TheGodofWiFi

The difference between Hydroid and those frames you mentioned is simple; mechanics. All of those frames abilities were mechanically sound and just needed simple stat tweaks, but not huge fundamental changes to things like animations, AI, projectile speed, casting speed, RNG placement etc etc. Hydroid has all of those issues, whereas the other frames did not. Hydroid's abilities, mechanically, are some of the worst designed in the game. Tempest Barrage's projectiles are unreliable, can get caught on terrain, come down at a weird angle and you don't really have any specific control of them, only the general area in which they land. Same issues can be found in Tentacle Swarm; you have little to no control over the Tentacles spawn points beyond the initial cast. Most of the time 50% of the tentacles spawn in absolutely useless places, like on a high wall or ceiling that no enemy every goes, or under a crate or floor. The Tentacles were designed to be used in the old enclosed spaceship tilesets back when Warframe was still a corridor-shooter. In the wider maps we've gotten over the years, this reliance on the environment has really shown its flaws. Their animations also janky as all hell and sometime do not even register enemies. Then we have Tidal Surge. This ability is Excalibur's old Slash Dash in everything but name. Pointless travel ability that only ever gets use because of its augment, which sums up Hydroid as a whole really; only ever used because of his augments and if they didn't exist Hydroid would have been put at the back of the shelf far sooner than he was. Undertow. I mean what can I say about this ability that hasn't been said already. Puddle Pirate. It's an absolutely joke of an ability that sounds marginally useful on paper (without context), but is actually the CEO of Useless and Boring Skills Inc. In my mind at the very least, Undertow and Tentacle Swarm need to be replaced or reworked to the point where they are new abilities entirely. Hydroid needs a lot more work than those other frames for the aforementioned reasons. Inaros is boring, there is no doubt about that. However the major difference between him and Hydroid is that Inaros works. He's mind-numbingly dull yes, but he works. His kit was designed to do one thing; give him health and it does that very well. People use Inaros quite a lot because his kit and concept is so brain-rottingly simple, it just allows you to turn your brain off when playing the game. Hydroid on the other hand, does not work at anything he sets out to do. CC? Rubbish. Damage? Rubbish. Utility? Rubbish. He fails in the main three categories where a frame is supposed to do well in at least one of them. He is garbage. Inaros is one of those frames where his kit just needs tweaking and it could be made into something more entertaining to use. He does not a full new set of abilities. Hydroid on the other hand, most certainly does as he can do nothing good.

Swarm breaking over-guard only ever happens on low to mid-level enemies. Beyond that it is useless. Again, you keep taking the context out of things to make Hydroid appear better than he is. Also, as has been said before; you do all of this extra busy-work with Hydroid, when there are frames out there who can deal with Eximus units far more efficiently and in a much less boring way. People hate hold-to-cast because it is detrimental in a game like Warframe where two seconds can literally mean life and death at high level. It is a completely pointless mechanic. You say its good because you get to double the radius and duration of abilities, but the thing is; why can't the abilities just be at max duration and radius to begin with? Why does Hydroid need this limitation when other frames who do what he does, do not have it? His abilities already take a second or so to actually activate once his ability animation is finished, so it takes 3-4 seconds for Tempest Barrage and Tentacle Swarm to actually do anything when you first hold the button. It's not like the abilities are over-powered so removing the charge mechanic and just giving Hydroid his full duration and radius would not break the game. So again, what is the point of having them at all? They are nothing but a detriment. If DE were going to start anywhere in a Hydroid rework, it would be to remove the charge mechanics. Also again; Hydroid never originally had charge mechanics. DE added the charge mechanics in his rework purely so it looked like they had done something in order to sell his Prime Access pack and the most bitter thing is that they nerfed the original duration and radius of his abilities in order to justify the charge-mechanics existence. They nerfed Hydroid.

