[Excalibur] has recent been buffed as [Exalted Blade] can use acolyte mods and melee influence arcane, and in turn Slash Dash has been buffed as it uses [Exalted Blade] stats and can also use melee influence.

This maximum comfort variant build utilises 'passive shield gating' with Catalyzing Shield + [Fast Deflection] + [Vigilante Vigor] and Arcane Aegis (optional). This combination causes ANY amount of shield restored provide the maximum 1.33s shield gate, while reducing shield recharge delay to approximately 1.5s. This means if you do not get hit in a window of 0.2s approximately, you will passively recharge 1 shield which is sufficient to full gate again. Press 1 to become invulnerable to damage while dashing which further helps. Use ANY rank Arcane Aegis e.g. rank 0. This is flexible for Arcane Strike if you prefer. This allows you to mindlessly attack in any combination of slash dash or [Exalted Blade] spam without watching your shield levels. If you add [Grimoire] with [Fass Canticle] and damage enemies with [Grimoire] and use slash dash to kill, you can proc [Fass Canticle] and turn completely immortal for 15s duration each time.

The following build is a more 'active gating' variant where you must press 1 to actively restore shield / turn invulnerable whenever you have your shields depleted. This requires a more active attentive playstyle but frees up more slots to allow for better stats:

[Exalted Blade] BUILDS
BUILD 1 LIGHT SPAM WITH x12 TENNOKAI HEAVY INFLUENCE
If you are not running arcane [Fury], you could consider [Primed Pressure Point] over [Voltaic Strike] to help the multiplicative CO on heavy attacks. Primed Smite is flexible for Primed Pressure Point especially if using Roar helminth.

https://overframe.gg/build/389076/

BUILD 2 HEAVY SPAM INFLUENCE

PLAYSTYLE

FLEXIBLE OPTIONS

Furious Javelin is flexible for:

• Rolling Guard: gives extra i-frames and status cleanse
• More strength or range

Arcanes

• Arcane [Fury] boosts melee damage by another 180% (additive to condition overload for light attacks, but multiplicative to condition overload on heavy wave)
• Arcane Aegis helps with lazy survivability
• Molt augmented boosts strength

HELMINTH

Subsume these abilities over 4:
1. Nourish - very good for energy economy, mild boost to raw single target damage, adds viral procs which can multiply damage up to 4.25x without needing to mod viral on Exalted Blade
2. Wrathful Advance - gives flat CC to slash dash, giving the highest boost to raw single target damage
3. Roar - Roar double dips status procs on single target and triple dips any spread influence procs, giving the highest boost to influence DPS

ARCHON SHARDS
1 Tau Cast Speed optional
1 Tau Energy Max to hit 500 energy (Only needed if use Base [Excalibur], add another Melee Crit dmg or parkour Velocity shard if using Umbra)
3 Tau Violet Melee Crit Damage

ARSENAL

[Diriga] with [Arc Coil] or Hound helps prime enemies for [Condition Overload] and [Synth Deconstruct] for orbs.

Huras Kubrow can keep you invisible if you only use slash dash, but will break with exalted blade use: https://overframe.gg/build/268129/