Excalibur Improvements

[Azamagon]

With the graphical improvements to Excalibur's abilities, it can be guessed that DE's intention of Excalibur is to be this kind of swordsman that can summon his own "Excalibur", his own hardlight-sword, to perform various combat moves. It's kinda like photokinesis, similar to Mirage, but more based on a slashing kind of light.

So, while this graphical overhaul certainly nailed the "energysword projection" kind of thing to give him a more overarcing theme... it didn't really do much to improve his skillset. Nor does he really feel like a real swordsman, still.

 

Now, that said and done, I'd like to analyze and improve his skillset a bit.

 

Analysis

Slash Dash

* Good for mobility

* Damage dramatically drops off at higher levels

* Provides a little bit towards the combo multiplier

* Has no other utility than the mobility

 

Radial Blind

* Amazing CC, that is ALWAYS useful

* Indirectly buffs meleeing, due to the enemy blindness (one hit per target gets a stealth multiplier)

* But, it has line of sight restrictions, which is a HORRIBLE "feature"

 

Radial Javelin

* Quite weak ultimate, with many shortcomings (cover blocks javelins, limitted amount of javelins only casts on enemies aware of you, which is ANOTHER even MORE HORRIBLE "feature", ESPECIALLY since Super Jump makes you invisible and Radial Blind makes enemies blind >_> Ladies and gentlemen; Counter-synergy at its worst! T_T)

* Shortlasting stun

* Slow to cast, even slower to recover from it

 

Super Jump

* Provides a high jump, decent for mobility, although very niche benefit

* Makes you invisible while in the air, all the way until you land

* Has nothing else to bring to the table

* Overall, doesn't really seem to fit his intended theme, the "swordsman", either

 

Overall, his kit seems to wanna be saying he is about swordmanship (it hints a bit towards the melee combo multiplier), but they hardly interact with meleeing whatsoever! On top of that, Super Jump feels very out of place, especially now when Zephyr exists...

 

That said, here are my suggestions:

Slash Dash

* Not only boosts the melee combo counter, it also BENEFITS from it!

* Each hit by Slash Dash increases the combo counter by +1/2/3/4 points (meaning, Surging Dash is integrated baseline)

* The damage now also has a 100% chance Slash (bleed) proc!

* All enemies hit are staggered

* Passes through enemies freely

* Surging Dash needs a revamp, what that is, I dunno yet, thinking about it.

 

Radial Blind

* After cast, Excalibur still glows for up to 5 seconds, making him able to blind (but maybe not stun?) enemies that get in his line of sight and within casting range during this glow-time

* Possibly remove the LoS-restriction again (because Space Magic!), but then maybe make the initial stun duration (but not the blind duration) be affected by Strength mods? That makes it a bit less overpowered for the max-range modding

 

Radial Javelin Blade Barrier

This ability just feels too out of place in his kit. But, with some tweaks, it can be made to fit his kit much better:

* Now has 2 phases; an initial "blade barrier" phase, and a "blade launch" phase

-- Phase 1)

Upon activation, you get blades spinning around you (the blade barrier phase). These blades do several things:

* They deal damage to nearby enemies (say, 50/75/100/125 slash damage twice per second), and maybe also gives +1 to the melee combo counter each time they strike an enemy!

* They can provide you with some minor protection (either deflecting projectiles here and there, or a plain damage reduction)

* While blocking, the blades are not angled outwards to slash enemies, but instead raised upwards, helping you to block in a 360 degree angle + gives you a certain amount of projectile-reflection (similar to and stacking with the Reflection mod), say 25/50/75/100%, but then they don't deal the spinning slash damage to nearby enemies. Stopping the blocking obviously makes the blades go back to slashing and dealing damage again. Focus on more offense or more defense, your choice!

EDIT: As suggested by WolvenEdge, the block-redirection could also go where you AIM, rather than just going straight back to its source. With that, you could "even make it capable of directing your friends' fire, so that you turn into a bladed lens that points the hurt toward choice targets", as he so nicely put it himself :P

-- Phase 2)

If the first phase's duration runs out, or if you activate the ability again in the middle of the first phase, the second phase will happen, which works similar to the oldest version of radial javelin (aka, launches a limitted amount of blades outwards from Excalibur, in a projectile-like fashion), but with a few tweaks:

* Not only deals damage, it also pushes all hit enemies away in a ragdoll fashion, even if they don't die!

