Excalibur Revisions Feedback [Post Update 18.13]

[Veridantus]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)Faustx19 said:

The bonus from slide blind is pretty rare due to the energy cost,the radial blind also if some blindet ,the time for finishers and only one after another is not worth is. I punchtrojgh with every gun. The naramon , hmm.Ok,only grineer. Void and corpus nullifyer do not run into your frame if they can see you. Use naramon and its a pain to get rid of the bubble before they run ino you and turn exalted blade off. Theory is not bad, practical experience is something far more worth.

.... you know the sword wave can destroy nullifier barrier? you don't have to enter the bubble.. 
I have 2500 hours on Excalibur out of 3000 hours played since 2013 & most of the time I'm playing solo, even in interceptions (not using exca on interceptions though).
Literally talking from experience here. 

Edited June 24, 2016 by Veridantus

[andwar]

9 minutes ago, Veridantus said:

To be fair, guns don't get bonus dmg from invis/blind. 910 is base damage using only 3 mods. not counting elementals damage, crit on exalted blade, damage from the sword wave which is full punchthrough, invis/blind bonus damage, channeling multiplier & now we even have primed pressure point. Excalibur's ability damage is one of the top tier when modded properly, along with Valkyr & Wukong. 

I agree about the slide blind being a dead weight due to energy cost, but saying Excalibur's ability is weak, is ridiculous.

Oh, the wave also loses damage when travelling through enemies now too. But I suppose the point of contention isn't really that exalted blade is useless; it's more along the lines of not really having a good reason to use it over the many weapons, like the examples given by Faust, seeing as how they can rival EB's damage output. 

Somehow I got sidetracked...we were talking about SD. I guess i agree that the damage is passable for a first ability, especially since it scales with mods as you mentioned. I feel that its flaws lie closer to its randomness and lack of reliability. Its often hit-and-miss with the ability; I often find myself stopping before hitting all the enemies in a group. I'd really like it if we could hold down the button to continue striking additional targets in range, maybe with additional energy costs incurred with every additional strike. At least it would make the ability a more reliable gap closer and provide some measure of control over the ability.

[Veridantus]

Just now, andwar said:

Oh, the wave also loses damage when travelling through enemies now too. But I suppose the point of contention isn't really that exalted blade is useless; it's more along the lines of not really having a good reason to use it over the many weapons, like the examples given by Faust, seeing as how they can rival EB's damage output. 

Somehow I got sidetracked...we were talking about SD. I guess i agree that the damage is passable for a first ability, especially since it scales with mods as you mentioned. I feel that its flaws lie closer to its randomness and lack of reliability. Its often hit-and-miss with the ability; I often find myself stopping before hitting all the enemies in a group. I'd really like it if we could hold down the button to continue striking additional targets in range, maybe with additional energy costs incurred with every additional strike. At least it would make the ability a more reliable gap closer and provide some measure of control over the ability.

This I agree, SD's targeting & AoE is a bit too small. the range is enough at 12 meters unmodded, but the cone width is just too small..

Honestly, I think both SD & RJ needs tweaking.. RJ are also very ineffective since EB is out.

[(PSN)Faustx19]

10 minutes ago, Veridantus said:

.... you know the sword wave can destroy nullifier barrier? you don't have to enter the bubble.. 
I have 2500 hours on Excalibur out of 3000 hours played since 2013 & most of the time I'm playing solo, even in interceptions (not using exca on interceptions though).
Literally talking from experience here. 

What you not say. The point is its horde based,they come from all sides.Its hard work for excalibur, you schould know that. The rate of fire is nothing compared to a gun. Im ps4 player,still some time for primed fury and primed presure point. So for you to understand , im also near 3000 hours,most excalibur.It IS more work using excalibur to achive something. To let him cost extra energy for slide attacks is a joke and he needs to deal heavy damage. Excalibur is not overpowered . You get it?

[Veridantus]

Just now, (PS4)Faustx19 said:

What you not say. The point is its horde based,they come from all sides.Its hard work for excalibur, you schould know that. The rate of fire is nothing compared to a gun. Im ps4 player,still some time for primed fury and primed presure point. So for you to understand , im also near 3000 hours,most excalibur.It IS more work using excalibur to achive something. To let him cost extra energy for slide attacks is a joke and he needs to deal heavy damage. Excalibur is not overpowered . You get it?

Yes, I understand & I agree that Excalibur is not OP at all & Slide blind needs to go.

though, I still think using him & other melee frames are a lot easier than other frames... but preferences, I guess.

[(PSN)Faustx19]

1 minute ago, Veridantus said:

Yes, I understand & I agree that Excalibur is not OP at all & Slide blind needs to go.

though, I still think using him & other melee frames are a lot easier than other frames... but preferences, I guess.

Now you say what i try all over this topic.

[(PSN)Faustx19]

But its not easyer with excalibur.Defend as excalibur or vauban,frost,nova. The same for excavation , survive and many others. Pretty easy with others, you go not as far as other frames with excalibur.

