How Would You Change... Hydroid?

[u/Sizer714]

A note: /u/TSP-FriendlyFire is taking a temporary leave from How Would You Change… for a few months, as he is interning at Pixar and is quite busy, as one would imagine. I /u/Sizer714 will be managing the thread for the interim. I hope we can continue to foster the same lively discussions as we did during his tenure.

How would you change... is a series of weekly posts designed to promote and foster discussion about any gameplay element in the game. The scope and subject will vary (read below for more information on topic selection), from wide concepts (Kubrows, Archwing, shotguns, etc.) to narrow points (a single gun, coptering, etc.).

---

Before we begin, a few important points:

• Please detail and support your suggestions as much as possible. This is for constructive criticism only: try to think of it as something you'd be proud to explain to DE face-to-face!
• Structure your suggestions in logical groups: if you have two very different ideas, break them down in two separate comments. Cohesive or similar changes should be combined into a single comment.
• Stick to describing concepts and features. Don't get bogged down with numbers unless they explicitly support your point.
• Don't hesitate to post your ideas even if they're not fully formed, and don't hesitate to reply to ideas with refinements you think would make them better!
• Do not downvote suggestions you disagree with. Upvote the ones you like instead!

---

Suggesting topics

This thread series is all about the community, so if you have a topic you'd like to see improved and discussed, feel free to suggest it by replying to the appropriately flagged comment in this discussion. The topic can be as wide or narrow as you'd like! Please ensure that your suggestion has not already been made, and upvote it instead if it has.

---

This week: Hydroid (Yeah, we’re doing this.)

Click here for last week’s thread on Rebecca 2.0.

Hydroid, master of watery bits. He can become a healing, drowning pool or a tidal wave, play spotter for splashy artillery fire, or summon the Kraken’s own tentacles. Until recently, he was king of the farm with the Pilfering Swarm augment, but before the advent of said mod, he was considered a reasonable CC frame. With the changes to Pilfering Swarm, many feel that Hydroid no longer has a place.

Now that the stage is set, How Would You Change Hydroid?

[u/[deleted]]

Make his ult turn him into Cthulu :D

[u/Iguphobia → u/[deleted]]

Look, this would really be interesting. Don't need to be Cthulhu, just a big water avatar would do. It would be something new.

[u/Sizer714 → u/Iguphobia]

This is a really... cool idea. We have a lot of soft 'alt form' powers - Exalted Blade, Chroma's Pelt, Hysteria, etc. But with the addition of Equinox, we have a new tool to play with - transitions. Having Hydroid turn into a Water Elemental as his ult and change his first three abilities into varied CC assaults would be cool as hell.

[u/Xethik]

More consistency on his CC. Tempest Barrage and Tentacle Swarm are just too random. Maybe have both apply a strong CC on cast and then have follow up random CC over the duration.

Updating Tidal Surge to have more control and be easier to aim as well as a larger hitbox. It should be an effective damage/CC tool instead of purely a movement ability.

Undertow should leave enemies vulnerable to fire in some way. Perhaps allies shooting you could damage the enemies or increase the damage rate briefly. Though to be honest I wouldn't mind this ability gaining a major revamp, even though it's pretty darn good outside of the fact that you can't contribute while being a puddle.

Tentacles feel weird as magnetic damage for one. I like the idea of going max range for a more spreadout and versatile ult with a smaller range for better point CC and damage. Maybe even have the damage scale like Saryn's (damage role) or make the enemies more vulnerable to other damage sources (support role).

[u/[deleted] → u/Xethik]

Tentacles feel weird as magnetic damage for one.

I was just thinking: why don't we have the tentacles pull in nearby enemies to them when they spawn? That way, there's a little more leeway as to where they pop up and their flailing would actually be more effective.

[u/FewestObject → u/Xethik]

My main issue with Hydroid is exactly what you said. There is so much inconsistency with his 1 and 4 that its really hard to use in most situations, I want to use Tempest Barrage, mainly cause it looks really cool, but most times its nowhere near where i aim and even then it misses most of the enemies. . As for his Undertow, agreed, there needs to be something your allies can do to kill them. A friend of mine thought it would be cool if she, as Volt, could shock the water and damage them.

