[Update 21.4.0] Hydroid Revisited Feedback

[SirArtilleur]

After some testing on the battlefield and a couple of simulations, I've seen all that was to see with the new hydroid... The frame became a little more powerfull : especially with the 200 points of armor, thank god for that ! Also, the synergy between the powers is interresting, and Hydroid have this feel of tactitian frame, like Vauban. But Overall... Hydroid is still missing something, mostly in synergy and strengh.

So, yeah, there's already tones of comments and from what I could see, lots of idea to dig in and boost the rework to a new point... But I have unfortunately little time to read them all. So here's some of my ideas to boost our dear Tentaculax, Master of the memes... And making him a fearsome predator.

 

The first point concern his 3rd ability :

if worked in another way, this power could offer him a magnificent boost of mobility and be a great skill to synergise with the others, since he's in his naturale state. He's a tactichian, using his abilities to dominate the field, but this could also give him the ability of a predator... giving him the ferocity of a true shark ! It could be something like this : going underwater, mooving at great speed ( as speed as the warframe, or close of it ) to go through the ennemy lines... And then ?

- Bullet jumping out of the water ( meaning every possible direction ) to knock them down. And being able to activate his power in the air, to bullet jump into the ground, and making a little proc of impact around him.

- Allowing Hydroid to go mostly undetected and aiming for an insta-kill / backstab ( a possibility that would be interresting for infiltration, rescue, ect... ).

- Using its 2nd ability to take a full squad with him underwater and driving them away with you, offering a radical boost of cround control.... something that, from what I tested don't work : you can keep them underwater with you, but once you try to moove, they're free. Also, it could be affected by powerstrengh to allow you to keep ennemies underwater.

- Using his 1st to become a moving beacon (keeping in mind, as long as 3rd is active of course ) for his artillery, offering a more easy aiming, and not a random targetting system, which in particuliar scenario, don't help that much.

- Also, the 3rd ability could offer some status damage : like a cold proc, Letting the ennemies that were underwater, once at the surface, knocked diwn a little longer... And why not, to keep the shark idea, a slash type of damage. ( But the damages underwater are growing over the time, so yeah... this could be OP, since slash is a good way to deal damage ).

 

And finally... the real reason I want to play Hydroid... Gary, the Kraken ! :

Let's be honnest... Gary is bored. Very bored. Look at the poor fella, he's poping his head out of the water, and when he see that he can't do that much more, he's returning veeerrry sllooowly into the abyss, with a desapointed look on his face. X'D

This must change... How ? By giving Hydroid an ability similar to the Effigy... Opening a gateway of water, a lake of some sort... from where the kraken would emerge in all it's glory and unleash all his might on the battlefield ! Tentacles of water all around him to grab and literally eat ennemies ; corrosive spits from his mouth and / or even thunderbolts from the skies, an ability that could be usefull againt corpus paratroopers, and anymore to come ( rather than oppening a gate in mid-air, thing that bug the animation and feels... awkward. Funny to see the corpus flying, but, truely awkward ).

 

And voilà. This is all the ideas that I had to give Hydroid more synergy, and making him feel less... clunky. The rework as it is, is pretty good ! The powers are great as they are, maybe a little boost here and there could be welcome... but I'm not good in numbers, and lots of people might have alredy talked about it. honestly, Hydroid concept as it is now is most of all ( to me ) lacking of grace, of elegence... and impact in action. Physical impact.

I can only hope that these ideas will be read, and maybe... just maybe if other players share my point of view or posted similar comments, that these ideas will become a reality... #MakeGaryLessGrumpy. x')

Edited August 11, 2017 by SirArtilleur

[--RV--arm4geddon-117]

14 hours ago, MarrikBroom said:

 

^^ This...as much as i'm not always a fan of his rework reviews this time i gotta agree with Broz

I wouldn't even call it a revisit either, it's mostly a graphic overhaul of his abilities coupled with a few gimmicks...

