[Update 21.4.0] Hydroid Revisited Feedback

[SenorClipClop]

Good stuff! I've tried him out a bit and he seems to be a more intuitive, effective version of what he used to be. More feedback to come once I've played him in a variety of missions, but I'll say right now my favourite thing about his update: Hydroid, as an enemy-harassing CC frame, finally has the ability to chain his CC and control enemies in a variety of ways. Adding to his old 4-1 combo, he can grab them into 3, cast 4 in a dense cluster thanks to 3, and he can use his 3 -> 2 combo to bring enemies into his 4.

Edited August 11, 2017 by SenorClipClop

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

rework is near perfect.  But i'd like to see:

~bigger energy pool

~enemies you have in puddle should go with you when you move in the puddle instead of falling out.

~tentacle swarm should be able to hit enemies in your puddle

~better scaling damage for puddle

~different passive

~and be immune to status procs while in tidal surge.

[Koldraxon-732]

What I was expecting for the Revisit:

Spoiler

Foreword: All powers deal Viral and Corrosive damage on top of existing damage. Powers mentioning lightning and hail refer to Electricity and Cold procs. All damage is amplified by enemy health. 

Passive: Submerge (crouching/sliding turns you into a puddle; rolling causes Undertow; sliding from a roll causes Undertow); enemies caught by these drop energy orbs; Pilfering Swarm would also make this force enemies to drop loot (loot drop also occurs on channel+charge hits on enemies; can only occur once per enemy).

1: Tidal wave: Is a forward wave that is in two phases; the first knocks over enemies and then deals damage due to suffocation, the second is after they are knocked over, they get pulled toward where Tidal wave was cast. Spamming this in close proximity to each wave will widen the wave, amplify it's effect, and elongate it's duration.

2: Storm: Tempest Barrage but with lightning. Enemies caught by the strikes, hail, and corrosive rain while in Tidal wave take that damage as if it were finisher damage. The combined damage lengthens status duration on targets, rendering them open to finishers.

3: Tsunami: A wall of water which absorbs all incoming attacks, and then returns them by falling in their direction. Can be set off prematurely by casting Tidal wave. Can turn into a even fiercer storm when Storm is cast near it.

4: Void Kraken: A Kraken is pulled from the Void and suspended near Hydroid; it's mere breathing drags all nearby enemies close enough for it's tendrils to attack, and the enemy with the most hp will be eaten.

What was given:

Spoiler

 

Range nerfs to his 2 and 4, powers still do no damage.

Hydroid has no way to 'hydrate' (energize) himself or properly synergize with his powers due to a lack of energy capacity and/or acquisition.

Hydroid's health is little compared to other 'frames, forcing users to stay underwater.

Hydroid's ult gets a useless pet Kraken who lazily flails it's tendrils about, like a confused, harmless fish.

Useless! - Worn Queen.

 

Notice:

I have not finished constructing Hydroid, these are merely assumptions based on existing information.

Summary:

If you want to see Hydroid Prime in Sorties, you will need to have his damage scale with enemy health at the very least, and to swap his passive for his puddle mode (crouch to be a puddle, crouch again to stop swimming).

Edited August 11, 2017 by Koldraxon-732
Additional useful information.

[SenorClipClop]

Just now, Koldraxon-732 said:

I have not finished constructing Hydroid, these are merely assumptions based on existing information.

If you've never even played him (before and after the rework), why are you giving feedback? All you're doing is spreading hearsay. I respect your opinions, but how about waiting until you can make personally informed ones? No offense.

[FoxFX]

19 minutes ago, ADF01Falken said:

Some suggestions concerning the very concept of hydroid and gameplay tweaks:

 - Tempest Barrage: The Champion Gangplank from League of Legends got the same problem with the randomness of the shots fired in his abilities. They solved it with timed salvos covering all the area striking N times. Like all the cannons fired at the same time over and over, and not sequentially. Sidenote: the ability became really badddas with the sound of cannons shooting from afar.

 - Tidal Surge & Undertow: Reading the forums i found the idea to fuse these abilities and it seems to be the right way with those changes. These abilities make the concept of Hydroid change to something like a water elemental. If this is intended then here is the sugestion. This second ability (as a toggle or timed) turn Hydroid into his water form (like a water elemental, Morphling from dota like but maintaining his traces/original form and less wavy. Using the new appearence of the water) making him resistant or invulnerable to shots and meeles damages(with some punishment on his energy if needed) or only resistance do CCs. Giving him a better and less lazy survivability.

