[Update 21.4.0] Hydroid Revisited Feedback

[Tikhon]

Overall I do think the rework has already improved Hydroid, but I did want to give feedback, because I feel he's not reaching his true potential.

Couple Bugs and Suggestions for Hydroid

Bugs:

• While in Undertow you are unable to "Show Player List", default 'Z'. You must come out of Undertow, hit 'Z', and cast again.
• When hitting Undertow there is a brief window before you go into your puddle where you are not invulnerable. If you are killed at this time you will then turn into a puddle after you are downed and must hit the spell again before teammates can res. Either the gap should be closed or the cast canceled to avoid this situation. No one likes a downed puddle. **Further testing does show sentinel was able to res while downed in Undertow, so it might be a targeting issue for other players to res puddle** 

Suggestions:

• Passive: kind of lackluster and could either be replaced or made more consistent. I would make it a guaranteed proc on hit to reward skill and avoid people slamming randomly to proc tentacles around.
• Tempest Barrage: This is in a good spot with the Augment but alone is kind of lackluster. I would add a damage scaling based on health to existing damage or make the Augment baseline.
• Tidal Surge: I'm not a big fan but it suits it's purpose. Would like to see the Augment changed, or new Augment added, similar to how Ivara has an Augment to ignore lasers I would like to see an augment to ignore lasers and locked doors while in Undertow. This would shake up the spy missions from mostly stealth classes and give a new way to play Hydroid. Everyone loves a sneaky pirate.
• Undertow: I love the ability but hate the numbers. I would do one of these options:
  • increase the range, movement speed, and remove the damage so it is just a setup for other abilities
  • increase the damage to scale with the total hp of enemies within the pool to encourage grabbing more enemies
  • have damage received, including friendly fire, distributed evenly among the enemies in the pool
• Tentacle Swarm: The number one complaint is hitting the targets that get grabbed. I would use our new Kraken friend to help, have friendly fire to the Kraken get distributed to all targets caught within the tentacles. In group play this allows for Tentacle Swarm to allow much better synergy with other players instead of being an annoyance.

 

Edited August 12, 2017 by Tikhon
Additional note

[(PSN)crashtester17]

So I've been reading a lot of other players comments on this and it seems that a majority don't like this rework, and I see why. People were posting lots of cool ideas for hydroid and what we got wasn't what we hoped for. There were more than a couple of people who suggested keeping his abilities but adding specific synergies and buffs to them that would still fit his theme and intended play style. Being able to cast abilities from undertow was a suggested synergy and so was using tidal surge to move the puddle. The only problem with keeping undertow the same hide away ability is that it encourages players to go afk and it hides enemies from teammates rather than helping the team kill enemies. 

These are the ideas that I had for hydroid's rework to give his abilities synergy while keeping them the same. 

 

 

 

Undertow (Third ability): Hydroid no longer turns into a puddle but he summons one instead for a duration. Hydroid and teammates can shoot the puddle to damage all enemies inside. Hydroid will have health regeneration when he is in range of his puddle based on the damage the enemies inside are taking.

Tempest Barrage (First ability): Water barrage has a longer base duration and slightly better targeting. Enemies within ability radius are knocked down. Targeting undertow (third ability) will grant Hydroid and any other allies standing on it a boost to evasion and slide distance by making everyone slippery for a brief duration. This will also damage enemies in the undertow.

Tidal surge (Second ability): Tidal wave increases in width as well as distance with power range mods. Enemies hit by tidal wave will be carried away and dropped wherever the tidal wave ends. Using tidal wave to move across undertow will take away a couple of seconds from it's remaining duration. In exchange it will into a tsunami. Tidal wave doubles in size, range and damage but some enemies in undertow will leave with hydroid. 

Tentacle swarm (Fourth ability): Tentacle swarm will constrict enemies doing damage per tic, melee striking the tentacle will make it slap the enemy around for a couple of seconds before constricting them again. Power range increases the length of the tentacles as well as spread. Casting tentacle swarm on undertow will make all the tentacles come out from undertow. Until the undertow is full tentacles will violently grab enemies and pull them in to drown. Tentacles will do more damage based on remaining health of enemies inside puddle. When undertow is full, tentacles will beat or constrict enemies until space in the undertow has opened up. The tentacles initial grab will do damage. In addition to the kraken head it could eat enemies that come close to it or at least stay visible until the duration has 5 seconds left. Hitting the kraken head could send all the tentacles into a frenzy as opposed to hitting one of them and sending just one into a frenzy. 

Passive: Loot radar and chance to spawn tentacle on melee kill. 

 

I hope that they change it again before it comes to console. I would love to not be stuck in a puddle the whole time I play hydroid. 

