Detailed Oathbound Hero Skills + Synergies Discussion

[WinSlaya]

Hello Commanders,

Here is a link to the video discussion on my yt channel:

https://youtu.be/PsdWsS9HV8o

If you would prefer to read our thoughts, here are the notes that we used for the video (big thank you to everyone who commented their suggestions in my last thread on this subject!):


Hero skills:


Trailblazer (SP3 L0); fast movement [good]

Initiative strikes (SP2 L0); +20% when this unit has precog [good]

Attenuators (SP2 L0); stagger res, and +1 status effect res [good in multiplayer]


Colony Lord: Energetic Efficiency (SP4 L2); out = +10% prod, in = +10% energy

Colony Lord: Pre-Planned Structures (SP5 L6); -20% structure cost

Colony Lord: Army Specializations (SP5 L6); -20% unit cost

Colony Lord: Agriculture Ideals (SP4 L2); out = +10% food, in = +20% happiness event income

Colony Lord: Euphoric Presence (SP5 L6); happiness event thresholds are 30% lower

Colony Lord: New Generation (SP5 L6); the food threshold to grow pops are 30% lower

Colony Lord: Scientific Method (SP4 L2); out = +10% research, in = + 4 cosmite

Colony Lord: Societal Focus (SP5 L6); +20% society research

Colony Lord: Military Focus (SP5 L6); +20% military research


Field repair droid (SP4 L4) ; regeneration and should give back destroyed battlesuits [really good, but bugged]

Oracles Protege (SP6 L4) ; +5 health and +1 armor per level of rep above neutral

Overload power core (SP5 L8); destroys vehicle for large aoe damage [bad, but funny]

Oracles Favor (SP3 L8); precog to units in stack [great]

Entropic Infusion (SP4 L12); extra damage [great]


General:

Dapperest Dragon’s Tips: Oathbound are low on damage mods. Most factions have at least some damage mods in their native tree, often unit specific (crushing roots, toxin nanite ammo), melee (psi-infected claws, ironbreaker fortifications), or mods that offer some kind of capability that increases damage, even if they don't increase damage with their straightforward stat increase (often detection mods; the Kir'Ko one gives accuracy, the Shakarn ones adds the Analysed inflict, etc), but Oathbound get a damage increase on their scanner and the Providence effect on plight mitigators, and that's it. Also, both of their weapon techs have early defensive mods in the path (arc retaliation, entropic radiation emitter), unlike say, firearms where all of the mods are offensive in nature. Oathbound also have a lot of armour and shield buffing abilities, but they have no mods to increase health, they have to wait until their T3 to get a support with a straightforward heal, and their only healing mod is at the end of the tree. Statwise, Oathbound benefit a lot from healing effects, damage mods, and health mods.

Orangelex44’s Tips: The focus with all race/ST synergies is really to identify your race's weaknesses and strengths, and decide if you want to mitigate the former or further emphasize the latter. as Dapperest said, OB is all about tanky defense, pure melee, and powerful buff/debuffs so the strengths are pretty apparent. their weaknesses are inflict cleansing (they try to avoid inflicts in the first place) and to lesser extents stagger resist, range, and DPS. right now their strengths are so overbearing that I figure the optimal play is always to lean further into them rather than bother fixing up their minor problems.

One thing that's not quite so obvious is that many races like to get new unit archetypes out of their ST, but the OB penchant for unique variants means they aren't opening up their unit gameplay as much with most STs. with the exception of Psynumbra and maybe Xeno/Heritor, you're really looking to mods/ops first and units a distant second


Ferrin’s Tip - stun module on wardens, allows aoe stun with banners.

Ninjew’s Tip - Autonom can network friendly mech units.

A few more tips from me - I have been taking all around awareness a lot more with oathbound (easy to get flanked when in melee range).

My favorite loadout is the Warlord. Aoe jump that leaves an action point.

Orangelex44 like the marquis (support vehicle).


