[Update 21.4.0] Hydroid Revisited Feedback

[aligatorno]

They said they'll work during the weekend taking into account the feedback. Here's to hoping that they'll actually listen to the players this time instead of doing the exact opposite. 

[(PSN)ChaosLordZerato]

Love the work DE put into there stuff keep it up please. Hydroid rework was needed love the buff to his armor an shield but his powers can be changed please. Barrage should be down pour instead of random diagonal it should be vertical. Tital surge should be removed it offers no use in team play except annoying ppl. Undertow is fine move it to power slot 2 an tentical swarm should be power 3 new 4 should be whirlpool where his new kraken friend pulls enemies to the center an submerges them damaging them overtime 

[(XBOX)KSI KanekiCrow]

8 minutes ago, Koldraxon-732 said:

I think DE has two kinds of 'frame changes:

Reworks: Where one or more powers is replaced with something entirely new (see: Excalibur rework).

Revisits: Where the functionality of existing powers is changed, rebuilt, or improved (see: Nekros/Volt/Mag/Rhino/Oberon/Vauban revisit), but little else.

As for Hydroid, I've been swimming using him for a few hours, and the only problems I'm finding now are:

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1: His powers don't seem to be doing any damage to enemies over level 25 or so; they should scale with enemies to some degree to compensate for lackluster damage output.
Solution: Add elemental procs such as Corrosive and Viral to his powers, and his ult should have Impact damage - all of which scale with Hydroid's equipped weapons. His first ability gets a cloud and stormy weather, causing mild Cold damage and random Electricity damage to enemies caught in the storm.
2: His first ability has no charging animation - the one used in his ult would do just fine. Casting speed for Barrage should be doubled, and Barrages that 'touch' eachother's AOE should turn into a greater Storm which causes the electricity and cold procs on top of corrosive and viral.

Beyond this are suggestions.

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3: Kraken should swim about and gobble up enemies, puking out health/energy/ammo/+ random resources (not necessarily ones on the planet) via Pilfering/a chance at some resources.
4: His Undertow should have physics applied (i.e; going up stairs is as slow as is now, but going down them is twice as fast).
5: In Undertow, Hydroid should gain an energy efficiency buff that is shared to anyone standing and crouching on his puddle.
6: Passive should be replaced with crouching causing a mini-undertow, and sliding causing a mini Tidal surge.

 

Beyond that, he is able to slip in and out of trouble easily, and works best with Energy Siphon due to his power-hunger.

He's not really supposed to be a damage dealer. He's a CC frame that's why I offered the changes

[(PSN)big_eviljak]

Kraken needs to be huge.

[phantasmalWordsmith]

I like the revisit overall but I'd like a little few tweaks for quality of life, and overall game feel. 

First, Tempest Barrage needs better enemy targetting. Think similar to how Ember's world of fire - when it doesn't have a target, it still makes the visual effect but does target nearest enemies. It should target enemies in the AOE, then if there aren't any, the barrage keeps falling down. 

Second, with all the new movement options added to Undertwo, it feels like Tentacle Swarm should follow the Undertow Puddle, becoming a mobile tank of tentacle slamming.

Third, Undertow sucking enemies UNDER the puddle makes it harder to kill them when we think about armour scaling - ability damage will always lag behind weapon damage so locking off weapon damage is a big problem. However, this could be solved. If enemies fell into the water, maybe half way through so they can still be shot, then used their Panic animations from Fire procs to show struggling from downing, this makes the crowd control of Undertow far more valuable. 

Finally, Tentacle Swarm has a similar problem to Undertow, it makes it harder for allies to shoot enemies with the unpredictable and fast flailing. So, maybe instead of the tentacles picking up and slamming enemies around, they should slam down on enemies that are on the ground in their range, knocking them down. By knocking them down with each slam, it instead stabilises enemies allowing them to still be shot an crowd controls them.  