[Veridantus]

Just now, (PS4)Faustx19 said:

But its not easyer with excalibur.Defend as excalibur or vauban,frost,nova. The same for excavation , survive and many others. Pretty easy with others, you go not as far as other frames with excalibur.

also agree. Excavation & Defense missions need a specific frames like frost.

well, we can't have Excalibur doing everything after all, if he can then he is OP.

[(PSN)Faustx19]

Even exterminate is easyer using ash or loki. Void sabotage , rhino. To say play excalibur is easyer as others is just wrong. I do not talk about endgame,he now is far from such missions. 

[Veridantus]

Just now, (PS4)Faustx19 said:

Even exterminate is easyer using ash or loki. Void sabotage , rhino. To say play excalibur is easyer as others is just wrong. I do not talk about endgame,he now is far from such missions. 

Preference over efficiency, mate. also Void sabotage is easy with Exca compared to rhino, so I don't know what you're talking about there.. 
Exca can easily do T4 survivals for an hour solo. at 1 hour enemies are around 120 - 140. any frame that can do that is categorized as easier frames for me.

[(PSN)Faustx19]

Not realy , over 8000 iron skin let me ignore the traps and i can search for the containers without stress.Excalibur had to clean up the most enemys and traps . Also sancti tigris oneshot everything if im in the mood to pull the trigger. There is a clear difference what is easy. 

[Veridantus]

17 minutes ago, (PS4)Faustx19 said:

Not realy , over 8000 iron skin let me ignore the traps and i can search for the containers without stress.Excalibur had to clean up the most enemys and traps . Also sancti tigris oneshot everything if im in the mood to pull the trigger. There is a clear difference what is easy. 

I think you & I play & mod very differently.

[(PSN)Faustx19]

A , B and C mod loadouts for different mission types and playstyles. 

[andrewd084]

Out of curiosity, Veridantus, how do you mod Excalibur? When I attempt to maximize his power strength with enough duration and efficency to keep EB up via energy orb drops (around 200% strength and .8 energy/second, though I'm still upgrading a couple mods and will end up at ~240% and .85/s), I find that EB is at least worth using in melee. Not significantly better than a melee weapon with Blood Rush and Body Count, but not noticeably worse at least. It's generally worse at range than a Primary/Secondary weapon, but I'm fine with that*.

The problem is that in order to make EB worthwhile, his range is so awful that I can't use Slash Dash on more than two enemies. This makes it a lot worse than a simple slide attack.. or at least it did when slide attacks were something that DE thought we should be allowed to use - now they're both bad in different ways. So how do you get SD to be a decent ability without sacrificing a ton of efficiency or something? I've only got about 600 hours in the game, 50% of it on Excalibur, and I never use Slash Dash because as I said.. either it doesn't hurt anything (I don't know how many times I've used it on a group of enemies only to turn around and find them all still alive with slivers of health missing), or it's so short that's it's nothing but an expensive and disorienting melee attack with a cooldown.

If I build for Radial Blind, I think he's actually pretty good. With enough range/duration and efficiency, it's some half-decent crowd control. Unreliable when compared to real crowd control abilities of other frames, but not quite as unreliable as people say it is. Not ideal, but not terrible if you like Excalibur. It's good, but it doesn't trivialize enemies, which I kind of like.

Radial Javelin gives me the same problem as Slash Dash. I'm either sacrificing damage and not really hurting anything, or sacrificing range and not hitting anything. And the build that I use to make EB sustainable only has 150 energy, so I generally don't want to use anything else. I could probably build a ton of strength and range with no duration and kind of crappy efficiency, then spam energy pizzas.. but that sounds incredibly boring (and useless if I'm not one-shotting enemies), so I've never bothered with RJ.

 

* Well.. kind of fine with it. I'm fine with it in principle, because I like Excalibur being a melee frame. I don't like having no real reason to use any of his abilities, because I can not use Excalibur's abilities on any frame in the game :P

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, andrewd084 said:

how do you mod Excalibur?

Although this question is not directed at me, I'll try my best in giving you advice on a Slash Dash build.

The main point of Slash Dash isn't really killing enemies. It's about racking up your melee counter with the augment, Surging Dash. Why does that benefit you? Well, it's essential for Blood Rush, a mod that scales crit chance with the melee counter. For the actual build, you will need Surging Dash, max efficiency, primed flow, intensify and stretch (overextended is optional). For the melee weapon, pick one that can have OP effects with crits, like Nikana p, Destreza or Fragor p.

While in combat, cast Slash Dash for a couple of times until you've racked up the melee counter. Then you can watch your melee weapons dish out insane red crits and have insane attacks speed in no time with Berserker and Primed Fury.

[Epsik-kun]

4 minutes ago, andrewd084 said:

I attempt to maximize his power strength

That's the mistake you are making.

First, you only need maxed power strength, when you're facing enemies of level 300+, prior to that having 155% is more than enough.
Second, max Power Strength build is THE build that got nerfed. Other builds are pretty much untouched (save for overextended survivals).
Third, what makes EBlade strong is Slide Blind. Use it.

RJ is a separate build. You don't intend to use RJ with other skills, you build your Excal solely for it. It has its niche uses - defenses, interceptions, resource farming, low level exterminations.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Epsik-kun said:

Third, what makes EBlade strong is Slide Blind. Use it.

