Hydroid Alterations - Post Revisit

[Navarc]

39 minutes ago, blacklusterseph said:

Yeah, I don't think evasion is really worthwhile in any game where enemy mobs dominate the game loop. It becomes more and more meaningless for every enemy added. I'm not convinced it scales in Warframe either. What is the point of every 3rd shot missing you if the enemy only needs one to one-shot you.

 

38 minutes ago, Ordosan said:

ya. I WANT to say its been here since before Titania even I just dont remember exactly. but evasion basically sums up to "units have reduced accuracy when they target you" so basically if you have a units attention they lose a % value of there to hit meter. (which enemy accuracy scales on range of there perspective guns...but thats irrelevant to talk about)

but despite me thinking SOME of yoru changes are going overboard (sometimes you gotta go overboard inorder to get a splash) I personally WOULD love to see a passive they gave him Evasion during/after skill cast. Let hydroid "flow like water" you could say.

 

18 minutes ago, TGKazein said:

Oops, lol

A valid point.

On Titania, while her 50% evasion is active it nearly doubles how long she'll last while standing still, I've seen it even go beyond doubling her survival in taking direct damage.
I don't think 30% evasion is anything to shrug off, it's no 50% but keeping it lower opens up potential for mods that may increase or add to it, besides, the armour buff can come with his Prime rather than the standard one.

Keep in mind that Titania has got lower stats than Hydroid, that's the evasion in play. But Hydroid would have it without a duration and without an energy cost is the idea as it's part of the stats.

[Hammahness808]

29 minutes ago, Navarchus said:

 

 

On Titania, while her 50% evasion is active it nearly doubles how long she'll last while standing still, I've seen it even go beyond doubling her survival in taking direct damage.
I don't think 30% evasion is anything to shrug off, it's no 50% but keeping it lower opens up potential for mods that may increase or add to it, besides, the armour buff can come with his Prime rather than the standard one.

Keep in mind that Titania has got lower stats than Hydroid, that's the evasion in play. But Hydroid would have it without a duration and without an energy cost is the idea as it's part of the stats.

While true, in that state, Titania is much smaller than normal warframes. When enemies use weapons that have spread, her size will keep her alive longer as well.

[Navarc]

16 minutes ago, TGKazein said:

While true, in that state, Titania is much smaller than normal warframes. When enemies use weapons that have spread, her size will keep her alive longer as well.

Absolutely but I wasn't experimenting with drakgoon & heavy gunners who have the worst aim out of the bunch.
I do definitely think evasion will be significant here, not as reliable as outright damage reduction no but I just can't see it really fitting in instead of evasion or at the same time as.
Let's say DE did take notice of this thread and did add all suggestions, it would be pretty cluttered and overwhelming to have all these things. At this point one might just as well write an armour buff with all the damage avoidance suggestions stacking up.

• Damage reduction
  After 2 & 3
  50% damage reduction for 3-5 seconds, can be increased up to 90% damage reduction for 6-10 seconds
• Evasion
  +30% on stats
• Invulnerability
  During 2 & 3
• Immunity to IPS in casting animation
  Liquescence: In casting animations where Hydroid gets a water texture (all casting animations), Hydroid won't take puncture, slash & impact damage or their status effects. Knockdown & stagger immunity as well.

We're agreeing that it doesn't make sense to make him well armoured but with all this I feel like it's starting to feel hypocritical since he's sounding like he can definitely take more of a beating than many warframes with higher stats than himself. Part of the point of having the CC he does in every single ability is to not need to be tanky and suggestions to improve the effectivity of his CC have been added. 

[kapn655321]

On 5/10/2017 at 4:02 PM, Navarchus said:

Thalassophobous:  The amount of health damage Hydroid takes is a % chance the enemy will get Feared (Nekros terrify effect), dealing 50% of Hydroids health in damage is a 50% chance to get Feared.

On 5/10/2017 at 4:02 PM, Navarchus said:

Element: Hydroid upon being incapacitated (bleeding out) gets an undertow form beneath him which submerges enemies but doesn't deal damage, doesn't scale off of any power mods

On 5/10/2017 at 4:02 PM, Navarchus said:

Tempest Barrage (1) - RNG Improvement: Ability targets enemy locations upon cast, but does not track enemies if they move after the ability has been casted.

On 5/10/2017 at 4:02 PM, Navarchus said:

Tentacle Swarm (4) - Toughen: Hydroids tentacles have collision for enemy projectiles. Grenades are bounced back, rockets are detonated.

On 5/10/2017 at 4:02 PM, Navarchus said:

Tidal Surge (2) - Submerge enemies: Pulls enemies who touch the Tidal Surge along with caster to where the ability is ended

On 5/10/2017 at 4:02 PM, Navarchus said:

Hydroids abilities should all be transparent, not opaque.

 

Long time Hydroid main weighing in.
I cherry picked the best in show from the lists.

Praise:
     Fear is a Brilliant idea! Might need to tone it down to like 33.3% chance at best, or defenses might take forever.. and they'd have to scale back something else in a re-balance, which might spell disaster.
     Tempest barrage does already kind of track, and Tidal Surge does already toss enemies around a bit, but it would be nice to see them refined in these directions.
     Collision to Tentacle swarm would be great for choking out hallways. I'm all for that.. I would also be for collision of ally projectiles, but I would be hunted and assassinated by every player with explosives.. so due to that, I could take or leave this feature.
     I like the puddle on bleed out idea. ..Not on knockdown so much, which I feel would also be great, but a bit much.

Conflicts: (mostly personal)
     The idea of minimum distance on Tidal Surge (of 7m) would ever so slightly step on my toes, since I run 6m now.. but I could adjust if need be.
     Ideas for the Augments seem fine, though I'd never change my build from where it is, ideally. He works perfect for me now, though could use just a little finesse on his abilities.
     Not at all into the idea of Tidal Surge casting like a Lunaro, since I air-cast that constantly.. maybe it wouldn't be as bad as I'm thinking, but it depends mostly on whether it's only an aesthetic change, or a full hitbox change. The speed increase though, I am specifically opposed to. ..I geared my whole build around Tidal Surge. +Speed = Suicide king.
     There's a lot of big asks in here. If I didn't list it in praise section, I either wouldn't highly value or might even disagree with the changes.

Side Notes:
     Items are already picked up while tidal Surging.
     One big ask that I would love is the melee counter add to tidal surge. That's a bit above and beyond, but holy Crap that'd be sweet.

I hope I haven't been to hard on OP here. There's a lot of great imagination here on how to expand Hydroid's playstyle in new directions.. but in order to do that, we have to avoid bending him out of shape from his original style.. the style that made us all love him to start with. Refine more than re-tool.

Edited May 17, 2017 by kapn655321

[Navarc]

53 minutes ago, kapn655321 said:

 

Long time Hydroid main weighing in.
I cherry picked the best in show from the lists.

Praise:
     Fear is a Brilliant idea! Might need to tone it down to like 33.3% chance at best, or casting on defenses will cause them to take forever.. and they'd have to scale back number of strikes from his Tempest Barrage to avoid the, "nerfening."
     Tempest barrage does already kind of track, and Tidal Surge does already toss enemies around a bit, but it would be nice to see them refined in these directions.
     Collision to Tentacle swarm would be great for choking out hallways. I'm all for that.. I would also be for collision of ally projectiles, but I would be hunted and assassinated by every player with explosives.. so due to that, I could take or leave this feature.
     I like the puddle on bleed out idea. ..Not on knockdown so much, which I feel would also be great, but a bit much.

Conflicts: (mostly personal)
     The idea of minimum distance on Tidal Surge (of 7m) would ever so slightly step on my toes, since I run 6m now.. but I could adjust if need be.
     Ideas for the Augments seem fine, though I'd never change my build from where it is, ideally. He works perfect for me now, though could use just a little finesse on his abilities.
     Not at all into the idea of Tidal Surge casting like a Lunaro, since I air-cast that constantly.. maybe it wouldn't be as bad as I'm thinking, but it depends mostly on whether it's only an aesthetic change, or a full hitbox change. The speed increase though, I am specifically opposed to. ..I geared my whole build around Tidal Surge. +Speed = Suicide king.
     There's a lot of big asks in here. If I didn't list it in praise section, I either wouldn't highly value or might even disagree with the changes.

Side Notes:
     Items are already picked up while tidal Surging.
     One big ask that I would love is the melee counter add to tidal surge. That's a bit above and beyond, but holy Crap that'd be sweet.

I hope I haven't been to hard on OP here. There's a lot of great imagination here on how to expand Hydroid's playstyle in new directions.. but in order to do that, we have to avoid bending him out of shape from his original style.. the style that made us all love him to start with. Refine more than re-tool.

Glad to see one of the few Hydroid mains chiming in!