[Hyohakusha]

Hydroid's rework... I'm not going to lie or sugarcoat things, its terrible. You have to pay more energy per ability, and the charge makes it take longer casting to hit the old base values of his abilities. The problem with Hydroid, to put this as simply as I can, is everything. Actually, everything. His powers are lackluser, in terms of effects on enemies, damage and animations (other than the tentacles, cause that's all anyone ever uses). The buff to his health and armor was a good first step, but without an overhaul or new ability, he's going to stay in the bottom of the most used tier, and no one is going to care about Prime.

Here's a few suggestions, with one overarching theme.

-Tidal wave knocks loot out of enemies to fit with the pirate theme, and provides a second of invulnerability that lasts after the end when you come out of it to help keep him alive. Survivability, CC that helps the team, more loot.

-Puddle becomes a whirlpool that sucks enemies in from outside its effect, spinning them around while still allowing them to be shot, like Vauban's vortex. When you end it, enemies that drowned explode into more loot. Survivability, CC that helps the team, more loot.

-Barrage gains lightning strikes that deal a small amount of damage with a high chance of procing electricity. Enemies killed while electrified drop also drop more loot. Survivability, CC that helps the team, more loot.

The theme should be pretty obvious. Trying to make synergy between lackluster powers leads to lackluster synergy. The powers themselves need to be changed, or at the least have additional effects as I listed above. And none of those should be augments, either. Adding loot to the wave should not be complicated as he already has a script for his tentacles. The whirlpool is just visual effects and a Vauban vortex with 0 damage, less veritcal range, and more horizontal range. There are already lightning strikes on Ceres, it shouldn't be hard to add a few to his barrage.

Flashier, stronger, loot-ier. BETTER. Not, to quote the best description I've found so far "Hold for more of the same."

[(PSN)Joshhwwaaaaaa]

Hydroid Tentacle Swarm... It's fine I guess. 

But...

When you see in the icon packs that there is a Hydroid Icon that clearly shows DE at some point went through the thought process that Hydroid unleashes the Kraken and what they settled on was tentacles that flail about. 

THIS... IS... DE's... CHANCE... to make Hydroid amazing.

A fully animated Kraken sitting half way out of the water and destroying everything within a radius is what is needed here. This could be Hydroid's chance to become epic. For balancing purposes the duration would have to come down a lot because the power would have to be insane. It's a KRAKEN after all. The size of the Kraken could be determined by strength similar to Atlas Rumblers. I think giving it a duration of around 20 seconds once maxed out and power enough to kill anything within seconds of enemies up to level 50ish would be awesome. Feel free to add/remove thoughts about how to balance this.

The other abilities are fine. Put the rest of the work time allotted for Hydroid into this.

No more silly animated tentacles.

DE... UNLEASH... THE... KRAKEN!!!

Edited August 12, 2017 by (PS4)Joshhwwaaaaaa
typo

[(PSN)DBR87]

8 hours ago, SenorClipClop said:

I just noticed that you're a console Tenno. I respect your opinions, but why are we having this conversation if you haven't even tried him yet? All you're doing by parroting what you're hearing around is spreading hearsay. No offense, but if the claims you're making aren't your own, I'd rather talk with the players who actually made the claims in the first place. After you play him yourself, I'd be happy to talk about him with you (and it would give me time to get more acquainted with the changes myself), but until then I'd really only like to address feedback on the update that comes from personal play experience.

Hearsay? I have seen the rework in action from YouTubers like AGGP, Brozime, and Mogamu. So if anything I am about to say is not true let me know.

Tempest Barrage still hits randomly in the selected area. It's still an RNG ability.

Undertow still prevents allies from damaging enemies and the Finisher Damage scaling is terrible, increasing by ten per second.

Tentacle Swarm still flings enemies about randomly making it harder for allies to shoot them.

Tentacle Swarm still spawns tentacles on enemies randomly and not ever enemy will get picked up by a tentacle even if there are less than 15 enemies.

Hydriod's underlying issue wasn't that he wasn't fun to play. And I am sure he is even more fun to play with these QoL changes. But if the fact still remains that his CC makes it harder for allies to kill enemies then he Prime Access will flop.

