[Update 21.4.0] Hydroid Revisited Feedback

[(PSN)fullblast35]

5 minutes ago, Ascythian said:

 

when you don't roll with limbo you get into the rift which spares you from all incoming damage. in that perspective i thought of the same mechanic for hydroid to push/drag enemies on his path, but thats just me :)

Edited August 13, 2017 by (PS4)fullblast35

[Ascythian]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)fullblast35 said:

when you down roll with limbo you get into the rift which spares you from all incoming damage. in that perspective i thought of the same mechanic for hydroid to push/drag enemies on his path, but thats just me :)

This is true but Limbo should still be able to roll, its just laziness not to add a new button for his 'passive'.

Rolling is cool and any future attempt to add rolling melee attacks wouldn't apply to Limbo. He should be able to do a default move.

Edited August 13, 2017 by Ascythian

[(PSN)fullblast35]

Just now, Ascythian said:

This is true but Limbo should still be able to roll, its just laziness not to add a new button for his ability.

Rolling is cool and any future attempt to add rolling melee attacks wouldn't apply to Limbo. He should be able to do a default move.

its not a bad idea, I'm just thinking pc get to customize controls on many keyboard and mouse buttons but consoles are limited to a number of buttons :(

[Ascythian]

Just now, (PS4)fullblast35 said:

its not a bad idea, I'm just thinking pc get to customize controls on many keyboard and mouse buttons but consoles are limited to a number of buttons :(

Could just do the click two buttons at same time combo, x+y, L Shoulder + R Shoulder or whatever it is control people use.

[Koldraxon-732]

14 minutes ago, Ascythian said:

[Assumes slide is roll]

My idea for Hydroid's passive does not turn Tidal Surge into his roll, but into his slide. He can still roll, but sliding has a wider knockover radius, and slides longer if he begins from Crouch (Undertow). Do not confuse slide and roll please.

[Ascythian]

3 minutes ago, Koldraxon-732 said:

My idea for Hydroid's passive does not turn Tidal Surge into his roll, but into his slide. He can still roll, but sliding has a wider knockover radius, and slides longer if he begins from Crouch (Undertow). Do not confuse slide and roll please.

Id personally rather keep default moves as they are for ALL Warframes, without making them special cases for different WF's. Turning bullet jump from Inaro's into a sandstorm, Frost into a snowball, its slippery slope [no pun intended...or is it?].

Edited August 13, 2017 by Ascythian

[(PSN)fullblast35]

Just now, Ascythian said:

Id personally rather keep default moves as they are for ALL Warframes, without making them special cases for different WF's.

but Elemental damage frames are special..

[phdbr]

These are some of my ideas combined with what I've seen consistently requested:

Mechanics:

- Enemies Sunk by Hydroid get added as "ammo" for tempest barrage (up to 20 base)

- Undertow Becomes Flood: an area on the ground that allows Hydroid (and maybe his allies) to submerge by pressing the crouch button

 bullet jumping out of Flood would cause a Ripple knocking enemies down

- Tentacle swarm would sink enemies caught by tentacles in the Flooded area and if the ammo pool is full they will hold enemies in the air and strangling them.

(this solves the problem of trying to hit enemies caught by tentacle swarm)

- Tempest barrage will fire the sunken enemies dealing a % of their HP as finisher damage instead of its regular damage

Detailed changes can be seen in this image: https://ibb.co/mVg2zv

This took a lot of work to organize, and it includes Ideas from all around this post;

Other great Ideas for his passive mentioned in other posts:

- Soaked: enemies hit by his abilities become soaked increasing the chance of them receiving a status proc by a flat 30% (would be amazing)

- Liquid Body: Physical status procs have a 80% chance to be resisted

 

 

[(PSN)big_eviljak]

16 minutes ago, Ascythian said:

This is true but Limbo should still be able to roll, its just laziness not to add a new button for his 'passive'.

Rolling is cool and any future attempt to add rolling melee attacks wouldn't apply to Limbo. He should be able to do a default move.

Who cares

[Ascythian]

Just now, (PS4)big_eviljak said:

Who cares

Me, thats why I posted.

[(PSN)big_eviljak]

Just now, Ascythian said:

Me, thats why I posted.

He doesn't need to roll, wen he can slide

[Ascythian]

Just now, (PS4)big_eviljak said:

He doesn't need to roll, wen he can slide

Sliding not as cool.