     Fear is a Brilliant idea! Might need to tone it down to like 33.3% chance at best, or casting on defenses will cause them to take forever.. and they'd have to scale back number of strikes from his Tempest Barrage to avoid the, "nerfening."
I was actually thinking it would be target specific rather than AoE, so a bombard dealing 80% of your health in damage is quite likely to go running when you survive but heavy gunners are overall pretty unlikely of fleeing. This way it wouldn't fear all enemies around too often but the harder hitting enemies will regularly keep away. A little like an opposite shattershield mesa I suppose. Though making it a small AoE could definitely be handy if the duration is short enough & as you said, a capped percentage 

     Tempest barrage does already kind of track, and Tidal Surge does already toss enemies around a bit, but it would be nice to see them refined in these directions.
     Collision to Tentacle swarm would be great for choking out hallways. I'm all for that.. I would also be for collision of ally projectiles, but I would be hunted and assassinated by every player with explosives.. so due to that, I could take or leave this feature.
I definitely disagree with Tempest Barrage tracking, if you have low range you're better off not casting it at all is what I feel because of the chances that you'll spend energy and get nothing. The idea with Tidal Surge is to not just ragdoll the enemies but pull them along with you and drop them at the end of the ability, while it's fun and CAN be useful I feel like too often I'm launching enemies out of bounds or even outside the map and I'll see them falling 1700M beneath me going further and further until they eventually die from despawning. I suppose that is a way to kill enemies but it really shouldn't be encouraged or as likely as it is which is why I'd like to improve on how it functions.

     Collision to Tentacle swarm would be great for choking out hallways. I'm all for that.. I would also be for collision of ally projectiles, but I would be hunted and assassinated by every player with explosives.. so due to that, I could take or leave this feature.
I was writing it down as projectile collision at first. But just like you, thinking about it more I think I would be despised if I was the cause of even more teamkills from ally hitboxes. Then we have a bunch of Hydroid players carrying Zarrs nowadays because of the theme which is great but it would outright be a nerf for them and too disruptive.

     I like the puddle on bleed out idea. ..Not on knockdown so much, which I feel would also be great, but a bit much.
I thought it would be neat to no longer be able to be sniped out of the sky by a whip, then knocked down, then pulled again and then shot in the face and if you survive that, knocked down once more. It would make Hydroid even more of a master of CC by making himself more resilient to it, though not completely invulnerable.
And yeah, providing control & an easier way for allies to revive you thanks to the puddle while incapacitated I can see being welcome by a lot of players.

     The idea of minimum distance on Tidal Surge (of 7m) would ever so slightly step on my toes, since I run 6m now.. but I could adjust if need be.
I think I phrased this poorly. You'll still be able to cancel it before 7M, but negative power stats wouldn't give you a 0,5M Tidal Surge that takes 3 seconds. A minimum cap is what I'd like to put on it but this does entirely rely on Tidal Surge also getting the ability to be cancelled. No cancel means this idea wouldn't be all that great.

     Ideas for the Augments seem fine, though I'd never change my build from where it is, ideally. He works perfect for me now, though could use just a little finesse on his abilities.
I'd definitely give the Maelstrom a chance, sink enemies and apply bleed procs on them at the same time so they don't go chasing you while bleeding out. It's just to add a bit more chances at variety even if many of them aren't as changing as something like Corroding Barrage, Tidal Impunity (when it works) & Pilfering Swarm. 

     Not at all into the idea of Tidal Surge casting like a Lunaro, since I air-cast that constantly.. maybe it wouldn't be as bad as I'm thinking, but it depends mostly on whether it's only an aesthetic change, or a full hitbox change. The speed increase though, I am specifically opposed to. ..I geared my whole build around Tidal Surge. +Speed = Suicide king.
I mostly added it because I thought having 2 modes would make it interesting since we were never meant to be able to cast it mid-air same as his 4. That's why it has no underside to it. I was worried that if DE did review Hydroid and realize we can actually cast his 2 mid-air they might rather lock it to the floor than give it a new model but thinking about it again it's even less likely that if they did feel this way that they'd add a whole new ability for when he's mid-air with its own animation and physics. I should probably scrap it considering it would be a mess to pull off for people with Tidal Impunity trying to get their allies supported.


     There's a lot of big asks in here. If I didn't list it in praise section, I either wouldn't highly value or might even disagree with the changes.
I'm entirely aware, I wouldn't even expect 1/4th of these to be added but I wanted to provide as many viable options for DE for when they get to Hydroid after Zephyrs rework. 

     Items are already picked up while tidal Surging.
If you go directly over them, yes. But I mean for the entire range of the Tidal Surge, so if you would knock an enemy down at that great of a distance then you should be picking up loot from the same distance. Not just your own hitbox but the ability itself's (is that a word) reach.

     One big ask that I would love is the melee counter add to tidal surge. That's a bit above and beyond, but holy Crap that'd be sweet.
Yeah, combo counter technically did exist but it wasn't ever used, especially not to the degree it is now, so it would be absolutely amazing to get even more to encourage melee play with Hydroid and I feel like this would do that very well.

I hope I haven't been to hard on OP here. There's a lot of great imagination here on how to expand Hydroid's playstyle in new directions.. but in order to do that, we have to avoid bending him out of shape from his original style.. the style that made us all love him to start with. Refine more than re-tool.
Absolutely not, input is something the thread is in need of and I'm really glad to get some especially from someone who actively has or does play the warframe. Input from people who gave him a chance but couldn't handle how he's at a lower tier than all other warframes is important too of course because the idea is to make him worth playing for enough people to be considered worth keeping but he does also have to stay in line with active users builds & how they use them. 
Thank you so much for going through the entire post & letting me know how you would feel about these changes man, I'm going to clarify & edit a few things on it right now.

Edited May 17, 2017 by Navarchus

[kapn655321]

9 hours ago, Navarchus said:

I thought it would be neat to no longer be able to be sniped out of the sky by a whip, then knocked down, then pulled again and then shot in the face and if you survive that, knocked down once more. It would make Hydroid even more of a master of CC by making himself more resilient to it, though not completely invulnerable.

Come to mention it, I do have BOTH Handspring and Constitution on my build for this reason. XD
For some reason, knockdown always got under my skin worse with Hydroid. I don't know why.

When you mentioned the removal of Stamina as a feature, I had entirely forgotten that was one of his best percs.
...Part of the reason I picked him.

I also had a thought on a change I wouldn't mind.
Rework idea to Tempest Barrage. Rather than grapeshot, more like rain.. 
Dull sound and enemy LoS a bit, make enemies more susceptible to knockdown
and stagger.. perhaps increases AoE of Ground Slam attacks? Not a really fleshed
out idea. I always imagined from the teasers of his release that it was more of a
rainstorm than brief hail. If that gives you any ideas, feel free to run with it.

[Navarc]

2 hours ago, kapn655321 said:

Come to mention it, I do have BOTH Handspring and Constitution on my build for this reason. XD
For some reason, knockdown always got under my skin worse with Hydroid. I don't know why.

When you mentioned the removal of Stamina as a feature, I had entirely forgotten that was one of his best percs.
...Part of the reason I picked him.

I also had a thought on a change I wouldn't mind.
Rework idea to Tempest Barrage. Rather than grapeshot, more like rain.. 
Dull sound and enemy LoS a bit, make enemies more susceptible to knockdown
and stagger.. perhaps increases AoE of Ground Slam attacks? Not a really fleshed
out idea. I always imagined from the teasers of his release that it was more of a
rainstorm than brief hail. If that gives you any ideas, feel free to run with it.

Yeah, Hydroid players in late-game often die to a single knockdown which is pretty ironic what with all his abilities knocking enemies down, so I think handling being knocked down skillfully makes sense.
Sadly most people who would remember that Hydroids stamina being removed have long since given up on Warframe, I really hope to see him get melee gameplay involved in his skills to make up for it such as the tidal surge granting combo counts as we spoke about before. 
On the rework idea, I'm not really clear on what you're aiming for with it, what do you mean with "LoS"? Some kind of Cloudburst augment could be cool though!

[kapn655321]

LoS, line of sight, or distance at which you can be detected.

[Navarc]

Just now, kapn655321 said:

LoS, line of sight, or distance at which you can be detected.

It does sound like a cool idea but I think there's too much reliance on Tempest Barrage to be recastable & get knockdowns from it at least with how he currently plays, so an augment would be the way to go with that.
Though going with how his 3 was described as a stealth ability perhaps it could be an augment for his 3? Rather than turn into a puddle it summons a foggy rainstorm dealing no damage but reducing line of sight for enemies that aren't alerted & accuracy for enemies that have been alerted of your presence.

[kapn655321]

For all my time on Hydroid, do you guys know why I never made a thread of reworks for Hydroid?

Because DE added every single thing I could possibly ask for, and then some.
Curative Undertow was a dream come true.

1 hand casting Tempest Barrage was totally unexpected.
I even like the quirky passive.

But most of all, because his build is TOTALLY undemanding.
He does not Need range mods.. or Strength mods.. or Duration mods..
At his core, he always does what he claims to do. (Try that on for size, Nova mains. XD )

His random shatter-shot strikes, and base minimum duration and range Always get the job done.
Not perfect. Never perfect... but then it never Could be, or it would be broken.. and require no skill..
....and Need to be fixed by MOD DEMANDS.

Don't let it happen to him, guys. I beg you.
Seriously! I BEG YOU.

For every change we add, something else must flex to make room.

Try this build, see if you're happy with it.
Energy Siphon - Speed Drift
Constitution - Fleeting Expertise - Vitality - Quick Thinking
Rage - Rapid Resilience - Curative Undertow - ***Your Choice***

What frame EVER has room for choice?!
Builds are always so tight and constricted to make them even Remotely functional.

Hydroid's hidden value is the ebb and flow of the player's choice.

