Can Excalibur Please Get A Reason To Not Just Spam E?

[WhiteCopain]

I really like Excalibur's ult. I really do. I love all the details on it, and I like how my customized Excal looks. I like a lot about him. But I hate that the best way to play him is EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE until you die. His combos are worthless, they're worse then just spamming basic attack because they're slower and do nothing extra. Why?

 

 

Make his base combo slower, make the other ones make bigger waves or something, I really don't care what the change is, but why would you punish people who want to really learn to play the class more skillfully by making it WORSE to use the things that take skill (more skill then just spamming E anyway) to do?

[LeshJaeThiHah]

what? critics on Fluctus-frame?

[Xiusa]

Just make it so the waves only appear while channeling

[-CM-AbsoluteZero]

I really like Excalibur's ult. I really do. I love all the details on it, and I like how my customized Excal looks. I like a lot about him. But I hate that the best way to play him is EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE until you die. His combos are worthless, they're worse then just spamming basic attack because they're slower and do nothing extra. Why?

 

 

Make his base combo slower, make the other ones make bigger waves or something, I really don't care what the change is, but why would you punish people who want to really learn to play the class more skillfully by making it WORSE to use the things that take skill (more skill then just spamming E anyway) to do?

Maybe if you actually bothered using the combos you'll realize that the combos do provide bonuses.

EX. Equal Laceration (the hold E combo) Deals double dmg on the last few hits and ragdolls enemies

The rest of the combos feature dmg multipliers here and there. 

Learn your frame before posting it in feedback asking for changes

Edited November 27, 2015 by -CM-AbsoluteZero

[WhiteCopain]

Maybe if you actually bothered using the combos you'll realize that the combos do provide bonuses.

EX. Equal Laceration (the hold E combo) Deals double dmg on the last few hits and ragdolls enemies

The rest of the combos feature dmg multipliers here and there. 

Learn your frame before posting it in feedback asking for changes

It also attacks far slower and doesn't make up for the loss. One hit taking twice the time doesn't make up for  two unique hits. More so if it's not even double damage. Not to mention the angels are worse given they're more vertical and hit less.

 

 

A bigger number doesn't mean better.

[-CM-AbsoluteZero]

Just make it so the waves only appear while channeling

Here comes the NerfSquad again. Putting waves on channelling only is just gonna destroy Excalibur's ability to kill crowds. 1 wave is gonna consume like 100 energy in a crowd. The waves on normal attacks is what makes excal unique. take it away and its just a gimped hysteria with less dmg, less crit, no cc immunity, and no invulnerability. It wouldn't be able to compete at all with hysteria afterwards.   

 

It also attacks far slower and doesn't make up for the loss. One hit taking twice the time doesn't make up for  two unique hits. More so if it's not even double damage. Not to mention the angels are worse given they're more vertical and hit less.

 

 

A bigger number doesn't mean better.

That's double dmg along with the cc from ragdoll. Sounds like a good trade for slight speed loss. Its up to the player to properly angle their slashes, you asked for rewards for playing the frame skillfully there it is.  

Edited November 27, 2015 by -CM-AbsoluteZero

[ThunderZsolt]

well, the coptering (slide) attack does blind enemies, so the attacks ignore armor. i wouldn't call that useless...

[TheBrsrkr]

well, the coptering (slide) attack does blind enemies, so the attacks ignore armor. i wouldn't call that useless...

Those don't (or at least shouldnt) prompt finishers.

[Xiusa]

Here comes the NerfSquad again. Putting waves on channelling only is just gonna destroy Excalibur's ability to kill crowds. 1 wave is gonna consume like 100 energy in a crowd. The waves on normal attacks is what makes excal unique. take it away and its just a gimped hysteria with less dmg, less crit, no cc immunity, and no invulnerability. It wouldn't be able to compete at all with hysteria afterwards.   

Making a conscious decision about whether you should channel or not? Darn!

[Epsik-kun]

Comprehensive EBlade suggeston

[TheBrsrkr]

Making a conscious decision about whether you should channel or not? Darn!

