[Update 21.4.0] Hydroid Revisited Feedback

[FoxFX]

21 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

 

Hydroid Revisited

Please use this thread to give us your feedback on Hydroid Revisited. We will be closely monitoring your practical feedback - feel free to share videos and discussions after playing with Hydroid's revamped abilities. Non-constructive feedback, dev-bashing, and any other content that violates the Guidelines will be removed.

The sea has a revamped fear creeping in the depth, and his name is Hydroid.

With Hydroid Prime emerging to the surface soon, the team took another glance at Hydroids power and what we could do in order to achieve ability synergy. Hydroid now brings barrages, puddles, and tentacles into a deadly oceanic horror. 

General Hydroid Changes

• Hydroid’s base Shield and Armor has received a buff! 
• Shield is now 375 from 345. 
• Armor is now 200 from 65.

Tempest Barrage:

• Tempest Barrage can be cast while in Undertow and will now hit enemies submerged in Undertow.
• Tempest Barrage can now be charged for longer Duration (more explosions) and more Damage for more Energy.

Tidal Surge:

• Tidal Surge can be used to move around without canceling Undertow (note that Tidal Surge speed - and hence distance - is halved when used in Undertow).
• Tidal Surge will now pull enemies along for the ride.
• Tidal Surge can be interrupted at any point by casting Undertow to go into your puddle, sinking enemies being pulled along.

Undertow:

• Hydroid can pull enemies into Undertow by aiming and clicking on them.
• Undertow can be cast while in air.
• Jump and roll will break Hydroid out of Undertow.
• Hydroid can now move while in Undertow at the expense of Energy.
• Submerged enemies in Undertow receive Damage Per Second, increasing every second they are submerged.
• Enemies that die will be released from Undertow instead of dragging their dead bodies along for the ride.

Tentacle Swarm:

• Hold onto your ships, Tentacle Swarm has received a new look straight from the depths of the sea! Can you summon the Kraken?
• Tentacle Swarm can be charged to get more tentacles over a larger area for more Energy.
• Hydroid tentacles will now seek out nearby enemies and attempt to slam on top of them rather than just always flailing randomly and hoping they hit something.
• Tentacle Swarm will protrude from Hydroid’s Undertow if active when cast.

 

I want to add an additional suggestion to this:

 

ENEMIES KILLED IN UNDERTOW GRANT HYDROID ENERGY

 

While this may seem like an over-the-top suggestion, consider the fact that as enemies increase in level, so does the time it would take to maintain Undertow. However, there will also be a way to increase the damage done in Undertow if the function of Tentacle Swarm changes to what is suggested in the quotes.

[Sam_munition]

To be honest I'm a bit underwhelmed by this revisit. I'm not disappointed per se, just underwhelmed. I am a Hydroid fan so I wasn't really hanging for a drastic change but I think I wanted a little more than what we got.

The things I do like are; the visuals, they look awesome and less like an anime tongue, his base stat changes, the chargeable boosts to his 1 and 4, click to drown, and casting and moving mid-puddle.

Things I still think need to be addressed are; undertow is still super excluding in groups (now amazing for solo though), generally patchy CC, and some ability clunkiness.

I honestly wouldn't have minded if tempest barrage remained untouched, but I like the changes that have been made. If I were to change anything I would prefer a charged increase to the barrages per tick rather than a damage increase. That would sure up its CC a bit more and really help its augment.

The only change I wanted from tidal surge was a toggle or range to affect its speed, which we got.. sort of. I like the synergy with undertow so a toggle isn't needed. I would like to see a tweak to the speed of the surge outside of undertow though. I want duration for the other abilities, but I really don't need that much surge speed, as it usually makes me end up crashing into things. Maybe a reduced cost re-cast of surge is a better alternative, like that of Atlas' landslide or Rhino's charge.

I think undertow still needs some love. Realistic tweaks that I think would improve it exponentially would be; a touch more movement speed, not a lot, just a bit. I also think the energy cost to move should be scrapped, I don't see a reason for it. Same with the damage increase over time. I think it would be great if instead the targets you manually drag into undertow cost energy and suffered a much more substantial increase in damage, that way the player can take it or leave it. I have always wanted undertow to be a whirlpool instead of a puddle ever since his release, that however is more of a 'santa's list' suggestion, but I think it would be awesome both mechanically and thematically.