I rather voice my opinion now so he doesn't to come to console still as bad as he is at team play and no changes are made when he gets here. It's happened to other frames where changes no longer came when the frame got to console.

[(PSN)AdmiralSparklz]

I have yet to try this " rework" but what I have heard from youtubers this was more of quality of life changes. Hydroid is a pirate warframe, right? So why not change his undertow to a pirate ship and make it his ult and tentacle swarm is third ability. It makes more sense for abilities to synergize and an ult. So the ship is sailing in a puddle just like undertow (of course the ship will be scaled down) and he will be firing cannonballs at enemies. Barrage will instead come from cannons on the ship and be a slightly stronger this way. Tentacle swarm will act slightly different, if it is a short cast then the tentacles appear from under the ship and if it is a long cast then they will appear where you are pointing. Tidal surge will also have a long and short cast where a short cast would propel the ship forward and a long cast would act as a geyser to allow vertical mobility. And everything outside of the ship ult will be the same as just changed.

[otakuotaku]

Hello, I wanted to toss out my opinion on where hydroid should've went overall in his kit because I feel this was too "safe" of a change and heavily lacking where he should've went.

What I would ask:

Introduce a "Drowning" debuff and animation where enemies keep reaching for air(could be useful for future warframes, technically it's already in the game with the suffocation-like animation)
Introduce a "Submerged" debuff which makes enemies drop energy orbs and convert into allies to be summoned by an ability....

Have Tempest Barrage fused with Undertow from the start as a base skill, enemies caught in the puddle should have a "drowning" animation where they're reaching outside of the puddle for air. Enemies that fall below 5% hp or die within the puddle are "submerged" and executed.

This would lower the castable range on tempest barrage to just around your character however I feel being able to move it with you would be a huge plus

Tidal Wave- Additionally recovers Sunken Crew to reuse again, casting this while in undertow expands the recovery radius, but it cannot submerge enemies who are killed during the travel.

I feel having a way to recover your sunken crew is a must but it cannot be undertow but a separate skill.

New ability "The Sunken\" (Didn't want to make it sound too much like a ghost ability but I think it still does....)-Choose a target enemy (under a certain HP threshold which is fixed for hydroid player clarity) to recruit as your First Crew enhancing them while making them follow you during a mission, once they are killed they raise your flag.  Activating this while you have a First Mate makes them warp directly on you but slightly towards a nearby enemy. Activating this ability while underwater with undertow will summon the submerged victims to fight for you, however if not recovered they will die after a duration and they will not automatically follow you./

I personally feel it's a shame that hydroid doesn't have more direct pirate themed abilities aside from tempest barrage being sort of like a ship's cannons, I do think that if hydroid new ability and passive were more crew oriented he'd feel a LOT more theme centered. Although I just hope it doesn't sound like a ghost type ability....

Tentacle Swarm- should just have tentacles slap down wildly knocking down enemies hit pulling them close to the tentacle for follow up attacks, not pick them up and toss them all over the place gets annoying to attack them. Charged up should ADDITIONALLY increase the tentacle and kraken size further (Would be super cool). Kraken itself moves to finish off low HP threshold(based on level) enemies.

The tentacles are a bit too wild, it was a great change but the kraken needs to just give that added oomph of finishing things off would be so cool

New passive enemies hit by your crew(includes First Mate, Tentacles, Kraken, and Teammates) do...something? Your crew apply vulnerability(increasing that unit's damage taken) and a light DoT where when the unit is killed submerges them 

I feel as a pirate hydroid's passive should be towards enhancing his crew members from live players to the tentacles and the newfound additions of kraken and hopefully the sunken. Main effect is vulnerability and submerge enemies who are affected.

 

Overall I do think that the current hydroid is decent, but I feel there was so much more potential to be had in reworking him.