[Koldraxon-732]

10 minutes ago, Ascythian said:

Id personally rather keep default moves as they are for ALL Warframes, without making them special cases for different WF's.

I don't see that being possible without adding more instances of Vauban's 2nd ability, which should be reserved for actual powers, and not bounce pad equivalents.

Every Warframe is a 'special case' and is unique. If you do not like Limbo for his portal-roll, or possibly Hydroid for his Tidal Slide and Undertowed Crouch - which add to those moves rather that destroy them (Limbo's example was destructive, yes). Besides, who crouches for any reason other than Octavia's Metronome or getting under things?

Barely anyone last I checked; they use slide instead. Correction: Tidal Surge. merely makes sliding more useful if this was to be his new passive.

Besides, his current passive is just decorative and doesn't do anything. At all. It's the worst passive I've encountered so far.

Edited August 13, 2017 by Koldraxon-732
Red = corrected.

[leadwolf1]

38 minutes ago, ThiagoSampaio said:

There are so many great ideas and so many crazy ideas ... I just want the DE to absorb these incredible ideas and make the Hydroid what it deserves to be. Hydroid is my main / favorite warframe (34%, being the most used on my profile) and I would love to see those feats. "Rising from the ocean depths, Hydroid harnesses the power of water to a devastating effect." Come on! This guy has to be awesome!

(Certainly these changes will increase the sales of Prime access.) That's the tip. XD

I have read your post and I would have to agree with some. the first ability still needs work but I do not want it to become a water world on fire. for what its worth this ability doe not kill in high end too quickly at all and with out the knock down mod leave you open to be one shot. I rather have everyone be knocked down with no room for an enemy to be standing  as well as the mod with this ability strips armor at the moment I would like to see it knock down strip armor and shield maybe.

For the second , personally I do not like the sharks  sea monsters thing, for a new mobility skill I would like to see hydroid turn into  water allowing for all damage to pass right through him as he moves similar to limbo, keep in mind just like limbo the only thing he would be able to do besides not die is pick a player up and abilities  , no hacking no inserting into console on mobile defense nothing. Laser would still trip for when light hits water I refracts . Or just leave it and do some modifications on driving it and cost, to go in and out with same button I agree with I think it should be if you are not using your aim to move it then you should just be a puddle , however no enenies can fall in you become a wave as you move and steer it the more you move and steer , the more damage you do and the faster you kill in the wave at an energy cost. while as a wave you can do the damage.

the third I would change it to where it is a dome of water and moves around with hydroid, the same as I discussed with FOXFX seen above.

for the forth  If you had the passive changed to extra drops from enemies caught in the tentacles  and they do not have to kill the enemy then I would say make it so once the tentacles grab an enemy they stop flailing around and constrict to allow other team mate to be able to kill them once killed the whip around seeking another enemy. Now this is not all my idea others have posted this. with that the passive would have to be so players can still use it for farming as well. Even make it move in the direction as hydroid is going clearing the way for him and team mates have the kraken stay piercing  looking and grabbing , when hydroid stops the kraken stops as if he is commanding the beast from the ocean depts.

 

[Ascythian]

5 minutes ago, Koldraxon-732 said:

I don't see that being possible without adding more instances of Vauban's 2nd ability, which should be reserved for actual powers, and not bounce pad equivalents.

Every Warframe is a 'special case' and is unique. If you do not like Limbo for his portal-roll, or possibly Hydroid for his Tidal Slide and Undertowed Crouch - which add to those moves rather that destroy them (Limbo's example was destructive, yes). Besides, who crouches for any reason other than Octavia's Metronome or getting under things?

Barely anyone last I checked; they use slide instead. Undertow merely makes sliding more useful if this was to be his new passive.

Besides, his current passive is just decorative and doesn't do anything. At all. It's the worst passive I've encountered so far.

I really don't think DE will replace crouch or slide anytime soon on any Warframe, they did do Limbo's roll but then again Limbo is a 'special' case.

I would like to think something better for Hydroid's passive could be in order, like corrosive splash when an enemy hits Hydroid.

5 minutes ago, leadwolf1 said:

I have read your post and I would have to agree with some. the first ability still needs work but I do not want it to become a water world on fire

 

Id like to see Tempest Barrage actually look like rain, though it could be a healing water world on fire??

 

Edited August 13, 2017 by Ascythian

[leadwolf1]

3 minutes ago, Ascythian said:

I really don't think DE will replace crouch or slide anytime soon on any Warframe, they did do Limbo's roll but then again Limbo is a 'special' case.