[Ceadeus]

I don't agree with removing puddle, I think it's the most unique thing Hydroid has about him even if it is slower than the rest of the gameplay, but let's be honest, that's basically Hydroid's whole kit right now, slow, naught damage, with great raw CC but not much compatibility for actual killing capacity. That being said, I think the ability that should actually be "removed" is his tidal surge. Now I don't want the actual concept of the tidal surge removed from him, rather I want it to take the Limbo route and become a replacement for his dash/roll etc. Being as it does effectively nothing but ragdoll enemies and surround you once they stand up, I don't see any reason it should even cost energy to use, especially considering how Limbo is able to freely become UTTERLY IMMORTAL WHILE REGAINING ENERGY AND HEALTH (with augment) just for tapping Shift.  Once that's done, a replacement should be found for that ability.  What I propose is a simple target-cast that spawns X amount of smaller tentacles that wrap up the enemy, similar to Harrow's chains and leave them vulnerable: real CC that can be used by the team without having to try and hit a wildly flailing target.  Then, I think DE should take a look at finding a way to speed up the effectiveness of his abilities.  The increasing damage of undertow is a good start, but there should be something to make all of his abilities worth using at any point, not just to take an enemy out of play for a couple seconds.  For this I suggest removing Hydroid's current barrage augment and instead making the corrosive procs an inherent part of all of his abilities, then make it so that if an enemy has no armor/shields/etc the damage from his abilities is amplified, similar to Ember's accelerant, maybe even to the point that if the health of an enemy is within a certain range of the damage that would be done, a tentacle will simply crush them instantly and feed the kraken head, increasing it's damage/duration/etc or cause another tentacle to spawn for a larger rampage.  To top it all off, the usage of barrage might be changed so that rather than a timed ability it becomes a count ability where you only get X amount of shots per cast but the shots are only fired when there's actually a target to hit, maximizing his ability to weaken enemies and be more of the CC/helper frame that he's trying to be even though he's just getting in the way right now.

 

I'd love to hear feedback and for people to expand on this, so please quote me if you do :)

[(PSN)Zero_Noctis]

2 hours ago, (PS4)MARXIANapparel said:

1. Depth charge: radial random floating mine field. Enemy  maybe knocked down or instantly killed.

2. Crest: A guided wave form that deals slash dmg to enemies dragged along the bottom of the sea.

3. Decompression: visual like Banshee's sonar but place enemy in the same effect we endure when we run out of life support on survival  missions.

4. Gia's spears: radial geyser spout eruptions thats deal equal impact, puncture and slash dmg. 

I like where your mind is, however more than a Hydroid rework, this feels to me like a cool idea for a Waterwing based Archwing,

[redsphere]

I believe Hydroid deserves a better rework.

He is one of the least used frames and with this opportunity to take a look at him and up his value, this rework shouldn't be just visual effects of his abilities and nerfs to range hidden behind charging mechanics.

With PoE coming up and Hydroid being the Prime Access Pack that will be available to new players at the time of PoE release, i think more effort should be placed on interpreting Hydroids theme and working on his kit, so that new players that join the game and by Prime Hydroid have a better overall experience and more fun.

In my opinion his kit is very weak. Its a collection of very weak abilities that don't scale the damage in any way and their CC is largely annoying since the movement of controlled targets make it impossible to damage them with weapons.

So i want to propose a splatoon interpretation of his theme: the pirate who brings power of the ocean to the fight.

Lets assume for now that all of Hydroids abilities will kind of look the same

The only difference is the way they influence environment.

Tempest barrage now makes the area it bombards "wet"

Lets call that a "wet zone" for now. Definitely needs a better name.

The second one, Tidal Surge is still mainly movement, but it also leave behind a trial of water, adding to the "wet zone" that Hydroid controls

Undertow now controls the "wet zone". First its a toggle. When active Hydroid can back flip to submerge himself, can move quickly around the "wet zone" area while submerged (disapear in one place and appear in another trick), cast more abilities to expand the wet zone and modify the Tentacle Swarm. Additionally all other warframes can submerge themselves and use the "puddle" to move.

Finally the Tentacle Swarm. Without the Undertow active TS spawns the Kraken that emerges in the "wet zone" and follows Hydroid. Tentacles are focused on attacking enemies and smashing them into the ground. Kraken operates only on the "wet zone" and tries to follow Hydroid. 

If Undertow is active Kraken will pull enemies into the water and deal dot for as long as TS is active.

Last thing is to scale damage, give Hyroid some assets that will affect high level enemies, create some sort of support like health or energy regen or armor buff or removing status.

And its done. A warframe that does what no other can do, with a strong theme and fun to play

 

I understand that all attention will go to polish PoE but i believe Hyroids rework is well woth the effort for the upcoming Prime release. This one will be more important then others because of new players, streamers etc.

 

[Maelstromcrown]

i have two interesting ideas dont know if anybody already suggested these if yes sorry im rewriting them First for tentacle swarm changing its dmg type and scaling like a combo multiplier obviously not exactly at the rate and dmg of a melee weapon and secondly about his undertow working with tentacle swarm as in the tentacles that spawn on undertow moving along with it and with tidal surge making the ability more enjoyable and useful in combat situations also an added bonus leaving the tentacles at the point where you cancelled the undertow.Just some ideas thank you for your time

[redeyedtreefrog]

I still don't know why DE did not address the fact that each and every one of hydroid's CC abilities actually make the enemy harder to kill, because one of them knocks the enemy down and around making them harder to shoot, one flings them forward at huge velocity, one literally makes them untargetable by anything except that ability, and one thrashes them around wildly and erratically making them nigh-impossible to hit with anything. And the worst part here is, none of them deal enough damage / have enough (read: any) scaling in order to make it feasible for any of his abilities to justify making them harder to hit with abilities other than the one they're suffering from.

There's not even a good balance point to this, because tons of other frames, vauban, banshee, rhino, nova, frost, equinox, atlas, and a good many other warframes all have abilities which slow down or stop the enemy, allowing them to be hit more easily AS WELL as temporarily preventing them from firing back. Hydroid? He shelters the enemies.