Edited August 12, 2017 by otakuotaku

[(PSN)Kaynyne]

I really like Hydroid. As a fan, I fairly know and understand what his pros and cons are. Fairly Squishy, randomness of his 1st and 4th ability, his 2nd not being very controllable and his 3rd not doing much of anything. In my opinion, you guys did a great job of fixing his 2nd and 3rd ability with a few tweaks still needed and you fixed his squishy factor. And for that I commend you. As for his 1st and 4th ability. In my opinion, his 1st ability is probably one of his most effective abilities. The ability to actually cause knockdown on enemies for a short time gives him a unique ability that most other frames don't have. Ground finishers. That is what my play style is centered around. With that being said, almost no other frames abilities are so random based. I understand that making Hydroids 1st ability 40 meters or maybe even 30 meters may make him a bit too strong on the CC side but why not increase it to 15 meters and with the new charge ability he can increase it to 20 meters? And yes please dispose of the randomness. Corrosive barrage is also an augment that takes too long to effect any enemy. As for his 4th ability, I see a few ways of fixing this ability. One way would be for Pilfering swarm to be a passive ability. Another ability should be that with his 4th active, once a tentacle grabs an enemy, that tentacle as the ability to attack enemies not grabbed by a tentacle and cause a knockdown effect and causing extra damage. Giving this a better CC factor. Lastly the tentacles shouldn't just spawn under enemies. Here's where a bit of humor that fans may love comes in. Let the tentacles cover it's full radius. Tentacles that grab enemies can knock enemies that haven't been grabbed by a tentacle into a waiting tentacle. Just some ideas. I hope you make Hydroid great.

[Rakiss]

The problem with hydroid is the need for constant power spam that necessitates pilfroid-build.

If you have a weapon that can effectively hit/kill tentacled enemies (amprex, simulor, ignis, zenistar, etc.) then you get the constant supply of energy you need to spam your 1 and 2 to CC everything and remain invincible forever (1 sec invincibility isn't needed on your 2 if you can keep casting).

Considering that we have nidus and octavia who can infinitely sustain their own energy, I'd just want a passive that causes abilities to have a chance of knocking energy orbs out of enemies.

For a bit of QoL, I'd have his 2 be a hold/press ability - the ability would, by default, release a tidal wave, but if held, would move you with the wave as it does now.

The hold-to-charge mechanic that was added is pretty terrible, but I think that his 4 needs a similar mechanic. If 4 is tapped, the ability functions as it does now. If the button is held then it would function similarly to ash's bladestorm but would designate surfaces for tentacles to appear from (ie: hold 4 and rub your mouse over a doorway for all the tentacles to appear in that doorway).
Some reliable way of damaging anything grabbed by tentacles would be nice too, maybe have damage dealt to tentacles transferred to grabbed enemies. 

Also, considering how much emphasis has been put on his puddle-form with the rework, it would be nice to be able to navigate properly while in that form. Whether it be the ability to cling to surfaces or bullet jump from puddle-form straight to puddle-form, it would be nice to have the core of post-rework hydroid's synergy not be crippled by ledges/gaps/90% of what tiles consist of. 

[BoomyGordo]

40 minutes ago, (PS4)Joshhwwaaaaaa said:

Hydroid Tentacle Swarm... It's fine I guess. 

But...

When you see in the icon packs that there is a Hydroid Icon that clearly shows DE at some point went through the thought process that Hydroid unleashes the Kraken and what they settled on was tentacles that flail about. 

THIS... IS... DE's... CHANCE... to make Hydroid amazing.

A fully animated Kraken sitting half way out of the water and destroying everything within a radius is what is needed here. This could be Hydroid's chance to become epic. For balancing purposes the duration would have to come down a lot because the power would have to be insane. It's a KRAKEN after all. The size of the Kraken could be determined by strength similar to Atlas Rumblers. I think giving it a duration of around 20 seconds once maxed out and power enough to kill anything within seconds of enemies up to level 50ish would be awesome. Feel free to add/remove thoughts about how to balance this.

The other abilities are fine. Put the rest of the work time allotted for Hydroid into this.

No more silly animated tentacles.

DE... UNLEASH... THE... KRAKEN!!!

inb4 this becomes an augment

[Vafthrudnir]

7 minutes ago, Rakiss said:

Considering that we have nidus and octavia who can infinitely sustain their own energy

And they also scale with enemies, which is something that bad frames do not usually.

