To Developers: On Excalibur Issues/changes

[Monolake]

Hope it gets read. 

 

to Scott:

 

1) Radial Blind was the ONLY good Excalibur ability, ruining it you kill the frame, All his other skills are bad (I can explain and show footage if needed)

2) almost every other ability of other frames ignores geometry, there is no justification to nerf Radial Blind selectively

3) Radial Blind is ONLY (fixed duration!) 5 second stun, and the Blind part is already ignored by many enemies - they shoot on sound or your last location and throw grenades, it wasn't as OP to warrant such a nerf.

 

4)The only way we and others made it this far in the event is by having 2 Exes spamming Blind every 5 seconds, Could have done it with 2 Rhinos timing stomps in 4 seconds intervals or Loki Disarms+Vaubann etc. Radial Blind nerf is NOT changing the game there are still perma-CC options to do any high level content regardless of levels, but it kills the Excalibur frame. This is not balancing. 

 

 

 

And to whoever programs the abilities:

 

-geometry blocking is broken - any tiny obstacle affecting the ability, thus it cant be applied, it make an ability barely functioning 

-Radial Javelin targeting is broken  - it missies half the targets even in direct line of sight 

-Slash Dash targeting is broken, missing the targets you slash by half the time

 

#saveExcalibur     

 

 

 

 

[CTanGod]

He's dead, nothing will change that except the reverting of the nerf. Now we'll see the same frames over and over again for the same missions. (Also you didn't fully grasp the whole blind mechanic since it does not only blind for the stagger duration it blinds for 15 seconds 5 of which is the stagger animation).

[HolyDonut3]

RIP Excalibur. You will be missed, bro.

[RahuHordika]

He's dead, nothing will change that except the reverting of the nerf.

Or, you know, buffing the whole frame? Yes Blind was powerful anf useful, but I am honestly getting tired of seeing people think that was his only ability lr that it justified the rest being underwhelming.

[Imaru]

 

Dearest Tenno,

 

Last evening Excalibur’s Radial Blind received a change that impacted the effectiveness of this ability. This was quickly noticed by our players, and we have an update this morning on the status of Radial Blind.

 

Firstly, we apologize this wasn't in the notes, it was not intended to go out as it was an experiment in balancing Radial Blind.

Secondly, Radial Blind will be changed to blind any enemies aware of player within the radius. Enemies behind walls/obstructions will not be affected since they were smart enough to avoid the blind!

 

The next hotfix will bring this change to life, sorry for the frustration this slip has caused. We’re working to get it out as soon as we can! 

 

From Megan. 

[HolyDonut3]

Or, you know, buffing the whole frame? Yes Blind was powerful anf useful, but I am honestly getting tired of seeing people think that was his only ability lr that it justified the rest being underwhelming.

 

I didn't see any buffs for Excal being mentioned or planned. I do hope you are right and that they will take a look at his other abilities. Sometime soon, preferably.

[RahuHordika]

I didn't see any buffs for Excal being mentioned or planned. I do hope you are right and that they will take a look at his other abilities. Sometime soon, preferably.

The issue here is not so much with the devs as it is with the community, right now you see 'Excal is now useless without his Blind!' left and right, but before the issue anytime there was a thread about buffing his other 3 ablities it was almost mandatory that there's be a few people (at least) to come in and say 'Try spamming RB, Excal is fine'. The sickening thing here is most of these complaints are just about RB only and still ignore the rest of his kit being underwhelming, while at the same time ackowledging it.

Radial Blind is one of his abilities, not the only one; and just because a frame has one good ability does not mean it's balanced overall.

Edited September 11, 2014 by RahuStalker

[Ronyn]

As I put it in another thread

I cannot support this change to excalibur unless it is part of a larger overhaul of his stats and ability set.

What this does is push Excalibur into fighting enemies in open combat without the tools to excel at it.

He is neither survivable as the tankier types or elusive as the stealthier types....

He is unable to kill or stun enemies behind cover like the caster types....

He is simply not in a good position to engage large groups of enemies in open combat.

