Hydroid needs major kit changes!

[Radiofloyd]

Hydroid's kit is a relic of a bygone era. CC, with every update, becomes less relevant, as more enemies are immune to it, and as more gamemodes focus mainly on killing things fast rather than defending a target. For that reason it needs major changes to either make its CC unique and powerful enough to be worth using, or changing the direction of the frame completely into a more damage focus CC DPS hybrid.

 

Here are some suggestions for pointers:

1st ability:

Make it deal more damage: Pretty self explanatory, the damage it deals at the moment is too low to justify using your energy for it.

Make it into an effective or even competitive armor strip: Corroding barrage is an awesome augment in principle, that makes Hydroid's barrage into a truly interesting ability, as it provides a heavy increase in dps AND armor strips. The issue is that with the status changes corrosive is significantly weaker, and Corroding barrage becomes a temporary debuff that tends not to last long enough for the player to be able to shoot down the enemy before it runs out.

I believe the CC capabilities of that ability are fine for a first ability, granted it not be the power's only function.

 

2nd ability: 

Make it into an effective grouping tool: Surge is nice mobility, acceptable CC (in the way that it gives the player a couple of i-frames to get away from the enemy), but it lacks one thing that would make it a truly well adjusted ability for our current game, and that's grouping. If I could swallow surrounding enemies into my wave as I surged, not only would that make the ability better, but it would suit Hydroid's 3 much better.

3rd ability:

Make the damage ramp faster and/or tick faster: Puddle is an awesome ability on paper. It's infinitely scaling DPS like Saryn, gives the player a couple of seconds of invincibility, and it synergizes well with the rest of Hydroid's kit. However, the damage is too slow. A weapon, what Hydroid's puddle is competing against, can just as easily deal a lot of damage to a lot of enemies, and it can do it much faster. However, a weapon doesn't make the player invincible, neither does it give them back health without opportunity costs (which is possible with the augment). As such, if it could do the job of a weapon in roughly similar times, it could become a really interesting healing alternative for the player, as it would be one of the rare heals that also kills enemies when used. As it stands, though, it's only effective against 10+ units with no armor, even with a copious amount of power strength. As such, it might benefit from just being buffed into becoming a viable AOE damage alternative.

Make the puddle do more for the player's survivability: Another direction to take puddle in would be to make it into a state the player goes into for small amounts of time to get certain buffs. For example, you could make it so that in puddle the player's shield recharges considerably faster and maybe could even give some overshields. This would mean the player would be able to quickly pop into a puddle to get themselves in a better ehp condition before continuing combat. Once again, the fact that the player would also be dealing at least small amounts of damage, as well as completely neutralizing the enemies would be, I feel, enough motivation to choose that over alternative ways to get those kinds of effects. 

Finally, for the 4th ability:

A nice damage boost could make it into an efficient trash mob grinder.

A change in the CC mechanics (mainly please make the CC either leave the enemy's head exposed, or make it debuff the enemy in a way that gives the player more effective damage).

If you made it this far, thank you for reading my first post in this forum. The main point behind making this is that while playing hydroid for now a couple of months (mainly been vainly trying to build him in a way that let's him quickly take down enemies while healing, using my weapon to group enemies and debuff them up, and finish them up in puddle for a quick heal) I realized that a lot of his problems are really due to a different philosophy in design, but one that can be changed with mainly numerical changes or building on top of his kit. As such, I wanted to try my hand at suggesting small-ish changes that would completely modify how Hydroid works.

 

 

 

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

Hydroid was never in a good spot lol, we used to always use him for his 4, without the existence of that augment he would cease to exist. 

Frame has been in need of help since he was first added to the game. Hes near the most stressful warframe to play in the game. Dope abilities but so unhelpful

Yes to a rework 100%

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

4 hours ago, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

Hydroid was never in a good spot lol, we used to always use him for his 4, without the existence of that augment he would cease to exist. 