The AI of his tentacles is much improved, and the means to tighten up their spawn area with undertow is welcome. What I would like to see is the tentacle's movement speed lowered so players can fire at the snatched enemies. To further the impressive synergy his abilities now have, I'd really like to be able to cast AND recall the tentacles whilst in the undertow so you could drag the tentacled enemies straight into the puddle.

The boosts from the charge mechanic are nice, but I think the charge mechanic itself feels counter-intuitive to his new fluidity between abilities. The synergy encourages more ability casts, but the charge mechanic slows his casting down even further, and it just feels contradictory. I also really dislike his passive, but I think this is where the charge mechanic could be improved on. Maybe a new passive that gives the boosts to barrage and T-swarm instead that increases with each ability cast (in a timed window or similar). e.g. Relentless Torrent: The more frequently abilities are cast, the more deadly they become.

As far as the energy issue is concerned I haven't had an issue yet, but my build includes both energy siphon and 170% efficiency so mileage may well vary.

 

Edited August 11, 2017 by Sam_munition

[FoxFX]

I want to add an additional suggestion to this:

 

ENEMIES KILLED IN UNDERTOW GRANT HYDROID ENERGY

 

While this may seem like an over-the-top suggestion, consider the fact that as enemies increase in level, so does the time it would take to maintain Undertow. However, there will also be a way to increase the damage done in Undertow if the function of Tentacle Swarm changes to what is suggested in the quotes.

 

 

[Genji]

His range is Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too low, this has to be a bug. 

[The_Sharp_Demonologist]

boop

[Razgris05]

Here's my suggestion (which Dev can consider again?) after trying the rework:

Passive - Upon receiving fatal damage that will caused the hydroid to be downed, water clone will be in its place to receive it and hydroid will be in undertow immediately. can only activate it once every 90s?

Tempest Barrage

• have some kind of charge indicator
• increased damage would be nice for both charged and uncharged.
• Upon hitting the enemies, other than knockdown effects, maybe can include stun/sleep for a period of time (imaging it been knock down and knock out due to impact of the water missile?)

 

Tidal surge

• make it similar to Zephyr's Tail Wind where he can change direction mid-way by moving in the direction of the HUD's target reticle while recasting the ability.
• in relation to the above point, have incremental cost reduction per continuous activation up to 4 times

 

Undertow

• recover certain % (around 1~5%. i guess?) of HP & energy per enemy killed when submerged in undertow
• reduced cost activating other abilities (as mentioned by others)

 

Tentacles Swamp

• instead of thrashing, seek, grab and deal incremental damage through constrict/tightening the grip till a max limit
• Upon expiring, tentacles will slam them to ground and stun them

[Mr_Edd]

I would love to see hydroid as the real sea king, with this (specially the 4 you say) it woulda be just incredible.

Personally idk why DE didnt erased Hydroid's 2, it's just for movility and he could get even better things. Also DE nerfed a bit of his range on the revisit, so it woulda be cool to see this done. 

[Mr_Edd]

Take a read of this, it's quitely good

[Twistedsparkle]

he has become very energy hungry :s
I think something like each enemy crabbed into tentacles will siphon small amounts of energy for the duration
(something like 1.5 energy per enemy per second that would still have a nice payoff and would keep hydroid sustainable 20 seconds+15 enemies=450)

[lucimaster100]

Why not make Tidal Surge and Undertow the same ability, or make Tidal Surge his dash like Limbo's dash and make room for a more usefull ability. It would be nice for Undertow to drag the mobs with it.And last, the range on his Tentacle Swarm is just a nerf, having to charge the power to get the same effect as before.

[tyki11]

He's pretty fun after rework but some elements are iffy, especially on higher level missions.

Biggest offender is his passive I think, it's very odd to use and unremarkable, unless some niche use, slamming isn't good, as it locks you into an animation for 1s ish. And the tendril created has negligible effect since we'll be keeping 4 up anyway. Perhaps something like mini tidal surge on dodge like limbo, or tendrils being created for each creature killed by Tidal surge/undertow but with a shorter duration.

