by F1ameBlade — last updated 3 years ago
From the shadow of the long night emerges a new Excalibur.
ITEM RANK
3060 / 60
APPLY CONDITIONALS
Excalibur Gameplay Guide[Excalibur] is heavily focused on melee damage and his defensive options are limited to crowd control abilities or sources outside of his kit. He gets a small bonus to certain melee weapons but the majority of his kit is focused on increasing the effectiveness of his [Exalted Blade]. With the right mod configuration and some basic knowledge of external defensive tools he can complete most missions in this melee oriented meta.
[Excalibur Umbra] is a free upgrade to the base [Excalibur] so we'll be using him for the baseline of all Excalibur guides. Additional information about this is in the notes section near the end of this guide.
📝 Build Overview 📝 Marked for Death from the Helminth ability system can be used along with the [Radiant Finish] augment to nuke entire rooms of level cap enemies. This build attempts to utilize that interaction with relative efficiency.
🔢 Helminth Options 🔢 Slash Dash is the weakest ability in this setup and doesn't provide reasonable returns even if you're using a melee stat stick. Javelin isn't a great ability without the augment but losing out on the ability to even slot in the augment is a massive downside.
Marked for Death is the only option for this build. [Radiant Finish] can be used to nuke enemies with the Mecha set mods but it requires a completely different build philosophy that isn't worth trying to fit into a single loadout slot.
Other abilities are decent but provide a lot of redundancy due to the existence of operator mode and the previously mentioned abilities.
📊 Ability Stats 📊 Range and Strength are the primary stats on this nuke build. Efficiency is kept around the baseline and Duration takes a small hit because of a lack of mod slots.
⏲️ Duration ⏲️ Duration takes a hit from [Transient Fortitude] but you should have plenty of time to use Marked for Death and Radiant Finish. Replacing a flex mod for slightly higher Duration usually doesn't help you pull off the combo.
⛽ Efficiency ⛽ Efficiency isn't touched because of a lack of mod slots. If you're having issues with your energy economy you can replace flex mods with Streamline.
📏 Range 📏 Range is significantly increased to give the combo a larger nuke radius. Augur Reach, Stretch, and Overextended can become flex mods on smaller tilesets.
💪 Strength 💪 Strength needs to be at 200% or more to receive the full benefit from Marked for Death. We utilize [Growing Power], [Power Drift], [Transient Fortitude], [Augur Secrets] and Umbral Intensify but any of these mods can be swapped out if you're using external sources of Strength or Blind Rage.
↔️ Alternate Playstyles ↔️ Most builds utilize tools that can be swapped out to serve the same purpose albeit in a different manner. The following suggestions are an outline and aren't exhaustive.
🔧 Mods 🔧⚙️ Arcanes ⚙️ Arcane Energize synergizes with [Primed Flow] and keeps your energy topped off. It can be replaced if you have other strong forms of energy recovery either through abilities or other energy support frames. Offensive arcanes like Arcane Avenger or Arcane [Fury] are usually the call.
Arcane Trickery is no longer as strong when combined with Marked for Death and radial finisher nukes but it still can provide free survivability when it procs on the original finisher kill. It can be replaced if you don't like the inconsistency associated with a 15% proc. Tertiary defensive arcanes like Arcane Aegis or Arcane Ultimatum are usually the call.
📋 Final Notes 📋 [Excalibur Umbra] is a direct upgrade to the base [Excalibur] as it shares all of the same abilities other than Radial Blind. It's given to all players for completing a necessary story quest so we have all [Excalibur] builds using the Umbral variant. This limits modding potential due to the existence of three Umbral polarized slots but most builds have minimal impact.
[Excalibur] has a passive that increases the damage and attack speed of some melee weapons by a small amount. Listing off every single weapon would significantly increase the size of this guide but a good rule of thumb is that it applies to most swords that can be held in one hand. This passive applies to [Excalibur Umbra] even though he also has the Sentience passive.
[Excalibur Umbra]'s passive requires a meta weapon to compete against most endgame enemies. He will prefer to use his primary weapon but he will switch to his secondary and melee weapon in certain scenarios. Tailor these weapons appropriately to the mission as a bad mod configuration can significantly hinder the Specter's ability to function.
Tau resistance from the Umbral set mods can be combined with [Adaptation] to grant you complete immunity to Sentient attacks. This has a reasonable chance of being patched if Sentient focused content is released so be wary of this interaction in future updates.
🔄 Linked Builds 🔄 📧 Contact Information 📧 Remnants of the Void / Phantom Vanguard Discord Server
If you have any questions or concerns please contact us through the Discord server. We appreciate all forms of support and welcome any criticism designed to help us improve. If you enjoyed this guide you can also support us by giving it a 👍 and sharing it with your friends!This build is part of a collection that you can either find on the builder's profile or through a special bot we have in the Discord server. We have builds for every item in the game and we're adding new ones frequently. Come check it out!
🏆 Credits 🏆 🛑 Disclaimers 🛑 This build may make certain assumptions about mechanics that can change after a patch. Multiple unnecessary forma may be used to facilitate more options across multiple builds with one polarity plan. Certain sub-optimal mods may be run to fit them into the forma polarity plan. We do not make builds that purposely attempt to abuse mechanics that aren't intended by the developers. None of these previous statements are excuses for a fundamentally incorrect build and we ask that you please contact us when we're wrong. We do not consent to anyone other than the original author of this guide posting it without permission.
