.  It may also be nice to make them open to those fancy finishers though having both this and RB have that effect might be too much.

 

 

 

Now for his ultimate Radial Javelin

 

Simple changes.  First of all, give the javelins their own unique models, instead of skanas mashed together.   Increase the number of javelins launched and increase the range.  This will give it better use and once again you won't need to just straight up buff the damage.  

 

Also make the dead enemies pinned to walls last longer so I can pull out an arm chair, have a drink, read the paper and declare the area my new big game hunter den.

 

 

These are some simple changes that can give him much needed improvements and make him more fun to play as, but will still not make him "ZOMG OP EAZYMODE".

 

What do you guys think?  If you like and agree with these ideas then awesome, it would be great to see your support.

 

If there's something you disagree with then that's fine also.  But then please post why you disagree, and what you think should be done.  Don't just post something like "Oh he's fine as is" or "This all sucks, you're stupid"  Give actual reasons.

 

Now let's get some love for Excalibro!

You're using excalibur much different than I use him, because you say his tankiness needs to be worked on but... The way I use him that would be pointless. 

 

First of all, I don't worry about his health, just put on life strike or rejuvination. I'm not sure about PC but on PS4, when you use Radial blind, all those kills count as stealth kills, and you can use the armor ignoring finishers on all of them plus the 4x stealth bonus. Meaning if you used life strike, that 300 hp is always instantly restored. 

 

Use Redirection and shield flux and never complain about stamina again. This also requires Quick Thinking and Rage, since you'll have no shields when you block for a bit. You use this to gain energy and radial blind, attack one, get all your health back and then... KILLING SPREE.

 

These next things I will suggest are optional for different builds but... I solo T4's with him like this. 

Reflex Guard 

Rush(HIGHLY changeable)

Super Jump

Blind Rage

Flow

 

Reflex guard helps you not get one shotted by Heavy Gunners when you're not using your melee. Excal may be the pure melee frame but... This is by no means all you should use him for. 

 

Rush to get around faster. (This is where I think he should be as fast as Loki.  HE'S THE FREAKING MELEE FRAME AND YOU CAN'T CATCH YOUR DAMN ENEMIES. WHY IS RUSH NEEDED FOR THIS, EXCAL SHOULD BE MUCH FASTER.) I switch this every now and then for Vitality if I feel like having basically infinite energy or heavy impact for conclave trolling. 

 

Super Jump to get to those Bow/ Sniping positions and to by pass wall climbing.... Because that takes too damn long. 

 

Blind Rage to increase the Super Jump height. (I recommend taking out Super jump and Blind rage if you're a hardcore player and switch them with duration and range mods, just because at Rank 7, blind rage makes radial blind cost 64 or so.)

 

Flow to increase survivability, power usage and channeling usage. 

 

This build is a very expensive build to fit everything properly. If you don't screw up and change builds or forma wrong, it takes about 8 or 9 forma. You don't die often. You only really die when you get stunlocked fifty times by heavy gunners one 2 hp or killed from behind because you can't block and defend yourself or one of those magnetic eximus sneak up on you. But magnetic eximus ruin EVERYONE'S day. 

[Beas7ie]

 

You're using excalibur much different than I use him, because you say his tankiness needs to be worked on but... The way I use him that would be pointless. 

 

First of all, I don't worry about his health, just put on life strike or rejuvination. I'm not sure about PC but on PS4, when you use Radial blind, all those kills count as stealth kills, and you can use the armor ignoring finishers on all of them plus the 4x stealth bonus. Meaning if you used life strike, that 300 hp is always instantly restored. 

 

Use Redirection and shield flux and never complain about stamina again. This also requires Quick Thinking and Rage, since you'll have no shields when you block for a bit. You use this to gain energy and radial blind, attack one, get all your health back and then... KILLING SPREE.

 

These next things I will suggest are optional for different builds but... I solo T4's with him like this. 

Reflex Guard 

Rush(HIGHLY changeable)

Super Jump

Blind Rage

Flow

 

Reflex guard helps you not get one shotted by Heavy Gunners when you're not using your melee. Excal may be the pure melee frame but... This is by no means all you should use him for. 

