Excalibur Revisions Feedback [Post Update 18.13]

[ashrah]

1 hour ago, Cpl_Facehugger said:

How about spin attacks don't take any e and we keep the nerf to wave range because that's at least understandable balancewise?

Like, I can think of literally no reason why a spin attack should cost energy when you're already bleeding energy like a sieve with exalted blade to begin with. The blind on spin attacks is short range and doesn't give you the benefits (finishers, melee stealth bonus) of radial blind. It's so weak that it shouldn't cost any energy at all, considering how it only comes into play when using EB, which itself takes energy.

1+ spin attack should not take any energy at all....i just played t4 suv 60min and its really drain a lot of energy.....+ we have eximus now.. really problematic...

[K0bra]

Excalibur is not tanky enough for this change + energy costs on spin attacks *facepalm*

Sorry these changes are a FAIL.

We are back at the beginning.Excalibur isnt really capable for endgame anymore except a Blind build with some EB.Mewwww.

Lets wait 2 years again till we can use it for the high lvl stuff again.

Edited May 28, 2016 by K0bra

[AndrewScreamSoul]

I only understand the part to make him a swordman, I don't really like this thing about the cost of the energy of the Radial Blind on spin, tell me that I'm a whiny fan boy but for me is no sense but whatever. RJ should be revisited, good only for the low levels on my opinion. The RB is good, for saving teammates and killing too,the SD welp funny skill but nothing special. 

[Draco_VW]

I have some points about this new Excalibur Revisions.

First point- The energy drain on slide-blind is just bad, a 25 energy cost (without any efficiency) on slide is a bad move we have too low range and duration in the slide-blind to deserve any cost, so maybe remove the energy cost, or remove the slide-blind (i like the slide-blind is a nice CC power to have in EB because he are the only non-imortal melee frame so we need some diferent things to help us).

Second point- The Exalted Blade damage change to be honest i dont like the damage fall-off in EB, I get it why this change happen but I dont like it especially as the energy wave now shrinks as it travels, so few changes that can be made,

1- The wave have a faster travel time or as it shrink the energy wave's travel time is faster.

2- Reverse the EB to its original state but reduce the range of the wave.

3- Keep the EB just like it is but the waves now count to the melee combo counter (this is one of my fav change).

4- While in EB state excal have some knockdown\knockback resistance so we can get in melee range of a bombard and not be a ping-pong ball,  or just make excal imune to eximus auras. Excal are the only melee frame that dont have any kind of resistance or imortality ( the other 3 melee frame have resistance and some even have imortality)

Third pont- Our passive, right now our passive give us attack speed and damage with certain weapons Nikanas, Swords, Dual Swords and Rapiers thats 4 melee type weapons of 22 diferent melee types weapons, I think his passive should work with every melee weapon or at least all the bladed ones like Galatine, War, Glave. That way we can have diversity without being penalized.

 

Spoiler

this is some thing I would like to see. If the melee weapon and stance we have equiped could change the finisher and stealth kill animation in EB, if we have the nikana with the blind justice stance equiped, when we do a finisher we have a chance to do the blind justice finisher animation.

P.S.- sorry if my english is not that  good.

 

Edited May 28, 2016 by DRACO_VANWOLF
a little change to second point N4 change (maybe more changes on the way)

[Evanescent]

Please buff the range and slightly bump the duration of the spin blind. It's an alternative to players who don't want to initiate finishers with RB, and now that it costs energy it should be more powerful as well.

[Nyxxz]

This is what you should do to make it less spam E only,  Make Excals #1 charge to said enemy and give you a 100% deflect all damage for about 1.5-2 seconds, giving you just a tiny break to figure out what you'll do next. also give it a short'ish cooldown, 6-8 sec. make its deflect can be boosted by power duration.   

#2 is sort of fine as it is, really strong but lets leave that for now.