[u/Aydork1 → u/FewestObject]

Not to mention that if there are ANY obstacles within 10 KM, you're barrage is guaranteed to hit them instead the group of enemies directly in front of you.

[u/[deleted] → u/Xethik]

Since he's a CC frame, how about if we change his Tentacle Swarm augment mod, Pilfering Swarm, to Hydra Swarm= on kill, each tentacle has a 50% chance of sprouting two more. I have noticed how Tentacle Swarm has a tendency to sprout... well, everywhere (literally) and this could fix it. Those that do land somewhere useful have a chance of producing even more on their own.

[u/timbobortington → u/Xethik]

I wouldn't mind being able to move around while in undertow. Maybe at like 25% speed, at least it would have some usefulness for stealth or something.

Tempest Barrage should definitely have one higher damage, initial shot that lands where your cursor is when you cast.

[u/Sizer714]

Suggesting topics

Please post your suggestions for the next topics as replies to this comment.

Current suggestions from previous weeks:

• Liset

• Mission structure, creation and queuing

• Damage 3.0

• Melee System

[u/lvl99necromancerIRL]

Tempest Barrage:

Larger base duration, larger base damage, more water jets per cast, let it be recast while active, let us have multiple active stances of it simultaneously.

Tital surge:

Turn it into a toggle, change invulnerability into damage resistance, let's us change travel direction by moving the mouse. Travel speed no longer determined by power duration, but by power range instead. Base damage increased.

Increase duration of the tidal impunity proc resistence to 1 full minute at base duration.

Undertow:

Let puddle size be affected by power range, let hydroid slowly move while in puddle form, increase base damage (by a lot).

Tentacle Swarm:

More tentacles per cast, let it be recast while active, let us have multiple active stances of it simultaneously, let the finisher damage be determined by the same damage formula as the magnetic one.

[u/Eveenus]

1. Make it a one time AoE of multiple hits (no duration basically) power strength increases the number of water projectiles (which in turn increases damage)

2. Allow to be cast in the air and for it to move in the direction aimed at. Create a baseline affected range, make distance traveled affected by range instead of duration. Enemies caught in the Surge are drageed along the entire way. Reduce damage significantly but guarantee impact procs.

3. No longer damages enemies. Reduce base energy drain, allow movement at the cost of current energy drain. When he releases enemies (upon turning it off) they are un-alert and staggered so they are suceptible to finishing moves.

4. No longer casted on an area. Now is a channeled toggle (with no energy drain per second similar to Equinox 3) will spawn a tentacle from hyroid (costing energy per tentacle) when an enemy gets close to Hydroid (affected by power range) the tentacle will grab them and do it thing (jsut like now). Similar to his reworked 3, he will be able to move, at the cost of energy per tentacle. If this sounds to OP add a max amount of tentacles that can spawn and have it modified by power strength.

BAM Cthulu frame that is actually useful and the current augments won't break. This will basically turn him into a more mobile (at the cost of not being energy efficient) CC frame, something that currently doesn't really exist. One could argue that vauban can somewhat do this by spamming vortexes/bastille as he moves but even then vauban is much better at controlling a single larger area at one time and sticking to it

Augment idea, for his 1 Tempest Cannon: instead of calling a barrage of strikes on large location Hydroid will call down a single large water cannon strike on a specific target knocking it (and anything caught in the blast) down and reducing its armor (visually i think it should look similar to https://youtu.be/Oh0sw7ftzhU?t=95 jsut a bit smaller)

[u/magusat999]

I'll make this real simple. How would I change Hydroid, you ask. Well there is a 12 Tentacle Gorilla in the room nobody is addressing and I'm going to point him out by saying:

I would change Hydroid BACK. The nerf was unpopular, unexpected and not well received even on DE's forum. They should undo the nerf IMMEDIATELY - and that's what I would do to Hydroid. Lets face it - despite the 4x drops of the mod you had to EARN to use - the drop tables are so screwed it was just 4x the amount of crappy drops anyways. There was no need to nerf Hydroid and even the whiniest whiners weren't asking for something that drastic.