[Spoogz]

I have an idea for his puddle, how about Hydroid command his puddle into a vortex of death, press 3 to become a puddle, and when you hold down 3 his puddle turns into a whirlpool, dealing much stronger damage than his puddle would at the cost of energy drain, also in his whirlpool state, Enemies 5-10 meters or closer to the puddle will be sucked into his whirlpool, because how frustrating is it to see enemies just not want to enter the puddle?

 I think his puddle should be a tad quicker, and when in a whirlpool state he won't be able to move for the price of being able to deal high damage.  Also since he is basically the pirate frame or at least that is the title i see him as more often than the water frame he should have some of his abilities increase loot and resource drops by a lot, I think his Pilfering swarm needs a buff in terms of either drop rates or what he drops, he is  a fun frame, not every warframe needs to be end game viable, I think you should just make him the looter frame, turn him into a must have if you want to farm for rare mods, or have it so if Hydroid is on a relic mission, he can increase Relic drop chances, or have it so that if Hydroid is on a team they have a 0.003% chance to obtain a vaulted relic during a mission?  I don't think there is any shame in being the farm frame or luck frame, he should own up to that title.

 

Also I like the kraken head, but i wish it was a little more animated,pulling enemies to chomp on would be very entertaining.

 

Overall I think Hydroid is in my opinion a very fun frame, I like the idea of him being best friends with a desecrate Nekros farming rare items and less so as a serious Sortie choice.  I think the buff is a good start, but I am not hoping for it to be the final product when Prime rolls around.  

[(XBOX)DANGER JONEZ 21]

I'm not on PC but based on what I have seen, this "rework" will not make me play Hydroid again. His puddle is not interesting gameplay. Its just sitting there and not doing much damage. The tentacles make it hard to kill the enemies since they are flailing around. Barrage still is RNG dependent and not really a reliable CC. His wave is such a weird ability and I don't really see any worth while application of most of these abilities. Sure, CC and more CC but not in a way that allows you to go on the offensive. 

Hydroid slows down gameplay which is not fun nor what Warframe is really about. Honestly, if there was ever a frame that really needed 4 new abilities...it was Hydroid. I know the chances of that happening is slim to none at this point but I will not be buying prime access for him.

With this "rework", you could have just skipped priming him and gone with the next in line and people would have been happier. 

I know the folks at DE are more creative than what happened with Hydroid. We have seen the new frames and how well they function. That is missing from Hydroid and always has

[phdbr]

I have been thinking on some ideas for Hydroid for a while and after looking through some posts including

this is what I have compiled:

https://ibb.co/mVg2zv

I know this might be too big of a change to occur anytime soon but I would love to see some of these mechanics implemented someday.

[PsiWarp]

I really hope they do something cool with the Kraken, such as making it a legit summon that sticks around when cast on its own and let it follow Hydroid's Undertow when cast inside, turning him into a water monster. By popular demand and/or stroke of inspiration.

[Buddhakingpen]

21 hours ago, (Xbox One)N7ShadowedSoul said:

First off, I mentioned being a main twice; once at the beginning, once at the end. Its not about being self important, myself doesn't matter its about letting DE know they are people who actually choose to main Hydroid as a choice. DE already sees Hydroid as the 2nd least played Warframe with not a lot of tenno that actually like him. If they see people that do it might show them cause to do good by those players like they do the rest of the community. So not to be rude but the only self importance coming off is your ego.

Second point, Tempest Barrage is his best move. Yes, it can keep people knocked down in the radius, but it is Inconsistent. The fact that you claim to be a Hydroid main & not notice these inconsistencies on its pattern especially when dealing with different tile sets, when myself & the rest of the community notices it is pretty bad. If you read the paragraph, you will see I suggested no changes to the actual ability, just suggested a preset pattern for the bombs to drop in to provide more consistency. The extra damage scaling is an option, not something I said needs to be done. No core changes here.

Your third point on Tidal Surge. Tidal Surge is easy to control yes, but you cant do much with it. Allowing it greater freedom of control in how far to go does not change the ability at all. Just allows you to choose where to dash, much like Excal's Slash Dash. It would also give much greater & easier use for the Augment Tidal Impunity. Again there is no changes to the core ability, still works the same way just now is targetable.

On your issue with Undertow, you are the only person I've ever seen or heard of that hates that augment. Most people really appreciate it, so you're coming off a bit greedy. Sorry, I'm just sensing a lot of self preservation here, so I got annoyed. My apologies. I'll try to not be a jerk in the rest of the post. You claim again to be a Hydroid main & you call him a CC frame. That is true, but CC is a form of SUPPORT...Being a support includes having some sort of self/team sustain, which Hydroid has none of beside that Augment. To be honest using Primed Flow & Streamline I never have issues with energy & spending a few more points of energy to heal team mates or protect them is never an issue. Especially with how good Zenurik is you can regain that same amount of energy back in a couple seconds. If you are having energy issues, you're modding or playing him wrong. So like I said it just seems you're being greedy with a few points of energy & not wanting to help your team with this ability. This is further proven by the fact that you hate Curative Undertow, the 1st player I've ever seen talk bad about it. Honestly, I think half of the fun in building him is finding that sweet spot, where you can SUPPORT your team in multiple capacities. But once again here in this ability I have suggested no core changes to the ability, just tweaks. There is no new mechanic here, no new ability. Still functions the same way it always has.