Frame has been in need of help since he was first added to the game. Hes near the most stressful warframe to play in the game. Dope abilities but so unhelpful

Yes to a rework 100%

Wrong. He was top tier for like the 4 months between his rework and the release of ESO.

ESO shifted the meta hard into big damage really fast and Hydroid found himself being useless again.

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

2 hours ago, (XBOX)GearsMatrix301 said:

Wrong. He was top tier for like the 4 months between his rework and the release of ESO.

He was never top teir wtf? Lol what was he doing that was top teir?

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

1 hour ago, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

He was never top teir wtf? Lol what was he doing that was top teir?

His has infinite scaling damage. His 1 could support that with armor strip. Zenistar was also super beneficial to it before DE removed Melee going thru walls.

it fell off when ESO was introduced because it’s rather slow and ESO is all about killing fast.

[Numerikuu]

I wouldn't say he needs a ground-up rework, just some tweaks.

Some new ability audio/sound design would be very nice 👀

His passive is garbage. At the very least have it be a 100% chance to summon a tentacle on a slam attack. A nice added bonus would be he does more weapon damage to enemies primed by his 2 and 4.

His cast times need speeding up, if not outright removing. Have it so his 1 and 4 are always a charged cast instead.

Personally I wouldn't care if his 1 was completely changed to something else entirely. His 2, 3 and 4 are plenty enough CC when used together.

His 2 is fine.

Change his 3 so that when you use his 2 while submerged it pulls all enemies currently trapped along with him. Currently if you do this all trapped enemies become untrapped. It's quite annoying. Also allow him to pick up loot while in his puddle so that the screen isn't cluttered to the point you can't see a thing. It actually works against his 3 since you can't grab things with his tentacle grab. You can't really do that if you can't see anything lol. You're forced to exit to clear the screen, but in doing so loose all that slowly built up ramped damage.

Speaking of, better, faster scaling and ramping up of damage in general. Have his 4 be affected by duration so that the longer enemies are caught up in his tentacles the more damage is dealt to them. Maybe change the magnetic damage to slash damage. An added visual bonus would be enemies being torn apart in the process 💀

1 hour ago, (XBOX)GearsMatrix301 said:

His has infinite scaling damage. His 1 could support that with armor strip.

Looking forward to this week for that reason. Gonna subsume Styanax and give Hydroid his stripping ability to see just how well it works with him.

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

3 hours ago, (XBOX)GearsMatrix301 said:

His has infinite scaling damage. 

In his puddle? Top complaint about that was that it was slow and you had to be in a puddle, an ability isnt good just cause it deals damage. This existed before Eso too, its why they gave him the ability to move in his puddle, everyone brings it up as his prime issue

And it still is cause while he can move now, he still drops all enemies which gets on everyones nerves. 

Stress frame

3 hours ago, (XBOX)GearsMatrix301 said:

His 1 could support that with armor strip. Zenistar was also super beneficial

I could see that but unlike most frames hydroid still needed and still needs augments to exist cause his abilities are that wack

Like just do a quick scroll of all your warframes and see if you could still make them real strong or have great uses without augments. There are even CC warframes that far exceeds Hydroids CC, giving them near complete protection in every direction.

Then come back and tell me he didnt need a lot of help even back then

Most stressful frame in the game

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

1 hour ago, Numerikuu said:

Change his 3 so that when you use his 2 while submerged it pulls all enemies currently trapped along with him. Currently if you do this all trapped enemies become untrapped. It's quite annoying. Also allow him to pick up loot while in his puddle so that the screen isn't cluttered to the point you can't see a thing. It actually works against his 3 since you can't grab things with his tentacle grab. You can't really do that if you can't see anything lol. You're forced to exit to clear the screen, but in doing so loose all that slowly built up ramped damage.

Ive been asking for this too ever since they allowed him to use his wave in the puddle. I thought it was too hard to code in till grendel comes along and now im just like What???

