Excalibur Revisions Feedback [Post Update 18.13]

[[DE]Danielle]

Hey Tenno! 

This megathread will be used to host your discussions regarding the recent Excalibur ability changes in Update 18.13:

Quote

Excalibur Changes

Excalibur's rework made him an indisputable lethal force - a role he will continue to shine in, but now with more reasonable parameters on his Exalted Blade waves. 

•   Exalted Blade’s damage will now diminish according to distance travelled and enemies punctured, and Exalted Blade’s built-in Radial Blind on spin will now cost ½ the Energy of a regular Radial Blind. Although Exalted Blade is a lot of fun, we feel that it completely overshadows all of Excalibur’s other abilities at little cost. The powerful range on Exalted Blade turned Excalibur into more of a turret than a swordsman. This change means that Exalted Blade is more effective when used in close range and using Radial Blind is now a calculated choice. The ability will simply become more engaging in all encounters. 

 

Please be respectful and keep your feedback constructive. Thank you! 

[ThatOddDeer]

I find the fact that it incentives you to get head-to-head with enemies good.

However, the drain on slide attacks does not justify the massively reduced power of the mini-radial blind. I suggest it either be removed, only active when channeling, buffed to compensate or reverted back to the original function.

Secondly, by not allowing body count or blood rush, and even just body count would suffice, and having combos with almost non-existant multipliers, exalted blade  only incentivises E spam rather than combos and does 15-20% the damage of a melee using the shadowdebt mod combination. If the ability is to drain energy, it should be more powerful than the cost-less alternative.

Edit:After doing some basic math, a full power strength excal that sacrifices everything to pump up EB, if shadowdebt mods were enabled on it, only deals about 60%~ more damage than a nikana prime using blind justice combos. That is an acceptable power difference considering the very weak nature of the stance, and the other exalted melee stances, because of how  expensive a super high strength EB can be.

Edited May 28, 2016 by ThatOddDeer
new information

[Icee]

It feels like the damage falloff is too much. Excalibur has good short range abilities, but Exalted Blade was the really good only long range ability he had. Maybe instead of reducing the damage so much, energy used per attack should've increased so players would stop spamming e and instead have to plan when and where to attack.

[mayhemzen]

i protest the extra energy drain on exalted blade spin attack. 

the cost of a slash dash for the spin attack, while energy is being drained anyhow? 

i would rather get rid of the blind effect and be able to use spin attack freely. 

spin attacks for any melee, including exalted blade, is too important, beyond the blind ability. i do not want to be losing energy for spin attacks. since spin attacks get used so much even without the blind for changing direction and and AOE, exalted blade burns up energy super-fast now. get rid of the blind(though i do love it!) if you have to, or reduce its area and duration.

not sure what the solution is, but extra energy loss for spin attack is foul.  maybe make it only pop while channeling during spin. that would encourage controlled use of the blind effect, but still allow free use of what is probably the most important melee attack.  even so it should not cost as much as a slash dash.

Edited May 27, 2016 by mayhemzen
had a helpful idea

[Void_Vis_Vires]

This thread has feedback

TLDR; body count bloodrush ought to work on exalted melee weapons now because anyframe with regular melee can outperform these frames that are apparently specialized as being melee frames

[Void_Vis_Vires]

Just now, mayhemzen said:

i protest the extra energy drain on exalted blade spin attack. 

the cost of a slash dash for the spin attack, while energy is being drained anyhow? 

i would rather get rid of the blind effect and be able to use spin attack freely. 

spin attacks for any melee, including exalted blade, is too important, beyond the blind ability. i do not want to be losing energy for spin attacks. since spin attacks get used so much even without the blind for changing direction and and AOE, exalted blade burns up energy super-fast now. get rid of the blind(though i do love it!) if you have to, or reduce its area and duration.

not sure what the solution is, but extra energy loss for spin attack is foul.

 I can honestly get behind this. I personally never use the blind. Also it is really frustrating to have to try and kill the habit of using slide attacks as they are one of the oldest melee attacks in the game. It almost feels like im being punished for reflexes I have developed over the last three years

[Fate0]

Exal's mini blind costing energy now... so wait i don't have the choice to expend additional energy should i choose to slide while i'm using EB? You guys are forcing me to be in closer melee range now with this recent range decrease on EB so now i need to close distance faster to be more effective, if i choose to slide then your going to hit my energy? Please reconsider this as this invokes an involuntary use of energy that limits me from sliding while using EB. It now will cost me energy and is not as effective as standard radial blind in functionality and usage. I can't perform finishers or do finisher damage, range and duration is extremely limited. It seems this change was not fully thought out and saying you wanted to keep his other ability from being overshadowed but didn't mention any useful changes to radial javelin.