On tentacle Swarm, you really don't read the context of the paragraph do you? Just the words? I only mentioned the Exalted style because treating the modding for it like an Exalted ability. Allowing it to scale with melee mods allows it greater efficiency in dealing with multiple types of threats at higher levels & greater synergy with the augment. So since I did not suggest any core changes to how the ability works, just modding scaling how is this a bad idea? Also explain how this results in people being able to spam a Ultimate like the other Exallted abilities? You can only have one swarm active at a time & with the huge energy cost, you would really have to mod for efficiency to be able to even attempt to spam this. Base efficiency is 100 energy, Streamline is like 70. So you would have to use Transient Fortitude near max rank to get this to the point of spamable.  Let me repeat yet again I suggested no core ability changes, no new mechanics it still works the same as always just allows for different modding.

"The hydroid rework that we got is really good. You're trying to basically rework their rework. New mechanics, an entirely new move. Whats done is done man. For now, you want to keep your suggestions based around what DE has already done, not give them enough work to warrant a whole new rework. "

So since on none of the abilities I suggested no core changes & they function the same, there is no new mechanics, no new move. So what in the heck where you actually reading? These are suggestions based on what they changed, no new reworks.

"Things like how smooth hydroid transitions from his 2 to his 3, the range or duration on his moves, his energy pool. Suggestions like that are things they'll listen to, not telling them that they essentially did the whole thing wrong"

Never, once in the entire letter did I say DE "did the whole thing wrong". Never did I criticize any of the work they did in fact I complimented most of it. All of my suggestions were basically add ons to the core abilities which I suggested no core changes for. So once again what in the world were you reading?

Furthermore who are you to decide what they will listen to? Nothing I suggested has been a bad option. Multiple people have already from this topic & the actual feedback topic have liked quite a bit of what I said or have reposted it or messaged me saying good things about my ideas/options. Meaning more of the community agrees, with this than just you. So yet again you are made out to seem like the "self important" greedy player. Next time read the context & meaning of the words, not just the words themselves. For now, you want to keep your suggestions based around peoples opinions friendlier in nature, not give them enough to warrant them thinking you coming off as your opinions are better than others. 

 

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/

Never said its tempest barrages pattern wasnt inconsistent. I said its ability to knock enemies down wasnt. And my comment on you power strength suggestion is because your proposal would directly effect the amount of cc it could put out. It would make power strength a necessity to keep your salvo count up. Unless of course, 2 salvos a second would still knock down the entire radius. It would look silly, but i guess as long as it still cc'ed i'd be fine. 

So you want tidal surge to be an auto targetting dash? If thats the case,I can understand that. From the way i read it, it looked like you were saying it should almost be a teleport skill where you just click anywhere in sight and he dashes there. I reread it after i typed that sentence, and it still looks like you're saying that you want a teleport lol. But slash dash mechanics are fine. Theres a precedent for that. 

You threw out a lot of misinformation in that undertow rant. I never said i dont heal my team. I never said i had energy management issues. In a lot of games (including this one) supports arent inherently healers, and healers arent inherently supports. They dont need to be mutually exclusive concepts. I dislike curative undertow (especially now that the range was nerfed) because red pizzas heal almost as fast, in a larger radius, dont drain energy, dont take up a mod slot, and dont require me to sit in a puddle, but still heal me even if i do.  Plus i'm an endurance run player. So not being one shot eventually is a luxury. Its just not a mod for me. Its crazy how fast you drew all those "oh you must be selfish" assumptions just because i dont like a mod that you do lol.  I just appreciate the CHOICE. Now, if it healed for free at no extra charge and was built in, fine. But to me, as long as pizzas exist as they do, I'd prefer not to HAVE to spend my energy for using a move that i'd want for an entirely different utility. 

I do see that i misread the part about you tentacle swarm suggestion. So i'm sorry for that one... Thing is, i'm still not down with the change. 1) because it would need some kind of hp cap if you get a super powerful cc'ing melee minion, which means that the longer you played, the less useful it becomes. and 2) CC/utility frames do not get to have high scaling raw damage abilities. Its just a part of game balance.  (Vauban, Nyx, Loki, Frost etc). Also, base energy for tentacle swarm isnt 100. Its 50 since the rework. Max efficiency you can spam it for 12 energy per cast. I know thats irrelevant since you arent talking about an actual exalted form, but i just thought i'd let you know. 

As for your last part, I lost the attitude after the first paragraph in what i typed dude. I wasnt "deciding" what they'd listen to. I've been playing warframe since early 2013 have watched literally every devstream, stalked the forums, read almost every patch note, and i notice how they react and what they change. It was more of a heads up than telling you what to do. Speak your mind. Say what you want. I was just telling you what they are most likely to actually listen to. 

[leadwolf1]

I have been on this review since hour 1 , reading agreeing with some and disagreeing with other also having ideas of my own add with some other players. Now the thing I do not get is why do players consider 1 cannon fire. OK listen well if you want that pirate then ok DE make a single shot flintlock pistol that takes 5 seconds to reload with all mods added. and the cannon ball fire when it hits it bounces sometimes and sometimes sticks in the darn ground doing no aoe for a cannon ball does no aoe make these type of weapons the only he is able to use  ,.  STOP CHANGING THE FRAME PEOPLE  He is a water type that looks like a pirate not a pirate  if YOU WANT A PIRATE MAKE A NEW FRAME  here I will give you his first ability  gives enemies rum until they pass out and plunders all the booty his team can take.    second stabs them in the back while they sleep,    third swiftly sets sail meaning moves really fast as if funder full sail with really good head wind.     and finally calls in cannon fire from pirate ships to destroy the objective and enemies.