This dude can jump, turn into a ball, roll, dance, all while carrying enemies and Hydroid still drops them all by moving an inch? I get hes made of water but cmon, water can still move things, especially a wave, people legit surf on these things

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

37 minutes ago, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

In his puddle? Top complaint about that was that it was slow and you had to be in a puddle, an ability isnt good just cause it deals damage. This existed before Eso too, its why they gave him the ability to move in his puddle, everyone brings it up as his prime issue

And it still is cause while he can move now, he still drops all enemies which gets on everyones nerves. 

Stress frame

I could see that but unlike most frames hydroid still needed and still needs augments to exist cause his abilities are that wack

Like just do a quick scroll of all your warframes and see if you could still make them real strong or have great uses without augments. There are even CC warframes that far exceeds Hydroids CC, giving them near complete protection in every direction.

Then come back and tell me he didnt need a lot of help even back then

Most stressful frame in the game

they added the infinite scaling damage and the moving in puddle with tidal surge in the same rework.

Hydroid can have augments installed without compromising his build. I get you’re one of those “If it needs an augment it’s trash” kind of people. But come on.

Again dude, this was before ESO. You didn’t need to kill something within nanoseconds of making eye contact with it.

You’re holding him to the standards of today expecting that to make sense for being top tier.

 

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

2 hours ago, (XBOX)GearsMatrix301 said:

they added the infinite scaling damage and the moving in puddle with tidal surge in the same rework.

Hydroid can have augments installed without compromising his build. I get you’re one of those “If it needs an augment it’s trash” kind of people. But come on.

Again dude, this was before ESO. You didn’t need to kill something within nanoseconds of making eye contact with it.

You’re holding him to the standards of today expecting that to make sense for being top tier.

 

Nah im holding him to standards back then too, our top tier cc frames were vauban, loki, nova, and volt to some extent

If you wanted to kill, nobody was sitting there in puddle all day even if killing fast was not a priority. Maybe your first time using hydroid after rework yeah you might do it but after? I mean it doesnt take a rocket scientist to understand why being slow moving puddle waiting for enemies to die is not the greatest sell to any playerbase

Imagine if that was all warframe was, being a slow moving puddle of water. This is essentially what you get when playing hydroid for his scaling damage, especially when you actually needed his scaling damage, that was the playstyle u were locking yourself into. 

Everyone always screamed to fix that bloody ability

(Ps, moving with tidal surge drops enemies so if your pro here is the scaling damage, tidal surge is not supporting it. Tidal surge makes his puddle worse)

2 hours ago, (XBOX)GearsMatrix301 said:

get you’re one of those “If it needs an augment it’s trash” kind of people. But come on.

I mean you basically remove mod slots if augments are absolutely mandatory. Not trying to reach here im just saying that as a fact

Its just like how abilities used to take up mod slots before DE removed it so we could actually use those slots for customization. Hydroid essentially is still a warframe who had slots for abilities only with those mandatory augments for the ability to function as something. So like, even by DE's definition of bad things for warfame (the reasons they made changes to ability mod slots)

The frame needs help

[NuclearCoffeePot]

Hydroids first ability first and foremost must correct a fundamental mechanical flaw. In order to deal any damage or to strip more armor with it's augment it needs to be accurate. Not only are the missiles highly inaccurate, but after knocking down an enemy, a second hit will cause them to ragdoll, resulting in even more shots missing. 

1-Better Homing and missile mechanics- Duration now sets the ammunition of the barrage- Ammo is only spent when an enemy is targeted and fired upon, damage knocks enemies down, but cannot ragdoll them, come up with whatever excuse you want for that, impaled by water spears, drowning in a puddle created by the shot, held by magical fishing line, whatever.