1 - Barrage is fun, and much neater to aim and use now, will have to look into how good it'll get with augment.

2 - Tidal Surge is much nicer now that you can move so far, and use it with undertow.

3 - Overall better, love the ability to pull in enemies. The finisher damage could be a little higher, we're stopping allies from damaging them after all. Ash has pretty high finisher damage, and both Equinox and Ivara bring it to the whole party with sleeping arrows. Seeing as we deprive party members of damage and targets, raising this a bit, or make it scale with enemy hp to make it more relevant late-game would be good, especially since every ability ties into this.

4 - I like it much better, the charged up radius with just Stretch is pretty good, and tendrils are much more accurate this time around. What's confusing me is why it's Magnetic damage, which has nothing to do with the sea (other than a compass for navigation but not sea exclusive). Cold or Impact damage seems more fitting, the cold depths or because of the mad slamming. The ability does deprive others from shooting enemies much of the time because of the flailing but then again, almost every frame got some decent aoe to spam and hit anyway.

The new visuals are amazing, the water sfx is just fantastic. Passive needs a total rework, as it is, no one is really liking or using it, and the few that are...they are just wasting 1-2s on a so-so slam attack with maybe an okay tendril instead of enjoying the reworked abilities so it's just detrimental.

[Varzy]

Hydroid is a lot smoother to use now and is pretty fun to use to lock down enemies with soft CC, but I feel like he's really missing survivability options. There's definitely a question of "well, what role does he actually fill?" that remains when playing him. He needs utility beyond soft CC, since there's a lot of popular hard CC choices for players.

The charge-up mechanic of his abilities is really cool, and I'd like to see it applied to more things.

Tidal Surge thoughts:

Tidal Surge would really benifit from another look. This should be an ability that you can steer, and move in the direction you want it to as you surf.

I've also seen suggestions to proc Cold on enemies swept up, but I also like the idea of giving Hydroid a buff depending on how many enemies he catches. Something like adding enemies struck to his melee counter, or even flat out giving him a damage or power strength or crit buff of 5% per enemy caught? That'd really bump him up in popularity, especially if it also applied to the damage his other abilities dealt (such as Undertow -- sweep them up then immediatly hit them with amped up drown damage).

Undertow thoughts:

Undertow should move faster (at least as fast as Prowl or Cloudwalker), and I think should remove any status effects on Hydroid and speed up his Shield recharge per enemy caught. Diving into the puddle makes for a useful defense, and being able to cast Barrage and Tidal Surge means you can actually do something after catching your bearings, but these buffs would allow Hydroid to really adopt a hit and run, fast paced style of play.

Tentacle Swam thoughts:

Tentacle Swarm still needs work. Tentacles really need to have a minimum space of a few meters between them, and it'd be really helpful if they would 'constrict' around targets and keep them pinned in place/held up in the air after the first few slams. The base range at max also needs to be buffed -- I don't know if that was an error or something, but 5m radius is just kind of useless.

Blood Money

What might be really cool is if Tentacle Swarm had a % chance to drop Health and/or Energy orbs and Credits when it catches an enemy and slams them into the ground. Wringing blood money out of the enemy! This would give Hydroid an interesting place on a team, by generating passive healing and energy for his allies and helping sustain his casting and CC. It would also open Hydroid up to having Health/Energy Conversion or Equillibrium as viable mod choices in his builds (which would also help out how energy hungry he seems to have become).

Become the Deep

My favorite addition, the Kraken! Unfortunately, it's just a prop? C'mon DE! The Kraken needs to feature as a bigger part of the kit.

It would be amazing if you could become the Kraken if you cast Tentacle Swarm while in Undertow, letting you swim through the ground and devour enemies (tossing them into your Undertow pool), all the while spawning tentacles in a radius around you as you move. Maybe in this mode, you could regenerate health per enemy devoured? Regardless, making the Kraken a playable part of his kit is, I think, an amazing opportunity to make Hydroid an engaging and popular Warframe.

[Cid.Vicious]

hydroid's one of the few non-prime frames i play with but i still feel that, aside from farming, hydroid doesn't really have much of a role to play in more organized squad setups. Giving his 4 better cc is a step in the right direction but i wold really love for it to have perfect cc during its duration. my clan and i actually went and built him for cc and brought him to LoR. unfortunately his 4 doesn't have adequate cc to be used as a substitute for rhino stomp.

some suggestions i could think of.

