Hydroid rework. A true void pirate!

[Northern_Psycho]

Right now, Hydroid is probably one of the least played frames. While some still main him he still suffers from an outdated kit, especially when compared to Ember and Vauban’s new reworks.
These ideas are some I came up with and some I have seen on the forums to raise the Void pirate to the current standards of other Warframes.
Also, he will get a new deluxe and it would be a shame if he didn’t get a good rework as well.
 

Stats: (At max rank).

-      Health changed from 300 to 375 (Prime 375)

-      Shields changed from 375 to 300 (Prime 300)

-      Armor changed from 225 to 300 (Prime 320)

-      Energy changed from 188 to 150 200 (Prime 220)

New passive: Hydroid gains 5% extra ability strength for every Soaked* enemy within a 50 meter radius. Every ability has an innate 10% chance at Soaking an enemy.
(Basically Ember’s new passive. See ability 4 for the Soaked effect).

Ability 1: Tempest barrage. (Remains mostly the same aside from some QoL improvements).

-      Corrosive barrage now incorporated into the ability.

-      Increased base range of 10m to 15m.

-      Casting time and charge time cut in half.

-      Fully charging the ability now doubles its effect. A fully charged barrage doubles the amount of water projectiles and max range from 15m to 30m.

-      Damage changed from 150 Impact to 100 impact and 100 puncture. (Note: This is to make the barrage more like cannon fire from a pirate’s ship. A cannon ball both punches through a hull with great impact).

-      Increased chance at dealing corrosive procs from 100% to 200%.

New augment: Chaotic barrage.

-      Tempest barrage’s damage is now adaptive to the enemies.

-      Status effect chance remains at 200% for the adapted elements as well.

Reason: Tempest barrage is by no means bad; it just needs some tweaks to make it a truly great ability.

Ability 2: New ability, Aquatic form.
Hydroid changes his body by turning it halfway to water. While active, Hydroid takes 50% less damage. Bullets pass through him as if the enemies are shooting into water.
(Visually, his body would be covered in a layer of water).
EDIT: Aquatic form gains more damage reduction (DR) per Soaked enemy killed up to 90% DR.
Enemy attacks will slowly chip away at the DR %.

-      Affected by power strength up to 90% damage reduction.

-      Synergizes with his other abilities.

Reason: Hydroid needs some extra survivability and his puddle just won’t cut it.
 

Ability 3: Undertow and Tidal surge now merged into one. Undertow.
Press the ability to become a tidal wave. Hold the ability and Hydroid becomes a puddle and can move around.

-      Tidal wave: Will heal you 1% per meter similar to Wukong’s cloud walker.

-      Can adjust the angle as you move.

-      Increased duration.

Puddle: Can move around at the same speed as running. Tentacle grab will remain the same.

-      Enemies caught in the puddle will begin drowning.

-      Base damage 100 true damage.

-      Damage tics similar to that of Octavia’s mallet.

-      Damage increase per sec changed to damage per tic.

-      Damage increase changed from 2% to 5%.

-      Allies can still shoot the puddle to damage the enemies inside.

-      Increased puddle size to 6m.

-      Increased drain to 4/s.

Reason: I wanted to make Hydroid’s puddle a truly dangerous ability to better mirror the horror of what the Grineer might’ve felt in the Hydroid prime trailer.
The ability will be a powerful tool to eliminate fodder enemies and the like. Special enemies like Demo-units will still not be affected by the puddle.
Also, the increased drain is there to ensure the ability isn’t spammed.

 

Ability 4: Tentacle swarm.
Instead of the Kraken grabbing the enemies and flailing them around like they’re deflating balloons, make Kraken more of a support/CC type while still keeping it as a threat.

-      Kraken’s tentacles now grab an enemy by wrapping around their body and crushes them. See link for example [ https://thumbs.gfycat.com/InsistentComposedBlackfish-mobile.mp4 ].

Enemies can only be crushed once.

-      Deals 20% damage of the enemie's total health on the initial crush.

-      Crushed enemies are marked as “Soaked”.