-Better augment- Corrosive damage is no longer a viable armor stripping option, compared to abilities like tharros strike which strip 100% armor instantly with very little power strength, and consider that abilities now strip armor additively instead of multiplicatively, and you realize why it sucks so much. Not only is it a max 80% armor strip, it stacks multiplicatively with corrosive projection and other abilities, since the strip is the result of a status proc and not the ability itself.  Give it a shattering impact effect, each time a missile hits an enemy, they lose a flat % of their armor and shields, affected by strength-

-With strength now being a priority for the skill for more damage and stripping, it is inefficient to juggle that with range and duration, so cap the range, If you want to keep the charge mechanic, buff the charged range significantly and increase the base ammunition count alongside the charge. 

 

[NuclearCoffeePot]

1 hour ago, (XBOX)GearsMatrix301 said:

they added the infinite scaling damage and the moving in puddle with tidal surge in the same rework.

Hydroid can have augments installed without compromising his build. I get you’re one of those “If it needs an augment it’s trash” kind of people. But come on.

Again dude, this was before ESO. You didn’t need to kill something within nanoseconds of making eye contact with it.

You’re holding him to the standards of today expecting that to make sense for being top tier.

 

Ok. 

1- You are right that damage does not define a frames "goodness", but context is relevant, if not damage, what is his puddles primary function. As a survival tool it is the weakest in the game. It gives you full invincibility but it is accompanied by a hefty drain and a movement cripple, using tidal surge doesn't make it much better. Sure it lets you reposition(only on a horizontal plane, and with a reduced range) but it also lacks directional control, you cannot steer tidal surge very much. The second problem is the perspective. Hydroids puddle is the only ability I can think of that forces your perspective down to ankle level. It is akward.

2-Holding him the standards of today is kind of what game improvement is about. The game has changed, hydroid is slow, and was not built for it. The only way to keep him the same and make him fit better is to invent a totally new, cc reliant game mode, or revert the game back to when hydroid was released. It makes no sense to build the game around the frame, rather than building the frame around the game, and more importantly, around the players of today. What players want and expect from warframe is a fastpaced, looter shooter, with an over the shoulder perspective and hordes of enemies to slay in an epic power fantasy. Hydroid falls short on every aspect. His abilities are deliberatly slow, they require charge times, or are inferior mobility options compared to other skills like cloud walker, reave, and even lavos's vial rush. With his puddle perspective, not only are you at an uncomfortable angle to observe the games environment, but your entire fov can be blocked by an object or worse LOOT, one of hydroids main selling points is his loot augment, and when your in your puddle, you vacuum that loot straight into your camera, blocking your vision, unless you leave the puddle, which seems pretty pointless if its supposed to keep you alive.

3-I don't think most people want him reworked to be a top tier frame, I love hydroid as a concept, the same as I loved old Vauban and Limbo, but they got changed for the better, and I love them even more. I would settle for a D tier hydroid, as long as he would be more enjoyable to play. Why struggle to kill enemies with your abilities when you can play a frame who does it better. Why lock down enemies for easy kills when their are frames that do it a lot better, and with less glitchy results. Why sit in a puddle to survive and slowly drown enemies, when I can soar through the sky as an invincible pixie with guns bigger than her body and still take less damage.

4-It makes no sense to leave Hydroid as he is, sure you can force him to be viable with the right combination of helminths, weapons, and operator skills, but while you might enjoy it, most people don't. Playing the game should not be a rube goldberg machine of interactions just to finish a mission, and players do not enjoy Hydroids abilities as they are. The majority of players have spoken.

[Radiofloyd]

4 hours ago, NuclearCoffeePot said:

Hydroids first ability first and foremost must correct a fundamental mechanical flaw. In order to deal any damage or to strip more armor with it's augment it needs to be accurate. Not only are the missiles highly inaccurate, but after knocking down an enemy, a second hit will cause them to ragdoll, resulting in even more shots missing. 

1-Better Homing and missile mechanics- Duration now sets the ammunition of the barrage- Ammo is only spent when an enemy is targeted and fired upon, damage knocks enemies down, but cannot ragdoll them, come up with whatever excuse you want for that, impaled by water spears, drowning in a puddle created by the shot, held by magical fishing line, whatever.

