Pc Psa: Covert Lethality + Exalted Blade Changes

[StealthyCARNAGE]

So we finally get an offensive ability that scales into late game and shortly after it immediately gets nerfed into the ground again. Great.

First the block nerf which was actually a double nerf due to how auto blocking interacts with life strike now even syndicate mods? What's next, remove the energy waves? Make it so it uses up extra energy whenever you hit something? Oh I know, how about it heals enemies on hit?

Why don't you just remove Exalted Blade again? I mean it's not like anyone wants to have fun, right?

[Cubewano]

I agree, Excal with or without the syndicate mods is still a great frame. The problem is that I can no longer use different melee weapons in unconventional ways. Daggers, Skanas and Dual Cleavers are now just weaker versions of the Nikanas and nothing else. Their singular purpose is to deal damage when an enemy gets too close (Which they are now almost completely useless for at higher levels). Nothing more, nothing less. At least with the Syndicate mods and CL I could find a little niche to make using those weapons over the Scindo Prime/Dragon Nikana worthwhile. There is ZERO reason to not use either of the weapons.

 

I don't know, maybe I'm just bitter because I spent a lot of time getting to the point that I could make these different weapons viable, but I still don't have to like it.

no no you certainly aren't alone on this. i very much enjoyed having more options for late game melee outside the atypical scindo p or nikana and so on in terms of usefulness. it opened up a slightly larger pool of weapon types, and also more options in terms of looks for those who like their frames setup to look nice and prim. 

 

but then i suppose this was eventually going to happen anywho, with de using mods as bandage repairs all over the place instead of actually correcting the core issue something was bound to start festering again. 

Edited August 15, 2015 by Cubewano

[Oizen]

The guise of saying this is going to open Excalibur's weapon choices is stupid.

 

Excalibur's passive already makes everyone who plays him seriously use swords exclusively.

[Uhkretor]

The guise of saying this is going to open Excalibur's weapon choices is stupid.

 

Excalibur's passive already makes everyone who plays him seriously use swords exclusively.

 

I use Excalibur exclusively, I also play him seriously and I'm not using a sword. Care to review your statement?

[Oizen]

I use Excalibur exclusively, I also play him seriously and I'm not using a sword. Care to review your statement?

You're holding your frame back then. In which you're not playing him seriously.

 

Excal has a flat 10% speed and damage boost on sword type weapons.

 

I can think of no real reason not to take advantage of it.

Edited August 15, 2015 by Oizen

[Rigoxa]

Well rip daggers, again. Imo this new 'everyone plays dagger' is just some phase because its new but better make them again useless :/ And yeah, the excal changes are just ridiculous, with more diversity with syndicate mods, other weapons would be good too, but better nerf the frame like always. Kinda bugs me that not the broken system gets fixed, but the frames/weapons that take advantage of it.

 

EDIT: The dagger mod was strong in 'endgame' or endless missions, on TWO frames. But imo this is no excuse making daggers useless again if you dont play alone and the 2 frames mentioned before. In the end the mod nerf does nothing but to make daggers useless. 

EDIT 2: Isnt a full modded dagger finisher 99% of the time a kill? Which would make this mod now complete useless because you cant stealthkill on endless missions anymore.

Edited August 15, 2015 by Rigoxa

[Uhkretor]

Like I said a few pages ago, Sci_Ant touched the important point that not everyone cares about the passive. Fortunately, I'm one of those that really don't care about it. Also, you cannot assume that I don't play Excalibur seriously just because I -choose- not to use a sword. I play with him seriously. I am, on purpose, not using the passive because I don't care about it, and yet I'm having a LOT better results playing like this than using the passive.

 

... care to review both your statements? Because your next arguments are going to make craters on the ground from how high they're falling... And, most likely, are going to dig towards the center of the Earth.

[OnlinePhenome]

My post got Ninjad. What a shame...

 

Still, please don't take away my reason of ever using Prisma Skana.

[Chroia]

A nerf, for the health of the game, complete with rationale?