[(PSN)Zero_Noctis]

13 hours ago, TheGrimCorsair said:

1. Barrage already has this. +Range increase both the size of the area Barrage can affect as well as the explosion range of the falling projectiles. If you channel the full full duration you can to cast 1, it also significantly increases how fast and how many projectiles fall.

 

2-3. You're not supposed to be spending a lot of time in Undertow and giving it more area of effect and more reason to spend time in it is not good design as it makes you completely invulnerable. Although, it could gain those things at the cost of the invulnerability it offers, although this would be a net loss for actually playing Hydroid.

 

4. No comment.

 

5. Would rather just keep the passive is with the following added: Max number of tentacles of 5, and a 100% chance to spawn a tentacle on a lethal ground finisher.

I feel the Barrage needs more umf if its going to justify an augnent in the build, it feels like Frost all over again with the armor strip added to his 4rth, it doesnt strip it comoletely unless it becomes a complete focus of the build, ( admitedlty this doesnt affect Hydroid as badlly as Frost, but the RnGesus still hurts more than it should at high levels).

2-3 my idea with this is to give Undertow both a bigger opresence and a better sybergy with Tentacle Swarm, so that if you use both simultabiuslly Undertow kills faster thx to T.S.. and if you cast T.S. on it own it still as it is now, but there is a reason to use both. I have never been a fan of bunker down puddle and yes it can move now and it works amazing, I am just saying Undertow shoudnt be dependent on you bunkering down and staying there, if we can leave undertow as an enerfy drain field you can dive in and out, it lets hydroid take advantage of it amd the weapons at his disposal simultaniously.

5. Summoning a Tentacle on a finisher even if they are improved has always seem very lack luster to me when I can summon upwards of 15 on a single button presss. My Idea I'll admit I thought about it on the fly to give Hydroid some team sinergy without Curative Undertow, and also aiding in survivalbility of the frame on long endless missions. 

Edited August 12, 2017 by (PS4)Zero_Noctis

[SorainRavenshaw]

Okay, so here is my feedback here:

This rework needs serious revision. The reduction in area of effect was unneeded, unwarranted and most importantly unmentioned. Said massive reduction in area of effect drastically decreased the usability of Hydroid's abilities and essentially relegated power range into a 'dump stat' since a maxed out stretch, even with overextended on top of it, isn't going to get similar areas. The change to barrage from dealing finisher damage harms it's usability, when it's damage was already not impressive. The tentacles aiming is a good change. Applying the same to Barrage would be better, and not doing so as part of the initial update is somewhat baffling.

The scaling of damage on Undertow is simply not noticeable in the majority of situations. Just as the damage of Tempest Barrage was low enough to be unimportant before and now that it is not finisher damage effectively non-existent.

One place this succeeds from a game play perspective is the interaction of Tempest Barrage and Undertow. The ability to pile enemies into a clump to hit with corrosive augmented barrage has some value. Another is the addition of armor, at 200 armor Hydroid definitely has more staying power and that can cover a multitude of sins.

As it stands now, both power range and power strength do... well basically very little for Hydroid because his base damage and range numbers on key abilities are so small. That's effectively 2 of four stats that we can't do any builds with. This leaves us with duration and efficiency... neither of these is really an exciting thing to build around. On top of that, the only ability to truly need and/or take advantage of those is Undertow... Not everyone was thrilled with how that ability worked or indeed works currently.

It's my opinion that Charge speed desperately needs to be effected by Natural Talent for quality of life reasons.

It's clear that the abilities involved (especially with the truly nice new GFX) are not going to be changed fundamentally. It's something of a pity, but I'm not going to argue that. What frustrates me with this revisit is that the role of CC warframes is usually in team play, and it's usually to set enemies up for killing, or to prevent deaths. Right now that second one is somewhat filled, but Hydroid is by far the worst option in the game for the former.