-      Soaked enemies gets a visual effect on them similar to Hydroid’s Aquatic form.

-      Soaked enemies take increased damage from both abilities and weapons (Including teammates’).

-      Remaining tentacles will slap and knock over enemies and stack on more Soaked effects.

-      Soaked effect can stack up to 5 times for 2 times more damage.

-      Tentacle slaps deals 300 true damage per hit.

-      Pilfering swarm Augment remains the same. Soaked enemies are marked and will be affected by Pilfering swarm when killed.

You can now mount the Kraken and ride it like a K-drive.

-      Interacting with the Kraken will allow you to mount and surf around on it.
Kraken’s move speed is 1.5 of a running Warframe.

-      Mounting the Kraken removes the duration from the Tentacle swarm and replaces it with an energy drain.

-      While riding, the Kraken’s tentacles will continually spawn around it. You can then do a drive by to debuff and crush enemies all over the battlefield.

-      Jumping will result in Hydroid dismounting the Kraken. The Kraken will then disappear back into the depths.

Reason: The Kraken is honestly tiresome when it grabs enemies and flails them around. It’s hard to shoot the grabbed enemies and the tentacles don’t even deal any noteworthy damage at all.
Compared to Khora’s strangle dome, Kraken doesn’t even grab enemies consistently.

Final notes:
I feel Hydroid is in a difficult spot right now and think these changes could greatly elevate him in terms of usefulness, utility and hopefully fun-factor too.
While I understand many of these changes seem drastic and may only be wishful thinking, I still wanted to assume we can get a fully realized rework like Wukong and Ember got.
Furthermore, some may roll their eyes at another rework involving Damage reduction and armor strip, and yes, it is getting kind of old. However, with the current meta, armor strip and DR is basically a must on Warframes unless they do significant healing, stealth, or damage instead. Hydroid is more of a CC frame anyway, so Armor strip would come in handy for him. DR Is needed if you want to go far into a survival mission or do Steel path missions.

Finally I wanted to say thank you for reading and would love to hear your feedback on these theoretical changes.

TL;DR.
Make Tempest barrage an armor strip ability.
Give Hydroid a new ability for survivability.
Merge Tidal surge and Undertow.
Make Kraken a de-buffer.
And let us ride the Kraken like a K-drive.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

This seems like a fun rework.

43 minutes ago, Northern_Psycho said:

New passive: Hydroid gains 5% extra ability strength for every Soaked* enemy within a 50 meter radius.

His other abilities should also have a 5-10% chance to soak enemies. Otherwise this is more of a buff that is part of his 4th ability, like Nyx getting weapon damage buff from Absorbed damage.

46 minutes ago, Northern_Psycho said:

-      Energy changed from 188 to 150 (Prime 200)

188 is the rank 30 energy. Are you suggesting to drop his base energy to 150 or is this a typo?

49 minutes ago, Northern_Psycho said:

Increased drain to 4/s.

I like this idea for his puddle. A lot of complaints have been made about the idle nature of his puddle, so buffing it up to be more powerful but limiting the time you can stay in it makes it a much more active play style without the loss of function. 

51 minutes ago, Northern_Psycho said:

Deals 20% damage on the initial crush.

Is this 20% of their max health? 

I like the idea of these more aggressive tentacles that actively attack enemies rather than occasionally, and unreliably attempt to grab hold of enemies.

I'll take anything at this point since he's one of my most used frames, purely because I like his theme and not because he's an effective frame.

[Northern_Psycho]

4 minutes ago, (PS4)Ozymandias-13- said:

His other abilities should also have a 5-10% chance to soak enemies. Otherwise this is more of a buff that is part of his 4th ability, like Nyx getting weapon damage buff from Absorbed damage.

Good point. I'd say every ability can get a 10% chance to soak. 

5 minutes ago, (PS4)Ozymandias-13- said:

188 is the rank 30 energy. Are you suggesting to drop his base energy to 150 or is this a typo?

That was a typo. Thanks for pointing it out!