I'm cheering already.

Today Covert Lethality will be changed from ‘lethal damage if undetected’ to ‘lethal damage on stealth-finishers’.

Shame, as finisher prompts can be a bit wonky, and are cumbersome.

Still, if they can be streamlined - I'm all for it.

Edit:

I still think that 'lethal finishers' should be inherent, though.

Makes stealth play that much less reliant on MOAR DMGz!

Edited August 15, 2015 by Chroia

[(PSN)thefndodge]

 

Tenno,

 

Today Covert Lethality will be changed from ‘lethal damage if undetected’ to ‘lethal damage on stealth-finishers’. Covert Lethality is supposed to grant Lethal Damage for stealth tactics and not ground-slamming or obliterating blind enemies. We know this may come as a disappointment as many Tenno have sworn their life to the power of this Mod however the myriad of unintended uses was proving more powerful than intended.

 

After considering the use of Covert Lethality for Exalted Blade a debate ensued about the use of melee Mods that are specific to certain weapons; again, it was decided that while we intended for certain melee Mods to amplify Exalted Blade it didn't make sense for all melee Mods to apply. For example, currently the buff from Justice Blades works for Exalted Blade even though the mod is an augment for the Dual Cleavers.

 

Next week we intend to limit the Melee mods that work with Exalted Blade strictly to generic mods (ie: Pressure Point, Molten Impact, etc) but not weapon-specific augments. We appreciate that this will remove certain fitting strategies however we feel that those combos were not the intention of the ability and want to avoid making it so that you only want to play Excalibur with one or two specific weapons.

 

We hope that you will agree that this is better for Warframe balance and makes conceptual sense for how you would expect the power to work.

 

These sound good to me. Keep up the good work.

[Sci_Ant]

The guise of saying this is going to open Excalibur's weapon choices is stupid.

 

Excalibur's passive already makes everyone who plays him seriously use swords exclusively.

You're holding your frame back then. In which you're not playing him seriously.

Excal has a flat 10% speed and damage boost on sword type weapons.

I can think of no real reason not to take advantage of it.

 

Really? From the wiki >

 

The weapons that affect Excal's passive are : Dakra Prime, Prisma Skana, Jaw Sword, Skana Prime, Cronus, Pangolin Sword, Skana, Heat Sword, Plasma Sword, Mire, Dark Sword, Ether Sword, Dual Ichor, Dex Dakra, Dual Zoren, Prisma/Dual Cleavers, Dual Ether, Dual Raza, Nami Skyla, Dual Heat Swords, Dual Kamas, Dual Skana, Dragon/Nikana.

 

Not all those are simply 'swords'.

Edited August 15, 2015 by Sci_Ant

[Five-Tailed_Artificer]

The skana is ultimately meant to be underpowered.  After all, it is one of the first weapons that you can obtain.  If it were to be made into something that were insanely powerful, it would just be unfair to many.  So, I sort of support this new change.

[TerrorofDeaths]

i farmed tons covert lethality its sad nobody wanna buy it anymore

[Adrellisartar]

So it's no longer "knock down and instantly kill", it's now "you must be stealth but we're gonna tweak how it works on stealth frames"?

 

Uhh does attack speed affect finisher animations? If not, that might help daggers recover..if their animation is already slow, then that'd make this mod a bit more usable.

[RapplerSoon]

Maybe you should focus more on bringing older frames and weapons up to the new standards? Just a kind suggestion.

 

The Skana is meant for Excalibur just like the Glaive is, stylistically speaking. The Syndicate mod made the Skana slightly better than other melee weapons for Excal and now you are making it so players go back to their Scindo Primes and Dragon Nikanas again because they are actually usable all the time? That`s a good way to limit the amount of weapons used by the players again and a step back in my opinion.

Edited August 15, 2015 by RapplerSoon

[Cubewano]

The skana is ultimately meant to be underpowered.  After all, it is one of the first weapons that you can obtain.  If it were to be made into something that were insanely powerful, it would just be unfair to many.  So, I sort of support this new change.

