Oberon Feedback 20.3.1 and beyond

[Sasuda]

My thoughts and criticisms
Oberon is too weak to damage effectively, too energy hungry, and his healing is one of the least effective overall.
Hallowed Ground is ok. It's stackable and can be casted multiple times. It really lacks mobility and the cast costs too much energy to be worthwhile alone. If the Range also stretched farther forward it could be used in a more mobile setting (requires too much sitting on it) or if it had energy reduction on multiple quick casts/overlaps. It could use an all around reduced energy cost to all his abilities while on top of it. It doesn't stand on its own as an ability anymore. It's main purpose is to buff his other abilities. The carpet was more effective than the pizza, in all situations other than excavation and defense. And in those cases radial is only very slightly more effective. 3 casts of old carpet would be more effective than 3 casts of pizza. The huge reason that hurts hallowed ground much is that Radiation procs pushes enemies away and Oberon needs enemies close in order to be in range, a radial territorial ability and radiation don't go well together, which is why I was in favor of keeping the ability more like the carpet but with either better width or a slight cone. It needs a longer duration or better energy efficiency.
New Renewal is ok on Hallowed ground not helpful outside of defense mission styles or solo healing though, the orbs are preferable to the nova bubble style. I'd prefer it had more unique mechanics to diversify from Trin, but the flat armor bonus is workable at least. Although it doesn't scale. It could be beneficial if it gave a flat armour bonus and stole a small% of Armor from enemies that touch the Renewal bubble. Wouldn't change much in lower levels but then in high levels Oberon could be a fantastic team member and the bubble would be fine. The energy costs associated with Renewal they are way too high, plus no energy regen? The effects don't last long enough to possibly justify the energy drain, the Health regen mechanics really was never all that effective with Oberon's low health cap. You almost constantly need to refresh it especially in a team setting. The ability was better in it's original state.I think it'd be more interesting to have it so you gain a number of buffs when you have full health rather than damage reduction. This can lead to all sorts of strategies that would be very different from Trin but still potentially very effective. Buff example idea: A blinding attack so that when you are full health and you attack an enemy (possibly a melee or first shot of the magazine) and they are blind for 2 or 3 seconds. Fits the radiation theme, provides a significant and helpful ability to manage enemies, open up for various ways to handle enemies and team play, and would make the unique healing over time mechanic meaningful. It may be a buff only available on hallowed ground or something and the buff could vary to simpler things.
Smite & Reckoning don't seem to scale or do any more than they did before, Proper scaling and Armor Reduction please. Due to Oberon's need to cast often he needs some way to deal damage or stun efficiently, the Radiation procs are not very effective. His stun doesn't last long enough to give him room to breathe or maintain some level of energy. If you're up against any sort of energy drain or Nullification abilities he has no chance. His current state is just as, if not more ability spam heavy as before. And the costs of his abilities have minimal payoff. If you can manage anything with Oberon it's because you have really good weapons and mods. Oberon himself contributes very little.  

His abilities all hold potential they really come up short in practice though. Rather being a balance of other frames as an alternative blend, he's just a weaker healer with radiation procs (radiation procs are good in theory but they don't hold up an entire warframe in practice).

Passive needs to be something useful, there's been lot's of decent suggestions. Limiting to pets means he's limited to their utilities to take advantage of it and does nothing for him otherwise.

Edited April 29, 2017 by Sasuda

[cookieknife]

On 4/27/2017 at 8:39 PM, Zeclem said:

smite does have synergy.

smite has no synergy. unless you count a knock down -.-

[cookieknife]

i like renewal staying on, i like smite being able to scale (even though it's damage is awful, i like it) I like iron renewal, i dont like hallowed ground, i dont like reckoning. hallowed ground only gives you one reason to stay on it and that is status immunity, as far as im concerned, cast hallowed ground at the beginning and cast renewal. we need another buff or even a buff and debuff for enemies. also. we need to have higher damage on reckoning. theres warframes that can do 1 million damage.. and 70k.. atleast give him some type of scaling buff like

the more people on hallowed ground

the more damage reckoning does, like an extra 500 at base per person? idk that sounds nice

and to the passive

make the ammounts higher . like 100% for each category. its only health and shield why not