To use a single example: If the tentacles held enemies in place to crush them, in a manner similar to Harrow's chains, (just with trashing about animations I imagine) that would really improve the usability of the swarm in team play. As it stands, Tempest Barrage seems to be the only viable option since it can (with an augment) strip armor and it's CC effect doesn't make attacking the effected targets difficult. Yes, you can group enemies with Surge and Undertow... but that's generaly done as a prelude to dealing damage and without letting enemies out of Undertow no one can do that.

Even making enemies stand rooted in place in Undertow instead of sinking into it would accomplish this. (Though I much prefer the impressive 'sink into nothingness' for cool factor, the drawback is rather extreme.

Edited August 12, 2017 by SorainRavenshaw

[Drachenblaut]

Hey :D! So... As pretty much everyone in the Warframe comunity I was super excited for hydroid's rework. Long story short, I feel like he didn't live up to our expectations :c soo I would like to put some ideas out there you know?

I believe that hydroid's main problem is located in between his puddle and his tentacles, none of which are fun abilities, and end up being a source of frustration to both hydroid players and teammates. I was thinking about making this two meme abilities one, I know it sounds crazy but listen up. Hydroid's fourth ability turns HIM INTO THE KRAKEN!! Interested?? Let's move on... So he turns into the Kraken but he doesn't spawn tentacles, instead he creates the same puddle around him drowning enemies. Said enemies take Slash damage equal to a percentage of their max health, when one dies it heals hydroid. On top of this, he can move ofcourse, but a bit faster, and can click on enemies to drag them into the puddle with a tentacle.

Ok, so there is the fourth ability, but what about his scrapped puddle? I was thinking of an ability that created a rainstorm in a big area around hydroid, slowing enemies a bit, and messing around with their aiming, due to the reduced visibility. On top of this, it would be cool if said rain restored a small amount of energy, to both hydroid and his teammates, over time! What do you guys think?? (I'm sorry for the sloppy English, as it's not my mother tongue)

Edited August 13, 2017 by Drachenblaut

[(XBOX)N7ShadowedSoul]

9 hours ago, Vaygrim said:

Honestly the tentacles, in all forms, need to go. They make actually hitting a target being 'thrashed' by the tentacles extremely difficult, especially if we go with your theory that Hydroid was supposed to be a "Melee Caster". I really do NOT want this 'lure tentacle' power firing off every time I charge into melee and get some good hits. Public groups hate my using Tentacle Swarm as it just delays them killing any targets being thrashed, as well.

He needs a totally new passive, and a totally new 'form' of his #4.

Well I understand that the tentacles make hitting a target difficult if you are using targeted primaries/secondary's yes, but if you are using aoe weapons you can still hit them also. But the main point I want to make here is that you can easily hit them with melee while on the tentacle. I do it all the time with my Sancti Magistar(which is my preferred for Hydroid so that Crushing Ruin will proc the passive on every combo). If I'm completely surrounded or in trouble ill cast Tentacle Swarm & while they are flailing around on the tentacles, I just walk up to them & melee them to death. Try it yourself mate it works.

[Enetious]

So the Hydroid rework was rather disappointing to a good chunk of the community, the rework centered on synergizing Hydroid's abilities around Undertow. I don't really play Hydroid, so I wouldn't be any expert in what could possibly be a great ability for the frame or where exactly it needs to be improved, though an ability crossed my mind at some point while watching Warframe YouTubers reviewing the new rework.

The idea is somewhat similar to DE's intentions of Undertow (or at least, the drowning aspect), though executed in a different way. The ability would within a cone in front of Hydroid, where enemies are lifted and surrounded by globes of water, much like the Zenurik Void Pulse's ability to lift enemies, drowning them a bit like Undertow while also semi-CCing enemies and allowing yourself and teammates to fire upon said enemies.

I thought this idea (or something like it) may possibly be pretty neat, though then again, I don't really play Hydroid, so I'm not entirely certain, so I'm just throwing an idea out there if only to potentially inspire other possible abilities people could come up with that could make Hydroid a better frame to use.