Comparatively speaking, this is not a good idea.

 

Sure, a skilled player can just rely on gun fire and standard evasive movements but that is not Excalibur specific.

Excaliburs kit needs to offer a reason to choose him instead of some other frame. At this point he neither excels at any task or performs best as the jack of all trades. He is simply falling behind the curve of usefulness.

 

[Farren]

Clogging up the forums with the same rhetoric over and over and over again is not helpful. [DE]Rebecca & [De]Megan are looking into what is presumably several work in progress balance passes for varying items having leaked into the player build. The other threads got locked for a reason, even the megathread. Just wait for the official word.

[HolyDonut3]

The issue here is not so much with the devs as it is with the community, right now you see 'Excal is now useless without his Blind!' left and right, but before the issue anytime there was a thread about buffing his other 3 ablities it was almost mandatory that there's be a few people (at least) to come in and say 'Try spamming RB, Excal is fine'. The sickening thing here is most of these complaints are just about RB only and still ignore the rest of his kit being underwhelming, while at the same time ackowledging it.

Radial Blind is one of his abilities, not the only one; and just because a frame has one good ability does not mean it's balanced overall.

 

The devs were fully aware of the fact that RB was his only good ability, that rest of his skills are simply subpar at best, however. Why would they destroy his only good ability while still leaving the rest of his abilities in such a bad state? They could have buffed or reworked his other abilities to compensate for this RB change.

 

But they didn't.

[Horonelius]

#saveExcalibur     

That is adorable.

HNNG

[Evers]

Well im going to support that here too and quote myelf from the other thread:

 

 

Not a fan of this, Really not. There are abilities like Nova MPrime, Radial Disarm, Nyx Mind Control/Chaos, Mirages Prism, Rhinos Stomp and so on all going through Walls. And Exca? His Radial Javelins already getting blocked by Walls, cover, and so on. And now his only useful High Level abilitie gets a nerf that makes it also pretty much useless? Really dislike that.

 

I really enjoy playing excalibur, but with that upcoming change... Im not a fan of nerfing itself, but this nerf right here is just bad. It has to be undone or/and excalibur overall must be buffed

[Eric1738]

what i'm really surprised about is that Megan did not even mention any plans to buff or rebalance excalibur. a straightforward nerf to a not so popular warframe is totally unexpected.

sure, we can wait till DE has time to buff excalibur, but we all know it takes months. and before a proper buff is online. excalibur is basically useless.

Edited September 11, 2014 by Eric1738

[Horonelius]

Clogging up the forums with the same rhetoric over and over and over again is not helpful. [DE]Rebecca & [De]Megan are looking into what is presumably several work in progress balance passes for varying items having leaked into the player build. The other threads got locked for a reason, even the megathread. Just wait for the official word.

Megan already got a response that while being included in yesterdays hotfix was a mistake, The dev's were planning on making this change anyways, although after the bugs had been worked out.

 

Any way you cut it, LoS is a PoS.

 

EDIT: People focus on Excalibur's Radial Blind because it's his only offensive ability that doesn't scale with enemy level. Both Slash Dash and Radial Javalin quickly become useless once enemies hit the 40's and 50's. Super Jump maintains a method for gaining verticle distance, and Slash Dash becomes nothing more than a quick jump forward. Radial Blind on the otherhand blinds and stuns enemies regardless of level. It is just as effective on level 5 Lancers as it is on level 60 Bombards.

Edited September 11, 2014 by Horonelius

[Nemsi]

That hide in cover thing to prevent blind status is very stupid idea, honestly. We are speaking about goddemn light! It travels behind obstacles you know, especially in closed spaces! Hiding in cover cannot prevent from blinding. Closing your eyes does. Being in another room does. 

 

 

Suggestion. If DE is so much into nerfing the only ability that made Excalibur viable in high-level play, these two small changes would be just fair enough:

 

1) Make radial blind ability no 3 or ultimate, thus increasing the cost

2) Radial blind has to affect everyone and anyone without any restrictions, unless they are in another room/hall behind closed doors.

