Difficulty Staying Alive as Exalted Blade Excalibur

[Grey Star, The Rival Defender]

Right well, whenever I attempt to go for a melee Exalted Blade Exalibur build, I find myself dying a lot. I don't have Life Strike, Medi-Ray, or such. Been using Umbra recently alongside Radial Blind Howl but still dying a lot. How do I stay alive?

[Fishyflakes]

Max those Armor and Health mods.
Buy Arcane Guardian.
Buy Life Strike or Healing Return, and Medi-Ray of course.
Use Negate precept for Wyrm, purchasable from Cephalon Simaris (or just buy it).

[Krulldelmannen]

Been playing Excalibur quite a bit recently with an exalted blade build. Life strike feels pretty much mandatory imo. Used healing return before and it's awful compared to an unranked life strike.

[Sceles]

Originally posted by Fishyflakes:

Max those Armor and Health mods.
Buy Arcane Guardian.
Buy Life Strike or Healing Return, and Medi-Ray of course.
Use Negate precept for Wyrm, purchasable from Cephalon Simaris (or just buy it).

Perfectly summarized, though I might add that having a build with high attack speed and making mouse wheel a secondary melee button also helps greatly. Don't also forget to use his 2 when you're surrounded or facing especially tough targets.

This is what I'd recommend:
Chromatic Blade augment on frame and green energy color
Sacrificial Pressure
Sacrificial Steel
P Fury
Gladiator Vice
Berserker
Healing Return
Volcanic Edge / Voltaic Strike depending on enemy lvl
P Fever Strike

I'm running the same build personally but P Pressure Point and Virulent Scourge instead of the Sacrificial mods. Yeah... I ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up my polarities already.

I have also tested a Condition Overload build:
No Chromatic Blade
P Pressure Point
P Fury
Berserker
Condition Overload
Voltaic Strike
Virulent Scourge
Vicious Frost
Relentless Combination
And the damage was equal or even worse.

EDIT: Don't use any of the above, looks like using Condition Overload with Chromatic Blade actually results in higher DPS than using it with physical even though with physical you can stack more status effects.

Here's a better build:
Chromatic Blade with white/blue energy color
Sacrificial Pressure
Sacrificial Steel
P Fury
Berserker
Condition Overload
Healing Return
Voltaic Strike
P Fever Strike

[Just Life]

Use Slash Dash to quickly cover gound and you do not take any damage during the animation.
Example: Use Slash Dash to rush to a group of mobs that the blade waves can't reach or gives you a hard time, slide attack with the Exalted Blade for blinds and melee away at them.

[Grey Star, The Rival Defender]

Originally posted by Sceles:

Originally posted by Fishyflakes:

Max those Armor and Health mods.
Buy Arcane Guardian.
Buy Life Strike or Healing Return, and Medi-Ray of course.
Use Negate precept for Wyrm, purchasable from Cephalon Simaris (or just buy it).

Perfectly summarized, though I might add that having a build with high attack speed and making mouse wheel a secondary melee button also helps greatly. Don't also forget to use his 2 when you're surrounded or facing especially tough targets.

This is what I'd recommend:
Chromatic Blade augment on frame
Sacrificial Pressure
Sacrificial Steel
P Fury
Gladiator Vice
Berserker
Healing Return
Volcanic Edge / Voltaic Strike depending on enemy lvl
P Fever Strike

I'm running the same build personally but P Pressure Point and Virulent Scourge instead of the Sacrificial mods. Yeah... I ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up my polarities already.

I have also tested a Condition Overload build:
No Chromatic Blade
P Pressure Point
P Fury
Berserker
Condition Overload
Voltaic Strike
Virulent Scourge
Vicious Frost
Relentless Combination
And the damage was equal or even worse.

Problem with your Condition overload build is not using Chromatic Blade.