#3 is kinda only used for Dracos, changing this ability would make a lot of people angry.

not 100% sure what spin attack should do, but giving it energy cost in the sorry state it's in atm without doing anything else is just really dumb

 

[Melos-mevim]

have to say the cost on slides is a bit much especially considering how vital slide attacks are for the melee play style (closing gaps, chaning directions sling shotting  from one enemy to another ect

 

more importantly exalted weapons need to be able to use the acolyte mods. Seriously a normal melee weapon can reach dmg numbers far higher than any of the exalted weapons lets fix that

[_Rue_]

please remove the passive blind if it costs stuff. I don't want to accidentally deplete my energy just because... >_> i have never used it anyway.

[Evanescent]

@[DE]Rebecca @[DE]Danielle

Compiled Excalibur Changes Feedback:

1) The waves should be hard-capped to 50% damage falloff like shotguns

2)Waves should not have damage falloff and shrink.

3)Otherwise feels better, in-your-face now

4)Excalibur needs and little more armor/health now that he has to be more close-up and tank damage, otherwise see below:

5)Blocking with EB should be back to 100% frontal damage absorption. This is really needed at high levels, and a 180 degrees only damage mitigation that does not protect from splash damage really isn't OP anymore now that Valkyr has straight up invincibility, you know?

6) I feel RJ needs to add to combo counter based on enemies hit, please. It needs something that blends it in with his theme of reinforcing melee, right now it's like an awry twig sticking out of a neatly trimmed bonsai shrub.

7)EB Waves should travel faster now that they fall-off for quick close range reactions please.

8) Proto skin PBR plez ;_; It's the only deluxe skin without gorgeous PBR atm.

9)Can we get some new combos and Charge attacks for EB? There's not much variation in his attack patterns.

10)ThatOddDeer's suggestion:

Please allow shadow debt mods to be used, affecting ONLY the main melee attacks and not the waves.

It makes no sense why The Warframes should not be allowed to use the powerful mods when their weapons are clearly supposed to be one tier above normal weapons.

Edited May 28, 2016 by Evanescent

[Demonell]

Tbh If i would want to play always in melee range i would take a Valkyr instead of Excalibur.

First. Excalibur is Excalibur and Valkyr is Valkyr, i don't see point in making Excalibur same playstyle as Valkyr. EB is a range attack that can goes through enemies, yes. But it's not OP:

1. It's not very easy to hit enemies who 25m from u, especially if they move not in your direction.

2. Blades have a travel time so u can't just kill enemy from afar. You should wait till blade will hit enemy OR u should go to melee distance. It's especially usefull when talk about bombards, bursas (etc..) who can one shot u on high level if u will not kill them fast enough.

3. You can make a hit in only one direction and with not a big range. You can't hit everything around u like most of 4 abilities of other warframes in this game (saryn, mag, ember, frost and etc). Look at Ash, he can kill everything everywhere with gathering items, with making a 100% bleed and finishing damage (which is much more on high levels than excalibur has), with invulnerability and even regenerate enery during that.  I don't wanna even talk about combo counter. Excalibur is a damage dealer and i don't see any reasonable reasons to take Excalibur as dd in group instead of Ash.

Second. You say u don't want to make Excalibur turret like warframe. But it's not, actually game forces u to stand still and it's not only about Excalibur.

Survivals - everyone just go in one hole and stand there. You move only for one reason - to take a loot. Excalibur problem? No, it's survival problem and every warframe does same, just sit and do their job.

Defence - u should protect artefact so if u leave it and move to far enemy, u risk. So it's just logical to stay at artefact and trying to kill enemies from there. And ofc Snow Globe. Again game forces u to stand still or u can be killed, especially on high levels.

Excavation - same as defence u just forced to stay in snow globe and move only to take power cell.

Mobile Defence - same as defence.

Interception - u move between capture locations or stay in capture location and kill everyone who trying to take your point. Again, if u don't wanna risk u better to stay in capture location and defend it from there. 

