MirageKnight

Disclaimer: I'm a long time Oberon player, but I do use other 'frames on a regular basis. In light of the recent tweaks to older 'frames such as Hyroid & Inaros to make them more relevant and competative, I'd like to see Oberon get some love as well as I feel he's really fallen behind. While Oberon is still mostly relevant as a support healer with decent stats, as a damage dealer his abilities start to seriously fall off when encountering enemies beyond normal star chart levels. As an Oberon main using a 247% Strength build (not including Molt Augmented), I am hard pressed to do appreciable damage to Level 55 and up enemies despite Warframes with weaker Strength builds being able to readily handle the same enemies. Forget Steel Path - here his abilities are only useful for damage mitigation, some expensive armor stripping and some crowd control. I'm not asking for a full rework, as his kit is functionally sound and has nice synergies. Rather, I feel he ought to inflict damage on a level that's comparable to most other 'frames. So lets look at his abilities, what they do, and what can be done with them. Smite: Does 150 / 200 / 300 / 500 damage distributed evenly between Impact and Radiation as well as a guaranteed Knockdown and Radiation status effect. The affected target emits 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 orb projectiles that seek out enemies within a radius of 5 / 7.5 / 10 / 12.5 meters of the main target, over 12 seconds. Each orb deals 75 / 85 / 100 / 150 Radiation damage, plus 15% / 20% / 25% / 35% of the main target's maximum health and shields divided among the number of orbs, as well as a guaranteed Stagger and Puncture status, and a Radiation status chance. So first of all, why not inflict Puncture Status as well as Impact and Radiation on the initial target seeing as Puncture is being applied to nearby enemies by the Orbs? Also, the amount of raw radiation damage being done seems fairly weak to begin with and quickly becomes diluted the more Orbs that are spawned. Late game Smite is somewhat good for reducing enemy output and some CC, but that's about it. Hallowed Ground: Covers the ground in an angle of 90 / 100 / 120 / 180 degrees in front of Oberon, spanning up to 8 / 10 / 12 / 15 meters, for 10 / 15 / 17 / 20 seconds. Enemies standing on the area of effect are dealt 25 / 50 / 75 / 100 Radiation damage with a 5 / 10 / 12 / 15% Radiation status chance every 0.5 seconds, while allies are relinquished of any negative Status Effects and become immune to them for as long as they are standing on the area. Up to 4 patches of Hallowed Ground are allowed. The damage is good for low to mid level content, the ability to negate status effects is immensely useful and the area it can cover makes for a decently sized defensive perimeter. It also gives a nice level of armor protection for any and all players affected by Renewal. That said, as a damage dealer vs higher level content its effectiveness falls off rapidly after a certain point. I wonder if perhaps Toxin would be a more appropriate element damage, given that Hallowed Ground causes grass / plants to spring up? Perhaps also add a slight slowing effect as well, maybe represented by vines trying to entangle the legs of enemies standing in the affected area. Renewal: Spawns a heal area where Oberon stands with a radius of 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 meters that stays where cast. Ally players entering the area will receive a buff which will regenerate 15 / 20 / 25 / 40 health every second, while allied summoned units affected will regenerate 5 / 6.7 / 8.3 / 13.3 health every second (1/3rd the normal rate), for as long as Renewal remains active, regardless of range. Fully healed allies are additionally cleared of all negative Status Effects. Affected allies that enter Bleedout will have their timer slowed by 20% / 25% / 35% / 45%. As far as healing abilities are concerned, Renewal is arguably one of the most useful in the game. That said, it has one major problem that most, if not all Oberon mains are painfully familiar with: That Nekros Shadows that happen to run into the Renewal area WILL pick up the heal. The result is that this can and will suck an Oberon's energy pool dry very quickly and thus shut off Renewal / Renewal. This interaction needs to be removed once and for all as it is a detriment to Oberon heal builds aimed at keeping players alive in long duration missions. Besides, if a Nekros player wants to, they can heal their minions by recasting before their HP runs out: They don't need an external heal, in fact some players don't care if their minions die as they can be easily replaced. Aside from that, the only other tweak I'd give Renewal would be to give the heal area a marker so that other players know where to go to pick up the heal bonus. To that end, have Oberon summon a small tree or something similar as it would fit his theme as a forest guardian. Perhaps even make the heal based off the affected target's HP so that it heals a small percentage of the target's maximum HP per tick. And last but not least... Reckoning: Lifts all enemies within 8 / 10 / 12 / 15 meters up into the air and violently slams them to the ground, dealing 500 / 750 / 1000 / 1250 damage distributed evenly between Impact and Radiation with guaranteed Knockdown and Radiation status, plus an additional 100 / 225 / 400 / 625 damage to enemies already affected by Radiation status effects. An enemy that dies by the effect of this ability has a 25% / 35% / 45% / 50% chance of spawning a Health Orb. Affected enemies that survive the impact will emit an intense flash of light, Blinding surrounding enemies within 2.5 / 3 / 3.5 / 4 meters that were unaffected by the initial cast, for 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 seconds. Ability Synergy: Enemies that survive Reckoning while standing on Hallowed Ground will have their armor permanently reduced by 10% / 20% / 30% / 50%. Armor is fully removed at 200% Ability Strength. Well, it's useful in that you can completely strip armor with this, but it's clunky and energy expensive in that you need to cast Hallowed Ground first and then Reckoning to do so. For comparison, Frost's Avalanche can armor strip in a single cast if modded for high Strength (167% and over). I also feel this ability's damage ought to scale based off of a percentage of an affected enemy's health, seeing as you're hurling said enemies into the ground. I'm not asking for a room nuker - just some tweaks to make him more useful beyond the normal star chart and some QOL improvements. Any other helpful suggestions and feedback are welcome.