Yes because you keep trying to claim that Hydroid's current kit is salvageable and can work with simple tweaks. It cannot. Hydroids identity is pirate-themed Warframe with control over the element of water. His identity is not his current four abilities. It's thinking like yours that is what is currently holding Hydroid back; you somehow believe that his kit mechanics absolutely must not be changed or else he'll loose his identity....somehow and so you try and update his abilities via simple stat tweaks. But again, Hydroid simply cannot be fixed with stat tweaks as his mechanics are the problem. His current kit needs to be completely reworked from the ground up. Again Hydroids identity is water-based frame. His current kit does an absolutely abysmal job of implementing that identity to its full potential. That needs to change. Hydroid is a very rare case in which a warframe needs a complete overhaul. That is half my argument, with the other half being Hydroid does nothing better than any other frame. He tries to do a bit of everything; utility, damage, CC and he falls short in literally of those categories. He has nothing that he can do better than other frames. Every frame in this game has an area they excel in and an area they do not. Your attempt at showing examples of how other frames do things better, also is pretty base-level. Regarding your example of Frost vs Limbo; they both have different flavours of a defence bubble. However, Cataclysm is not necessarily superior to Snow Globe and vice versa. They each have their own benefits and drawbacks compared to each other. Snow Globe for example, whilst not a timed ability like Cataclysm, can still allow allies to shoot out of it and also slows enemies who enter it. Cataclysm, while having a much larger AOE and can stop enemies in their tracks, it does not allow allies to shoot enemies outside of it and you have to unpause the Stasis in order for enemies to properly enter the bubble or else they stutter constantly near the edge and make it hard for the allies to shoot as they keep popping in and out of the Rift repeatedly. It's very finnicky. So again there are benefits and drawbacks to both abilities and neither one of them is superior to the other. They bring an equal amount to the table. Hydroids abilities do not. There are no benefits at all to using them over another ability as every other ability you put them up against, they are sub-par. So again, my argument is that Hydroid does nothing good at all. He tries to be a student of everything and subsequently is the master of nothing. As wide as an ocean but as deep as a puddle. Also you do realise you are undermining your own request for a change for a rework by going down this route. Reworks are justified by the fact that other frames do things better. It is why people do not like to use Hydroid, because there are better options out there for achieving what Hydroid tries to do. Justifying a rework by pointing out that X, Y, Z does things better, is 100% valid and has been since reworks first became a thing. Warframes get reworked because they get outclassed by other frames and/or because they are utterly boring in the case of Inaros. And in the face of all this; Hydroid literally has no reason to exist. Everything he does, other frames do better and he has absolutely no benefits at all over any other frame in the entire game. That is why he needs to be changed. You acknowledge that other frames do it better, but still don't want his kit changed even though that is precisely what he needs. Hydroid has zero advantages that would make anyone seriously consider using him over any of the other frames you mentioned here. You really need to let go of the idea that Hydroid's core kit is his identity, because it isn't. His theme is his identity and it can be expressed/implemented in much better ways than it is currently. All of his kit needs to undergo substantial changes, that put his abilities on par with the aforementioned frames. They do not have to be the same, but they have to bring some tangible, useful benefits to the table that would make a player stop and actually think about whether they should take a Hydroid or a Wukong into a mission. That is the thing; you cannot make Hydroid work by sticking with his current kit mechanics. All attempts to do so have failed and all attempts at synergy have just made him even worse. His current kit cannot be salvaged mate with simple stat tweaks mate, you need to acknowledge that as its not an opinion, it is a stone-cold, iron-clad, full-proof fact. DE introduced synergy into Hydroid with his last and only "rework" so far and all it did, was exacerbate his underlying issues. It made him worse. Your proposal also does not do anything to fix Hydroid because again, his current kit is fundamentally flawed at the mechanical level and is both useless and boring. It has been nearly ten years since Hydroid was introduced mate. It is time to stop holding onto his outdated, inefficient and utterly boring kit. As an analogy its like you are stubbornly trying to hold onto an old, barely functional 1983 Motorla DynaTAC telephone instead of just getting a new smartphone. You cannot and will not ever be able to make Hydroid work with simple tweaks to his abilities. They need a full overhaul to their mechanics entirely. The abilities you believe makes Hydroid who he is, are garbage. That is a fact. The way his abilities are implemented, hold him back. Your stubborn insistence that his abilities must not be changed mechanically, hold him back. The fact you unironically point out that 90% of Hydroids rework suggestions want to get rid of his current kit, again shows how out of touch you are with the community and Hydroids dire state. If 90% of rework suggestions are saying Hydroid current kit is unsalvageable garbage, that is a clear sign that something is wrong with his kit. What makes Hydroid who he is, is