Passive pirate smells so bad from being at sea all who come near stagger as so he can do a finisher with his sword.

This may be in part a joke but come on already . he is a water type that looks like a pirate  not a pirate. DE can correct me if I am wrong. Since they are monitoring this.

[UncaIroh]

Hokay, I've always felt that if we're going with the "pirate" theme, he should be a pretty strong close quarters fighter, and he should fight dirty. He's not going to be a straight up powerhouse like chrome or valk. That means CC and strong support for his melee.

1. Not sure how I feel about barrage, but I preferred it as a fixed power rather than have a charge mechanic. It's basically calling a broadside to soften enemies, should be quick to cast and a known quantity. REMOVE CHARGING MECHANIC.

Alternative is to turn it into a hook like Valk's 1, or a water whip that hits in a cone/circle around Hydroid with knockdown or spawns tentacles.

2. Surge is in the right place, a bit expensive for what it does though. Maybe add some armor/health/damage mitigation for a few seconds after casting? You're using this to bring him into close quarters he should have some way to survive the encounter without resorting to undertow. Oh, and if surge hits a wall, all enemies caught could take additional damage?

3. Undertow - this thing is very useful but will eat waaay too much energy to be useful. Suggestion: Allow hydroid to hit enemies submerged with melee attacks. Hydroid will hit with something like an exalted weapon (weaker compared to mesa/excal/valk/mesa, who have this as ults) and modified by the melee weapon he carries. This is on top of the increasing DoT just from being submerged. 

4. Tentacle swarm aka the kraken - Still feels the same as before but at the same time weaker unless charged. 

Suggestion: if you allow melee attacks while undertowed, all enemies caught in tentacles are immediately thrown into the puddle and you can just keep spamming melee to kill anyone who comes in. If throwing animations are a hassle, just have them pulled into the tentacle's anchor point and they get teleported to the puddle.

I'm not sure if he should become the puddle pusher that he is. I always felt he should be a close quarters fighter and his powers should reflect that. Fast casts, lots of CC, and a good synergy with melee is what I think of when I see hydroid.

Last bits: Change his power's damage type. It's magnetic, right? Last, please revisit energy consumption. He eats a LOT of energy in the current setup.

[leadwolf1]

SilentDeathReaper27

ok i do not know how to post so i messaged you to talk about hydroid ideas i have.

1.passive.

on kill spawn tentacle max 10.

this stays with the theam and would not be the hardest thing to implement.

2. berrage.

when cast from undertow aimes all shots at you to help kill enemys you pull into undertow this also stays with the direction DE went with hydroid.

3.tidle surge.

increase size of wave with range mods thats all i got.

4.undertow.

enemys traped inside stay traped even after moving. 

after turning into thu puddle make it so u can jump out and still have the puddle on the ground for the deration.

while in undertow it should increase the damage for all abilitys this helps because the abilities loos range when casted from undertow.

after u jump out of undertow you get a armor buff this fits with the tanking idea i think DE was going for when they buffed hydroid defences and will make players feal not so forced to stay in the undertow.

5.tentacle swarm.

not mutch neads to be done all i can say is when a enemy dies to a tentacle give it a high chance to drop a energy orb.

6. down side's

high energy costs.

slow movement speed.

im still working on this idea if u wanted to post this and help me build this idea to give to DE i trying to make it as easy to change as posible while makeing hydroid a endgame frame that people want to play.

also could u tell me how to post i dont know if i am just blind or if it is the device i am on message me please.

 

ok this is another players ideas Silentdeath27, the player sent the message to me, I am happy to post it for them.

With that being said seems like this player has similar ideas as other. he does add a part where hydroid is able to jump out of the pool and get  a higher buff for tanking higher level enemies I do not think that is a bad idea. 

 

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[HavokDeathwalker]

Ideas for further tweaks to Hydroid.

1. Roll his Tidal Surge into his Undertow (as many have suggested) and use Shift to "roll" into Tidal Surge

2. Roll Tidal Surge into Undertow, move Undertow to his passive (Similar to Limbo). Crouch becomes toggle to enter/leave Undertow, can also jump to leave. Increase movement speed for Undertow to match current Crouch movement speed. Rolling (whether in Undertow or not) activates Tidal Surge. Energy costs are reduced or, preferably, removed entirely (it would make sense to keep them so as to balance his invulnerability). Potential bonus - Bullet Jump causes him to become watery and take reduced IPS.

3. Improve targeting for Tempest Barrage - Target enemies directly, while still keeping the current barrage aesthetic. More aggressively targets larger clusters of enemies to make use of the splash

4. Remove rag-doll from Tentacle Swarm (as many have requested) - Instead of rag-doll, Tentacle Swarm now snares enemies already within casting zone, constricting them and rendering them immobile (enemies may still be able to shoot, similarly to Mag's Fracturing Crush). Aggressively attempts to acquire new targets, checking for new enemies to enter the radius for the duration of the ability and snaring them immediately.

Overall, I'm a fan of his rework. I love the synergy with his Undertow (which I never used before). I just feel like the ability is somewhat misplaced as a 3rd ability when it's such a critical ability to his kit. The Rift Plane is THE lynchpin of Limbo's kit so, it was only fitting to move it from an unlocked ability to his passive, why not do the same for Hydroid and Undertow. It's clear how important DE wants it to be for him.