Only thing worth mentioning is the armor buff, since shields ain't S#&$ anyway until shield gating becomes real

On a personal note 2 things that should really be addressed are the RNG'ed hits of Tempest Barrage & the rollercoaster effect his tentacles have on the enemies...The 1st need to simply home in on enemy units, no more missed shots, and the 4th needs to strangle the units in place so it makes it easier to dispatch them once CC'd, it's pretty much tedious when you wanna nuke an energy leech eximus units and that thing keeps going up and down left and right and one shouldn't be forced to rely on huge AOE guns to make up for the lack of precision thanks to the tentacles mechanic

Oh and on the range going from 20m to 5 base and 10 charged of his 4 i'll just leave a self explanatory : no comment

 

Edited August 11, 2017 by arm4geddon-117

[Naruchico]

So....this "rework" was all about puddle, and wave....did nobody at DE get the memo that those abilities are the least used, most annoying and completely horrible for co-op play....I mean sheesh throw out a poll and you could easily see 1 and 4 are basically the only abilities we liked...why the puddle focus...that is the worst.

I just don't get it....I would kill to hear what the rework meeting sounded like "so...we need to sell hydroid prime access...rework plans?"....."uhhh more AFK puddle that makes your team hate you?"....."GREAT IDEA!...now how do we add stat nerfs so Mag looks stronger?"

I just...I can't...how could you guys...did you not talk to anyone at tennocon for idea's....?

[Sir_Alex_Traffo]

16 minutes ago, Tesseract7777 said:

Officially, they didn't call it one. They just call it a "revisit". I believe Limbo was called rework, and Oberon was also called a "revisit", but I could be remembering incorrectly. 

Pretty sure they called them Revisit as well, but they were a rework actually. 

Besides, even if there was a difference, it would be insane considering that Hydroid was needing a rework as much if not more than the other 2.

[Marvelous_A]

Yeah the abilities are still clunky, I think the root problem is 3 out of 4 abilities are stationary and his 3rd pretty much prevents him from doing anything. There are much better CC to hold enemies without making them invulnerable to teammates and locking caster in place. And his 4th is still an unreliable damage dealer despite the change. He is extremely situational compared to most of the other frames.

Edit: And I really don't understand the reason behind the whole Undertow change. IMO DE should straightly delete it and put a new ability coz it's like the most boring ability in game and it's poorly designed to start with. The rework basically encourage "cast and AFK" type of playing which completely contradicts the design philosophy of DE lately.

Edited August 11, 2017 by Marvelous_A

[Circle_of_Psi]

17 minutes ago, DesFrSpace said:

 

Yeah, made the post here, so I can clear up any spaces fix any errors and such, as it can be hard, when so much is posting on the feedback page, surely you understand. However DE or any mod are free to move it here now

Edited August 11, 2017 by Circle_of_Psi

[Naruchico]

I'm more interested in understanding the thoughts behind this rework...cause I just can't figure out what DE was thinking

[13QZXXTTX]

3 hours ago, Marvelous_A said:

Yeah the abilities are still clunky, I think the root problem is 3 out of 4 abilities are stationary and his 3rd pretty much prevents him from doing anything. There are much better CC to hold enemies without making them invulnerable to teammates and locking caster in place. And his 4th is still an unreliable damage dealer despite the change. He is extremely situational compared to most of the other frames.

I thought some one said "Limbo".

I am just waiting for Lady Water Frame. Some day. More Frames to the STRONKER Tennos.

[aligatorno]

It is indeed a really questionable rework/revisit. I understand that they would want to keep his identity the same, but they could have done that without centering the whole rework around his puddle. 

Hydroid is one of the least used warframes in the game, this is a fact and not an opinion. It didn't happen just because, there are reasons why players avoid him and instead of addressing them, they decided to ignore them completely and go in the opposite direction. 

DE did an amazing job with Oberon's rework, they kept his identity and added upon it, giving us options on how to approach him. Hydroid didn't get any of that, he still only offers the same exact option, except that now we can pull people into the puddle from his #2 or from a certain, mediocre, distance. 

He still can't CC reliably, he still can't support the team without an augment, he still can't damage reliably past start chart levels, he has no buffs him or his allies or debuffs for enemies. He's just too plain, mediocre, situational and underperforming compared to what the other frames can do. He's usable, but that's pretty much where he stays. 

Edited August 11, 2017 by aligatorno

[Dark5eiD]

i think the focus is always on the least used abilities. thats why they worked more with puddle and surge. puddle is great now i think, surge is ok. i would have preferred tidal surge being an actual tidal wave being raised from the ground and dropped forward knocking down all enemies 20-30 meters in front of him doing decent dmg and removing some armor or something.

[Vulpei]

His revisit feels unfinished.  I'll come right out and say that I haven't played him for long, that's just my initial thought.

Even on paper all it did was try to force synergy between skills (which don't even make sense to be honest), buff his stats a little, and give his 4th ability a little kraken head and improve the AI of the tentacles a little.