 

Rush to get around faster. (This is where I think he should be as fast as Loki.  HE'S THE FREAKING MELEE FRAME AND YOU CAN'T CATCH YOUR DAMN ENEMIES. WHY IS RUSH NEEDED FOR THIS, EXCAL SHOULD BE MUCH FASTER.) I switch this every now and then for Vitality if I feel like having basically infinite energy or heavy impact for conclave trolling. 

 

Super Jump to get to those Bow/ Sniping positions and to by pass wall climbing.... Because that takes too damn long. 

 

Blind Rage to increase the Super Jump height. (I recommend taking out Super jump and Blind rage if you're a hardcore player and switch them with duration and range mods, just because at Rank 7, blind rage makes radial blind cost 64 or so.)

 

Flow to increase survivability, power usage and channeling usage. 

 

This build is a very expensive build to fit everything properly. If you don't screw up and change builds or forma wrong, it takes about 8 or 9 forma. You don't die often. You only really die when you get stunlocked fifty times by heavy gunners one 2 hp or killed from behind because you can't block and defend yourself or one of those magnetic eximus sneak up on you. But magnetic eximus ruin EVERYONE'S day. 

 

 

Everything you said is awesome on him but at the same time, it works just as well for everyone else.  With the right mods you can make even the squisher frames like Loki be able to take a beating and keep going but that doesn't necessarily mean that's the best option or something you SHOULD do.  

 

If you use lifestrike, quick thinking, blind rage, rejuvenation(or energy syphon) then pretty much ANY frame can be make to be durable.

 

I do agree that sprint speed should be buffed, but his overall defenses should be as well.  He is THE melee frame, or should be and as such he should NATURALLY have some pretty decent defenses or damage mitigation like so many other frames have without having to get a "specialized mod" loadout to make up for it.   I'd be glad if he gets certain buffs that only go off only when he's in "melee mode" to promote wanting to get up there and cut slice the bad guys into little pieces with your sword instead of staying back and unloading your boltor prime clip into them.

 

Think of it this way.  Almost every skill he has, another frame has only they can do it better.

 

Slash dash.  Zephyr has a skill similar to that in which it can cover much more ground and even go up into the air though it does do less damage. It also has no cast time and moves much faster

 

Rhino has rhino charge which does MORE damage, has NO chargeup time, and even has CC to knock the enemies out of the way if they don't get mushed into paste.

 

Super Jump,   Valkyr has Ripline that not only gives it more movement options but also can damage and pull enemies to it like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat.  GET OVER HERE!   

 

Zephyr has one that can go much much higher, synergizes well with her version of slash dash, AND can be used with a "Super Dunk skill". Also you can get to pretty much the same places with any other frame with good parkouring and wall jumping.  It needs an improvement.

 

Radial Javelin : Once again goes against "The Swordsman" theme and just launches javelins that have limited capacity, no punch through,(they can even be blocked by the grineer shield guys shields!) and does about normal damage.

 

Whereas many other frames*cough Rhino*Cough* have skills that damage EVERTHING in the are, do more damage, and even have some kind of CC.

 

Radial Blind is pretty much Excals best skill and I don't like using that, because even though it is SUPER EFFECTIVE, it feels a lot more of a "cheap trick" skill like Loki would use instead of a skill that would be used by "The Swordsman"

 

Long story short, Excal isn't a bad frame.  I play as him and have fun with him, but when you add in the newer, shiner frames with their newer and shiner abilities, his lackluster stats, and his skills that are pretty "meh" compared to the new stuff coming out, it's not unreasonable to ask that he be taken back to the drawing board to look at ways to improve him and make him more fun to play.

[NeyoWargear]

Last week when playing, I was surrounded and using my Excalibur Prime, I used Radial Javelin. Enemies were running away beforehand and went around a column, but one of my javelins tracked him and curved around the column to catch him. I've never noticed before, maybe it's new, but yes, the javelins track and turn.

