Hydroid Rework Concept [With Dank Illustration]

[Artesians]

X-Post from my Reddit thread :).

Let me preface this with the fact that I was inspired by several other concepts of Hydroid and the grievances that I saw on Reddit (here). And I made another text-post earlier and got some additional info, thanks /u/Grim_Konstantin for explicating concise issues with Hydroid.

 

To begin, I settled with the fact that Hydroid is the Warframe of water and pirates. His Prime wears a tricorn, his non-Prime variant has an eyepatch, and all of that is okay - he's a pretty cool looking dude. Unfortunately, his looks have nothing to do with his abilities and his strength in Warframe. In short, because the post above lists his problems better than I ever could: his Tempest Barrage CC is unreliable, his Tidal Surge isn't in the best of your interest to use (though if you want to fly into a napalm, go for it), his Undertow is niche and inefficient, his Tentacle Swarm makes it a living nightmare to use anything but a launcher with, and none of that synergizes or scales. So, I drew up some new abilities for our swashbuckler.

 

Basic Descriptions:

1 - Cascade:
Hydroid calls upon the forces of the sea to crash on to enemies to the ground. (Fixed amount of damage).

2 - Torrent:
Pull the tides to unleash a wave toward enemies, pushing them back as they are torn apart. The more Hydroid enemies struck with Torrent, the choppier the waves get. (Decreased cast times).

3 - Whirlpool:
Hydroid creates a whirlpool, slowing down enemies as they are pulled toward its center. (Maximum of 3). (Enemies will still be able to shoot).

4 - Kraken Maw:
Hydroid summons a creature from the deep, summoning tentacles that smash down toward an epicenter. (Increased damage from choppiness from torrent). (The closer to the middle, the higher the damage).

*I should also note that I have not a clue about how to address Hydroid's passive.

 

*Note that the illustration is meant to be read along with the post.
 

 

Synergies:

The kit revolves around using Whirlpool wisely, but all the abilities stand on their own fairly well. Enemies caught inside Whirlpool will take increased damage from every other Hydroid ability. Using Torrent increases all of Hydroid's cast times and increases the  "choppiness" of the water allowing Kraken Maw to do increased damage and using Kraken Maw on Whirlpool maximizes damage as enemies are dragged to the center.

 

Augments:

1 - Corroding Barrage:
Doesn't need a change, it'll just be called Corroding Cascade or Acidic Cascade.

2 - Tidal Impunity:
Probably change is so that the choppiness effect becomes a team buff, decreasing cast times :).

3 - Curative Undertow:

Whirlpool is a different ability, but Hydroid the buffer still works, Curative Wake heals allies that steps into Whirlpool.

4 - Pilfering Swarm:

No change, gotta keep your resource farms efficient as possible. (It'll probably be easier to kill things though :))

 

Edited July 11, 2017 by Artesians
Passive Note

[-Eraxios-]

Very nice ideas dude, hope to see a good rework with the prime version

[Rakiss]

1. I use hydroid a reasonable amount and have to say that I've never found Tempest Barrage to be unreliable. This may be because of a max-range build giving each impact a huge radius, but as far as I can tell that's the only sensible hydroid build. 
2. Tidal Surge provides invincibility during the animation, as long as you roll quickly and aren't an idiot when using it, it won't get you killed (the same as Nova's portal and Ash's teleport). I'm not trying to be that one guy who says 'git gud' but I'd assume it's a given to not use movement abilities to move into death.
   The invincibility is incredibly useful and you should be relying on it as your only survivability.
3. Undertow is the weakest part of his kit, but it can be very powerful in certain scenarios. It's decent for locking down an interception point and quickly toggling it lets you knock down a good radius of enemies instantly to create a break to cast something else. You can also still receive healing (ie: from medi-ray) while submerged.
   I wouldn't be upset to see this ability replaced.
4. Tentacle swarm is fantastic on two conditions:
   Firstly - there's no lag, lag makes the ability unreliable and generally worthless. This needs to be fixed, but casting Tempest Barrage first helps.
   Secondly - it isn't an exterminate or survival mission/objective.
   It makes killing more difficult, but that generally isn't an issue, tying up enemies is more important and very little does this better than Tentacle Swarm. Importantly, it can also pick enemies away from interception-hacking positions and deny that position for the entire duration - you can also cast it on a point across the map from you.
   
   The main issues with hydroid are energy (less of an issue with pilfering swarm as long as you can actually kill tentacled-enemies), survivability (unless you spam Tidal Surge and churn your other abilities out in-between), and his passive being worthless.
   
   Hydroid is my frame of choice for sortie interceptions. I always feel like I'm 1 hit away from death, but it's any non-CC'd enemies are too far away to be accurate.
   
   Edit due to forgetting the reddit post: The point of hydroid is lots of hard CC in multiple different areas and he does that really well. 