Edited May 18, 2017 by kapn655321
typo

[Navarc]

5 hours ago, kapn655321 said:

For all my time on Hydroid, do you guys know why I never made a thread of reworks for Hydroid?

Because DE added every single thing I could possibly ask for, and then some.
Curative Undertow was a dream come true.

1 hand casting Tempest Barrage was totally unexpected.
I even like the quirky passive.

But most of all, because his build is TOTALLY undemanding.
He does not Need range mods.. or Strength mods.. or Duration mods..
At his core, he always does what he claims to do. (Try that on for size, Nova mains. XD )

His random shatter-shot strikes, and base minimum duration and range Always get the job done.
Not perfect. Never perfect... but then it never Could be, or it would be broken.. and require no skill..
....and Need to be fixed by MOD DEMANDS.

Don't let it happen to him, guys. I beg you.
Seriously! I BEG YOU.

For every change we add, something else must flex to make room.

Try this build, see if you're happy with it.
Energy Siphon - Speed Drift
Constitution - Fleeting Expertise - Vitality - Quick Thinking
Rage - Rapid Resilience - Curative Undertow - ***Your Choice***

What frame EVER has room for choice?!
Builds are always so tight and constricted to make them even Remotely functional.

Hydroid's hidden value is the ebb and flow of the player's choice.

I fully agree with you that Hydroid is one of the few warframes that remain just as viable no matter how you build him, except his 2 which is punished hard from negative stats and doesn't have a meta other than the pilfering spam for loot which is how most people play him nowadays but I really don't think these suggestions will force him into any specific build, only encourage stats that currently aren't touched at all like his power strength which whether you have 50 or 225 power strength doesn't really matter in late-game content because it's never going to be enough to kill right now.
I want to keep him being best performing and fun as a hybrid when it comes to power stats for sure. I can't really give your build a proper chance because of my formas for my own build though they're not too different. 

[Navarc]

Added examples, more explanations & some extras! Should be much cleaner to look at & updated images.

[The_Sharp_Demonologist]

Not bad changes, specialy love the changes to cannon barrage and undertow, great uality of life changes.

For Tentacle Swarm i still dont think it should pick up people. Why not have the tentacles just beat people around? like a tentacle spawns and will start slamming random targets, they will take Impact/puncture damage and be knocked down then the tentacle will proceed to beat someone else, then maybe the same target. To make it more reliable maybe have the Tentacles prioritize enemies Hydroid is attacking.

Furthermore why not do something like Illaoi from LoL? where not just the tip but the entire tentacle slams in a certain direction:

That would be pretty cool and maybe even have it so the Lenght of the tentacle changes with Power range.

What ya think?

On A side note thanks for adding alot of exampls and explanations. Not many people bother to think about the variables and details.

 

OH i forgot to mention about the passive! my Vote is on polluted waters, sounds like a eally fun passive to play around, specially against those pesky Infested and their toxic damage

Edited May 19, 2017 by The_Sharp_Demonologist

[Navarc]

19 hours ago, The_Sharp_Demonologist said:

Not bad changes, specialy love the changes to cannon barrage and undertow, great uality of life changes.

For Tentacle Swarm i still dont think it should pick up people. Why not have the tentacles just beat people around? like a tentacle spawns and will start slamming random targets, they will take Impact/puncture damage and be knocked down then the tentacle will proceed to beat someone else, then maybe the same target. To make it more reliable maybe have the Tentacles prioritize enemies Hydroid is attacking.

Furthermore why not do something like Illaoi from LoL? where not just the tip but the entire tentacle slams in a certain direction:

That would be pretty cool and maybe even have it so the Lenght of the tentacle changes with Power range.

What ya think?

On A side note thanks for adding alot of exampls and explanations. Not many people bother to think about the variables and details.

 

OH i forgot to mention about the passive! my Vote is on polluted waters, sounds like a eally fun passive to play around, specially against those pesky Infested and their toxic damage

Hey. glad you found the thread and that you like it! Just as I said before, I really think he can become as worthy to bring to a squad as other warframes with just some additions to his abilities - not turning him into a completely different warframe. It is definitely possible to do.


For Tentacle Swarm i still dont think it should pick up people. Why not have the tentacles just beat people around? like a tentacle spawns and will start slamming random targets, they will take Impact/puncture damage and be knocked down then the tentacle will proceed to beat someone else, then maybe the same target. To make it more reliable maybe have the Tentacles prioritize enemies Hydroid is attacking.
I did suggest that if an enemy has been knocked down, tentacles that strike that enemy will instead hold the enemy still rather than swing them around, which lets you aim at them even better than if they got knocked down repeatedly & give you reason to use your other skills even if you exclusively build for your 4, so he doesn't turn into a "press 4 to win" Warframe.

Furthermore why not do something like Illaoi from LoL? where not just the tip but the entire tentacle slams in a certain direction
I don't really know much about LoL and don't really know how that characters abilities function to really compare them, but tentacles from hydroid can slam down on the ground in a long line to pick enemies up, though it's pure luck if they target the right direction and actually hit the moving enemy in time.
 I believe that the tentacles size were meant to scale with Range in the past, but it didn't make them more effective at picking targets after the first one up & it mostly caused clipping issues on maps, in many previews of Hydroid they do seem to be varying sizes but only looked functional on outdoor maps. Indoor map like Corpus Ship tileset make make larger tentacles size pretty terrible.

OH i forgot to mention about the passive! my Vote is on polluted waters, sounds like a eally fun passive to play around, specially against those pesky Infested and their toxic damage
Yeah I really like the idea of that passive but I'm really unsure whether or not I should make it so that it also cleanses the status off you before saving it for the next ability cast, so if you are hit with Magnetic you don't lose all your energy and then your next ability guaranteed to apply magnetic to enemies. Then it grants both survivability & offense at once which could be really handy.

Edited May 20, 2017 by Navarchus

[The_Sharp_Demonologist]

Illaoi is rather simple she passively summons tentacles that just sit there until she orders them to attack a specific target, wich they will slam on the direction. Maybe he can follow a similar idea?

Maybe While the tentacles are out Hydroid can target an area and the closest tentacles will slam the area, not picking up enemies but just knocking them down dealing damage. Oh here is a neat idea. FOllowing that tentacles who have picked up targets will throw the enemies at that location. Something like this:

Tentacle Swarm: Hydroid summons water tentacles that will pick up and slam enemies around. While the tentacles are active Hydroid can select an area where the tentacles will throw their targets and proceed to slam the area once.

- Commanding the Tentacles will have them throw their held targets at the location dealing damage to the victim as well as enemy bystanders.

- After throwing the enemies they will slam at the location dealing damage and knocking down enemies in a line.

- After slamming they will continue their normal routine until commanded to slam.

 

I just want Hydroid to have more control of his abilities. His abilities (at base value at least) suggest that he is supposed to be a crowd control frame with a bit of damage to go along so why not enforce that with more control on where Hydroid wants to defend.

 

On Polluted Waters: Hydroid has very variable abilities in terms on what they can do so i think his passive should just apply to maybe Cannon Barrage? Something like.

Polluted Water: Hydroid's water body allows him to absorb elemental status effect, storing them for his Next Cannon Barrage.

- Hydroid is unaffected by Elemental status effects like Toxic's damage over time, Magnetic energy reduction etc.

- This does not apply to Impact, Puncture and Slash procs.

- Hydroid is still vulnerable to elemental damage, they will simply not proc status effects on him.

- The next Cannon Barrage will deal damage and trigger a status depending on the last status that "proc" Hydroid on each impact. Cannon barrage deals Blast Damage by default.

 

Furthermore, for the lols here is a fun Augment Idea:

FIRE ALL CANNONS! Cannon barrage now triggers random status effects on each cannonball impact.

- Damage type and status effect is comepletely random and affects all enemies in the AoE.

 

[(PSN)big_eviljak]

I love hydroid... Only his 2 needs wrk. Maybr damage increase for his 3 and 4. Otherwise..great frame.

[Azamagon]

Well there are certainly a lot of good suggestions for Hydroid here!

I'll just chime in with some more ideas:

First, I think it is important to reduce redundancy in a kit. I mean, if you have 2 powers in a kit, both of which are meant for CC, and with one of them just being plain better, then why even have the poor power in the kit? Thus, I always consider giving a main role to a power important

Tempest Barrage
Role - Damagedealing
* The first barrage strikes the ENTIRE landing area, giving it a tad more reliability
* The damage now scales with primary mods!

Tidal Surge
Role - Mobility, enemycollector and possible melee centered damage
* Make it drag enemies along more reliably, so he can gather enemies where he wants
* Energycost reduced to 35.
* As already suggested, each enemy struck adds +1 to the melee combo counter
* As already suggested, pressing 2 again midcast could cancel the ability plain and simple. However, I'd like to further add that if he melees during the ability, he stops the surge whenever he lets go of the meleebutton along with a wide watery sabre slash in front of him, dealing an additional 50/100/150/200 slash damage or so (scaled with melee mods!). If he holds down the meleebutton during the entire surge, he will surge the entire distance and do the watery sabre slash when he finishes the surge. Note that doing this added slash could cost an additional 15 energy (bringing it back up to the original 50), due to adding quite a lot of wideranged power to it.
* Graphical and hitbox width increased quite a bit, like by 50%?

