[Spoilers] Excalibur Umbra: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

[Cakeomaru]

💬PREFACE:
As there are alot of players out there with their own set of opinions, this post will slowly evolve as new opinions are built and formed from understanding others. This may also be cross referencing to other posts of different genres (e.g. a post about bugs and issues), as a lever to prove a statement.  It may not be able to cover the whole matter about Excal Umbra, but let's hope we can do so in order for this post to reach DE and acknowledge it. And do note that I have also inputted my own opinion and may be deemed as 'trash', because not everyone shares the same opinion. This post exist to provide my two shiniest cents to DE (engraved with the name of those who have influenced my opinions ofc.). So thank you all, and let us begin!


💡THE FEEDBACK:

✔️The Good:

• Interesting Umbra Polarity
• Good stats
• Very fashionable
• Has a hidden passive akin to Arcane Trickery (That passive actually belongs to the Skiajati, thank you GeoffFromAccounting for clearing that up)
• Comes with Umbral Mods.

❌The Bad:

• Subpar auto-pilot mode.
• Unappealing Radial Howl SFX
• Presence of 3 Umbra Polarities restricts build versatility
• Non-Auxiliary neck scarf
• Non-Universal Set Animations

⁉️The Ugly:

• Possesses 3 "one of a kind" polarities (Think twice before removing)
• Erratic Camera Control upon Transference In and Out (Prevalent on non-host, mid-high latency players)
• Can cause Transference Static upon quick Transference (More susceptible to higher latency players)
• Baro Ki' Teer is not impressed at all. (Well..)

Overall, it feels to me that Excalibur Umbra needs alot more improvements mechanical wise, and alot of justification for the others to reach to a point of agreement.

 

🔎THE CASE POINTS:

Umbra Polarities and Umbral Mods:

It strikes me that there are such things as Umbra Polarities. Even more, the fabled Umbral or Sacrificial Mods. Designed to be anti-Sentient and powered up as a set, they're seemingly one of a kind out there, at which holds a few matters at hand. One is how the Umbral/Sacrificial set mods are dependent of each other to become powerful, Two is their rather ridiculous mod drain rate of each ( 16 drain for each of those). Three is the current situation that only Excalibur Umbra and his blade, the Skiajati possess those Umbra Polarities, and Four, the fact that Umbra Polarities are currently unobtainable by any means besides the currently given. I have a feeling players would be wanting a way to apply an Umbra polarity into their other warframes because of how much potential those mods can carry over to them for min-max builds. It's something that a Nidus user would rejoice using, or someone who is curious about Inaros having an immense health pool. On my side, I think these mods and polarities serve as an introduction that in the near future, we, the players would be visiting that Sentient Outpost in the Tau System, soon. However, the question being raised by many players are: Will there be an Umbra Forma? or Will the Forma grant Umbra polarity?

 

Howling all we Want:

One of the more prevalent complaints are that Radial Howl is generally slower than Radial Blind when it comes to casting animation. With 0.9 second casting animation of Excalibur/ Excal Prime  versus 1.8 second casting animation of Excalibur Umbra, this has come to a problem among many players, when reflex is needed on a high level conflict, and 1.8 seconds is just too long to cast, they would be plummeting down to the floor. That is the known complaints of the Radial Howl. However for me, my problem does not reside with its casting speed, as Radial Javelin has been a problem for me too when it comes to casting speed, but I am rather ticked at the explosion sound effect at the end of the Radial Howl. It sounds the same as Excalibur's Radial Blind. My suggestion? Can we have the Radial Howl's explosion SFX pitch toned down to achieve that deep sound like its other skills?

 

Not for Baro Ki'Teer's Service:

Although I have never come to confirm this myself, however this conversation got me intrigued. In summary, it basically points that Excalibur Umbra doesn't have any special interactions with Baro Ki'Teer.  This special interaction are triggered if either you have a Primed weapon or frame equipped or having Inaros equipped. It may be interesting if there would be a special interaction between Baro Ki'Teer and Excalibur Umbra.

 

It's Summer. Do I really need a neck warmer?:

Excalibur Umbra's fashion-framing is very potent. Even by default itself, it almost never failed to cool in front of its audiences. Until its scarf gets in the way of 95% of the Syandanas. I wanted my Excalibur Umbra to don the Dax Syandana, but with the scarf on the way, it feels too cluttered and the clipping issue is a big aesthetic no for me. Then I remembered Nekros' Mortos Bind, and Valkyr Prime's Cordalla Prime. I wasn't the first one who have thought of this, it was thanks to these guys in bringing it up, and I have come to agree with them as well. But, can we have Excalibur Umbra's scarf as an equippable Auxiliary in the Appearance section? 