his theme. His powers are merely an expression of said theme, but they are not Hydroid whole identity. And even if they were, that is not a defence against a rework, because his powers are simply crap and why on earth would anyone want to play a warframe who's identity is based on being crap? It's not an opinion. You yourself have admitted that it provides literally no benefits over any other kit in the game. What do you call something that has no benefits and only drawbacks? You provided a meme build in which someone invested heavily into helminth abilities and archon shards and even after all that time and effort, Hydroids DPS was still below average. Again, that is with another frames ability, full mods and five archon shards and he was still below average in damage. Also I like how you immediately try to excuse his low damage by saying he is a CC frame. Again; he sucks at CC as well as its unreliable, janky and inefficient. Again, Hydroid fails at everything. Try and go any angle you want with him; damage, CC, utility, he is terrible at them all. Hydroid tries to be everything and excels at nothing. Yes you definitely need to swot-up on your knowledge of Waframes because Vauban and Hydroid are not the only ones with area-denial capability. Also again, even if Hydroid was the only area-denial frame in the game, people would not bother using him because the way he is implemented is rubbish. Area-denial is also definitely not as important as it once was way back in 2014 Warframe when everything was about CC. Hydroid was even considered sub-par back then too, just for the record. Stop trying to hold onto an outdated kit. Hydroid needs a full mechanical overhaul. It can only make Hydroid better and I have no idea why you are so opposed to it. Hydroid will not loose his identity, he will not stop being a water frame he will not being a pirate frame. He will just get a set of actually useful abilities.

Just throwing some more ideas/concepts at the wall for a Hydroid rework that aims to bring him up to speed with Warframes current gameplay flow and to make him an actually viable choice against other Warframes. HYDROID REWORK SUGGESTION 2023 Old Passive - 50% chance for a slam attack to create a tentacle. New Passive - Enemies affected by Hydroids abilities suffer a new ten second status-ailment exclusive to him, known as "Drenched". Enemies affected by the Drench ailment will take an extra 75% damage from all sources. If you are using Hydroid himself, this bonus increases to 100%. Using Hydroids abilities on enemies refreshes the status ailment timer. --- Old First Ability: Tempest Barrage - Target an area and call down a barrage of liquid fury. Charge this attack to increase the lethality of the onslaught. Reworked First Ability: "Tempest Barrage" - Charge mechanic removed, the ability will have max duration base duration on the initial cast. Ability now creates an area of continuous rain instead of single projectiles that explode. Enemies entering the ability AOE will have their movement slowed by at base 35%, and the rain will be corrosive (not the status effect) which means it will slowly deplete enemy health. Ability is affected by range, duration and strength mods. --- Old Second Ability: Tidal Surge - Crash through enemies in a ferocious wall of water. Reworked Second Ability: "Riptide" - Ability no longer takes Hydroid with it, but instead Hydroid sends out a wave in a cone that increases in width the further out it goes. The wave also leaves behind an Undertow trail that enemies can fall into and the puddle can be shot to apply procs and increases the scaling drowning damage. Enemies caught in the initial wave will also automatically be dragged underneath into the Undertow trap and will remain there until the ability timer expires or you kill them. The wave is affected by range mods and the Undertow trail is affected by duration mods. --- Old Third Ability: Undertow - Become a water trap and drown unsuspecting enemies. (Undertow will be reworked into Riptide as its second function and will no longer be Hydroid's third ability.) New Third Ability: "Ocean's Blessing" - Hydroid will turn into a water form of himself, granting him 90% damage reduction and make himself immune to status procs. While this ability is active, it also siphons health from killing "Drenched" enemies, with the amount of health gained being increased by strength mods. For the sake of balance, the ability will be a drain and the 90% damage reduction will steadily decrease if Hydroid is not using his abilities to consistently apply the "Drench" status effect to enemies. --- Old Fourth Ability: Tentacle Swarm - Tap to spawn watery tentacles from all nearby surfaces to wreak havoc. Charge to increase the number of tentacles and spawn area. Use while in Undertow to have the tentacles emerge from the pool. Reworked Fourth Ability: "Kraken's Fury" - Charge mechanic removed. Upon casting the ability Hydroid summons five large tentacles in a circle around him that follow him around. Whilst this ability is active, Hydroid gains increased movement speed and melee attack speed. The tentacles also become an exalted melee weapon, making use of wide swipes that cover a lot of ground, do True Damage and they receive a very hefty damage bonus of 500% against enemies affected by the "Drenched" status ailment, which increases with the combo counter. For the sake of balance this ability will have a twenty five second cooldown. The strength of the speed bonuses and duration can be affected by mods, but the damage of the tentacles cannot as they are already pretty strong with the new bonus damage and stacked passive damage. So yea, another rework suggestion thrown at the wall to see what sticks. Let me know what you guys think. I mainly post these reworks for fun by this point since I've basically given up on DE ever actually doing something about Hydroid and his awful state.

