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Excalibur Umbra in Warframe has almost the same stats as the regular Excalibur, except he comes with a long, flowing black scarf. That scarf adds an imaginary damage multiplier, sort of. He’s the edgiest out of all Warframes, and if you want to bring him to Steel Path and just about anywhere in Warframe, check out the best Excalibur Umbra build.
Excalibur Umbra Build Guide | Mods, Arcanes, Archon Shards
The good news is that you get him for free, and this build doesn’t cost too much Forma. You can probably get away with one or none at all if you don’t use Rank 10 mods.
We’d also like to reiterate that this particular Excalibur Umbra build is viable for Steel Path or the hardest difficulty in Warframe. Despite not relying on Shield-gating, there’s also a Shield-gating variant that sacrifices damage and armor.
Mods & Abilities
Here are the mods; they’re not that expensive. Follow them as is if you’re not Shield-gating, or read the added notes if you are into Shield-gating.
- Steel Charge (Aura Mod) – You can replace it with Brief Respite if you’re going to use Shield-gating, but be prepared to lose a bit of damage for your Exalted Blade.
- Power Drift (Exilus) – More Ability Strength won’t hurt, but you can opt for Primed Sure Footed instead if knockdowns become too frequent an issue.
- Umbral Intensify – Don’t waste this precious Umbral slot.
- Umbral Vitality – Feel free to Forma out this Umbral slot if you’re going to Shield-gate. Then replace it with Augur Range, Duration, or Strength mods. However, Blind Rage would be nice for more Exalted Blade damage.
- Umbral Fiber – Feel free to Forma out this Umbral slot if you’re going to Shield-gate. Then replace it with Augur Range or Strength mods. Use Streamline if you replaced Umbral Vitality with Blind Rage.
- Adaptation – Mandatory if you’re not Shield-gating. Otherwise, you can replace it with Catalyzing Shields.
- Archon Flow – Use regular Flow if you don’t have it yet.
- Transient Fortitude – For even more Ability Strength.
- Primed Continuity – To Counteract Transient Fortitude.
- Chromatic Blade – To increase Exalted Blade’s damage. Also, make sure to set Excalibur’s Emissive colors in Appearance to your Element of choice (Cold or White if you’re using Archon Flow).
For your Abilities, you can replace Radial Javelin with any ability you want, but consider the following as ideal:
- Eclipse (Mirage) – You’ll have to stand in sunlight, of course.
- Roar (Rhino)
- Gloom (Sevagoth)
- Dispensary (Protea)
Use Eclipse or Roar for more damage and Gloom or Dispensary for more Energy, sustainability, and utility. We recommend Eclipse.
Exalted Blade Mods
We’re focusing on pure damage and Status here and Attack Speed. Luckily, you can also cram in some Sacrificial mods thanks to the Umbra polarity.
Slot these in for red crits and guaranteed Status procs. Keep that combo meter high as well.
- Sacrificial Steel
- Sacrificial Pressure
- Primed/Fever Strike
- Berserker Fury
- Condition Overload
- Shocking Touch
- North Wind
- Organ Shatter
This is where you’ll have to dump much of the Forma for the build since Sacrificial mods and Condition Overload have high drain amounts.
Arcanes & Archon Shards
You have several options here for Arcanes, depending on whether you’re Shield-gating or not. Just about anything works, but these are our picks for Arcanes:
- Arcane Guardian/Arcane Grace (or Arcane Barrier/Arcane Aegis for Shield-gating)
- Arcane Fury
Meanwhile, for your Archon Shards, you’ll want the new meta of Corrosive as well as the increased Melee Critical Damage using the following Shard colors:
- 3x Tauforged/Violet Shards (Melee Critical Damage)
- 2x Emerald Shard (Corrosive)
This way, almost all your bases are covered, and you can deal with high-armor Steel Path Heavy Gunners or Bombards.
Playstyle for the Best Excalibur Umbra Build
As you might have noticed, this is an Exalted Blade build. You press the fourth Ability and then shred enemies with the energy blades. You will also need to fix your Exalted Blade mods for this Excalibur Umbra build to work.
Once you have enough Energy going, you can just switch to Exalted Blade and just keep slashing. Reserve your weapons for when you run out of Energy for Exalted Blade. However, with Archon Flow and the constant stream of Cold damage coming from your Exalted Blade, you can keep it going almost indefinitely.