Channeling in it's current state can't handle EB, because of autoparry and that stupid drain per hit business. If it was a constant yet higher drain or a cost per wave, then sure, but you can't just stuck it on.

[(PSN)Hayabusa_3-17]

Making a conscious decision about whether you should channel or not? Darn!

 

Channeling is drain per hit. If that wave hits 5 enemies at split second differences (which is very common given how enemies tend to clump up in this game) and you have a rank 1 life strike equipped (which drains 9 energy per hit). Congrats you've just lost 45 energy with one attack whether you wanted to turn off channeling or not.

Edited November 27, 2015 by Loki

[venon23]

is not a reaso too spam e he is a reason too press 4 spam 2 and e 

[RahuHordika]

Just make it so the waves only appear while channeling

Here's another response to this poorly thought statement. Aside from what has been said of channeling being too costly, you need to have a reason to use the ability, mantain it and but not use the waves since you're adding a factor to discourage their use.

And here's where the problem lies, as it has been said before, EB without waves is pretty damn useless. You know what EB is without the waves? Just a sword, plain and simple, why would I not instead just equip a melee weapon that provides me better survivability and not drain my energy while I hold it? If you want me to not use the waves by giving them extra cost then give me a reason to use the base ability to begin with.

---------

Now to the OP. I would understand the need to do something about this since the basic E combo is the easiest to pull off and just as effective, however the suggestion restricting the use of the waves is a downright bad idea because the combos' utility is still the same and would basically be ignored in favor of simple E pressing.

My proposition is not to remove or restrict the waves but to rather have the waves be far more distinct from each other based on the combo you're doing rather than simply giving minor bonuses. Make the default waves have a medium range and medium reach, have combo A waves be wider but with a short range, have combo B waves be smaller but faster and longer in range.

There are barebones examples but it's just to get the point across, to make the waves not all be an all arounder deal and make the differences and advantages in the combos be far more prominent.

Edited November 27, 2015 by RahuHordika

[Enno69]

Or OP, you could go for an augmented Radial Blind and wreck everything with your melee weapon. Or you could mix that with EB and Slash Dash.

[shut]

well, the coptering (slide) attack does blind enemies, so the attacks ignore armor. i wouldn't call that useless...

That just enables Stealth Multipliers, which quadruples melee damage and nothing more. It doesn't open up enemies to Finisher attacks (which are the ones that ignore armor); only the full-out Radial Blind does that.

OT:

+1.

I don't even know why the devs added these combos if they're all going to be near-straight downgrades to EEEE. Right now there is literally no reason to use a different combo on EB other than to alter the angle of your waves (which, believe it or not, is actually pretty helpful for hitting spaced-out enemies with a single wave).

I'm against making the base combo straight-up worse than the others (as suggested in the OP), as that would basically just reverse the issue-- "why is EEEE even there if you can just hold down RMB and get a better attack out of it for free?" and all that.

I think that a good solution would be to simply make all of the combos viable in their own way. EEEE can work as it does now, some combos can launch wider waves on certain swings, some combos can launch faster-but-narrower waves on certain swings, some combos have weaker waves but significantly stronger melee damage, etc.. Just give every combo its own niche.

Edited November 27, 2015 by SortaRandom

[Synitare]

There's plenty of reason to not just spam E. Excal is a very well balanced frame. Just because you can get away with doing only one thing doesn't mean he's incapable of doing other things, nor is it really justification for nerfing or changing that one thing. The only skill he has that isn't particularly useful is slash dash. Radial Javelin and Radial Blind are extremely useful abilities that compliment his Exalted Blade very well.

 

Regarding his combos, there's just no reason to do them. The only way to really fix this is to make them have damage multipliers, which frankly he doesn't really need.

Edited November 27, 2015 by Synitare

[Dragazer]

There's plenty of reason to not just spam E. Excal is a very well balanced frame. Just because you can get away with doing only one thing doesn't mean he's incapable of doing other things, nor is it really justification for nerfing or changing that one thing. The only skill he has that isn't particularly useful is slash dash. Radial Javelin and Radial Blind are extremely useful abilities that compliment his Exalted Blade very well.