You keep missing the point again and again and again; the mechanics with Hydroid are the problem. Any build you make is going to be sub-par to literally everything else in the game because again its not about the damage, it's about the implementation and mechanics of his abilities. If you want to dig out some old build go for it, but it's not going to boost your argument, because again; Hydroid's kit design is his core problem and whatever builds you have is not going to change that.

Taking the context out again I see. No, you posted a video in which someone took another warframes ability and a bunch of archon shards, stuck them on Hydroid, which then gave the tentacles relatively low damage numbers. Oh and bear in mind, that video was a literal joke as stated by the creator themselves in the description, again because the damage numbers were below average and there are much better options for damage frames out there AND Hydroid's way of dealing damage is still rubbish due to the core issues with his ability mechanics. Again you deliberately hide the context and ignore or completely miss the point that it took another warframes ability and a bunch of archon shards for Tentacle Swarm to below average damage. The damage seen in that video, was not from the base ability, it was from a bunch of outside factors that have nothing to do with his base kit and can be applied to any other warframe, with much better results I might add. Without the helminth and without the shards, Tentacle Swarms damage is worthless and that is the problem. You cannot justify a badly designed kit by trying to use Helminth and shards. It needs to be good without them. That is what makes a good kit.

Thank you. I'm just so over certain peoples incredibly bad takes when it comes to fixing Hydroid. He needs a full rework, not simple tweaks as his ability design is the core problem with him.

His kit has never felt good to use. That was always one of Hydroids main problems. Again your proposal solves none of Hydroids issues. And it was a completely wrong statement. You want all his abilities to have ranged nerf while in Undertow. That plainly shows right there that you have zero idea why Hydroid is bad. Undertow is his worst ability and you want to lean even more into it? That was why I was debating whether to laugh or not because I could not tell if you were serious, but its clear you are and that is genuinely concerning. Undertow, is garbage. The gameplay it promotes, is garbage. DE should not and never again attempt to make his other abilities revolve around it. It is rubbish and needs to be heavily reworked into another ability or just thrown out. Why on earth would you want to stack procs that you have just said, are useless. Seriously this is making my head spin. Well at least you have the self-awareness to admit this idea is utterly abhorrent, because it very much is. What you want here is to make Hydroid even worse. I honestly did not think that was possible but this suggestion has shown me he hasn't quite hit rock-bottom yet. You not only want to add more reliance on Undertow but you also want more pointless charge-mechanics? I hope DE never implement your ideas. Because there is nothing positive to say about Hydroid at all. He has nothing over any other frames and there is no real reason to use him at all. I've also done my fair share of rework proposals and searching for ideas over the years, with some of my threads about Hydroid going as far back as 2017. So yea I've done my time in the game and in the forum-trenches and have more than earned the confidence to say Hydroid is complete garbage. Go on then. So far you've given me two very bad examples of Hydroid being used for area-denial, something that other frames did and still do much better and he was subsequently never used, and a second example in which Hydroid sits around healing a defence objective, again something that no one ever does because there are better options out there and sitting in a puddle being a glorified life-support machine is not a thing most people find very fun. 15k damage is not at all that high a damage number, so yes its still basically pitiful. Also again, you have to invest heavily in archon shards and make use of other Warframes abilities via to even get close to that damage number, which again is very low by most weapon and damage frame standards. You are being completely disenguous by taking out the context again. Again, if you need to make use of other warframes abilities and invest heavily into archon shards to make him reach that point, that is not a good thing. It shows you just how much it takes to make Hydroid do any kind of slightly below average DPS. That is not a good reflection of his base kit, it shows how utterly bad it is. Archon shards and helminth do not fix a bad warframe, they are meant to be bonuses that make an already good Warframe, even better. Also again, that meme build and your proposal, do nothing to fix Hydroid's core problems, which is the way his abilities are designed. You seek only to tweak some numbers, not actually fix Hydroid and even your tweaks are not a fix, they are straight up nerfs that will actually make Hydroid, worse.