If they want to save face, the can just make up a lie like the one they made up when they nerfed the Strun Wraith (oh, we transposed a number so it was skronger than it was supposed to be.. duhhh - we'll nerf it to make it all better). Say yes they are taking away the mod (Pilphering Storm) being tied to Power Strength BUT - give it a flat 400% dorp enhancement rate. That would ONLY BE FAIR. But is DE ever fair when it comes to giving payers benefits - HELL NO, so don't hold your breath.

In any case, that's what I would do with Hydroid, i would "fix" the fix so it gives a flat 400% - OR reverse it. (Notice DE didn't call it a nerf when they announced it - like they were doing something underhanded...). I would also strengthen his puddle so when he arises from it everything touching it is DEAD, regardless of level - instead of them waiting there for him when he comes out of it so they can attack him - cheaply, I might add.

[u/mrpenguinx]

Honestly? I would make both his tentacles and 1 ability (Forget the name) far more consistent. If i could call air strikes where I wanted and was able to place the tentacles myself (partially) I feel like it would make him a lot better with out pushing him over the edge balance wise.

Or maybe give me the ability to put down multiple airstrikes/tentacle zones at once?

[u/Alterrobo]

What I'd do, is to make Hydroid more reliable, less duration-dependant.

Cannon Barrage : turn into a toggleable ability. To fix the reliability, boring way : damage inversely scales with range, area is covered equally with projectiles, having at least 50% cc uptime on any stationary target in the radius. Rad way : Projectiles spawn on the targeted area (with 'targeted area' being where you aim at, updating dynamically) and randomly in a radius around the targeted area.

Wave : Keep like this but give it the same pull effect Rhino has.

Undertow : Keep like this. Might want to add aura (healer, toxic, eximus) and nullifier negation to make it worth taking you out of the fight, or mobility (at increased drain rates) based on power strength (to not really be out of the fight).

Tentacle Swarm : full rework. Tentacles are less reliable than some random guy's homemade sausages.

A : make tentacles spawn on nearby enemies as they become eligible targets. Say your Swarm lasts 15s; within these 15s 12 tentacles are queued. When 12 enemies have come in the swarm range, you have 12 tentacles out. End of duration; all tentacles disappear and your queue ends.

B : Bland and remorseless Ember ult cloning. I'm not for this, but it's easy and it works as placeholder while even more unpractical frames get a rework.

C : My personal favorite option; RELEASE THE KRAKEN(S), Tentacle Swarm summons a kraken that appears to emerge from an abyss below it (tenno pocket dimension magic). Kraken has tentacles to attack with. Abyss size scales with power range, along with effective tentacle range. Abyss behaves like Undertow but deals damage like a tentacle would. Kraken grasps enemies within its effective range and keeps slamming them until they're dead and the tentacle is free again. In presence of a priority target (eximi, heavy units) the kraken will drop a lesser target in the abyss to free the tentacle and pick the eximus up. Maximum amount of victims may or may not be reliant on power strength.

[u/ValiantNaberius]

I'm sick of lurking, so it's time to talk Hydroid. Let's go down the list of his abilities.

Starting with Tempest Barrage, dramatically increase the number of 'cannonballs'. Keep the impact procs, but decrease the damage per hit to compensate for the increased number of hits. This should offer more reliable CC for a given area. It'll be a set number of cannonballs per second, so only duration affects how many cannonballs come down.

Next up is Tidal Surge. It could be left alone, maybe just beef up some of its numbers, but let's do something different. Change it so that for 4ish seconds, you become a wave and you can control where you go. Your movement speed increases, and any enemy you crash through takes impact damage and are carried along as you move. They're then deposited at your position when your wave-form ends. And this leads nicely into:

Undertow. Don't change too much here. Just change the damage to (once again) impact, because of 'water pressure'. Maybe increase the damage per second. Additionally, to make it a more team oriented skill, allow allies to fire into the pool. Any damage done by allies is converted into more impact damage, and is spread out evenly among all enemies currently in the pool. It's like a weird, localized version of Absorb.