Undertow
Role - Hiding + "Modeshift" + Ability centralizer
* The drowning damage increases, the longer enemies are held inside
* Enemies released from Undertow are, for a brief moment, slowed afterwards and still choke on the water (still suffering some of the damage-over-time of Undertow).
* Hydroid can cast other abilities while in Undertow:

• Tempest Barrage can hurt enemies inside Undertow. If a drop hits the Undertow, it hurts ALL enemies inside it (helps with TB reliability)
• Tidal Surge allows him to instantly relocate himself out from Undertow, possibly dragging enemies with him too (if they were submerged in front of him).
• Tentacle Swarm can be cast, but when cast from Undertow it tries to summon the tentacles around the pool (Can still summon above the pool, if for example, an Osprey is above it). When enemies are grabbed by Tentacle Swarm, press the context button (Default: X) to throw in enemies (Throws in one enemy per button press, so spam the button to throw 'em all in). All grabbed enemies have to be within line of sight of the pool. Press the jump button for the opposite: Make free nearby tentacles grab enemies OUT from the pool, if they can reach (Same as the toss-in: One enemy per button press)

Tentacles Swarm
Role - Stable crowd control + Decent damage
* The tentacles don't just thrash about, they now wait idly for enemies to get close. Once an enemy is close enough to a tentacle, a tentacle (reliably) swipes and grabs hold of one enemy (can only hold one enemy at a time), wrapping itself around the enemy, both drowning and crushing it at once (thus making sense of it dealing its current finisher damage), holding the enemy still in its evil grasp. Due to it holding the grabbed enemy steadily in place (rather than swinging about wildly), it is now a nice and appreciated CC to have, as you can now easily aim at these held enemies!
* If an enemy dies while held by a tentacle, the tentacle will quickly toss the enemy aside, then try to grab a new one.

Passive - Deep Tendril
If Deep Tendril is kept as his passive (which imo is not all that fitting), I'd add to it that they are also summoned (with 100% chance) if you do a ground finisher on an enemy. This fits at least a little better with his knockdown-heavy hit. I'd still like to see his passive changed entirely, but I don't know what truly would be fitting passive for him.
Maybe something like innate "Scavenger"? (Same as the aura mods which grant more ammo per ammobox, but just for himself?)

[Navarc]

4 hours ago, Azamagon said:

Well there are certainly a lot of good suggestions for Hydroid here!

I'll just chime in with some more ideas:

First, I think it is important to reduce redundancy in a kit. I mean, if you have 2 powers in a kit, both of which are meant for CC, and with one of them just being plain better, then why even have the poor power in the kit? Thus, I always consider giving a main role to a power important

Tempest Barrage
Role - Damagedealing
* The first barrage strikes the ENTIRE landing area, giving it a tad more reliability
* The damage now scales with primary mods!

Tidal Surge
Role - Mobility, enemycollector and possible melee centered damage
* Make it drag enemies along more reliably, so he can gather enemies where he wants
* Energycost reduced to 35.
* As already suggested, each enemy struck adds +1 to the melee combo counter
* As already suggested, pressing 2 again midcast could cancel the ability plain and simple. However, I'd like to further add that if he melees during the ability, he stops the surge whenever he lets go of the meleebutton along with a wide watery sabre slash in front of him, dealing an additional 50/100/150/200 slash damage or so (scaled with melee mods!). If he holds down the meleebutton during the entire surge, he will surge the entire distance and do the watery sabre slash when he finishes the surge. Note that doing this added slash could cost an additional 15 energy (bringing it back up to the original 50), due to adding quite a lot of wideranged power to it.
* Graphical and hitbox width increased quite a bit, like by 50%?

Undertow
Role - Hiding + "Modeshift" + Ability centralizer
* The drowning damage increases, the longer enemies are held inside
* Enemies released from Undertow are, for a brief moment, slowed afterwards and still choke on the water (still suffering some of the damage-over-time of Undertow).
* Hydroid can cast other abilities while in Undertow:

• Tempest Barrage can hurt enemies inside Undertow. If a drop hits the Undertow, it hurts ALL enemies inside it (helps with TB reliability)
• Tidal Surge allows him to instantly relocate himself out from Undertow, possibly dragging enemies with him too (if they were submerged in front of him).
• Tentacle Swarm can be cast, but when cast from Undertow it tries to summon the tentacles around the pool (Can still summon above the pool, if for example, an Osprey is above it). When enemies are grabbed by Tentacle Swarm, press the context button (Default: X) to throw in enemies (Throws in one enemy per button press, so spam the button to throw 'em all in). All grabbed enemies have to be within line of sight of the pool. Press the jump button for the opposite: Make free nearby tentacles grab enemies OUT from the pool, if they can reach (Same as the toss-in: One enemy per button press)

Tentacles Swarm
Role - Stable crowd control + Decent damage
* The tentacles don't just thrash about, they now wait idly for enemies to get close. Once an enemy is close enough to a tentacle, a tentacle (reliably) swipes and grabs hold of one enemy (can only hold one enemy at a time), wrapping itself around the enemy, both drowning and crushing it at once (thus making sense of it dealing its current finisher damage), holding the enemy still in its evil grasp. Due to it holding the grabbed enemy steadily in place (rather than swinging about wildly), it is now a nice and appreciated CC to have, as you can now easily aim at these held enemies!
* If an enemy dies while held by a tentacle, the tentacle will quickly toss the enemy aside, then try to grab a new one.

Passive - Deep Tendril
If Deep Tendril is kept as his passive (which imo is not all that fitting), I'd add to it that they are also summoned (with 100% chance) if you do a ground finisher on an enemy. This fits at least a little better with his knockdown-heavy hit. I'd still like to see his passive changed entirely, but I don't know what truly would be fitting passive for him.
Maybe something like innate "Scavenger"? (Same as the aura mods which grant more ammo per ammobox, but just for himself?)

I'm into your ideas for his 1 and 2 but I feel like you forgot or didn't read many parts of the suggestions for 3 & 4 since there's a lot of overlapping things here and suggestions that are just different versions of what already is suggested here, mate.
Do you mean replacements for the current suggestions or stacked ontop of these existing suggestions? If the latter I feel that would get a bit cluttered and nearly doubling many of these effects would make it a bit too much.

 

• Make it drag enemies along more reliably, so he can gather enemies where he wants
  In the thread:
• Tidal Surge (2) - Submerge enemies: Pulls enemies who touch the Tidal Surge along with caster to where the ability is ended, enemies can get up as soon as the ability ends.
   
• The drowning damage increases, the longer enemies are held inside
  In the thread:
• Undertow (3) - Scaling damage:  Deals 100 Finisher damage for each enemy submerged. Scales with power strength.
   
• Tentacle Swarm can be cast, but when cast from Undertow it tries to summon the tentacles around the pool (Can still summon above the pool, if for example, an Osprey is above it). When enemies are grabbed by Tentacle Swarm, press the context button (Default: X) to throw in enemies (Throws in one enemy per button press, so spam the button to throw 'em all in). All grabbed enemies have to be within line of sight of the pool. Press the jump button for the opposite: Make free nearby tentacles grab enemies OUT from the pool, if they can reach (Same as the toss-in: One enemy per button press)
  In the thread:
• Undertow (3) - Single target control: Click enemies to launch tentacles that capture enemies, making them knocked down & drag them into the Undertow. Each tentacle out will increase the energy per second cost by itself. 
  Example: 2 Energy per second on rank 30 hydroid with no mods, so each tentacle adds another 2 energy per second being spent while the tentacle is out. When it has retracted the energy cost is returned to what it is meant to be.
   
• * The tentacles don't just thrash about, they now wait idly for enemies to get close. Once an enemy is close enough to a tentacle, a tentacle (reliably) swipes and grabs hold of one enemy (can only hold one enemy at a time), wrapping itself around the enemy, both drowning and crushing it at once (thus making sense of it dealing its current finisher damage), holding the enemy still in its evil grasp. Due to it holding the grabbed enemy steadily in place (rather than swinging about wildly), it is now a nice and appreciated CC to have, as you can now easily aim at these held enemies!
  In the thread:
• Tentacle Swarm (4) - Synergy & support allies with range: Enemies that are prone when tentacles grab them are held in place, being crushed instead of being slammed against the floor.
   
• * If an enemy dies while held by a tentacle, the tentacle will quickly toss the enemy aside, then try to grab a new one.
  In the thread:
• Tentacle Swarm (4) - Self-positioning: Tentacle Swarm relocates to where an enemy is if it doesn't damage anyone for 3 seconds, if there are no enemies or objects to target the tentacles will just turn into tiny puddles until there are enemies in the area to attack which will help with performance. This is very similar to World On Fire except the tentacles don't select a new target 'til their target is dead.
   
• If Deep Tendril is kept as his passive (which imo is not all that fitting), I'd add to it that they are also summoned (with 100% chance) if you do a ground finisher on an enemy. This fits at least a little better with his knockdown-heavy hit. I'd still like to see his passive changed entirely, but I don't know what truly would be fitting passive for him.
  Maybe something like innate "Scavenger"? (Same as the aura mods which grant more ammo per ammobox, but just for himself?)
  In the thread:
• Current Passive Buff - Deep Tendril: Melee attacking prone enemies summons 1 tentacle under 1 enemy that aren't the target each time for 15 seconds that follow you striking new enemies if the first target die. Doing it again refreshes the duration and replaces the old tentacle. Functions like a very weak CC version of World On Fire.

