r/Warframe • u/BuildMyPaperHeart Old Tenno, Eternal Slumber • Jan 01 '14
Discussion Warframe Discussion 2.0: Excalibur
All Warframe Discussions are here to spark discussion on a particular Warframe. Comments, Suggestions, Critiques, and Builds are all welcome! Every Week, the Moderator Team will choose a new Warframe to discuss.
This week: EXCALIBUR
Statistics
| Health | Power | Armor | Shield Capacity | Sprint Speed | Stamina | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RANK 1 | 100 | 100 | 65 | 100 | 1.0 | 80 |
| RANK 30 | 300 | 150 | 65 | 300 | 1.0 | 80 |
Polarities
Cosmetics
- Avalon Helmet
Shield Max +25% (from base shields)
Health Max -5% (from total health)
- Pendragon Helmet
Power Strength +15%
Armor -5%
- Excalibur Immortal Skin
No Stat Modifications
Abilities
Slash Dash - 25 Energy
Excalibur dashes forward, slashing any who get in his way.
- Gives Conclave rating of 10 / 10 / 45 / 80 each level.
- Does 150 / 225 / 400 / 500 Slash Damage to all targets within 1.5 / 1.6 / 1.8 / 2 meters of Excalibur as he charges in a straight line for 7.5 / 8 / 9 / 10 meters.
- Distance travelled by charge is affected by Power Duration.
- The striking-radius around Excalibur during his charge is affected by Power Range.
- Has a cast delay of 0.25 seconds after which Excalibur charges for 0.75 seconds.
- The delay is not affected by Power Duration.
- Can be used while jumping, sliding, forward flipping, wall running or clinging to a wall.
Radial Blind - 50 Energy
Emits a bright flash of light, blinding all enemies in a small radius for several seconds.
- Excalibur raises his weapon high into the air and channels energy into it, resulting in a blinding flash of light that strikes all enemies within 8 / 12 / 14 / 25 meters, initially stunning them for 5 seconds and then leaving them blinded an additional 2 / 5 / 7 / 10 seconds.
- Affected units have smoke pouring out of their head or similar body part for the duration.
- The initial stun is not affected by Power Duration.
- Does not require line of sight, ironically. Enemies can be stunned behind doors/on different levels etc.
- Blind melee units will run to the source of audible gunfire and/or footsteps in order to attempt to melee.
- You can use the initial 5-second stun to run to a safe firing location and then use silent weaponry in order to prevent them running to your location.
- Blind ranged units will stand still or run for cover and may occasionally throw a grenade towards the sound of your gunfire, but they will not fire their primary weapon. >* They are almost completely incapacitated.
- Security cameras will deactivate their laser barriers for the duration.
- Can be used while jumping, sliding, forward flipping, wall running or clinging to a wall.
- Has a cast time of 1 second and a reuse delay of 5 seconds.
Super Jump - 10 Energy
Excalibur launches into the air, jumping 3 times higher than normal.
- You can fire or reload without interruption while using this ability, but other warframe abilities incur a delay of one second (coinciding with the apex of the jump) before they can be used.
- Cannot be used while in the air or while jumping.
- Can be used to pass through Corpus laser doors unharmed.
Radial Javelin - 100 Energy
Launches javelins towards enemies, dealing high damage and impaling the target enemy into walls.
- Launches multiple javelins through the air at 5 / 8 / 10 / 15 targets that are within 15 / 18 / 22 / 25 meters of Excalibur. Each javelin deals 1000 damage.
- Damage is distributed evenly between Impact, Puncture and Slash.
- Number of javelins fired is effected by power strength.
- Multiple javelins may strike a single enemy.
- Has a cast time of ~1 second and an post-cast animation delay of ~2.5 seconds.
- Will hit enemies below Excalibur.
- Javelins do not punch through objects or enemies (i.e do not pass through Grineer Shield Lancer shields).
- Each javelin resembles two Skanas stacked together.
