Coming Oberon Changes

[EverythingNagato]

Honestly I love Oberon, and I really think these are so great changes.
Thanks DE!

[Cybernetix]

My god, this is amazing. Goatframe rises.

[GhostSwordsman]

Sure. There will always be those who will be okay with that even though it's strictly inferior. I have my own problems with the hyper specialization encouraged in Warframe. As an aside, I'd like to say that specialization being rewarded and generalists being punished, mechanically, isn't really unique to Warframe. Very few games with RPG elements don't shake out that way. I particularly dislike the entire paradigm of your Warframes mods being slotted as mods rather than innate, because this system provides incentives to drop all but one or two abilities, often times fun to use but unnecessary abilities, in the name of more raw stats. I think it's a shame that the current system, oft as not, encourages us to remove half the things that make our frames special.

Then perhaps a solution to fix this would be adding in 4 mod slots that cannot be forma'd that are made specifically for the warframe's abilities. (though that really is a topic that deserves it's own thread to discuss, and has been discussed before)

 

Edit: We already have the aura and stance slots, which can only have their respective mods placed in them so I don't see this being too difficult to implement. On top of that, I would guess, based off how I've changed mod slots for my frames, that a large amount of players change the ability polarities anyway so they have 10 or 11 slots for other mods. So adding in 4 ability specific slots I don't think would harm the game by making frames too overly powered.

 

Also, I feel that I have to mention that I technically run a "specialized" excalibur (maxed for RB cc) as one of my builds, and it is due to the exact reasons you stated earlier. Specialist out preform generalist.

Edited August 25, 2014 by GhostSwordsman

[Transient_Tiefling]

I'm one of the few who always liked Oberon before. Now I love him 10 fold. Thanks DE!

Edited August 25, 2014 by animaCartographer

[Ronyn]

I must say thank you to the class design team for reading and considering the changes we suggested.

I even see one or two specific things that I have been lobbying for. Well done guys.

Can't wait to see how this feels.

[[DE]Momaw]

DERebecca, on 25 Aug 2014 - 4:24 PM, said:

Armor:
- Oberon’s base Armor increased to 150.

 

In gameplay terms this represents a buff from "no armor" to "light armor", with a rating of 150 giving 33.3% reduction. I wouldn't mind seeing more since the actual effect on play won't change much, but at the same time, Oberon is a self-healer and his visual style doesn't really suggest thick armor plating. So :-/

Smite:
- Projectiles that are spawned after impact seek-to-target, not just spawned in direction.
- Speed up projectiles by 50%.
- Forced Radiation proc on the initial target.
- Forced Knock-down on initial target instead of stumble.
- Forced Puncture proc on all enemies hit.

 

The knockdown and forced radiation are good changes. Though the puncture procs are really not going to affect anything.  My recommendation remains AOE knockdown with secondary targets being thrown away from the primary to make the primary more vulnerable.   And I still think that these sorts of abilities should track to the nearest enemy of the crosshair instead of requiring pixel-perfect aiming like our guns. 

Hallowed Ground:
- Allies within Hallowed Ground can not be proc’ed.
- Hallowed Ground will remove all existing procs from Allies.
- Armour boosted by 5/10/15/20% per rank for all Allies with Hallowed Ground, with stacking being explored on multiple casts.

 

Nope. People no longer die horribly from overpowered bleed procs, poison damage penetrates shields regardless of whether it procs or not, and nothing else really slows the Tenno down.  The 20% armor buff doesn't help because there's only a few frames that actually have armor worth buffing and 20% isn't going to help them much because of the non-linear way armor scales.  For a 50-energy power this still won't be worth mounting.  It needs a crowd control aspect (enemies on Hallowed are slowed), or real observable defensive value (buff changed to flat damage reduction).

Renewal:
- Switch to toggle ability with smaller base cost and energy per second active drain. All Renewal benefits occur when projectile reaches target ally.
- Boost Heal amount 200/250/300/400 per rank.
- When target is fully healed, remove proc effects.
- Allies bleeding out are affected by Renewal in that bleedout will be slowed. 20/25/35/45% per rank as well as affected by duration mods.

 

I'm....confused.  It's a toggle ability that still has projectiles that seek out to team mates? Will they pulse out each second? Or does the single projectile "link up" the affect team mates to Oberon?  Either way this is open to hideous amounts of troll-spam from people flicking it on and off. I don't see why we need projectiles or travel delay at all.  Also confused on the specific magnitude being healed here. If it's a toggle ability then it doesn't actually have a max heal amount, because you can just leave it on as long as you have energy.  Increasing bleedout time is an interesting change, though 1.) you can't have projectiles with travel delay and have this be a useful feature because if a team mate is too far away to save trivially then the projectile won't reach them in time to have a useful effect either and 2.) you better already have the mechanics worked out for how to prevent people from abusing this (in conjunction with Provoked) as a viable offensive strategy.

 

Reckoning:
- Forced Radiation Proc added to damage on targets.
- Small radial blind added to slam impact, but only for enemies that survive the damage of the cast. This radial blind will be applied to enemies that move into range after it’s been cast and are blinded by the impact of those being slammed by Reckoning!

