Another Oberon Guide

Hello aspiring Oberons and also hello to long time Oberon users want to compare or judge my build, or if your just someone who REALLY likes the Oberon Feyarch Skin. You might have noticed as I have the guides for warframes have really been packed full of oberon builds of late. When I started useing oberon there was only 1 or 2 guides I could find, Both of which were out dated. I do not claim my builds are the best nor that other ones suck. What I will say that this is the build I personally use, and the build i've found most useful in sorties.

Disclaimer

I'd like to say this before i start all of this If this guide is similar to yours or even seemingly an exact copy of yours I do apologize this has been my build for months and months now. As i said above when i made my oberon i couldn't find any current or up to date guides i ended up making this build using ideas I used from some of my other warframe builds of which i've been using for years now. Please note I've also not really looked at every released guide for Oberon nor do i plan too. Theres really only so many ways you can put mods on a warframe before they all seem to look similar to one another.

Oberon, or Auberon The Fae King

So I know there's been a lot of talk about how Oberon is either the worse warframe in the game or he's secretly the master race. I'm not going to sit here and feed you some nonsense about Oberon being this "ober"powered warframe. I have no delusions of grandeur about Oberon he's not the best warframe, he's barely even a utility warframe. If you’re just playing Oberon for for utility this is simple duration build with some power strength. The only utility he can do is healing with raids, later i'll explain his skills and how duration effects his heals. Oberon is a survivor, he's sort of tanky, he's sort of DPS, he's a healer and a CC. My build tries to keep these things well balanced. I will say this before hand his skills are great early game but when you get to foes 50 or above his skills really start to lack behind and then at that point it’s just you trying to keep everything radiated. When you’re doing your sortie 3 you might find yourself using heal A LOT more then you'd need to with other frames.

I will tell you he is a challenge for end game material but it’s a good thing. If you don't like a challenge there are plenty of other warframes that make end game straight up easy mode -cough- Ash. I got to the point of playing where I just wasn't having fun anymore, missions were boring and easy there was no thrill anymore no skill it was all just casters or shooting. I decided one random day I was going to pick one of the worst rated frames and just pile as much of my understanding of warframe into playing that class, I fully expected to fail and if i'da picked hydroid this might have been a completely different outcome. Oberon has always been an awesome idea for me, Auberon King of the Fae just sounded cool. It's just something that stood out from the other frames. Oberon was one of the first frames i made as it is many other people's it’s probably one of the easiest frames to get.

When i first tried him I REALLY liked him but there was so much hate thrown at him at the time. I was new to the game so I just followed the crowd, hell I stopped using bows at the time because my guild said I was wasting DPS using a bow when i could be using something like a Soma. So i gave up on Oberon for over a year or two, I followed the crowd i said he was bad I mean I still loved the way he looked and the idea of him but I felt disappointed in how DE created him, and in some ways I still do. I still think oberon should get a buff or revamp, I'd love for him to be better but the more I played him the more I realised he's not bad I was. I became so depended on certain weapons or skills to carry me through a map, and I feel like playing oberon has made me better with all my frames just because I now look at it all differently. I now mainly use a bow and oberon, and still get away from sorites with best damage (assuming there’s no ash) rarely do i use anything else anymore. If there’s one thing to take away from this guide Ash is easy mode, and play the game the way you want too if you want to have the best DPS frame and weapon then do so. If you want to play a healer only do so. If you want to be a frost and sit in your bubble do so, don't let other people tell you a frame is bad or useless. Remember that it may not be that a thing is bad but rather they are bad at being or using that thing. I'm going to assume no one actually read all this and just get on to the actual guide.

Skills and Effects

Oberon's skills and how you use them really change what each build is and which is better suited for you while playing him.

Your passive: Beast master

"All wildlife (neutral or enemy) within a 10 meter range of Oberon will temporarily become allied, fighting for Oberon for 20 seconds."

At first it seems useless, and against Corpus it is. against higher level Grineer however it can really cause massive confusion not only for the foe but for your comrades, I still crack up when party members shoot dogs or cats over and over wondering why its not taking damage. I found this passive way more useful than I expected it to be when it came out. I offten don't even aim at animals anymore because if they arent working for me yet they will be soon. Most of the animals end up dieing before the 20 secs is up anyway so rarely do you have to kill them yourself.

Your number 1 skill: Smite

"Focuses deadly energy within a target and then projects it outwards, damaging both the target and surrounding enemies."

