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Are you fighting defensively? I find they work best in tight formations where you can protect units with the defensive abilities of protectors, and the aoe heals. Every paladin has some kind of special defensive stance, so they're good at moving up and guarding, shrugging off the alpha, then crashing into things.
Are you giving them the arc retaliation mod? It's a huge advantage in the early game for crowd control.
Aspirants are probably my favorite core unit now. I never lead with them, but they're excellent for rushing in to flank and get a solid extra hit in, and their First Strike ability means they typically get 2 strong hits in against anything they engage before they can hit them back. I have them follow the bigger battlesuits, make opportunistic attacks, and contribute their ranged attack when they can't get close enough to hit the target in melee.
Also, are you using Precognition? The first doctrine set for Oathbound should be one of the first things you rush for and the precog doctrine is amazing.
Aspirants are throwaway units with a trap mechanic for promoting them into protectors which isn't remotely worthwhile. Just build protectors from the start instead.
Once you get the cosmite production start churning out champions, then beeline for the beacon of hope mod to equip on them, at that point you've won. They are pretty much unstoppable.
I think as melee reliant troops, they really lean into the first couple mods more than ranged units would. I really struggled getting off the ground (clearing camps in the first 4-5 turns), but then after getting just a couple upgrades it really changed.
Also tried going Xenoplague with them first, which is a weak start if you hit a lot of machine/mineral enemies early on. I didn't get a pustule spawn until turn 10 or so despite infecting everything I could.
Forget wardens, they arent worth using to me. Protectors are very good melee support units with one of the best aoe heals in the game, and aspirants are more mobile trenchers with first hit melee capabilities. Its likely one of the best T1 in the game. Consider using the Warden Equis or the Warlord mech for your commander hero at start of the game, both are very good, and the Equis is superior to the Imperial APC.
Later on, you want to switch and use at least 2 Champions in every stacks. They are easily the strongest melee T3 in the game and likely the strongest melee flyer in the game. You will want to outfit them with positron arc launcher and stun modules for insane multi-stun aoe`s. The Champion also happens to have the best defensive mode in the game, everything around it will get a greatsword hit before they do anything against it. Thats 30+ free damage against 1-2-3-4+ units every turn, per champion. Ridiculously good.
Arc retaliation mods are also a must on OB units. Once they get in melee range, ever attacker is heavily punished attacking them. Focus arc research early in the game.
Most OB units have stagger resist, which is better than you think. Until mid-late game, massive stagger is fairly rare and mostly in limited use attacks.
OB Support Units are strong, but they are not damage dealers and their skills can be situational. Early game, Watchers are very useful with the adversity skill that can make up to 3 units fumble next turn, which is nothing short of amazing. The diviner can nullify status resist regardless of the value which is also very, very good.
Like others said, late game OB are almost unstoppable as attackers and likely to get nerfed in the future. As long as you maintain the offensive, you will always come out on top, especially with OB`s late mods such as oath of hope which basically heals back to full all units every tactical turn once outfitted on all units. I didnt think they could make a better mod than the assembly reassembly mod or Kirko regeneration, but they actually did lol.
OB Heroes are strong as hell in vehicles, and can likely be better heroes for other races than their native ones !
OB has a lot of absolute properties. Precognition will counter any attack. This is extremely good against AI who tends to use their strongest skills as soon as it can. Not only damage is negated but status infliction as well.
OB`s weaknesses are multiple and you need to get away from the defensive, long range mentality many other races share.
OB is very susceptible to single unit focus and mechs are fairly fragile with somewhat low HP for melee units. They dont do well against massed AOE units such as the common rail-fireburst ammo repeat fire.
They are also very vulnerable to status effects (as opposed to stagger resist which they counter).
OB also does not have access to good AOE attacks until later in the game, however has some strong AOE debuffs through fatalism and adversity, which can counter pretty much anything in the game(!).
OB armies also tend to be slow on the map. most of their units walk, with a few support floaters and 2 flyers.
OB receives some bonuses on them having good karma. That means they have to be careful about doing "evil" things like razing/migrating cities, declaring war etc. It could be argued the bonuses are not worth locking yourself in a predictable playstyle.
OB has no artillery unit and no T2 Combat Flyer which is somewhat unique among all races. Its not too much of a problem against AI but players will punish you hard for this and it will slow down your reaction speed and coverage of the map unless you can field T3 flying stacks or flyer from other races.
OB defensive militia are the weakest in the game IMO. OB benefits HARD from mods and standard units, who are already poor defensively, will struggle even more. Against AI, with most races if they attack one of my advanced cities, I can make them pay dearly for it using range, towers and tactical ops. You really dont do as well with a melee militia, trust me.
OB suffers from arc channel weakness though this can be counteracted by arc retaliation and the late game positron shield. However this means all your militia will stay weak to it.
The Examplar T4 is underwhelming IMO. It has excellent damage but is very fragile. It also doesnt bring anything new to OB at that point in the game, no special effects or anything other than pure damage and a barrier boost. Strangely enough, its dash is weaker than the champion`s. Ive largely preferred the amazing Herald of Oblivion over it.