Or if the intention is to make something more agressive: Same effect, Turn him into a "water elemental form" and the puddle around him, instead of submerging his enemies. Would make the water slowly take over the enemies (like a slime trying to dissolve food) The enemies would panic. and when complete they'll begin choking, receiving damage over time scalling with time.

And Tidal surge would be his sprint or slide or some movement mechanic.

Why i'm suggesting to remove the undertow submerged enemies: submerged enemies, especially eximus take a long time to die while applying their aura around (toxic, energy drain, etc). causing problems for himself and his team. I know this is a example of something that the player need to learn how to use and not be changed, but hydroid especially have another skill that 'saves' enemies by flailing them around. Invalidating all precision weapons.

- A 3rd New Ability - No suggestion or separating all said above into 2 abilities.

- Tentacle Swarm - It's known that making the creature move around seeking enemies would be a huge effort (and buggy) so the tentacles could move around without a fixed place just inside an area (bigger than the actual...) seeking for enemies and stopping when one or two is get.
 Make use of the new monster animation, make it spray water jets or devour some enemies, or dash toward them to knockdown. Something to not say we did it because its cute (a strange concept of cute... but okay).

I'm not good at english and it may have a lot of errors... but i tried XD.Thank you for your patience.

 

I found your Tempest Barrage suggestion more sound, but there is a few things I would change about this:

 

• If you want Tempest Barrage into timed-salvos that cover the area striking N times, then perhaps Tempest Barrage's knockdown might need to be replaced with a Slow effect on enemies; drenching enemies and slowing them down.

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

finally a good post about the hydroid changes I can get behind.  I 100% agree with all mentioned changes.  that tentacle swarm one is genius.

You should really condense these into bullet points and go get them in the official hydroid rework feedback thread.

[Koldraxon-732]

3 minutes ago, SenorClipClop said:

If you've never even played him (before and after the rework), why are you giving feedback? All you're doing is spreading hearsay. I respect your opinions, but how about waiting until you can make personally informed ones? No offense.

When my Hydroid is done, I'll expand further, but the first spoiler pile holds a rough idea of what I was looking forward to, mixed with what we've got now. The second one is just a rough interpretation of a section of the community's feedback.

Besides, I never even considered building him before the rework. The only reason I began was in hopes of testing him before this revisit, which I didn't expect to show up so soon.

I wouldn't call this a rework though; Excalibur's was a rework. Nekros' was a revisit. This one's also a revisit. If they were to rework Hydroid, they would've taken a little longer.

Though given this, and his Prime being shown at Tennocon, I expect his Prime would be either next week or the week after, and I look forward to getting that.

[MirageKnight]

 

2 hours ago, (Xbox One)N7ShadowedSoul said:

-snip-

I've been looking through the feedback here and I'm seeing some interesting suggestions: You have some interesting ones as well but having it so that enemies submerged in the Puddle should stay in the Puddle even if the player moves definitely needs to be a thing.

 

2 hours ago, Brasten said:

4. Tentacle Swarm problem: Over Targeting

Use Tentacle Swarm while a single Infested Maggot is around. Watch nearly every Tentacle spawn on top of it in a tight cluster.

This is why people don't like using Hydroid. This should not happen. Because of the way the ability is scripted to work, there doesn't seem to be any kind of check for over spawning. If, as other have suggested again and again, the Tentacles moved and repositioned to go after new targets in the zone this wouldn't be an issue.

The simple solution is not to use Tentacle Swarm if there's only a couple of targets that are visible. That's what Tempest Barrage is for; taking out or softening up small groups. Tentacle Swarm is an ability that is clearly designed around killing or at least CC'ing large mobs numbering at least 10 or more enemies. Using Tentacle Swarm on a group of enemies that's smaller than say 5-6 targets is a considerable waste of time and energy, unless you know for certain that more enemies will show up in Swarm's AoE soon.

 

For those of you suggesting that Undertow should refund a small amount of energy for each enemy drowned in the Puddle.

Sorry but no. Just no. Absolutely not. I totally get why DE has the energy drain on Undertow at the moment, and that's to avoid or at least minimize Puddle AFKing and Puddle spam. Undertow basically turns you into an invulnerable, albeit slow moving (depending,) killing machine (at least on regular maps), so there needs to be some reasonable drawbacks. Refunding energy for each enemy drowned would only serve to circumvent that and encourage people to simply pick a nice doorway to a large room, press 3 and just relax while occasionally pressing 1 and 4 and reaching out with the odd tentacle. Basically, an energy refund per kill would encourage lazy gameplay.

On the topic of Undertow itself, I wouldn't mind seeing a slight increase in damage per tick and at least a slight increase in the Puddle's size.