I would like to think something better for Hydroid's passive could be in order, like corrosive splash when an enemy hits Hydroid.

Id like to see Tempest barrage actually look like rain, though it could be a healing water world on fire??

 

I do not mind the healing while barrage is activated however I personally like it in a concentrated area and knocking everything down off their feet. I will Repeat my last , I have ember prime and use to use her a lot soloing along with running with teams , word on fire does not kill high end and if you do not mod it for knock down it loses its useful ness in the game. look above at the forth ability I wrote in there you will find a different passive and the reason why

[Koldraxon-732]

12 minutes ago, Ascythian said:

I really don't think DE will replace crouch or slide anytime soon on any Warframe, they did do Limbo's roll but then again Limbo is a 'special' case.

I would like to think something better for Hydroid's passive could be in order, like corrosive splash when an enemy hits Hydroid.

Old response:

Spoiler

 

If we don't move Tidal Surge and Undertow into the same ability, if not something else, we'll have no room to give him new powers that would allow him to assert a new role, or more roles. What I'm saying is that sliding as Hydroid also applies Tidal Surge, and after a brief time crouching, you'd go Undertow. 

The first is more of an addition instead of a replacement, the second is a replacement which would trigger after about a second or two, but you can still drag enemies in when Undertow activates. If you're so concerned about conserving Crouch, I just thought that instead of using Crouch to cause Undertow, perhaps bind it to  'Hold reload to cause Undertow while crouching'? 

Besides, the passive you offer is actually worse as it requires enemies to melee Hydroid, and the only time that happens, other than Infested, is Conclave or Sorties - where this passive is entirely useless due to the 1hit kills. We already have a 'frame with the same passive (Frost, but cold) so it would be too much copy-pasta.

In the worst case scenario Undertow, Tidal Surge, and Tempest Barrage could be swappable in a 'Vauban's 2' fashion, opening his passive to be something else.
One example many would probably like, but with reasonable drawbacks, is 'successful channeled melee kills cause enemies to drop ONLY resources'.

 

New response:

Spoiler

Hydroform changes:
Activate Undertow while crouching by holding 'reload'. Hold reload and crouch to exit.
Activate Tidal Surge by sliding as normal; Tidal Surge is separate to Hydroid, resulting in Hydroid surfing the 'sealess sea'.
Channeled kills with melee will cause enemies to drop only resources. Only. Resources.

Also, Hydroid's theme is an aqua-manipulating pirate. Don't turn him into a water priest.

 

Edited August 13, 2017 by Koldraxon-732

[Ascythian]

4 minutes ago, leadwolf1 said:

I do not mind the healing while barrage is activated however I personally like it in a concentrated area and knocking everything down off their feet.

The ability could be applied all around Hydroid in a circle then like some kind of rain shield? Knocking down/healing at the same time? 

Allies can run close to Hydroid to get the heals and make it viable for solo use too?

Edited August 13, 2017 by Ascythian

[Urlan]

Hydroid's augments give Hydroid roles he can do, if we took those aspects into the base abilities Hydroid would perform much better. Just give the augments new modifiers.

[Trentiel]

Alright, I drew up a nice graphic to show off what my moderate, but still substantial suggestion to his powers would look like.

for clarity. His Tidal Surge and Undertow would still work together as they do now. But he'd actually drag everything inside his Undertow with him.

He could still cast all his other powers while in Undertow.

Barrage and Swarm were merged, because they're basically the same ability, and it seems completely redundant to keep them separate.

[leadwolf1]

16 minutes ago, Ascythian said:

The ability could be applied all around Hydroid in a circle then like some kind of rain shield? Knocking down/healing at the same time? 

Allies can run close to Hydroid to get the heals and make it viable for solo use too?

I like the fact that you can use it as a range ability you are limiting it once your idea is done. for instance you at up on something a ways away at down some where on a tile set and the door opens and in rushes a bunch of enemies at you allies you can assist by using the range and giving time for your teammate to kill and if they were hit bad you are , using your idea, healing them. if all allies are around you then just point down and it des the same thing you stated

 

Edited August 13, 2017 by leadwolf1
to add more text for explanation

[DeathTheLegendary1]

1 hour ago, Trentiel said:

Except that there is nothing about your suggestions that actually resolves any of his problems what-so-ever.