This is probably going to be your most used skill, when in doubt knock them over. Basicly what this skill does depending on the range on your build when you aim at a foe and press one on them it'll be sort of like a magic punch knocking down the first target then it will explode into 6 little bladed orbs that seek out the nearest target and also hit them. This skill can be used to create the radiation effect causing the foes to attack one another rather than you, this is not 100% but it’s enough that this can really save you if you need to rez someone and you don't have enough energy for Reckoning. Something exceedingly useful that most guides don't mention is this skill can be used while reloading or aiming down a bow/charge weapon without losing the charge/reload. This pairs well with weapons that have a horrible reload time for example my favorite secondary is Twin Grakata i LOVE that weapon and clem, however the reload time is absolutly terrible where with most frames you'd probably want to put a quicker reload on the Twin Grakata with Oberon you can spam Smite while reloading spreading radiation and or killing any remaining foes not killed by your Twin Grakata.

What Effects Smite and how
Power Duration: Effects the amount of time those homing orbs stay alive to home on enemies
Power Strength: Makes the skill stronger but also effects how many orbs are released on the initial impact, max of 17
Power Range: This is a bit misleading the homing orbs are only effected by duration. This only effects the casting distance.

Your Number 2 Skill: Hallowed Ground

"Sanctifies the ground before Oberon with righteous fire, inflicting damage to any enemy that stands in the flames."

I'll be honest out of the 4 skills this one is the one i use the least. Its not that its a bad skill its just to make it a good skill makes it cost a lot of energy, most of the time i use this for farming low level survivals at choke points. With an Trin i do use the bonus ability which increases armor while standing in it

Power Duration: The time in which the AOE is up
Power Strength: Makes the skill stronger and effects how much armor the buff gives you while standing in it.
Power Range: This'll effect the overall size of the AOE, the more range you have the bigger the AOE is.

Your Number 3 Skill: Renewal

"Healing waves of energy flow outward from Oberon to his allies, regenerating health over time."

Basically When you cast this you instantly get the healing effect and orbs fly from you and find other teammates draining energy from you until everyone is fully healed. This also works on your own pets/sentinels does not work on allies pets/sentinels. This heal could be better if it was instant but the fact you have to wait for the orbs to find your teammate can really drain energy quickly, In addition to healing if someone goes down and you cast it after their death it'll increase their bleed out timer this can be EXTREMELY useful in raids, bleed outs lasting for minutes depending on your duration.

Power Duration: This is a bit wonky. The higher your Duration the quicker you and teammates heal, Effects the bleedout timer.
Power Strength: Effects the overall amount of health it will heal, Higher strength higher health per cast.
Power Range: Has absolutely no effect on this heal, those orbs will always find someone no matter the distance.

Your Number 4 Skill: Reckoning

"Quickly lifts enemies into the air and then hurls them down with conviction. Enemies who succumb to this power have a chance to spawn a Health Sphere."


Your grand slam skill, IMO one of the best looking 4 skills in the game. With the right energy color you can really just make art in motion. Its a skill you want to cast over and over, sadly towards end game content it's damage really drops down so building oberon purely for Reckoning where as fun is really kinda pointless end game. This skill will cause a confusion effect on any enemies it hits and any enemies that see the reckoning but are not hit by it will be blinded, they have to be facing a target being reckoned. Each foe that is caught by reckoning is not only confused but is also knocked down. Foes killed by this will drop health orbs. I Highly recommend using the augment for this skill even at the loss of some power strength that radiation tick/effect can really dominate a battlefield. If paired with equilibrium enemies that are killed by reckoning can give you enough energy to recast assuming enough foes are hit and killed.


Power Duration: This'll effect the time in which observers are blinded for does not effect the radiation effect.
Power Strength: purely effects damage.
Power Range: Effects both the cast radius but also the blind radius from each reckoned foe.

Builds

I have two builds, one has more strength the other is more CC control for higher difficulties. Out of the two I prefer the CC build simply because the heal is better and hallowed ground is actually useable. Both build absolutely require rage, rage is extremely crucial to my builds as without it you will go down... a lot. The reason rage is so crucial is your energy is based on the damage to your health, meaning if you’re being attacked you will be able to either counter or heal yourself. I’ve kinda been calling this my machicist build, I often stand in fire or mines just so i can gain enough energy to cast reckoning or heal. I’ve tried not using rage but without it i almost never have enough energy to keep myself afloat.

Power Strength Build

This is my old build, for those who demand their warframe to deal massive damage per spell cast.

Pros: The cost of skills is nice and low, and the damage high. Lower duration allows for enemies to not be blinded by those reckoned but rather them instantly attack the now irritated comrade that’s knocked over.

Cons: The duration is low meaning heals aren't as good each heal is a good amount but it takes much longer to heal over time. This could be a good pairing with phoenix renewal since that augment only works if the person was being healed at the time of death but adding that mod you’d have to remove one of the ones above. Low duration also means Reckoning’s blind is near non existent meaning the CC isn’t strong with this build. Hallowed ground is basicly useless.

