Hydroid suggestions (Revision 2)

[superhbman]

Goals

I want to make Hydroid more mobile and group-friendly, give him more AoE damage and control, more synergy between his abilities, and reduce energy costs.

 

Passive

On slam attacks and explosions (Blast element, maybe) on puddles of water created by Tempest Barrage and Tidal Surge (more on this later), the water will be splashed to deal damage to enemies in a small radius around the impact. Damage of water puddles is listed in Tempest Barrage and scales with Ability Strength. No longer summons tentacles.

Notes - puddles of water will be a new mechanic I want to introduce to Hydroid. I want it slam attacks to play into it, so Tentacle Swarm will be Hydroid's only way to summon tentacles.

 

Tempest Barrage

Uses tap / hold mechanic. Tap to deal a single big hit with a form of cc. Either forced Impact status, knockdown, stun, or something. Both tap and hold versions will leave a pool of water on the ground for 3 seconds.  Hold version does not cause cc. Deals hits every second so in practice the puddle will last for the entire duration of Tempest Barrage plus 3 seconds. Edit: Can be cast during Tidal Surge. Hold version is centered around Hydroid. Water puddles also disables enemy movement abilities like MOA's jumps, Grineer Flameblade and Manics teleports, etc.

Energy cost is 25 for both versions.

Augment

Will reduce a small percentage of armour from enemies every second while standing in the puddle of water. Percentage increased by Ability Strength. Armour reduction will be lost upon leaving the water. Edit: Splashes of water caused by slam attacks and explosions will also apply a stack of armour reduction.

Notes - I moved the passive's cc functionality to tap Tempest Barrage. I'd rather not have hold Tempest Barrage cause cc because Hydroid already has Tentacle Swarm for that so I felt it would be redundant.

 

Tidal Surge

Hydroid turns into a mass of water. Will last until casted again and has energy upkeep cost (the way Undertow functions). In addition to its current functions, Hydroid is able to sprint, slide, jump, and bullet jump during Tidal Surge. Has self heal. Able to press primary fire to grab and enemy and pull them towards Hydroid (Undertow's function). Tidal Surge leaves puddles of water as Hydroid moves around. If equipped with Tempest Barrage's augment, the puddles of water left by Tidal Surge will also have its function.

Energy cost is 10 on cast and 3 per second upkeep.

Augment

Must touch allies directly to apply the augment's effect to them, not with puddles of water.

Notes - I wanted to combine Tidal Surge and Undertow. I also want to make Tidal Surge more mobile. 

 

Barnacles (replaces Undertow)

Can be cast during Tidal Surge. Hydroid covers all enemies around him in barnacles for a duration. Damaging enemies covered in barnacles will duplicate the damage and divide it evenly among all enemies in a small radius around it. Duplicated damage will inherit the original attack's damage types and elements but will not inflict status ailments.

If barnacled enemies also touches puddles of water created by Tempest Barrage and Tidal Surge, the barnacles will absorb the water and apply it to enemies as long as the barnacles stick to them. In this state, attacking barnacled enemies will also cause Hydroid's passive water splash.

Energy cost is 50.

Augment

Allies will also be covered in barnacles, healing them a little per second for the duration.

Notes - I personally don't like that Undertow prevents allies from attacking enemies inside Undertow and that Hydroid himself is not able to attack enemies inside Undertow so I decided to replace it with a new ability. Plus I want to Hydroid to cover everyone in barnacles. Edit: barnacles will not duplicate damage from water splashes.

 

Tentacle Swarm

Uses tap / hold mechanic. Tap summons a single big tentacle which performs a full circle sweep that grabs all enemies in reach then slams them down on one spot. Hold uses the original hold function. Tentacle slams counts as slam attacks in regards to Hydroid's passive. Can be cast during Tidal Surge, will use Hydroid's position as the center of casting.

Energy cost is 50 for tap, 75 for hold.

Augment

If using the tap version, the effect applies on enemies while grabbed by tentacle and for 5 seconds after the slam.

Notes - Yes, if enemies are barnacled with water absorbed, enemies will be splashed twice.