By that logic Excalibur should be vastly inferior as well, being as its one of the first frames you can obtain. Warframe does not operate in a system where weapons are meant to have a level scale, they are supposed to be viable for all parts of the game. Mods are reserved as balancers for progress (the further in the game you get, the better mods you get, the more you can upgrade mods), not weapons, they are here to provide a variety of options. 

[Uhkretor]

... Or~... or~...

 

 

 

Rethink your build if you don't have older frames and weapons... That usually does the trick.

[Adrellisartar]

By that logic Excalibur should be vastly inferior as well, being as its one of the first frames you can obtain. Warframe does not operate in a system where weapons are meant to have a level scale, they are supposed to be viable for all parts of the game. Mods are reserved as balancers for progress (the further in the game you get, the better mods you get, the more you can upgrade mods), not weapons, they are here to provide a variety of options. 

The Excalibur is one of the LAST frames you can get from boss drops, despite it being a starter frame.

Volt is clan dojo Tenno research. Mag is..Mag is..huh...alerts? Research is Volt and Banshee...maybe Mag.

[Gannv]

DE I have one request. Take any of mid tier weapon, mod it and make a finisher on 30 lvl heavy gunner and try to not one shot her, then take any of hight tier weapon mod it and make finisher on 50 lvl heavy gunner and try to not one shot her, then come back here and told me this nerf is necessary. This mod is just balancing low damage of daggers making then useful in late-game nothing more if you really need to nerf this mod just change form "if undetected" to "on finishers" but NOT ON "stealth-finishers". All joking aside but stealth is not working part of warframe

[Vlare]

Covert Lethality not working with Exalted Blade anymore : More than right. However fun it was, 1hko'ing lv200 mobs because of a flashbang was a bit dumb and certainly gamebreaking in terms of group composing - that stuff combined with Equinox' Maim was the OP of the year.

 

Syndicates mods not working on Exalted Blade anymore : I feel like the stat boosts should be kept. These, in practice, are mods that just take a subpar melee weapon, and upgrade it to a more powerful version that can contend with the flat-out superior Jat Kittag, Scindo, Dakra etc etc. As long as the dps of the melee weapon supplying the stats isn't OP with the augment (read : as long as balancing does their job), it can only in niche cases be the same for Exalted Blade. The procs however made no sense to have, and I'm glad for them to be removed. Infinite energy on a channeled ability shouldn't be possible unless you fight hard enough to upkeep it, not because you stand in a corner proccing the damn thing over and over.

 

All in all I can live with augments being removed from EB whatsoever, it's no big deal in the big arsenal.

 

What is a big deal is the stealth attack only thing. If the code doesn't allow 'kills on unalerted' without breaking balance, then at least make the finishers be quick while covert. Make Covert Lethality half the time a stealth kill takes (or double the effect of attack speed, same thing). I'm fine with dealing with it because of balancing, but I'm not fine with stealthing an exterminate on Loki or Ash taking 100 individual stealth kills, not even counting those impossible because of cluster spawns.

I like daggers, I like how Covert Lethality replaces Spoiled Strike in dagger building, but I really don't like interesting functionalities that are made practically useless. Why not turn it into a +100% crit chance while invisible mod? Make stealth kills also erase the corpse immediately so I can stealth without worrying about corpse detection (which is broken in and off itself)?

 

TL;DR : All is fine, except the stealthkill-lock because of the ridiculous time and effort it takes to stealthkill tiles and (especially) clustered mobs in comparison with dropping a hushed Ogris on it. Let Covert Lethality allow me to shank a b**** like I'm playing Assassin's Creed, please. For the sake of fun.

[Adrellisartar]

Covert Lethality not working with Exalted Blade anymore : More than right. However fun it was, 1hko'ing lv200 mobs because of a flashbang was a bit dumb and certainly gamebreaking in terms of group composing - that stuff combined with Equinox' Maim was the OP of the year.