Assassination and Extermination - well we move, we kill enemies in range, we kill enemies in melee. For example it's much easier to kill bursas in melee cuz it's easier to move behind his back from melee. So we sometimes use melee, sometimes range and it's fine i think. We are not turret in these missions.

Third. Enemies also forces us to play more range.

Nullifiers - u can't ofc use EB inside his bubble and at least we can kill it from range if make enough hits. 

Ancient Disruptor - "Casts and aura that reduces radial and 90% power damage received by nearby allies". It's insane if there are somewhere near Ancient Healer which also has an aura that reduces all incoming damage and if he's eximus it's REALLY HARD to kill him and u can't kill anything near until he's alive. But problem for melee is his melee magnetic attack which will drain your energy so .... range.

Eximus Energy Leach / Parasitic type - well, it just drains all your energy in few seconds and u left w/o EB so u should hold distance and try to kill it before he come closer, right? It's, again, just logic. It's near impossible if there are Ancient Disruptor and Ancient Healer near but it's another story.

There are more ofc but i don't wanna talk about it whole day. All excaliburs know these enemies very well...

Conclusion. Dont' get me wrong, melee is ok in this game but melee using powers like EB is really hard with these enemies abilites. Missions in current statement forces u to be in range since it's just easier and more safe. And as i said before EB isn't OP at all and Excalibur isn't a turret type warframe. We use melee when needed and range when needed and to make us use melee more often u should change missions and enemies, not excalibur.

I understnad your point, u think if make EB more melee then people will use EB in melee but it's wrong. As far as we can use EB in range we will use it in range cuz of reasons i have meantioned above. And if u make EB full melee, u just make another Valkyr. Simple as that.

Edited May 28, 2016 by Demonell

[ThatOddDeer]

4 minutes ago, Evanescent said:

@[DE]Rebecca @[DE]Danielle

Compiled Excalibur Changes Feedback:

1) The waves should be hard-capped to 50% damage falloff like shotguns

2)Waves should not have damage falloff and shrink.

3)Otherwise feels better, in-your-face now

4)Excalibur needs and little more armor/health now that he has to be more close-up and tank damage, otherwise see below:

5)Blocking with EB should be back to 100% frontal damage absorption. This is really needed at high levels, and a 180 degrees only damage mitigation that does not protect from splash damage really isn't OP anymore now that Valkyr has straight up invincibility, you know?

6) I feel RJ needs to add to combo counter based on enemies hit, please. It needs something that blends it in with his theme of reinforcing melee, right now it's like an awry twig sticking out of a neatly trimmed bonsai shrub.

7) Proto skin PBR plez ;_; It's the only deluxe skin without gorgeous PBR atm.

While you're at it, if the stances continue to be lackluster, we should be able to use the shadowdebt mods. The damage difference isn't mind-boggling huge and would justify the weapons costing energy

[Evanescent]

11 minutes ago, ThatOddDeer said:

While you're at it, if the stances continue to be lackluster, we should be able to use the shadowdebt mods. The damage difference isn't mind-boggling huge and would justify the weapons costing energy

That is true.

[Urlan]

4 hours ago, 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.

I have thought since I saw the acolyte mods that they are likely intended to replace our normal damage and critical mods when the required mods are removed.

[Azyrt]

4 hours ago, Ebohcalyps3 said:

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

It is already pretty annoying to rely on those mods when using excal. Since the exalted isnt affected, When the big bad guys come to the fight its time to turn off exalted blade as its faster to kill and eximus drains everything anyway =o

It seens that ill need to deactivate a key to not perform accidentally the mini radial blind(as if the radius wasn't enough)

This whole excal nerf is something that I can't understand... frost can use avalanche and kill multiple enemies at once through walls, rhino can stomp everything in range and kill too, etc, etc, etc...