Hollowed Reckoning Build

This is my current build, and IMO the better of the two. I’m generally a bit of a power hoar when it comes to my warframes but I found the higher level missions i was pretty much tickling the foes and not really CCing well enough since my str was high enough to kill the foes mostly the following radiation effect meant they started with lower health causing a smaller window of distraction.

Pros: Hallowed Ground actually lasts more than 1 second making it much more of a useful skill as you can place it down and camp it, each cast of hallowed ground stacks the armor bonus so this can really help you or a moving defend target in higher defence missions. Reckoning is now beaster than it was before, each foe lifted up by reckoning when slammed back down creates a sort of aoe lightning orb that causes a radiation tick for anything in it for 250 damage per tick and causes confusion for any foe that touches the AOE. If that wasn’t enough if you stand in those AOE clouds you get the same effect you would from Hallowed ground. This is really useful if you need to rez someone surrounded by foes because not only are they fighting amongst themselves but now you have an armor buff and they are taking a small damage over time. Your heal works a lot better it’s less heal per cast than the strength build but you heal a lot faster.

Cons: The cost to cast is a lot higher which is a massive bummer on energy reduction sorties/nightmares you can’t even cast reckoning. Hallowed Reckoning isn’t affected by your duration mods meaning those AOE clouds always last the same amount of time with or without duration mods. Healing an Inaros can really drain your energy fast if you’re not paying attention.

Focus Tree

In all honesty you can use any focus you like Oberon isn't limited to any set weapon style or play style, you can go melee if you like. In fact i often do when fighting infested they always do enough damage that i can keep healing myself an reckoning in melee range to basicly build myself a fort of Hallowed Reckoning clouds. So with that knowledge you can go Naramon for those melee perks or even go for Zenurik for the energy buff. I personally go for pure New Moon Vazarin, I find it useful for literally all frames I started using it for my Ash build so i could press 3 and teleport straight to a target and rez them and go back into blade storm, but I ended up just keeping it on all the time. Obviously it’s useless for solo runs so Zenurik or Naramon would be better for those respectively. For those asking what a pure moon Vazarin looks like;

Annotations

I wanted to make a section to say thank you for reading all this nerd talk, hopefully you find it somewhat understandable and useful. If you have any other questions all be glad to anwser them, if this goes well i might put up some of my other builds for different warframes. I typically make builds for a few of my friends, and I often just take a warframe and turn it on its head to see what certain mods will and wont help and how.

All my Credits go to The Warframe Wiki[warframe.wikia.com] for the skill "quoted" discriptions. Also Thank You DE! for making this wonderful game. Hopefully they don't screw up his revamp and some how make him worse, but I have faith in them.

[Buddhakingpen]

I respect the amount of time it takes to make the guide, but come really high level play level, i dont feel that all of the power strength is necessary. . I found going max efficiency and range lets me spam his 1 and 4,keeping him much safer from the high level one shots.

[Mister_E]

u should probably add that hallowed ground makes u immune to debuffs and removes debuffs when u step on it :D

[Saturn]

#OBERONMASTERRACE

[duddles]

An Oberon guide that doesn't tell you to not play him. Thank you.

[Chipputer]

@lemunas You clearly don't know how to define CC then. CC is not just, "turns off their AI and makes them sitting ducks." He literally disables them for a very short period, then confuses everything that he hit, causing them to fight amongst each other. That is, by definition, CC.

Furthermore, comparing one frame that can do 3 to 4 different jobs to four other frames that can do one single job is completely disingenuous of the community to constantly do. That Oberon being able to temporarily control while healing is going to be a godsend when your Trinity and Nyx both go down and you don't have an opening to revive them. He fills roles that other frames aren't currently filling or he supports those that are currently filling those roles.

[Stahl]

I always shunned Oberon, but I do love challenge, and the day Titania hit the shores I decided to pick up Oberon and give him some forma loving, I do agree with most points, but I'd definitely run phoenix renewal since it has saved my butt countless of times. I also use Arcane Grace on Oberon. All in all nice well explained guide!
@lemunas Yes, but if you still ask why, you certainly did not read the entire thing.

[lemunas]

Why do people keep trying to make guides on how to play Oberon well? The issue is with his current balance relative to other warframes. Trinity is far better at healing and nothing Oberon has (yes, even his 4) can really be considered CC.

[LumenFox]

I read through the entire thing doesn't seem so bad but I play trinity and nyx most of the time so healing and Crowd Conrtrol are two things I almost always have covered and my focus is Vazarin but i got it recently so I don't quite have new moon yet to allow my to res allies while in my focus