 

Syndicates mods not working on Exalted Blade anymore : I feel like the stat boosts should be kept. These, in practice, are mods that just take a subpar melee weapon, and upgrade it to a more powerful version that can contend with the flat-out superior Jat Kittag, Scindo, Dakra etc etc. As long as the dps of the melee weapon supplying the stats isn't OP with the augment (read : as long as balancing does their job), it can only in niche cases be the same for Exalted Blade. The procs however made no sense to have, and I'm glad for them to be removed. Infinite energy on a channeled ability shouldn't be possible unless you fight hard enough to upkeep it, not because you stand in a corner proccing the damn thing over and over.

 

All in all I can live with augments being removed from EB whatsoever, it's no big deal in the big arsenal.

 

What is a big deal is the stealth attack only thing. If the code doesn't allow 'kills on unalerted' without breaking balance, then at least make the finishers be quick while covert. Make Covert Lethality half the time a stealth kill takes (or double the effect of attack speed, same thing). I'm fine with dealing with it because of balancing, but I'm not fine with stealthing an exterminate on Loki or Ash taking 100 individual stealth kills, not even counting those impossible because of cluster spawns.

I like daggers, I like how Covert Lethality replaces Spoiled Strike in dagger building, but I really don't like interesting functionalities that are made practically useless. Why not turn it into a +100% crit chance while invisible mod? Make stealth kills also erase the corpse immediately so I can stealth without worrying about corpse detection (which is broken in and off itself)?

 

TL;DR : All is fine, except the stealthkill-lock because of the ridiculous time and effort it takes to stealthkill tiles and (especially) clustered mobs in comparison with dropping a hushed Ogris on it. Let Covert Lethality allow me to shank a b**** like I'm playing Assassin's Creed, please. For the sake of fun.

Since you mentioned Assassin's Creed..this is more of an "other stealth game" thing, but..why not chain multiple stealth kills together..? Far Cry or Deus Ex style..sorta..regardless of frame, but dependent on weapon, attack speed, and movement speed. We already teleport around and use our melee with Archwings.

[kennelia]

To be honest, I wouldn't mind the covert lethality nerf that much as long as DE released some form of high level spy content (Spy void missions, maybe?) that dropped some awesome loot. Other than that, I can get just about any weapon to stealth kill without that much effort put into it.

[Uhkretor]

The Excalibur is one of the LAST frames you can get from boss drops, despite it being a starter frame.

Volt is clan dojo Tenno research. Mag is..Mag is..huh...alerts? Research is Volt and Banshee...maybe Mag.

 

Volt, Banshee and Zephyr. But I can see the point....

[ENIAK_Prime]

we feel that those combos were not the intention of the ability and want to avoid making it so that you only want to play Excalibur with one or two specific weapons.

But, Megan...

Excalibur is TEN FREAKING KINDS OF AWESOME right now!

Yeah you didn't need to worry about that. Hell, I kinda find Exalted Blade BORING. Much prefer to spam finishers after a Radial Blind or watch the glory that is Slash Dash.

 

 

DE I have one request. Take any of mid tier weapon, mod it and make a finisher on 30 lvl heavy gunner and try to not one shot her, then take any of hight tier weapon mod it and make finisher on 50 lvl heavy gunner and try to not one shot her, then come back here and told me this nerf is necessary. This mod is just balancing low damage of daggers making then useful in late-game nothing more if you really need to nerf this mod just change form "if undetected" to "on finishers" but NOT ON "stealth-finishers". All joking aside but stealth is not working part of warframe

Honestly, Covert Lethality shouldn't even be a thing. DE's big mistake was putting it into a mod instead of doing what they should've done and make it a general stealth finisher bonus.

Edited August 16, 2015 by Soldatto

[Uhkretor]

... OR~...

 

... instead of adding a new slot just for Warframes, like they did with U17, they should've done the same thing for Melee weapons...

Edited August 16, 2015 by Uhkretor