Excalibur Revisions Feedback [Post Update 18.13]

[tekmansam]

Well said, Faustx19.  I was pointing that very thing out the other day.  I decided to level some new frames and really started to see that many frames powers are totally useless compared to weapons.  Take Nyx's Psychic Bolts.  The cost to damage ratio is absolutely terrible.  One pull of a trigger on any half decent gun well outdoes paying 50 energy.  Sadly, this is no easy fix.  Trying to balance powers and weapons in a game with no "end game" per se.  Imagine trying to pick up a board, balancing it by holding it in the center.  Easy enough.  Now, try to imagine picking up and balancing a board with powers on one end, and weapons on the other, and to make matters worse, the board has no center, because it has no end point.  Warframe if fundamentally flawed in its approach.  I hate to say it, but it's the truth.  Without tearing it down and rebuilding it from the ground up it will never be balanced right.  Simply reworking powers and weapons here or there all willy-nilly isn't going to solve the problem.

[Epsik-kun]

Alright, boys, fun is fun, but given most of you don't go above sorties, I really doubt the nerf affected your potential in any way.

Spoiler

 

It was lategame Excal who was heavily nerfed - and I don't know the reason, as DE decided not to tell it.

[Distruco22]

except when you learn that 40% of Melee damage isn't being used in EB and Eb's Default damage is effectively nerfed. so Blind is a must now rather than an option for before

[Epsik-kun]

1 minute ago, Distruco22 said:

except when you learn that 40% of Melee damage isn't being used in EB and Eb's Default damage is effectively nerfed. so Blind is a must now rather than an option for before

When 60% of EBlade damage is not enough to kill stuff, you should've gone up close even if the damage of waves was 100%. You do 4~several_hundreds times the damage up close. And that's the damage that wasn't nerfed.

Nerf for the lategame Excal however lies in the fact, you won't be able to sustain constant blinding anymore. Excal can't survive open encounter with T4 enemies above level like ~120, so he have to avoid being hit - no Rage to pay for your spins. And with such a heavy cost on spins, even using Energy Restores won't allow you to go as high as before.

Full Power Strength Excal is the build, that got hit the most, as this build can't have maximum Efficiency. And that build's only purpose is to do overleveled content.

Given Banshee wasn't nerfed to death, I don't get the idea behind DE nerfing Excal for being able to go overextended.

[YasaiTsume]

My two cents is that while Exalted Blade is a powerful ability, he does not get the same sort of protection Wukong and Valkyr enjoys while they are happy meleeing in the fray. 

Exalted Blade's only defense is the same sort of defense any Ranged DPS gets, which is distance from the target. 

Unfortunately this sort of defense is absolute garbage in Warframe where more enemies shoot than melee. 

 

What I would suggest is a couple of things to solve Excalibur's vulnerbility while in Exalted Blade :

- Change his 3 (Radial Javelin) into an ability that supports melee play style. Sure it might make Draco sitters cry, but having a Shield or some sort of defense would increase his performance with Exalted Blade or Melee combat

I have another proposition for Radial Javelin : Radial Javelin will target up to 15 enemies and attack them for 50% of their current health, then Excalibur will pull his blades back into him and receive 1% of all damage dealt as a shield for a duration, making Radial Javelin uncastable for the remaining duration or until the shield breaks. 

-Second suggestion : Exalted Blade's Slide Attack is turned into a "Parry mode" for Excalibur. Right now it is merely a cheap Blind with not much usage other than to blind enemies in the immediate vicinity. 

Having a Parry mode starting from the moment Excalibur Slides could save him from some damage when approaching enemies.

This Slide attack could even be unique to Excalibur, featuring a Sliding kick or dash with more forward propulsion, instead of the newly revised Spin animation all Melees use since Melee got reworked without Coptering effects. 

In a sense, it would be a Free Slash Dash. (Slash Dash has invul mechanics) 

[tekmansam]

People seem to be ignoring the fact that EB has defensive bonuses built in.

[Epsik-kun]

Just now, tekmansam said:

People seem to be ignoring the fact that EB has defensive bonuses built in.

60% absorption from the front arc is better than nothing at all, but still is pretty meh, compared to, say, Valkyr's default armor, which she doesn't even need.