 

Edited August 11, 2017 by MirageKnight

[SenorClipClop]

Just now, Koldraxon-732 said:

When my Hydroid is done, I'll expand further, but the first spoiler pile holds a rough idea of what I was looking forward to, mixed with what we've got now. The second one is just a rough interpretation of a section of the community's feedback.

I wouldn't call this a rework though; Excalibur's was a rework. Nekros' was a revisit. This one's also a revisit. If they were to rework Hydroid, they would've taken a little longer.

Okay, rework, revisit, update, whatever. The point is, if you've never played Hydroid and still haven't after his update, your feedback isn't remotely helpful. All you're giving to the thread is unfounded expectations and passing on things other people are saying. Please make your own informed opinions before leaving feedback, or all you do is make the conversation murkier.

[svegurok]

Here you go my Hydroid Revisited

 

Tempest Barrage

- toggle

- fires barrage where Hydroid is looking (120° | 10m, 13m, 16m, 19m) in intervals (2.0s, 1.5s, 1.0s, 0.5s - no scalable)

- has chance to stagger base (25%) max (50% at 150% strength)

- each barrage has small AoE (3m - not scalable), seeking enemies in line of sight

- small base damage of 20, 40, 60, 80 (Impact)

- range, duration, strength

 

Tidal Surge

- no change needed i think its very nice movement ability

- maybe make it targetable if pointed at enemy

 

Undertow

- create puddle with seaweed coming out at cursor

- max 3 instances

- slows enemies (10%, 15%, 20%, 25%) and make them more succeptible to status (+10%, +15%, +20%, +25%) flat chance to status for affected enemies (not scalable)

- radius (3m, 5m, 8m, 10m)

- range

 

Tentacle Swarm -> Summon Kraken

- creates (invulnerable object just visual) entity in air above ground (or on ground) at cursor point, can be recast but only one Kraken can be summoned

- attacks enemies with tentacles (8), seeking enemies in line of sight, seeking range 10m, 15m, 20m, 25m)

- base damage 100, 200, 300, 400 (impact 50%, slash 50%)

- duration (10s, 13s, 16s, 20s)

- chance to inflict status knockdown 25% / slash 25% (max 50% at 150% strength)

- prioritizes closer enemies

- if above Undertow - gains slowing 25% (max 50% at 150% strength)

- range, strength, duration

 

Edit: probably very high range for most abilities should be toned down

[MasterControl]

There's a few more changes I'd add myself.

1. As has been stated, Tempest Barrage should target enemies with intent.

2. Undertow shouldn't scale additively, it should scale multiplicatively. Somewhere along the lines of a factor of 1.5x to 2.0x. Adding 50 damage a tick is.. well.. not very impressive. If I'm going to sacrifice the ability to shoot enemies (for both myself and my team) the payoff should be potentially very high. Plus, the wave-extending (pun not intended) troll potential is still very apparent.

3. Tentacle swarm still has a case of "tornado syndrome" making it very difficult to aim at targets. If you or an ally aims at a tentacle (while scoped) it should stop thrashing about and stand erect, allowing you to target and shoot the enemies impaled on it, similarly to the way a kubrow will duck out of your way if you aim at it.

Edited August 11, 2017 by Mastercontrol98

[ADF01Falken]

2 minutes ago, FoxFX said:

 

I found your Tempest Barrage suggestion more sound, but there is a few things I would change about this:

 

• If you want Tempest Barrage into timed-salvos that cover the area striking N times, then perhaps Tempest Barrage's knockdown might need to be replaced with a Slow effect on enemies; drenching enemies and slowing them down.

I agree with you at this point, but the removed CC would reduce his survivability. thats when the Tidal Surge & Undertow survivability focused changes i suggested would make even more sense. We already got Wukong to become immortal with a skill. So giving Hydroid immunity to damage would just copy it. But i like the idea of a water elemental pirate, that when receives bullet shots and melee attacks just splash or displace some water but can continue fighting.

analysing all the problems he got, the worst is the enemy saving skills. Invulnerability in undertow and evade in tentacle swarm.

[Trentiel]

I love Hydroid, I love water themed powers, I love that all his abilities are mechanically oriented, I love that his powers now all look like real water. Holy Cow! He's like Wet Vauban.

That said, that's where all my criticisms of his powers lie. He's like anti-cooperative Vauban.

Tempest Barrage:

I want to see his casting animation as soon as I start holding the button, just like his 4th power.

Tidal Surge:

Let us jump-cancel out of it, the same way we can jump out of puddle form. It would make sense, as these powers are now very well paired.