Point of note: I've been able to unlock the Evolution V challenge for the Ruvox with other Incarnon Weapons slotted (Felarx + Laetum slotted). I was also able to complete the Evolution V challenge for the Onos just now with a fully evolved Phenmor and a fully evolved Ruvox equipped, so there's definitely something buggy going on. Hope that helps!

Tried running a solo mission with Felarx + Onos + Ruvox. Neither Onos nor Ruvox were allowed to have Evolution V unlocked despite both weapons only needing that Evolution to be completely Evolved. NOTE: Only Felarx was completely Evolved.

Hostile and unreasonable much? I have to reconsider and not you? I'm only ASKING that in light of demonstratable gameplay imbalances that people be able to do the bare minimum in co-op games and be considerate and not ruin the experience for others. But I guess that's too difficult a concept to grasp and asking for too much of most people these days. You have a lot of chutzpah telling me that I basically have no right to post an opinion you don't like. Last I heard, this is a public forum where people share opinions and make observations that you may not necessarily agree with. If you can't deal with that and are incapable of engaging in civil discourse, then maybe you're the one that ought to leave. Thanks for underscoring my point that there's some decidedly toxic, disrespectful and entitled players in this discussion.

At least we’re interested in balanced gameplay where the goal is cooperation and inclusivity…which is sadly unpopular. Unlike certain parties here who fear losing their ability to trivialize just content but also 1 up other players because it makes them feel better about themselves. y’all are selfish and toxic and the reason I play solo. You play AGAINST others, not with. It’s just a race to see who can get to the end the fastest and with the biggest numbers. The sad thing is the game’s balance only serves to encourage this toxic mentality and y’all are only too happy to exploit an arguably broken system to pump up your egos at the expense of other people's fun.

People that don’t see a problem with power creep and nuke abilities will never compromise due to a sense of entitlement and the need to feel superior. That said, thanks to you and Merk for being voices of reason in this discussion despite some vocal and stubborn opposition.

It’s about whether or not nuke builds ruin gameplay for at least some players. I’d argue that yes, this is an issue for for at least some players. Due to a lack of proper balancing of some AOE abilities and weapons, a lot of public missions turn into competitions to see who can clear the room / map the fastest and get the biggest numbers at the expense of players with non-meta builds that just want to have fun and experience Warframe. Granted when I go public, I have some powerful builds that can delete squads with a click or two. That said, I am always mindful of the fact that other people want to play / participate as well and I make a point of holding back if I get a bit too crazy with the kills. If my intent is to blow up rooms as quickly as possibly, I go solo so I don’t ruin anyone’s experience. What I’m seeing in this thread is a lot of self-serving arguments and opinions aimed at perpetuating toxic and non co-operative play styles. ”go play solo if you don’t like nuke builds” Well, why don’t YOU play solo? Or is proving to 3 strangers how quickly you can trivialize content with no concern for anyone else your thing? I get that DE built and tweaked this game certain ways that encourage power fantasies and that people ought to be able to play they want to, but DE also intended for Warframe to be a co-op experience shared by up to 4 players in a given session. The way you play should never be at someone else’s expense. That said, DE really needs to even out the playing field more with better balance because nuke builds ARE an issue, whether some players choose to acknowledge it or not. The current lack of proper balance is only serving to promote arguably toxic and non cooperative gameplay.

I’m all in favor of giving Inaros some love, but what I don’t quite get is the need to throw in “sand kavats” to spread damage for his 4. Why not allow pocket sand and sandstorm to do that?

Finally - some common sense! So far, this thread has been flooded with self-serving, narrow-minded rhetoric aimed at preserving an arguably broken status quo. You know why I play solo? Because I want to be able to play the game, as opposed to trying to find enemies to kill when you have speed freaks nuking rooms ahead of you. Granted, DE needs to make more of an effort to balance power levels so everyone gets to enjoy the gam, but tryhard players that actively go out of their way to abuse a broken system with room cleaning builds are not helping matters any. In fact, they’re only serving to frustrate and alienate normal players that just want to enjoy the game. “I should be able to play this game the way I want to!” Not when your way prevents other players from having fun. Because then you’re just being an inconsiderate, selfish tool with no regard for anyone else.

