Let's Give Players An Incentive To Play Excalibur And Make Him Viable.

[Kalatrax]

Let's start things off by rejecting the "starter frame" label as a logical reason for Excal's impotence. Mag, Volt and Loki would like to have a word with you about the stench of BS that permeates the air whenever that is brought up. Moving on.

Almost every frame has some sort of incentive to play them. Some cater to specific playstyles or roles in a team like Loki or Rhino while others have more niche or unique quirks that give their frame flavor. Mesa's hidden passives promoting run-and-gun over hack-and-slash or newcomer Chroma's color dependent abilities come to mind.

Excalibur? Not so much.

For a frame whose theme is "sword" he's rather underwhelming as far as melee goes, his skills are uninspired, somewhat random and have his theme lazily glued to them in an effort to make them mesh together thematically. One could argue that his design flaws can be attributed to age and powercreep, yet Rhino is metaphorically and literally more solid in design and execution. Let's take a look at Excal's kit and think of some ways to fix it.

Slash Dash: Mobility and damage rolled together. Not hateful but not unique. Can be used to pass through laser barriers undamaged. Damage falls off late game and it becomes more of a escape tool than anything else.

Solution: I have honestly no clue with this one. The skill itself is iconic and getting rid of it outright would be a little extreme. Tweaks are needed but how and what elude me. Discuss.

Radial Blind: Crowd control, plain and simple. Requires line of sight, provides Stealth Damage multiplier on first melee attack on blinded enemies and touching blinded enemies negates the multiplier.

The Solution: Trash it and replace it. Make it a warcry or challenge of some sort, have it panic lesser enemies and provide a percentile melee damage bonus to all allies within it's range for it's duration to provide support/utility.

Super Jump: Mobilty coupled with an out of place invisiblity perk. Gives Excal a vertical boost upon casting and gives invisiblity with stealth multiplier bonus until he lands. Possibly the most out of place ability Excal has.

The Solution: Keep it or trash it depending on what one does to Slash Dash. If SD is kept relatively intact, trash it and replace with something that fits his design more and meshes with rest of his kit. Suggestions are welcome. If SD is effectively replaced, keep it for mobility and rework the animation so that it gives more forward movement. Remove the invisibilty, it's out of place.

Radial Javelin: AoE burst damage with CC mixed in. Each javelin spawns in a way to ensure contact, does 1000 damage distributed evenly between Slash, Puncture, and Impact and wiki claims it targets enemies who are aware of Excalibur's presence and vice versa therefore not requiring LoS (I would like to hear any testimonials for or against such information). Enemies not killed outright are staggered.

The Solution: Keep most of the fluff, trash the mechanics. Make it produce 6 javelins by pressing 4 and have each press after that fire one javelin in the direction of Excalibur's reticle. Javelins would have punch-through allowing them to deal with mobs of enemies and damage would scale by rank and be finisher damage allowing them to scale into the late-game.

As far as incentive to play goes I think giving Excal a flat percentile bonus to either melee weapon damage or attack speed would fit his theme rather well.

Discuss, give feedback or provide additional suggestions.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Kalatrax

[Brimir]

Super Jump is just entirely useless.

 

Aerial melee dashes have made it obsolute already; it is going to be hilarious once Parkour 2.0 rolls around.

 

Really, his one good ability is Radial Blind...

[(PSN)ZMPr0wLer]

Ok, excal is the poster child of warframe his first ability is the same first as 4 to 5 frames so no to trashing the first abilities. You can twek it but a mass overhaul will mean a mass overhaul for every frame.

[(PSN)Artennos]

He needs another rework. I'm sorry DE but after the nerf he's....not that good :(

[(PSN)ZMPr0wLer]

Super Jump is just entirely useless.

 

Aerial melee dashes have made it obsolute already; it is going to be hilarious once Parkour 2.0 rolls around.

 

Really, his one good ability is Radial Blind...

He is correct the abilities DE needs to focus on is the spot of super jump. The ability of super jump Or a complete new ability for this sword towting tenno is needed.

[(PSN)ZMPr0wLer]

There is 3 fixes that can be done.

This one is a have to make it duration based this power strength stuff kills it. a excal with amazing duration is on that can still rock a t4s for about 45 to 50 mins. So movement and other things is better with duration build.

second get rid of it gove him an ability to have his hit counter not reset as long as this ability active. This will help his damage scale and make him use melee more often.

Third is create an augment that changes the super jump entirely you hear me right. This would be the first augment to do this and could set a dangerous precedent in that instead of fixing abilities DE could just make augments and juat call it good.

[RawrWolfie]

Random ideas towards creating an identity as a speedy, close ranged fighter.

 

Passive, double jump: Excal can perform a second jump in midair (does not reset air melee).

Base Stat Change: 100 stamina -> 150 stamina

 

Slash Dash

Cast time .5 -> .1

Duration .55 -> .25

Speed: 30/32/34/38 -> 40/45/50/55

Energy Cost 25 -> 10

Damage: 100/125/175/250

*Added perk: staggers all enemies struck

 

Augments

Free Dash: Reduces energy cost to zero.

??: .75 seconds of damage immunity after dash.

 

New Ability: Martial Poise

Energy Cost: 25

Duration: 9/10/11/12

Casting Time: .25 sec

Perk: For one second after casting, Excal reflects the next incoming damage back at the source.  If damage is reflected, 10 energy is refunded.

Effect: While active, Excal is immune to forced movement (knockdown, push, pull forces) and the melee combo counter degrades at 66/50/33/25% of the normal rate.

 

Augments

Sensei's Poise: Whenever Excal activates Martial Poise, it is likewise activated for all allies within 6/8/10/12m.