[Dragazer]

8 minutes ago, tekmansam said:

People seem to be ignoring the fact that EB has defensive bonuses built in.

60% damage reduction in a 180 degree arc only, that does not block AoE or cc status effects.

While Valkyr and Wukong get invincibility and cc immunity.

Not to mention Valkyr completely outclasses Excal in melee due to her base 50% crit chance vs Excal's measly 15% crit chance in comparison. 

The ranged damage from Excal's blade waves was the only thing he had going for him.

With that nerfed into the ground without boosting his melee damage to compensate or his survivability, Excalibur atm is just a bootleg knock off version of Valkyr 

Edited June 4, 2016 by Dragazer

[tekmansam]

Valkyr and Excalibur somehow woke up drunk after a party and were wearing each others clothes.  Valkyr is a barbarian theme, and as such shouldn't be tanky.  She, in many ways, outclasses Excalibur in DPS, and certainly in tankiness, and buffs.  Meanwhile. Excalibur is a paladin themed character (albeit a ret pally,) and going by standard tropes should enjoy more tankiness and buffing/healing.  I agree completely that Excalibur should be tankier, especially now more than ever.  Excalibur is old, and the scope of the game has far surpassed him.  He needs more than a rework, he needs a reimagining to put him back on the path that he strayed so far from, and to keep him true to his theme and intended purpose.

The problem with that, however, is that if you go and completely change a frame--even if its largely unanimous among the community that it is for the better--you are going to spill a lot of salt.  I'm not sure if that's something they have the guts to do.  Excalibur isn't alone, however.  Many frames (if not all) could use a complete rework.  Although, this opens up a can of worms.  Damage, mods, powers, weapons, enemy scaling, damage calculations, and so many other things need rebalanced, and this is no short order.  You more or less have to create an entirely new game.  I hope the devs understand the position they are in.  

Edited June 4, 2016 by tekmansam

[CryvernX]

he needs his spin blind to be viable in endgame, as it is his main source of burst, just lowering the energy cost would be enough for him to still be relevant

 

[Flyghter]

My suggestion is to remove at all waves from Exalted Blade and maybe some increse of critical chanse  and ad the waves on charge atacks like they are now whit dmg reduction so we will use them to take some flying enemies.

And in the future i will like to see skins for exalted blade new swords forms etc.

Edited June 4, 2016 by Flyghter

[Urlan]

5 hours ago, Flyghter said:

My suggestion is to remove at all waves from Exalted Blade and maybe some increse of critical chanse  and ad the waves on charge atacks like they are now whit dmg reduction so we will use them to take some flying enemies.

And in the future i will like to see skins for exalted blade new swords forms etc.

Having the waves on charge attacks could work if they were increased in damage but only from the charges. Similar to how the Shadow Stalker handles War in the 2nd Dream. Maybe enhancing the status taken on from the weapon mods as Shadow Stalker's knocks back while ours commonly might cause slash damage.

[tekmansam]

As much as I hate to say it, if you remove the waves, or add them only on charge attacks, you would have to double the damage of EB or else Excalibur's "melee" dps would suffer drastically.

[Epsik-kun]

In fact, double damage, status chance and raise critical chance to at least 20%.

[Flyghter]

And maybe life strike on all  hits implemeted in his Exalted blade  so that you wont lose energy  and some armor increase ?

Of course all this  ideeas need to be tested and adjusted our job as a community  is to come whit ideeas not whit as specific value on skills .

[JalakBali]

On 6/4/2016 at 4:31 PM, Flyghter said:

My suggestion is to remove at all waves from Exalted Blade and maybe some increse of critical chanse  and ad the waves on charge atacks like they are now whit dmg reduction so we will use them to take some flying enemies.

And in the future i will like to see skins for exalted blade new swords forms etc.

Here's an idea: use a melee weapon. Any melee weapon while holding it. That's what it'd play like if EB has no waves.  I'm not saying it's bad, but I am saying "what would be the point". Valkyr has invul while in her Hysteria at least. Wukong has.... something. I dunno. At least he has a cheat-death power too. Now try Excalibur in melee mode, in high level missions.