Undertow:

This power is where Hydroid's anti-cooperative nature starts to come into play.

This power is similar in mechanics to Vaubans Vortex, Mags Bullet Attractor, and Nidus's Larva, except... Hydroid hogs all the murder. Yet despite the buffs, still doesn't murder very well. Playing keep-away with enemies makes other players resent Hydroid players and causes undue animosity. Please, I just don't want to be treated like a troll, just for playing a frame the way he's meant to be played.

SUGGESTED CHANGE: Allow allies to pump damage into the puddle.

Tentacle Swarm:

This power is also anti-cooperative. Because the tentacles play keep-away with enemies.

This is frustrating to team mates, that aren't using explosive AOE weapons or Ember who just passively murders anything anyway.

SUGGESTED CHANGES: change the tentacle animation once it's got an enemy, so it's less flail-y and more choke-y. Only trying to reach for enemies when they are near.

Or change his 4th power entirely to be some kind of sea monster summon pet that eats enemies. Unlikely, but we're all thinking it, we all want it.

Or allow allies to fire into the tentacles or the sea monster to boost the damage of the tentacles. So that maybe, augments like Pilfering Swarm actually scale beyond low levels.

Soaking Wet:

When it comes Hydroid's synergy with other frames. I always found it annoying that getting enemies wet didn't do anything complimentary with Volt or other elemental damage. So give Hydroid a special status debuff on all enemies effected by his powers, called "Soaking Wet".

Increases the status chance of all incoming elemental damage on those enemies.

Increase the damage of all incoming elemental damage on those enemies.

These changes would reverse his image as the anti-cooperative CC frame, and I think round off this rework to Hydroid's powers in a very satisfying way. I see a lot of people making similar suggestions. I just want to crystallize the idea that the problem with Hydroid is his Anti-cooperative nature. It's the same problem that Zephyr's 4th has, that Limbo's stasis sort of has, that Ash Blade Storm had... has? I don't know, who still plays Ash? Frames whose powers play keep-away, suck the fun out of the game. Some people like playing them, but for more people dislike playing WITH them. Please consider this dimension of frame power design in the future. "Is this power anti-cooperative? Will other players find this power useful or interuptive?"

[MirageKnight]

2 minutes ago, Trentiel said:

Soaking Wet:

When it comes Hydroid's synergy with other frames. I always found it annoying that getting enemies wet didn't do anything complimentary with Volt or other elemental damage. So give Hydroid a special status debuff on all enemies effected by his powers, called "Soaking Wet".

Increases the status chance of all incoming elemental damage on those enemies.

Increase the damage of all incoming elemental damage on those enemies.

These changes would reverse his image as the anti-cooperative CC frame, and I think round off this rework to Hydroid's powers in a very satisfying way. I see a lot of people making similar suggestions. I just want to crystallize the idea that the problem with Hydroid is his Anti-cooperative nature. It's the same problem that Zephyr's 4th has, that Limbo's stasis sort of has, that Ash Blade Storm had... has? I don't know, who still plays Ash? Frames whose powers play keep-away, suck the fun out of the game. Some people like playing them, but for more people dislike playing WITH them. Please consider this dimension of frame power design in the future. "Is this power anti-cooperative? Will other players find this power useful or interuptive?"

Oh....this is nice. Very nice indeed.

[FoxFX]

7 minutes ago, ADF01Falken said:

I agree with you at this point, but the removed CC would reduce his survivability. thats when the Tidal Surge & Undertow survivability focused changes i suggested would make even more sense. We already got Wukong to become immortal with a skill. So giving Hydroid immunity to damage would just copy it. But i like the idea of a water elemental pirate, that when receives bullet shots and melee attacks just splash or displace some water but can continue fighting.

analysing all the problems he got, the worst is the enemy saving skills. Invulnerability in undertow and evade in tentacle swarm.

Then instead of the slowing down mechanic, would you prefer it maintains the Blast Proc or replace it with an Impact Proc?

 

12 minutes ago, MirageKnight said:

 

I've been looking through the feedback here and I'm seeing some interesting suggestions: You have some interesting ones as well but having it so that enemies submerged in the Puddle should stay in the Puddle even if the player moves definitely needs to be a thing.

 

The simple solution is not to use Tentacle Swarm if there's only a couple of targets that are visible. That's what Tempest Barrage is for; taking out or softening up small groups. Tentacle Swarm is an ability that is clearly designed around killing or at least CC'ing large mobs numbering at least 10 or more enemies. Using Tentacle Swarm on a group of enemies that's smaller than say 5-6 targets is a considerable waste of time and energy, unless you know for certain that more enemies will show up in Swarm's AoE soon.