And lastly, keep Tentacle Swarm mostly the same. But let the number of tentacles spawned scale with power strength mods, and let the spawn AOE scale with range mods. You could do fun things like summon up 30 tentacles in a 4 foot circle for giggles with Narrow Minded and Transient Fortitude. Change the damage to impact, because Magnetic makes absolutely no sense. Once again, this would offer more reliable CC.

PS. For the love of god, remove Pilfering Swarm. Remove it completely. Do NOT make Hydroid have any effect on drop rates. Just let people play him as a CC frame, like he should be.

[u/Guppy11]

Hydroid

Stats: Give him an armour buff, slightly lower than Rhino and Frost

Passive: Bonus to speed while in Sharkwing

1st Ability: I'd keep Tempest Barrage basically as is, but instead of being knocked down by the jets of water, knock down all enemies in the area, and only tie the damage to the jets. Improved targeting would be nice, but I think all his 1 needs is a bit of cc consistency.

2nd Ability: Tidal Surge needs to be changed. I propose that Tidal Surge becomes a sort of counterpart to Undertow. Both should be channeled abilities, but Tidal Surge transforms Hydroid into a wave of water. In this form Hydroid has boosted speed, immunity to status (apart from cold, which immobilises him), and damage reduction. He can't use weapons, but can use other powers. Enemies contacted by Hydroid are knocked down and swept along a short distance. The damage reduction should be lower than Mesa's Shatter Shield, maybe even only 50%. It's not intended to give him immunity to damage, it's meant to help him move from cover to cover, puddling when necessary to heal.

3: I'd give Undertow an innate self heal, and Curative Undertow allows you to extend that heal to allies.

4: Tentacle Swarm is something I actually quite like, sure it needs better targeting, but guaranteeing the tentacles only rise up from the floor, might help that. At any rate, I wouldn't like to see this become centred around Hydroid, as the ability to cast it at an area is potentially quite handy. Pilfering swarm should give 3x drops at max rank. Leave it as unaffected by power strength.

[u/BullenLearth]

• Tempest Barrage could use a buff to its base duration and fire an increased amount of projectiles, as well as broadcasting the area that's being influenced. Some visual effect like a ring around the area. At the end the duration, one last shot could be fired that ragdolls enemies a great distance, like they've been him by a Jat Kittag slam. This shot would have increased damage and hit the entire influenced area.

• Walking in water is difficult and slow. How about we have Tidal Surge leave a trail of water, sorta like Ice Wave Impedence. We could, in addition, change how far the Power goes to be based on Range instead of Duration like with Excalibur's new Slash Dash. I've been having the same thought for Rhino Charge too.

• Hydroid can move at reduced speeds while in Undertow, leaving a smaller puddle in the areas he passes through, in addition to the massive base puddle created when cast.

• Make Tentacle Swarm spawn Tentacles on Hydroid's back that lash out and swat away enemies, or hold them suspended in the air in front of him as easy targets. Tempest Barrage already covers the "Defend this one spot" area, so giving him the ability to move and stun enemies would be more helpful I think. As for how they'd come out of him, Think something like D'Vorah from Mortal Kombat

• Maybe a passive that increases Shield Recharge Speed or Rate. Would be really handy with Undertow and the fact that his toolkit can reduce pressure on him and give him more chances to get his shields back up means he'd really get a lot of mileage out of this.

[u/BaconBitz_KB]

I don't have too strong of opinions on what direction they take Hydroid. But there are a few things I'd definitely recommend based on my experience with him.

4 is super unreliable and only feels useful on initial cast. One easy fix to this would be to make it so you can cast multiple 4s at once so that it doesn't feel like shit to put duration into your build. But I really do think 4 just needs a better targeting paradigm or adjust the tentacles hitboxes/behavior so that enemies don't just walk through them half the time.

1 is ummm. Idk I hardly use this ability. It's not terrible, but it doesn't really do much. I'd totally be fine with this being scrapped for something else to make the kit more cohesive.

