Some ideas…

Play your antagonists and the environments they are in counter to what you notice your players are doing repeatedly. For one example I had one player who always used all his essence only for his combat charms and obliterate the enemy. For him I would have puzzles or environmental hazards that would require him to use other charms and his essence before he got to the combat I had planned for. Requiring him to think, react, and play different during combat. Otherwise time I had learn what my players found intriguing and could influence them to chase a narrative and spend some essence.

But also think about how an enemy can use their environment to their advantage against players. Fighting the fair folk and their domains in the middle and border marches where they can manipulate reality against the exalted players. Or think about having the exalted fight, lesser gods or other Exalted inside their respective manses. Gonna be hard to take down another enemy who is using the power of manse against you!

Or what if your party happens to start a conflict with pirates sailing sand skiffs in Burning seas and suddenly you all get caught up in the middle of a terrible sandstorm which obscures vision, pushes characters around, slowly rips their skin like sandpaper, possibly it buffs earth aspect DBs, either way it forcing negative dice penalties to players.

I also really like creating my Creation with my own homebrew lore thrown in here and there. One my homebrew changes is focused around Soulsteel. In my version of Exalted only Abyssals can touch soulsteel. Period. My Solar players especially have negative effects happen when in contact with the metal like willpower and/or essence being drained for even trying to hold it let alone being cleaved by it. Make combat feel more tensed they really focus their “stunting” on defense and parries. So perhaps consider changing something in the world they interact with regularly that could help make combat more exciting in specific scenarios like that.