[Nyxxz]

Body Count and Blood Rush makes melee horrid imo, go kill 500 new enemies if you happen to be unlucky with a few spawns to get your damage back is just the least fun mechanic I've seen in a very long time :|  

Melee should be strong but not in such a gut punching manner

[ThatOddDeer]

5 minutes ago, Nyxxz said:

Body Count and Blood Rush makes melee horrid imo, go kill 500 new enemies if you happen to be unlucky with a few spawns to get your damage back is just the least fun mechanic I've seen in a very long time :|  

Melee should be strong but not in such a gut punching manner

I would personally also enjoy a longer default combo counter that ticks down instead of entirely vanishing but that's not likely until a melee 3.0

Instead, this thread is for discussing the excal and what we could change now that EB has been drastically changed.

[Void_Vis_Vires]

4 minutes ago, ThatOddDeer said:

I would personally also enjoy a longer default combo counter that ticks down instead of entirely vanishing but that's not likely until a melee 3.0

Instead, this thread is for discussing the excal and what we could change now that EB has been drastically changed.

 

11 minutes ago, Nyxxz said:

Body Count and Blood Rush makes melee horrid imo, go kill 500 new enemies if you happen to be unlucky with a few spawns to get your damage back is just the least fun mechanic I've seen in a very long time :|  

Melee should be strong but not in such a gut punching manner

 

I agree with both of you. I have always been a proponent of lengthening the actual melee counter to at least half of what it is with these mods maxed. Idk why DE made body count instead because it is an obvious band aid mod but I am trying to work with them here. Ideally they would buff the melee combo counter and let Exalted melee use these mods therefor everyone wins. Bloodrush and body count are no longer mandatory to make melee viable but you can still enhance melee as well as theults in question if you want too.

[OoKeNnEtHoO]

Though I find the changes uncalled for but I guess they are still acceptable except:

The energy cost to a spinning EB attack.

 

Why?

Now, I have to consciously tell myself not to use that attack if not I might run out of energy and my whole EB will be gone.

 

[Heidrek]

IIII think we need to fix excali's other three abilities too.

slash dash is weird, don't start this transfer enemy to enemy nonsense. Give me the old vanilla slash dash or make him throw an exalted wave, because that programming UI gets him killed. People are smarter that the computer we know how to line up targets.

Radial blind is useful. LoS lockdown is fair, locking down a whole room is kinda crazy, but players will figure out another way. I don't care.

Radial javelin, yes yes this kinda sucks. Completely overshadowed by blind as a panic button, it's more of a kill the small fries button

Exalted blade. ... the shockwaves aren't very swordman like. Still disappointed, but happy that there are less turrets in the game. 

BTW where is limbo in all these updates, the excali and limbo combo needs to go,

[Inmemoratus]

Nerfing Excalibur made absolutely no sense. I already had trouble finding a reason to use him in most cases. The only thing he had going for him is how they needed fewer mods than other frames.

It's arguable whether Exalted Blade overshadowed the rest of his kit. The rest of his kit isn't good at killing enemies, aside from RJ vs lower level enemies. Slash Dash and Radial Blind are utility skills and Exalted Blade is your damage skill. Each one has a purpose. RJ is the problem because it is only useful for low level stuff.

I disagree with giving an energy cost to the mini-blind. It has a much smaller radius than Radial Blind. After this nerf it has become a trap, using it is never a good use of energy. You're spending 50% of the energy for only 20% of the radius. With some basic high school math we know that's 4% of the area coverage for 50% of the energy cost. Not to mention the duration is lower too. If it's gonna cost 50% of the energy it should cover 50% of the area. That would be a 17.6 meter radius instead of a 5 meter radius.

As I said above, I didn't think Excalibur was even that great before the nerfs. His damage is very high but usually that is not necessary, and there are plenty of other ways to match or exceed it if needed. There were definitely some scenarios when I felt like he was the best choice but after these nerfs I doubt that will be the case anymore. The biggest reason is if I'm forced into semi-melee to deal high damage, I'm going to do a lot more with my max range Atterax and other frames can use it a lot better.

