Hydroid Rework ideas

[Warlohk]

Considering Hydroid's rework has finally been announced I thought I'd share ideas I had been cooking for his rework.

Preface
Hydroid's identity is no longer what it used to be. He was supposed to be initially water wielding pirate warframe with hints of eldritch vibes with all the tentacles both in his model and his abilities. Since Yareli's release she became the resident water bender (who also needed help from DE to be good). What I propose for Hydroid's rework is that DE chooses one of the 3 themes that describe Hydroid (water, pirate, eldritch sea monsters) and lean into one of those and only sprinkle the other two for thematic clarity. So he should either be a master of water manipulation, or a pirate, or an eldritch sea monster summoner. I will try my best to keep in mind balance, thematic, how reasonable it is to make such an ability (complexity), and the rule of cool.

 

Water manipulator

Passive
Water is ever changing, and Hydroid being the water manipulator he is has become one with water. 

The more hits Hydroid takes the more does he change into water form reducing damage taken and temporary removing unit collision with enemies allowing him to pass through enemies and the enemies he passes through are slowed for a short duration.

Hydroid abilities apply a debuff on enemies that double certain status procs.

Ability 1
Summon a barrage of water bullets in an area that deals damage, stagger enemies and slow them in the process, and each bullet that hits an enemy applies additional stacks of his debuff passive up to a cap.
Augment
Each bullet also strips defenses (armor and shield) permanently, defense strip % scales with strength.

Ability 2
(Tap) Sends a tidal wave from Hydroid pushing enemies away, those enemies that make a contact with a wall stay pinned against it for a duration taking damage that increases over time.
(Hold) Summons three waves that crash towards Hydroid grouping enemies and disarming them. Creates a puddle on the floor under the grouped enemies, keeping them rooted in place for a duration.
Augment
Each enemy hit gives Hydroid and his allies in Affinity range health regeneration stacks up to a cap for a duration.

Ability 3
Hydroid turns into water dashing to nearby surface, removing status effects from himself and becoming immune to damage for duration of this ability, in this water form he can aim at surfaces and he will dash to them dragging any enemy hit with him pinning them where he lands and creating water puddles (this ability works on walls and floor). Hydroid can recast this ability up to 2 more times (3 in total) while in this form by using primary fire without spending energy.
Augment
Changes the cast amount to 1 but the area of the puddle is doubled.(subject to change)

Ability 4
Hydroid covers a large area with water and creates a puddle under enemies, after which all water puddles active made by Hydroid will start violently drowning his opponents taking damage over a short time, if an enemy's health drops below certain health threshold Hydroid will execute them with water specters.
Augment
Enemies killed by Hydroid's water specters have extra chance (or 100% chance) to drop extra loot.

Pirate captain

Passive
Each time an enemy is killed by Hydroid or an ally within affinity range it counts to Hydroid's doubloons which gives him X amount of credits for each of them and if certain doubloon threshold is met (like 50, 100, 200, etc.) he will get a treasure chest which will increase Hydroid's and his allies' drop chances when they kill enemies - the idea is that as the thresholds are met the enemy drop chances increase up to 100%, doubling the drop chances for at long as Hydroid stays in the mission. 

Ability 1
Hydroid calls in a cannon barrage which does blast damage which scales based on how many hits the enemy took from this ability (so the damage ramps up)
Augment
Instead of barrage of cannon balls Hydroid calls in one big blast that scales based on number of enemies in the area.

Ability 2
Hydroid throws gunpowder in front of him and lighting it on fire creating a line of fire that lasts for a certain duration. Enemies that walk into this fire will ignite and start running towards their allies unknowingly setting the other enemies of fire.
Augment
Each enemy on fire provides Hydroid with health regeneration.

Ability 3
Hydroid summons a barrel rum before he throws it ahead of himself, it deals blast damage and coats enemies in Hydroid's special rum which gives Hydroid guaranteed super critical hit and reduces enemy accuracy(or possibly stuns the enemies in place). Bosses have reduced duration of this rum coat and only guarantees normal critical hit.
Augment
Instead of wasting all that rum Hydroid chugs the whole barrel giving him flat 100% additive crit chance but reducing his accuracy by X amount.

Ability 4
Hydroid summons a pirate crew consisting of 3 melee and 3 ranged pirates. The melee are wielding cutlasses (lets say nami but with added incarnon stats), and the ranged ones are wielding handheld cannons (lets say zarr but with the stats of kuva zarr, and only have access to the cannon mode).
Augment
Hydroid's pirate crew gives Hydroid overguard for each enemy slain (for this to work his crew needs to do enough damage to kill enemies) OR for each enemy hit (in this case the crew can be weaker where they arent just straight up nuking rooms)

Eldritch summoner

Passive
Hydroid's abilities apply a stacking debuff up to cap, the debuff makes the affected enemies to take additional void/true damage per stack - the damage scales with power strength.

Ability 1
Hydroid summons tentacles from his hand bursting out forward in a cone, if an enemy is struck they will be knocked on the ground.
Augment
(HOLD)Hydroid instead of knocking the enemies on the ground Hydroid will pull enemies to himself opening them to finishers.

Ability 2
Hydroid turns himself into a mass of tentacles pulling enemies in range and holding them for the duration, after the duration finishes Hydroid bursts tentacles from himself dealing damage based on how many enemies he pulled(this range should be at least double the pull range, and have eyesight hitbox so he doesn't just nuke stuff behind walls)
Augment
Hydroid gains overguard for each enemy pulled

Ability 3
Hydroid summons a tentacle on the ground grabbing an enemy if they walk into it keeping them in place at their defenses (armor and shield) are drained giving hydroid portions of their defenses for a duration. Hydroid can summon up to 5 tentacles, casting a new one will disperse the oldest one.
Augment
 (HOLD)Hydroid will teleport to the target tentacle summoned by this ability instantly killing the held enemy and gaining their defenses.