Frost, Vauban and Revenant are completely different from Hydroid. The way their abilities were designed, means they only needed some tweaks to be good. Hydroid is another matter entirely. He is not the same as those frames you mentioned at all and tweaks will not fix him as his mechanics are designed incredibly poorly, unlike the aforementioned frames. His mechanics need to be reworked from the ground up, whereas Frost, Vauban and Revenants did not. Your proposed tweak would do literally nothing to improve Hydroid as again, like I keep telling you; damage is not as important to people when it comes to implementation and gameplay. Hydroid's gameplay is boring and your changes do nothing to address that. In fact they encourage you to use Undertow, his worst ability, more. That is not a fix and it will not make Hydroid more popular as it does not address his boring gameplay. Again I don't know how many times I can point to Octavia. She is actually overpowered due to having invisibility, which is the best survivability in the game and she has infinitely scaling damage. But she is still not used because she is boring. You could make Undertow insta-kill any enemy that walks over it and people still would not use Hydroid because his other abilities suck and Undertow is still a boring playstyle where you just sit there and wait for enemies to die. Hydroid cannot be fixed with one, two, three or ten simple tweaks. He needs a full rework to his entire ability mechanics from the ground up, to the point where they basically become new abilities entirely. That is the only thing that can properly salvage him. Honestly, the fact you are asking for a nerf in any form to Hydroid, of all frames, just shows you really do not understand the just how terrible he already is and how he needs nothing but buffs in the form of a complete overhaul.

Why does this suddenly mean its good? Just being a line-of-sight ability means nothing if the ability itself is crap, which it is. Also, incredibly niche uses in a raid that is no longer in the game, also does not mean its not a rubbish ability. There were plenty of area-denial abilities people used in LoR and Hydroid was rarely used for it. You're clutching at straws with this one. Yes for three reasons; Hold to cast abilities in Warframe are a pointless waste of time, especially considering the fact you have other frames who can do what Tempest Barrage does, but way better and without a hold-to-cast mechanic. Tempest Barrage never originally had a hold-to-cast mechanic. DE nerfed the original duration for the sake of the charge mechanic. Tempest Barrage is utterly pitiful CC, so increasing the duration is utterly pointless anyway. "Radial knockdown". If the projectiles don't get caught on the environment, which they often do, it is not a guaranteed knockdown and even then it is one of the worst types of CC in the entire game. Putting an enemy on their ass for two seconds? Yea not useful at all. I know what its for. You seem to be entirely missing the point that Tempest Barrage is terrible as a CC ability. Just because it does what its supposed to do, doesn't mean the way it does it, is not bad, because it very much is. Why on earth would you want to use this ability over literally any other CC ability in the game? You wouldn't. 1 second of invulnerability is nothing compared to what other frames have and shield gating is not an excuse for bad design. Also flinging enemies is pointless. You may find it fun, but that doesn't mean its useful because it isn't. Also again, it being a semi-decent travel ability means nothing because you can only use it in open fields and there you already have archwings which are faster, so there is not point to it either. Travel abilities are superfluous and have been for quite a long time. Yes I am because you are putting down all its capabilities on paper and not actually acknowledging its implementation in the game. You are being completely disingenuous here and I have no idea why considering you apparently want Hydroid to be good and yet you're acting like Undertow is the bee's knees. Yes Undertow has scaling HP damage, but it is incredibly slow, inefficient and you need to basically just sit there waiting for the enemy to die or cast your other abilities to speed it up. Boring. (I also gave you an example about how scaling damage means nothing to people if its implementation is boring with Octavia, who like Hydroid has scaling damage and yet nobody plays her, because, again like Hydroid, the way its implemented is boring. You completely ignored this.) Yes Undertow makes you invulnerable, but you loose your ability to run, use guns, use melee, parkour and even to go very fast at all. (Again, you seemed to completely ignore the implementation and focus only on what this ability says on the tin. Implementation is what counts at the end of the day and Hydroid's immortality is the worst implementation in the entire game. It could only be worse if it still locked you in place.) Yes Undertow can hold an infinite amount of enemies, but why on earth would you even want to do such a thing due to the aforementioned issues like pitiful damage ramp-up, range and boring gameplay. (Again, you focus on what this ability can do on paper, not in actual practical application.) Yes Undertow can heal, but that is only with an augment and even then, there