[Azamagon]

7 hours ago, Navarchus said:

I'm into your ideas for his 1 and 2 but I feel like you forgot or didn't read many parts of the suggestions for 3 & 4 since there's a lot of overlapping things here and suggestions that are just different versions of what already is suggested here, mate.
Do you mean replacements for the current suggestions or stacked ontop of these existing suggestions? If the latter I feel that would get a bit cluttered and nearly doubling many of these effects would make it a bit too much.
 

First, thanks for the very thorough answers! I'll be very thorough back at you! :)
I actually did read all of it, and many are to be suggested as replacements. Let me explain for each one you are suggesting (answers in blue):

• Make it drag enemies along more reliably, so he can gather enemies where he wants
  In the thread:
• Tidal Surge (2) - Submerge enemies: Pulls enemies who touch the Tidal Surge along with caster to where the ability is ended, enemies can get up as soon as the ability ends.
  
  These are very similar, but the main difference here is submerging enemies vs not submerging them. The reason I suggested it to "only" drag them along reliably, without the submerging, is to further reduce his trolling potential (because as far as I understood, submerging equals that the enemies can't be hurt by allies, no?).
   
• The drowning damage increases, the longer enemies are held inside
  In the thread:
• Undertow (3) - Scaling damage:  Deals 100 Finisher damage for each enemy submerged. Scales with power strength
  
  Yours scale with number of enemies collected, mine scales with the duration of how long an enemy resides in the pool. Once again, this is to reduce the trolling behaviour of keeping enemies in the pool "forever" so allies can't kill them. Additionally, that's why I suggested the "afterchoke" DoT too, as it is based on the damage they have collected during their stay in the pool, and "pauses" the damage, which prevents a lot of trolling from Hydroid.
  
  Let me explain with an example:
  If an enemy has stayed X duration in the pool, the DoT is now built up to, say, 200 damage per second. The Hydroid releases the target. For a few seconds, this target still suffers 200 damage per second. If Hydroid grabs the enemy again with Undertow, before the DoT has expired, the Undertow's damage will continue at 200 damage per second (and keeps growing). This means that the enemy WILL die sooner rather than later, and he can't keep killing enemies in a very slow pace. Further, if he lets the DoT expire (which WILL reset Undertow's damage on said enemy), that means the enemy has been outside for quite a while, which means there has been plenty of time for your allies to kill the enemy.
  In short: No more trolling with Undertow!
   
• Tentacle Swarm can be cast, but when cast from Undertow it tries to summon the tentacles around the pool (Can still summon above the pool, if for example, an Osprey is above it). When enemies are grabbed by Tentacle Swarm, press the context button (Default: X) to throw in enemies (Throws in one enemy per button press, so spam the button to throw 'em all in). All grabbed enemies have to be within line of sight of the pool. Press the jump button for the opposite: Make free nearby tentacles grab enemies OUT from the pool, if they can reach (Same as the toss-in: One enemy per button press)
  In the thread:
• Undertow (3) - Single target control: Click enemies to launch tentacles that capture enemies, making them knocked down & drag them into the Undertow. Each tentacle out will increase the energy per second cost by itself. 
  Example: 2 Energy per second on rank 30 hydroid with no mods, so each tentacle adds another 2 energy per second being spent while the tentacle is out. When it has retracted the energy cost is returned to what it is meant to be.
  
  This is probably the only one where I really think both should be added. Tentacle Swarm would be good for quick multitarget control, while primary fire would be good for handling a select few enemies for a very cheap cost.
  The main reason I want TSwarm to be useable from Undertow is to give him a better feeling of a cohesive kit. Your idea generally sounds more awesome and scary though, but it doesn't give any reason for you to use TSwam along with Undertow.
  
  And as for the another suggestion of yours (the freetentacle drag-in upon casting Undertow); What if you don't WANT to drag them in to the Undertow? Or what if you wanna drag in multiple enemies quickly DURING your stay Undertow?
  That's further why I'd suggest to make it as suggested with TSwarm, on top of your with the singular aimed tentacles with primary fire. It's simply the best control you could get over who goes into the Undertow and who doesn't.
  
   
• * The tentacles don't just thrash about, they now wait idly for enemies to get close. Once an enemy is close enough to a tentacle, a tentacle (reliably) swipes and grabs hold of one enemy (can only hold one enemy at a time), wrapping itself around the enemy, both drowning and crushing it at once (thus making sense of it dealing its current finisher damage), holding the enemy still in its evil grasp. Due to it holding the grabbed enemy steadily in place (rather than swinging about wildly), it is now a nice and appreciated CC to have, as you can now easily aim at these held enemies!
  In the thread:
• Tentacle Swarm (4) - Synergy & support allies with range: Enemies that are prone when tentacles grab them are held in place, being crushed instead of being slammed against the floor.
  
  Well, your suggestion only increases reliability against enemies who are knocked down prior to casting it, while mine increases its steadiness through and through, regardless of prior actions. If TSwarm is meant to not irritate your allies (or even yourself), I think my suggestion is a nudge better.
   
• * If an enemy dies while held by a tentacle, the tentacle will quickly toss the enemy aside, then try to grab a new one.
  In the thread:
• Tentacle Swarm (4) - Self-positioning: Tentacle Swarm relocates to where an enemy is if it doesn't damage anyone for 3 seconds, if there are no enemies or objects to target the tentacles will just turn into tiny puddles until there are enemies in the area to attack which will help with performance. This is very similar to World On Fire except the tentacles don't select a new target 'til their target is dead.
  
  Honestly, I'd get rather irritated by your suggestion (well, maybe not if it held enemies steadily at all times, like I suggested). Think about it: Freeroaming tentacles which flail enemies around when they get ahold of them? Too chaotic for the player to really get any practical CC from. I'd rather the tentacles remained in place. IF they were to freeroam, then 2 changes would be rather important:
  1) The CC should not be so chaotic (i.e. it should hold enemies steadily in place at all times, rather than flail wildly)
  2) The "freeroam" is only within the casting zone's AoE. That means they can only wander within a set area, an area which you could then affect with Power Range.
  
   
• If Deep Tendril is kept as his passive (which imo is not all that fitting), I'd add to it that they are also summoned (with 100% chance) if you do a ground finisher on an enemy. This fits at least a little better with his knockdown-heavy hit. I'd still like to see his passive changed entirely, but I don't know what truly would be fitting passive for him.
  Maybe something like innate "Scavenger"? (Same as the aura mods which grant more ammo per ammobox, but just for himself?)
  In the thread:
• Current Passive Buff - Deep Tendril: Melee attacking prone enemies summons 1 tentacle under 1 enemy that aren't the target each time for 15 seconds that follow you striking new enemies if the first target die. Doing it again refreshes the duration and replaces the old tentacle. Functions like a very weak CC version of World On Fire.
  
  Well, if the chaotic grabbing nature of the tentacle is fixed, this would indeed be an interesting passive. However, why 1 enemy which is NOT the groundfinished target? That would make it useless against singular enemies. Or do you mean it prioritizes other enemies first?
  Well, if it was always summoned regardless of number of enemies around and/or was summoned first on the enemy you groundfinish, I'd really like this passive (-but- I would still not like it if the tentacles are still thrashing around chaotically like now).

[Somb3rBivalve]

3 hours ago, Azamagon said:

First, thanks for the very thorough answers! I'll be very thorough back at you! :)
I actually did read all of it, and many are to be suggested as replacements. Let me explain for each one you are suggesting (answers in blue):

• Make it drag enemies along more reliably, so he can gather enemies where he wants
  In the thread:
• Tidal Surge (2) - Submerge enemies: Pulls enemies who touch the Tidal Surge along with caster to where the ability is ended, enemies can get up as soon as the ability ends.
  
  These are very similar, but the main difference here is submerging enemies vs not submerging them. The reason I suggested it to "only" drag them along reliably, without the submerging, is to further reduce his trolling potential (because as far as I understood, submerging equals that the enemies can't be hurt by allies, no?).
   
• The drowning damage increases, the longer enemies are held inside
  In the thread:
• Undertow (3) - Scaling damage:  Deals 100 Finisher damage for each enemy submerged. Scales with power strength
  
  Yours scale with number of enemies collected, mine scales with the duration of how long an enemy resides in the pool. Once again, this is to reduce the trolling behaviour of keeping enemies in the pool "forever" so allies can't kill them. Additionally, that's why I suggested the "afterchoke" DoT too, as it is based on the damage they have collected during their stay in the pool, and "pauses" the damage, which prevents a lot of trolling from Hydroid.
  
  Let me explain with an example:
  If an enemy has stayed X duration in the pool, the DoT is now built up to, say, 200 damage per second. The Hydroid releases the target. For a few seconds, this target still suffers 200 damage per second. If Hydroid grabs the enemy again with Undertow, before the DoT has expired, the Undertow's damage will continue at 200 damage per second (and keeps growing). This means that the enemy WILL die sooner rather than later, and he can't keep killing enemies in a very slow pace. Further, if he lets the DoT expire (which WILL reset Undertow's damage on said enemy), that means the enemy has been outside for quite a while, which means there has been plenty of time for your allies to kill the enemy.
  In short: No more trolling with Undertow!
   