Ability 4
Hydroid unveils the horrors of the eldritch monsters summoning a being from the 4th dimension. For a duration tentacles keep summoning around Hydroid grabbing enemies and slamming them to the ground (each tentacle can grab up to 3-4 enemies). The tentacles also apply a debuff on the enemies making them take shared damage between them all.
Augment
Enemies grabbed by the tentacles have increased chance (or 100%) to drop extra loot.

I understand that some of these ideas seem stronger than the others at least conceptually but that's why I haven't really written any numbers considering that should be left to DE balance team (if there is one?). These are my initial thoughts about how I think Hydroid should be, and what I could see be done with the game's mechanics. I'm very much open to questions, suggestions, and criticisms.

[Azchenon]

I like this, you explain Hydroid's identity issue perfectly

I will say tho I feel like you are missing some opportunities with some of your concepts

Also some of the stuff you propose wouldn't fit in warframe as it misses some recurrent methods of the way warframes are designed

Allow me to explain : As you know, most warframe have (at least in the viable/meta frames + most of the more recent ones, with the exception of Gyre) some form of a survivability tool in their kit. You have one in your rework of undertow (Concept1, Ability3) in the form of status removal, which is extremely nice ( Arson eximus heat procs hurt D: ) but also not enough compared to Sevagoth's Gloom, Protea's Shield drones, Caliban's Sentient drones (if they worked), Xaku's evasion, Yareli has Merulina (90% DR, just like Nezha and Gara at the press of a button), Wisp has her motes, Gauss also has easy access to DR, etc.

You could say you rely on a friendly Citrine to give you 90% DR but I don't think that'll work most of the time :P

So, when we think about making/reworking a warframe and we want it to be usable in late game, we try to give it a nice "I am now unkillable" button (or passive). On Hydroid that shoudn't be too hard to implement : puddle form makes you invulnerable, pirates eat ORANGES! (I play Gankplank in LoL) to protect themselves from sickness and Eldritch sea monster summoners have the blessing of the Eldritch sea monsters :D

So like you need a survivability option, very important and RN you don't have much :(

Ok now the "missed opportunities" I mentionned : 

Generally I find your ideas really cool I just have some questions/other ideas to complete :))

For the waterbender aspect :

The puddles stick on WALLS ? like in Splatoon ? Like, that's cool but maybe I don't see where you're going with this. The way you present the 3 and 4 seems unpractical (and also, unlike paint, water rarely sticks to walls...)

I just don't understand the game plan when we come from the 1 and 2 which are both great revisions of the existing stuff

For the pirate aspect : 

I love that you can get drunk lmao

Also maybe the rhum could increase the fire damage taken/increase status chance (because alcohol is flammable and all, that was a missed opportunity :DD)

no survivability except for the crew drawing some of the enemy fire is a bit meh. Also the kit, while very flavorful, isnt really cohesive as it doesn't synergise with itself.

For the Eldritch aspect : 

Missed opportunity : if it's sea monsterS, why shouldn't there be giant sharks, gloomy jellyfishes, and other horrors ? As you put it the Eldritch aspect just pulls enemies around with tentacles, and has no survivability (which, again, meh). What you could have instead could be summoning giant sea animals all over the places, like a swarm of jellyfishes to Shock and strip defenses, gain help from crustaceans to gain armor/dr, Sharks for mobility and weapon damage amp, and keep the Kraken for the ult for the damaging aura, and you've got yourself a pretty good weapons platform :P

 

That is all for now lol I like your ideas they just need a bit more stuff and synergy :))

Please criticize !

Edited September 5, 2023 by Azchenon
text editor wouldnt let me go to the next line :(

[Warlohk]

I agree that some of these ideas a more shaky than others because honestly I was trying to think about what could be done within reason if DE were to listen to these ideas.


For the Waterbender:
the puddles that stick on the wall are exclusive to the mobility for him, the idea is that aside from the floor "teleport" he should be able to do the same against the walls considering this game isn't so much about being stationary. The survivability comes from the passive, Ability 2 augment, Ability 4 augment.

For the Pirate:
I agree there was the missed opportunity on not letting the heat stacks be doubled when enemies are coated in rum, so would definitely add that as long as DE's balance team would think that wouldn't be broken in their book. I agree that this idea is missing survivability, so let's say his Ability 4 grants damage % resist per alive crew member, or they grant Hydroid overguard each time they hit an enemy.

For the Eldritch Sea Monsters:

I completely agree that it would be cooler to have various sea creatures with eldritch elements to them, but I was thinking how visually viable it would be for DE to make something like that. It's highly unlikely that they would make various different sea creatures for him to use, so I focused on the one thing they pretty much implemented - the kraken, but instead to be able to summon the tentacles more often. And yeah this one also is missing some survivability to make him go into late game, and aside from Ability 2 augment there is none, so for him maybe to change the passive that grants him damage % resist where he gains stacks of those based on abilities cast.

Phrased something like this: Hydroid's connection to the Eldritch realm gives him Eldritch armor as he connects to the realm. When Hydroid casts an ability he gains 1 stack of Eldritch armor which grants him 10% damage reduction up to 9 stacks for X amount of seconds(whichever time feels good enough)

 

 

Overall I think I understand your criticisms it is just that I was trying to think what realistically DE would do based on the theme and gameplay perspective as it is right now.

[Azchenon]

Il y a 4 heures, Yog-Xathoth a dit :

Overall I think I understand your criticisms it is just that I was trying to think what realistically DE would do based on the theme and gameplay perspective as it is right now.

yup