Effective Frost prime and Hydroid builds?

[Tenno76856]

Hi all,

Don't really use either that much to be honest, but am trying them a bit more as i want to play defensive missions a bit better (Saryn, Mirage i mainly use wont cut it). Soloing defense with Hydroid i cant seem to quite do it completely (ie on a lich node vs lvl 60 mobs). trying for max duration, limited range etc...

And nah dont really want to use Limbo :)

[Yakhul]

If you wanna go full defensive, i can talk about Frost, as i still am struggling to find a good build for Hydroid.

My build for Frost Looks like this

It is quite expensive to make this build, as it requires 2 umbral formas, but if you do not have umbral formas, you can swap the umbral mods for their regular counterparts, and increase the rank on Transient Fortitude accordingly.

The way it works (and why Transient Fortitude is only at rank 6) is simple: Cast a status effect of any kind to proc Growing Power. At 225% Strength, with the added bonus of Growing Power, you will reach 250% strength, which is what you need to completely strip the armor of enemies with the ability Avalanche. It works on corpus also, since their shields are weak to Cold damage. It also works well on infested. While not doing enough damage, Avalanche has good stopping power vs the infested (my build has around 6 seconds on the freeze duration, but it could be a bit less since you would need to increase the rank on Transient Fortitude)

Adaptation for general survival, Primed Flow for the generous energy pool, and Stretch for the range on Ice wave, Avalanche, and to increase the size of your Snow Globe. Arcanes are optional, but i personally like to run with Energize and Grace. You can change Grace for Guardian if you would like the extra armor, which will also make your snow globe sturdier, as snow globe scales of Strength and Armor.

Primed Sure Footed is also optional, you can use Handspring or other exilus of your choice. I use it because my weapon of choice with frost is the Kuva Bramma, and Primed Sure Footed negates all of the knockbacks.

This is the build i use more often, but as you can see, i also have a "tank" build that uses the augment Icy Avalanche instead of Transient Fortitude, and a full CC build that makes use of the augment Ice Wave Impendance (tho that build may need to become something else, since the changes to cold status pretty much are now the same as Ice Wave Impendance)

Another way to play this build if you do not have enough strength, is to make use of the Kitgun Arcane Pax Bolt, which will increase the strength for your next ability casted within 4 seconds, by 30%, and also will increase the efficiency by 30%, meaning your ability will cost less energy too.

A good mod for Frost to keep in mind, is Armored Agility, which will help with Frost Sprint speed, and make a sturdier snow globe thanks to the armor buff.

As for weapons of choice, since this build strips 100% of armor, Viral is the way to go. Pick any high powered weapon that can deal with a bunch of enemies at once, for when they are frozen by avalanche. My secondary of choice is the Catchmoon Kitgun.

Hope it helps.

[Ragnafiro]

I don’t know Hydroid at all so I’ll just cover one of my favorite: Frost.

You pick Frost over Limbo, Gara, or the likes because he can deploy more than one defense ability with indefinite duration: Snow Globe.

This makes him more or less a god in Arbitration Excavation (alongside with auto-win synergy with Khora as she’s a great frame too) as he can just speedrun to the next spawn without really leaving much behind (even though he rely on braindead Chromas to fkin kill Arbi drones and Nullifiers even though those kind of people have the lowest kill count for some damn reason).

The most common way I seen people build Frost is to dedicate their entire mods into strength, armor, and shts so that they think spamming only Snow Globe and nothing else would magically ward off Arbi drones and Nullifiers with impunity. A method of me playing Frost is a bit different and I am aware that it may be unconventional but at least I show you why pick him over other frames in a specific game mode he excels.

Edited May 1, 2020 by Ragnafiro
think

[EinheriarJudith]

3 hours ago, NigglesAU said:

Hi all,

Don't really use either that much to be honest, but am trying them a bit more as i want to play defensive missions a bit better (Saryn, Mirage i mainly use wont cut it). Soloing defense with Hydroid i cant seem to quite do it completely (ie on a lich node vs lvl 60 mobs). trying for max duration, limited range etc...

And nah dont really want to use Limbo 🙂

treat hydroid like you would khora. they are both area lock down frames. they arent really point defense against ranged like gara or frost  but they are especially good at point defense against infested. you can ditch str on both imo.

they made frost have alot more versatility in how you build by reducing the importance of duration. Str, Rng, Armor/Shield its not really hard to get a good build for him for defense.

both frames are easy to slot augments as well.

[Mardomus]

To be honest with you, Khoras' 4th ability does more than Hydroids's 4th, since she can max range and her cage can pull enemies in. Plus, I think her 4th scales. On top of that, she too has an augment for extra loot. And, her whip is quite strong compared to the laughable 1st of Hydroid regular and charged Barrage.

As for a Hydroid defense build, go range and duration if you're using his 4th and 1st ability augments; he's VERY dependent on augments. You could use his 2nd ability at one spawn area and at the other spawn area use barrage, while using an AoE weapon or his 3rd to pull enemies if there are more spawn areas, but this will drain your energy quickly. Puddle defense build isn't bad if you go all range with his corrosive augment, but its very boring, to be honest, and energy consuming. Sadly, Hyrdoid under performs in Defense compared to, Frost, Limbo, Khora, and Atlas 2nd ability augment. He's too squishy, his abilities don't scale, it doesn't do good damage even if you hold his damage ability as the missions mobs scale, unless your fighting against level 40-60, because you have to put most of your resources into augments, duration, and range leaving Hydroids' ability weak at higher level. Not only does this make his 1st and 4th weak, but you also have to consider being energy efficient. Even with an Arcane, and Efficiency build, his abilities are too tight and limited to perform at higher and longer Defense runs, unless you build all range and duration without his augments and bring a strong AoE weapon, but that too, will make his play style boring compared to newer frames who perform better with less work. Don't forget, you have to "charge" his 1st and 4th for more damage, which isn't much at a certain level. Hopefully this helps. Hydroid and other frames need major fixes, because the newer frames are out performing them with less work leaving those frames being used less and useless. He is my most used Frame, but horrible. 

 

Here are my Hydroid builds I use for Kuva/Defense/Survival (Depends on the Defense);

 

Here's my duration and range for Defense;

 

And these are the weapons I use. Ferrox is good for pulling mobs together, so I use this for gathering, Puddle, Tentacle Swarm and Barrage combo, or to hold down an area;

 

Edited May 1, 2020 by Mardomus

[Amadurim]

Don't think this is a correct thread for this but, 

Frost prime 100% armor strip no umbral forma used:

Aura: Growing power

Exilus: Power drift

mods: -2 Umbrals, one intensify, another either fiber or vitality

-Health conversion

-Stretch

-Transient fortitude

-Streamline

-Primed Continuity

-Augur Reach

Arcanes: Arcane Tanker, Arcane Energize. Matter of preference.

All slots except umbrals are formaed.

Usually Frost played behind globe, so Health conversion is really nice to increase globe's health and little bit efficiency to spam armor strip and globe

Edited May 2, 2020 by Amadurim