6 minutes ago, (PS4)Ozymandias-13- said:

I like this idea for his puddle. A lot of complaints have been made about the idle nature of his puddle, so buffing it up to be more powerful but limiting the time you can stay in it makes it a much more active play style without the loss of function.

Exactly. I wanted to make it a real threat to enemies trapped inside while also giving it more mobility.

7 minutes ago, (PS4)Ozymandias-13- said:

Is this 20% of their max health? 

Yes. 20% of max health. Fixed it!

Glad for the feedback, Tenno!

[Aeon94]

I like Kraken mount idea. Nice rework concept. +1

[TheGodofWiFi]

2 hours ago, Northern_Psycho said:

Ability 1: Tempest barrage. (Remains mostly the same aside from some QoL improvements).

I disagree here. TB is just horribly clunky, due to the projectiles being RNG based as in they do not specifically target the enemy directly but rather the area around them, which means they have a tendency to completely miss the enemy. They can also hit the environment around the enemy, such as pillars, walls, doors etc etc. Tempest Barrage needs to be complete reworked. Personally I think it would be much better if instead of these horribly clunky projectiles, it should in fact be a constant flow of rain in a sort of storm-like aura around Hydroid that causes enemies to be "soaked" and causes them to suffer a decrease in weapon damage and are more vulnerable to damage from players. This would synergise very well with your suggested passive.

Ever since Damage 3.0 Corrosive has basically been rendered, for lack of a better word; poop. Before the damage update, this would have helped Hydroid, but unfortunately adding Corrosive Barrage would no longer help much.

The charge time for Tempest should be removed entirely. What is the point of the charge really? Before his last update, Hydroid could just cast the ability instantly and get full damage. Charge mechanics have no place in this game IMO as all they do is slow the gameplay down and hurt the frames they are on, as people prefer to just press a button once and get the full benefits of an ability instantly. Charge mechanics are simply not necessary, especially on a frame like Hydroid. It's like kicking someone when they are down essentially. Just remove them entirely and Hydroid instantly becomes better. Don't bother cutting them in half.

2 hours ago, Northern_Psycho said:

Reason: Tempest barrage is by no means bad; it just needs some tweaks to make it a truly great ability.

Sadly, Tempest Barrage is factually bad when compared to other abilities. It's far too clunky and chance-based for anyone to consider it worth using other abilities like Condemn, Spores, Bastille/Vortex, Thermal Sunder etc etc. It's just not a good ability and it honestly makes me a little depressed whenever someone says that all it needs is some tweaks. It could be reworked into something so much more useful. Sometimes abilities need more than tweaks.

I used to think it only needed tweaks, but after playing Hydroid again in the new activities and more open maps, its clear it needs a lot more.

2 hours ago, Northern_Psycho said:

Ability 2: New ability, Aquatic form

You didn't happen to look at my old Hydroid rework thread did you, because what you are suggesting here is incredibly similar, even down to the visual look of Hydroid while the ability is active, apart from my version is more interactive with Hydroid's killing.

In my old suggestion, Hydroid's damage reduction start at 50% and would scale up to 90% as he was killing enemies and draining them of moisture. It would make it a lot more interactive, as opposed to just being another "press it, forget it" DR ability. Sort of similar to Gauss' Kinetic Armour, only it's about killing enemies as opposed to moving around a lot. I've also more recently thought about adding more buffs to the ability instead of just giving it DR, so as to make it stand out a bit more, such as adding a damage increase to weapons depending on the level of damage reduction. This would make the ability more incentive over your standard DR ability, as not only do you get that, but you also get a nice damage boost too. So as to not be completely OP though, and your damage reduction ticks down whenever you take damage, not majorly, but enough to encourage the player to pay attention and keep killing enemies.

2 hours ago, Northern_Psycho said:

Ability 3: Undertow and Tidal surge now merged into one. Undertow

I completely support the idea of combing Tidal and Undertow, but not like how you're suggesting here. Quite frankly if Hydroid got a tank ability similar to your or my old suggestion, he simply wouldn't need to hide in the puddle anymore due to the fact he can now actually take some damage without immediately dying. So I would suggest that instead of keeping both abilities basically the exact same only with some movement tweaks, my old suggestion could be a lot better in terms of damage potential and CC.