* Damage is boosted by the melee combo multiplier (but does not provide to the counter), thus its base damage is only 450/550/650/750, split evenly among Puncture/Slash/Impact.

* They have very slight punchthrough, enough to hit targets behind thin covers and through Shield Lancer shields.

 

Super Jump

This one... I don't know what to do. But I have several ideas for it:

1) Highly improve it

2) Slight revamp, but with its jump intact

3) Revamp it, but with its old vertical movement-booster intact somehow

4) Make it a generic mod (so any Warframe can use it, which is a future thing for new ability mods anyway, stated by DE themselves!) and replace it with a new ability

 

These are my ideas for each:

1) Highly improved Super Jump

* Can be used while knocked down, instantly recovering!

* Provides a knockdowneffect against nearby enemies from his starting point

* Possibly allow it to be used once midair

* Let it boost the next melee slam-attack by quite a dramatic amount (both damage and radius)

 

2) Slight revamp (My personal choice, as it's the not too controversial while still making it fit his kit!)

* Renamed "Rising Slash" or something similar, and along with the jump, you also do a spinning rising slash (imagine a Tornado of blades!), done with his summoned sword. This slash would deal damage slightly less than Slash Dash (scales from and contributes towards the combo counter, also forces the Slash proc)

* Ragdolls all caught enemies up along with him, giving it great synergy with the Radial Javelin revamp!

* While jumping upwards, the spinning slash also deflects all enemy gunfire! (Possibly reflects it back?)

 

3) Bigger revamp:

Now called something like "Flourish" or similar

* A selfbuff for Excalibur which gives him a great boost in agility, improving things such as:

  * Greater stamina-regeneration, active even while stamina is draining!

  * Jumping height can become much higher (like Super Jump) if you press and HOLD your jumpbutton while Flourish is active!

  * Increased melee attackspeed

  * Slightly increased movementspeed

 

4) Complete replacement (and Super Jump turning into a generic ability mod or something like that):

New skill: Weapon of Light

* A buff for Excalibur and his nearby allies, infusing him and his allies' melee weapons with destructive light! While active, each melee attack now projects foward-moving "waves" of slashing light, which punches through multiple enemies, each hit counting for the combo counter! Other melee attacks (such as slamattack, slideattack, finishers etc), get boosted areas of effect, weapon reach etc and of course, more damage done with them.

 

Either of these 4 options for Super Jump... and I still don't know which one to choose (although my choices lean more towards #2 or #4). If you guys got better ideas, then please share! :)

 

These suggestions will greatly increase his (presumable) melee theme to much higher levels: Slash Dash interacts with the melee combo counter on top of its other improvements, Radial Bind does what it used to do, Blade Barrier interacts with blocking (and being proximite to enemies, also fitting for meleeing) and also synergizes really well with Slash Dash (dash through with the barrier active for maximum slicing and dicing!) and either of Super Jump's improvements/revamps should also help with increasing the melee interactivity!

 

So... what do you guys think about these things? :)

Edited March 24, 2015 by Azamagon

[misoru2012]

All of my yes. Excalibur (Prime) is my favorite frame, and I love all of these creative (Blade Barrier in particular) improvements. +1

 

EDIT: As much as I love super jump, Weapon of Light sounds like a better choice.

Edited July 28, 2014 by misoru2012

[WizardreousWalrus]

Super jump should be replaced with a type of airborn slash-dash. Where Excalibur slashes straight up, carrying any hit enemy with him, attacks them twice in a combo mid-air, and then charges straight towards the next closest enemy, leaving any caught in his upward lunge to plummet to their death, and the victim of his air-charge to become ragdolled and take heavy slash damage, with a high chance of bleeding.

c:

[misoru2012]

Super jump should be replaced with a type of airborn slash-dash. Where Excalibur slashes straight up, carrying any hit enemy with him, attacks them twice in a combo mid-air, and then charges straight towards the next closest enemy, leaving any caught in his upward lunge to plummet to their death, and the victim of his air-charge to become ragdolled and take heavy slash damage, with a high chance of bleeding.

c:

As cool as that sounds, it would require a lot of coding.

