I regularly see Regulus, Erebus, and Unclean Beast, and even the odd Sedna soundly trouncing Oak. Not seeing a issue, in my experiences.

Oak's one of those Demigods that's a bit harder to play, but once you get the basic idea of how to play him, he becomes freaking Demigodly. An Oak with a plan is a dangerous sonnuvabitch, and he'll let you know it. Definetly a very powerful character. Honestly, I really have no real counters for the guy. Just outlast and outfight. If you can get past his sheild and still be in good condition to kill him, you might just stand a chance. Although once you do kill him, prepare to run. Last Stand is insane.

I guess the thing about Oak is that he has no (or very few) hard counters, and like Erebus, is also very versatile.

Oak is my favorite DG to play, although hes also the hardest. I won't say i'm a great oak player because i'm not. I get trounced often enough, but I've also done some serious trouncing.

As everyone knows, early game is Oaks biggest weakness. Midgame Oak can start causing havoc if he is allowed to pull too far ahead of you in equipment & levels. Endgame, with a full compliment of artifact gear and HoL I can camp your crystal and kill 2 to 3 DG's at once in front of your citadel. I don't often play games that get so far into it, but its fun when it happends.  

The biggest trouble with playing Oak is that he is pretty slow, and pretty squishy. He is very gear dependent early on and desperately needs health and mana items to go toe to toe with anyone. 

This means early game money is everything. If I can get 2 or 3 DG kills by level 5 or 6 and maybe a few assists - I'm in business.

The games where I've gotten absolutely raped have been when enemy DG's played smart and denied our team ANY kills whatsoever. Even if they don't kill us, the fact that Oak needs that infusion of cash generally puts him way behind the curve in terms of staying/killing power. 

For most DG's don't be afraid to toe to toe with a solo Oak in the early game. Many times he will run and/or die (unless you're TB - Don't get close if you're TB. Range is your friend, and don't bother with your fire circle). 

As an overall strategy just keep harrassing him and keeping him out of the lanes farming creeps as much as possible.

Another tip for generals - Don't bring tons of minions to help you post level 5. With Surge of Faith I can lay waste to your early minions and with Divine Justice they feed me health. The more powerful the minion, the more health they feed me. 

Watch for penitence. Most oak players will use it early, and then again after the short cooldown. Wait to get hit with it before casting big dmg big cast time spells, or stay far enough outside his radius.

Pull oak away from the creep paths. Creeps are oak's best friend. They turn into his spirts and provide him health. Surge of Faith will kill weak creeps outright so a big creep wave will help him not hurt him.

Watch for shield. If i see rook doing his hammer slam I know to throw up my shield. If you see him turn shiny in the middle of a cast, just cancel the spell and wait 2 or 3 seconds. Shield has a high cooldown so once he's usd it, you know you're in good shape for another 30 seconds. 

Late game, silencing artifacts and anti-heal auras are your best friend. 

The nice thing about playing against oak is that since he is such a tricky DG to excel in you can rest assured that most Oak players are not top notch. Controlling his kills and his farming is the key to victory.

If at the end of the day you get beat by Oak, just rest assured you got outplayed/out teamworked - so chalk it up to a learning experience and try again.  

I think you meant Surge of Faith, Daniel, not Soul Power.

That said, I'm an Oak player myself and in the hand of a good player Oak is very powerful. Penitence might have been a bit overdone in the damage department though. I'd lower the damage done and buff up the damage increase and the snare on target (5% per level for max 20%) to lower spike damage.

Oak should be powerful for staying alive long enough to deal his damage, not because of Penitence constant burst with good mana items.

Yeah you're right, soul power is not what I meant - the divine justince + surge of faith is the combo I was referring to. 

Soul power is a good early game ability to grab, then I dump more points into it later in the game if I've bumped up my raise dead during the course of the game. 

That being said, raise dead + soul power + attack speed items is an excellent combo for a melee oriented Oak. X-Raider is right, the skills seam to work so well together.

I dont find penitence that OP, but then again I tend to error on the side of few skills being really in the range of OP. Most DG skills are deadly in the hands of a skilled player. 

I believe Oak should be the model for ballance in this game. Why? Because every last ability he has is good. Unlike, say, Sedna where you never take minions, or QoT where uproot is kinda useless, Oak has a range of abilities that all work and are all good at what they do. The trick against Oak is DO NOT let him get started. Also, if you have less than 1k hp, get clear. Penitance will eat most of that, and then Oaks autoattack will finish you. Remember, discretion is the better part of valor.

The only time I've had a problem against an Oak was when there were 2 of them. Otherwise he's pretty easy to take down.

Last Stand is extremely annoying though, I'll give you that.

Oak is Balanced. I truly hope Stardock does not listen to all these threads. It WILL COMPLETELY ruin the damn game. Seriously please try another strategy. Only thing that needs to be looked at for Oak is Last Stand. A *slight* decrease in duration and dmg. I do mean *slight*

All my posts are obviously my opinion.. so don't waste your time flaming me.

I view Oak and Rook as being the same tier as Erebus pre-nerf. Take that however you will.

The only Nerf I see oak needing is letting you cancel his HoL when he's shielded. Too many times I've had to slowly work an oak down to negligable hitpoints remaining, only to have him shield up and HoL while continuing to fight. It's ridiculous. He's easy enough to deal with normally, but I do think there needs to be something done to stop this clearly unfair advantage over other demigods (at least the other demi's need to retreat a bit before popping the heart)

That cancels heart? Not that my char has a stun... But thanks! I'll remember to make my ally do it next time I Play