Warframe: Excalibur Complete Guide – Drops, Abilities, And Builds (2024)

Excalibur is one of Warframe's starting characters that players can select. Master of gun and blade, Excalibur serves as the perfect Warframe for starting players. You have a good movement tool, a large crowd control blind, and an energy sword that can cleave through hordes of foes.

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For those who started as a different Warframe, don't worry. Excalibur can be obtained later in the game, and its Umbra variant is a quest reward that you can't miss. For those looking to hack and slash their way across the Star Chart, here is a complete guide to crafting and using Warframe's Excalibur.

Updated November 11th, 2022, by Charles Burgar: The Veilbreaker update for Warframe gave Excalibur some small yet noticeable buffs to Slash Dash and Radial Javelin. Both abilities now inflict Slash procs, and Radial Javelin no longer has an enemy cap. We've updated this guide to reflect both changes and reworded a few sections for clarity.

How To Craft Excalibur

Excalibur is a starting Warframe that can be selected during the "Awakening" quest. If you chose another starting Warframe, you may farm for Excalibur's crafting blueprints from Lieutenant Lech Kril from War, Mars. Each successful mission drops one part at random, with a slightly lower chance of obtaining the Excalibur Systems Blueprint.

Excalibur Blueprint

Excalibur Neuroptics

Excalibur Chassis

Excalibur Systems

Can You Craft Excalibur Prime?

No. Excalibur Prime is no longer obtainable and will never be unvaulted. Players could only obtain Excalibur Prime by purchasing a Founders Pack while it was available. Digital Extremes has no plans to return the Founders program, hence Excalibur Prime's permanent vaulted status. Excalibur Umbra serves as an upgrade for non-Founders, featuring the same base stats as the Prime variant.

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How To Obtain Excalibur Umbra

Excalibur Umbra is a superior version of Excalibur that's rewarded upon completing "The Sacrifice" quest. You'll unlock this quest upon completing "Chains of Harrow" and the subsequent "Apostasy Prologue" quests. To unlock "Chains of Harrow," you must complete "The War Within" quest and complete Mot, Void on the Star Chart.

Excalibur Umbra must be crafted to complete "The Sacrifice," although you only need four components to craft them. Excalibur Umbra comes with a pre-installed Orokin Reactor, three Umbral mods, and starts at level 30.

Excalibur Umbra Blueprint

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Excalibur Abilities

Stats

Passive

Passive: (All Variants) Attacks 10% faster and deals 10% more damage while wielding swords. | (Umbra Only) Umbra exhibits sentience in combat without Transference control.

Excalibur is adept at using multiple weapon types, not just swords as the description says.Applicable melee weapons attack 10% faster and deal 10% more damage, stacking additively with other melee mods and abilities. The following melee weapon types benefit from Excalibur's passive:

• Dual Swords
• Exalted Blade
• Nikanas
• Rapiers
• Swords

Excalibur Umbra has an additional passive that grants sentience while in Operator form. Your Warframe will begin acting on its own, behaving similarly to a Specter or Wukong's Celestial Twin. Umbra can use all of your weapons (and your ammo), cast abilities without consuming Energy, and move on their own. Should Umbra die while in Operator form, Umbra will lose their sentience and stop moving. You'll need to use Umbra once again before this passive reactivates.

Slash Dash

Slash Dash: Dash between enemies while slashing with the Exalted Blade.

Slash Dash causes Excalibur to dash toward enemies in front of him, hitting them with the Exalted Blade before switching targets. Each enemy within Slash Dash's range can be hit once. While you're using Slash Dash, Excalibur is invincible. You can cast Slash Dash without aiming at any targets to lunge forward, giving yourself a brief burst of momentum. The damage of Slash Dash is affected by Ability Strength, melee weapon mods, and your current combo counter.

Every hit from Slash Dash inflicts a guaranteed Slash proc, a bleed effect that deals constant damage over time. Speccing for Ability Strength allows you to hit harder and inflict stronger Slash procs, allowing Slash Dash to scale throughout the entire Star Chart. Your damage will start to fall off in endgame content without some assistance through abilities or augments.

Radial Blind/Howl

Radial Blind: Emits a bright flash of light, blinding all enemies in a small radius for several seconds.

Excalibur raises his Exalted Blade and flashes a bright light, blinding all nearby targets in line of sight. All affected targets play a short stagger animation that's unaffected by mods, but the following blind duration is affected by Ability Duration. While targets are affected by Radial Blind/Howl, they are susceptible to melee finishers. This can be useful for bypassing armor on a tough foe or triggering certain Arcanes. Bosses affected by this ability can still attack but will be disoriented for the duration.

Radial Javelin

Radial Javelin: Launches javelins towards enemies, dealing high damage and impaling them to walls.

Radial Javelin creates a swarm of Javelins that plunge into a target's body, dealing heavy damage in low-level content. Targets must have line of sight or be aware of Excalibur to become valid targets. The javelins automatically find their targets and form beside them, ensuring this ability doesn't miss. Targets slain by Radial Javelin will be flung backward, pinning them to nearby walls or cover. The damage of each javelin is affected by Strength mods, but the number of javelins created is not affected by mods.