[(XBOX)N7ShadowedSoul]

6 hours ago, (PS4)wts13bb1 said:

What do you think about the nerfs to his range on his 3 and 4? They changed his 3 from 18 meters base to 4 and his ult from 20 meters base 5. I think they should maybe change this back and only allow Hydroid to move with tidal surge while in undertow and allow him to still charge his ult for more tentacles but for significantly less bonus range. 

To be honest I know everybody is up in arms about those changes but really they aren't that bad. The undertow is now able to have synergy with all of his abilities & the fact that you can now grab enemies from range & pull them in kinda compensates for the reduction in range. Plus power range should still scale it anyways & also increase the grab range. To be honest again Tentacle Swarm is better now because it gives more options. Just casting it gives you a smaller grouping while charging it gives you the bigger aoe. Plus now you can also have a different size grouping if you cast it in Undertow. So before yes we had a big aoe with Tentacle Swarm, but now we have the ability to choose from 3 different range sizes for it.  So more options = better in my book.

[Rammone-X]

Feedback:

Passive Review

I think the passive needs to be reconsidered. I don't really see any viable utility to the spawned tentacle after a ground slam. In addition, it's not very consistent. Sometimes it spawns and sometimes not. Synchronizing the mechanics of his passive with his other skills, or basing it on something akin to water might work better. i.e. 

New Idea on Passive (perhaps): "Bloated" - Any enemies hit by any of Hydroid's skills have the x% chance to take in water and become bloated. Bloated enemies have obscured vision, reduced movement speed, or they are stun-locked because they almost drowned and are now unconscious, [INSERT negative effect for enemies here], etc...

And maybe each of his 4 skills have their own specific threshold for "bloatedness" i.e. if hit with Tempest Barrage and the enemy becomes bloated, the enemy's bloatedness would be only 20%, but if hit with undertow, and dragged underwater, when they re-emerge (if they don't die) then the enemy's bloatedness would be 75% ~ 100%. So there are 2 metrics - (1) The percentage chance of becoming bloated and (2) How much bloated the enemy becomes when they have the effect based on the skill used.

 

Skills Review

General Comments: I think the range of Tempest Barrage and Tentacle Swarm need to be reset back to what they were originally. Undertow's range needs to be increased considerably to make it more viable. The issue here is he doesn't do enough damage to warrant the reduction in range. So effectively, most people will build him for CC, and It makes more sense to have a squishy-CC frame, but not one with incredibly little range. 

Additionally, what we got with this update was just "more of the same" imo. However, I think with some more tweaks, he could become viable as a very effective CC-frame. Here are my suggestions. (Note - they work with the passive listed above)

 

Tempest Barrage

• Set it's range to what it was originally (or at the very least increase it considerably). You can have it use more energy as a way to balance it with the increased range. People (I think) will be ok with this because of Arcanes and Zenurik etc.
• I think some improved AI targeting is needed here, or the frequency of the rain drops need to be increased. The drops are not as frequent, and so as a result (I feel) the utility is slightly diminished. Here are some suggestions - 
  • You could actually make it so that power strength increases the frequency of rain drops. This will add another dynamic to how he could be modded. I modded my Hydroid for Range and Duration - specifically to use with the corrosive augment. Having the ability to increase the frequency of his rain drops, and thereby increasing the chance of the corrosive proc (as a result of the augment) would be great.
  • Or you could have the rain drops target a certain number of enemies. This could also improve the utility of this skill
• I would also have Tempest Barrage work with my bloated passive. Maybe when Tempest Barrage successfully makes an enemy bloated, inflicts a 20% bloated status i.e. the enemy ingested 20% of their body weight in water or something.

 

Tidal Surge

I think this skill is fine the way it is. I would just have it inflict a bloated status i.e. it inflicts 35% bloatedness etc.