Edited April 29, 2017 by cookieknife

[cookieknife]

i think a very good synergy for hallowed ground and reckoning, that we can actually get damage out of is

more people on hallowed ground, they take more damage from reckoning, like + 10% damage or 500, idk. nidus can do 70k and equinox can do 1 mil so why not 

[cookieknife]

5 hours ago, Teshin_Dax said:

The Blind effect isnt good... i can group enemies up and use his 4th and also hit as fast as possible with the melee weapon and it wont be a useful critical/stealth hit because the duration doesnt help at all. (base duration of 8 sec would be good)
I would rather completly delete the health orb mechanic, if this would cause to a good functioning blind effect

the blind is awful, it has to do with the outer rim of reckoning

say your range is 15m. an enemy is 15m away, you use reckoning pick him up and blast him down. theres an enemy at 16m and he gets blinded. meanwhile theres an enemy at 14m and neither him nor the 15m guy were blinded.

the blind is pretty super situational and awful i might add. it almost reminds me of a dirty bandaid thats peeling off on it's own

Edited April 29, 2017 by cookieknife

[UncaIroh]

I'd tweak this a bit more.... here's my take on it...

Radiation damage: while a core trait of Oberon since he was introduced is that he's got radiation damage for the proc, damage wise it's a bit lackluster because there are only a few enemies which he gets a bonus. I know there's a smite buff, but I don't really feel it even with the base damage. Consider buffing even a little more... (on smite and renewal, reckoning I'm not so sure since we don't want a 4 to win scenario)

Hallowed ground - make it a 360 degree aoe, if possible. - lets you combo 2-4 for a nice aoe armor debuff+rad proc. OR + range increases both radius and the degree arc.

Renewal - I'd tweak it to a flat heal per tick, with 1 tick every x second(s), and +heal for power str, and more duration means longer healing time. Armored renewal will just match the duration of the renewal. The interaction between duration and power str should be monitored for balance since it might make for an op power 3.

The reason I want to remove the toggle is pretty simple - he can't restore energy passively while it's on, AND bringing a pet to maximize oberon means he'll spend more time than is fun detouring for energy orbs if you want it up all the time.

While in the long run Oberon would be eating more energy in casting and recasting 2 and 3, I think having being able to restore energy via energy siphon, zenurik, or trinity is a good tradeoff.

Reckoning - It's not killing a lot of people but the rad proc is nice and armor debuff. While its damage is more on the level of maybe crush, the proc makes it defnitely more useful than mag's 4.

 

[GideonG]

I dislike the concept of "synergy" that DE is trying to shoehorn into abilities these days. Oberon's abilities don't have "synergy" -- they have "co-dependence". Nidus' abilities have synergy; pull things together with Larva, and hit them with Virulence. Heck, even Nekros has decent Synergy, especially with certain builds. Requiring multiple conditions to be met for Oberon's abilities to have additional effects, that are needed to perform decently, is not synergy.

Overall, Oberon is way too energy hungry due this ability "co-dependence", and slotting Rage seems to be the only reliable "solution" to the problem; however, it is not sustainable into late game content, especially given the energy cost of maintaining Renewal on allies. Renewal being a toggle doesn't make much sense; it removes the options of energy regen through Energy Siphon or Zenurik, and drains far too much energy once allies start taking damage, especially since efficiency doesn't affect the energy cost for allies. You can easily go from full power (w/ Primed Flow) to nothing in a few seconds without much control, especially if you aren't at 100% energy when it starts ticking down.

Hallowed Ground is the lynch-pin ability in Oberon's kit, but it doesn't really provide much on its own. It deals minimal damage and provides a bit of CC/utility with rad procs/stat protection; the status protection is nice, but the rad procs are somewhat redundant since you'll be using Reckoning (which auto-procs rad) to strip armor off enemies (which doesn't function all that great, to be honest). On top of that, requiring Hallowed Ground to be cast in order to get the armor buff further compounds the energy problem. I can't seem to put together a build that doesn't seem like a worse-off version of Nidus, given their similarities of regen tanking/support.

It would be nice if there were some sort of self- or team-based energy regen mechanic built into Hallowed Ground, to give it some additional standing power on its own, rather than being a relied upon for Oberon's other abilities to actually function at a reasonable level. Another solution to the energy problem would be to allow Reckoning to increase the chance of health/power orb drops, as long as enemies die during its proc duration, rather than as a direct result of Reckoning's rather low damage.