Should the enemy survive a javelin getting impaled into their chest, Radial Javelin also inflicts a guaranteed Slash proc, similar to Slash Dash. The high base damage of Radial Javelin means this bleed DoT is quite powerful and can kill most targets at Star Chart difficulty, perfect for newer players. Use this ability when you're in a pinch and need to clear an entire room of enemies. Endgame players should either subsume this ability or use the Furious Javelin augment (showcased later).

Exalted Blade

Exalted Blade: Summons a sword of pure light and immense power.

Exalted Blade replaces your current melee weapon with an energy sword, utilizing a new move set. Its most effective combo is its light attack combo, slashing multiple times in front of Excalibur at great speeds. Exalted Blade uses its own mod configuration but does not benefit from combo count. However, you can use your combo count to inflict a hard-hitting heavy attack.

Each slash from Exalted Blade releases a wave of energy, dealing the same damage as your main blade. Energy waves suffer from damage falloff and dissipate a couple of seconds mid-flight, yet these waves have infinite punch through and benefit from mods. Waves also inflict a light stagger on fodder enemies, allowing you stunlock a target with enough attack speed. You may shoot your weapon while Exalted Blade is active, holstering the sword while keeping the ability active. Using the melee input will return Exalted Blade into your hands.

Slide attacks with Exalted Blade also emit a miniature Radial Blind effect, stunning targets for a short duration. Using this version of Radial Blind does not open enemies to finishers and costs 25 Energy. If you can afford it, you'd be better off using Radial Blind in most situations. You may modify this effect through mods, but building for Range or Duration does not affect the energy waves from Exalted Blade. Energy waves do not build combo, and the entire ultimate does not benefit from combo count whatsoever.

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Excalibur Augments

Excalibur has five augment mods to choose from, one of which comes from the Conclave. Augments for Excalibur may be purchased from the Steel Meridian and Red Veil Syndicates for 25,000 Standing each. You must be at max rank with either Syndicate to purchase Warframe augment mods. The fifth augment mod, Purging Dash, is occasionally sold in the Nightwave shop. It also can be obtained from Teshin by playing Warframe's PvP modes.

Surging Dash

Surging Dash: Slash Dash Augment: Each enemy hit during Slash Dash further increases your Melee Counter by 8.

Each enemy hit by Slash Dash grants nine combo count instead of one, making it much easier to ramp up your melee's combo count through your abilities. Ability Strength affects how much Melee Combo you receive, allowing you to quickly ramp up your melee combo with enough enemies.

Purging Slash

Purifying Slash: Slash Dash Augment: Allies in the path of Slash Dash have 4 debuffs removed and 100% Shields restored.

Excalibur can dash to allies, restoring their shields and purging some of their active debuffs. The number of debuffs purged is affected by Ability Strength, but the shield restore value is not. You and your companions don't benefit from this effect. You can use Purging Slash in PvE and PvP content.

Radiant Finish

Radiant Finish: Radial Blind Augment: Blinded enemies take 300% more Finisher Damage.

Enemies affected by Radial Blind are open to finishers. Radiant Finish makes these finishers deal far more damage to the enemy, making one-shots more consistent. The finisher damage multiplier provided by Radiant Finish is affected by Ability Strength. This mod does not affect the weaker Radial Blind provided by Exalted Blade's slide attack since it doesn't open enemies to finishers.

Furious Javelin

Furious Javelin: Radial Javelin Augment: Each enemy hit will increase Excalibur's Melee Damage by 15% for 16s.

Every javelin that impacts a target will grant Excalibur a massive melee damage buff for a short time. Furious Javelin counts as a separate damage multiplier, stacking multiplicatively with other melee buffs. In other words, getting a 100% damage buff with Furious Javelin actually doubles your damage; there aren't any diminishing returns with mods or similar effects. The melee buff affects your melee weapons, Slash Dash, and Exalted Blade.

Radial Javelin doesn't have an enemy cap, so your damage bonus is only limited by how many targets are nearby. Furious Javelin's damage buff and duration are affected by Ability Strength and Duration, respectively. Recasting the ability while Furious Javelin is active will override your current buff with a new one, even if the new buff is weaker.

Chromatic Blade

Chromatic Blade: Exalted Blade Augment: Exalted Blade's Damage Type changes depending on Excalibur's Emissive Color, and Status Chance is increased by 300%.

Chromatic Blade converts your Exalted Blade's IPS—Impact, Puncture, and Slash—damage into a single element. The damage type is determined by your primary emissive color on Excalibur, behaving similarly to Chroma's passive. You have four elements to pick from:

• Cold: White and black colors.
• Electricity: Blue colors.
• Heat: Red, orange, and yellow colors.
• Toxin: Green colors.

All elements are accessible without purchasing a color palette. Equipping a non-matching elemental damage mod on your Exalted Blade will create a combined element. For example, pairing Cold with a Toxin mod will cause your Exalted Blade to deal Viral damage exclusively. This mod also grants a 300% status chance buff that stacks additively with similar effects. The status chance buff is affected by Ability Strength.