It was pretty much this reason why I stopped playing Warframe for a year shortly after New War went live. As a player expecting to be able to play the quest as I’ve always played Warframe, I was suddenly confronted with a stealth section stripped of all weapons and sneak past an arguably absurd number of detection units. The number of retries for that section was sufficient to trigger enough anger and frustration that I threw up my hands in disgust and walked away. My issue was being forced to NOT play Warframe the way all us have always been encouraged to play and being stuck in a quest with no way to exit and play the normal game. I was really mad. A year later, I returned to see if anything had been fixed. Nope. I decided to just power through and be done with it. The Archon fights as the drifter were lengthy slogs that drew much ire. I finally finished New War and was able to play the game I enjoy, but I utterly resented the quest experience as designed and set up…and I still do. I now view all new quests with suspicion instead of anticipation. I’ll say this: there’s a lot of screwups that I’ll forgive DE for if they fix things and apologize for…BUT If they EVER pull another mess like New War on their player base again, I’ll never touch another quest again - lore progress and new content be damned.

Aside from some stances needing more polish, my problems with melee are twofold. One, tennokai is something that, arguably, should have been baked into dedicated melee combat instead of having to rely on external mods and more forma to work. Two, most basic combos have forward movement baked in / forced on the player. It’s rare but there are instances where I want or need to stay in one spot and hack away - and NOT move forward. If I want to move while engaged in melee, that should be left up to me and my movement keys - not melee attack. It’s not a game breaking issue for me, but it’s really annoying at times. That said, I know of a number of older players that outright quit playing shortly after the last major melee rework went live and continue to refuse to touch warframe ever again unless forced movement in melee is removed. A bit drastic a reaction on their part perhaps, but I can understand why.

I’ll add this to my own list of PBR issues if you don’t mind.

It's interesting to note that PBR was introduced back in 2014 with Update 15.... There's also an old and interesting discussion from 2015 on the matter of stuff that was and wasn't updated.

Agreed - thanks for contributing to the discussion!

As it says on the tin - it looks really weird. Please see below: Agile animation set chosen... ...and Noble animation set chosen. Note that she does spin the Grimoire around her finger after a few seconds.

As of Whispers in The Walls, these issues still persist. Note that switching between DirectX 11 & 12 makes no difference.

What about tying enemy level to the power level of the mission’s host? That way every mission is a fair challenge for the host, regardless of the tileset. Yes, that does beg the question as to how to calculate player power level. Perhaps an average of the levels of gear equipped that also takes into account the amount of forma used on all gear as well.

Can confirm this. I initially thought this had to do with the "materials" used for the secondary colored parts as materials can sometimes mess with color perception - but this is definitely not the case here. Note: This issue has been around for a while :/

It was mentioned in the stream that they are looking into that. The vibe I got from the stream was they do have faith in their old stories but they don’t want to intimidate / put off new players that expect to just dive in and get quick access to the latest story and goodies. That being said…I feel having a “paid shortcut” for the upcoming update sends a BAD message and will set a precedent that will be hard to walk back from. I highly recommend NOT doing this.

Probably an unpopular opinion but… I’d actually like to see nightmare missions retired, with their rewards / drops being moved to abyssal missions.

There are a number of items that are like this and it’s rather annoying. Probably the best example of a skin that’s a royal pain to color properly has to be the default one for the nautilus sentinel…

Issues still persist as of the Abyss of Dagath mainline update. It also sees some MOA parts don't honor lighting fx properly either - in this case the Drimper Bracket.

A similar issue exists with some older skins for a couple of warframes and some MOA parts.

Yes it did - much appreciated and thanks :)

Yes and no. It's argued that the original saying is longer and reads "The customer is always right in matters of taste" - roughly meaning that the customer always knows what they want and are willing to buy and you can't convince them otherwise. The more common shorter phrase means that a customer should ALWAYS be listened to and treated with respect and courtesy - regardless of whether they are "right" or not. There's a number of different aspects to this, but that's one of them (ref: my best friend that has worked as a retail sales associate for years). I believe one of the original intents of the phrase was to mean that the customer is "right" in the collective sense that, if people aren't buying a given product from a merchant, then the merchant is offering something that customers don't want and that the merchant is failing to "listen" to them. Customers know what sells and what doesn't and if they're not buying a given product, then they’re “right” in that it doesn’t deserve to be purchased and that they should be listened to if you want to make a sale off them. Offer people what they want or at least a reasonable compromise and they'll buy it. Refuse or fail to offer what they want or fail to offer a reasonable compromise and you lose a sale. I understand where Steve was coming from there, but is that REALLY the kind of person you want to have in a heavily co-op focused game though?