[Thaumatos]

I'll say it again because it bears repeating until they get it done:

 

• Slash Dash needs to build and use the melee combo counter
• Radial Blind should be able to be cast during a melee combo
• Super Jump needs to be made into a general skill and xcal needs a replacement
• Radial Javelin should be changed to Rain of Blades and should look more like this:

 

[shut]

Got another idea for super jump.  If you're up in the air, you can target an area and slam/slash down to it.  I'm thinking something like a similar ability to Zephyr's nose dive.  I know you can slash dash, but slash dash is straight horizontal.  What if you can target an area and stun everyone around it?  

 

I guess another example would be Aatrox's dive skill in LoL.

It would be pretty sweet if melee slam attacks had damage that scaled from height. I was shocked to see that this wasn't already the case when I first joined.

I'm not sure about PC but on PS4, when you use Radial blind, all those kills count as stealth kills, and you can use the armor ignoring finishers on all of them plus the 4x stealth bonus. Meaning if you used life strike, that 300 hp is always instantly restored. 

Wait, what the hell?

I haven't played WF in a couple weeks, but did they change Radial Blind to forced Finishers (a la Teleport) recently? Because if there was one way that they could remove any pure-melee viability that Excalibur had, it was that.

I hope this isn't true. My Excal main is built entirely for mowing down hordes of enemies in a single combo with a Bo or Amphis, and this would make that entirely impossible.

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

 

• Super Jump needs to be made into a general skill and xcal needs a replacement:

 

This. Hold down the jump button to make a frame jump higher. Height could be affected by the type of frame (Rhino wouldn't get much of a boost, while Zephyr would jump quite high). Abilities like Dive Bomb, Rip Line, and others made for height could either be castable after jumping or allow for jumping after being casted. 

 

For a replacement, what if for 50 energy Excalibur gains unlimited stamina and reflects an additional 150% of damage (I think there might be an issue with damage reflection where it is mitigated by the frame's armor, so I'd increase the reflection buff to compensate) for 25 seconds maxed. I would keep most of the OP's other buffs, except drop the sprint speed to 1.1 or 1.2 instead of 1.4, and keep the armor at 65 instead of 150.

 

By doing this, I'm trying to contrast the main melee frames more: Excalibur, Valkyr, and Ash (I'd add Saryn too but she needs a rework). Excalibur would specialize in damage with a few crowd control abilities and decent speed, but not a lot of damage reduction. Ash would mix mobility with some direct damage abilities, but no crowd control. Valkyr would specialize in damage reduction with a little bit of both mobility and crowd control, but not as much as either Excalibur or Ash. If I reworked Saryn, I would have her mix damage reduction and AOE debuffs, but not have the mobility or crowd control of some of the others. I think Hydroid might be a melee frame as well, but I've never used him.

[(PSN)theelix]

It would be pretty sweet if melee slam attacks had damage that scaled from height. I was shocked to see that this wasn't already the case when I first joined.

Wait, what the hell?

I haven't played WF in a couple weeks, but did they change Radial Blind to forced Finishers (a la Teleport) recently? Because if there was one way that they could remove any pure-melee viability that Excalibur had, it was that.

I hope this isn't true. My Excal main is built entirely for mowing down hordes of enemies in a single combo with a Bo or Amphis, and this would make that entirely impossible.

It's random. You can hit them with a slide and sometimes you'll be forced into an animation or you could walk up behind someone and just slice right through them. 

[CombatPastor]

Yeah. I main Excalibur and, as much as I love the frame, the poster boy definitely needs a rework. I kind of hate that he doesn't seem to get much love. I've noticed, just like you guys, that Radial Blind seems to be forcing me into random finishers fairly frequently, which stops  me from being able to blind a horde, then spin attack straight through the middle and mow them down. Now I'm getting hung up in finisher animations every second kill...if not worse.

 

If I were to make changes to Excal, I would have the damage scale with your melee damage (Slash Dash does 300% of base melee damage) or something. Maybe have the attack count as melee and simply build the melee combo counter (Ash's Bladestorm anyone?) I also noticed that Slash Dash seems to have lost some of its "frames of invincibility" thing. Yeah, I can still get through lasers, but I still take damage from Sargas Ruk's first fire AoE...when did that start?

 

Next, could we give Radial Javelin some punch through? Please?

 

Finally, stop the forced finisher thing for Radial Blind. It's really messing up an extremely good balanced frame.