 

I'm not good with numbers, so the numbers are not final and are left to people who are better and more experienced at balancing them. I welcome feedback so that we can make Hydroid the best he can be.

 

Archived initial post:

Spoiler

 

Goals

I want to expand on Hydroid's control style. I think he needs bigger AoE on his abilities, faster casting, and be more group-friendly.

 

Tempest Barrage

Uses the tap / hold mechanic. Tap Tempest Barrage changed to dealing a large single hit.

 

Tidal Surge

I'm thinking of giving Tidal Surge the ability to self-heal so that Hydroid can self-heal without an augment.

 

Undertow

Make the radius a lot bigger. I'm thinking of around 15 meters at base. Enemies caught will have the lower half of their body sink into the ground, allowing other players to hit the enemies. Enemies will be slowed down by 50% while in Undertow. Undertow will pull enemies toward the middle while active.

Edit: Undertow will disable enemies' movement abilities like Moa's jump, Manic's teleports, etc.

 

Tentacle Swarm

Uses the tap / hold mechanic. Increase the hold radius to 20 meters.

 

 

[Leqesai]

Hydroid definitely needs a rework.

Personally I think Tidal Surge and Undertow should be combined into one ability. When stationary it is regular undertow but bullet jumping while in undertow would cause you to do tidal surge.

Tempest Barrage needs a big boost considering it was previously used to strip armor and now it does jack-all.

New ability added. I have no idea what this would be but maybe a self-buff or enemy debuff of some kind. 

 

[superhbman]

1 minute ago, Leqesai said:

Tempest Barrage needs a big boost considering it was previously used to strip armor and now it does jack-all.

I'm rather new, so what did Tempest Barrage did before?

Also, Tempest Barrage does have an augment that applies Corrosive status to enemies. I was considering building that into the ability itself, so what do you think?

[(XBOX)Helverin]

They should swap out corrosive for a % armor strip based on ability strength or via some kind of build up like ember. Sadly the corrosive status don't do that much since the status rework. 

[CrimsonSpawn]

Passive: Enemies lifted in the air shall have tentacles hold them for the duration of the lift with a guaranteed electric proc.

Tempest Barrage: On tap Hydroid absorbs water particles in the air and bombards enemies with a giant pool of water from above, instead of tiny missiles. Once dropped, enemies caught in the pool are immediately knocked down. Hydroid must aim at the enemy for bombardment, pool can be modded for range and radius, if augment is attached then strength of corrosive dmg. If ability cast is held, Hydroid's position gets fixed (like mesa's) a body of water is generated and controlled by Hydroid. The camera rotation decides where the body of water shall move. enemies hit are absorbed in and lose a percentage of their armor for each second they are in the body of water. It becomes bigger, visually, as more enemies are absorbed in. Hydroid loses energy as ability is in use, range mods do nothing, range increases as more enemies are absorbed (Starts with a size of 10m in diameter and Increases by 1 meter for each 10 enemies absorbed, capped at 20 meters). if augment is used, enemies shall instantly lose all armor on being absorbed.

Tidal surge: Wave speed is now affected by strength, players can control direction of wave while tidal surge is active. Duration affects time hydroid can remain in tidal surge.

Undertow: Hydroid liquidates a portion of his frame into a puddle, loses 75% of his health, shields and armor in the process. Enemies caught in the puddle, have their armor, health and shields leached by Hydroid. More enemies fall in, more is leached.

[Yupan]

How about this?

Tentacle Swarm: After Casting Hydroid can walk up to the appearing Kraken-Head press X and ride it like K-Drive. Tentacles spawn around it like Hyldrens ult and he can use his secondary weapon as well as tidal surge while riding?

[PsiWarp]

He's this mix of long-to-mid-range but highly stationary area denial, with directional repositioning to help setup a death trap that requires either way too much time to drown enemies, or relies on teammates' damage to empty his puddle.