• more range to his charged abilities.
• increase the range of tentacles, maybe even give it limited movement for it to seek-out free moving enemies. maybe casting 1 over the swarm gives the tentacles ability to move around the wet surfaces that way you can actually guide the tentacles by casting 1 at a nearby spot with enemies.
• give that fish creature bit more to do, right now it looks as if its something bobbing up and down my toilet.
• the ability to cast it again without it cancelling the previous tentacle swarm.

Edited August 11, 2017 by Cid.Vicious

[lucimaster100]

Some corrosive damage on his abilities (not from an augment) would make him more usefull since we have other frames that can proc status effects like fire, cold,electric, toxin, viral, radiation. Not much, just enough to make him special.

[FoxFX]

CORE SUGGESTION FOR HYDROID

 

• Undertow Energy Granting: Gives Hydroid Energy for each enemy killed in Undertow
• A Better Undertow + Tentacle Swarm Combo: Increases the (Damage or Damage Rate) of enemies in Undertow for the Duration of Tentacle Swarm's ability

[FoxFX]

SHORTER SUGGESTION FOR HYDROID

 

• Undertow Energy Granting: Gives Hydroid Energy for each enemy killed in Undertow
• A Better Undertow + Tentacle Swarm Combo: Increases the (Damage or Damage Rate) of enemies in Undertow for the Duration of Tentacle Swarm's ability

[AcedFox]

(I was not born English so typo's can be present)

The "revisit" surely had it's up and down sides. (i can't call it a "rework" since no chances were made by chancing abilities as a whole, i would had seen the pool thingy gone, but the chances now made up for that.)

Just to start with the good things:

I love the new cinematics, I love the new visuals and I LOVE the armor and shield buffs!

Issues / suggestions?:

Hydroid became energy hungry, that it takes the likings of a desert, the few drops of energy that hit the surface will be gone before somebody noticed. And his configuration to survive does not really allow mods to counter that. (example: lot of shield, not a lot of HP for 'rage')

Adding 'pilfered swarm' helps to get more energy orbs, but then you miss 1 slot unnecessarily.

Tentacle swarm and barrage: I would say increase the range of the tentacle swarm (4th ability) back to the original or even bigger. But I think it's better to significantly lower the charge time of the 1st and 4th ability. It takes well over 2 or 3 seconds to cast the full charged attack. In the heat of a fast phased battle that is just WAY to long. (Like some comments i already read on the forums and YT, "dying while in the process to cast tentacles".) + the need of visuals to see how long you need, and if you are casting.

Undertow: The 3rd pool ability is VERY useful and fun although the ability takes way to much energy. (same for the charged 1st and 4th abilities).

Moving around should not cost more energy then normal. it's very slow already, The tidal surge takes the energy already to move around faster.

With that the damage is still to low, maybe scale up the damage with the amount of HP in the pool? (The more higher the enemies lvl, the more damage you deal, the more enemies, the more you deal too)

Tidal surge:

With this revisit i had personally hoped the attack would be a bit bigger, this ability looks to be smaller now somehow, but that's personal thing.

While this ability can drag enemies with it now, some came with the brilliant ideas to add a proc to it.

Passive:

Replace the passive tentacle, The tentacle is a fun factor, but your 4th ability is way more useful for that. I personally think creating mini tidal surges while making final attacks/ground pounds would be more attractive. These mini surges take the length/duration of your 2nd ability only of course with lesser damage and smaller proc, but still knock down enemies for some better CC.

 

OVERALL:

- Hydroid needs a energy backup, because now something is s*cking it out of him with a straw. (in Hydroid's case, that is really, really bad)

- Barrage and tentacle swarm need at least shorter cast time and range is an issue.

- Undertow movement will not cost more then normal and some proper HP in pool scaling.

- Tidal surge 'might' need something extra.

- Passive needs a true "rework".

Edited August 11, 2017 by AcedFox

[LSG501]

Ok had a little longer to play with hydroid...

The frame buff etc is great although as with a lot of frames sprint speed still feels slow..... also as a caster he has a seriously small energy pool and no way to recoup any either. 