[(PSN)theelix]

Maybe instead of taking away super jump, since Excalibur is the melee frame, why not take away Radial Javelins? Because it doesn't really make sense to have it and he doesn't really need an AoE. Actually, sure, he does. Let's replace radial javelin with Byakuya's Bankai. 

 

Duration ability and it's small and surrounds him. Like really closely and boost his melee and speed and inside of the small dome, enemies get slash damage. But not major damage dealing just like... 50slash damage and 100% proc. 

 

Either that or Turn Radial Javelin into the Super Jump replacement that I mentioned earlier. Which was adapted from the OP.

[Znoly]

thats not a bad idea, change radial javelin into a wall of spears/swords? enemies within 3m(affected by range mod) of excalibro gets a forced bleed proc of course the ability will either be toggled or duration based. So the idea is to use ulti then slash dash enemies to force bleed them. The amount of bleed damage scales with rank and power strength. rank 1 would do 50+3% of target health bleed damage and 150+10% of target health at max rank so it scales also in 1hr+ survival/endless defence etc.

[Thaumatos]

They could change Radial Javelin to Blade Barrier.  

The gif I found is kinda small, but maybe it would look something like this:

Edited August 17, 2014 by Thaumatos

[Mesyra]

I approve

[tris1]

They could change Radial Javelin to Blade Barrier.  

The gif I found is kinda small, but maybe it would look something like this:

Some did make a skill for Excalibur called blade barrier that seemed to look good I'll have to find it later

[(PSN)Strifedecer]

The most important buff for Excalibur is that ingame he needs to be renamed Excalibro. You would either start with Excalibro or farm of Excalibro Helmet, Excalibro Chassis, and Excalibro Systems off of Ambulas, and then you would buy an Excalibro Blueprint, craft Excalibro, and then he would come with a pair of sunglasses so he doesn't blind himself with radial blind. Then you have to give him a gun with Heavy Calibro.

 

I can now die in peace.

[(PSN)SofeSNBR]

I would hope he would have more useful abilities than one. Radial blind is awesome and does give chance to do melee counter finisher, combine this with strong melee weapon and you can survive good amount time in t4 missions without firing single bullet. Super jump is meh, altrhough sometimes helpful to get faster to life support capsule in survival. Radial javelin just needs damage buff and utility, maybe make it so that survived enemies gets pinned on the walls and on the floors? Slash dash should have 100% bleed proc, just like all direct damaging ash abilities. For other stats, armor increase would be neat.

[Vallerian]

Radial blind is pretty damn OPl, I think it'd need a nerf before they adjusted anything else on him

Edited August 21, 2014 by Vallerian

[(PSN)Strifedecer]

Radial blind is pretty damn OPl, I think it'd need a nerf before they adjusted anything else on him

 

No. Shaddup.

[MDRLOz]

I use Excalibur and not much else, however I would say the way I use him has changed over time. 

A few people suggest tweaking his stats and I don't feel this is the issue. The problems lie in his abilities. 

Excalibur is not a tank so if you want a ranged or melee tank go build a rhino or Valkyr and use them.

Excalibur should be balance of several things.  

 

Slash dash was a king ability back in Damage 1.0 due to its complete armour ignore. 

Currently I feel it does not do much damage unless you build into damage and that seems silly on Excalibur. 

 

I find now all I use is super jump for movement and radial blind all the time.

I feel slash dash can be used for a gap closing for melee but not much more than just running achieves. 

 

However I never really use radial javelin, in damage 1.0 doing 4 slash dashes would deal more damage and more focused to. Currently I feel it is just there to look cool and nothing else. 

 

An easy and simple buff, that people have suggested here, I think his slash dash and Radial blind could benefit from a damage increase based on melee multiplier. That would be a small change and make melee viable on him. e.g. Building up a x3 damage and then slash dashing for massive damage through a huge pack. or building up a crazy melee frenzy knocking over loads of mobs and then just clearing all with one massive radial Jav.