Nerfed, now costs energy.

[Epsik-kun]

3 minutes ago, Madho said:

Nerfed, now costs energy.

Oh, really?

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Epsik-kun said:

Oh, really?

That's literally the only thing the entire thread is complaining about (and simultaneously in agreement for most people). How long have you not played Excal?

 

Edited June 25, 2016 by Guest
Minor details

[Epsik-kun]

Just now, Madho said:

That's literally the only thing the entire thread is complaining about. How long have you not played Excal?

Oh, really?

[Veridantus]

14 hours ago, andrewd084 said:

Out of curiosity, Veridantus, how do you mod Excalibur? When I attempt to maximize his power strength with enough duration and efficency to keep EB up via energy orb drops (around 200% strength and .8 energy/second, though I'm still upgrading a couple mods and will end up at ~240% and .85/s), I find that EB is at least worth using in melee. Not significantly better than a melee weapon with Blood Rush and Body Count, but not noticeably worse at least. It's generally worse at range than a Primary/Secondary weapon, but I'm fine with that*.

The problem is that in order to make EB worthwhile, his range is so awful that I can't use Slash Dash on more than two enemies. This makes it a lot worse than a simple slide attack.. or at least it did when slide attacks were something that DE thought we should be allowed to use - now they're both bad in different ways. So how do you get SD to be a decent ability without sacrificing a ton of efficiency or something? I've only got about 600 hours in the game, 50% of it on Excalibur, and I never use Slash Dash because as I said.. either it doesn't hurt anything (I don't know how many times I've used it on a group of enemies only to turn around and find them all still alive with slivers of health missing), or it's so short that's it's nothing but an expensive and disorienting melee attack with a cooldown.

If I build for Radial Blind, I think he's actually pretty good. With enough range/duration and efficiency, it's some half-decent crowd control. Unreliable when compared to real crowd control abilities of other frames, but not quite as unreliable as people say it is. Not ideal, but not terrible if you like Excalibur. It's good, but it doesn't trivialize enemies, which I kind of like.

Radial Javelin gives me the same problem as Slash Dash. I'm either sacrificing damage and not really hurting anything, or sacrificing range and not hitting anything. And the build that I use to make EB sustainable only has 150 energy, so I generally don't want to use anything else. I could probably build a ton of strength and range with no duration and kind of crappy efficiency, then spam energy pizzas.. but that sounds incredibly boring (and useless if I'm not one-shotting enemies), so I've never bothered with RJ.

 

* Well.. kind of fine with it. I'm fine with it in principle, because I like Excalibur being a melee frame. I don't like having no real reason to use any of his abilities, because I can not use Excalibur's abilities on any frame in the game :P

 

13 hours ago, Epsik-kun said:

That's the mistake you are making.

First, you only need maxed power strength, when you're facing enemies of level 300+, prior to that having 155% is more than enough.
Second, max Power Strength build is THE build that got nerfed. Other builds are pretty much untouched (save for overextended survivals).
Third, what makes EBlade strong is Slide Blind. Use it.

RJ is a separate build. You don't intend to use RJ with other skills, you build your Excal solely for it. It has its niche uses - defenses, interceptions, resource farming, low level exterminations.

Epsik got the right idea here.
My end stats are :
Power Str : 145 (enough power str to last for 100++ enemies) (normally I start having trouble against enemies that 1 shots me instead tanky ones)
Power Eff : 170 (efficiency for longer exalted blade & cheaper powers)
Power Range : 100 ( LoS radial blind makes increasing this, moot)
Power Duration : 123 (same reason as above, BUT! EB is affected by this)

Power Cost :
SD = 7
RB = 15
RJ = 23
EB = 8 + 0.63/s

Health : 680 (rank 8 Vitality)
Power : 350 (rank 7 primed flow)
shield : 300

+ rage.

full channeling efficiency & lifestrike on my melee.

Want to try using energy conversions but I'm too lazy farming for Symaris' standing :P

Edited June 26, 2016 by Veridantus

[andrewd084]

Now I kind of feel like we're not playing the same game, because my 200% strength Excalibur has to hit level ~30 gunners and ancients about three or four times at melee range to kill them with EB. Even if we're not comparing that to a primary weapon, spending that long (or a lot longer at level 100) meleeing something will eventually get you killed.

[Veridantus]

25 minutes ago, andrewd084 said:

Now I kind of feel like we're not playing the same game, because my 200% strength Excalibur has to hit level ~30 gunners and ancients about three or four times at melee range to kill them with EB. Even if we're not comparing that to a primary weapon, spending that long (or a lot longer at level 100) meleeing something will eventually get you killed.

EB is affected by melee mods, power mods & steel charge. this means you're probably not modding your melee weapon properly or wearing steel charge.

[Veridantus]

Btw, can you remove the energy cost from reflection while channeling with EB?
It makes channeling very expensive for Excalibur. 
Or just remove the whole damage reflection on auto parry while channeling, it's just not worth it to have.
the auto parry is already enough anyway.

[Evanescent]

 Please enable blood rush and body count on Exalted Blade.

Please revoke the slide blind nerf.

DE, please.