This goes back on the whole point of Excalibur's rework, which was to make him something more than just a mediocre frame for new players. It made him strong in all content, a solid starting frame that players want to invest in. But these nerfs push him back towards being a stepping-stone to Rhino.

Edited May 28, 2016 by Inmemoratus

[OoKeNnEtHoO]

57 minutes ago, Demonell said:

Tbh If i would want to play always in melee range i would take a Valkyr instead of Excalibur.

First. Excalibur is Excalibur and Valkyr is Valkyr, i don't see point in making Excalibur same playstyle as Valkyr. EB is a range attack that can goes through enemies, yes. But it's not OP:

1. It's not very easy to hit enemies who 25m from u, especially if they move not in your direction.

2. Blades have a travel time so u can't just kill enemy from afar. You should wait till blade will hit enemy OR u should go to melee distance. It's especially usefull when talk about bombards, bursas (etc..) who can one shot u on high level if u will not kill them fast enough.

3. You can make a hit in only one direction and with not a big range. You can't hit everything around u like most of 4 abilities of other warframes in this game (saryn, mag, ember, frost and etc). Look at Ash, he can kill everything everywhere with gathering items, with making a 100% bleed and finishing damage (which is much more on high levels than excalibur has), with invulnerability and even regenerate enery during that.  I don't wanna even talk about combo counter. Excalibur is a damage dealer and i don't see any reasonable reasons to take Excalibur as dd in group instead of Ash.

Second. You say u don't want to make Excalibur turret like warframe. But it's not, actually game forces u to stand still and it's not only about Excalibur.

Survivals - everyone just go in one hole and stand there. You move only for one reason - to take a loot. Excalibur problem? No, it's survival problem and every warframe does same, just sit and do their job.

Defence - u should protect artefact so if u leave it and move to far enemy, u risk. So it's just logical to stay at artefact and trying to kill enemies from there. And ofc Snow Globe. Again game forces u to stand still or u can be killed, especially on high levels.

Excavation - same as defence u just forced to stay in snow globe and move only to take power cell.

Mobile Defence - same as defence.

Interception - u move between capture locations or stay in capture location and kill everyone who trying to take your point. Again, if u don't wanna risk u better to stay in capture location and defend it from there. 

Assassination and Extermination - well we move, we kill enemies in range, we kill enemies in melee. For example it's much easier to kill bursas in melee cuz it's easier to move behind his back from melee. So we sometimes use melee, sometimes range and it's fine i think. We are not turret in these missions.

Third. Enemies also forces us to play more range.

Nullifiers - u can't ofc use EB inside his bubble and at least we can kill it from range if make enough hits. 

Ancient Disruptor - "Casts and aura that reduces radial and 90% power damage received by nearby allies". It's insane if there are somewhere near Ancient Healer which also has an aura that reduces all incoming damage and if he's eximus it's REALLY HARD to kill him and u can't kill anything near until he's alive. But problem for melee is his melee magnetic attack which will drain your energy so .... range.

Eximus Energy Leach / Parasitic type - well, it just drains all your energy in few seconds and u left w/o EB so u should hold distance and try to kill it before he come closer, right? It's, again, just logic. It's near impossible if there are Ancient Disruptor and Ancient Healer near but it's another story.

There are more ofc but i don't wanna talk about it whole day. All excaliburs know these enemies very well...

Conclusion. Dont' get me wrong, melee is ok in this game but melee using powers like EB is really hard with these enemies abilites. Missions in current statement forces u to be in range since it's just easier and more safe. And as i said before EB isn't OP at all and Excalibur isn't a turret type warframe. We use melee when needed and range when needed and to make us use melee more often u should change missions and enemies, not excalibur.

I understnad your point, u think if make EB more melee then people will use EB in melee but it's wrong. As far as we can use EB in range we will use it in range cuz of reasons i have meantioned above. And if u make EB full melee, u just make another Valkyr. Simple as that.

Can't agree more.

It's seriously always one steps forward two steps back with DE.

I'm seriously regretting my Vauban Prime Access now.