I can't wait for his next revisit.

[ThiagoSampaio]

Hello DE!

First of all, sorry for my English, I am a google translate user , n i play a few months, so let me know if some of my ideas seem insane xD

Secondly, I enjoyed the rework in the hydroid (my fav warframe ever!), increasing his armor was one of the best buffs in the update, it's more fun to play with him, visual (real water effect! n please, dont go back with this! but you could put a LITTLE of color, since it has no synergy with Energy Color beyond the effects on the floor) and synergy between skills, but he is far from having a role in a team. So here are some suggestions:

Passive: His passive at the moment is totally useless, needs to be totally changed or improved. Putting Pilfering Swarm as a passive skill would not be a bad idea, but it would be better focused on a passive damage or CC.

1st Ability: Tempest Barrage is the least used skill imo, because it has low damage and has very poor accuracy. Being able to charge it for greater damage and duration is a great buff, but it is not enough to be viable to use it. And since I've seen some people suggesting in the posts, you could increase the duration of the skill with the hits, decrease the armor with the hits, and of course, improve its damage, accuracy and range. Or just replace it with something more useful, Perhaps, "World in Tempest" (WoF Ember alike).

2nd Ability: As a mobility skill, it would be good to focus on mobility, such as controlling the direction, improving duration and range, canceling the skill by pressing the same button and not undertow. And since Undertow can now move as well, you could put Tidal Surge as an Undertow Implementation, increasing the speed of the Undertow, and leaving a free space to create a new skill, as I have seen in some posts, something like a water anchor trapped by chains, summoning sharks or sea monsters to fight with you... etc

3rd Ability: First, being able to pull enemies into the puddle is a great idea. Damage over time is much better than finalizing damage, but to improve performance it would be better to kill faster, either by increasing damage or by increasing damage per second. And enemies should stay in the puddle while the player moves, either "walking" or with Tidal Surge. Since Hydroid has no power for regeneration, regenerating life or energy while in puddle mode would not be a bad idea.

4th Ability: Your fourth skill in my opinion is the one that needs the most readjustment for now. The range of this ability without being loaded is very small and you need to load it every time you use it for a good result, so we see a second problem that is the delay in loading this ability, which discourages (it will not be interesting to use one Mod to fix this). The effect of throwing the enemy up at the beginning of the skill ends up being annoying most of the time and gets in the way if you're using pilfering swarm, wanting to do the fastest possible thing. Lastly, the idea of summoning kraken is awesome, but the way it is now is kinda weird. Only one "tip" of it appears, and TA DA! He doesnt do anything ... Please, fix it, it's a sea monster! Increase damage, fix these things and make this "Kraken" something memorable, I beg!

So it definitely is better than before, in my opinion, but a lot can still improve. What I did not mention in the skills is that all these new feats, you will need to spend ENERGY A LOT, everything you do is at the cost of energy ... Come on DE, do not do that.

You can also improve other things like: undo the healing effect of the ancient healer or any other healer while in Undertow or Tentacle Swarm.

I see that it has been improved in many ways, and for me it will be even more fun to play with it, but I want Hydroid to be a strong warframe, which has an important role, either in time or solo, even more now than Your prime version is coming ... Anyway, I hope these suggestions help improve this warframe that I like so much.

Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho! 

[Kurambik]

6 hours ago, Death_Master_ said:

Casting while undertow is active will spawn all tentacles inside puddle making them useless as they do not beat enemis inside puddle.

This is a synergy intended for those who liked the minimum range swarm for choke points (most devout Hydroid players did). Why are people not realising this??

DE please keep this.

[LucasTigy]

"Hydroid can now move while in Undertow at the expense of Energy."

i feel this is unnecessary as you are already punished with severely reduced movement speed while constantly draining energy from just the ability alone, plus, you will probably just use his second ability to move around anyway since you can travel further for less energy. on the topic of his second ability, what if you make it into a channel ability that consumes energy while active with added steering? you could travel along the ground as a wave, gathering enemies for your other abilities and giving a better "start/stop" movement option to be used during undertow by activating and canceling it.

[SevenFangs]

So you reduce the range of undertow and the tentacleswarm, and enemies and just fall out of undertow by moving? Was there a point to adding being able to move to an ability you need to stay stationary for? These changes just feel more annoying than being revisited. They synergize in a way that doesn't aid the player, it's just to look fancy in my opinion. They don't feel like they can do enough if I'm struggling to kill level 30 enemies with a combination of the abilities with a fully modded and forma'd Hydroid.