• Tentacle Swarm can be cast, but when cast from Undertow it tries to summon the tentacles around the pool (Can still summon above the pool, if for example, an Osprey is above it). When enemies are grabbed by Tentacle Swarm, press the context button (Default: X) to throw in enemies (Throws in one enemy per button press, so spam the button to throw 'em all in). All grabbed enemies have to be within line of sight of the pool. Press the jump button for the opposite: Make free nearby tentacles grab enemies OUT from the pool, if they can reach (Same as the toss-in: One enemy per button press)
  In the thread:
• Undertow (3) - Single target control: Click enemies to launch tentacles that capture enemies, making them knocked down & drag them into the Undertow. Each tentacle out will increase the energy per second cost by itself. 
  Example: 2 Energy per second on rank 30 hydroid with no mods, so each tentacle adds another 2 energy per second being spent while the tentacle is out. When it has retracted the energy cost is returned to what it is meant to be.
  
  This is probably the only one where I really think both should be added. Tentacle Swarm would be good for quick multitarget control, while primary fire would be good for handling a select few enemies for a very cheap cost.
  The main reason I want TSwarm to be useable from Undertow is to give him a better feeling of a cohesive kit. Your idea generally sounds more awesome and scary though, but it doesn't give any reason for you to use TSwam along with Undertow.
  
  And as for the another suggestion of yours (the freetentacle drag-in upon casting Undertow); What if you don't WANT to drag them in to the Undertow? Or what if you wanna drag in multiple enemies quickly DURING your stay Undertow?
  That's further why I'd suggest to make it as suggested with TSwarm, on top of your with the singular aimed tentacles with primary fire. It's simply the best control you could get over who goes into the Undertow and who doesn't.
  
   
• * The tentacles don't just thrash about, they now wait idly for enemies to get close. Once an enemy is close enough to a tentacle, a tentacle (reliably) swipes and grabs hold of one enemy (can only hold one enemy at a time), wrapping itself around the enemy, both drowning and crushing it at once (thus making sense of it dealing its current finisher damage), holding the enemy still in its evil grasp. Due to it holding the grabbed enemy steadily in place (rather than swinging about wildly), it is now a nice and appreciated CC to have, as you can now easily aim at these held enemies!
  In the thread:
• Tentacle Swarm (4) - Synergy & support allies with range: Enemies that are prone when tentacles grab them are held in place, being crushed instead of being slammed against the floor.
  
  Well, your suggestion only increases reliability against enemies who are knocked down prior to casting it, while mine increases its steadiness through and through, regardless of prior actions. If TSwarm is meant to not irritate your allies (or even yourself), I think my suggestion is a nudge better.
   
• * If an enemy dies while held by a tentacle, the tentacle will quickly toss the enemy aside, then try to grab a new one.
  In the thread:
• Tentacle Swarm (4) - Self-positioning: Tentacle Swarm relocates to where an enemy is if it doesn't damage anyone for 3 seconds, if there are no enemies or objects to target the tentacles will just turn into tiny puddles until there are enemies in the area to attack which will help with performance. This is very similar to World On Fire except the tentacles don't select a new target 'til their target is dead.
  
  Honestly, I'd get rather irritated by your suggestion (well, maybe not if it held enemies steadily at all times, like I suggested). Think about it: Freeroaming tentacles which flail enemies around when they get ahold of them? Too chaotic for the player to really get any practical CC from. I'd rather the tentacles remained in place. IF they were to freeroam, then 2 changes would be rather important:
  1) The CC should not be so chaotic (i.e. it should hold enemies steadily in place at all times, rather than flail wildly)
  2) The "freeroam" is only within the casting zone's AoE. That means they can only wander within a set area, an area which you could then affect with Power Range.
  
   
• If Deep Tendril is kept as his passive (which imo is not all that fitting), I'd add to it that they are also summoned (with 100% chance) if you do a ground finisher on an enemy. This fits at least a little better with his knockdown-heavy hit. I'd still like to see his passive changed entirely, but I don't know what truly would be fitting passive for him.
  Maybe something like innate "Scavenger"? (Same as the aura mods which grant more ammo per ammobox, but just for himself?)
  In the thread:
• Current Passive Buff - Deep Tendril: Melee attacking prone enemies summons 1 tentacle under 1 enemy that aren't the target each time for 15 seconds that follow you striking new enemies if the first target die. Doing it again refreshes the duration and replaces the old tentacle. Functions like a very weak CC version of World On Fire.
  
  Well, if the chaotic grabbing nature of the tentacle is fixed, this would indeed be an interesting passive. However, why 1 enemy which is NOT the groundfinished target? That would make it useless against singular enemies. Or do you mean it prioritizes other enemies first?
  Well, if it was always summoned regardless of number of enemies around and/or was summoned first on the enemy you groundfinish, I'd really like this passive (-but- I would still not like it if the tentacles are still thrashing around chaotically like now).

Again, I think you may have missed the point a little. If we are going by your definition of ability roles, then the roles that the OP has in his rework are flipped from your perceived roles (and to be clear, either can work). In your look at hydroid, tempest barrage is for damage and tentacle swarm is for CC. In the OP's rework tempest barrage is for CC because duration was increased, tracking is better, and all enemies in the area get an accuracy debuff no matter if they are actually hit or not. Also in the OP's rework, tentacle swarm is for damage as long as the change that you mention is made where enemies are made stationary while being constricted by the tentacles regardless of whether they are prone or not. This synergizes well because you can shoot down enemies while they are held in place, causing the tentacle to reemerge on a new target and cause scaling damage. That said, the difference between tentacles thrashing enemies around and holding them in place is a tough one for me because holding them in place would be more helpful, but still love seeing the ridiculous, chaotic tentacle thrashing on those poor enemies.

Now I guess I'll have to do the obligatory point-by-point thing:

• As for the "submerge" thing on tidal surge, as far as I'm concerned, the way that the OP wrote it is a little confusing because when he refers to "submerge", he is saying that enemies are submerged within the wave itself rather than in something like undertow (in the traditional sense). What he is trying to say here is simply that enemies will 'stick' to the wave better and will be deposited at hydroid's feet when the wave ends, whether cancelled manually or not. This synergizes with his undertow in the way that the OP has written in because you can use tidal surge, gather up a bunch of enemies, and use undertow at the end and wreck them all. You may see a post the OP wrote to me on how this works: 
• As for the passive, the OP specifically wanted the tentacle to emerge on ground finishers on an enemy other than the one targeted with the finisher because, presumably, that enemy would be killed by the finisher anyway, so the scaling emerge damage would be made useless if it emerged on the same enemy.'
• On the freeroam for the tentacles, the OP said that tentacles would only be able to reemerge somewhere within the AOE, affected by power range.

[Navarc]

17 hours ago, Azamagon said:

First, thanks for the very thorough answers! I'll be very thorough back at you! :)
I actually did read all of it, and many are to be suggested as replacements. Let me explain for each one you are suggesting (answers in blue):

• Make it drag enemies along more reliably, so he can gather enemies where he wants
  In the thread:
• Tidal Surge (2) - Submerge enemies: Pulls enemies who touch the Tidal Surge along with caster to where the ability is ended, enemies can get up as soon as the ability ends.
  
  These are very similar, but the main difference here is submerging enemies vs not submerging them. The reason I suggested it to "only" drag them along reliably, without the submerging, is to further reduce his trolling potential (because as far as I understood, submerging equals that the enemies can't be hurt by allies, no?).
   
• The drowning damage increases, the longer enemies are held inside
  In the thread:
• Undertow (3) - Scaling damage:  Deals 100 Finisher damage for each enemy submerged. Scales with power strength
  
  Yours scale with number of enemies collected, mine scales with the duration of how long an enemy resides in the pool. Once again, this is to reduce the trolling behaviour of keeping enemies in the pool "forever" so allies can't kill them. Additionally, that's why I suggested the "afterchoke" DoT too, as it is based on the damage they have collected during their stay in the pool, and "pauses" the damage, which prevents a lot of trolling from Hydroid.
  
  Let me explain with an example:
  If an enemy has stayed X duration in the pool, the DoT is now built up to, say, 200 damage per second. The Hydroid releases the target. For a few seconds, this target still suffers 200 damage per second. If Hydroid grabs the enemy again with Undertow, before the DoT has expired, the Undertow's damage will continue at 200 damage per second (and keeps growing). This means that the enemy WILL die sooner rather than later, and he can't keep killing enemies in a very slow pace. Further, if he lets the DoT expire (which WILL reset Undertow's damage on said enemy), that means the enemy has been outside for quite a while, which means there has been plenty of time for your allies to kill the enemy.
  In short: No more trolling with Undertow!
   
• Tentacle Swarm can be cast, but when cast from Undertow it tries to summon the tentacles around the pool (Can still summon above the pool, if for example, an Osprey is above it). When enemies are grabbed by Tentacle Swarm, press the context button (Default: X) to throw in enemies (Throws in one enemy per button press, so spam the button to throw 'em all in). All grabbed enemies have to be within line of sight of the pool. Press the jump button for the opposite: Make free nearby tentacles grab enemies OUT from the pool, if they can reach (Same as the toss-in: One enemy per button press)
  In the thread:
• Undertow (3) - Single target control: Click enemies to launch tentacles that capture enemies, making them knocked down & drag them into the Undertow. Each tentacle out will increase the energy per second cost by itself. 
  Example: 2 Energy per second on rank 30 hydroid with no mods, so each tentacle adds another 2 energy per second being spent while the tentacle is out. When it has retracted the energy cost is returned to what it is meant to be.
  