Blademaster's Poise: The final hit of any melee combo heals Excal for 50/85/120 health (affected by strength mods) if it strikes an enemy.  

 

Radial Blind -> Flash Blind

Energy Cost: 50 -> 35

Duration: 7/10/12/15 -> 4/6/8/10

Range: 8/12/15/25 -> 6/9/12/15

Cast Time: 1 -> .25

Reuse Delay: 5 -> 0

LOS Mechanics: unchanged

Stun: changed to a stagger

 

Augments

Piercing Light: Goes through obstacles (LOS mechanics removed)

Furious Light: +2.5/5/7.5% melee damage for each blinded enemy (affected by power strength).

 

Radial Javelin

Energy Cost: 100 -> 50

Cast Time: 1 -> .5

Aftercast Delay: 0

Range: 15/18/22/25 -> 9/10/11/12

Effect: Excal spins and launches 6/8/10/12 (affected by power strength) ethereal skana in a circular pattern, each dealing 300 damage.  An enemy hit by a skana is pushed/ragdolled 4/5/6/8m (push distance affected by power strength) backwards away from excal.

Added perk: Enemies ragdolled into a map surface are pinned, take 300 more damage, and suffer a 3/4/5/6 second stun (stun duration affected by power strength).

 

Augments

Judgement Javelin: Launches an additional 4/6/8 javelins towards the targeting reticle over the cast animation.

Wounding Javelin: Impaled enemies lose 33/50/66% max health (permanent duration, unaffected by strength mods).

Edited March 30, 2015 by RawrWolfie

[Fierach]

Slash Dash is fine as it is. Maybe have the Surging Dash augment extend the combo counter duration as well as increase the amount of counter ticks per enemy hit. A good quality of life buff would be to be able to Slash Dash in any direction.

Blind is fine as it is. If they don't want the stealth multipler, maybe you can have blinded enemies open to finishers.

Remove Super Jump. If its kept, at least take away the duration during Super Jump that you can't do anything else, until the apex. Super Jump should perhaps buff Excalibur's melee damage, and make his next melee (since it'll be a ground slam) finisher damage, giving him a potent single target assasination ability for skilled players.

Remove Radial Javelin. If it is kept, they should have the ability scale off the combo counter as well as power strength, encouraging its use as a true finishing move.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Fierach

[Latronico]

It's not really that difficult. It's since more than an year that people are asking for just one thing for Excalibur: damage abilities that scale with the melee weapon, like Valkyr. 

 

Excalibur is the mobility and damage Warframe, so it should deal good amounts of damage. Why melee? Because all his damage abilities [animations] involve the melee weapon. 

 

Both Slash Dash and Radial Javelin damage should scale with melee weapon and deal JUST Slash physical damage (the biggest problem about damage dealt by Radial Javelin is that it's divided into three completely different physical types, that means an useless ult against every enemy after Damage 2.0 update). 

 

About Super Jump, as I wrote here: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/430578-excalibur-super-jump-animation-should-change/

The animation should change, and the ability should become a crowd control one. A sort of Rhino Stomp (Excalibur that jump in the air and land on the ground releasing a shocking wave, like in the video posted by me; a sort of Heavy Impact). That's the only way to have a usefull Super Jump. 

 

About Radial Blind, I think it's ok as it is. It could be a second crowd control ability. The difference between Radial Blind and Super Jump could be that the first grants melee damage bonus on blinded enemies, the second grants a knock down effect. 

 

About ability mods, it should work this way:

- Radial Javelin and Slash Dash base damage should be influeced by Power Strenght mods;

- Radial Blind, Radial Javelin, Super Jump AoE and Slash Dash range & AoE should be influenced by Power Range mods;

- Radial Blind blind and Super Jump knock down effect should be influenced by Power Duration mods;

 

On this way, at least Excalibur could be a melee oriented Warframe, able to deal good amounts of damage thanks to his Slash physical damage abilities that scale, with a good mobility thanks to Slash Dash and able to run into mobs of enemies slaughtering everything thanks to his CC abilities. 
However, not that easy as Nova or something like that, but certainly better than now.

[(XBOX)BAMMM Lightning]

I like the kit Excalibur has now, just not the damage or how they affect enemies. 

 

Slash Dash could do a little more damage, be affected by the Radial blind stealth buff, and maybe have a chance for bleed proc?

 

Radial Blind could be changed to go through enemies, but still not through objects.

 

Super Jump could maybe get a boost in height. Most people don't like this skill, but so far it's proved to be a very valuable escape tactic, especially in T4 missions. Combined with radial Blind to get as many people in my LOS as possible, it makes an indispensable combo for ambush or escape for me.

 

Radial Javelin could maybe benefit from Radial Blind's stealth nerf as well. Super jump, blind, then javelin could be a combo that creates the synergy Excalibur needs. Using a lot of energy for a power up to your abilities sounds like a good concept.

 

I would also like a small increase to his shields and/or health. Maybe 125 to start out with.

 

To me, Excalibur feels like the Warframe that would be easy to learn, hard to master. Getting creative with the powers and not just relying on pure damage or simple CC effects is something I would like to see from him. Not just spamming X (on the Xbox) every 10 seconds.  

[Malitias]

Edit: Decided to create an own topic

Edited March 31, 2015 by Malitias

[TheBrsrkr]

Lwt's just put him in the Vault with Frost Prime until we can figure out what to do with him.

[MichaelSD]

Lwt's just put him in the Vault with Frost Prime until we can figure out what to do with him.

 

Better than getting another Excalibur nerf. :(