[(XBOX)SweatyPick3L]

6 hours ago, Fallen_Echo said:

They still not fixed the tentacles and barrage being an RNG ability.

Yeah that was disappointing, and I was hoping they would fix that. But in the back of my head I knew they wouldn't and/or couldn't. Because Hydroid needed a few all new abilities. Was a part of my overly high expectation. Its sad, but Hydroid may be the victim of yet another rush job rework, just like Ash was and Zephyr will be. Because when you think of everything DE has to do in the next 6 months it's rather daunting and they will have to cut some corners..sigh..oh well..

Edited August 11, 2017 by (XB1)FCastle74
Punctuation errors

[(PSN)OmegaSlayer]

This might sound very stupid or funny to ask, but please tweak the sounds for Undertow and other effects.

The frequencies are too high...they don't make me think of rumbling sea.

The sound should be heavy on low frequencies and deep.

That's my 2 cents.

[vinz_clortho]

Would somebody please tell me why people think that the first ability is not good? Did those people even try to play that ability? I read it to be random all the time and I like to disagree with a range of 205% all the (perceived) "randomness" is gone. You get very strong CC ability with it, that with a few casts, can remove the armor from almost every enemy in the game. You can remove nullifier bubbles with it and on top of that all it also deals a little damage.

 

Also before someone starts. I was told, the fixed whide of 10 meters was nerfed before I started this game (November 16) as people used a negative range to use this ability as an orbital Ion Cannon. but as soon as you go range 205% you will always hit everything in the 10 Meters circle.

[Larcerus]

50 minutes ago, Sir_Alex_Traffo said:

Sorry, but this is not even a rework. 

It's a few tweaks and QoL changes that are welcomed but not nearly enough to call this a rework. 

Hydroid now does the same stuff as before, dealing with the same level enemies as before and with a sadly useless CC as before. 

His 3 and 4 don't do any serious damage and don't allow allies to do it either. 

Mobility in the puddle is terrible and spamming 2 to move is not really a wise choice; the base range was nerfed so badly that charging his 4 simply makes it same as before. 

The damage in the puddle is so bad that after your drawned enemies in you either stay like that for a minute or so or you let them go so that someone else can properly kill them. 

Last, but not least, the Kraken. It's cool af, but.....like......since we can aim at enemies to draw them in the puddle I guess the Kraken will appear and pull them in, right? Nope. 

Oh, ok, then maybe it'll actually show in the puddle when you draw enemies in, right? Nope. 

Oh, ok, then I guess the Kraken will appear during Tentacles in various places where enemies are hit, right? Nope. 

Oh......... Ok, then it'll stay at least up for the while duration of the ability, right? Uh, nope. 

Ok, I'm done. 

 

This is not a rework, I know PA is coming soon and it risked to be the less sold ever, but besides that Hydroid REALLY needed a proper rework. 

I quote what a guy wrote on Reddit, which I found straight but appropriate:

 

 

Exactly that !

[AlphaPHENIX]

You know, at least now you can more efficiently try to heal your genjies. 

But most of the time it still feels like...

Spoiler

 

 

[Automata]

I dislike the focus on being a puddle.

What I would like to actually see:

Tidal surge: Hydroid pulls targets with it and enter water form in which he loses all his shields and negates 95% of incoming damage for base duration of 10 seconds. This ability also relocates Undertow.

Undertow: being a movable obstacle, if hydroid enters it he get partially submerged and becomes a water form that's invulnerable. Holding down the ability relocates it to your desired location (aim). While partially submerged hydroid can use melee.

Tentacle swarm: Instead of stupidly flailing, a tentacle encases a target for 10 seconds after which the target get killed (Think anaconda wrapping around a target and skeezing out the life of his prey). The target while being immobilized can still be killed by weapons or abilities.

As for buffs: Shields are useless, strip them entirely or make them a base of 100-150 and buff armor/health.

 

This is how I image a rework working not the current one that

a)forces a player to be a puddle that does nothing while consuming loads of energy

b)makes you immobile whilst rendering hydroid useless outside of defenses and interceptions

c)forces synergy while having large energy cost and no regen and abilities that constantly drain it even further

[ChipsLight]

Honestly this is an underwhelming "revisit" if you can even call it that. Hydroid never seemed much interesting to me but the changes did nothing to make him better in my opinion. I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt and think those range nerf are bugs but if they aren't, it's just asinine.