 

For those of you suggesting that Undertow should refund a small amount of energy for each enemy drowned in the Puddle.

Sorry but no. Just no. Absolutely not. I totally get why DE has the energy drain on Undertow at the moment, and that's to avoid or at least minimize Puddle AFKing and Puddle spam. Undertow basically turns you into an invulnerable, albeit slow moving (depending,) killing machine (at least on regular maps), so there needs to be some reasonable drawbacks.

On the topic of Undertow itself, I wouldn't mind seeing a slight increase in damage per tick and at least a slight increase in the Puddle's size.

 

 

If [DE] would amp up the Damage of Undertow then that would mitigate the suggestion for Undertow granting energy.

 

That being said, would you like it if casting Tentacle Swarm with Undertow active to increase Undertow's Damage Per Second? This would simulate the water creature draging the drowning enemies further down dealing more damage.

 

OR: add in a function to Undertow that goes like so:

• Holding Down the Undertow ability increases the DPS of Undertow at the cost of Energy?

Edited August 11, 2017 by FoxFX

[MirageKnight]

1 minute ago, FoxFX said:

If [DE] would amp up the Damage of Undertow then that would mitigate the suggestion for Undertow granting energy.

 

That being said, would you like it if casting Tentacle Swarm with Undertow active to increase Undertow's Damage Per Second? This would simulate the water creature draging the drowning enemies further down dealing more damage.

Yes that's quite fair and makes sense...at least to me!

[Sajochi]

11 minutes ago, (Xbox One)Knight Raime said:

"real problem areas" is a statement I don't enjoy.  Because that leaves things way too open and virtually impossible for someone to counter.  I'll have to disagree.  from watching gameplay his 1 and 4 seem to be more reliable than before his rework.  His 2 being generic doesn't mean it's a problem that needs changing.  Taking to bashing positive changes for no reason.  nice.  He's not the exact same.  You can't say they made things more about his puddle play and then proceed to say he's the exact same.  He really doesn't need a full overhaul.  The changes made in the rework were great at improving what he does.  and it just needs a few minor tweaks to be "perfect."

If you want to have a discussion, do not instantly say someone is bashing when they don't agree when you. 

Back on topic, let me tell you why his first ability is too inconsistent: it is easily blocked by terrain due to the weird and random angle it comes from, even after quick casting you have to wait for the projectiles to fall, which means aiming it is actually difficult, and charging it for more damage doesn't really help things when it's mainly a knockdown power. You can't rely on it to kill, you can't rely on it to CC. If this was more consistent, where you can have much more reliable aim and not have to worry too much about cluttered areas, it would be fine. 

His second ability is a charge. Nothing new here. I'm fact, I'm ok leaving this be. However, we can't ignore that it's just a generic charge. It could have one more addition beside "drag enemies with you" and boom you have something interesting. 

Now here is where I honestly try to find all the positives. 3rd ability got a lot of synergy added. Because this is what is apparently the center of hydroid kit. You can use your now redundant CC first ability to hit enemies in the puddle to damage them a little more, and you can move around using your dash to scoop up more enemies and this prevent your team from doing anything, and you can summon your kraken to throw enemies in your almighty puddle or wherever they please because we don't have enough space program. Well, ain't that a mouthful? Puddle was made better, but it became the focal point of hydroid kit that pretty much keeps the other abilities in a poor state. Abilities should be good in their own, and amazing when used together. Synergy should be an option, not something that is forced. It should be layered. That's why you see the rant posts or the posts suggesting drastic changes. This cannot be called a rework, it can't even be a revisit. It's buffs + QoL. 

4th ability, even with the tentacles seeking enemies, they still screw up your aim and toss enemies everywhere.  And that's even if it does that, as a good amount of enemies just walk past them like a damn kraken is a minor inconveveince. And the kraken does Jack all but sit there looking like the kid at a party who stands in the corner. A model was made to just sit and stare. That confuses me, and I really want the poor thing to join the party.

So yes, we got the same hydroid with a fresh coat of paint and a windshield when he needed his engine fixed. We can look at the positives until we go blind, doesn't mean that the negatives are suddenly gone. 

Just give me consistency in his kit at this point.

[ADF01Falken]

2 minutes ago, FoxFX said:

Then instead of the slowing down mechanic, would you prefer it maintains the Blast Proc or replace it with an Impact Proc?

 

 

If [DE] would amp up the Damage of Undertow then that would mitigate the suggestion for Undertow granting energy.