Now onto the abilities.... initial impressions are earlier but this is after a little while playing with him

1 - range could do with being put back to how it was, the accuracy sucks and the damage is so low it might as well be removed.  The stagger isn't very log either so it can't really be used for crowd control either.. so at the very least the stagger duration needs to be longer.

2 - range issues again imo and it's also annoying when you get 'stuck' on a wall (or a boulder on earth for example) because an edge of the wave is touching it, we're water I'm sure we'd find a way to run around it....  And you know what... I kind of want to be riding that new pet he has a bit like aquaman does in the comics. 

3 - the puddle size is tiny, yes we've gained the grab ability but one of it's main purposes of protecting a location from being accessed is kind of gone.  The energy draw when moving and the rate at which we move while in a puddle is just too slow too.  I do however like the fact we can trigger it in the air and then basically land on top of the enemy as a puddle. 

Now we have an issue with energy as I said earlier so maybe this could be used as a way of getting energy.  For each enemy we grab with a tentacle and pull into the water we gain energy (% of health or something of said enemy affected by power strength maybe) but to stop us just staying in the puddle this energy is only released when we leave the puddle.  Think of it a bit like nidus stacks but for energy return instead. 

4 - now this is the big one.  The accuracy is about the same but the way they spread enemies around can be annoying.  I think I'd personally prefer the tentacles to pop up, grab the enemy, throw them around a bit and then hold them to the ground, maybe even grouped together, for a few seconds at the end if they're not dead allowing us to kill them instead. 

Then there's an issue with range... while I personally used a smaller range on the original build it was a sacrifice to get more damage and when used in the right way the loss of range wasn't actually a major loss.  But the current rework has a really small range AND low damage which isn't a good combination. 

Damage from his 4 is laughably small and it seems to be a trend with DE to either over compensate which needs a nerf because it's overpowered (limbo catabomb) or not compensate enough and they then need to do some additional changes a bit later (like with oberon) and sadly Hydroid falls into the later where he isn't strong enough.  Because of the small damage amount and lack of any damage scaling it doesn't really work too well with mid to high level enemies.  It needs 'something' to help as it goes to higher levels and maybe it's as simple as 4 being 'finisher attacks' as someone else suggested plus a higher damage amount.   Maybe the tentacles can process toxin or viral processes (plenty of animals use poisons) on grabbed enemies so either the health of the enemy is halved or they get a toxin process at the end if not dead...

 

 

Now as a side note, not sure it's just me but the visuals on where things are going to target and the charging process aren't very clear compared with some other frames, just look at how clear harrow is at defining stuff for example.  There also seems to be a lot of visual noise going on as well with his abilities and it can make it a little hard to see what's going on when he has several abilities going off at once.

 

 

[DeathTheLegendary1]

So right now i am typing this on my phone cause i am at work, so forgive me if my ideas for hydroid look wonky.

 

Hydroid Rework

 

1st ability: No changes needed for mechanics but a base increase in dmg and duration

 

2nd ability: here is where things get fun. Hydroid loses dmg immunity but gains a 75 percent dmg reduction that can scale up to 95 percent dmg reduction with mods, tidal surge becomes a channel ability and he gains increase movement speed instead of travelling a set distance (esentially turning the lower half of his body into water) but still works the same as before where if he runs into enemies he knocks them down. In this mode he can still shoot, aim, melee, swap weapons, but can't bullet jump, roll, or aim glide. If used in the air he will crash down on the ground and knockback all enemies in the area and suffer a cold proc this can also proc his passive. When he ends the ability he launches himself in the air.

 

3rd ability: Hydroid no longer becomes becomes a puddle but instead lays down a puddle at where ever he is pointing at, still functions the same as before but enemies that are hit by barrage take 3x dmg from it and enemies that are hit by tentacle swarm take 4x dmg.

 

4th ability: Functions the same way but can now be picked up and moved around if u r using your second ability but reduces the range by half. If cast on Undertow it will pull enemies in and start thrashing them underneath the water dealing the 4x dmg plus the increase dmg ticks it would normaly take if it was affected by undertow.