Edited April 29, 2017 by GideonG

[StabbyTentacles]

18 minutes ago, GideonG said:

I dislike the concept of "synergy" that DE is trying to shoehorn into abilities these days. Oberon's abilities don't have "synergy" -- they have "co-dependence". Nidus' abilities have synergy; pull things together with Larva, and hit them with Virulence. Requiring multiple conditions to be met for Oberon's abilities to have additional effects, that are needed to perform decently, is not synergy.

Using co-dependence or DE's shoehorned "synergy..."  

Casting: Hallowed Ground, and then Reckoning, (While occupying the Hallowed Ground zone)  Reckoning - has a reduced energy cost, and increased effectiveness of armor reduction, and will give you a damage multiplier (like Nidus). 

[Iccotak]

1 hour ago, cookieknife said:

smite has no synergy. unless you count a knock down -.-

Smite radiates enemies, radiated enemies receive more damage from reckoning

[Zenekri]

Please DE. I beg you. Don't gate Oberon's powers behind hallowed ground. Right now Oberon is already very energy starved. Having to rely on a static ability to properly use his kit is a heavy punishment, and can oftentimes make oberon ineffective due to no energy. 

Change this by either making hallowed ground an aura that follows oberon. While this still gates oberon to an extent, he is not punished for when allies decide to move out of the hallowed ground.

Or, make renewal and reckoning do what they currently do, without the need of hallowed ground. And when you sucessfully execute it inside hallowed ground, you get to extend hallowed ground's duration or increased energy regeneration, giving him a better flow.

What is currently happening to oberon is not synergy. Its more like a rape of the word synergy. Again i beg of you. Think of your playerbase and your own creation and do right by them.

[Music4Therapy]

Something needs to be done about his energy. Rage shouldn't be a required mod on him, he already has too many stats he needs and many of us run with Natural Talent.

I propose abilities either costing less on Hallowed Ground or all kills made while you are on Hallowed Ground refund energy.

[cookieknife]

28 minutes ago, Iccotak said:

Smite radiates enemies, radiated enemies receive more damage from reckoning

thats a radiation damage synergy... my javlok or quanta can also

[Urlan]

Sounds good, I would go for that.

[Chipputer]

Sounds to me like you just want to free up a mod slot or two.

[CuChulainnWD]

4 hours ago, MarrikBroom said:

@Marrickbroom "I have a hopefully quick and easy to impliment idea that might be something we should push instead of a soup to nuts tweak."

I prefer your first suggestion, but if DE decides your second is more practical, I would go with it.

[Dwolfknight]

Numbers could use some work, but this is something that could be feasible, I could see it in the game.

Good work but just so you know, efficiency works backwards, so having 175% efficiency means abilities cost 25% of their original cost, also it's capped at 25% cost.

Only thing is that I like that Iron Renewal only activates if people are on Hallowed Ground, it's a nod to when HG was the one that had armour buff but more importantly, it gives a sense of teamwork.

But no for your augument mod idea, Hallowed Ground should stay a static ability.

Edited April 29, 2017 by Dwolfknight

[Music4Therapy]

Reckoning should go from requiring a kill to being. "Enemies hit by this ability have a chance to drop a health orb when they die for the next X seconds" This would help him significantly in many ways, by removing the need to use Rage (Equilibrium would be an option), by opening build paths, and general quality of life purposes.

Also, Hallowed Ground should provide some sort of bonus to Oberon (maybe allies?) that grants him bonuses similar to Limbo when he is in the Rift, perhaps energy per second or energy per kill while he in on HG.

---------------

On a frame that needs every bit of range, duration, strength, and efficiency he can get it sucks having Rage as a required mod to gain energy when other combo caster frames such as Nidus, Limbo, Saryn, and Octavia have ways built into their kit to gain energy or reduce energy costs. It was suggested to me that I also include this in the OP:

Quote

The strength of Oberon now lies in his ability to chain combos, so you cast his Hallowed Ground, 50 energy. You then use Reckoning (100) to CC the enemies around you and strip them of armor while providing you cover so that you can cast his Renewal (25) safely on his Hallowed Ground and gain the synergy effect from that, Iron Renewal. While you are being healed, you are draining energy at a rate of 2 per second at base and 5 per second per ally. If you need to more? You don't get to move the Hallowed Ground, you recast it for another 50 energy. Etc....

