Warframe: All Oberon rework details

A major Oberon rework is finally about to make it into Warframe with the Vallis Undermind update this October. Originally introduced way back in The Cicero Crisis, Oberon has long beared the weight of being a 2013 Warframe outdated by years of powercreep. With this update, his kit will finally be more palatable compared to current-gen frames, and even provide unique opportunities in some cases.

Said unique opportunity is a single-click Overguard removal. The real impact of this rework remains to be seen until we get to play it on October 15. However, with all the details we have from Devstream 189, Oberon seems like a potentially great candidate to run Void Cascades.

All Changes to Oberon coming in Warframe: The Vallis Undermind

Righteous Negation is Oberon's new central pillar (Image via Digital Extremes)

To put things back into a 2025 standard, Oberon now has his own form of soft-invulernability based on charges called Righteous Negation. This comes with a trio of highly visible shield sprites that orbits Oberon when he has stacks, so it's actually easier to track than the average Mesmer Shield.

New Passive: Righteous Negation

Picking up a health orb (or a universal orb) generates a Righteous Negation charge for Oberon and Allies within Affinity radius. Oberon and his Allies each have individual caps of 3 Righteous Negation charges. If a player has a Righteous Negation Charge, they are invulnerable to incoming damage.

When incoming damage is blocked, one Righteous Negation Charge is expended. If a player has multiple Righteous Negation Charges, they will remain Invulnerable and receive a small 0.25 second cooldown before an additional Righteous Negation Charge can be depleted.
If the damage removes their final Righteous Negation, players will be granted an additional 0.25 seconds of Invulnerability.

Changes to Smite (First Ability)

Developer Note: "Smite is a fairly straightforward ability that can be modded for maximum efficiency on a single target. We want to focus and elevate its strength as a Single Target ability, while smoothing out some of its quirks."

Smite’s Target is now completely stripped of Overguard and Armor, and loses 35% of its current Health (specifically Health and Shields) in an instant (capped at 75%).
The target is also force Staggered and opened to Melee Finishers.
Smite does not bypass Shields, so those affect the final damage to Health.
Enemies within 6m of the Target receive 50% of the damage dealt and are impacted by Stagger. With this change, this Warframe update also removes Smite’s secondary seeking projectiles.
If Smite is cast into a tight group of enemies, Eximus units will be prioritized as the Target.
The Smite Infusion Augment mod is not changed.

Changes to Hallowed Ground (Second Ability)

Developer Note: "Hallowed Ground is a useful tool in Oberon’s kit, but needed a general quality of life pass — namely to improve its overall modding flexibility and bring it up to 2025 gameplay standards."

Hallowed Ground is now a full circle. Ability Range increases its radius instead of the arc.
Also increased the height of Hallowed Ground to affect both flying enemies and double-jumping allies alike.
Due to the increased size of Hallowed Ground, the maximum number of Hallowed Ground reduced from 4 to 3.
Nullifiers no longer destroy Hallowed Ground.
Instead, their bubbles simply Nullify its effects for anyone inside it.
Radiation Damage from Hallowed Ground now gives guaranteed Radiation Status Effects (previously was a 15% chance at max rank).
Renewal healing is doubled while standing on Hallowed Ground.
The Iron Renewal armor buff no longer requires interaction with Hallowed Ground. See the Renewal Changes below for more information!
Removed the Armor Stripping from enemies that survive Reckoning, as that mechanic is now being added to Reckoning itself.
See the Reckoning Changes below for more information!
The Status Effect cleansing and immunity is unchanged for Oberon and his Allies.
Hallowed Eruption Warframe Augment mod: Increased Hallowed Ground Duration from +100% to +200%.

Changes to Renewal (Third Ability)

Developer Note: "Renewal is often compared to Wisp’s Reservoirs, in that the latter heals more for less energy. The goal of our changes to this ability are to amplify and simplify Renewal’s effects to offer more impact."

Removed the increased Energy Cost per target. Renewal now costs a flat 3.5 Energy per second it is active, regardless of the number of allies it is healing.
Renewal’s range is now Oberon’s Affinity Range. Previously, casting Renewal would apply this effect to a set area on the map. Now it moves with Oberon instead of applying only in a static zone.
Players affected by Renewal are given the Iron Renewal buff, which increases Armor by 50% for the casting Oberon and 100% for Allies.
Renewal no longer stacks with other Renewals.
The most effective Renewal will take priority if players are in range of multiple casts.
Updated Renewal’s VFX to make it clearer when it is being channelled.
Players can identify when Renewal is active by the crown of energy around Oberon’s brow.
Phenix Renewal Warframe Augment mod: Reduced the cooldown from 90s to 60s.

Changes to Reckoning (Fourth Ability)

Developer Note: "Reckoning is a visually impressive ability, but unfortunately lacks the actual power expected of an ultimate. With his rework, we are increasing the overall damage output and are changing some of the ability synergies to now be base kit."

Reckoning now only targets enemies in Oberon's Line of Sight!
Increased the bonus damage to enemies affected by Radiation Status Effects from a flat 625 to 750 per stack of Radiation. In other words, the damage is doubled if the target has maximum Radiation stacks.
With the guaranteed Radiation Status Effects to those standing on Hallowed Ground, it should be easier to ensure they receive that Bonus Damage.
Oberon receives 10 Armor per enemy hit.
Bonus Armor is capped at 1000, and persists for 30s.
The Bonus Armor cap does not scale, but the Duration can be increased by Mods.
Enemies affected by Radiation Status give an additional 5 Armor per hit.
Surviving enemies have 50% of their armor permanently removed.
This mechanic was originally tied to Hallowed Ground, but that interaction is no longer required to remove armor. Otherwise, the armor reduction is unchanged, as it was a critical part of Oberon’s kit.
All enemies hit by Reckoning have a 50% chance of dropping a Health Orb upon death, regardless of whether they were killed by Reckoning or not.
Reckoning no longer Blinds enemies.
Slightly increased casting speed.
Hallowed Reckoning Warframe Augment mod: The bonus armor granted from Hallowed Reckoning patches now has a grace period; the buff will remain active for 3s after leaving the radius. Reduced the VFX of the patches that spawn on the ground, as they could be visually overwhelming.

On the whole, this does not make Oberon as tanky as post-rework Valkyr, or nearly as useful of a support-frame as Citrine. Yet, Smite's on-demand Overguard removal and relatively accessible durability charges (with Arcane Atomic Fallout and/or Helminth Dispensary, for example) means Oberon is a far better Warframe on paper.

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About the author

Sambit Pal is an esports Journalist on Gaming and MMO at Sportskeeda. He has Master's degree in English Literature. In his spare time, he is an amateur sleuth trying to trace the Riven Mafia in Warframe, and a recovering Bethesda modding addict. He also secretly enjoys action Roguelites, a severe lack of gitting gud notwithstanding.

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Edited by Sambit Pal