 

That being said, would you like it if casting Tentacle Swarm with Undertow active to increase Undertow's Damage Per Second? This would simulate the water creature draging the drowning enemies further down dealing more damage.

The point is to balance his survivability with CC. The idea of blast procs is more interesting because: cannon shots. But the main focus should be in making him viable at Raids and sorties. How can he contribute for the success of a mission? that's the question. He needs a role. CC warframe would be the most close aproach. But if those CCs save enemies, the he can become useles for missions with eximus.
On the other side if he become a damage warframe and increase the damage of undertow or tentacle swarm to make it viable to kill eximus, it'll become a overkill for other mobs. That's why i think it's wise to set a nice damage that can scale to high level missions removing the enemy helping side.

[Azamagon]

17 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

Fully agreed. 

I wrote before, but I think it merits repeating: Hydroid also lacks any form of scaling damage - something that, judging by the fact all of his abilities only affect enemies by CC or damage dealing  (i.e. no enemy debuffing, no allied buffing, etc), he probably really needs.

Ence, killing two birds with one stone, adding damage based on current/maximum enemy health to Tempest Barrage seems like a simple, and effective, solution to both issues.

Then we are on the same page :)

That, and making the CC of Tentacle Swarm more reliable (like, strangle-crushing enemies, rather than flail them around), then the two abilities are very distinct.

What do you say of my previous feedback (quoted below)? Only thing I'd add is to maybe also make one or two of his augments baseline (Tidal Impunity and Curative Undertow, mainly), as playing Hydroid without any augments feels... rather underwhelming?

18 hours ago, Azamagon said:

Alright, tested him out a fair bit now.

Overall, it's a very good rework as it has added some neat mechanics and fun synergies, but I still feel he needs plenty of polishing.

Here are the problems I see with him, along with some proposals to solve these issues:

Tempest Barrage
Problems:
1) Considering the synergy between this and Undertow (capable of hitting enemies in the puddle), one would expect Tempest Barrage to actually... you know... deal some noticeable damage? It's a BARRAGE after all.
2) The chargeup makes it stronger, but also even MORE inaccurate (since the landing area gets bigger, but not the explosions). So the chargeup is kind of useless, imo.

Suggested solutions:
1) Make it have scalable damage of some form. It could take primary or secondary mods into account. It could work with enemy levels (a la Smite). Anything really, just so it actually hurts enemies.
2) Charging up the ability should also increase the size of the explosions, not just the landing area.

Tidal Surge
Problems:
1) While it works quite well as a "push enemies to this spot" kind of ability, I feel it's still kind of lacking. Some more utility would be nice

Suggested solutions:
1) How about making all enemies struck add to the melee combo meter? That'd go well with his very frontline-esque playstyle. Also, reducing its energycost to 25 would be nice too (it's not worth 50 energy, no matter how you look at it).

Undertow
I like grabbing enemies with it, and I love that you actually went through with the ability to use other abilities inside of it. The ability to roll out of it is also INCREDIBLY nice. So good, that some of its synergies feel less useful...

Problems:
1) Its new movement is heavily hampered by energycosts (mainly if you try to move inside it) as is the short-distance Tidal Surge. Rolling out of it and reusing Undertow is generally a better move.
2) Casting Tempest Barrage over Undertow (with the intent of hurting the enemies inside with it) is absolutely pointless, since it barely hits ANYTHING inside (and not to mention, Tempest Barrage deals negligible damage, but that's already covered)
3) It's still kind of trolly towards teammates (Eximus and all that considered)

Suggested solutions:
1) Lower the movement's energy cost. At least by half?
2) Make Tempest Barrage have auto-aim towards the pool while Undertow is active, for as long as there are alive enemies caught inside the pool.
3) Allow allies to shoot at a pool, with their damage split among all caught enemies, and let Undertow disable all Eximus auras of the enemies caught inside the pool.

Tentacle Swarm
Problems:
1) It still flails enemies around, making aim very difficult for yourself and allies.
2) Of all four abilities, this one doesn't have the same Undertow-centralized synergy as all the others do: Undertow keeps enemies in place, Tidal Surge lets you move or collect enemies into a good Undertow, Tempest Barrage lets you hit enemies inside the Undertow. But then you have Tentacle Swarm which just flails around, helping very little with anything at all.

Suggested solutions:
1) Once a tentacle hits an enemy, it could wrap around the enemy and strangle-crush it, keeping it still. This steadying of enemies would also go well with Tempest Barrage's new charge mechanics, letting you hit enemies somewhat more reliably.
2) Let Tentacle Swarm spawn OUTSIDE of the Undertow, rather than inside of it (and even more so if you charge it). That way, it can grab enemies your Undertow might've missed. And, due to its change #1 (keeping enemies still), if you wanna get the Tentacle-grabbed enemy into your Undertow, just "fire" at it (to pull it inside).