1. more damage and duration would be nice I guess.

2. Hydroid losing his damage immunity, so he can become water volt? Who can't jump? Jumpless water volt. You know what would frustrate team mates even more than trapping enemies in a puddle, pulling enemies around in a tidal wave they also can't hit. Or just as worse, if the enemies aren't trapped in the wave the force would throw enemies around the room as the Hydroid moves and changes directions. Which is what frustrates people about Inaros Sandstorm. This power is actually FINE as is, since it groups enemies up conveniently.

3. The problem with his 3rd is that it's basically a Vauban Vortex that keeps enemies away from team damage. This is objectively terrible team synergy, it's anti-cooperative. The change you have suggested takes a cool stealth / invulnerability / regeneration power... and makes it literally just a 100% worse Vortex. Without addressing any of the problems that it already has, becoming an even more powerful troll tool.

4. Thrashing enemies underneath the water would look like a whole lot of nothing and does nothing to address the problem of Hydroid's 4, which is that it also keeps enemies from being shot at by team mates. This time by flailing them around wildly, but now you want the tentacles to help drag enemies down into the puddle where no one else can damage them.

I can safely say, these changes wouldn't just not improve him, but would 100% make him worse.

So here's a new pitch.

Hydroid's 1 and 4 are basically the same ability. They're a semi-random area of effect CC, either rain or tentacles. Enemies are getting knocked prone or ragdolled. I don't see the point of having both. So remove Barrage and shift all his powers down 1.

Tidal Surge: Lower the cost to something appropriate for a 1st ability. Let us jump cancel it, with an energy refund for the amount of it's duration we didn't use. So it can be better chained into mobility, without forcing us to commit to a full charge. Mobility abilities need some kind of energy caveat that makes them more use-able, similar to the way slash dash costs less on repeated uses.

Undertow: Change the puddle into a bubble like user FoxFX suggested. So that enemies float in the bubble, able to be damaged by team mates. Simultaneously giving bubble-hydroid the ability to invisibly melee to death enemies inside. Keep the pull mechanic, that's fun and useful. The Tidal Surge synergy is fun too. But make it pull any enemy trapped inside, along for the ride. For reals.

Tentacle Swarm: Merge the functionality of Barrage and Tentacle Swarm. Both rain and tentacles would erupt repeatedly for the duration of the ability and bombard the enemy in the area. Enlarge the AOE, but keep the adjustable size based on charge time. Make the tentacles hold enemies still. Maybe wave back and forth a bit, but not erratically. Let the cannon balls handle damage. Give the whole area a rain and water effect over the entire AOE while this happens. Like it's an AOE sea storm.

Kraken: Summon the seamonster. Use the Golden Maw mechanic from TWW. It could surf around with a couple of tentacles smashing face. Maybe even eating enemies. I don't know. C'mon DE. Golden Maw sea monster. You could do it.

Passive: Make all his powers inflict a unique status effect, called "Soaking Wet" that increases elemental damage and elemental status chance. Making him synergize well with other elemental frames, like Frost, Volt, Oberon... Even Ember. Ironically.

The goal of the changes that i made were to address 3 issues that i had with Hydroid, which was survivability, mobility, and his passive cc(mainly the fact that u are not doing anything while his 3 is active outside of spending more energy). I am glad that you agree with the 1st ability change even if its a dmg/duration buff. Now time too clarify/defend the rest of my changes.

2nd ability: Now i know why u might cringe at the somewhat limited ability in mobilty i have given Hydroid, giving him a jump cancel is actually a fantastic idea and i love it. I would go further and make it a bullet jump and remove the launch part of the ability. On to the second part of the ability, now you say that having enemies get dragged around is annoying but its not like he is carrying the enemies with him or knocking them all over the place, they simply get pushed in the direction he is moving so predicting where they will be won't difficult. 

 

3rd/4th ability: Now to be honest the reason why i didnt go to crazy with these abilities is not because i didnt have ideas for them but because of the amount of time it would take DE to implment this before prime release. So i went crazy with one ability but left the rest (relatively) unchanged in terms of functionality because i have a feeling that if they r going to make any future changes it will most likely be to his second ability simply because they put so much focus on the 3rd and 4th.

[Azamagon]

4 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

Apologies for the quote formating, on the phone at the moment. 