[Nxai]

Since you asked people to share they're ideas, I might as well share mine which was posted just a day ago, and de-railed immediately into whether or not excalibur needed a buff or not. https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/275951-people-want-an-excalibur-buff/

 

Overall I agree on most of your points, although there are always those niche specialty builds that make a certain playstyle powerful no matter how strong the base abilities they use are

[-Kyuubi-]

oh god please do this DE,

 

love the Weapon of Light idea :)

[GoddamnThatAsh]

Brings nothing else to the table? are you kidding me? Sigh -_____-

The Blind Dude use the BLIND its amazing...

[LasersGoPewPew]

if anything the shockwave boost from "heavy impact" should be applied to excals super jump when he jumps.

 

slash dash sholud just do X% more damage than the players slide attack damage (instead of the 300 or so it seems to do) so that way it can still maintain some damage at later game.

 

radial blind:i love this move to death as well it has saved my team a few times with its' long duration stun and decent area of affect.

 

Radial Javelin: i agree with your suggestions OP, i'd love to have swirling blades of light circling me and helping me kill enemies.

[Azamagon]

All of my yes. Excalibur (Prime) is my favorite frame, and I love all of these creative (Blade Barrier in particular) improvements. +1

 

EDIT: As much as I love super jump, Weapon of Light sounds like a better choice.

Thank you, glad you liked them! ^^

Just a little note: The Blade Barrier was an ability inspired by BlatantFool's Excalibur-revamp, although I made it simpler (after all, Cali is one of the noobframes)

Weapon of Light's main inspiration was from a game called Little Fighter 2, where a swordsman called Deep can slash away these little energy blades. Neat little game :)

 

Super jump should be replaced with a type of airborn slash-dash. Where Excalibur slashes straight up, carrying any hit enemy with him, attacks them twice in a combo mid-air, and then charges straight towards the next closest enemy, leaving any caught in his upward lunge to plummet to their death, and the victim of his air-charge to become ragdolled and take heavy slash damage, with a high chance of bleeding.

c:

As cool as that sounds, it would require a lot of coding.

^ What that guy said.

Nevertheless, it is not a bad idea to turn Super Jump into something like "Rising Slash", think a rising uppercut, but using your "Excalibur"-sword, lifting up frontal enemies with you (potentially along with all the other Super Jump improvements I proposed). Simple and powerful. This could then be combined by using Slash Dash in the air afterwards, to dash through the lifted enemies, almost doing the same thing as WizardreousWalrus suggested

 

Not a bad idea! :)

 

Since you asked people to share they're ideas, I might as well share mine which was posted just a day ago, and de-railed immediately into whether or not excalibur needed a buff or not. https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/275951-people-want-an-excalibur-buff/

 

Overall I agree on most of your points, although there are always those niche specialty builds that make a certain playstyle powerful no matter how strong the base abilities they use are

Thank you for sharing! :)

I read through it all, and while I think it is interesting, I think it isn't really the best idea to run for because

* It is very complex

* Complex is bad for coding

* Complex is bad for newbies, which is what Excalibur users often are

 

oh god please do this DE,

 

love the Weapon of Light idea :)

Haha, thank you for the WoL support! ^^

 

Brings nothing else to the table? are you kidding me? Sigh -_____-

The Blind Dude use the BLIND its amazing...

Huh? I never said he brings nothing to the table, I even said his Radial Blind ability is AMAZING!

Please, read it all before posting... please?

[Marthrym]

Interesting ideas.^^

 

Brings nothing else to the table? are you kidding me? Sigh -_____-

The Blind Dude use the BLIND its amazing...