  This is probably the only one where I really think both should be added. Tentacle Swarm would be good for quick multitarget control, while primary fire would be good for handling a select few enemies for a very cheap cost.
  The main reason I want TSwarm to be useable from Undertow is to give him a better feeling of a cohesive kit. Your idea generally sounds more awesome and scary though, but it doesn't give any reason for you to use TSwam along with Undertow.
  
  And as for the another suggestion of yours (the freetentacle drag-in upon casting Undertow); What if you don't WANT to drag them in to the Undertow? Or what if you wanna drag in multiple enemies quickly DURING your stay Undertow?
  That's further why I'd suggest to make it as suggested with TSwarm, on top of your with the singular aimed tentacles with primary fire. It's simply the best control you could get over who goes into the Undertow and who doesn't.
  
   
• * The tentacles don't just thrash about, they now wait idly for enemies to get close. Once an enemy is close enough to a tentacle, a tentacle (reliably) swipes and grabs hold of one enemy (can only hold one enemy at a time), wrapping itself around the enemy, both drowning and crushing it at once (thus making sense of it dealing its current finisher damage), holding the enemy still in its evil grasp. Due to it holding the grabbed enemy steadily in place (rather than swinging about wildly), it is now a nice and appreciated CC to have, as you can now easily aim at these held enemies!
  In the thread:
• Tentacle Swarm (4) - Synergy & support allies with range: Enemies that are prone when tentacles grab them are held in place, being crushed instead of being slammed against the floor.
  
  Well, your suggestion only increases reliability against enemies who are knocked down prior to casting it, while mine increases its steadiness through and through, regardless of prior actions. If TSwarm is meant to not irritate your allies (or even yourself), I think my suggestion is a nudge better.
   
• * If an enemy dies while held by a tentacle, the tentacle will quickly toss the enemy aside, then try to grab a new one.
  In the thread:
• Tentacle Swarm (4) - Self-positioning: Tentacle Swarm relocates to where an enemy is if it doesn't damage anyone for 3 seconds, if there are no enemies or objects to target the tentacles will just turn into tiny puddles until there are enemies in the area to attack which will help with performance. This is very similar to World On Fire except the tentacles don't select a new target 'til their target is dead.
  
  Honestly, I'd get rather irritated by your suggestion (well, maybe not if it held enemies steadily at all times, like I suggested). Think about it: Freeroaming tentacles which flail enemies around when they get ahold of them? Too chaotic for the player to really get any practical CC from. I'd rather the tentacles remained in place. IF they were to freeroam, then 2 changes would be rather important:
  1) The CC should not be so chaotic (i.e. it should hold enemies steadily in place at all times, rather than flail wildly)
  2) The "freeroam" is only within the casting zone's AoE. That means they can only wander within a set area, an area which you could then affect with Power Range.
  
   
• If Deep Tendril is kept as his passive (which imo is not all that fitting), I'd add to it that they are also summoned (with 100% chance) if you do a ground finisher on an enemy. This fits at least a little better with his knockdown-heavy hit. I'd still like to see his passive changed entirely, but I don't know what truly would be fitting passive for him.
  Maybe something like innate "Scavenger"? (Same as the aura mods which grant more ammo per ammobox, but just for himself?)
  In the thread:
• Current Passive Buff - Deep Tendril: Melee attacking prone enemies summons 1 tentacle under 1 enemy that aren't the target each time for 15 seconds that follow you striking new enemies if the first target die. Doing it again refreshes the duration and replaces the old tentacle. Functions like a very weak CC version of World On Fire.
  
  Well, if the chaotic grabbing nature of the tentacle is fixed, this would indeed be an interesting passive. However, why 1 enemy which is NOT the groundfinished target? That would make it useless against singular enemies. Or do you mean it prioritizes other enemies first?
  Well, if it was always summoned regardless of number of enemies around and/or was summoned first on the enemy you groundfinish, I'd really like this passive (-but- I would still not like it if the tentacles are still thrashing around chaotically like now).

These are very similar, but the main difference here is submerging enemies vs not submerging them. The reason I suggested it to "only" drag them along reliably, without the submerging, is to further reduce his trolling potential (because as far as I understood, submerging equals that the enemies can't be hurt by allies, no?).
I don't think DE or we should make every mechanic in mind with that there are going to be a few bad players who get themselves reported & banned for sabotaging their squad. In any case, making the enemies get pulled along with the tidal surge is going to be just as disruptive if a hydroid is constantly doing it in order to stop allies from being able to kill a target to annoy them. Not as much as submerging but it's hardly going to be easy in either case. The change is minimal and one mechanic already exists so the visuals and how submerging works could both be taken making the work a bit more effective would DE take inspiration from this.
Same reasoning why DE hasn't added "X to accept movement" when Loki switches, Valkyr pulls, Vauban bounces and so on. There are "trolls" but at the end of the day they're not going to last in the game long with that behaviour and the game mechanics shouldn't be punished for a few incompetent players.

Yours scale with number of enemies collected, mine scales with the duration of how long an enemy resides in the pool. Once again, this is to reduce the trolling behaviour of keeping enemies in the pool "forever" so allies can't kill them. Additionally, that's why I suggested the "afterchoke" DoT too, as it is based on the damage they have collected during their stay in the pool, and "pauses" the damage, which prevents a lot of trolling from Hydroid.
I think we're seeing different abilities as CC and different abilities as damage dealers and while I think things like choking to stagger or DOT, slipping to knock down after having been hit by hydroids abilities, soaking to slow & make enemies react differently to elements like fire making steam to blind is cool, I think it's going to make some already cluttered skills even more so. They're not bad suggestions but I feel like they don't really fit with Hydroids playstyle. We're bound to get more water based frames in the future and those concepts can be saved for that. We've already got 2 Jesters, 2 summoners, 2 geomancers, etc. I have absolutely no doubt there's eventually going to be another warframe with a sea or water theme to it that can fit in concepts like these much better.

This is probably the only one where I really think both should be added. Tentacle Swarm would be good for quick multitarget control, while primary fire would be good for handling a select few enemies for a very cheap cost.
The main reason I want TSwarm to be useable from Undertow is to give him a better feeling of a cohesive kit. Your idea generally sounds more awesome and scary though, but it doesn't give any reason for you to use TSwam along with Undertow.
I do think using other abilities in Undertow does sound pretty interesting and it wouldn't be immensely powerful since it would use your energy faster so you can't sit there in "stasis" all day. I've even added a similar concept based on this but with the abilities changing and if you want your name next to it give me a heads up!

• Undertow (3) - Adapting: Cast abilities while in Undertow. 
  • Tempest Barrage (1) is launched from the Undertow rather than from the sky.
  • Tidal Surge (2) launches a wave without Hydroid in it in the direction aimed.
  • Tentacle Swarm (4) summons tentacles from the Undertow that pulls in up to 12 enemies into the Undertow.

And as for the another suggestion of yours (the freetentacle drag-in upon casting Undertow); What if you don't WANT to drag them in to the Undertow? Or what if you wanna drag in multiple enemies quickly DURING your stay Undertow?
That's further why I'd suggest to make it as suggested with TSwarm, on top of your with the singular aimed tentacles with primary fire. It's simply the best control you could get over who goes into the Undertow and who doesn't.
I think you're right with this, other warframes are perfectly capable of knocking down and if for any reason you don't want to pull in a knocked down enemy such as an Eximus whose effect will carry on in the Undertow then it shouldn't be forced.  So I've removed that in favour of being able to cast other abilities while in Undertow which does make sense now that you've got a less limiting camera in Undertow as the suggestion also has.

Well, if the chaotic grabbing nature of the tentacle is fixed, this would indeed be an interesting passive. However, why 1 enemy which is NOT the groundfinished target? That would make it useless against singular enemies. Or do you mean it prioritizes other enemies first?
Well, if it was always summoned regardless of number of enemies around and/or was summoned first on the enemy you groundfinish, I'd really like this passive (-but- I would still not like it if the tentacles are still thrashing around chaotically like now).
In the situation that your attack on the prone enemy is lethal, there's no point in summoning a tentacle on a corpse.
In the situation that your attack on the prone enemy isn't lethal it's good for the tentacle to take care of surrounding enemies & objects while you've taking out the prone enemy. If there's nothing else to attack then the tentacle will attack the only enemy of course, but the most reasonable thing is to make it start from the 2nd to most close enemy to Hydroid the way I've thought of it being used in various situations. I'll add the example to it so I can explain the reasoning behind why I find that more useful.

 

Oh hey, and congratulations on 4500 community reptuation!

Edited May 22, 2017 by Navarchus

[morningstar999]

nice, I like how much detail you have put into this and is a lot of what I was thinking about he needed/could be done. he is like my second or third most used frame, but he is really damn limited atm, super, super squish, with his first two powers being mostly useless, and a lot of his stuff doesn't scale well for higher levels at all.

 

 

[Navarc]

4 hours ago, morningstar999 said:

nice, I like how much detail you have put into this and is a lot of what I was thinking about he needed/could be done. he is like my second or third most used frame, but he is really damn limited atm, super, super squish, with his first two powers being mostly useless, and a lot of his stuff doesn't scale well for higher levels at all.