 

However  personally I feel Radial Javelin is the weakest of his abilities and one of the weakest and most disappointing 4's in the game. Personally I would like this ability to be re-designed so that it is closer to Excalibur's name sake. Remove radial javelin as an ability and replace with a new one that buffs all the other abilities. Call it something crazy like Final Edge or Break Steel or Ladies blessing. A toggled ability that makes Excalibur materialize the blade he uses for slash dash now (a bit like how hysteria makes Valkyr gain claws). While the ability is active all of the abilities cost more but do more damage / additional affects. Examples: Slash dash more damage/knock down. Radial blind does AoE damage and knockdown / acts like old radial Javelin (lower damage). Super jump Upward sweep attack does aoe damage and then jumps upward with melee attack (so hits flying units). 

Obviously all of that would be broken but its radial javelin that feels the most useless and out of place on his current kit. Its just an aoe damage but so many other frames do that better than Excalibur does. 

 

Of course I doubt this will happen as Excalibur is consider THE starting frame and has to stay simple and he barely gets a look in.  

[RahuHordika]

Of course I doubt this will happen as Excalibur is consider THE starting frame and has to stay simple and he barely gets a look in.

That didn't stop Mag and Volt from getting their tweaks (they need a little bit more to be on par, but got tweaked nonetheless). Here's hoping DE will eventually do it, it's just that they currently seemed more focused on frames that are often cried for.

Excalibur should be balance of several things.

This is an important thing to keep in mind. Most of these threads are often invaded and poisoned by hardcore 'Cal defenders who for some reason think spamming Radial Blind makes Excal pitch perfect and any changes suggested or criticism made is a sin, what's worse they often seem to think RB is the whole point of Excalibur.

Wrong, that's just one of his abilities that while good does not mean all the others revolve around it, Excal is who is supposed to be the jack of all trades, who has abilities that perform well in several fields but excell at none, and that the request of changes to make those other 3 abilities perform well on their own is a completely justified one.

Some have suggested a 100% slash proc on SDash, and it seems like a good augmentation although I personally prefer it if it inherited some traits of your current melee like Hysteria. I have yet to analize SJump and Radial Jav a bit more.

[(PSN)ssj4notz]

How about making Radial Javelin's damage a set value (1500 damage per javelin split in I/P/S) then let power strength up the number of javelins (same as before).

 

But when there are only 5 mobs in range then the javelins will only go to those 5 mobs. If there are 15 mobs then the javelins will be split to those 15. So on...

 

That avoids wasting all those other javelins.

 

Although it might make the skill OP...

 

Just my thoughts...

[Thaumatos]

Radial blind is pretty damn OPl, I think it'd need a nerf before they adjusted anything else on him

All CC is OP.

 

I expect it will be changed to a 'resistance' check at some point.

[Thaumatos]

That didn't stop Mag and Volt from getting their tweaks (they need a little bit more to be on par, but got tweaked nonetheless). Here's hoping DE will eventually do it, it's just that they currently seemed more focused on frames that are often cried for.

 

They're still not considered 'starter' frames.  DE made a video and called xcal THE starter frame.

 

Also, xcal prime was a founders-only frame.  I'm pretty sure that's what is keeping them from making xcal awesome.  They don't want people to, "Dude where's my Prime?" on him.

Edited August 22, 2014 by Thaumatos

[RahuHordika]

They're still not considered 'starter' frames.  DE made a video and called xcal THE starter frame.

 

Also, xcal prime was a founders-only frame.  I'm pretty sure that's what is keeping them from making xcal awesome.  They don't want people to, "Dude where's my Prime?" on him.

To be honest it'd be stupid of DE to leave Excal untouched for either of these reasons, starter weapons I can take but no warframe should be left behind for any reason. Even if he is 'the' starter frame he is still an option amongst 3, and 2 of those have better long term utility spread evenly across their abilities in the sense that they don't have to rely or revolve almost exclusively around one ability at one point, if anything Excal needs to be the epitome of balance and have all of his abilities perfectly usable in the long run by themselves, he is the poster boy after all.

And the Prime argument doesn't make sense, people are already crying for Excal Prime so it wouldn't change a thing, DE has no reason not to make Excal more useful than just RB spam.

[(PSN)Strifedecer]

Truthfully, the main reason I want to see Excalibur buffed is because I feel he is the coolest looking frame, at least for me with smoke colours and my playing style.

#NobleStanceSweg