I just started playing a few days ago and HOLY FUCK THIS IS AWESOME I'M A SPACE NINJA IN SPACE!
Who'd you pick to start with?
Excalabur, since I wanted to go with a more up-front fighty kinda dude since the others seemed more caster and utility.
Good choice, yeah. Now that Loki's not a starter any more, there's a pretty strong argument to be made that Excalibur is far and away the best of the starters. He's simple to learn for new players, solid up through mid-level play even running solo as long as you're careful and mod for survivability, and can even hold his own in the late-game with a certain sort of build (i.e. oriented around maximizing Radial Blind first, not dying second, and everything else can eat it).
The main thing to keep in mind is that DPS-oriented builds will slowly but steadily fall off as you advance up to high-level content, while CC only gets better by comparison. Radial Blind isn't the
best CC out there, but when you're modding with it in mind Excalibur's a solid frame because you've got a bit of beef to back it up.
That said, what I'm planning on doing (and what is generally good advice for just about everyone) is to wait for your daily reward to give you a decent discount on plat and pick up a bit (you only need 25 on top of the starter 50 you get for free) so that you can buy a Loki from the market. It's only 75 plat (compared to newer frames which are ~375ish), comes with a slot and a potato (each normally 20 plat), so you're basically getting a fully kitted out frame for 35 plat, and the Loki is one of the best for endgame content thanks to Radial Disarm (and his other abilities, mainly the invisibility, are still useful at that level, unlike Excalibur's two damaging abilities). There are other frames with better CC, but none come as cheap as that.
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On an unrelated note: RIP my Dual Ethers. I love them but I'm going to have to shove them in a locker labeled 'Infestation Invasions only' once I finish the last couple levels on them, since they're becoming increasingly useless. Guess I'll have to find something else to copter with until I hit my 8th mastery rank. Any suggestions?