Did you read OP's post?^^'

One trick poney is good?... Let me give you back your *sigh*, you've earned it.^^

[Nxai]

Thank you for sharing! :)

I read through it all, and while I think it is interesting, I think it isn't really the best idea to run for because

* It is very complex

* Complex is bad for coding

* Complex is bad for newbies, which is what Excalibur users often are

 

I understand your points, but they are partially also the reason why I want something complex instead of your idea, which I do like and actually want a slash beam type thing, which is more, simple buffings and visual FX.

 

bad for newbies is excalibur currently. Infact in my opinion I'm extremely glad that when I started I picked mag over excal or loki. Excalibur as he is, needs something to add to that experience of being a "Swordsman" shall we say. A lot of my friends have joined as the months that I've played has drawn on the vast majority of them picked excalibur, and got really bored as a result. Why? Because he is just flat out not an in your face impressive frame. Yes he's good, yes he can be played very effectively, but by someone who KNOWS the game and has the set up. Slashdash falls off too quickly to stay useful unless you can consistently hit headshots, which is very difficult.

 

Blind is great, but at 50 energy to a newbie they will either notice it's use immediately or shy away from it because it's not damage, which at lower level play is more important. A new player would rather javelin to clear a group and feel cool and strong than radial blind to stun a room. Super jump is the #1 underused skill ever in my opinion, It's great for mobility, truly and at 10 energy a cast it's very useful, if you already have a good gun and the ability to hit shots while on the move.

 

This culminates to a sum total of three possible skills and probably only 2 used commonly by new players. those being slash dash/radial javelin. The damaging skills, which will appear to be the most impressive/useful at that level.

 

But my dual wielding idea, it's not just a damage buff, it isn't just a special bloom effect and some better damage or more range. It's a fundamental change in playstyle. 1, it would give you that awesome intense feeling of having a limited time to do something extremely cool, similar to how hysteria is, except without the lack of threat. You would suddenly have these, high power, fast, reaching animations on your melee that you can use to take down that group of grineer surrounding you, and not just feel like you hit one button. 2, Give you MORE damage, that can be SCALED UP. Lack of scaling is excalibur's biggest weakness 3, yes it would be complex to code, but if it was coded in and done, it would be simple to use, and simple to learn, it would still be just like regular melee, but with something unique to give excalibur that flare that he's lacking without making him OP, because he would still be limited by melee range, he would still be vulnerable to damage, he would still have make that effort to kill the enemies, but he wouldn't be so blah when it comes to abilities because he could be given cool animations alongside a fun and useful unique effect.

 

But, I guess in practice of community attention, your idea is more appealing lol, so I'm already arguing a lost cause.

[Azamagon]

I understand your points, but they are partially also the reason why I want something complex instead of your idea, which I do like and actually want a slash beam type thing, which is more, simple buffings and visual FX.

 

bad for newbies is excalibur currently. Infact in my opinion I'm extremely glad that when I started I picked mag over excal or loki. Excalibur as he is, needs something to add to that experience of being a "Swordsman" shall we say. A lot of my friends have joined as the months that I've played has drawn on the vast majority of them picked excalibur, and got really bored as a result. Why? Because he is just flat out not an in your face impressive frame. Yes he's good, yes he can be played very effectively, but by someone who KNOWS the game and has the set up. Slashdash falls off too quickly to stay useful unless you can consistently hit headshots, which is very difficult.

 

Blind is great, but at 50 energy to a newbie they will either notice it's use immediately or shy away from it because it's not damage, which at lower level play is more important. A new player would rather javelin to clear a group and feel cool and strong than radial blind to stun a room. Super jump is the #1 underused skill ever in my opinion, It's great for mobility, truly and at 10 energy a cast it's very useful, if you already have a good gun and the ability to hit shots while on the move.

 

This culminates to a sum total of three possible skills and probably only 2 used commonly by new players. those being slash dash/radial javelin. The damaging skills, which will appear to be the most impressive/useful at that level.