Oathbound Synergies:

(1) Xenoplague - Nothing but health and damage mods, as far as the eye can see. Also, Xenografted Muscles + mostly melee faction = Massive Impact for everybody. Shame you can't put Parasitic Symbiosis on battlesuits, but the rest still works. Bio-Spore Hyper Aggression on a bunch of roided up Paladins is a nightmare scenario. Bio-Spore Purification Mod allows you to easily heal your battlesuits. Paste it all over your Aspirants, and you'll find your Suits can't die. It's also great on Scryers. The Precognition doctrine is very strong with the Swarm Tactics you'll be employing with Xenoplague as well. The pustule's inherent skitter + 1 mod, oath of loyalty, + protectors defensive mode is crazy effective.

Xeno hero skills: Rapid Movements is really nice on any melee hero.

(2) Synthesis - All battlesuits being Integrated for free is nice, and Oathbound Hackers give you an early Fatalism inflict while still being decent shooters. Fatalism + compromising and/or mind controlling mechanical units works really well. Network Links are really strong with a lot of the Seers that have once per battle abilities, and healing is never a bad option for the Battlesuits. You can really lean into the whole, "we are Synthesis, we have good early mods and great value battlewide operations". Compromised = loses 1 level of stagg res, - 2 arc res, -1 other res. One strategy that was recommended to me was to start with support vehicle. With this you can have a hacker and 2 sources of providence on turn 1. Then Put hacker behind protector, spam providence and precog on him and watch him lay waste to early game sites. Of the 56 race/secret tech combos in the game nothing has early clear like this. This is the only way you can start with a good range 7 repeat attack as Oathbound. Then of course all the later synergies - hackers with high end arc mods, network link refresh whatever support skill you need the most (providence, last stand, adversity, etc etc). Last Stand + save state on your strongest melee unit= Very strong.This ST applies a lot of bonuses to mechanical units. All mechanical and cyborg units count as integrated, a synthesis mechanic. Malware demons can be used to spawn in more units to give the oath of loyalty bonus through.

hero skills: Assisted Breach is always a good choice.

(3) Promethean - Fun fact: Until Plight Mitigators, Oathbound have some ways to increase their resistance to status effects, but no actual cleanses, so early Purification Fields are a welcome sight. Promeathen get the free action healing mod and oath of loyalty, put it on their scout and make like 4 of them to follow your army around, nothing will ever die in the early game, since the heal is a free action you can dart in, heal and dart back out again if they got a lot of range/anti air. Oathbound Purifiers are terrifyingly strong, and the melee emphasis of the Oathbound makes it easy to get value out of PyrX Absorption Panels. Lategame, Backlash Projectors is pretty decent for a melee lineup, and Phoenix Bomb Launchers can be thrown on Basically Everything to give you the artillery you'd otherwise completely lack. You can put a thermal hazard on an enemy unit and then use a paladin with PyrX Absorption Panels to attack it, putting them in the hazard, healing the paladin unit. Phoenix Walker oathbound heroes with a phoenix bomb launcher is terrifying. Aegis tank helps with the big defense ball.

hero skills: Fallout Protocols is always a must have. Phoenix Surge is great for getting your melee into position.

(4) Celestian - Has an early stagger resist mod for Aspirants, and an early stagger immunity mod for battlesuits. Shield of Remorse is going to get a lot of value considering how tough Oathbound are, and it's extra good value for the health. Access to straightforward healing is nice, and the units are good. A shooty Lightbringer is a nice change and gives the Oathbound a reasonable sidegrade from regular Wardens, as well as just offering a second shooter battlesuit, with easy ways to apply Soulburn (its the only lightbringer than can do that at a range), which Celestian can do a lot with. Later on, Oathbound Star Guides are worth mentioning for their Cursing Light ability – yes it's on cooldown, yes it's range 5, it's still a single action strength 12 AoE Adversity inflict, and Tenets of Pacifism syncs up nicely with such a melee heavy lineup. This is basically the "we are unkillable" option. Easy to get good reputation bonuses. This ST reinforces the tankiness of paladin units. Oathbound star guides are extremely good supports given they can hand out providence as well as make enemies fumble. **celestian star guides provide a source of providence. Tenants of healing doesn't work on mech frontlines so watch out** If you are Celestian, your commander will be able to learn Cleansing Light skill. And non-celestian heroes will be eventually able to take Lights' Harmony secondary weapon which will give them the same skill. And it works on battlesuits. Also, Paladin Protectors can heal and Marquis battlesuit does that too. And when you get paladins and then eventually Tenets of Pacifism, you would be able to have funny strategy:

1) Jump in with your hero/paladin, ignoring all the overwatch because Tenets of Pacifism
2) Either kill lonely enemy or enter your own overwatch if you have few neighbours. Precognition and defensive mode would keep you alive for a turn.
3) And at the start of you next turn just pacify enemies. Yes, Tier 4 could likely resist, but that is fixable via Fatalism.

hero skills: Cleansing Light can heal battlesuits.

(5) Psynumbra - Damage mods! Damage mods for days! Consuming Gaze is always good, but it's extra potent on a faction that favours damage mitigation over heals so much, and ops like Dark Icon/mods like Pain Mirror synch up nicely with melee battlesuits. Additionally, Oathbound Initiates and Malictors count as Seers, so if a game runs long then the Seers Crusade doctrine is going be fantastic value. Psionic damage from psy units and mods bypass armor, and the paladin’s melee attacks bypass shields, making it easy to bypass your enemies defenses. Psynumbra initiates and malictors count as seers, and give bonus exp to non seer units! Avatar of the abyss for oathbound seers! Consuming gaze on battlesuits!

Providence/adversary = Malictor lands all its hits. -> Seer +30% dmg doctrine + 25% sadism doctrine + 20% psionic dmg doctrine = those hits are devastating and side benefit of +1 all resistance to your already tanky racial units protecting your seer/psynumbra ones. The seer doctrine, while late game, also gives malictors entropic decay debuff, which can be resisted but stacks up to 3 times. -> Fatalism + initiate/malictor = endless echos/mind controlled units. Considering there is both a strat op and multiple units/mods that can apply fatalism, you should rarely ever feel outgunned. -> Torment strat op = tanky tanks + more dmg. Works well for every race but the multiple opportunities to increase happiness for Oathbound via residential sector bonus + doctrines makes the downside easier to avoid (than say Syndicate which can only natively boost happiness with a 10 energy strategy op).

I've had Malictors do 3x 44 damage chain lightning attacks. You can usually stack Mark of the Dark Sun on a Malictor in two turns.

hero skills: Anthem of the Abyss is always a must have. Sinister Chorus debuffs adjacent enemies (so great on melee). Devour Hope is a reliable heal.

(6) Voidtech - Oathbound Echo Walkers are arguably better than the Dvar variant, and Dvar Echo Walkers were already one of the best in the game along with the Amazon variant. Sadly Phasewalk Modulators can only be applied to Aspirants, but the stagger resist stripping effect of Dimensional Instability 2 is great for a melee faction, and things like the Timewarp op, Phase Drives, Phase Manipulators, there's a lot of ways to reduce the part of the battle where you're just closing the distance under fire to a minimum, and get straight to the righteous stabbing. Phasewalk on melee allow you to get the most out of movement and action points for your melee units, but can only go on light, non flyers. Phase Manipulator can abduct units into range of melee + heal allies. Oh and PMs have arc attacks, which oathbound can research weapon mods for. Echo walkers with first strike is really nice. Quantum avatar + oath of loyalty for a shield and armor ball. Oathbound voidtech have a tactical operation that can give fast movement to a lot of units!! A fun build is to use a Champion with Phase Drive and Stun Module. This allows you to AoE stun one group of enemies, while teleporting to another group which you can lock down with your Tireless Melee overwatch.

hero skills: Shield Modulator is always great. Phase Shift is great on melee heroes, as you can move far and then attack. Dimensional Feedback is a good choice because oathbound are quite tanky, and can take a lot of damage before they die.

(7) Heritor - Oathbound are the only faction with native access to the entropy channel and entropy mods. That's all they need to work together well. Yeah yeah yeah Heritor action reset craziness, that's old hat, they do that with everybody. Entropy buffing is the big synergy point here, plus access to the essence charge mechanic to buff up your damage. Drained fit into oathbound armies well, coming with a single action ranged attack. Fatalism is also pretty strong here, allowing you to mind control t3 units very easily. Can this mind control cannot be dispelled by human players? Regardless, good vs marauder stacks/ sites.

hero skills: Essence shields is always great. Essence Seeker is great way to bonus the damage output of a hero.