 

Undertow

I would also tweak this to improve it a little. I think the changes to this skill are actually very good. However, it's range needs to be increased. The puddle is just not viable. During Infested Excavation, I expect the puddle to cover a sizable surface area around the excavator when I cast the skill as I stand right next to the excavator. Right now it's not the case and even with 2 Hydroids, it isn't easy to completely CC-control an excavator from raging infested. So for this I would do the following:

• Have the range of this skill increased. Increased range will cause you to use more energy when you move with it activated.
• Have it inflict 100% Bloatedness if the effect actually triggers and the enemy re-emerges from being underwater. i.e. the enemy almost drowned, and maybe they become stun-locked because they are unconscious

 

Tentacle Swarm

I think this skill needs to be reconsidered a lot. The flopping and flapping quite frankly isn't working. Here are my thoughts.

 

• Tentacles emerge from water (obviously) so how about this: Tentacles have a chance to grab and take enemies under water. When enemies are under water, they have a chance to become bloated (as in the passive) and their bloatedness capacity will increase over time (they won't become bloated while under water) - to be inline with the mechanics of the skill itself. When they eventually emerge (if they don't die from the skill), and if they got the chance to become bloated, their bloated status starts, and the actual measure of bloatedness which was calculated while they were under water will be applied to them.
  • So this is what I mean. Assume Swarm's base bloatedness capacity is 65%. Then I cast swarm. It grabs an enemy and takes him under water. After about 5 secs, say the enemy by chance gets bloated. At this point, that enemy's bloatedness is 65%, and that value begins to increase at a specific rate over time. Say I kept him underwater for a minute and his bloatedness capacity grew from 65% to 78%. Then the skill's duration elapses and he re-emerges. His bloatedness status now starts with a 78% bloated capacity

 

Hopefully this makes sense. Thoughts suggstions? Likes? Dislikes?

Edited August 12, 2017 by Rammone-X
Typos and grammatical corrections

[Drasiel]

I mean at that point it just becomes a watery Bastille that deals damage. At least his puddle synergy is unique from other warframes (except maybe tidal surge which is just kinda a wet rhino's charge)

[Shidonia]

Hello,

Things I would like to see,

Merge his 2nd and 3rd ability and make completely a new ability, (it is literally on zephyr's 1st and 2nd ability level, or you could say excal's dash jump) 

Rather than some shield bonus we would like to see energy pool increase, also on upcoming hydroid prime as well, cuz combos are nice, yet comes up with a risk and hydroid was never on the line with his energy pool before... 

Blending his playstyle around undertow will scare away weapon users, I recommend a watery figure of hydroid rises and we be able to use guns as well cause it is awkward to be a pool only while other tenno jump around >~>

Hydroid has lots of potential he uses water so either add undertow melee water slicing combos in avatar style or let us use weapons as well during that state such as water bullets or stuff

Edited August 12, 2017 by Shidonia

[Drasiel]

The rain idea would encroach on his first ability which is a knockdown cc from the raining barrage. So at that point you either have two abilities that really similar or you combine them into one much more powerful (maybe too powerful) ability and now need to make another. I'm also surprised that you had no comments on tidal surge as it's basically a wet rhinos charge when you remove the synergy with the puddle.

[jundah1]

this is how i think hydroid should be
his 1 act the same as ember 1, so basically a knockdown with little dmg power ( bigger AOE than ember tho) and if you charge it it work like spirit bomb from DB series 
and his 2 is instead of being a wave, i want him to ride the kraken and its a toggle ability , so decrease the speed a little ( so it work like volt speed but its a toggle)
and he can use all of his ability while in his 2
and his 3 work the same as it is, except the barrage since its not in his kit anymore and casting his 2 make him a wave
and his 4 is still the same ( tentacle ) but instead of flailing enemy, i find if its grab enemy and drag their half body underground would be more usefull to end game
and if you cast his 4 while in his 2 , the tentacle will move a long with you since the kraken is also moving
and his passive is something like , you can remove status effect everytime you cast an ability ( since he cover himself with water, so....its like taking a shower XD)
and for added bonus ( optional) to make his 3 even better, you heal while in undertow, and the augment instead of healing you and ally, since you already can heal you self,its make you able to heal ally instead, and give hydroid more armor for a duration  
but all and all  , thanks for the Qol for hydroid