Passive
Problems:
1) It doesn't fit his kit. To be honest, it simply just stinks.

Suggested solutions:
1) Give him a new passive. Something that caters to his casting side perhaps, considering his energy-intensity.

With all these changes, you'd have a niche for each ability:
Tempest Barrage - Main damage source
Tidal Surge - Mobility and groupcollection
Undertow - Ability centralizer, hiding spot, Tempest Barrage accuracy helper
Tentacle Swarm - Main CC, general aimhelper

How you could play, generally;
Hide in Undertow and move around with Tidal Surge (before or after the Undertow). Cast Tentacle Swarm to keep enemies around you in place. Pull them in with Undertow's grabbing mechanic. Toss Tempest Barrage on 'em all for massive nukeage.

[Dinesty30]

So, while DE is revisiting Hydroid I wanted to throw out a few ideas regarding his abilities and theme:

Hydroid is a water pirate, so why not have him able to make constructs OUT of water?

We have the Zarr(literal cannon), Twin Rogga(flintlock pistols), Cutlasses and Tridents to play with so why not add them the hydroid's arsenal!

Instead of having Tempest Barrage, hydroid could make a water cannon that either fires automatically or can be mounted like ramparts, something to take away that RNG bit. Heck why not be able to summon multiple cannons and have them fire on hydroid's mark

Tidal surge could be completely omitted and replaced with a multi function ability called Arsenal letting hydroid switch between different water weapons like:

* A mini water cannon with blast procs or some other gimmick.
* Flintlock pistols that either submerge/blind enemies or deal straight damage.
* A trident or cutlass that makes enemies killed with the weapon drop more credits/loot.

Undertow as an ability seems a bit wonky, instead of putting the enemies below ground why not suspend them in the air as if they are drowning using the Zenurik animation, allowing allies to shoot them while also disabling them. Honestly, there are not many things that can be suggested here that fit other than maybe a water decoy or some kind of drowning ability like Titania but with water.

Tentacle swarm needs more OOMF, and less "making it impossible to hit that guy cus he's thrashing around." Maybe slow down the tentacles and have them drag the enemies towards on place. The Kraken could be used as this focal point, slowly dragging the enemies to its mouth and trying to eat them proccing slash and getting bigger or gaining duration for each enemy eaten. The more you feed the Kraken the stronger it gets!

That's all I got, thanks for reading! Hopefully it doesn't sound too dumb
 

Edited August 11, 2017 by Dinesty30
odd formatting

[Dinesty30]

So, while DE is revisiting Hydroid I wanted to throw out a few ideas regarding his abilities and theme:

Hydroid is a water pirate, so why not have him able to make constructs OUT of water?

We have the Zarr(literal cannon), Twin Rogga(flintlock pistols), Cutlasses and Tridents to play with so why not add them the hydroid's arsenal!

Instead of having Tempest Barrage, hydroid could make a water cannon that either fires automatically or can be mounted like ramparts, something to take away that RNG bit. Heck why not be able to summon multiple cannons and have them fire on hydroid's mark

Tidal surge could be completely omitted and replaced with a multi function ability called Arsenal letting hydroid switch between different water weapons like:

* A mini water cannon with blast procs or some other gimmick.
* Flintlock pistols that either submerge/blind enemies or deal straight damage.
* A trident or cutlass that makes enemies killed with the weapon drop more credits/loot.

Undertow as an ability seems a bit wonky, instead of putting the enemies below ground why not suspend them in the air as if they are drowning using the Zenurik animation, allowing allies to shoot them while also disabling them. Honestly, there are not many things that can be suggested here that fit other than maybe a water decoy or some kind of drowning ability like Titania but with water.

Tentacle swarm needs more OOMF, and less "making it impossible to hit that guy cus he's thrashing around." Maybe slow down the tentacles and have them drag the enemies towards on place. The Kraken could be used as this focal point, slowly dragging the enemies to its mouth and trying to eat them proccing slash and getting bigger or gaining duration for each enemy eaten. The more you feed the Kraken the stronger it gets!

That's all I got, thanks for reading! Hopefully it doesn't sound too dumb

Edited August 11, 2017 by Dinesty30
Bolding text & things

[Brasten]

1 hour ago, MirageKnight said:

The simple solution is not to use Tentacle Swarm if there's only a couple of targets that are visible. That's what Tempest Barrage is for; taking out or softening up small groups. Tentacle Swarm is an ability that is clearly designed around killing or at least CC'ing large mobs numbering at least 10 or more enemies. Using Tentacle Swarm on a group of enemies that's smaller than say 5-6 targets is a considerable waste of time and energy, unless you know for certain that more enemies will show up in Swarm's AoE soon.