The rest of this is simply to help alleviate his RNG nature, which I've heard many say is ENTIRELY too much of his kit, even after the revisit. I feel like these are some decent ideas that don't even necessarily require number tweaks. Increasing the movement speed of Undertow will naturally increase the energy drain (if it were to be kept). Improved targeting on Tempest Barrage will result in better DPS returns.

This was a STEP in the right direction. Just needs to keep rolling.

[Molly_x]

The Hydroid rework, while successful at improving the warframe, was rather lacklustre in terms of making Hydroid as much of a powerhouse as other choices.

Personally I would love to see more Hydroid, among other frames, in high level missions and sorties; But unfortunately I can't see the changes made bringing him up to that level for the average player.

I have read many players feedback of the changes, watched several videos and had several discussions on the subject with my alliance. While not everyone can agree due to varying opinions on what Hydroids main focus should be, I have came to my personal conclusion on what I would like to see done with Hydroid in the future and some reasons why.

Deep Tendril: Personally I do not find this to be a reliable or effective passive, and while it fits Hydroids theme it has little to no impact in practice. I would like to see this replaced, Idealy with something more fitting to his role as a crowd controller or looter. Possibly a passive increase to resource drop chance or amount, or some alternative to rolling like we saw with the limbo update involving water to push enemies away.

Tempest Barrage: Before the update this was one of my favourite abilities in the game, It honestly made me feel like a powerful wizard summoning a storm to thwart my enemies from attacking the cryopod I was protecting. Now I feel like it is very similar but just slower to cast if I want to get the same effect, I think the charging to make more powerful effect has missed the mark on this ability and the missing charge up sound I have been experiencing doesn't help with the issue.

Tidal Surge: Honestly I find this to be a rather unpleasant ability to use, the effect range and duration have on it make to awkward to find a sweet spot where it doesn't seem to either take you too far or not far enough, and the fact it seems to travel so fast can be rather disorientating compared to Hydroids usual level of sluggishness that I've grow quite attached too. I'd quite like to see a more consistent and improved version of this, that rather than continuing into walls instead deflects off them as an alternative to his roll as part of his passive, leaving a space open for a new ability.

Undertow: Previously one of the most underwhelming abilities of this frame now a favourite of mine, the only thing I would change in this abilities current state is an increase in movement speed and the augment, while curative undertow was interesting I would much rather see something more fitting to the sea monster theme; Possibly the ability to use alt fire in undertow to attack enemies in such a way that removes armour or makes enemies run in fear, or maybe even fling out the already drowning enemies to apply similar effects.

Tentacle Swarm: Not the best crowd control ability in the game but certainly a memorable one, tentacle swarm has potential to be an amazing ability but it is largely held back by the fine details of it functionality. All this ability needs is to knock enemies down rather than picking them up and so many issues that many people have will be fixed, however I would personally also make some changes to the way the augment works in that any enemy that dies within the tentacle swarms range should have the augment affect them.

Other changes: I would also like to see an overall increase to Hydroids power strength, its hard to be specific on this but I feel like with testing and a little time you may find a sweet spot that allows him to both be effective at high levels of play while remaining on a level playing field for the lower level loadouts.

Overall, I really enjoyed the changes and think they were a step in the right direction but I would really like to see this continue and see Hydroid become the amazing warframe that many of us want him to be before its too late and he sinks back into the abyss.

Finally, thank you DE for showing the tentacle monster a little love and keep up the great work.

[MartianGHunter]

Just gonna put my two cents on Hydroid revisit.

1st can Tempest Barrage not be an RNG hit an miss but a AOE knockdown with the visuals of the water shoots coming down only being a visual thing but knockdown effect being constant within the range of the ability.

I like tidal surge it's fun and the synergies with the puddle is fun.

2nd Undertow can Hydroid and Enemies not be completely submerged. My idea is to have enemies partly submerged and have the ability be a hard CC in the AOE and have Hydroid also partly submerged and allow him to use his secondary and melee weapon that way his not completely useless whilst using the ability. 

3rd Tentacle Swarm can the kraken in the middle please for the love of all things fun do something 😁 that's more a fun change but the tentacles from the ability can they please not let all the enemies get thrown around rather stun lock them enemies when the tentacles grab them allowing allies and Hydroid to shoot them down.

These changes won't change any of the ability but rather remove RNG from his abilities and also allow allies to interact with enemies and prevent Hydroid from slowing down the game.

Thank you have a good day.

[Clank8138]

Having personally used Hydroid since his rework, his changes are a step in the right direction so far, but some of his core problems haven't been addressed as well as they could, as well as introducing a few new problems.  Such problems being as follows:

• Hydroid's 1st and 4th abilities' effectiveness being pivoted on a 2 second charge-up to be effective.  While these are indeed affected by Natural Talent/Speed Drift, standing out in the open to aim these abilities ranges from clunky to suicidal, depending on the mission setting and enemy level.
• Hydroid's abilities encouraging/needing more ability comboing than before.  While this wasn't a problem previously, (having his 4 being the only ability worth using most of the time,) his skill set is now surprisingly expensive to use to it's full effect (100 energy + 1-2 secs for a Tentacle Swarm, 50 energy times however many casts of Tidal Surge to drag enemies into tentacles, 25-50 energy for a Tempest Barrage, perhaps... It adds up quickly.)
• Generally being less effective at his roles than other frames.  This could be considered a problem that's plagued this frame since his arrival, but it's worth pointing out as his rework hasn't changed this much.  While his 4 has true enemy targeting now, as well as his 1, his CC is still VERY inconsistent.  His damage is normally overlooked as it shares this inconsistency as well as not being substantial to begin with.  And his healing/direct support via his augments is hard to use and generally not worth the effort.

