Best OblivAeon team?

[<LBB> Morix]

I know some folks have been successful at toppling OblivAeon, but I just can't manage to do it. So I was wondering what specific teams of heroes have you been using to combat this monster?

[origamiswami]

OblivAeon is very situational, but there are some heroes that are better than others. Keep in mind, you can hit random on every hero choice and still win the game, but good hero choice can make the game easier.

Phase 1:

At the start of the game, your priorities are removing the shield and getting objectives, so you can pick heroes that help with that. Heroes with lots of equipment are good for T-Rex Bot and Chekhov's Hairdryer, having lots of different keywords is good for Infinity Cannon, and being able to make other heroes do stuff is good for Virtuosoes of the Void. With that in mind, some good all-purpose starting picks are Wraith, Skyscraper, Lifeline, La Comodora, and Argent Adept. Also, Tempest's incap ability can save your hide from an environment destruction, so starting the game with him isn't a bad idea. I wouldn't recommend starting with Legacy or Mr Fixer, since they can be incredibly useful later on and your starting heroes will likely get incapped.

Effusion of Pain:
You want targets, so Captain Cosmic, Luminary, Akash'thriya, and Unity can be useful, although their targets can get destroyed by OblivAeon very easily. Sentinels can be incredibly useful here, but very risky as they can get incapped on the first card play.

Source of Foes:
You need to destroy 4 targets in a single turn, so splash damage is what you want. Haka's Rampage is excellent for this, as is Blood Mage Lifeline, Tempest, Skyscraper, and Harpy. You could also use Fanatic's End of Days, if you don't mind wiping your own setup too. After you flip the shield the easiest way to remove it is to kill Aeon Master, so bring someone who's good at focused damage like Chrono-Ranger as well.

Ceaseless Ruin:
The goal is to get cards in the environment trash, and there are 4 heroes who can do this with their base power: Omnitron X, Rook City Wraith, The Sentinels, and Akash'thriya. After the flip, it's similar to Effusion of Pain, so the same strategy applies.

Arc of Unreality:
The front of this shield can be cheesed a bit with damage immunity like Cosmic Inventor Writhe, but it's not a huge problem usually. The issue is the flip side. Omnitron X and Rook City Wraith are great for this, as well as anyone who can give extra card draws just in case.

Primary Objective:
You just need objectives, so follow the advice at the top. If you're worried about the flip side, you can use Parse to make damage irreducible or use some other damage booster, but hopefully the objectives you get will be able to deal the damage you need.

Phase 2-3:

At this point, you should try to make your heroes last the rest of the game if you can, so phases 2 and 3 will often have similar lineups. You want tons of damage, damage prevention/reduction, villain card play prevention, and quite often the ability to let other heroes take actions. Which heroes you choose will also depend highly on which objectives you have.

Damage:
This depends what objectives you have. Mr. Fixer with the Mecha-Knight is amazing. Omni-Unity is great on Wraith, Expatriette, Omnitron, La Comodora, and The Sentinels. But whoever has the OblivAeon Shard is likely to be your main damage dealer, so you want them to be able to do lots of instances of damage. Harpy, Scholar, Mr Fixer, Chrono-Ranger, Stuntman, Omnitron, and Freedom Five Tachyon are all good choices. In short, you want the best hero to use your objectives to your advantage.

Damage Reduction/Prevention and Card Play Prevention:
Legacy and Haka are absolutely broken in late-game OblivAeon because of their insane damage prevention cards. Other good choices are Wraith, Luminary, Chrono-Ranger, and VG Mainstay for reduction/redirection.

Villain Card Play Prevention:
Legacy and VG Writhe have good cards for this. Akash'thriya does too, but usually it takes longer to get it in play and she can kill herself by preventing OblivAeon's phase 3 card plays.

Letting Other Heroes Act:
Often in OblivAeon endgame you'll end up with one hero doing 50 damage on their turn, and the others doing only 5. This makes the ability to let other heroes do things incredibly useful. If you can use your team's best power 3-5 times per round instead of just once, it can make all the difference. America's Greatest Legacy, Freedom Five Legacy, La Comodora, and Argent Adept are great at this, and Benchmark, Captain Cosmic, Dr Medico, and Scholar can also do it. Also don't underestimate incap abilities, since they often let other heroes do stuff too.

I hope this giant essay helped. Let us know if you manage to beat it!

[Yippo the Clown]

By contrast to the above, I have a much more straightforward strategy:
1. Get any form of Legacy in play, dig for two copies of Next Evolution, Legacy Ring and Lead From The Front. On Legacy's turn, become immune to Energy and Infernal. Now your team is immune to 95% of the damage for the rest of the fight.
2. Get S&D Benchmark in play and get him set up. Any rewards you can earn that give bonuses to power usage or damage go to him


Those two things are pretty much all you need, because Legacy can tank pretty much all the damage for the entire fight (including the 20 irreducible when an environment breaks) and fully set up Benchmark is disgustingly powerful and can pretty much kill any phase of OblivAeon (or indeed, anything else) in a single turn.

To get there, heroes like XPW Argent Adept and Team Leader Tachyon help a lot with speeding up setup. A fast-to-set-up damage dealer like Idealist is useful to assist with taking out threats while setting up.