[mayhemzen]

16 minutes ago, Ebohcalyps3 said:

 I can honestly get behind this. I personally never use the blind. Also it is really frustrating to have to try and kill the habit of using slide attacks as they are one of the oldest melee attacks in the game. It almost feels like im being punished for reflexes I have developed over the last three years

im with you there man. i've been using it to a fine reflex, even sticking midair targets. i play excal a lot, and i'm primarily a melee player even without! don't want to have to stop using spin attack because of this.  i think maybe it should only pop when channeling if they knock that cost down to 10 instead of 25.  i will say i use radial blind a lot though, its a great skill.  its radial javelin that does not get used much. its more of an expensive stun. if you swapped rad jav with fire works it wouldn't affect excals play at all.  rad jav need some kinda interplay with the rest of his abilities, as it largley becomes useless in high level play.

Edited May 27, 2016 by mayhemzen
more thoughts

[(PSN)Jennison99]

    With Excalibur needing to get close to do more damage, I feel that improving his combos on His Exalted Blade should be the next step to making Excalibur's Exalted Blade more fun and skill based, rather than just a "mash melee attack button to win because all of the combos are less useful". I'm not saying make them more powerful, but rather give me a reason to use them other than doing a cool animation that ends up doing similar on hit damage, but much less DPS. Maybe some cool spins that send you forward or some sweet jumps.

I want Excalibur to be more fun, but not necessarily stronger after his incredibly recent and well deserved, other than the not so well thought out slide attack energy cost, nerf.

 

Edited May 27, 2016 by (PS4)Jennison99

[Void_Vis_Vires]

7 minutes ago, mayhemzen said:

im with you there man. i've been using it to a fine reflex, even sticking midair targets. i play excal a lot, and i'm primarily a melee player even without! don't want to have to stop using spin attack because of this.  i think maybe it should only pop when channeling if they knock that cost down to 10 instead of 25.  i will say i use radial blind a lot though, its a great skill.  its radial javelin that does not get used much. its more of an expensive stun. if you swapped rad jav with fire works it wouldn't affect excals play at all.

 Oh no you're right radial blind is a great skill. I should have been more clear I was mentioning that I tend not to use his mini blind on his ult. So I personally wouldn't mind if it was removed for that reason. Although I know some other players may use it I never really was fond of it because it was nerfed quite a bit from the actual 2nd ability.

[Marvelous_A]

The is the stupidest idea I've ever heard. Just remove the spin blind effect and let us use slide attack freely. It's not even useful under most circumstances. The spin blind has range of 5m and duration of 6s. Radial blind has range of 25m and duration of 15s. Look at this S#&$ and you're actually asking for halved energy cost for a crappy version (1/5 range and 2/5 duration) of RB. This change is totally unacceptable unless you buff the spin blind to 12.5m range and 7.5 blind duration, and add the open-to-finisher effect, but I will prefer removing this stupid function.

I don't know the detail of damage scale according to distance, sounds more reasonable to me than the spin blind change but just don't destroy EB. Set a maximum damage reduction % so the damage won't fall off too much, 50% is an acceptable value. IMO adding a damage buff while in close range is more effective in encouraging player to actually melee, than adding a damage penalty while fighting in long range. Or just add both of them.

Edited May 27, 2016 by Marvelous_A

[mayhemzen]

Just now, Ebohcalyps3 said:

 Oh no you're right radial blind is a great skill. I should have been more clear I was mentioning that I tend not to use his mini blind on his ult. So I personally wouldn't mind if it was removed for that reason. Although I know some other players may use it I never really was fond of it because it was nerfed quite a bit from the actual 2nd ability.

i was fine with its downsizing from the main ability. i like that it didn't trigger a stealth attack, as that gave me an option better for CC. no stopping a slide attack for a finisher you didn't want to do in the first place.  was also just thinking rad jav should have a built in response to melee combo counter so you could get its damage up to useful levels.

[Rekkou]

If you want to encourage the use of radial blind during exalted blade, then radial blind should probably be buffed instead? Giving energy cost to a normal attack will only discourage the use of that normal attack.

[rapt0rman]

Frankly the spin blind has always felt as tacked on as the temporary invis on super jump. Spin attack just needs a wider arc projectile or even a full ring or something.

I'm totally okay with the EB range nerfs in general though.

Edited May 27, 2016 by rapt0rman

[Robm]

I don't feel the nerf actually solved the problem of him being a turret. Instead of draining energy per second, I think it should be based per swing. I think this would make the players be more careful of when to use it/ hit has many enemies as possible to use it. 