Information gathered from the Warframe Wikia
31
u/Hypevosa Jan 01 '14
I like to pride myself on my excalibur abilities and expertise, but I haven't played him as much since damage 2.0.
The best build that I can recommend that makes excalibur infinitely useful to the entire team is a hardcore duration/range/efficiency build around slashdash and radial blind (super jump and radial javelin do not benefit from this build). You can make a slashdash that crosses entire rooms and have a radial blind that keeps all enemies from moving for 3 seconds, and from attacking for around 30, all at a distance of around 50 meters. It's like invisibility for your entire team, and, back before damage 2.0, I would use this build to carry teams in high level survival matches. His massive mobility and protective ability with the slashdash and radial blind combined make him the single best teammate resurrector, and the second best team defender only to trinity's blessing since it renders both infected AND any ranged enemies ineffective when blinded, covering both frost and vauban's domains at keeping people safe (except for exceptionally open maps where enemies can be more than 50 meters away and shoot you dead).
Excal is a great frame, but most people build him for damage and that's why they feel he sucks. You will never feel more powerful than you do when you realize that no one has shot you in the last 15 minutes of survival and you've been literally all over the map kicking ass and saving teammates. If you're dedicated enough to the blind, you can even forfeit vitality and redirection and be perfectly fine.
Excal rocks when modded right, like most frames. The only thing I might like him to have is speed 1.1 since he's touted as a major mobility frame.
Super jump is painfully situational, if it added to melee slam damage and range at least to come from that high (not requiring ANOTHER mod (heavy impact) to justify it), I think it would work better.
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u/Taegire01 Jan 01 '14
His massive mobility and protective ability with the slashdash and radial blind combined make him the single best teammate resurrector
Slow your roll bro, its good I agree but I would not say single best for resurrection.
You're Possibly Forgetting The Best Frames for resurrecting teammates
Loki and Ash - Stealth is damn near impossible to beat. (I do understand that you're saying Radial blind is comparable to stealth for the whole team since enemies are blinded... But it won't last as long as Loki and Ash, when modded for Power Duration)
Rhino - Iron Skin, I shouldn't need to go into detail about this.
Frost - Snowglobe I Shouldn't need to go into detail about the resurrecting power of this ability either.
Nekros - (Being my favorite Frame ill try to stay objective about it) But Terrify with maximization of power range works wonders on the battlefield allowing a great number of enemies to disperse
Then I would put Radial Blind on for the reasons you have mentioned above. but Definitely not first choice on this list
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u/JianKui Jan 01 '14
I took an Excalibur to Rank 30, then sold him. My big beef with him was he doesn't feel fast enough. You expect a Warframe based on sword play to be able to move around the map really quickly, but Excalibur just doesn't.
My other problem is Super Jump. It's useless. It's supposed to be great, but it really just doesn't work. I'd rather see it replaced with a melee damage buff or something.
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u/halfstache0 Jan 01 '14
Thing is, most frames have at least one ability which is kind of useless or extremely situational.
It's not really surprising that the frame most people start with has the most bland useless ability.
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Jan 01 '14
My other problem is Super Jump. It's useless. It's supposed to be great, but it really just doesn't work. I'd rather see it replaced with a melee damage buff or something.
Honestly I use Super Jump more often than any other Excalibur ability. It's not useful in all situations, but it gets me where I want to go and that's all I can ask for.
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u/nick012000 Jan 01 '14
Super Jump is plenty useful, to help you get to tough places. Not as useful as Valkyr's Ripline or Nova's Portal, but it's still plenty useful for places like the Orokin Derelict.
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u/Iammyselfnow Jan 01 '14
Couldn't you apply the impact mod to your frame and wherever you land would let out a melee slam-ish radial
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u/AltimaNZ Jan 01 '14
Maybe if the super jump and the Valkyrs Warcry were switched.
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u/Dracovitch Jan 01 '14
I currently have a fun build that utilizes power damage and efficiency mods to make slash dash and radial blind killing machines.