 

I feel as though the hydroid rework is a bit mediocre. It improved the fluidity of his abilities(pun intended) which is good, but I still feel like its not quite there yet. I bet someone in DE had a very similar idea to my rework idea but either due too time constraints or performance issues they couldn't implement it.

[RedGoat989]

i really am loving him. Please dont change much sure the kraken prop is disapointing but unless you would make his 4 like atlas 4 where you spawn a kraken minion and it slams at enemies but if its not that change dont change it. His survivability is so great now and i dont mind all the energy usage, sure it could be a bit too much but i dont mind it (especially since i run an efficiancy build).

all in all this a great "rework" or just buff and the only thing i dont like is the nerf to his undertow range but the grab mechanic sure compensates for that and its fun! 

sorry for bad english i hope you can understand it. 

[Ralvius]

Overall enjoying Hydroid, but he still needs some work. His biggest flaw is that his CC impedes his allies by making aiming at controlled targets difficult. This could be tackled in a number of ways for each ability.
- Tempest Barrage could use some additional CC such as a stun or cold status in order to make it easier to aim at enemies. Currently, the enemies get knocked down, try to get up, then get knocked down again and even so much as slowing that down will be a huge boon to allies and the Hydroid player.
- Undertow's ramping damage is good on paper, but needs a second pass. As others have suggested, allowing allies to shoot into the pool to increase the DoT might alleviate this issue.
- Tentacle Swarm is very unpredictable and either needs to have some form of scaling or a change in mechanics to allow allies to more easily fire at enemies caught by the tentacles. In addition, I believe the range needs to be reverted and have the chargeup modify a different part of the ability.

[Brosephelon]

I made a video thats a bit rambley and I say uhm a lot.  I'm not really a content creator/speaker but I really wanted to get this out there as some people, especially some people with voices in the community are spreading some information I just can't agree with so I wanted to give my feedback as big of a platform as I could.  

https://youtu.be/lMyF1gwhwWk

To sum it up somewhat as its a long video of a ramble.  

I think Hydroid is in a mostly good place after the rework.  I think his tidal surge should have a cost reduction 50 base cost for a dash ability when most dashes cost 25 and we live in a world with bullet jump is just really too expensive especially to be using it a lot to group things.  I think the range on undertow is a non-issue, it would be nice to be bigger but I don't think it really matters that much either way, undertows damage is low but has been overstated by some (possibly intentionally) I feel its damage scaling could probably be improved by making it a multiplier instead of a flat damage increase or adding percentage health damage... That said I don't think undertows damage is its main usage/draw but it would be nice to have more obviously. The range changes on Tentacle Swarm are GREAT is it allows you to tap cast to cover doorways/small areas or charge up to cover entire rooms in a single build to suit both situations which is a great thing and really makes the ability more generally useful...  Though the tentacles still flap the enemies all over the place like a wavy inflatable arm man and that should really change to make the enemies more stationary so you and allies can easily interact with them.  

I go over how I feel Hydroid should be played (as he stands now after the rework) which is group up enemies with a tidal surge, cancel it into undertow, grab in any stragglers, cast 1-2 barrages, then get out of the puddle and shoot the enemies/continue to cast barrage as needed to quickly and easily kill groups of enemies even high level enemies such as demonstrated in the video (I was using 5 lv125 corrupted heavy gunners as my demonstration enemies).  I feel as though its a viable and functional gameplay style and its actually sorta fun and a nice improvement from his pre-rework state.  

I think an overall goal should be to get people to want to group enemies with his tidal surge and undertow to then lock them down and debuff them with tentacle swam and barrage.  Currently instead its group them up properly but only use barrage unless you really care about loot because barrage does a good enough job of cc and debuff on its own without sending the enemies flying all over the place.  The tentacles need to hold enemies in place either knocked down pinned to the ground, paralyzed standing up, something, so that they are not hard to interact with for yourself and your allies.  If you can get to that point suddenly his entire kit is now working together to form a cohesive and direct identity/package.  

I made no mention of his passive in the video mostly because I don't even think about or consider his passive, that is how less than useful and impactful it is.  Besides being a tentacle just like his tentacle swarm that will fling enemies around having it be a CHANCE on a slam attack (something you probably arn't using much anyhow) is less than ideal.  That said I don't think its a big deal, give him a good passive, leave it as is, I don't think it will really matter.  Though you could certainly do some cool stuff with it to really help direct his gameplay in unique ways and this is a great place to help give him flavor and flair all his own to make him stand out more.  