1)I quite aprove the idea of fusing one of his conservatives augments with the base ability, and I'm most inclined towards Tidal Impunity: status cleansing  and immunity might be an extremely good and rare capability, however it is also extremely... "small", not worth taking an entire mod slot. Curative undertow would no doubt make him an at least confortable support frame in organized squads, however judging by the power of base undertow, a buff to it really is not too necessary, at least in my opinion. 

2) Tempest Barrage:

    2.1) I personally think either one of the scaling solutions is good, despite each bringing different benefits and downsides. Making its damage scaling according to primary/secondary mods is an interesting idea, specially since it allows the power to grow with the weapons, making mod-progression for non-end game players serve as an additional layer of frame power-progression. It would also make Tempest Barrage eligible to weapon-buffing powers, which increases Hydroid's squad synergy immensely. Additionally, it would add status capabilities to the power, opening up a lot of possible builds.

However, it would impose some downsides. First, it will probably demand a complete re-coding of the ability - I heavily doubt it is currently coded as a weapon, as Artemis Bow, Dec Pixia, Exalted blade and so are - for obvious reasons. Second, it will also restrain weapon choice (to explosive weapons) without offering a true substitute. And last, while it will allow Tempest Barrage to completely shred low level enemies and maybe even be useful at higher levels, it is inevitably a non-scaling ability, which means that it will both hit a level at which it stops being effective, and its  usage will trivialize low levels even more.

Adding enemy health based damage might extremely front faced and simple, but that simplicity isn't obligatorily a bad thing, and it would ensure that it scaled indefinitely without trivializing low levels. 

That said, status capabilities in Tempest Barrage... God that would be wonderful. 

    2.2)I fully agree with that: with charging up taking both more time and energy, it makes no sense for it to be arguably worse than simply casting it twice -  though,  I'm not actually sure the charge up trully increases the target area. I think I need to make more tests. 

3) Tidal Surge

   I wanna start this with a proposition of mine: Tidal Surge should not stop you during (de)activation. Seriously. It has no purpose at all and serves only to make tidal surge usage feel cumbersome. You should be able to transition into it without having to stop walking, just as you should start walking right away while the animation finishes if you are pressing the corresponding key. I think they should do what they did to Magnetize: relay the activation animation to the top half of the frame's body.

    3.1)reducing its energy cost makes perfect sense - an ability that does arguably less than Slash Dash should not cost the double. That said, 

    3.2)I honestly don't think making it add to the combo counter is a good change. Not because it isn't relevant in general, but because Hydroid, at least as DE sees him, is not very melee oriented. That addition wouldn't improve is projected playstyle in anyway, shape or form. Frankly, if there is a change I really think is necessary, it's to make enemies not rag doll like hell ahead of you. It kinda defeats the purpose of using Tidal Surge to group up enemies to use undertow or Tentacle Swarm. 

4) Tentacle Swarm

    4.1) As much as I think that holding enemies still will rob it somewhat of its uniqueness, and will make the power a bit too similar to Nezha's ultimate... I can't deny the fact that it will be a thousand fold more useful than what it currently is - and judging how poorly it performs in the damage department as enemy level goes up, while still being his best CC... Yeah, it most definitely could be changed into not flaying enemies around. 

    4.2) Indeed, casting Tentacle Swarm while under Undertow is arguably less beneficial than casting it outside of it... However, one can argue it serves both as a balancing measure and as a paradigm shifter, focusing more on localized defense than generalized CC. Tentacle swarm spawning inside undertow ends up not being problematic exactly due to the mad flail tentacles currently feature, so I think that yes, if tentacles are to hold enemies, they should spawn outside. 

    4.3)Another issue I see with Tentacle Swarm and Undertow is that, despite being arguably defense and area lock down abilities, they are rather useless against anything capable of ranged attacks - which pretty much includes the smashing majority of enemies. As such, I honestly think that making enemies held by tentacle swarm susceptible to friendly fire would vastly improve both Hydroid's area lock down capabilities, and the synergy between Undertow and Tentacle Swarm: by making Tentacle swarm spawn in a neat circle as it does, Undertow effectively creates a living shield around its center, made of tentacle-held enemies. It would also further differentiate Tentacle Swarm from other General CC ultimates. 

5) Passive

    5.1) It's impossible to think his passive is good as is. It is literally a terrible reash of his ultimate. Just, no. 