[motorfirebox]

The drain on spin-RB is way too high. The reduced range, reduced duration, and the fact that it doesn't open up finishers makes spin-RB far, far, far less than half as powerful as regular RB. On top of which, spin attacks are a legitimately useful maneuver that costs zero energy for everyone else. Spin-RB cost should be reduced to 10 at most, 25 is way, way too much.

As far as damage falloff, I honestly don't think this nerf goes far enough. I'd prefer to see the actual range of EB waves reduced by half or more. Damage falloff turns EB from a turret power into a slightly less effective turret power; reducing the range would help make it an actual swordsman power.

Edited May 27, 2016 by motorfirebox

[chofranc]

I think that they should rip of the blinding slide and add and slide attack instead, is better to use the real radial blind.

Excalibur is better now, now you need to combine your other skill, radial blind+exalted blade and not only exalted blade E spam.

[mayhemzen]

the spin blind effects range and duration were perfect as part of e-blade. if it has been decided that was op, all i,m asking is to make channeling trigger the blind and energy cost. don't change the blinds stats, and don't make it trigger stealth attacks.  think of being a noob playing Excalibur as well.  25 to activate, and 25 per spin?  ridiculous.  drop energy drain,. or compromise by making it happen on channel only, for 10 energy(25 is crazy talk), allowing decisive use for the blind, but allowing regular use of the spin with out it.

[B0N3M4N]

The change is pretty fine for me, in the end Excalibur uses a Sword as a Ult, not an assault rifle.

The only changes that I'd like to see are, for first, the addition of new mods like Blood Rush and Body Count on the ones compatible with the Skill(mainly because, after the "nerf", now it gets something like the same or a bit less damage compared to a Broken War), plus the removal of energy cost of the mini-blind, which is kinda pointless.

I'd also like to see an energy consumption increase like Valkyr gets one on her ult. This will help more on understanding when is the right moment to use it and when isn't instead of having it active for the entire mission without any problems, completely removing the interaction with your remaining Arsenal.

[mayhemzen]

21 minutes ago, Marvelous_A said:

The is the stupidest idea I've ever heard. Just remove the spin blind effect and let us use slide attack freely. It's not even useful under most circumstances. The spin blind has range of 5m and duration of 6s. Radial blind has range of 25m and duration of 15s. Look at this S#&$ and you're actually asking for halved energy cost for a crappy version (1/5 range and 2/5 duration) of RB. This change is totally unacceptable unless you buff the spin blind to 12.5m range and 7.5 blind duration, but I will prefer removing this stupid function.

I don't know the detail of damage scale according to distance, sounds more reasonable to me than the spin blind change but just don't destroy EB. Set a maximum damage reduction % so the damage won't fall off too much, 50% is an acceptable value. IMO adding a damage buff while in close range is more effective in encouraging player to actually melee, than adding a damage penalty while fighting in long range.

i have tto argue with ya.  the spin blind is smaller and weaker, but not useless. its perfect for introducing yourself to small clusters of enemies.

[Marvelous_A]

5 minutes ago, mayhemzen said:

i have tto argue with ya.  the spin blind is smaller and weaker, but not useless. its perfect for introducing yourself to small clusters of enemies.

It still cannot justify the energy cost. Why would I even use spin attack for blind effect when it only has 1/5 range and 2/5 blind duration while consuming halved energy of a much stronger version? It can't even render the enemies open to finishers. Remove spin blind, or remove the energy cost. Otherwise it's plain stupid.

Edited May 27, 2016 by Marvelous_A

[mayhemzen]

3 minutes ago, Marvelous_A said:

It still cannot justify the energy cost. Why would I even use spin attack when it only has 1/5 range and 2/5 blind duration while consuming halved energy of a much stronger version? It can't even render the enemies open to finishers. Remove spin blind, or remove the energy cost. Otherwise it's plain stupid.

as you can clearly see n this thread i am against the spin energy cost.  the mini blind is a good ability, i like it, but it should not have an extra energy cost. i don't mind the the other changes but that extra energy cost has to go. 

[mayhemzen]

oh, by the way...

the extra energy cost for the spin on exalted blade has to go!

[Chaosdreamer]

Thanks for killing Excalibur, there was to much of them , also I heard many keyboard thanking your team that have saved the E keys smashing

[Demoonic]

The decreased range doesn't negatively impact how I play excal, infact I don't even really notice a difference aside from the energy getting smaller as it travels. I don't like how the slide blind costs energy now, it has a low radius and doesn't open enemies to finishers....so what's the point