 

But my dual wielding idea, it's not just a damage buff, it isn't just a special bloom effect and some better damage or more range. It's a fundamental change in playstyle. 1, it would give you that awesome intense feeling of having a limited time to do something extremely cool, similar to how hysteria is, except without the lack of threat. You would suddenly have these, high power, fast, reaching animations on your melee that you can use to take down that group of grineer surrounding you, and not just feel like you hit one button. 2, Give you MORE damage, that can be SCALED UP. Lack of scaling is excalibur's biggest weakness 3, yes it would be complex to code, but if it was coded in and done, it would be simple to use, and simple to learn, it would still be just like regular melee, but with something unique to give excalibur that flare that he's lacking without making him OP, because he would still be limited by melee range, he would still be vulnerable to damage, he would still have make that effort to kill the enemies, but he wouldn't be so blah when it comes to abilities because he could be given cool animations alongside a fun and useful unique effect.

 

But, I guess in practice of community attention, your idea is more appealing lol, so I'm already arguing a lost cause.

Just a few more things:

* Not only is the coding far more complex, but how would you solve the "blade summon" when using a twohanded weapon, such as the heavy weapons? For those weapons, it would be quite useless and abilities shouldn't ever be useless on their own.

* Having complexity in an ability shouldn't stem too much from its actual design, but in how you apply it. Example: Loki's Decoy. Very simple thing, you just place a aggro-drawing decoy somewhere. But the applications for it are so many, within his own kit he can synergize it with all his skills, and it works really well with other characters' abilities too (Tesla, Vortex, Absorb etc). Your blade summon is the opposite, it is complex in coding, looks, handling and all that, for a somewhat simple benefit: More melee damage. Hence, I really don't think it is worth all its effort.

 

Not bashing the idea, just trying to be constructive about it :)

[Azamagon]

Radial Blind is fine as it is, it does not require it to have any Power Strength requirements. Specialisation is a thing, making something affected by all 4 areas = bad.

That's not bad, that's BALANCE

[Nagisawa]

Reposted from another thread on the Excalibur:

 

"As for Super Jump how about a minor redesign?  Let it stay a super leap, but have him do a 'Chanbara' style over head sword strike?  He leaps, both hands go over his head, grasping the energy sword that DE gave him for the new Slash Dash (which honestly, I'd give him two blades when he Slash Dashes, but that's just a visual effect, nothing more.) and comes down crashing blade flat (not a stab) into the ground and a wave of an energy expands out from the landing?

 

As for Radial Javelin...  How about a complete redesign?  Instead of the blades, he expels a bunch of Excalibur Images that Slash Dash in a radial attack.  They would go through objects to a maximum diameter, each image does the same damage as a single Slash Dash activation.  A maximum of 6-8 images.

 

Change the name to something like Flash Strike or whatnot."

[Guest Tehnoobshow]

How about making the weapon of light slash waves have knock down?

[Eyeless]

I really like your Flourish idea. 

 

Giving him a series of buffs while retaining what makes Super Jump one of my favorite cinch powers. 

[(PSN)DanteVincent]

My top 3 frame, glad to read this thread, very nice suggestions, and if i may just add another inconvenience in the current skill set of excalibur:

 

Super Jump is affected by Power strenght, like, wtf, both hydroid's and zephyr's take into account duration  ,so should super jump, in order to better synrgize with his only useful skill, radial blind.

 

A skill like SJ or TW is always nice to launch yourself up and launche those explosives down, or even avoid damage and get a few seconds to strategize, i really like the skill, just hate how it stupidly uses power strenght.

 

As for slash and dash and radial javeli? Love your suggestions and hope de saves them.

[Azamagon]

Reposted from another thread on the Excalibur:

 

"As for Super Jump how about a minor redesign?  Let it stay a super leap, but have him do a 'Chanbara' style over head sword strike?  He leaps, both hands go over his head, grasping the energy sword that DE gave him for the new Slash Dash (which honestly, I'd give him two blades when he Slash Dashes, but that's just a visual effect, nothing more.) and comes down crashing blade flat (not a stab) into the ground and a wave of an energy expands out from the landing?

 

As for Radial Javelin...  How about a complete redesign?  Instead of the blades, he expels a bunch of Excalibur Images that Slash Dash in a radial attack.  They would go through objects to a maximum diameter, each image does the same damage as a single Slash Dash activation.  A maximum of 6-8 images.