Basically, instead of Hydroid becoming either a wave or a puddle when you cast the ability, he instead sends out a large wave which gets bigger/wider the further it travels, just like a real wave. This wave basically drags enemies underneath the water into an Undertow trap that has been left by the wave. So you could cover a lot of ground with this ability and it very easily synergises with your damage increase passive as well as the fact you can now shoot into the Undertow trap yourself as opposed to relying on other people to help damage the enemies in the Undertow for you. This would make the ability great IMO and much more solo-friendly.

2 hours ago, Northern_Psycho said:

Ability 4: Tentacle swarm

Definitely a very interesting idea you've got here. I would say that instead of Hydroid optionally riding the Kraken, he should automatically rides it whenever he casts the ability. He can shoot all of his guns while on top of the Kraken, but when he melees, he directly takes control of the Krakens tentacles and can basically swipe them around, smacking against enemies and dealing huge damage. Basically Exalted Tentacles.

The old suggestion in my rework thread is quite similar, only that I removed the Kraken entirely and the water tentacles spawned from and around Hydroid as an exalted melee.

[Quir0]

I'm not a huge fan of the passive, tho I must agree the current one needs to go.

About tempest barrage, I'd say, the charge not doubling anything other than the range and maybe the projectile speed(?), that way the damage stays somewhat the same throughout all, just spending more energy for more range and time (making it an actual barrage). Also the ragdoll effect pushing enemies in, instead of out, and still receive damage. That way, the ability doesn't really lose anything from just a tapping.

I do like the idea of a survivability skill, makes Hydroid less squishy.

Other than that I have no current notes.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

12 minutes ago, Quir0 said:

I'm not a huge fan of the passive, tho I must agree the current one needs to go.

I mentioned in another thread that I wouldn't mind his current passive if it just triggered differently. Like a chance for it to spawn at an enemy's location when they deal damage to his health, instead of through melee slam attacks that don't mesh with his play style (I can't really think of any frame that a melee slam attack would be useful as a passive).

14 minutes ago, Quir0 said:

About tempest barrage, I'd say, the charge not doubling anything other than the range and maybe the projectile speed(?), that way the damage stays somewhat the same throughout all, just spending more energy for more range and time (making it an actual barrage). Also the ragdoll effect pushing enemies in, instead of out, and still receive damage. That way, the ability doesn't really lose anything from just a tapping.

This makes sense too, charging should be beneficial but optional. In the current game, more damage is always mandatory. Honestly we could remove charging all together and just split the difference between the current charged and uncharged stats.

[(XBOX)WafflyLearner89]

6 hours ago, Northern_Psycho said:

Right now, Hydroid is probably one of the least played frames. While some still main him he still suffers from an outdated kit, especially when compared to Ember and Vauban’s new reworks.
These ideas are some I came up with and some I have seen on the forums to raise the Void pirate to the current standards of other Warframes.
Also, he will get a new deluxe and it would be a shame if he didn’t get a good rework as well.
 

Stats: (At max rank).

-      Health changed from 300 to 375 (Prime 375)

-      Shields changed from 375 to 300 (Prime 300)

-      Armor changed from 225 to 300 (Prime 320)

-      Energy changed from 188 to 150 200 (Prime 220)

New passive: Hydroid gains 5% extra ability strength for every Soaked* enemy within a 50 meter radius. Every ability has an innate 10% chance at Soaking an enemy.
(Basically Ember’s new passive. See ability 4 for the Soaked effect).

Ability 1: Tempest barrage. (Remains mostly the same aside from some QoL improvements).

-      Corrosive barrage now incorporated into the ability.

-      Increased base range of 10m to 15m.

-      Casting time and charge time cut in half.

-      Fully charging the ability now doubles its effect. A fully charged barrage doubles the amount of water projectiles and max range from 15m to 30m.