Certainly a re-revisit should aim to preserve some aspects of this playstyle, while aiming to bring Hydroid's damage and mobility up to par with other frames' kits. Here's some food for thought:

Passive

• Added a 100% chance to spawn a tentacle on slam/heavy attack slam kill.
• Tentacles spawned by passive and Tentacle Swarm behavioral changes:
  • Now thrashes at normal speed.
  • Players/friendly AI hitting a tentacle's hitbox will deal damage to all enemies it captured.
  • Each enemy captured by a tentacle will count toward Undertow's drown damage scaling.

Tempest Barrage

• Tap-cast: Base damage increased to fully charged values.
• Hold-cast: Now centers the barrage on Hydroid and follows him as a channeled ability draining energy per second. Press again to deactivate. Cannot cast long-ranged version while channeling.
• Fixed enemies now no longer ragdoll away from cannon barrage impact.

Hits harder, CCs properly, potentially lasts much longer as long as you have the energy to channel it.

Tidal Surge

• Tap-cast: Can now press the ability key, jump or roll to cancel the dash early. Now steerable with left and right keys similar to Lavos' Vial Rush.
• Hold-cast: surges a tidal wave forward without forcing Hydroid to dash.
• Permanently stripes a % of max armor from enemies caught in the surge, the amount depending on number of enemies sweep away together by the wave.

Water flows so should you, transition from dash to parkour smoothly. Throw that wall of water and slam grouped-up enemies into a wall for follow-up. Not even armor can withstand erosion.

Undertow

• Undertow pool size will scale from a min radius to a max radius, depending on the number of enemies currently drowning (including those captured by tentacles).
• Once again disable Warframe/Companion vacuum effect while in puddle for player visibility and unobstructed sight for tentacle grabbing.
• Hydroid's Companion is now properly immune to damage during Undertow.
• Undertow inflicts its scaling damage to enemies trapped by tentacles, when the puddle is touching said tentacle.

When it rains it pours, a small puddle turns into a pond. Loot is good, but not when it blocks your grabbing appendages. No explosion should blow up Sentinels underwater. Drown enemies faster with damage that matters.

Tentacle Swarm

• Tap-cast: Same radius as fully charged value (15 meters).
• Hold-cast: Centers Tentacle Swarm on Hydroid and follows him as an aura for the duration. Tentacles automatically spawn under enemies within the spawn radius to capture them, despawning once Hydroid moves away and the tentacles exit the spawn radius.
• New functionality: 10 tentacles will initially spawn for both tap/hold casts. While active, up to 10 more tentacles (so at max 20 total) will dynamically emerge in Tentacle Swarm's radius when enemies are killed while captured by a tentacle or drowned in Undertow.
• Undertow + Tentacle Swarm = Kraken's head stays emerged in Undertow's puddle for your exalted squid cosplay needs.

Same size, different uses. Area denial you can place from long range, or area denial around you. Anti-Nullifier updates to this ability- tentacles erased by bubble, no problem the spawn radius is still there so new tentacles emerge! Kill as many enemies as you can to make more tentacles. Finally can Awaken the Kraken and sort-of be one while in your puddle.

[Leqesai]

7 hours ago, superhbman said:

I'm rather new, so what did Tempest Barrage did before?

Also, Tempest Barrage does have an augment that applies Corrosive status to enemies. I was considering building that into the ability itself, so what do you think?

The corrosive status proc used to strip armor from enemies. Now it reduces armor but because of how armor works it scales horribly. At most it reduces 80% of armor, meaning high level enemies could potentially still have incredible damage reduction.

IE: A level 100 heavy gunner has 6441 armor
With max application of the corrosive status proc that armor would be reduced to 1288
6441 armor is 95.5% damage reduction
1288 armor is 81.11% damage reduction

So with max stacks you are only gaining roughly 14% damage.

The old corrosive proc could fully strip armor.

Now, DE made this change because they recognized everyone under the sun used corrosive projection to fully strip armor. They also said that it invalidated corrosive damage because it would lose its damage bonus once the armor is fully stripped.

Personally I think their logic is completely stupid here. The issue is, and has always been, their armor scaling system is absolutely asinine. Tempest Barrage was a pretty useful ability before. Now it is dog S*. 

[superhbman]

Almost a full month. Revision 2. I don't count this as a necro.