   5.2) Weirdly enough, I seem to be the only one having little issues with energy. It most likely stems from the fact his powers seem designed in such a way that you might as well just go for max efficiency (I mean, the benefits of power strength are as limited as his damage capabilities, and putting too much duration will make your Tidal Surge a bit too good) but... If changed in accordance to your ideas, and specially if tweaked according to my criticism, that wouldn't be held true for much longer. As such, yes, perhaps making him gain X energy per enemy affected by his abilities would be a good passive - call it revitalization or something. 

All in all, I like your ideas, and the concepts behind them, but I think some added flavor wouldn't hurt - specially in terms of area protection and lock down, with Tentacle Swarm. 

1) Yeah, of all augments being baseline, Tidal Impunity is the most easy to put in there. But at the same time... it feels a bit weird as a baseline addition too, because then one might ask; Why doesn't this happen when he uses Undertow as well? He becomes just as "watery" then as well. But that just might be me overthinking things :P

2) Tempest Barrage

While multistatus stuff would be neat, I also think the Smite-esque scaling is the better choice. After all, Undertow already brings a somewhat "flat" scaling (albeit slow), and Tentacle Swarm's finisher damage also lasts for quite a while in terms of damage. Further, yeah, weapon choice restrictions are always a bummer. So my vote definitely goes more towards enemy-level scaling damage.

3) Tidal Surge

While I'm not fully happy with the idea of adding combo counter bonuses either, the idea stems from the ability itself being very melee-esque. And I think DE sees him as a caster/melee hybrid (moreso towards caster, but still), due to his passive and all his 3 first abilities causing enemies to be targets for groundfinishers. After all, he is also part pirate, not just a water elemental caster.

Further, the combo counter thing also stemmed from an older idea of mine; Making Tidal Surge a dangerous tool (to acommodate for its bigger energycost), at the very least with a change to its augment (as I feel the current augment would be better as a baseline effect, as already mentioned). The idea was to make the wavebreak (the ending slash-damage portion) a wide and watery sabre slash, a slash which scales fully with melee mods (this was also considered along with the primary mod scaling for Tempest Barrage, to give him an "adaptable Water Pirate" feel). But... that's also with the risk of making it feel too much of a Slash Dash copy.

So... yeah, that suggestion can be ignored I guess :P

The newer thought I had for Tidal Surge was to keep it very utility oriented. And this sparked a new idea for it (once again, at least for its augment) - What if the surge could be more like a two-way tsunami? Like, push enemies away with one wave, then pull them all back again with a second bigger wave coming back at you, all this without Hydroid moving forward at all? Dunno how to implement that along with his current forward surge though (unless using holdcasting for this new effect, and tapcast for the current version), which is why I thought it would be cool at least as an augment. A bonus to that augment could be that while the waves surge back and forth, Hydroid is still immune to damage, still making it a CC+survivability tool, but losing the mobility aspect of it.

*shrugs* There are so many possibilities with Hydroid...

4) Tentacle Swarm

Holding enemies still I feel is by far the best solution to make Tentacle Swarm a great ability. It makes it less disruptive, it gives it synergy with his kit and makes more sense of its damagetype being finisherdamage (imo). That alone would make me feel that Tentacle Swarm is "complete".

However, suggested just as a bunch of brainstorming crazy ideas, look at my (probably over the top) ideas from my latest post (quoted below), at least for Tentacle Swarm. With those changes, Tentacle Swarm could be scarily good for CC (probably too good?), while also making sense of the having the Kraken's head appear in the first place:

21 hours ago, Azamagon said:

I'll just throw in my crazy ideas here, as I still feel he is heavily lacking in effect (even if he is more fun):

Tempest Barrage

• Make it deal noticeable damage. Be it by primary mod scaling, or enemy level scaling (a la Smite), doesn't matter.
• If there are enemies in Undertow, and a Tempest Barrage is cast within its area, all Tempest Barrage strikes will successfully land every other of its barrages somewhere on the puddle (so the Undertow can act like a great aim-improver for Tempest Barrage)
• Charge no longer increases landing area (just damage and duration)
• Augment should also proc Magnetic (I think all anti-armor augments should also deal with shields, to reduce faction bias).