With these things being said, there are a few ways his abilities could be tweaked to alleviate these to a certain extent

 

Tempest Barrage

This ability has a lot of potential as a first.  Laying down a suppressing barrage of water at a group of enemies, leaving them on the ground for an extended period of time could be outstanding, especially as something that costs 25 energy.  Or it could simply be a cheap CC that can be spammed in a pinch.

1. Remove the charge up and increase the area which enemies can be targeted, allowing it to be spammed for touch-up CC.
2. Increase it's base duration to 10 seconds (double what it is currently.)  Part of this ability's downfall is it's very short duration, so increasing it is the simplest and possibly most effective solution.

 

Tidal Surge

Post rework, this ability is actually quite useful.  It propels Hydroid a very reasonable distance while latching every enemy it touches into it's wake, leaving you with a huge pile of enemies on their faces ripe for ground finishers, or simply away from where you don't want them.  Think of it as a Rhino Charge that sucks stuff towards you as opposed to blasting them away.

1. Reduce it's energy cost to 25 base and swap it's place with Tempest Barrage.  It follows suit with Slash Dash and Rhino Charge, so there isn't really a reason for it to cost twice as much as them and have a different ability slot.

 

Undertow

Hydroid's rework had a bittersweet effect on this ability.  It has a lot more interaction with his abilities now while also losing most of it's original purpose as a huge enemy deterrent, due to it's greatly reduced size and therefore it's energy hungry replacement of an enemy grab.  It reduced radius also makes it's augment extremely difficult to use and counter-intuitive.   With allies constantly moving, it's augment is made nearly impossible to use without yelling at your teammates to stand still. (restoring 30% of an ally's max health, while standing in the pool, every 1.5 seconds, for a flat 5 energy per healing instance applied.)

1. Remove the energy cost of the enemy grab and increase the augment's range.  Seeing as the augment has a built in downside, (the energy drain is unaffected by efficiency) the range nerf to his 3 doesn't help it's position.  The energy cost for grabbing enemies is also hurting the ability's purpose as a way of holding enemies, as terrain can keep enemies from being sucked into the trap and ends up wasting energy.

 

Tentacle Swarm

Tentacle Swarm is another bittersweet ability post rework.  While it's tracking makes it much more capable of sweeping up enemies after it's been cast, it still can't kill them quickly at high levels.  This leaves us with an ability that keeps a handful of enemies pinned, virtually incapable of taking more damage than what Tentacle Swarm does.

1. Make the tentacles deal scaling finisher damage, based on enemy max health.  Hydroid's other three abilities already revolve around controlling enemy movement and placement, so having his pet kraken fulfill a slightly different role would balance his kit out quite nicely.  Making it deal scaling damage would also help keep the ability competitive in high level content and define Hydroid as something more than another CC frame.
2. Prevent the tentacles from grabbing enemies entirely and simply stun or knock them down.  One of the biggest reasons Tentacle Swarm isn't competitive with other CC abilities is because it makes enemies almost impossible to hit for it's duration.  Part of a CC ability's functions is to make enemies easier to target and kill, not the opposite, so changing that would make the ability much less invasive to other players.
3. Increase the base uncharged range, and have the range of each individual tentacle scale accordingly.  The initial range on a normal cast of this ability is abysmal compared to it's pre-rework state, and it's still generally not worth waiting 2 seconds to restore it to that range with a charged cast.  Increasing the range also spreads the same number of tentacles over a larger area, breaking the area the ability covers as a whole into isolated areas nearest each tentacle.  Having closer to 75% of the ability's pre-rework range on a normal cast would provide a reason to use the ability uncharged.  Increasing the length of each tentacle with range would allow them to reach enemies, even if each tentacle was spread out over a large area.

 

General Changes

1. Increase his base energy pool.  Hydroid suffers from one of Mag's problems, being a VERY low energy pool for a caster.
2. Make his abilities more consistent.  Increasing the hitbox size for his 4 and blast radius for his 1 would help shut any (or many) holes in his CC.
3. Trim his cast animations and delays.  His 1 and 4 have odd delays between their charge-up and activation, as well as simply having long animations for his 4.  Cutting the time these take down by a bit would help him a significant amount.
4. Increase his base health or armor.  His kit involves getting reasonably close to your enemies to deal with them, whether that be with Tidal Surge or Undertow.  That combined with Hydroid being viewed as a heavy caster,in line with Frost and by some, Rhino, he could use a bit more health (something in the 125-150 range at base.)

 

I hope these ideas help in developing Hydroid into the fearsome space pirate he's always deserved to be!

Edited August 13, 2017 by Clank8138
Forgot a general change propsal. Will probably add more as time goes on.

[Rfus]

Outside of the buffs to his armour, the rest of the "rework" is primarily cosmetic and quality of life changes. Nothing about his kit has been fundamentally changed or improved, he can just cast abilities while in Undertow now.

With his new Kraken visual and the ability to cast while in puddle form in mind, I'd like to propose a few complimentary changes to make this combination of abilities far more fun and effective.

First, instead of sucking enemies into your Undertow, have them instead be partially submerged at waist level and struggle fruitlessly to escape. On its own this isn't a huge improvement, however, it it maintains its current functionality without removing your team's ability to interact with them. The real proposal lies in combining it with your Tentacle Swarm.