 

So it's an AOE slam with a Chaos "Lite" followup on survivors? I can get behind that. The addition of the complicated blind effect seems unnecessary though. The slam time on Reckoning is pretty quick, so in actual gameplay terms what you are doing is making it so that Reckoning has a damage radius plus a larger blind radius that can affect enemies further away at the time of activation.  Just code it up as that, instead of the per-target blind effect.

[RyanGo]

So a few questions and reservations....

1. I assume hallowed ground still does damage to enemies right?

2. Not really feeling renewal as a toggle ability. I think it'd be a lot more convenient to cast and forget, unless the total cost will be around the same or less than the previous 75 energy cost.

3. Does this mean standing in hallowed ground will keep you from being knocked down by anything? Including scorpion and ancient pulls? Will it allows us to bypass magnetic doors and laser doors without consequence? I also assume it will save us from being energy drained by disrupters and magnetic leaders. Also what does this mean for lightning procs? What the hell do lightning procs even do to us??

4. Lastly I agree with other people's suggestion that hallowed grounds area of affect should start under oberon's feet.

These look like awesome changes, loving the radiation procs!

[DaftMeat]

Radial Blind for everyone!

 

Screw you Excal, shut up

[Varzy]

Regarding Hallowed Ground, here's a mockup of an AoE that could really expand his use:

 

The green circle is where Oberon stands. The AoE is cast under Oberon's feet and in a small radius around him, and the wider circle's goal is to catch allies and give more room to move around in considering it's new role as a defense-oriented buff.

Edited August 25, 2014 by Varzy

[Ronyn]

Hallowed Ground:

- Allies within Hallowed Ground can not be proc’ed.

- Hallowed Ground will remove all existing procs from Allies.

- Armour boosted by 5/10/15/20% per rank for all Allies with Hallowed Ground, with stacking being explored on multiple casts.

Is this stuff in addition to what Hallowed Ground does now or does this mean Hallowed Ground will no longer do damage?

[Cannamancer]

Bawlin!

[Fiaryn]

Then perhaps a solution to fix this would be adding in 4 mod slots that cannot be forma'd that are made specifically for the warframe's abilities. (though that really is a topic that deserves it's own thread to discuss, and has been discussed before)

 

Oh don't get me wrong. That complaint is related, but by no means do I believe it to be the core issue. Overall the buffs for the Oberon described in this thread feel, to me, overly cautious. I don't think any of these buffs is near substantial enough to give the Oberon a position on a team.

 

The only buff that even feels truly notable is the one to Reckoning. Everything else...meaningless in normal play (Smite, Hallowed Ground), or of marginal benefit (Renewal). The focus on procs in particular seems misguided and of very little value.

Edited August 25, 2014 by Fiaryn

[EdBazokatone]

Hallowed Ground should be radial and move with him to enforce team play, everyone sticking with the group and not runing on their own.

 

Great Changes on Smite. Looks like a really good first ability

 

Renewal should have a range cap, to enforce again cooperative play.

 

Warframe needs changes like this to actually be a co-op based game as it's supposed to be, and not a 4guysruningontheirown as it is, as it always was.

[Nira]

Sure. There will always be those who will be okay with that even though it's strictly inferior. I have my own problems with the hyper specialization encouraged in Warframe. As an aside, I'd like to say that specialization being rewarded and generalists being punished, mechanically, isn't really unique to Warframe. Very few games with RPG elements don't shake out that way. I particularly dislike the entire paradigm of your Warframes mods being slotted as mods rather than innate, because this system provides incentives to drop all but one or two abilities, often times fun to use but unnecessary abilities, in the name of more raw stats. I think it's a shame that the current system, oft as not, encourages us to remove half the things that make our frames special.

 

Very good points there.

[[DE]Saske]

Looking forward to it.

[OrphanMaker]

Tenno,

Please take a look at the coming changes to Oberon and his powers in the next major Warframe update (hopefully this week on PC!). It’s worth noting that all the listed details below are subject to change. Please feel free to discuss these within this thread.

Armor:

- Oberon’s base Armor increased to 150.

Smite:

- Projectiles that are spawned after impact seek-to-target, not just spawned in direction.

- Speed up projectiles by 50%.

- Forced Radiation proc on the initial target.

- Forced Knock-down on initial target instead of stumble.

- Forced Puncture proc on all enemies hit.

 

Hallowed Ground:

- Allies within Hallowed Ground can not be proc’ed.

- Hallowed Ground will remove all existing procs from Allies.

- Armour boosted by 5/10/15/20% per rank for all Allies with Hallowed Ground, with stacking being explored on multiple casts.

 

Renewal:

- Switch to toggle ability with smaller base cost and energy per second active drain. All Renewal benefits occur when projectile reaches target ally.

- Boost Heal amount 200/250/300/400 per rank.

- When target is fully healed, remove proc effects.

- Allies bleeding out are affected by Renewal in that bleedout will be slowed. 20/25/35/45% per rank as well as affected by duration mods.