-      Damage changed from 150 Impact to 100 impact and 100 puncture. (Note: This is to make the barrage more like cannon fire from a pirate’s ship. A cannon ball both punches through a hull with great impact).

-      Increased chance at dealing corrosive procs from 100% to 200%.

New augment: Chaotic barrage.

-      Tempest barrage’s damage is now adaptive to the enemies.

-      Status effect chance remains at 200% for the adapted elements as well.

Reason: Tempest barrage is by no means bad; it just needs some tweaks to make it a truly great ability.

Ability 2: New ability, Aquatic form.
Hydroid changes his body by turning it halfway to water. While active, Hydroid takes 50% less damage. Bullets pass through him as if the enemies are shooting into water.
(Visually, his body would be covered in a layer of water).
EDIT: Aquatic form gains more damage reduction (DR) per Soaked enemy killed up to 90% DR.
Enemy attacks will slowly chip away at the DR %.

-      Affected by power strength up to 90% damage reduction.

-      Synergizes with his other abilities.

Reason: Hydroid needs some extra survivability and his puddle just won’t cut it.
 

Ability 3: Undertow and Tidal surge now merged into one. Undertow.
Press the ability to become a tidal wave. Hold the ability and Hydroid becomes a puddle and can move around.

-      Tidal wave: Will heal you 1% per meter similar to Wukong’s cloud walker.

-      Can adjust the angle as you move.

-      Increased duration.

Puddle: Can move around at the same speed as running. Tentacle grab will remain the same.

-      Enemies caught in the puddle will begin drowning.

-      Base damage 100 true damage.

-      Damage tics similar to that of Octavia’s mallet.

-      Damage increase per sec changed to damage per tic.

-      Damage increase changed from 2% to 5%.

-      Allies can still shoot the puddle to damage the enemies inside.

-      Increased puddle size to 6m.

-      Increased drain to 4/s.

Reason: I wanted to make Hydroid’s puddle a truly dangerous ability to better mirror the horror of what the Grineer might’ve felt in the Hydroid prime trailer.
The ability will be a powerful tool to eliminate fodder enemies and the like. Special enemies like Demo-units will still not be affected by the puddle.
Also, the increased drain is there to ensure the ability isn’t spammed.

 

Ability 4: Tentacle swarm.
Instead of the Kraken grabbing the enemies and flailing them around like they’re deflating balloons, make Kraken more of a support/CC type while still keeping it as a threat.

-      Kraken’s tentacles now grab an enemy by wrapping around their body and crushes them. See link for example [ https://thumbs.gfycat.com/InsistentComposedBlackfish-mobile.mp4 ].

Enemies can only be crushed once.

-      Deals 20% damage of the enemie's total health on the initial crush.

-      Crushed enemies are marked as “Soaked”.

-      Soaked enemies gets a visual effect on them similar to Hydroid’s Aquatic form.

-      Soaked enemies take increased damage from both abilities and weapons (Including teammates’).

-      Remaining tentacles will slap and knock over enemies and stack on more Soaked effects.

-      Soaked effect can stack up to 5 times for 2 times more damage.

-      Tentacle slaps deals 300 true damage per hit.

-      Pilfering swarm Augment remains the same. Soaked enemies are marked and will be affected by Pilfering swarm when killed.

You can now mount the Kraken and ride it like a K-drive.

-      Interacting with the Kraken will allow you to mount and surf around on it.
Kraken’s move speed is 1.5 of a running Warframe.

-      Mounting the Kraken removes the duration from the Tentacle swarm and replaces it with an energy drain.

-      While riding, the Kraken’s tentacles will continually spawn around it. You can then do a drive by to debuff and crush enemies all over the battlefield.

-      Jumping will result in Hydroid dismounting the Kraken. The Kraken will then disappear back into the depths.

Reason: The Kraken is honestly tiresome when it grabs enemies and flails them around. It’s hard to shoot the grabbed enemies and the tentacles don’t even deal any noteworthy damage at all.
Compared to Khora’s strangle dome, Kraken doesn’t even grab enemies consistently.