Tidal Surge

• Reduce energycost to 25
• Turn off the travel early with a melee strike or jump

Undertow

• Increase movespeed a decent amount and heavily reduce movement energycost, or keep it slow but remove the energydrain entirely (energy is already scarce while Undertowing)
• Increase the base range of the manual grabbing tentacle. Without range mods, its range basicly means you are just barely pushing enemies into the pool who are at the edge of the pool, i.e. REALLY short.
• Allies can attack the pool; doing so causes the attack to be doubled in damage, but also split among all targets caught. Melee groundslams also work for this. This makes the ability a true teamwork-skill, rather than a troll-ish move, and further allows Undertow to be the "centrallizing" ability in his kit with less risk.
• All enemy auras (Eximus, Ancients etc) are disabled when they are caught in the pool, further increasing its utility.

Tentacle Swarm

• Enemies are now held steadily (rather than flailed around), in a choking+crushing manner (this also causes enemies to not be launched upwards when the tentacles spawn on them). Each tentacle can only hold 1 enemy at a time (until it dies, upon which the tentacle can grab a new enemy)
• Tentacles now move around quite quickly within their spawn radius, moving to grab enemies whenever they find an enemy trespassing within the radius
• When an enemy is grabbed and held, it slowly tries to travel in towards the centre of the ability (where the Kraken is). If the enemy reaches the Kraken, the Kraken will grab and attack the enemy, causing much higher damage to it (like as high as 3x the damage of a tentacle?). This frees the tentacle's grip, allowing the tentacles to go hunt for new enemies.
• If the Kraken is inside your Undertow, the Kraken will continuously attack all the enemies caught in the pool. Note that the Kraken's attacks counts as Tentacle Swarm damage (for the sake of its augment).
• If a tentacle brings an enemy into Undertow's radius, it will release the enemy inside the pool, also freeing the tentacle to go find new enemies (if you cast TS in Undertow, a tentacle bringing an enemy into the Undertow pretty much means that the tentacles let the Kraken take over instead, so the tentacles can hunt for new victims). Note that manually snatching an enemy with Undertow's waterlasso from a TS-tentacles's grip will help bring the enemy in to the pool (and to the Kraken) much quicker.
• Casting TS in Undertow still centres the cast on Undertow, but since the tentacles now can move around within the radius, they will move out to help bring in new enemies to the Undertow and Kraken.
• If you Tidal Surge enemies into the Kraken, the Kraken will grab the enemy (it has higher "grip-priority" than Tidal Surge).
• Number of tentacles reduced (due to the above changes) to 8 or 10. Possibly (but not necessarily) also entirely remove the charge-up effect, along with increasing base radius back up to 15 (up from 5), as well as increasing energycost to 100 again.

 

This might be way too much though (especially the Kraken stuff) :P

5) Passive
And there are so many options:
- Hydroid's melee attacks and abilities soak enemies, causing them to be slowed slightly, and take much longer to get up from knockdowns
- Innate Thief's Wit
- Innate Ammo Scavenger (more ammo from ammo pickups) - While fitting thematically with the Pirate, it doesn't fit his playstyle much though
And many other things

Just anything other than what he has right now T_T

--------------

As always, thanks for the good and constructive criticism :)

Edited August 13, 2017 by Azamagon

[DhatZ]

I made a comprehensive summary of the problems and lack of improvement, trying to test as many things as possible:

global problems: ability descriptions or stats aren't indicating anything is chargeable. We don't know the stats that are charged unless we check wiki.
Ability cast cooldown timer? why wasn't this fixed? what other frame has us waiting to cast @(*()$ charged abilities again only to realize it didn't count due to timeout?

suggestion: With how 2, 3 and 4 graphics are connected, I always wanted there to be a 2nd energy color, and for this case it could affect how strongly our energy dyes the actual water (might not work with the puddles merging, so I'm not surprised this isn't a feature).

plus side:
There's a hidden synergy when casting 4 from puddle: the damage is doubled (also charged 4 goes beyond the puddle range).

Passive: is bad and very unreliable, no farmer uses it unless they have time to F*** around, something like covers nearby enemy in water slowing them down and making unable to use abilities/special attacks(good for shielders, null, scrambus, bursa etc.) would work. But I never really thought about his passive.

1
Isn't it the same visually? anyway at least this one has some of the energy color in the actual main gfx. Area while charging isn't very visible with some colors.
Stupid recast cooldown timer.

2
Needs to be cancellable by pressing 2 and also jumping etc. It's just too clunky and costly for us have to go to 3 just to stop.
Why can't we steer it even a little?
WTH is the energy cost? this is useless for moving the puddle around, especially since enemies dont get carried along. I can much more cheaply take off and cast puddle again wherever I want it.
I understand if you aren't willing to let this effect be his dodge animation because of hitbox and animation issues.

