Yet another set of Hydroid Improvement Suggestions

[Grav_Starstrider]

Ways I'd just tweak his current kit:

 

Passive: Blood in the Water - Enemies being damaged (low% chance) or killed by (high% chance) or killed while being afflicted (medium% chance) by Hydroid's watery abilities have a chance of summoning a a watery tentacle for X seconds, that each make it low% cheaper and quicker (up to medium%) to cast his abilities. I'd leave DE to decide on numbers, but if just throwing Tempest Barrages around, or tentacle attacks would summon more tentacles, the percentage and duration can be lower than current, and the rate and cap of benefit gain could be low as well.
"Enemy's blood being drawn by or proximate to Hydroid's abilities stir the depths of the deep, summoning Tentacles that increase Ability-Casting Speed and Efficiency"

Tempest Barrage: Casting time is either too slow, or not currently rewarding enough in intensity of benefit per time invested in the cast. If it takes 3 or 4 times longer to fully charge-cast compared to a tap-cast, I'd expect it to be at least triple the duration and power strength, not just doubled. Otherwise I like it overall.

Tidal Surge: Please make it "flow like water" more. Gauss, a sprinter and speed machine, should be more confined to straighter vectors than the literal watery Warframe is. But Gauss feels nice. I just want Hydroid to at least feel as nice to pilot as that. Squirm around obstacles (simple tight spiral vectors with back-tracking jumps to allow consistent "flow" around obstacles, corners, edges, etc). Ideally also give it the Mag Pull treatment, where enemies don't get ludicrously scattered, or abusing stage-kill possibilities, make them just get deposited by the cessation of the Wave in a crash downward onto the ground. Doesn't need to actually even be a strong vortex-like impulse like Vauban, just make sure they're in the general vicinity for followup kills to be made against them. Ideally another damage instance occurs on wall/ground hit from this, to re-trigger the new passive idea above. Also make chain-casting cost only 80% of base cost, minus the amount of the previous cast's travel time remaining, so that it can function like a pseudo-Mach-Rush, without feeling like it's 20x more energy-wasteful to too-eagerly use than Mach Rush is.

Undertow: This is practically anti-gameplay right now, it's sit and AFK damage enemies inside of it as a choke-point holder (which isn't relevant in 90% of Warframe). Give it the Ash Smokescreen treatment, where it reduces (at least for a good few seconds) how much energy other ability casts cost in this mode. Increase the speed of movement significantly (half of Cloud-Walker's speed? Or even a quarter?) without making that incur further energy drain. Make this *take* enemies captured with you, instead of allowing them to pop back out at their original position if you just slide away from the range where you had caught them, so that this can be a tactical divide-and-conquer stealth-usable ability. Make damage and energy drain go up way faster as time goes on in Undertow, so that it can be reasonably used as a semi-reliable enemy-killer as long as you've got the energy reserves and efficiency present to sustain it adequately.

Tentacle Swarm: Give Tentacles Zephyr-Tornado-like enemy-seeking pathing whenever they've finished killing an enemy. Maybe have the Kraken Head do way bigger up-front damage on an enemy (or group) it was directly summoned onto (or onto your currently Undertowed enemies if summoned from Undertow) and even more slowly try to seek additional enemies on/near its summoned-upon surface. Give Tentacles a slightly more appropriate-seeming element, like Toxin or Corrosive or Viral or Cold, magnetic feels a bit wrong for it. Make the damage dealt to captured enemies  increase the longer they're still alive in the tentacle's grasp.

 

I think these changes would make Hydroid feel far more engaging, competitive, and modern to play as, without losing any of his major roots or changing anything significantly, other than for the better.

 

However

I'd love to see Hydroid's Tidal Surge and Undertow merged into a channeled ground-bound equivalent to Cloud-Walker's mobility, with Smokebomb's ability cheapening effects, with Grendel's per-enemy-consumed scaling damage but energy drain effects though, where it's more proactively intended as mobility, damage-dealing, combo-enabling ability, maybe only for tap-casts, where they're cheaper to cast than a standing version of the tap-cast, but fundamentally not doing as much as a standing charge-cast of the ability could do. With features as mentioned above for both Tidal Surge and Undertow (their Augment's effects could be averaged/halved?).

Then a new ability could be added to his kit, whether it's a personal or party offensive or defensive buff, or a utility/tactical ability, or an outright offensive or defensive move..... I also just realized that Tidal Surge could just take most of the pros of Undertow, and then make Undertow into a non-channeled choke-point-trapping ability, where you're just making a stretch of floor where enemies will silently be pulled under to be strangled by Tentacles until the puddle expires and disappears.

I also like the thought of converting Corroding Barrage into tap-cast being closer to the fully charged cast's effects, but you can hold-cast it to make a misty rainstorm centered upon Hydroid, that reduces enemy perception both visual and audible (including cameras and sensors) by 50% (by 75% for Hydroid in Undertow/Tidal-Surge mode), so that Hydroid can really sneak around a bit more and divide and conquer more engagingly.

[Grav_Starstrider]

Alternatively "Flow Like Water" could be a passive for Hydroid that has his movement speed and casting speed increase, instead of efficiency and casting speed. This could extend to maneuvers, sprinting, and Undertow/Tidal-Surge casting and moving speed, per enemies being wettened by, damaged by, killed by, or killed while being affected by Hydroid's watery abilities.