Also for the record I've used Hydroid a lot, hes my most used warframe according to my profile.  I used him before augments existed, and hes been consistently getting better over the years but this is a real chance to push him into real viability.  I don't think you need to reinvent the wheel here, though some work on tentacle swarm to be more user/group friendly while also reducing the cost on tidal surge to bring it more inline with other movement abilities could really be that tipping point to a great package.  

[Somb3rBivalve]

In general I have had a good time with Hydroid's rework. He has a lot more options and cool things he can do now. The only thing that I really want to improve this is to make tentacle swarm do more damage.

If we look at hydroid from a gameplay perspective he has a lot of ways to gather enemies up in undertow. He can sweep up a bunch of enemies with tidal surge + undertow, he can move his undertow to where the enemies are, and he can grab individual enemies and pull them in. I simply wish he had a bit more follow-up in terms of killing enemies once he has gathered them. Undertow takes too long for the damage to tick up (and I don't want to improve it because I don't want to perpetuate inactive gameplay). Undertow + tempest barrage has some decent DoT, but it's nothing spectacular. I find tempest barrage is better for proccing corrosive with the augment and as a spammable knockdown more than anything else.

The puzzle piece that doesn't fit into all of this is tentacle swarm. I assume what DE meant for you to be able to do is to gather enemies up in undertow, summon tempest barrage and tentacle swarm down on yourself and let enemies get wrecked by all the damage procs from multiple sources, and this works to some extent, but it falls off with high level enemies, so I would like tentacle swarm to have some form of scaling damage so that hydroid has more damage options (we already know that he is good at CC).

[Synataph]

To me I think Hydroid did not change at all in terms of the numbers. Like I've noticed the range decreased on his 3 and 4, and the passive hasn't changed at all (which his passive is useless)

Here's what I suggest:

1. Tempest Barrage

Make it hard target. Besides that, fun ability and useful augment better with hard targeting

2. Tidal Surge

no change needed.

3. Undertow

Now this one I think is not that good but it could change.

Since there's a damage scale(which is very little and take a long time to even kill a enemy) Increase that damage scale and the speed of it. 

It's supposed to be like actual drowning so enemies struggle for air hence the damage increase and struggling hard to get out hence the speed ramp up.

Also restore default range back to 18 meters.

4. Tentacle Swarm

Now there's that Krakken that doesn't do much but hang out for a bit and just sink back in really disappointed  me. Why don't you involve it more?

Like when you charge it, the Krakken actually bursts out of the ground with like a good base damage for a 4th ability, and when fully charged, the tentacles are 2x more aggressive.

Passive

Do not like the passive at all. Can't think of a way to use it other than lol's.

Hydroid is the water frame, that pirate frame.

Why don't you make his passive a unique element? Water. 

Water is Hydroids unique element to his kit. It will always proc and it slows enemy to like 1/2 of the Cold proc. The more water procs there is, the more slow the enemy gets, the Water element is on all of his abilities.

Though I think he didn't really change, he does look more visually appealing, and I think he's fun to play, but you guys can do better. Take what you did to Limbo, he's a very good warframe now. Do like you do Limbo, make him very good.

[Ubarruk]

I personally find hydroids rework super underwhelming, and slightly contradictory, like why would the tentacles tend to spawn in the pool, if the pool does more damage(eventually), and why does he need more shields, if it seems you want him to stay in the water - and why is the fish cosmetic

What i had been bouncing in my head for a while, and was going to post but then saw his update was coming the next day , which ive adjusted a  amount accordingly, mini essay inc, spoiler for size

Spoiler

Hydroids Passive: Knockdowns Have a 50% chance to attact a tentacle (thats all knockdowns, not just melee slams) these would last 5 seconds, with a 1 second internal CD, just so you dont use barrage to spawn a few thousand and crash people

Water would have to have an amount of depth rather than just 'fall in and vanish', an enemy would count as drowning if in over their head