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Excalibur Builds

Excalibur can be built in a multitude of ways, but the most common build involves Exalted Blade. To maximize the power of your ultimate, you'll need to invest in Strength and Efficiency. A high Efficiency stat makes Exalted Blade cost virtually no Energy, allowing you to slash down whole armies in one go.

Some builds for Excalibur also stack as many damage multipliers as possible to ramp up your melee. Some subsume Rhino's Roar and use the Furious Javelin Augment to give Excalibur a jaw-dropping amount of damage. For these builds, you want to spec for Strength and Duration. We won't be showcasing any of those builds today, but keep that in mind if you decide to experiment.

For Focus schools, just about anything works. We recommend Zenurik if you're a newer player, Naramon if you aren't using Exalted Blade, and either Madurai or Unairu if you're building around Exalted Blade. Zenurik fixes Energy economy issues that new players face, Naramon makes combo count decay in increments instead of all at once, and Madurai gives a ton of Ability Strength to buff Exalted Blade's damage. Alternatively, Exalted Blade builds can use Unairu for its powerful defense-stripping abilities.

Exalted Blade Build

To avoid redundancy with this guide, this is the Exalted Blade build we're using for all builds. Lower investment builds can replace these mods with cheaper, non-Primed variants. If you're using default Excalibur, replace the Sacrificial mods with (Primed) Pressure Point and True Steel. This build is a hybrid configuration that focuses on critical damage, status, and attack speed. We'll be using Chromatic Blade (Heat) on Excalibur. This build uses five Forma—three Vs, a –, and a D.

The Essentials (0 Forma, No Reactor)

• Forma: 0
• Subsume: None

Since Excalibur is a starting Warframe, we're going to share a simple build that's easy to replicate. We'll be using Steel Charge as an aura to give the most mod capacity possible. You can get this mod from Nightwave with Nightwave Creds—effectively Warframe's battle pass currency you earn from playing. Try to wait for Steel Charge to enter the Nightwave shop rotation. If you can't, any aura mod will work fine.

For your main mods, you'll want to use Vitality or Redirection—whichever one you've leveled more. We recommend Vitality if you have the resources. Level it to R7 or R8, then focus on your other mods. Intensify makes your abilities hit harder, Stretch makes your Radial Blind much more consistent, and Streamline lets you cast abilities more often. We pair Streamline with Flow for a larger Energy reserve, allowing you to stay in Exalted Blade for much longer at full reserves. For Exalted Blade mods, use whatever you have. Mods that grant damage, elemental damage, and attack speed are all great.

It's nowhere near an optimized build, but this will serve you well until you get an Orokin Reactor and some better mods. If you don't own these mods, use Flawed versions from the tutorial or ask players in trade chat for a spare; most players are nice enough to give you these mods for free.

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Starter Build (0 Forma, With Reactor)

• Forma: 0
• Subsume: None
• Chromatic Blade Element: Heat (Viral + Heat)

Building off the previous build, we slot in an Orokin Reactor and focus on increasing Exalted Blade's uptime and overall DPS. Chromatic Blade is perfect for this and mandatory for most Exalted Blade builds. It's an Augment you can purchase from Steel Meridian, Arbiters of Hexis, or players through in-game trading.

We replace Intensify with Transient Fortitude for even more Ability Strength, countering its negative Efficiency with Continuity. To help maximize Exalted Blade's uptime, we equip Fleeting Expertise alongside Streamline. This gives you an overcapped amount of Efficiency, countering the negative Duration from Fleeting Expertise. Overall, this causes Exalted Blade to drain 0.6 Energy per second, making this skill practically free. Drop Stretch to R4 or you won't have enough capacity.

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Umbral Blade (2 Forma, Gloom Subsume)

• Forma: 2 (–, D (Exilus))
• Subsume: Gloom (Sevagoth)

This is an endgame build for Excalibur Umbra that focuses on Exalted Blade. Chromatic Blade is used once again to make your Exalted Blade focus solely on elemental damage, causing it to deal substantial damage to foes that are weak to your element type. This build focuses on Strength and Efficiency to maximize the strength and uptime of your ultimate.

All Umbral mods are used to give Umbra a ton of survivability and Strength. Growing Power is an aura that grants even more Ability Strength, and Energy Conversion gives almost as much Ability Strength as Transient Fortitude with no downside. Energy Orbs are quite common in Warframe, so proccing this mod shouldn't be a large hassle. Get an Orb, use Exalted Blade, and forget.

Streamline and Fleeting Expertise floor the Energy drain on Exalted Blade and Sevagoth's Gloom, a powerful ability that grants life steal and slows nearby targets. We use it in place of Excalibur's Radial Javelin. Round out the build with Stretch, and you have a great build for just about all content. For Arcanes, use Strike for more melee attack speed. The second Arcane is up to you. We use Guardian for the bonus armor.

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Next: Warframe: Must-Have Mods Beginners Should Have