 

Regarding his combos, there's just no reason to do them. The only way to really fix this is to make them have damage multipliers, which frankly he doesn't really need.

I think you might have mixed things up. Slash dash is one of Excal's useful abilities and just gets even better when EB is toggled on with the additional waves. It provides good dmg, mobility, and cc. And when used skill fully, it can dodge any attack due to invulnerability frames during the dash. RJ on the other hand, I believe has no real purpose. RB beats it in cc and EB and slash dash are better for dmg due to how they scale a lot better.

 

Like another poster said, the combos do provide bonuses which the OP failed to see.  

Edited November 27, 2015 by Dragazer

[Synitare]

I think you might have mixed things up. Slash dash is one of Excal's useful abilities and just gets even better when EB is toggled on with the additional waves. It provides good dmg, mobility, and cc. And when used skill fully, it can dodge any attack due to invulnerability frames during the dash. RJ on the other hand, I believe has no real purpose. RB beats it in cc and EB and slash dash are better for dmg due to how they scale a lot better.

 

Like another poster said, the combos do provide bonuses which the OP failed to see.  

 

I didn't. I personally never use dash. It's not needed and not particularly useful. Throwing a wave out is neat, but you can just hit E to do the same thing. The mobility might be nice, but bullet jumps offer just as much or more. Granted they don't have iframes, but they do reduce enemy accuracy significantly and don't cost energy to use.

 

I've yet to see any actual evidence that the combos have damage multipliers. The ragdoll on the last hit of Equal Laceration is kind of useful, but not useful enough to put up with attempting to consistently pull off a Hold E combo.

 

Outside of damage multipliers, another way to make combos worth it might be to launch multiple waves on certain combo steps, or have increased velocity/width on some of the waves.

 

RJ is great for getting rid of trash enemies that get behind you or are otherwise difficult to hit with EB, like rollers or some of the infested units.

[Maicael]

People keep talking about how Channeling would be bad for Exalted Blade because they're stuck in the mindset of how channeling is right now and say that it would cost tons of energy. Have you ever tried thinking of something like say, it costs channeling energy per energy wave instead of per enemy hit?

 

Edit: A special channeling instance could be made to apply this rule to energy waves similar to how Glaives have their own unique explosion when channeling.

Edited November 28, 2015 by Maicael

[(PSN)MrNishi]

Missed opportunity for implementing Charge Attacks...

[YasaiTsume]

Here is a reason : Surging Dash exists and a build revolving around it is very fun

[Synitare]

People keep talking about how Channeling would be bad for Exalted Blade because they're stuck in the mindset of how channeling is right now and say that it would cost tons of energy. Have you ever tried thinking of something like say, it costs channeling energy per energy wave instead of per enemy hit?

 

Edit: A special channeling instance could be made to apply this rule to energy waves similar to how Glaives have their own unique explosion when channeling.

 

Sure. Remove the base energy drain and allow Energy Siphon to work while using EB. Or give him a significant damage reduction or armor bonus while using EB. He needs the waves. He's way too squishy to be in melee range constantly for anything outside of the starchart.

Edited November 28, 2015 by Synitare

[Epicagemo]

If it's for the general state of melee, yeah, there needs to be some changes.

Maybe if you actually bothered using the combos you'll realize that the combos do provide bonuses.

EX. Equal Laceration (the hold E combo) Deals double dmg on the last few hits and ragdolls enemies

The rest of the combos feature dmg multipliers here and there. 

Learn your frame before posting it in feedback asking for changes

 

Although ^^^, i still feels meaningless as it one shots almost all of the star chart...

[Dragazer]

If it's for the general state of melee, yeah, there needs to be some changes.

 

Although ^^^, i still feels meaningless as it one shots almost all of the star chart...

That won't be an issue with u18 coming out with the sorties:

 

Sorties will be having missions starting at the level 100s. Meaning that the power of EB and other similar abilties are justified in its current state to be able to deal with these enemies. There are no need for any of these changes. And you definitely won't be one shotting enemies now.

Edited November 28, 2015 by Dragazer