[tekmansam]

Context sensitive skins for EB would be a nice touch though.  I personally don't like the look of it.  I think it should be based off of the weapon you have equipped, and use its stances.  The EB stance is boring.

[ThatOddDeer]

16 minutes ago, JalakBali said:

Here's an idea: use a melee weapon. Any melee weapon while holding it. That's what it'd play like if EB has no waves.  I'm not saying it's bad, but I am saying "what would be the point". Valkyr has invul while in her Hysteria at least. Wukong has.... something. I dunno. At least he has a cheat-death power too. Now try Excalibur in melee mode, in high level missions.

At least those melee weapons can use body count and bloodrush and deal 5x the damage of EB, at least.

[OoKeNnEtHoO]

Just came in to see if any more nerfs were made or if any of these got rolled back.

Guess I'm going back to Elder Scrolls Online.

Be back in a year or 2.

Enjoy Nerfframe!

[Lyravain]

On 28/5/2016 at 1:46 AM, ThatOddDeer said:

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.

This, just this. Nothing else but this.

I don't mind not being a standing turret of blade-beam spams. I do mind actually being downgraded when I'm using my 'super powers' and I do mind losing energy on something that does absolutely nothing for me in a fight.

[tekmansam]

Pretty much every power suffers from the flaw of not being able to keep up with weapons.  Melee weapons have a proble of keeping up with ranged weapons.  Guns rule the day; powers and melee (and melee powers) need love.

[(PSN)Faustx19]

Exact.As i wrote in another thread my brakk needs one second to kill a lv100 gunner.So excalibur'S exalted blade was allready way weaker before the latest nerf.So to use excalibur and exalted blade on high lv missions is hard work compared to guns.Why should i use excalibur and exalted blade when i can use a rhino and sancti tigris or tons of other guns with far more power?So the questions i ask myself that let my blood cook is Why nerf something that is allready only usefull for gamers that love excalibur as much as i did?Why a high moded excalibur cleans up low level missions like a devil and haters cry at DE he is overpowered?Do DE play the game?If yes do they play like we do and farm mods ,resources,credits and build the frames like we do?I think if they play they have everything to the limit and fail to understand what impact such nerf series have cause we have more heart with our hard work as someone just have it all without the farming and leveling .On one side i can understand the fact that would cost to much time , on the other side if someone have everything it has not to be an expert to realize that many guns kill faster and from a safer distance as exalted blade.Also the bullets travel way faster what makes aiming easier as exalted blade .So still the question remains unanswered ;Why that nerf ? 

[Kurienno]

I can understand you not wanting Excalibur to be a turret but that's a flaw with how you made Exalted Blade be. If you didn't want him to be a turret you should have made Exalted Blade be similar to Wukong's Primal Fury. You made Exalted Blade deal energy waves not us. Excalibur is in no means a tanky warframe forcing Excalibur to get up close and personal puts him at a severe disadvantage he isn't Chroma, Wukong, Inaros, etc. The slide attack was one way Excalibur could have coped with it but now that you want it to be some form of tactical decision by making it cost 1/2 of Radial Blind despite it being significantly weaker to Radial Blind stun time/range wise. 

My recommendations:

1. Reverse the power nerf of Exalted Blade OR Allow Exalted Blade to benefit from Blood Rush / Body Count

2. Remove the energy cost of the slide attack, you have no idea how detrimental this is

(basically the more popular answers and solutions in thread)

3. Buff Excalibur's Armor to a level where putting him up close and personal isn't a death wish at higher levels 

 

[Gilmaesh]

Make slide attack cost 1/5 or 1/10 of blind cost, 1/2 is way overkill.

They could add bloodrush and body count if the waves don't benefit from them maybe.

[Chroia]

Would much, much have prefered that the waves' range be cut, leaving their damage untouched.

This doesn't make Excal less of a turret, just a less effective one.

 

As to the energy cost on EB-spin, all I can say is 'ugh'.

As I said in the Dev workshop post that annouced it:

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but last I checked the EB slide attack had a range of ~6m unaffected by range, compared with RB's 25m at base on top of not opening enemies to finishers. Why on earth would I ever choose to use it over RB?

 

Edited June 7, 2016 by Chroia