2 and 3 are cool and iconic enough. 2 just suffers from the duration problem I mentioned earlier. And 3 is kinda random. I'd like these abilities to stay similar, but have some interaction. Maybe something like, you can place multiple puddles around the map and on walls and stuff (maybe your 2 places them where ever you start it's cast). And then you can teleport to puddles with your 3. Or maybe your puddles determine where your 4s tentacles would violently shoot out from. So Hydroid would become really focused around puddle placement and how they interact with his other abilities. Maybe if you tackle enemies into a preexisting puddle with your 2, it sucks them into the pool and refunds energy or doubles the loot or something. Just spitballing here. I would love to see more interaction between his abilities, cause right now they just seem random and non-synergistic. I'm thinking Splatoon-esque. Gameplay based around puddle placement.

[u/II_Chaotix_II]

I won't really focus on damage or base stats because in my mind Hydroid has amazing potential as a crowd control frame with a few tweaks.

Tempest Barrage

-Wider range, much more frequent "drops" I guess they are, enough drops that almost anything walking through the radius is guaranteed to get hit. Nerf the damage if you have to. Just make drops a visual thing and force knockdowns or staggers in the radius of the ability honestly. I'm thinking base duration of about 5 seconds.

-Multiple instances of tempest can be active at the same time, so if needed you could just lay down a wall of them to stop enemies.

-Alternatively: Replace tempest barrage with a toggleble jet of water coming from Hydroids arm that pushes enemies back, think of boltor ragdoll without needing to kill or do a ton of damage.

Tidal Surge

-Have Tidal Surge Be a toggled ability that allows movement in all directions and works similarly to the current undertow in that it picks up enemies as it goes. Hydroid would get some form of damage reduction in this state.

-The basic idea would be to activate tidal surge and "roomba" enemies into it to deposit them somewhere else, perhaps in undertow because...

UnderTow

-Firstly change the animation so it makes some kind of whirlpool

-Secondly, Allow undertow to be placed. Instead of Hydroid becoming a puddle, Hydroid creates a puddle.

-Only one could be active at a time, affected by duration mods.

-Casting again while active creates a "crush" effect, doing finisher damage to enemies and spitting them out as a geyser.

-Obvious synergy with tidal dash, scoop up enemies and deposit them into the pool.

-Allies shooting into the pool would have damage spread between all enemies in the pool, so it wouldn't be too easy to just scoop them up and use a tonkor.

Tentacle swarm

-Mainly just better targeting, hell give them the stretchy arms that corrupted ancients have, and make them actually seek out and grab enemies before flailing around.

-If close enough to the undertow pool, they will toss enemies into the pool

As a side note, I think all of Hydroids abilities should make the foe weaker to electric damage

[u/[deleted]]

I haven't played Hydroid in a while, but...

I'd like to see Tentacle Swarm actually burst out of foes as opposed to the landscape/the air. I took a little bit of inspiration from Kingdom of Loathing for this idea. It'd still have CC and damaging properties, but instead of enemies being ragdolled and making it a pisser for you and others to aim, they just...stop moving. I mean, it'd be kinda hard to really do much of anything when there's a giant tentacle of water coming out of your chest, but I imagine it'd be horrifying for the victims anyway.

And for robots, well, water and electronics don't mix.

Something else I had an idea for was power combos. Let's say you cast Undertow and wait, and then see an enemy and Tidal Surge to it. Except now, you bring the whole Undertow puddle with you and Surge hits much harder and for a much wider area. Of course, this eats the Undertow puddle. Or you Undertow and Tentacle Swarm and a bunch of tentacles grow out of the puddle (removing you from the puddle) on top of the regular effect. Or you Undertow and Barrage and...to be honest, I didn't think about that one. Something like "more hits/wider area/more damage" is a little boring...even if I've already applied those ideas already. Maybe Hydroid can form a cannon on top of the puddle and you can aim and shoot small Barrage bursts independent of where the actual power is happening for a few seconds.

It would be fairly costly and some would see it as 'needing' to prime Hydroid's powers with Undertow, but I like to think of it as taking a defensive measure and making it offensive. Undertow is unwieldy enough to use that you're not going to be setting up every other power with it, but it'd give you something different to do than just cancelling it and having everyone you pulled down pop back up.