Edited July 11, 2017 by Rakiss
More detailed response to arguments

[Artesians]

1 hour ago, Rakiss said:

1. I use hydroid a reasonable amount and have to say that I've never found Tempest Barrage to be unreliable. This may be because of a max-range build giving each impact a huge radius, but as far as I can tell that's the only sensible hydroid build. 
2. Tidal Surge provides invincibility during the animation, as long as you roll quickly and aren't an idiot when using it, it won't get you killed (the same as Nova's portal and Ash's teleport). I'm not trying to be that one guy who says 'git gud' but I'd assume it's a given to not use movement abilities to move into death.
   The invincibility is incredibly useful and you should be relying on it as your only survivability.
3. Undertow is the weakest part of his kit, but it can be very powerful in certain scenarios. It's decent for locking down an interception point and quickly toggling it lets you knock down a good radius of enemies instantly to create a break to cast something else. You can also still receive healing (ie: from medi-ray) while submerged.
   I wouldn't be upset to see this ability replaced.
4. Tentacle swarm is fantastic on two conditions:
   Firstly - there's no lag, lag makes the ability unreliable and generally worthless. This needs to be fixed, but casting Tempest Barrage first helps.
   Secondly - it isn't an exterminate or survival mission/objective.
   It makes killing more difficult, but that generally isn't an issue, tying up enemies is more important and very little does this better than Tentacle Swarm. Importantly, it can also pick enemies away from interception-hacking positions and deny that position for the entire duration - you can also cast it on a point across the map from you.
   
   The main issues with hydroid are energy (less of an issue with pilfering swarm as long as you can actually kill tentacled-enemies), survivability (unless you spam Tidal Surge and churn your other abilities out in-between), and his passive being worthless.
   
   Hydroid is my frame of choice for sortie interceptions. I always feel like I'm 1 hit away from death, but it's any non-CC'd enemies are too far away to be accurate.
   
   Edit due to forgetting the reddit post: The point of hydroid is lots of hard CC in multiple different areas and he does that really well. 

I agree! There are certainly strengths within Hydroid's kit, my suggestions really only accentuate his hard CC/area denial by pushing him further as a caster frame. Hydroid as is, is just too unsatisfying to use for the majority of players, leaving only dedicated players who've fallen in love with him. Unfortunately, that means picking out pieces of his kit will make some people uncomfortable as his impending rework rolls out. I've shifted around his kit's strengths and upped the power of his CC - his Tempest Barrage would just become a straight AoE knockdown and his Tentacles would be replaced by the area denial from Whirlpool. There's no pleasing everyone when it comes to Excalibur level reworks, but that's the direction I went for my suggestions.

 

Thanks for reading and the input :).

[Rakiss]

I think that part of the appeal of hydroid is the 'fire and forget' nature of his abilities. I'm strongly opposed to the idea of his 1 being replaced with an ability that would just cause 1 instance of knockdown. Tempest barrage may be unreliable with low ranges but it can lock down a group for a significant duration for such a cheap ability. 
Area denial is a field that's already covered pretty decisively by vauban (who suffers many of the same problems as hydroid, if not worse, but is used because of 1 broken ability).
The only other frame who has targeted CC at range is Titania, and her range is much more limited.

I think if hydroid had some different, less support-focused augments he wouldn't be getting such low use. His basic kit is great, his statline is weak but passable, but his augments make no sense. 
Compare with nekros who's abilities are fairly lacklustre but who has augments that can drastically change the way the frame is played (not to mention the fact that everyone owns a nekros for farming).

I see your point about tidal surge though, it's use is fairly limited based on how far it hurls you. That said, I'd just tweak the ability in the following way: hold to move as part of the wave, release to exit, the wave continues for it's full distance.

I'd be happy to see his 3 replaced with whirlpool.

I also see merit to tentacle swarm being more target-able. The solution that springs to mind would be: if this ability is cast on a whirlpool, all tentacles will appear within the whirlpool and the ability will cost 1/2 its usual energy cost. I also like another suggestion I saw somewhere to have damage dealt to the tentacles by allies be transferred to grabbed enemies.

It's a nice change to discuss hydroid with someone who's given him a fair shot rather than jumping on the hate bandwagon.

[Navarc]

His 2 is an excellent panic button since it gets you away from the area and makes you invincible. I enjoy using his 3 to safely reload on weapons with terrible reload or sometimes even just to holster because holster can take a bit too long for level 100+ content.
Losing these things would negatively impact the way I play Hydroid & certainly break some of my builds which is kind of upsetting since he's my main.

I do like your suggestion for his 1 although I'm concerned about it not striking multiple times. Corroding Barrages effect just isn't worth having if it's not going to strip an enemies armour entirely from a cast.
You don't really address the issue of tentacles making high priority targets harder to hit, making him as unpopular as Zephyr when using 4 in a squad.
I don't think his 3 should allow enemies to shoot, either. But are they duration based or do more stacks drain more energy over time? Do you place it under yourself or do you place it where you aim? Can I submerge myself by walking into it if it's the later, for safety? 

For a passive I can't really think of anything unique that could fit your reinvention of Hydroid but maybe you can draw inspiration from some of the stuff me and others have written in the passive section of the Hydroid improvement thread?