Oberon is heavily reliant on using a stationary, high cost ability in order for his kit to work. He also lacks the durability to truly benefit from Rage in lategame scenarios to sustain his energy pool so that he can not only use the combos in his kit (Hallowed Ground followed by Reckoning then Renewal alone costs 175 energy before efficiency mods) but to upkeep the steep energy drain cost required to heal himself and allies (2e/s himself, 5e/s per ally), completely ignoring the fact he has only 100 base energy. Only true tanks like Chroma, Wukong, Inaros, Nidus, etc... really can consistently benefit from Rage in late game content.

Not only that, but he needs range so that his synergies work consistently, strength and duration so that his synergies are strong and last a decent amount of time, and efficiency because he has no way of gaining or reducing energy costs in his kit. Where do we fit survivability mods, rage, and the required Natural Talent due to his absurdly long cast time on Reckoning?

His kit relies *heavily* on the synergies within it in order to work, and Zenurik doesn't work while channeling Renewal, which is a very important part of his kit.

This all is WHY he needs health orb generation so that he works with Equilibrium, or energy regen and/or cost reduction built into his kit. He is extremely reliant on comboing his abilities together to make them work, similar to Limbo and Nidus who also have similar mechanics built into their kits.

 

Please, this is the direction that we need to go in. Thumbs it up community.

 

The rework made nice changes to Oberon, but the costs are VERY steep and he was given synergies without a means to perform said synergies. Limbo and Nidus both are similar in that their abilities work best when used together and because of that they both have many ways within their kits to build up energy. As Oberon now fills a similar niche, that is now the biggest hole in his kit. Even if the Reckoning change doesn't go through, please consider some sort of energy gaining mechanic. @[DE]Grineeer@[DE]Megan@[DE]Rebecca

Edited April 29, 2017 by Music4Therapy

[Music4Therapy]

The thing we all agree on is that Reckoning should be more consistent in producing health orbs.

 

EDIT: Making Reckoning cause enemies to drop health orbs that die within X seconds of being hit by it instead of it requiring the kill, it would make the ability more consistent and would open up build paths for Oberon. It would be a small change that would help in a big way.

Edited April 29, 2017 by Music4Therapy

[-Defeater-]

would free up his build so you wouldnt neeed a fleeting and would have more duration, and wouldnt have to put in as much power str. 

my main problem with him atm is that people have to be near you at the time renewal is cast in order to get the buff, meaning that youre only going to heal maybe one or 2 people atm with it, and forget about trying to get the armor buff on your team mates since they will be running around. only use is in defense as a mediocre heal.

4 minutes ago, Dwolfknight said:

But no for your augument mod idea, Hallowed Ground should stay a static ability.

Whats your reasoning

[Chipputer]

But I don't agree. Stop trying to speak for me.

Even Nekros requires the target to be dead before he spawns a health orb.

[AdunSaveMe]

Just now, Chipputer said:

But I don't agree. Stop trying to speak for me.

Even Nekros requires the target to be dead before he spawns a health orb.

Nekros requires them to be dead. He doesn't require them to be killed by an ability.

[Dwolfknight]

1 minute ago, -Defeater- said:

Whats your reasoning

 

It already Knockdown and Proc Radiation on all enemies inside of it, gives you Immunity to procs and with this guys idea it would become godlike, a frame can only be so good.
Also, it's supposed to be static.

[Music4Therapy]

2 minutes ago, Chipputer said:

But I don't agree. Stop trying to speak for me.

Even Nekros requires the target to be dead before he spawns a health orb.

"enemies hit by this ability have a chance to drop a health orb when they die for the next X seconds" 

[Chipputer]

Just now, AdunSaveMe said:

Nekros requires them to be dead. He doesn't require them to be killed by an ability.

Doesn't matter. It doesn't need to be changed.

The reason given is flimsy, at best, as well. Only bad Oberon players are running low on energy, constantly, to begin with. Health orbs are also terrible for healing purposes at the point they start to matter.

This change has been pushed by people, consistently, for ages now and all of them are people who do nothing but spam Reckoning.

[Chipputer]

Just now, Music4Therapy said:

"enemies hit by this ability have a chance to drop a health orb when they die for the next X seconds" 

Edited just now by Music4Therapy