I'm not like a master at Warframe, I go in-game mostly to have and have no real builds for anything, I just go in like Sorties and try to have fun with friends and we manage but I still want to give my opinion on what could be changed yo make him better and/or more enjoyable to play overall.

Tempest Barrage : Get rid of the inconsistency. Either make it so the missiles actually targets or aim toward the enemy in the AoE or make it rain (hue) so much missiles there's no chance that an enemey would escape unscathed from walking in the AoE. Problem with the latter choice would be that the Augment would proc so much it would like melts armor in under a second (but I think a lot of people wouldn't mind). The charge to have bigger range is neat but if the range nerf was intentional, bring it back to before the revisit.

Tidal Surge : Honestly I think it's fine as it is. Maybe a bit more damage or range on the sides but overall fine. The synergy it has with Undertow is dope as well. Maybe fix how if you slide in Undertow, enemies can get out instantly out of it but otherwise it's fine.

Undertow : So here's my problem with Undertow, I think it's boring as all hell. I understand what you wanted to do with it but Hydroid is a pirate and him turning into a puddle of water is so underwhelming imo I just don't care. So here's my idea. Add 2 forms for Undertow :
- The normal one that already like how it is but with the pre-nerfed range (if it was intentional) with better scaling but making it so that enemies are struggling to get out of it, half submerged. I know it doesn't go by the concept of drowning but it would be great for teammates cause you could just Tidal Surge into a problematic enemy and then just Undertow him and let the teammates blast him off to smitherens. Keep moving and Tidal Synergy.
- The "offensive form". A form where Hydroid only has the bottom of his body turned into a puddle, effectly reducing the range of it, doing less DOT overall as well as the ability to move and to use Tidal wave. But in exchange, you can now aim at people and fire your Secondary. You lose the invincibility as well but still have some armor (because you would be a free kill for Heavy Gunner and stuff) but now can help your teammates as well. This would also costs more energy as well and not buff your secondary but imagine just putting enemies in a puddle and then submerging and just shooting them with the Twin Rogga, that would be @(*()$ dope.
Maybe make a new augment for it because the healing one is honestly useless.

Tentacle Swarm : Give it back its previous range of 20 meter. It didn't need to be nerfed and if you want to keep the charge, just change it to 10m and then make the charge version be around 30m or more. I also would like a damage increase but mostly just so that some people could focus solely on damage with it instead of using it for Pilfering Swarm, so they don't need to be a Discount Nekros 100% of the time.

 

As much as I think this revisit is dissapointing, the synergy that was added around Undertow is honestly a great idea and is why I want it to be way more useful and offensive so that people are more incentivized to play around it in tandem with other ability. You made my boy Oberon's reworking underwhelming at first but now I think he's good and perfectly viable anywhere and now I love him even more so I believe you can do something great with Hydroid.

That's all from me I guess.

Edited August 11, 2017 by ChipsLight

[ThiagoSampaio]

Make Hydroid a warframe that is viable to use in sorties, which can deal with high-level enemies (80-100). Please do a REWORK

[Kurambik]

Ok based on my current observations:

Rework is awesome. ALL the synergies have a place in the game even the clustered tentacles when casting from Undertow even though most people disagree, this should be kept for the sweet choke points. The only tweaks I feel are needed are the ranges need to be rescaled up and remove walking drain from Undertow.

[Nez-Kal]

38 minutes ago, Naruchico said:

I'm more interested in understanding the thoughts behind this rework...cause I just can't figure out what DE was thinking

Someone or someones at DE felt that the best way to fix Warframe's most underused Frame was to create a "Revisit" that focused it's new synergy solely around that Frame's most underused power. Undertow.

I admit, it's an interesting approach, and they DID make that single move and a few of it's....lets call it "Synergy Spin-offs", pretty decent......but on a whole, I still feel like the whole thing would have worked better if they just did what a lot of other people are saying:

1.) Combine his 2nd and 3rd powers into a single Water Form power, with "dashing" costing more energy while in Puddle form, and open one of his slots for an interesting new power.
2.) Touch up his 4th (which they did, fairly decently too)
3.) Do...SOMETHING with his st1......I don't know, maybe give it some new sort of effect, and maybe make the projectiles hone in on targets "World on Fire" style, but with the Rain effect. (Remove some of its RNG)

Edited August 11, 2017 by Tangent-Valley