If you enjoyed reading the tips, maybe consider watching a bit of the video. Even just a couple minutes of watch time really helps the channel out :)

[Emperor Fooble]

Glad you mentioned the field repair droid being bugged. I thought I was going crazy when my mech suits and assorted vehicles were being permanently destroyed.

One 'issue' with Oathbound so far that I've had, is that Protectors and the first support seer unit, Augers (I think thats the name, fuzzy memory) are just so good the rest of the roster doesn't have much of a place until late game when I sprinkle in the flying sword guys for hardcore AoE DPS.

Stacks of 1 seer, and 5 protectors, or 4 + a hero in a Marquis just seem rock solid until you can afford the flying sword battlesuits.

Oath of devotion, and the arc stun and chain mods make the entire faction. Right there is absurd tankyness, damage and status effects.

Oathbound also put the Dvar to shame when it comes to farming cosmite due to being able to get +2-4 cosmite per hero they have with as a city lord.

Thus far Promethium and Celestian are my favourite secret techs, but any can work given the strength of the Oathbound techs.

Promethium brings a lot - early on you have purification fields for a free action, targetable cleanse and heal which is amazing, and the wicket melee powerhouse purefiers that compliment the protectors so well, they bring damage and they can flush enemies out of cover via their incendiary grenades.
Mid game the aegis tank combined with the protector can lead to absolutely busted levels of defence - +6 shields, hazard immunity and buckets of resistance boosts. Throw in Oath of Devotion, heals and the crazy high armour and shields protectors already have and things get silly for what is a cheap army stack.
The fire nova mod is nice, and late game the rocket shooting mod just lets you end easily by handing out the ultimate siege weapon so your stacks of 15-20 combined armour/shield defence TierII blobs can sit 9 tiles away in safety.

Celestian has a few tricks, the mod that gives attackers remorse is very powerful given how tanky your units are, I love Oathbound lightbringers because their banner is so useful, a couple of those will ensure the enemy army is permanently burning which is fantastic early game, and all game during sieges for burning out colony milita and non fully modded defenders.

[Balekai]

Great job guys, very insightful stuff there and should probably be added to guides if it hasn't already. Literally all good advice and spot on. :)

A few things to note as my 2 cents:

Drone Field Repair - Does actually work. It might not in a resurgence/res situations where a hero gets knocked out of vehicle, is then killed, then brought back to life.

Intuitive Strikes - Works really well on heroes in combination with Timethread Datascrolls. That mod gives a Precognition stack at the start of every turn if you don't already have it, which garantees a 20% increase to damage for your turn on that hero, in addition to the ward (which is more useful than a flat health mod and +2 shields which Oathbound need. Works well with heavy precog stacks with or w/o mod.

Edit: Oh one more thing Overload Power Core is also a really bad choice when auto-turning during tactical combat. Sometimes the AI will decide its worth it to just eject 2 turns in when a whole bunch of enemies are clustered, basically committing hero suicide.

[snuggleform]

I enjoyed the read, is there such a thread/post for the other 7 races in equal detail? I'd love to hear thoughts on whether to lean into strengths or shore up weaknesses on other races.

[WinSlaya]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

I enjoyed the read, is there such a thread/post for the other 7 races in equal detail? I'd love to hear thoughts on whether to lean into strengths or shore up weaknesses on other races.

I think when I did those back in December last year, I put the written version only up on reddit and on the paradox interactive forums. But yeah, i split them up by secret tech at first (so like a video and a post for celestian), and I did not have guests to discuss the topics with.

[Mullahadin]

Since the discussion is shifting towards rtaher late game stuff - with stun mods and and their tier - you might want to check different route. Grab Scryer, slap Structural Integrity Diminisher for armor/shield removal and enact Seer's Crusade. Something for regen might help too. Esentially you've created a tier 1 unit that flies, has extra range at prime rank and it's damage is almost non mitigatable. Then just spam it. Works wonders, really given the cost.