Final notes:
I feel Hydroid is in a difficult spot right now and think these changes could greatly elevate him in terms of usefulness, utility and hopefully fun-factor too.
While I understand many of these changes seem drastic and may only be wishful thinking, I still wanted to assume we can get a fully realized rework like Wukong and Ember got.
Furthermore, some may roll their eyes at another rework involving Damage reduction and armor strip, and yes, it is getting kind of old. However, with the current meta, armor strip and DR is basically a must on Warframes unless they do significant healing, stealth, or damage instead. Hydroid is more of a CC frame anyway, so Armor strip would come in handy for him. DR Is needed if you want to go far into a survival mission or do Steel path missions.

Finally I wanted to say thank you for reading and would love to hear your feedback on these theoretical changes.

TL;DR.
Make Tempest barrage an armor strip ability.
Give Hydroid a new ability for survivability.
Merge Tidal surge and Undertow.
Make Kraken a de-buffer.
And let us ride the Kraken like a K-drive.

Definitely would be much more fun to use. Imagine if he got an arm cannon shaped like a pirate cannon as a signature weapon for rework. 

Also, it might be really cool if for your merged ability undertow, the waves where shaped like a megalodon shark. When he goes under water, in the puddle you would see a huge fin sticking out that still damages enemies hit by it. Its mainly cosmetic for the ability minus the fin but at least it would make the ability much more frightening for the enemies. 

[Quir0]

On 2020-08-04 at 12:29 PM, (PS4)Ozymandias-13- said:

This makes sense too, charging should be beneficial but optional. In the current game, more damage is always mandatory. Honestly we could remove charging all together and just split the difference between the current charged and uncharged stats.

The charging isn't inherently bad. The problem is that the abilities themselves are rather disappointing without it.

And yea, the passive, tbh I don't find it really... necessary the the tentacles in his passive, unless they find a good way to make it work. For example another frame they should, not change change, but maybe add to her passive, since it's only "attracting items to her when bullet jumping". Or Loki's "longer wall latch". Who even uses wall latch nowadays?

I love Hydroid, but I know he needs work, so I kinda hope they give him something to work with and make him viable. I see many people either wanting to give him a charging strength passive like Ember's, or an exalted weapon (Why?), or taking the kraken to third ability and spawning a ship for fourth, Once again: why!?. His abilities as they are, looking at them concept wise and image wise, are all good (except his passive). They just need to be worked around.

1.- I already explained, mixing with OP's suggestions, so: max stats for it's tapping. Both puncture and impact damage, charging would only increase its area (if not its duration as well, more than that is unnecessary). And the most important: keep damaging knocked down enemies and not throw them out of the attack area.
 
2.- In his prime trailer we saw him use a similar looking ability, so improving upon it would be necessary. I can't think of anything right now other than make it possible to cancel it with another tap.

3.- Higher damage, higher mobility basically (of course, with a decent energy drain). Maybe (Or not) not drowning every enemy (unless hit by the second ability as it is now?), but you have to catch them with the tentacle for it to drown them, and of course, the more enemies, the more energy drain. Maybe add the survival skill to this as an augment, making the augment steal health (so hydroid can regain) and as long as it's health is full, the extra damage done works as an added armor (similar to Nezha's warding halo but instead of from receiving damage, from making damage. And like I said, augment, could take advantage of tanks enemies).
Side note: What damage does undertow do? Shouldn't it be something like true damage since they're drowning?

4.- Kraken have more intelligent and active tentacles, attacking enemies at will (instead of just always flailing around), and have them strangle them and doing damage over time (of course first spawning apparition would do a high one time damage like it currently does, but why does it do Magnetic?). I don't know if to keep the pilfering augment, or make it an innate passive for this ability, while having a new augment that: reduces the amount of tentacles, but you're doing the "K-drive" thing with the kraken, with the tentacles following you around in a smaller area, or maybe just the kraken follow Hydroid around.