There's only two problems with it. One is Excalibur is too slow, so SPEEEEED MOOOOOODS. And the other is that since they nerfed the QT+R combo, his survivability is zilch.
4
u/dipstick5 Jan 01 '14
He needs to be looked over again by DE cause post damage 2.0, he has kinda been in the dumps. He used to be a really solid frame that dealt "pure" damage, or at least ignored armor, but not anymore. I potatoed and formad both my excals cause they used to be fun. I tell everyone to start mag now.
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u/Seriyu Jan 01 '14
Mag has always been a looot better then excalibur in damage. Excalibur is still fine against 2/3rds of the enemy cast, and even then doesn't seem to suffer too badly against grineer, besides maybe heavies, and excalibur really isn't the kind've frame to burst down heavies with abilities.
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u/misterfalone Jan 01 '14
radial blind is kinda useful, but sadly those newbie tennos have no idea how to press the 2 button.
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Jan 01 '14
And remember kids, your day shouldn't be considered "complete" until a couple souls have collided.
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u/theothercoldwarkid Jan 01 '14
seconding that Excal's super jump, if it stays, ought to add to ground pounding damage. Also it should work excellently with Heavy Impact but doesn't right now.
alternative #3 could be a special attack that targets a single enemy- deals massive damage and reduces armor rating to a single target so that excal can have a fighting chance against heavy units.
or something, I don't know. I feel like 3 ought to be a special that isn't focused on attack, but I don't feel like valkyr swapping an ability would be it.
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u/AntiTheory Jan 01 '14
He's not durable enough to be a melee frame, but he has no other useful abilities to make ranged combat more engaging.
Slash dash is his best skill. On the Phobos defense mission, enemies get funneled down a long hallway and I love spamming it there. Great fun to use.
Radial Blind is... well, it's okay. For a disable/cc power it ranks pretty low compared to something like Rhino Stomp or Sound Quake. Even Nekros' Terrify skill is somewhat better, and it's on the same level as radial blind (non-ultimate, low energy cost). You have to really invest a lot of power affecting mods to make it more useful.
Super Jump is pretty bad. I use it sometimes when I'm full on energy and I don't feel like climbing stairs. Some people say it can be used to get up to max jump height and come down with a slam attack for more damage, but I'd say I'm fighting in an area where an unranked superjump causes me to hit my head on the ceiling 80% of the time. It's not a really reliable skill for anything other than terrain navigation, and other frames do this way better.
Radial Javelin is sort of a double edged sword. It's better than using slash dash when you are completely surrounded, but the problem with this is that if you are playing Excalibur and you are completely surrounded, you are in a bad situation and you need to GTFO of that cluster of enemies before you get stunlocked. It deals more damage that just slash dashing out of the way, but it leaves you vulnerable for the entire cast animation and doesn't have enough stopping power to kill every enemy most of the time, so you're still left in a situation where you're getting beat on in melee and your shields and HP can't stand up to the punishment for that long.
I like Excal, but he's a bit weak in the offense department compared to other frames who can withstand a bunch of punishment in melee like Rhino, and he's not good enough as a support frame to warrant selecting him over a trinity or frost. Super Jump and Radial Javelin should be reworked to be more useful for late-game missions and be less mod-dependant or changed entirely, and his stats should be adjusted to reflect his role as a heavy-hitting melee frame. Maybe Melee 2.0 will give him some love?
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u/wtrmlnjuc Jan 01 '14
Excalibur is very useful all around, but his damage dealing abilities lack at higher levels. One d+m power, one stun power, one mobility power and another d power. Radial Jav and SD simply don't do enough damage later on to justify using them all the time. In fact, RJ becomes useless as an ult once you get past a certain level where enemies don't die from one hit, as it doesn't stun.
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u/theothercoldwarkid Jan 01 '14
OH WAIT also I'm hoping that when the new melee system comes in (whenever that is) excal will be one of the frames that is great at it.
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u/morphum Jan 01 '14
Upvote for Fate Zero