Overview: Excalibur and Excalibur Umbra are the sword-masters of Warframe, dashing across the battlefield, blinding foes with a flourished blade and wielding a summoned weapon of energy. Excalibur is both simple and flexible, and can be acquired from Lech Kril on Mars, or chosen as your starting frame. Excalibur Umbra is rewarded during “The Sacrifice” quest.

Prime: While Excalibur prime does exist, it was provided as a reward to those who joined the founders program nearly a decade ago – and since that was effectively a contract, it cannot be added to the game. On the plus side, all players gain access to the outright superior Excalibur Umbra (and an extra warframe slot) by following the questline.

Special: Gain passive bonuses with swords, dual swords, nikanas and rapiers. You can also apply mods to your Exalted Blade (4) in the arsenal as though it was another weapon.

Pros: Moderate durability, good crowd control, build-defining augments.

Cons: Doesn’t really excel at any one thing, can feel quite fragile if surrounded.

Powers: Slash Dash (1) causes Excalibur to lunge between enemies in a short cone, dealing damage multiplied by your equipped melee mods. The Surging Dash augment will increase your melee counter by an additional 4 for every hit, or the Purging Dash augment will restore the shields and cleanse status effects from allies in the path of the dash.

Radial Blind (2) blinds nearby foes, leaving them open to melee attacks and finishers. Excalibur Umbra screams instead for a similar effect while removing adaptation from Sentient enemies. The Radiant Finish augment will further multiply the damage of finisher attacks against blinded targets.

Radial Javelin (3) hurls metal spikes at surrounding foes, dealing significant physical damage. The Furious Javelin augment will increase your melee damage for every enemy struck.

Exalted Blade (4) calls forth a sword of light, draining energy constantly but dealing high damage and emitting cutting waves with every swing. Applying the Chromatic Blade (4) augment changes the base damage type to that of your energy colour and boosts the status chance – great for certain builds, since the status chance is also affected by your power strength.

Opinion: The Excalibur frames are effective in combat, don’t go down to easily and have a decent set of powers incorporating damage and crowd control, but Exalted Blade (4) is the star of the show – It’s potent, effective but can lead to an over-reliance on this one ability. Try Excalibur if you want a fairly direct but effective melee specialist that excels in survival and exterminate missions.