-Better augment- Corrosive damage is no longer a viable armor stripping option, compared to abilities like tharros strike which strip 100% armor instantly with very little power strength, and consider that abilities now strip armor additively instead of multiplicatively, and you realize why it sucks so much. Not only is it a max 80% armor strip, it stacks multiplicatively with corrosive projection and other abilities, since the strip is the result of a status proc and not the ability itself.  Give it a shattering impact effect, each time a missile hits an enemy, they lose a flat % of their armor and shields, affected by strength-

-With strength now being a priority for the skill for more damage and stripping, it is inefficient to juggle that with range and duration, so cap the range, If you want to keep the charge mechanic, buff the charged range significantly and increase the base ammunition count alongside the charge. 

 

I don't think capping the range is a good idea. I think it's better to boost base stats if we were going to make it into a damage/debuff ability. Because if the player chooses to trade off all strength for range, the ability will still be a nice somewhat effective CC.

[Radiofloyd]

4 hours ago, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

Nah im holding him to standards back then too, our top tier cc frames were vauban, loki, nova, and volt to some extent

If you wanted to kill, nobody was sitting there in puddle all day even if killing fast was not a priority. Maybe your first time using hydroid after rework yeah you might do it but after? I mean it doesnt take a rocket scientist to understand why being slow moving puddle waiting for enemies to die is not the greatest sell to any playerbase

Imagine if that was all warframe was, being a slow moving puddle of water. This is essentially what you get when playing hydroid for his scaling damage, especially when you actually needed his scaling damage, that was the playstyle u were locking yourself into. 

Everyone always screamed to fix that bloody ability

(Ps, moving with tidal surge drops enemies so if your pro here is the scaling damage, tidal surge is not supporting it. Tidal surge makes his puddle worse)

I mean you basically remove mod slots if augments are absolutely mandatory. Not trying to reach here im just saying that as a fact

Its just like how abilities used to take up mod slots before DE removed it so we could actually use those slots for customization. Hydroid essentially is still a warframe who had slots for abilities only with those mandatory augments for the ability to function as something. So like, even by DE's definition of bad things for warfame (the reasons they made changes to ability mod slots)

The frame needs help

I think Hydroid's kit (granted it be redesigned to do similar things but in a way that is more effective for our current game) is fine without augments. Like in principle without augments you have a CC/damage hybrid, a CC pseudo grouping tool (that, as I said, I hope could eventually become an actual grouping tool), infinite scaling damage, and a large scale CC major damage ability (again, in concept). If the abilities were tweaked in certain ways and balanced to be actually good, I think the augments would be great extras to his kit rather than the sole motives to use him.

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

3 hours ago, Radiofloyd said:

I think Hydroid's kit (granted it be redesigned to do similar things but in a way that is more effective for our current game) is fine without augments. Like in principle without augments you have a CC/damage hybrid, a CC pseudo grouping tool (that, as I said, I hope could eventually become an actual grouping tool), infinite scaling damage, and a large scale CC major damage ability (again, in concept). If the abilities were tweaked in certain ways and balanced to be actually good, I think the augments would be great extras to his kit rather than the sole motives to use him.

His abilities may be cool to watch but not good cc, theyll have you getting beat down while you are spamming the abilities everywhere, play 1 solo sp mission without using puddle, then do that mission Limbo or something. Nova, a good gloom warframe, frost

His cc pales in comparison to all other good cc warframes for no pay off, his augments only thing that grants it slight pay off

[Radiofloyd]

39 minutes ago, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

His abilities may be cool to watch but not good cc, theyll have you getting beat down while you are spamming the abilities everywhere, play 1 solo sp mission without using puddle, then do that mission Limbo or something. Nova, a good gloom warframe, frost

His cc pales in comparison to all other good cc warframes for no pay off, his augments only thing that grants it slight pay off

My point is that the issue is in execution, not in fundamental design. As such, I think the augments deserve to stay, as long as the abilities are reworked to be more focused and better.