 

 

Thanks man, your support is very welcome here. Let's hope the devs feel the same.

[Azamagon]

9 hours ago, Navarchus said:

1) I don't think DE or we should make every mechanic in mind with that there are going to be a few bad players who get themselves reported & banned for sabotaging their squad. In any case, making the enemies get pulled along with the tidal surge is going to be just as disruptive if a hydroid is constantly doing it in order to stop allies from being able to kill a target to annoy them. Not as much as submerging but it's hardly going to be easy in either case. The change is minimal and one mechanic already exists so the visuals and how submerging works could both be taken making the work a bit more effective would DE take inspiration from this.
Same reasoning why DE hasn't added "X to accept movement" when Loki switches, Valkyr pulls, Vauban bounces and so on. There are "trolls" but at the end of the day they're not going to last in the game long with that behaviour and the game mechanics shouldn't be punished for a few incompetent players.

2) I think we're seeing different abilities as CC and different abilities as damage dealers and while I think things like choking to stagger or DOT, slipping to knock down after having been hit by hydroids abilities, soaking to slow & make enemies react differently to elements like fire making steam to blind is cool, I think it's going to make some already cluttered skills even more so. They're not bad suggestions but I feel like they don't really fit with Hydroids playstyle. We're bound to get more water based frames in the future and those concepts can be saved for that. We've already got 2 Jesters, 2 summoners, 2 geomancers, etc. I have absolutely no doubt there's eventually going to be another warframe with a sea or water theme to it that can fit in concepts like these much better.

3) I do think using other abilities in Undertow does sound pretty interesting and it wouldn't be immensely powerful since it would use your energy faster so you can't sit there in "stasis" all day. I've even added a similar concept based on this but with the abilities changing and if you want your name next to it give me a heads up!

• Undertow (3) - Adapting: Cast abilities while in Undertow. 
  • Tempest Barrage (1) is launched from the Undertow rather than from the sky.
  • Tidal Surge (2) launches a wave without Hydroid in it in the direction aimed.
  • Tentacle Swarm (4) summons tentacles from the Undertow that pulls in up to 12 enemies into the Undertow.

4) I think you're right with this, other warframes are perfectly capable of knocking down and if for any reason you don't want to pull in a knocked down enemy such as an Eximus whose effect will carry on in the Undertow then it shouldn't be forced.  So I've removed that in favour of being able to cast other abilities while in Undertow which does make sense now that you've got a less limiting camera in Undertow as the suggestion also has.

5) In the situation that your attack on the prone enemy is lethal, there's no point in summoning a tentacle on a corpse.
In the situation that your attack on the prone enemy isn't lethal it's good for the tentacle to take care of surrounding enemies & objects while you've taking out the prone enemy. If there's nothing else to attack then the tentacle will attack the only enemy of course, but the most reasonable thing is to make it start from the 2nd to most close enemy to Hydroid the way I've thought of it being used in various situations. I'll add the example to it so I can explain the reasoning behind why I find that more useful.

 

6) Oh hey, and congratulations on 4500 community reptuation!

1) True, but imo, minimizing trolling possibilties is always good to have in mind (as long as the ability doesn't downright suffer from it). In this case, the trolling possibility wouldn't be particularly big, so I wouldn't think too much about it. More pointing it out that it COULD lead to unnecessary trolling possibilities (more so than now, at least).

2) First, about Undertow: Don't get me wrong here about the choking; It'd only be a DoT and slow (to help anti-trolling), nothing else (not literal choke-CC).

Second, the more important discussion: TB vs TS, in regards to which one should be the main damage dealer.

I wouldn't mind it all too much if TS became the main damage dealer. But in regards to ability+gameplay variety, I have a few reasons as to why I'd still recommend TB to be the main damagedealer:
---- 1) The "Kit Redundancy"-issue. TB is a #1 ability. These abilities tend to become forgotten for a lot of Warframes, and often near useless (or at least very situational), when your "widespread, easily applied ulti" does better damage and possibly also better CC. And very much so (especially with your suggestions), this would certainly be the case of TB vs TS. This becomes an even greater issue for Hydroid, since even an augmented TB wont help TS's damage all that much (since it deals mostly finisher damage).
---- 2) TB is much harder to get good use out of than TS (due to TB being random, while TS autospawns on enemies). Having TB as the damagedealer followed by having a kit which helps to increase the reliability of TB, means that TB won't be the only ability used either, since if it does a lot of damage, but has troubles hitting stuff, you're gonna have to use other abilities to kill with it. In contrast, due to how TS works with its autospawning (and even more so with suggested autoseeking after killing enemies), it would make TB feel almost entirely redundant as an ability.
---- 3) TB is imo a powerful-looking barrage of heavy and rapidly falling water drops, something that "seems" more weaponlike and destructive, and has quite a lot of oomph to it. TS feels more like the summoning of wild and cruel tentacles; Not necessarily weak in damage, but it gives more of a distraction / intimidation / CC-vibe, imo. Even more so if they actively seek out enemies (seriously, I'm liking that part of your ideas a lot, if it was combined with my "steadied CC" of it,  as I feel it would give him so much of that "evil Davy Jones"-pirate vibe).
---- 4) Similar to kit redundancy, but on another note: Imo, the "ultimate" should feel more like a panicbutton against big groups of enemies, a way to give breathing room to assess the situation a bit better. But if the panicbutton is not only CC, but also lots of damage, well, then why use anything other than that ability (possible also due to Power Efficiency's current state)? You'll just spam that + whatever survivability abilities you have (Surge and U-tow in Hydroid's case). Thus I feel that if TS becomes another one of those "powerful ultimates which totally trumps at least one your abilities (mostly the #1)", similar to Avalanche / World on Fire / Bladestorm, well, TB would also be one of those almost entirely neglected and highly situational #1 abilities.
If there was one thing DE did right with Oberon's rework, it was in regards to which ability got the role of the scaling damage, being his #1 ability. That while his ultimate remains as a good and easy-to-apply panicbutton. That way, both abilities see widespread useage

Now as for some of the UPSIDES of giving TS the scaling damage:
---- 1) Its energycost is higher, making it harder to spam. This is, unfortunately, almost entirely circumventable due to Power Efficiency, Energy Pads, Zenurik, EV Trinity etc. However, in the case of neither of those being used (rare as that may be), it would be harder to spam the ability, thus giving TB some added value (even if just a little).
---- 2) TS being both damage and CC could make way for an entirely new #1 ability (due to the redundancy), or at least having it heavily revamped. Something that helps him with something new? Surge is mobility + crowd gathering, Undertow is a "safe haven", Tentacle Swarm is damage and CC. Thus TB could become some kind of utility ability instead?
However, such big reworks are not very likely to happen, thus I think that seperating the main roles of damage vs CC between TS and TB seems like a wiser and easier choice (in whatever way that may be done).

So yeah, I'm generally way more for TB being the damagedealer here. Even if you still are firm on believing that you want TS to be the main damagedealing ability, I at least wanted to let you know why I personally prefer TB to be the ability getting the damagedealing role! :)

3) Oh, those are cool ideas too!
TB - Does it launch straight upwards and then fall down (like artillery?) or does it shoot straight out from the pool to the targetted point (like a "sideways barrage", akin to a ship's cannon bombardment, probably with some minor arcing still?). I would probably prefer the latter, since that would probably be the most functional + it would give the ability a true feeling of having had an interesting "modeshift" to it.
Surge - Nice! Then you have primary fire / TSwarm for pulling people to the pool, and Surge for pushing people from the pool. I like it! (Quick idea: If one only wants to pull enemies in a little bit with primary fire, how about a way to "cut" the tentacle off yourself, to stop the drag? Like, pushing the melee button stops the nearest tentacle's grip?)
TSwarm - Sounds good enough :)

4) Alright, sounds good!

5) I see your reasoning and can agreed with it.
I'm ok with that passive now since you said: "If there's nothing else to attack then the tentacle will attack the only enemy of course"
That was my only true concern, really (that it'd do nothing to a sole enemy).

6) Thanks! :)

[Azamagon]

23 hours ago, Somb3rBivalve said:

-snip- as long as the change that you mention is made where enemies are made stationary while being constricted by the tentacles regardless of whether they are prone or not. This synergizes well because you can shoot down enemies while they are held in place, causing the tentacle to reemerge on a new target and cause scaling damage. That said, the difference between tentacles thrashing enemies around and holding them in place is a tough one for me because holding them in place would be more helpful, but still love seeing the ridiculous, chaotic tentacle thrashing on those poor enemies.-snip-

I see what you mean.

I actually got an idea here, which caters to both the chaotic feel AND gives it some "steadiness":

A tentacle will always thrash about. However, when it strikes its first enemy, that enemy is grabbed, becomes "swallowed" by the tentacle and encased in a bubble (still fully attackable) and then moved to the "root" of the tentacle. When the enemy reaches the "root", it remains there very steadily, drowning inside the water bubble. The tentacle will still remain attached to the bubble, and will still wildly thrash about. If enemies are NOW struck by the tentacle, they could be knocked down or ragdolled away from the tentacles wild flailing. If the enemy in the bubble dies, that enemy will simply fall out of the bubble lifeless, and then the next enemy which the tentacle strikes will be the next victim of the "bubble"-drown.

What do you think of that? Wild thrashing AND steadied CC at once! :D