2

Not so useful advice when in active team environments. Especially when there are other Warframes that are better at quickly dispatching the masses of enemies. You can start casting (with the new extream charge-up delay) and find you're now down to 4 or 5 hardened targets. Which then get whipped around in ways that make them nearly impossible for the rest of the team to focus on.

Frankly, the Over Targeting is a flaw in the ability that's been around since the beginning, and it is a flaw that should be fixed in a rework... which it wasn't. In the case of the Maggot, I was trying to setup the batch of Tentacles in a choke point, and there just happened to be a Maggot still hopping about off to the side. So boom! All tentacles erupt at its spot... targeting the same low priority enemy on the edge of the zone.

Tempest Barrage is (still) a joke. It's so random you can't use it for single or even 5-6 target elimination. That Maggot is quite likely to have just run between the drops unharmed.

Both Tempest Barrage and Tentacle Swarm still need some major sit down and think time,  to their design and implementation. Both powers have long been Hydroids weakest aspects, and this rework did nothing to address their core issues. Too random, too unpredictable, too costly (for the prior two aspects), and out done by many other Warframes.

Edited August 11, 2017 by Brasten

[Buddhakingpen]

Energy isnt an issue, the community always does this crap whenever they add some synergy onto a frame. They feel more compelled to use skills more, so they cant control their fingers.

 His closest contemporary is vauban, and yes vauban does have a higher energy pool, but he's also waaay squishier with less shield, less armor, and no moves to turn him invincible. Having less energy is a fair tradeoff, esp considering that hydroids main cc are 25 and 50 energy abilities, and vaubans main cc skills are 75 and 100 energy abilities. 

I think the rework is great. They could make some QoL fixes like giving us some kind of indicator as to when we're charging his tempest barrage (maybe they do, but i play on low settings and cant see it), giving us another 5 base meters on tentacle swarm would be nice, but not necessary.

And for gods sake REMOVE THE SCREEN SHAKE ON TEMPEST BARRAGE DE! 

 

[Ceadeus]

The FX "tiles" for Hydroid's new art are all plainly visible in Simulacrum if you angle the camera down

[Maelstromcrown]

Good evening writing my thoughts on this rework good and bad things about it and ways hydroid could be enhanced after watching and experiencing hydroid after this Revisit first of all i should say kudos  for the water effects and smoother feeling of hydroid with his synergy by far the best part of the Revisit otherwise he is more or less unchanged the reduced range on his third and fourth ability needs to be readjusted at arround 10 base m id say to make hydroid more versantile Secondly the dmg types of his third and fourth ability should really be corossive to go with his theme moreover on that his first and fourth augment corroding barrage and pilfering swarm should be innate passive of his first and fourth abilities respectively at least i think it should just sharing thoughts 3. the spawn tentacles on undertow they should move along with you in the undertow even should you just move or tidal surge making you a moving tentacle monster far more effective and makes undertow way more enjoyable on that note maybe make tentacles on undertow deal a %finisher dmg as well as having a status chance of corroding the enemies armor (to go along with the dmg type obviously at a reduced scaling like 5% status chance considering how many tentacles hit the enemies) and make different augments about his first and fourth ability like the fourth using the kraken spawning with it like it casting a smaller undertow(scaling with your mods) for enemies that dont get picked up by the tentacles. Forgot to mention about the survivability upgrade which is obviously quite nice so kudos for that too.Obviously some bug fixes like the undertow leaving the enemies it picked up behind when moving after a certain distance (hoping its a bug at least) these are just my thoughts on how to make hydroid better without working up an entirely new ability set or new abilities as that would obviously take more time than simply tweaking or readjusting abilities when i see hydroid i dont see a loot slave as some describe him even though he kind of was now he is okay but not good or very good when i see hydroid i think of a light medium cc capable debuffer pirate that wears his enemies down by constant barrage of attacks and abilities before going in for the kill in a tempest of wild fury with a sea monster at his beck and call i know this is more than likely will be ignored i obviously dont know about what his scaling would be or if he would be Op with the changes im proposing these are just a few ideas i throw out here in an effort to see hydroid as the Maelstrom i know he can be thanks for the time of whoever reads this wall of text especially thanks to the developers for Warframe most of all and to the rest of you my Tenno brethren Happy hunting