Now the passive always escapes me, it's so hard to think of one I feel would really be proper, I thought of making it have a 50% drop chance when killing enemies with abilities while the kraken would add the other 50, which is kind of ok? But I'm not sure if that's the best way to go, still better than the current one. Is there something that could tie in with the fear of the deep, or with water, a water deity or something?

[DaanWarframe]

On 2020-08-04 at 12:28 PM, Northern_Psycho said:

Puddle: Can move around at the same speed as running

On 2020-08-04 at 12:28 PM, Northern_Psycho said:

-      Can adjust the angle as you move.

Personally, these are the most important changes. It's the kind of change that made me play Wukong and actually use Cloud Walker all the time instead of never. Currently, Hydroid's abilities are basically useless in exterminate/capture/rescue/disruption/defection/hijack/sabotage/spy missions, and giving him the ability to effectively pursue enemies and objectives would change that. (As long as the enemies would actually stay in the puddle. Possibly they could add a (soft) cap on the amount of enemies if they want to balance it.)

Image sloshing around a Grineer galleon like the monster from Carrion, grabbing enemies with your tentacles, or slamming them into walls with your bulk.

On 2020-08-04 at 2:36 PM, TheGodofWiFi said:

The charge time for Tempest should be removed entirely.

Instead of charging, you could hold the ability like Titania's Spellbind to cast it on yourself, so the Barrage is centered on you for the (increased?) duration.

[TheGodofWiFi]

11 hours ago, Quir0 said:

The charging isn't inherently bad.

It is. What is the point of charge mechanics in this game? Any frame that can get the full benefit of their abilities instantly upon casting, is immediately superior to a frame that needs to charge their abilities to get the most out of them. The sad thing is that Hydroid never originally had charge mechanics, his powers worked the same as other frames. DE's cynically timed "rework" before his Prime Access dropped basically gave him those mechanics so they could say he was "more interactive", which he wasn't. He now had to put more effort in to get the full use out of his abilities. Just remove the charge mechanics altogether and let us get full benefits from abilities. They are simply unnecessary, especially on Hydroid.

[TheGodofWiFi]

9 hours ago, DaanWarframe said:

Instead of charging, you could hold the ability like Titania's Spellbind to cast it on yourself, so the Barrage is centered on you for the (increased?) duration.

I think they should just remove the current tempest altogether.  

[Keyhound]

What if, instead of having undertow and kraken, we just have kraken, with hydroid summoning it, we keep the effect of undertow, but the visual of the kraken. which instead of slaming enemies, just holds them in place while squeezing them. because, lets be honest, there's no reason to keep both undertow and kraken, specially if he gets a survivability skill.

i like tempest barrage, i just think it needs ALOT of tweaks to be good. so here's my idea.
Passive, hydroid's roll is changed into a smaller version of his current 2, he basically turns into a wave, cleansing any status effect currently affecting him.

1) instead of TB, he shoots a wave foward. that deals damage, BUT, more importantly, locks enemies hit in place. as if they were floating up to their waist. and oppening them up to ground finishers.
            augment: the wave has a chance of disarming enemies.

2) i really like the water form, and, like some of you, i also made a post a long while ago where i made something like that.
            augment: in this form, shots received by hydroid have a chance of turning into ammo for him.

3) i would give him his tempest barrage and put it here, except, he doesnt need to be locked in an animation to cast it, instead, he throws a spear into the area, and it basically marks the place of the barrage, the shots then come and bombard the area, locking all of it with each shot. they could also keep the "hold" mechanic, by enhancing the shots with a splash effect that enhance the target area.
            augment: give each shot a random status effect from corrosive, viral, cold or blast.

4) would be the mix between kraken and undertow, where hydroid summons the kraken, there could even be a "press e to ride it" sort of thing and double jump dismount, while with the tentacles grabbing enemies that come close(while also having other arms that flail around and smash into the ground), by holding the button will change it to its alternate mode(and you hold again to change back), basically will submerge the kraken, basically turning it into the original undertow, 
            augment: for kraken mode, the same as his current 4, for undertow mode, the same as his current 3(similar to vauban).