are much better heals within the game. (Your mentioning of defence is also pretty funny considering that no one uses Hydroid for defence and there are much much better options for healing the objective or even just removing it from damage entirely, a la Limbo. Sitting around in a puddle is not something people find fun mate.) You are deliberately taking the context and application out of Hydroid's abilities so that you can make them look good on paper. That can be done with literally anything in this game mate, even the Stugg. The fact of the matter is, that no matter how good you try and make Undertow look on paper, in the actual game it is absolute dog-water. Okay, a few points to make with that video; firstly its a damn meme build in case you didn't read the description. Secondly, you have to use Helminth abilities to boost Hydroid's pitiful damage. Thirdly you have to invest heavily in archon shards and no one is wasting archon shards on Hydroid when they are far more useful on other frames. Finally it still does not solve Hydroids core mechanic issues, which is why that despite this video that you seem to think is a smoking gun, people still do not like Hydroid and consider him to be the worst frame in the entire game. I keep telling you; damage is not the thing that truly matters to people, it is the implementation that matters. Octavia and Hydroid both have practically infinite scaling damage, but their implementation is boring and in Hydroids case specifically its also garbage. Considering you have to invest so much for Hydroid to even get halfway decent damage, means he has a problem. As a general rule of thumb, if a Warframe needs another Warframes abilities to get even close to usable, that Warframe's base kit is not looking good. Tentacle Swarm is garbage for all the reason I mentioned before; pitiful damage, pitiful CC, pitiful utility. This meme build does not change that, it merely tries to cover up the poor damage part and it still doesn't because the ability at base remains crap. You seem to be taking a really disingenuous approach with this and I honestly have no idea why. You try and take the implementation and context out of his abilities so that you can make them look good on paper when in the game they are absolute dog-water and you seem to believe that none of them need any real substantial changes. You also believe that the worst ability in his entire kit, the thing that encapsulates the failure of Hydroids design and the antithesis of Warframes current game-flow, is actually "over-powered" and doesn't need changes. Hydroid is largely viewed as the worst frame in the game by the majority of people. Everything he does other frames can do better, quicker and easier. There are no benefits to using Hydroid over literally any other frame. Why are you so opposed to him getting a full rework to his entire kit? I get not wanting to change frames, but Hydroid is one of those rare cases where a entire overhaul is needed as nothing else will actually fix him. An overhaul can only make Hydroid better and yet you seem to be against such a thing. Why I honestly do not know. Hydroid needs a complete rework, from the ground up. Simple tweaks will not fix him as its how his kit is designed that's the problem, not his damage numbers.

As a long-suffering Hydroid enthusiast, this rework proposal does absolutely nothing to solve Hydroids core issues and it does not at all bring him up to date with the current version of Warframe. You don't seem to understand and subsequently do not address, anything about what makes Hydroid so utterly bad. Hydroid's kit is boring, useless and inefficient in 99.9% of scenarios and with the remaining 0.01% being looting and even there, Khora has thoroughly dethroned him as the Number 1 loot frame. So swap one useless passive for another basically. Its clear you suggested this because it fits the "pirate" theme Hydroid goes for, but this is one of his main problems; sacrificing genuinely good power potential for the sake of leaning really heavily into his theme. His passive should actually be something useful, like perhaps it gives Hydroid health whenever enemies are affected by his powers or something. Stop trying to lean so heavily into his pirate theme that it sacrifices potentially good powers. Water is also part of his theme too you know and since organics are composed of like 70% water, it would make sense for Hydroid to gain health from them using his power over water. No it is not. Tempest Barrage is crap in every sense of the word. Pointless charge mechanic, unreliable projectiles, pitiful damage, pitiful CC, the augment was made worthless in Elements 2.0 so its no help either. This ability is useless. It does nothing to enemies apart from tickle them. It needs a complete overhaul. Again, 100% wrong. Tidal Surge's only use is in its augment. Apart from that it is a useless travel ability that gets caught on absolutely everything from stairs to a slight incline in the ground. Like TB, it is useless. I honestly don't know whether to laugh at this or not. Undertow is overpowered in the same way turning off the game and going to sleep is overpowered. Complete invulnerability is nothing new, multiple frames have it such as Nyx, Revenant, Limbo, and even Nidus if you want to count his passive which means he simply cannot die as long as there are