[Rontul]

It's still a decent ability, It's just all his other abilities fall very short... we need an overhaul like Rhino had after his iron skin got nerfed.

[azour]

Well im done they killed my main frame

Unless they buff the S#&$ out of his other skills, thing they should have done instead of nerfing him, im out

[RahuHordika]

thing they should have done instead of nerfing him, 

It's what they should have done since a long time ago, IMO, Radial Blind or not.

[Hayzemet]

This is quite stupid, im pissed, I have never befor e had so much mad, towards the devs, but this was, horrible, they nerfed my complete excalibur solo build, QT, lifestrike and radial blind, WHAT the actual, why whats whats the probdkfjñsjvlnlq

[Monolake]

He's dead, nothing will change that except the reverting of the nerf. Now we'll see the same frames over and over again for the same missions. (Also you didn't fully grasp the whole blind mechanic since it does not only blind for the stagger duration it blinds for 15 seconds 5 of which is the stagger animation).

Call it stagger or stun, I mean its only fixed 5 seconds of absolute 'hard' disable, the rest of the Blind duration mobs are active and can shoot on sound or throw grenades and use special attacks, so its not like he disables everything for 30 sec duration.

He was never so OP to warrant a nerf, he was already rarely used at high levels and no one complained.

 

But DEL  still intends to make Radial blind work on line of sight only and no word of any buffs to Ex' other abilities...

[MechaKnight]

But DEL  still intends to make Radial blind work on line of sight only and no word of any buffs to Ex' other abilities...

If it's not broken, don't fix it. If it is broken, take the path of least resistance and fix top-priority stuff before you fix lower-priority stuff. It's logic.

 

Radial Blind was strong, but it was also his best ability, to which some argue his only good ability in his entire kit. Although the changes to Radial Blind were rolled back, it still bothers me that developers do not fix the ailing abilities nobody uses, but would nerf the only ability people use on a warframe. It's almost as if DE developers don't fix what broken implementation they left in the game, yet see it okay to nerf things when players find a way to scrape by on an otherwise unfinished and unpolished piece of content.

[-AR.D2]

If it's not broken, don't fix it. If it is broken, take the path of least resistance and fix top-priority stuff before you fix lower-priority stuff. It's logic.

 

Radial Blind was strong, but it was also his best ability, to which some argue his only good ability in his entire kit. Although the changes to Radial Blind were rolled back, it still bothers me that developers do not fix the ailing abilities nobody uses, but would nerf the only ability people use on a warframe. It's almost as if DE developers don't fix what broken implementation they left in the game, yet see it okay to nerf things when players find a way to scrape by on an otherwise unfinished and unpolished piece of content.

 

I whole-heatedly agree with your points.

 

The intended Radial Blind rework would make far more sense if Excal's other abilities were also changed to be somewhat on par with it.

[Gurzil]

I will never agree with people that say Radial Blind is/was Excaliburs only good ability. That's for the press 4 to win crowd. However this LOS nerf is for the birds. Call it light if that's how you want to water it down, but I thought we for lack of a better term used "space magic". If you're going to nerf his AOE to LOS, then you have to do it to every frame just about.

 

I have long believed that Excalibur needs buffs in many areas though, and as all the other frames get nerfed/buffed, I don't see how he was missed all this time.

 

In regards to SLASH DASH: It would be nice if it scaled with melee like Valkyr's hysteria, it'd also be nice if it could be performed towards the end of a combo and take advantage of the current multiplier, and possibly be used to chain combos into different enemies.

 

I also think he should be able to slash dash in any direction.. Point the cursor and go.. Up into the air, straight down, whatever.

 

In regards to SUPER JUMP: It would be nice if it could be performed in the air like an air-step. Super jump out of a forward flip, or a backflip. Perhaps it should also have it's own variation of Heavy Impact. This mod is really only usable on 3 frames (Valkyr, Excalibur, and Zephyr), and I think that would possibly round out a utility function for it.

 

Slash dashing downward out of the air would of course trigger the impact utility as well.

 

Just some ideas to throw in with the rest of them.