[Just Life]

Originally posted by Grey Star, the Rival Defender:

Originally posted by Sceles:

Perfectly summarized, though I might add that having a build with high attack speed and making mouse wheel a secondary melee button also helps greatly. Don't also forget to use his 2 when you're surrounded or facing especially tough targets.

This is what I'd recommend:
Chromatic Blade augment on frame
Sacrificial Pressure
Sacrificial Steel
P Fury
Gladiator Vice
Berserker
Healing Return
Volcanic Edge / Voltaic Strike depending on enemy lvl
P Fever Strike

I'm running the same build personally but P Pressure Point and Virulent Scourge instead of the Sacrificial mods. Yeah... I ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up my polarities already.

I have also tested a Condition Overload build:
No Chromatic Blade
P Pressure Point
P Fury
Berserker
Condition Overload
Voltaic Strike
Virulent Scourge
Vicious Frost
Relentless Combination
And the damage was equal or even worse.

Problem with your Condition overload build is not using Chromatic Blade.

Some people don't like Chromatic Blade in a Condition Overload build since Chromatic Blade removes IPS damage from Exalted Blade meaning less status to build up for Condition Overload.

[Sceles]

Originally posted by Grey Star, the Rival Defender:

Originally posted by Sceles:

Perfectly summarized, though I might add that having a build with high attack speed and making mouse wheel a secondary melee button also helps greatly. Don't also forget to use his 2 when you're surrounded or facing especially tough targets.

This is what I'd recommend:
Chromatic Blade augment on frame
Sacrificial Pressure
Sacrificial Steel
P Fury
Gladiator Vice
Berserker
Healing Return
Volcanic Edge / Voltaic Strike depending on enemy lvl
P Fever Strike

I'm running the same build personally but P Pressure Point and Virulent Scourge instead of the Sacrificial mods. Yeah... I ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up my polarities already.

I have also tested a Condition Overload build:
No Chromatic Blade
P Pressure Point
P Fury
Berserker
Condition Overload
Voltaic Strike
Virulent Scourge
Vicious Frost
Relentless Combination
And the damage was equal or even worse.

Problem with your Condition overload build is not using Chromatic Blade.

You are actually right. I left out Chromatic Blade because it limits the amount of different status effects you can cause and used Relentless instead, but after a quick testing Chromatic Blade and Condition Overload seem to work really well together.

Based on this feedback I woudl actually change my recommendation to:
Chromatic Blade with white/blue energy color
Sacrificial Pressure
Sacrificial Steel
P Fury
Berserker
Condition Overload
Healing Return
Voltaic Strike
P Fever Strike

Or option B if you're prepared to get rid of the umbral polarities:
Chromatic Blade with white/blue energy color
P Pressure Point
P Fury
Berserker
Condition Overload
Healing Return
Voltaic Strike
P Fever Strike
Molten Impact / Gladiator Vice

[Grey Star, The Rival Defender]

Originally posted by Just Life:

Originally posted by Grey Star, the Rival Defender:

Problem with your Condition overload build is not using Chromatic Blade.

Some people don't like Chromatic Blade in a Condition Overload build since Chromatic Blade removes IPS damage from Exalted Blade meaning less status to build up for Condition Overload.

That works well for higher level enemies, past Sortie 3, but considering most people will have at least, at minium 130% Power Strength for Exalted Blade, and now even more by default with Umbra's Umbra Polarities, Chromatic Blade's status chance increase is really well worth it due to be able to stack more damage elsewhere, such as not requiring dual stat mods to hit 100% status.

[Tendril, Knight in Yellow]

What Elemental damage are you getting with White/blue? Cold/Electric?

Originally posted by Sceles:

Originally posted by Fishyflakes:

EDIT: Don't use any of the above, looks like using Condition Overload with Chromatic Blade actually results in higher DPS than using it with physical even though with physical you can stack more status effects.

Here's a better build:
Chromatic Blade with white/blue energy color
Sacrificial Pressure
Sacrificial Steel
P Fury
Berserker
Condition Overload
Healing Return
Voltaic Strike
P Fever Strike