[OoKeNnEtHoO]

2 hours ago, Nitresco said:

You push Excalibur towards using Exalted Blade at closer ranges yet you don't realize the problem with this. Excalibur is not incredibly tanky. Valkyr can tank via Hysteria or armor, Chroma can tank via armor and Vex armor, Wukong can tank via Defy, the list goes on. Excalibur has no real survival abilities and mediocre armor. At most he can blind or stun with Radial Javelin, and that's highly unreliable because line-of-sight can be so stupidly finicky at times and said abilities must be spammed constantly. This is the main reason why people used his long-range energy waves as his main damage dealer before; they had to play him safe and away from enemy exposure.

Now you've nerfed his main means of survivability with no compensation whatsoever. You're attempting to force him into the range where he gets easily destroyed and downed on appropriately-leveled content while doing nothing to help him survive in that scenario. In addition, you've nerfed one of his only means of close-range survival for seemingly no reason; Exalted Blade's slide attack was already terrible in terms of range and duration. I thought those limits were already there to make up for the lack of an energy cost. I guess not, as you've suddenly felt the need to slap an energy cost on something that already puts Excalibur at risk to use correctly.

Long-range Exalted Blade nerfed? Close-range Exalted Blind nerfed? I'm getting mixed messages here.

If you want my suggestion on how to fix this nonsense, consider giving Excalibur a hefty armor increase. I'm talking Atlas or Valkyr level. Or just undo these changes altogether and leave Excalibur alone. I never found him a problem before, personally. He had a perfectly fine "striker" role before where he had to kill first or be killed. All the people who complained about E spam didn't realize that half the meta stuff in this game is spammed anyway. Speaking of which, this change does not lessen Exalted E-spam at longer ranges. People are still going to do it. All you've done is make it so more E-spam is required. Once again, mixed messages.

Damn true.

[Issxi]

Look at everyone upset in here. You should be thanking DE for sparing your E key. Excalibur is officially not a no-brain spam crutch now.

 

Now they need to remove the ability for the waves to pass through solid objects and Excalibur will be in a good spot and require skill and timing for once.

 

Awful lots of Excalibur profile icons in here...

Edited May 28, 2016 by Xylyssa

[Shreiko]

With the new changes to EB excaliburs are more or less required to charge headlong into enemies to do damage. Problem with this is that excalibur isn't a tank and can be dropped quite easily by a single level 35 hyekka master on draco. So what will players do now when using EB? They will spam radial blind so that they don't get holes punched into them by the enemies. Modding for efficiency on EB depreciates the range of RB, coupled with bad LoS mechanics you are forced to continually spam this ability for crowd control. This isn't very energy efficient and isn't a fun way to play, but instead of reverting EB changes how about we try something else.

Remove radial javelin and replace it with a defensive ability for excal, RJ requires too much spam to be effective because bad LoS coding and terrible damage so it doesnt scale well. The stun is redundant as cc because Radial Blind already covers that for you, yet excalibur's survivability isn't so high. Problem is excalibur has developed too much of a reliance on lifestrike to the point where it essential on any melee build while using him. His armor stats are of little purpose when a few puncture procs here and there turns him into wet paper. To increase his survivability but also reduce the the dependence on lifestrike to allow for more build diversity can we sub out radial javelin in favor of a more defensive ability.

I am thinking something along these lines

A wall of rotating swords which deflects enemy projectiles. Make my dreams come true please...

Edited May 28, 2016 by Shreiko

[Inmemoratus]

5 minutes ago, Xylyssa said:

Look at everyone upset in here. You should be thanking DE for sparing your E key. Excalibur is officially not a no-brain spam crutch now.

 

Now they need to remove the ability for the waves to pass through solid objects and Excalibur will be in a good spot and require skill and timing for once.

 

Awful lots of Excalibur profile icons in here...

I made a post against the nerf, but I barely even play him. You know, your guns are no-brain left-click spam. Let's nerf all guns.