Casting Hydroid's Tentacle Swarm while outside of Undertow should act as it did previously; summon a bunch of tentacles for a duration in the target area. When cast while in puddle form, however, the Kraken is instead summoned at your position and moves with you in Undertow, effectively transforming you into the Kraken itself. While the Kraken is active, tentacles sprouting from your Undertow will pull surrounding enemies into your puddle and submerge them entirely as it currently does. While they are submerged by the Kraken, it will devour them beneath the Undertow, dealing massive damage as long as they're submerged. For the duration of Tentacle Swarm, enemies would be trapped beneath your Undertow, even while moving away from their initial entry position.

In addition to this proposed change, it also offers the possibility of new complimentary functionality to his other abilities as well. Tempest Barrage could instead leave small Undertow puddles beneath each barrage for a short duration. When combined with his active Tentacle Swarm Kraken, all enemies afflicted would be spontaneously submerged and subjected to the Kraken's damage. Tentacles could also be summoned at these smaller stationary Undertows at random to pull in nearby enemies for the duration.

Tidal Surge could function as it does now, with the addition of carrying your Kraken along with the active Undertow. Additionally, Tidal surge could also leave behind additional strips of Undertow puddle for the same short duration as the aforementioned Tempest Barrage puddles.

Leaving your Undertow during an active Tentacle Swarm would submerge the player-controlled Kraken but the improved Undertow effect would persist for the duration of the Tentacle Swarm. Re-entering Undertow during an active Tentacle Swarm would simply cause the Kraken and its immediate tentacles to reemerge.

This would open up Hydroid players to a variety of build options and playstyles. One build might put full emphasis on the Kraken's damage by maximizing its duration and strength while another might focus on spreading Tempest Barrage and Tidal Surge puddles over as much area as possible via duration and range in order to maximize CC coverage.

These proposed changes not only fit Hydroid thematically as a terrifying monstrosity from the depths, but it would also further compliment the existing changes made thus far. The current Kraken visual addition is thoroughly underutilized as it only appears for a few brief seconds before disappearing; the proposed changes would put much greater emphasis on it.

[peterc3]

Why not let him just apply every status to enemies, makes as much sense as viral.

[(PSN)FutureCrusader]

As a PS4 Tenno, i can only go with what ive seen, but i think the revisit has done pretty good so far. We just need to get a few more finishing touches in order to get Hydroid where he needs to be.

1.Give both TB and TentaSwarm  finisher damage based off of percentages, not flat numbers, and possibly a guaranteed impact proc in the ability cast radius. Also increase the explosion size of each individual cannonball in TB so that it covers more area and has a much easier time hitting the target(s) 

2. Give Tidal Surge the Rhino Charge/Slash Dash treatment and have it based on the combo counter. Also buff the base damage and have it either percentage based scaling or scale with melee damage mods. Decreasing ability cost while submerged would also be nice

3. Either return Undertow to original size or increase it's scaling with range mods. Having it move closer to the speed of Cloud Walker would help with people not wanting to have stationary gameplay. Keeping enemies inside while surging would be very nice. Change UTs damage to percentage based finisher damage that still ramps up per second, both removing the troll factor and giving Tenno a reason to funnel enemies toward the Puddle of Doom.

4.Reduce cost of TentaSwarm while in undertow and have the tentacles able to hit enemies inside undertow, if mechanically possible. Also only have the tentacles toss enemies once they're dead. Possibly add a constricting animation, for both setting a target to shoot at, but also to fit thematically.

5. New passive: Piracy (name pending). Hydroid has a built in 15 meter loot radar, as well getting double ammo, energy, health, etc from pickups. If possible, can also sense when an enemy drops a rare mod.

[o.0-]

The changes to Hydroid are nice and welcome.

I just hoped to see to further changes, in particular:

1. One that Barrage would not get blocked by terrain, ever, and
2. That Tentacles, would hold enemies in place and not continue to slam them about.

Otherwise, yeah buddy! Go Hydroid!

[Somb3rBivalve]

Hydroid has many different ways to gather enemies up in his undertow, but what he lacks is a solid way to kill them all once they are grouped up. I think tentacle swarm was meant to be able to do this, but the damage is not enough because he has no scaling damage. We can't make all of the damage as scaling damage because then it will suck against low level enemies (like how oberon rework was when it first came out), so we have to do a bit of both. Currently, tentacle swarm's damage is in the form of a finisher damage DoT on captured enemies. I would like it if we could keep the DoT while also adding 2.5% (scales with power strength) of the enemy's health as impact damage every time the tentacle slams against the ground.

As others have already stated, if we have to keep the current passive, I would at least like for it to be a guaranteed proc. 

Overall, I think that the rework is fun. Undertow is not completely useless anymore, and hydroid has a lot more options at being a good CC frame with insane zone control. What he lacks is damage, and I would like it if tentacle swarm could get a good damage treatment.

[leadwolf1]

 right from the wiki abilities some one please tell me where it says cannon fire, Cleary a barrage of water missiles // Cannon balls do not explode.Hydroid marks a targeted location for orbital bombardment over unrestricted range, calling forth an artillery barrage-like salvo of water missiles from above to strike the marked area 3 / 5 / 8 / 10 meters in radius for 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 seconds. Water missiles launch from above in a salvo of 4 per second, with each missile exploding on impact dealing 50 / 75 / 100 / 150 damage and Knockdown to enemies within a 5 meters explosion radius. Again he is a water frame in the form of a pirate not a pirate. read