 

Reckoning:

- Forced Radiation Proc added to damage on targets.

- Small radial blind added to slam impact, but only for enemies that survive the damage of the cast. This radial blind will be applied to enemies that move into range after it’s been cast and are blinded by the impact of those being slammed by Reckoning!

 

Thank you for reading!

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

He is now a light tank like I always wanted him to be!!!

 

I love everything and can not wait to use him. Perfect!

[J-Reyno]

\Nope. People no longer die horribly from overpowered bleed procs, poison damage penetrates shields regardless of whether it procs or not, and nothing else really slows the Tenno down.  The 20% armor buff doesn't help because there's only a few frames that actually have armor worth buffing and 20% isn't going to help them much because of the non-linear way armor scales.  For a 50-energy power this still won't be worth mounting.  It needs a crowd control aspect (enemies on Hallowed are slowed), or real observable defensive value (buff changed to flat damage reduction).

 

This is pretty much how I feel about the HG change.  I'm trying to create a mock build for the new Oberon changes and Hallowed ground just has no place here, especially since it relies on duration moreso than his two actually useful abilities, Renewal and Reckoning.  I can't justify multiple mod slots for this ability at all when I need other mods to specialize the better tools in his arsenal.

 

What Fiaryn says is 100% true.  They are overly cautious with some warframes.  Meanwhile they go all out with others.  Mirage has a ridiculously huge buff to the most powerful damage type in the game: gun damage.  I don't think it would be bad for them to allow Oberon to actually grant some good support to the team, rather than just marginal.

 

If Oberon were given the same treatment as the more useful frames, Hallowed Ground would have both damage reduction and a slow effect on top of these current changes.

Edited August 25, 2014 by LazarusDark

[OrphanMaker]

Now I just cant wait on the Banshee Rework!!

 

Please rework Banshee DE, I will be so thankful!!!

[DeathPercy]

Yay

[Bladereap3r]

I'll have to dust off me Obe for another look at his game play...here's looking 4ward to Oberon update...
 

DERebecca ...thank you for the Heads Up!

[Fiaryn]

This is pretty much how I feel about the HG change.  I'm trying to create a mock build for the new Oberon changes and Hallowed ground just has no place here, especially since it relies on duration moreso than his two actually useful abilities, Renewal and Reckoning.  I can't justify multiple mod slots for this ability at all when I need other mods to specialize the better tools in his arsenal.

 

What Fiaryn says is 100% true.  They are overly cautious with some warframes.  Meanwhile they go all out with others.  Mirage has a ridiculously huge buff to the most powerful damage type in the game: gun damage.  I don't think it would be bad for them to allow Oberon to actually grant some good support to the team, rather than just marginal.

 

If Oberon were given the same treatment as the more useful frames, Hallowed Ground would have both damage reduction and a slow effect on top of these current changes.

 

Agreed. Hallowed Ground needs to do more and better. A radial AoE zone (that follows the Oberon) that both buffs armor and debuffs enemy move speed would be a good step towards making it a desireable ability that stacks up against other buff abilities that are currently out there. There is just no sense in being so tenative with these buffs in the same game where Hall of Mirrors and Molecular Prime exist.

[VTRC]

Even a modest damage buff on HG would really help cement it's place on the team and feel very paladin-y. "This is where the charge happens."

 

Actually, having read later posts about how good the proc prevention will be, and learning, I'm pretty happy with the rewrite. 

Edited August 25, 2014 by VTRC

[Varzy]

 

Specialization is always, always more compelling in actual practice than generalists. That's just how people work. Better to go with it than fight a futile battle with player psychology that is not going to change.

This is an excessively broad statement. Specialization breeds weakness - weak ways of considering how to play the game, weak ideas for how to expand the gameplay. Oberon is an excellent frame on paper because of the wide range of things he can do to deal damage and survive when things get rough, but his abilities lacked the utility to persist in the extra-high level, unbalanced gameplay types that specialists thrist for.

 

The additions outlined give him some excellent utility that'll help him survive longer and longer.

[syferhelldog]

finaly i almost died  ty

[Fiaryn]

This is an excessively broad statement. Specialization breeds weakness - weak ways of considering how to play the game, weak ideas for how to expand the gameplay. Oberon is an excellent frame on paper because of the wide range of things he can do to deal damage and survive when things get rough, but his abilities lacked the utility to persist in the extra-high level, unbalanced gameplay types that specialists thrist for.

 

The additions outlined give him some excellent utility that'll help him survive longer and longer.

 

Coincidentally, also the gameplay that exists. Like I said, balance for reality. There's a reason why generalists, and procs, aren't terribly relevant in this game. If you're doing your job right, everything is dying very very fast. Generalists by their nature tend to drag fights out, an undesireable outcome especially at higher levels given their incredible lethality.

 

I think redesigning the entire core systems to allow generalists to shine is a bit out of the scope of what we can reasonably expect, so a sounder plan would be to have Oberon bring something unique and effective to the table. Not just the first one, as he does now.

Edited August 25, 2014 by Fiaryn