enemies around. Hydroid's invulnerability is unique, in just how awful it is. Yea he has total invulnerability, but what do you sacrifice in return? Your ability to run, your ability to use melee, your ability to use guns, your ability to jump, your ability to even move faster than a particularly indolent snail. Hydroid basically has to sacrifice 90% of his interaction with the game systems to become immortal. You can only use your powers, which again are useless. Using Tidal Surge to move is so clunky and again it gets caught on everything. All the aforementioned frames have reasonable drawbacks to their immortality which can be overcome, like for example Nyx immortality means she also moves very slowly, but she can still use her guns and melee. Her slowness can also be overcome by using a melee weapon with leaping combos or just by using your operator to move around, which is great. Hydroid has nothing but drawbacks to his immortality. It is the worst way immortality has been implemented in the game so far. Undertow also encapsulates the failure of Hydroid's design as a whole. Even back when Undertow was released it was considered a joke ability. It is an ability that goes against the playstyle of current Warframe as it promotes a boring, slow-paced camping playstyle where players just sit around in one position. Warframe no longer works like that anymore and hasn't for at least half a decade. It is considered by almost everyone these days as one of the worst abilities in the entire game. It is by no means over-powered at all. The fact your rework suggestion is basically focused on nerfing the other abilities for the sake of undertow is something I will definitely get to in a bit. Wrong again. You see, this is why I can feel confident in saying you know nothing about what makes Hydroid bad in terms of community opinion and actual gameplay application. Tentacle Swarm, is useless. It's damage? Pathetic. It's CC? Irritating and inefficient. It's utility? Outclassed. Tentacle Swarm is a completely unreliable, inefficient ability that complete fails in everything it tries to do. Like Tempest Barrage, its RNG based, in the fact that you have little control over where tentacles spawn and the only time you are ever sure to catch enemies is on the initial casting. After that, you basically have to hope that the enemy AI makes it walk into the range of the janky, horribly animated tentacle and that tentacle manages to register the enemy and grab it. It also makes it near impossible to hit enemies who have been grabbed it is just flails them about all over the place uselessly. The only thing this ability had going for it, was its loot augment and Khora has completely replaced Hydroid as the preferred loot frame, even though her gain is slightly lower, due to how much easier and more reliable her version of the ability is. People would prefer have a slightly reduced loot chance in a looter game, than use Hydroid. That tells you everything you need to know. Now for the big one. You want his rework to be centred around the worst ability in his whole kit; Undertow. This is completely wrong and does nothing to fix Hydroid at all for many of the aforementioned reasons. Undertow is his worst ability and one of the worst abilities in the game and you think the solution is to further lean into it? This solves nothing. If anything it makes Hydroid slightly worse which I didn't think was possible. It is slow, poor damage, boring gameplay, antithetical to Warframes current flow and is overall a really really boring way of playing. The part where you mentioned about Tentacle Swarm getting a 200% damage honestly made me laugh. The ability does no damage anyway. A 200% increase on crap damage doesn't do much and even if it did, Hydroid's other problems would still remain; his boring, broken, useless kit that nobody likes to play. I honestly do not know how you think this could ever help Hydroid and actually make people want to play him. This rework proposal solves none of his core issues but further leans into them hilariously. I suspect its because you said this; Normally, I would not be in favour of giving frames a complete overhaul. But in Hydroid's case, a completely overhaul isn't just wanted, its needed. Hydroids mechanics are the main problem in his kit and those cannot be fixed by simple QoL tweaks or number increases. He needs a full blown complete rework to his entire kit, essentially an entire suite of new abilities. There is simply no way you can keep his kit the way it is now and just give him higher damage numbers, because that is not his problem. A good example on the other end of the spectrum is Octavia. Her damage numbers are endless scaling, her survivability is one of the best in the game and yet hardly anyone plays her. Why? Because she makes the game essentially play itself and is subsequently boring to play. Its the mechanics of an ability that ultimately make a frame enjoyable to play, not the damage. Undertow technically has scaling damage as well, but guess what its implemented in such a boring and inefficient way that no one bothers with it. Hydroid 100% needs a complete change. He cannot be saved with simple tweaks. His rework needs to be a lot bigger than this and needs to be about his ability mechanics, not their damage or interaction with each other. He needs new abilities entirely.