 

Turn right in 50m. Recalculating... Turn left in 200m o.o :

It was debatable when it comes to Excalibur Umbra's sentience after Transference. Many have said that the Umbra AI is too unintelligent, prone to deaths, frequently pulling their operators back in to their frame only then to meet their final demise in the front end of a Grineer baguette. According to the Warframe Wiki: "While Transference is active, the Warframe becomes invulnerable to damage from all sources; however if the Warframe is currently using a channeled ability, it will still receive 10% damage from all sources". This is not true however for Excalibur Umbra, as even with Transference active, it still take full damage. And then again, if they are to receive a 90% damage reduction that leads to a rather very tanky Umbra frame, potentially resulting in a laidback playstyle. To my understanding, upon Transference activation, it quickly deletes your standstill frame then spawns in a specter version of your Umbra frame, but inheriting the stats of your frame, weapons, and etc. Your sentinel would also be following your Umbra frame of course, but I feel like that kind of scripting that leads to this kind of problem (This is just hypothetical for me.). But asides that, I would like a compromise of the Specter AI and the effects of Transference to warframes. It may be nice if Excalibur Umbra on auto-pilot mode were to have around 40 to 60% damage reduction for being a Transference thing and  having a specter-like AI. Unless the specter AI is going to be improved, then I fear that this is the least thing that can be done without tipping the scales too much.

 

 

More info will be coming. Thank you for reading!

 

🚧EDIT LOGS:
^{I will continue to work on this as soon as clarity has come to my mind. I am still in need of recollecting my thoughts:}
(6/18/18): Initial posting
(6/18/18) #2: Crossed out a statement, and very tiny change to formatting...

Edited June 18, 2018 by Cakeomaru

[CandyManCriminal]

dont forget about getting knocked back into your frame from operator as soon as you jump out in high level play
i wish they'd put it back to him just going inert like the other frames when he gets rekt
not being able to use my tenno blows

[GeoffFromAccounting]

One quick point: the Arcane Trickery effect is a passive of Skiajati, the sword, not of Excalibur Umbra.

Personally all I think that needs to happen is some slight tuning to Umbra's auto pilot mode (which you noted), and some sort of buff to Radial Howl to offset the longer cast time. The rest of your complaints seem to be just artistic or FX based, which I'm not going to comment on since art is subjective.

[(XBOX)ShadowBlood89]

umbras AI is simlair to the cosmic specters

[Cakeomaru]

1 minute ago, CandyManCriminal said:

dont forget about getting knocked back into your frame from operator as soon as you jump out in high level play
i wish they'd put it back to him just going inert like the other frames when he gets rekt
not being able to use my tenno blows

I guess that's one of the sub-cases for what I said, unless you meant something

 

1 minute ago, GeoffFromAccounting said:

One quick point: the Arcane Trickery effect is a passive of Skiajati, the sword, not of Excalibur Umbra.

Personally all I think that needs to happen is some slight tuning to Umbra's auto pilot mode (which you noted), and some sort of buff to Radial Howl to offset the longer cast time. The rest of your complaints seem to be just artistic or FX based, which I'm not going to comment on since art is subjective.

OH! I will take note of this. Thank you!

[Cakeomaru]

1 minute ago, (XB1)ShadowBlood89 said:

umbras AI is simlair to the cosmic specters

Is this implying that the 4 different specters have different AI composition? Because I've never heard of that before. Never tried as well. A curious case rather.

 

[(XBOX)ShadowBlood89]

4 minutes ago, Cakeomaru said:

Is this implying that the 4 different specters have different AI composition? Because I've never heard of that before. Never tried as well. A curious case rather.

 

they do as the AI set up for them makes them use certain limits of there abilities. Cosmic will use all 4 abilities an thus why i said had similar AI

[CandyManCriminal]

7 minutes ago, Cakeomaru said:

I guess that's one of the sub-cases for what I said, unless you meant something

idk, dood, im tired

[Dante]

The slide attack with exalted blade looks extremely strange. It had no sound and idk if the blind worked, but the energy was consumed. Try it out, see for yourself.

FIXED

Edited June 19, 2018 by Dante102

[Dante]

When client, when operator and on pressing 5, you get teleported to umbra instead. I kept void dashing from point A to point B about 4-5 times in a row, because reflexes, and game kept teleporting me back to umbra, which is standing back on point A.

FIXED

Edited June 19, 2018 by Dante102

[Dante]

Sometimes when leaving the operator form, you might get stuck in the floor or just completely fall through the map. Easily noticeable on simulacrum.

[Dante]

When on Lua, you can't leave your Umbra frame standing on a button to open some drift mod, because he will just follow you. That's where the usual frames shine (or specters, you can tell them to stay on one place).

[Cakeomaru]

3 minutes ago, Dante102 said:

When client, when operator and on pressing 5, you get teleported to umbra instead. I kept void dashing from point A to point B about 4-5 times in a row, because reflexes, and game kept teleporting me back to umbra, which is standing back on point A.

 

1 minute ago, Dante102 said:

Sometimes when leaving the operator form, you might get stuck in the floor or just completely fall through the map. Easily noticeable on simulacrum.

 

I did notice those two problems especially as a high latency client. Definitely a bug or a result of a rather subpar scripting.

[Dante]

For some reason, there's a huge cyst on my umbra when i'm an operator. My umbra is indeed infected, but the cyst is only 2 days and is small when i'm in my warframe. But just when i press 5, the cyst hits the final stage on an umbra (until i get back in my warframe).

FIXED

Edited June 19, 2018 by Dante102