Secret techs :
- Psynumbra provides a different damage channel, morale boosting status effects and penalties for enemies, and ranged psionic fire through the initiate and malictors which are both good units. You also get the Herald, which is likely to be the toughest melee unit in the game and can boost morale for the whole army. The consuming gaze attack is excellent to give units a ranged attack that can heal and has good accuracy. An excellent way to replace the Examplar in stacks if you dislike it like me. My favorite one so far. The Dark Knight vibe is real here. The tactical ops are not the greatest.
- Promethean provides a well rounded T2 Purifier (Closest you can have to a do-it-all unit) and good mods and effects, like the early status clearing heal. I have found no real use for the Aegis tank, which suffers from poor accuracy and doesnt bring all that much to OB. Neither do plasmoids, really. Protectors do better than both. I also feel like the Phoenix walker is not an essential unit for OB but it can fit a purpose in providing AOE melee, or to counter xenoplague. I feel like Promethean is a secret tech that can be very strong with most races however you have to invest in it a lot to reap the rewards. I can see good synergies between Champions and fire hazards, and the immolate status effect is very good against ranged units. With that being said, Promethean is the only secret tech that does not bring reliable range fire outside of limited use hazard aoes. This can be a problem. Its one of the most melee focused ST by default. You get some AOE tactical ops to compensate.
- Voidtech is underwhelming. Voidwalkers bring nothing new to the table for OB. The Phase Manipulator looks good on paper because it can use arc mods however its utility is sub-par for OB : its heal skill pulls back the unit close to the PM, which is bad for a melee centered race. The Rift Generator displaces units which can potentially push them away from your melee units, also a bad thing ! Its best mod, the quantum avatar, is also not great on OB as again it displaces units potentially away from your melee.
- Celestian is good option if you want good defensive mods for your racial units. The Lightbringer warden is forgettable and not worth using. The early status clearing tactical op is very good to help OB with its weakness to them. The Star Guides provide some psionic range fire which is always good and the ascended teacher is as usual very strong. I found celestian gameplay to be a bit boring, with somewhat passive tactical ops. The accuracy bonus from hero skills does not scale as well with OB as other races.
- Synthesis synergizes well and provides good mods as they work with pretty much all OB units. The Hacker provides 7-tile range fire and a daemon that works on biological units, the support platform is as usual very good utility. The Avatar was buffed in the latest patch, however is still a very specialized unit that shines against mechanical units. I would classify it as an odd "offensive support" unit, and it wont provide as much damage as your champion. *Might* be worth using over a diviner.
- Xenoplague has good mods for OB. Very good ones. With that being said Xeno plays around massing weak ST units and Ive never liked that gameplay style all that much so I can`t really say more about it.
- Heritor is a good secret tech on OB, but there are better choices. You get the usual Siphoner synergies however this applies to all races in the game and the Siphoner just can`t replace a watcher/diviner. The entropic mods can benefit your support units however I never felt this was a game changer. Theres also the issue that most of your frontline benefits from arc weapons so you will naturally research those first. Whereas heritor units would benefit from entropy mods. So choosing Heritor will change your playstyle. Its not bad per say.
Conclusion : I feel there are few stacks that could beat a late-game OB stacks, and the AI is unlikely to be able to use OB`s weaknesses to punish them. As a result, OB is extremely strong when used correctly, and has some of the strongest racial units in the game by far, and the best melee units in the game by far. Experience will vary heavily in multiplayer, where there glaring weaknesses will be exploited. OB will struggle hard against some STs and some races even naturally counter them (Assembly has arc damage and long range, vanguard and dvar have a ton of AOE to counter precog)
aspirants will destroy enemy units in melee. 18 damage single action means you can focus fire very well and their melee overwatch does insane damage, and even happens before enemy actions!
aspirants are currently likely the best t1 unit in the game tbh
And once you get just the first arc mod they become rapidly more deadly, since they're now 20 damage, and easily putting 2 stacks of static charge on their targets.
The rest of the units almost feel like they overloaded them with extra abilities to make up for the fact they can't take cover and yet have averagish health. Even some of their secret units feel overturned.
Their playstyle encourages lots of blobbing up though, which could make their faction as a whole really weak vs really strong AoE. However you'd have to really stack AoE damage sources for this to matter as they end up mitigating a lot of it.
They also have a lot of synergy with almost every secret tech. Including more direct synergy with heritor tech than the other factions.
Notably, they also have extra vehicle starts for their commander. Which can make the early game a breeze depending on secret tech.
Yeah. Their purifier is insanely powerful. Seems like it would be weak vs air neutrals since it's melee, and then you find out it can melee air units instead of wasting it's AoE ranged attack. Definently a secret tech unit you want to get early.
On top of that their commander has a vehicle start where they get a paladin purifier, so you basically double up on your secret tech unit at the start.
Can they? I know the Warlord and the Protector can hit air targets, but I could have sworn I tried targeting a flying target with a purifier and it wouldn't let me.
the void walker in your startunit already enove to come out of every fight without looses, thnx to the copy and there inherited firststrike.
and later you just teleport any of your battlesuits into melee thnx to voidmods.
what also helps a ton is the first doctrine of OB that gives each unit precog at start of each fight.