After more than a few years without much love from the community, Warframe’s Hydroid is getting a rework. The years had just left everyone’s favorite space pirate behind, so it was time for the devs at Digital Extremes to give him a reworked set of abilities.
All reworked Hydroid abilities in Warframe
- Passive – When Hydroid damages an enemy with anything, future Corrosive Status Effects can be applied, with the first instance of Corrosive status removing 50% of their Armor and scaling from that up until 100% Armor reduction at max stacks.
- Tempest Barrage – Target an area to call down a barrage of liquid fury. Changed damage type from Impact to Corrosive, and the ability now staggers instead of ragdolls. The Corroding Barrage Augment Mod has been renamed to Viral Tempest and will have a chance to apply a Viral Status Effect rather than Corrosive. Overall, this now builds heavily into armor and health stripping, which is fantastic.
- Tidal Surge – Crash through enemies in a wall of water. You can now street the ability instead of just traveling straight forward. Enemies are now dragged to where the ability ends, allowing for easy grouping. Damage type is changing from Impact to Corrosive and will apply Status Effects based on the time enemies spend in the surge. Upon casting, Hydroid will be cleansed of all negative Status Effects he is suffering.
- Plunder Armor (replacing Undertow completely) – When cast, enemies in view will have any active Corrosive Status Effects permanently remove their Armor, increasing Hydroid’s Armor and granting bonus Corrosive damage to weapons. This ability is stronger based on the number of Corrosive Status Effects applied to the enemies affected by Plunder Armor, and at full stacks, the affected enemies’ entire armor value is permanently stripped. The Curative Undertow Augment Mod is being renamed to Rousing Plunder and will cause Plunder Armor to heal Hydroid and his allies within Affinity Range.
- Tentacle Swarm – Tentacle Swarm will hold enemies in a steadier position, making eliminating enemies easier.
Overall, all these changes seem very welcome. Leading into Corrosive over Impact damage just makes the entire kit more current, and Plunder Armor adds some much-needed survivability as everyone seems to love trying to drag these Warframes into 10-hour-long Survivals. The devs have also opted not to encroach upon Hydroid’s place as a strong farming Frame by largely leaving Tentacle Swarm alone and leaving Pilfering Swarm as it is.
All in all, it looks like Hydroid will be in a pretty good place, and I am looking forward to experimenting with builds on October 18 when the rework releases with Dagath.