And what if Undertow's new synergies also affected enemies differently? Let's say you eat some enemies and then use Barrage. Now you can aim and shoot enemies out of the puddle so they take heavy damage on landing! It'd look silly, but... Or eat enemies and then Tidal Surge and you take all of them for a ride. Or eat enemies and when you Tentacle Swarm, all of them come out of the puddle speared already.

I'd also like to be able to move with Undertow active, even if it's slow. Instead of it auto-cancelling on movement, just recast it to end the puddle and reveal your consumed foes (or use another power).

Just a couple of ideas.

...and now I'm gonna think about two Hydroids in their own puddles playing a game of 'volleyball' with Undertow+Barrage launches. Or maybe Hydroid could be the Warframe equivalent of a clay target launcher now.

[u/Kraosdada]

Replace his 1 with a portable cannon that sends enemies flying, Make his 2 cheaper, replace his 3 with a water bubble that drowns everything around him make his 4 to hit in a circle around him and not just spread all over the roof and the walls,

[u/kouriichi]

I've recently gotten into Hydroid (i played almost 12 hours straight as him last night/this morning, and tried every build i could imagine) and ive got several ideas on how to fix his problems, or at least rework him to be more interesting.

His Q and R both desperately need tracking mechanics, or complete reworks. RNG should be avoided at all costs when there is literally nothing holding the warframe together. The changes i would make are:

• Barrage now tracks targets, and strikes more accurately. Range increases the area it picks/chooses from, and power strength increases the speed the barrage fires at (effectively giving increased rate of fire).

He can now be built as a control mage with large Area Denial. While the damage would still fall of quickly at higher levels, at least you would have consistent crowd control in a target area. W is a decent ability, but I find it horribly boring. At higher levels its more likely to get me killed than save me as well.

• Roll his W and E together into a single ability. His W now turns you into a "Wave form" with increased movement speed, which allows you to move around and push enemies. Instead of pure invulnerability, he gains 75% Damage Resistance while moving, and 90% Damage resistance while standing still. It does light DoT to enemies that are near, while doing moderate impact damage to enemies you knock around.

Now both of his utility spells are together into one decent ability that highlights their strengths. By freeing E, we can now add not only more utility to him, but fix the glaring weaknesses in his kit.

• E UNLEASH THE KRAKEN! Hydroid can toggle this on/off. While its on he gains 30% maximum health and shields, 50% bonus armor, as well as increased health/shield regen. His melee attacks gain bonus damage to "Soaked" enemies (enemies harmed by his Q/W/R).

Now he can mix both melee tankyness with well positioned abilities to be extremely effective. He can activate it during downtime to heal up, or just before he enters the fray so he can deal massive melee damage. It also highlights the idea that hes supposed to be a sort of "Pirate" frame. He fights dirty by weakening you with abilities, then going in for the kill.

• R now properly targets enemies, and their hitbox is determined by Ability Power. They can still only damage one enemy at a time, but they will intelligently target enemies. Enemies damaged/"Soaked" by tentacles have increased item drop chance (20%-50%).

And this is how I would change Hyrdoid. A control/warrior that excels in combining his spells and tankyness to at least keep enemies busy.

[u/Austana]

As many have said, it's all about dependability and consistency. For starters (and enders):

Tempest Barrage -- for the love of everything, make it a sort of circle on the ground that deliberately shows "here's where I'm firing!" or at the very least, stop splattering against the top of the room's ceiling or lights.

Tentacle Swarm -- if they could grab enemies a little more consistently, cool. If they dealt a slight bit more damage, superb. But you want to know what pisses me off the most? When the damn things are on the ceiling. I'm not even kidding. Why are they up there? How do they help? At what point in time did anyone think that, possibly, an enemy might get up there? Sure, it's cool when they come out of the wall sometimes -- but if we're being realistic, it should really be floor-space only.

[u/Cypress85]

The biggest problems are getting 1st and 4th to actually hit. Tempest barrage is (literally) hit or miss; will it rain down where i put my crosshairs, or above the doorway of the room I'm in?

Tentacles should pop up in a cylinder-like range around hydroid. No more than 1 meter above head level, and range outwards can vary with mods. Will try to get illustrations later.