 

Change the name to something like Flash Strike or whatnot."

Super Jump getting that slamattack added to it in the end makes it a bit less flexible imo. Adding something to it in its START (like a rising blade-uppercut), while leaving the downwards motion up to you (land normally, melee slamattack etc) makes it more flexible. If, for example, it had the blade-uppercut + a bonus to your next melee slamattack, then I'd think it would be neat to use more

 

Your Radial Javelin rework, while not a bad idea per se, would possibly make it worse (imo). Why?

1) Less original, as it uses ability #1, just beefed up. Sure, it maybe is "flashier", but it makes too samey to his first ability.

2) There are enough "clone" abilities in the game already (Decoy, Hall of Mirrors, Bladestorm, Molt).

3) Fewer "projectiles" launched and the images would probably dash across the ground surface, compared to the javelins which have autoaim, and there are more than a dozen of them. It would probably just make it too prone to miss enemies overall.

 

How about making the weapon of light slash waves have knock down?

Ummm... that would be quite a bit overpowered, considering you get a slash wave on every melee strike for the buff duration

 

I really like your Flourish idea. 

 

Giving him a series of buffs while retaining what makes Super Jump one of my favorite cinch powers. 

Thanks! :) That was my "rework it with a compromise" idea. It keeps its old useage, but also gets more added to it to make it far less niched :)

 

My top 3 frame, glad to read this thread, very nice suggestions, and if i may just add another inconvenience in the current skill set of excalibur:

 

Super Jump is affected by Power strenght, like, wtf, both hydroid's and zephyr's take into account duration  ,so should super jump, in order to better synrgize with his only useful skill, radial blind.

 

A skill like SJ or TW is always nice to launch yourself up and launche those explosives down, or even avoid damage and get a few seconds to strategize, i really like the skill, just hate how it stupidly uses power strenght.

 

As for slash and dash and radial javeli? Love your suggestions and hope de saves them.

Thanks man! :)

About Super Jump being affected by Strength, rather than by Duration, yeah I agreed it is inconsistent for sure. If there was something more to it (like the jump had a rising slash with it, dealing damage) which could be affected by Strength, then the height could definitely be moved over to be affected by Duration instead.

 

 

Thanks for all the comments people! :)

Super Jump is still a problem though, as the opinions of what to do with it are very split. I personally still think the best option would be to make Super Jump into a generic ability mod (an ability ANY Warframe can equip) while giving Weapon of Light, or something else fitting to his theme, as a replacement. After all, if you don't like Weapon of Light, you could just swap it (or any other of his skills) with Super Jump :)

[HoakinBlackforge]

Making excalibur a full oriented melee warframe, would be the best @(*()$ idea ever.

[Azamagon]

Bumping due to the Excalibur changes incoming!

[Snisify]

Why not make Excal super jump looks like the one in the alpha trailer of warframe, where he jump and get ready to punch the floor with knock back effect maybe.

Here is the refernce video on mark 0:50 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2VesfSCT2E 

[Wawazat]

the barrier sounds like when you get a set of red/green shells in mario kart, you hold em to stop other attack and fire them when you feel appropriate (but all at once in excals case). love it! want to see it hope DE sees this and take it into consideration. 

+1

[Azamagon]

the barrier sounds like when you get a set of red/green shells in mario kart, you hold em to stop other attack and fire them when you feel appropriate (but all at once in excals case). love it! want to see it hope DE sees this and take it into consideration. 

+1

Haha, that's a VERY good comparison, yes! :D Thanks for the feedback! :)

[Xeo_Nespydonum]

Please make Super Jump an any frame ability....  it's useful, but not useful enough to take up one of only 4 powers a frame gets- especially when tailwind does basically the same thing as slash dash and superjump in one ability...  Please make Supercharge/Flourish a thing DE.

[ImNotJellyAtAll]

radial javelin could also act kind of like hall of mirrors, except melee only (dealing a percentage of melee weapon damage, javelins attack with you, etc), and then exploding outward when duration runs out