• All water depth affected by range
• enemies would be able to attempt to get out of the water, success based on how deep they are
• you would be able to see and shoot them
• enemies who die while drowning generate 5 energy
• water would absorb elemental damages to deal more damage - ala zephy tornado
• gas water sounds odd, but not much odder than a corrosive tornado
• Hydroid takes up to 50% reduced damage while standing in water, based on its radius 
• Increased by strength, caps at 80% (gives a bit of a reason to that increased shield)
• Scaling damage from drowning scales faster based on how deep down the enemies are, unrealistic water pressure scaling! (this is the edit)

        

Tempest barrage: Have the damage type split between impact and viral, lets go down the road of murky dead waters

• Blasts would create small pools of water for 5 seconds, pool would combine with each other to make a bigger pool up to a limit (the old undertow range)
• No change to corroding barrage, the viral damage adds one layer of effective HP reduction, that adds another, is good

Tidal surge/ Undertow: I dont realy see a good reason to have these be seperate abilities

• Activating creates the pool of water, which hydroid falls into
• Barrage pools would increase its radius, up to 30% more than modded
• Jumping would bring hydroid out of the pool which would persist for a duration, say, 20 seconds base
• Crouching in a pool of water (including those made by barrage) would sink hydroid into the water like undertow, draining energy to persist while hes in it
• Move speed in the pool would be normal walking speed, moving past its current radius wouldnt cost additional energy, but be 40% walking speed
• Sprinting would cause hydroid to become a wave while in and on the water, leave more water behind him, and allowing you to control the bloody thing, at an inceased cost and 30% increased spring speed, think water nezha
• That includes water made by his 1
• Wave speed affected by casting speed
• Tidal surge's current augment would apply to the sprint wave
• `The little tentacle pull(which i love btw) would now be on E, you can now use you weapons while in the pool, doing so will cause hydroid to emerge

Tentacle swarm: Rather than faliling enemies around aimlessly the tentacles would hold enemies in place ala harrow 1, trying to crush them, hittable enemies for everyone

• Tentacle length would be affected by range
• Tentacle speed for attempting to grab would be affected by cast speed
• The tentacle crush would deal increasing damage over time
• Tentacles can move between pools of water (in the cast radius) if there are no enemies nearby
• Tentacles will attemt to drown enemies in nearby water
• The kraken will eat an enemy is drowning in reachable water, dealing 10% max hp damage per second, ontop of the drowning, tentacle crushing, and barrage sploding damage
• Eaten enemies generate 10 energy, and increase tentacle swarms duration by 5 seconds
• Shooting tentacles transfers damage to enemies they are crushing/ drowning       
• Pilfering swarm would cause tentacles to occasionally squeeze loot out of enemies, as well as the current effect, but rather than "killed by" it would be "Killed while affected by"

With Tidal surge and undertow combined he needs a new 4

High Tides/Stormy seas: Creates a storm cloud like the ones when sea stories are being dramatic, heavy rains high winds, big waves, and lightning!

• Increases the radius and depth of water, allowing more enemies to be drowned, makes it easier for the fish to eat people, also causes your little sprint wave to become a much larger tidal wave
• Slows enemy movement speed, Periodically strikes them with lightning (to simulate strong winds, and so that it does something on its own)
• Increases cast speed for hydroid and allies by 30%
• Causes undertow to become a whirlpool, causing it to deal 200% increased damage, and more damage for ammo/pickups/enemies that sink into it
• If you need the ammo it would work like ammo mutation, sunken orbs would be picked up
• would also not affect allies ammo/ pickups, that would be super annoying
• The kraken/fish would tend to migrate to the whirlpool, tentacles would attempt to toss enemies into the pool to be eaten
• Healing undertow would be moved to apply to this

The ideas here hopefully make hydroids abilities, generate energy to make him less reliant on efficiency, Be more synergistic while allowing them all to have some use on their own, Allow you to use your weapons, and his abilities, in tandem, and deal better with high level enemies - in terms of killing them, and surviving being hit

Finally, make things affected by both the pool, and tentacles, shootable by more than aoe weapons making them less disruptive to general play    

I dont have a good solution to him needing every stat however, and sorry for the mini-essay

Edited August 11, 2017 by Ubarruk
Edited for an actual use to depthx2