3
this is where the problems pile up:
You kept the same useless slow crawl that got us kicked previously but now we are slugging along unable to catch anything without wasting a ton of energy on 2 or just recasting since the enemies are spat out when out of range anyway. Even with the tentacle, this should be a AOE ability, but the range is just bad.
Right after release the ripples rendered OK somewhat where I expected them, but now they are shrunk and their placement makes no sense anymore(using windows 7 32 bit DX 11 with old AMD GPU, drivers don't get updates due to 32 bit). could be related to the pixelated sampling for performance which I noticed at steep angles where it just cuts off (right after release it didn't even render over the sandy parts of Stofler at all).
I'm missing an "enemy drowning" counter, them disappearing from radar has its reason but who is gonna keep track of the numbers popping up all over the place?
What is up with the companions taking aoe damage when submerged and other tenno not being able to hit enemies with AOE weapons?
the range got hit too, I remember it much bigger, even tho the old gfx had a weird wet area far beyond the colored puddle which made it really jarring.
There are things to be improved with the steep angle cutoff, it looks real bad on grineer blunts, tho not as bad as Oberon's carpet on just about any surface(including ferns), the pixelation struggle is real, even tho I'm not running low settings.
The biggest screw up is that enemies ONLY fall in AT OR UNDER hydroids elevation, especially obvious in Stofler where they have to run downhill(basically half of the puddle doesn't work regardless of range). This needs the same detection code as the spit out that works with the proper range(lining up with the visuals).

Simulacrum only bug: tenno get covered in the visual effect as if they were an object too.

pro: the water looks real nice and shadow/light affects it as it should. tentacle is nice to have but the range would work better.

4
there is no way to customize the Kraken's appearance preview in arsenal.
tentacles have a little puddle that rotates with the tentacle. that's not how water behaves.
I managed to get stuck unable to cast or move at all while casting 4 and getting instakilled by a juggernaut and couldn't even enter the downed animation just stood there in the T pose. no unstucks nor menu worked.
Besides the typical convolution based effects, I'm not noticing any reflections even fake static ones on the tentacles. This might be related to the new transparency rendering changes, which made all forms or pre-baked reflections almost invisible on transparent surfaces.
I don't mind range as it is, max range charged cast will cover the large ring in Stofler easily.
there are square patches of slightly shiny but static texture being applied around kraken and the tentacles, only visible on shiny surfaces like gold or floor(such as simulacrum) at sharp angles.
Multi-grab tentacles are a good thing I guess.

summary: there are mechanical, graphical, casting, description and energy problems and none of it makes this frame any better than the mastery fodder material farming tool that he always was. this whole slight update wasn't even previewed and is definitely rushed, almost everyone sold him a long time ago and nobody I know bothered to build again to check "the rework". Nobody even mentioned him after it released anyway. In a moon clan of daily actives.

I wouldn't be opposed to combine the 2 and 3 into hold/tap combo and make space for a water gun or water explosion directed at one target kind of ability.

images of bugs are here: http://imgur.com/a/x0BYo

Edited August 13, 2017 by DhatZ

[leadwolf1]

22 minutes ago, DeathTheLegendary1 said:

The goal of the changes that i made were to address 3 issues that i had with Hydroid, which was survivability, mobility, and his passive cc(mainly the fact that u are not doing anything while his 3 is active outside of spending more energy). I am glad that you agree with the 1st ability change even if its a dmg/duration buff. Now time too clarify/defend the rest of my changes.

2nd ability: Now i know why u might cringe at the somewhat limited ability in mobilty i have given Hydroid, giving him a jump cancel is actually a fantastic idea and i love it. I would go further and make it a bullet jump and remove the launch part of the ability. On to the second part of the ability, now you say that having enemies get dragged around is annoying but its not like he is carrying the enemies with him or knocking them all over the place, they simply get pushed in the direction he is moving so predicting where they will be won't difficult. 

 

3rd/4th ability: Now to be honest the reason why i didnt go to crazy with these abilities is not because i didnt have ideas for them but because of the amount of time it would take DE to implment this before prime release. So i went crazy with one ability but left the rest (relatively) unchanged in terms of functionality because i have a feeling that if they r going to make any future changes it will most likely be to his second ability simply because they put so much focus on the 3rd and 4th.

Well to be honest with you , 4th sounds like something a 13 year old would want ,  sorry  I do not agree at all