Hydros, I think we should see other people
Listen, man. You know it's been rough for some time now. I feel like almost every engagement we have, pre-level 6, is an uphill battle. It's like trying to run through waist-high water - we don't get where we want to be because terrain is such an obstacle to us, and we take so much damage trying to do so.
I liked you because I wanted to be the tanking support to my high-damage ally - running to intercept and be a wall to protect their units from the enemy! Healing up my ally's hero when he's being focused down to deny our enemies the gratification! But the Scuttles seem like more of a liability than an aid at times. I loved how powerful it felt when you made us all, including our allies, invulnerable! We were king of the field for a few seconds! But by the time you're high enough level to be able to do that, I feel like we're so far behind that it doesn't matter.
And let's not even talk about the Titans to clear expansions - your Scuttlebros have a hard time squeezing into the spaces around the Titan in order to get into melee range. Some of them always end up running back and forth and leaving me feeling frustrated. Even when they DO get in there, I feel helpless trying to extract one that's targeted by the "get out of range or I'll break your face" move, since I usually have to move 3-4 other Scuttles out of the way in order to do that.
I used to think it was me, Hydros. I thought I just needed to get better and I'd be able to make it work. Oh a whim, I decided to try Celesta. Almost immediately, I felt so free! Denying enemy gems was so gratifying without having to put myself way out of position! The skill ceiling was higher and I felt overjoyed to stutter-step-shoot again! I don't feel I can do much of anything interesting with you after we engage, Hydros. You'll toss out a single heal and maybe we'll Brine Barrier something, but otherwise that's it. I can't focus fire due to positioning, heck, I can barely micro Scuttles out of the fight to try and survive because normally they're running into each other like maniacs. I felt like I could engage in many more situations with Celesta than I could with you.
It's just not fun anymore. We need a break, but I hope we can still be friends. If you ever end up changing for the better, don't worry, you don't have to call me.
I'll call you.
Comments
Feel free to see other squads on the side for now. We're approaching a rework of the squad right now.
Initially, we attempted to create a paradigm of "offensive" and "defensive/support" squads. The offensive ones would deal the damage, and the defensive ones would only be as good as the ally they were keeping alive. Over time, though, we've found that it's simply not fun to deal low damage all the time.
In our rework, we want to achieve two things
1. Ensure there are situations where Hydros can do some serious ass kicking high damage
2. Create "punchier tank moments." We definitely want to keep Hydros' identity as an uber tank, but it's simply not interesting to have a ton of HP w/ steady healing. There's not enough "sick moments." In our rework, we'll try to give the feeling of an "incredible, last second save"
A good inspiration example would be Reinhardt from Overwatch. He's super tanky, great at protecting the team, but also has some awesome damage potential. We'll probably be a bit more on the tanky side than Reinhardt tho.
That's great to hear that a rework is in order. I was originally going to write a normal feedback post, but when focusing on the guidance given (X happened, made me feel Y), it read more and more like a break-up note. I decided not to fight it and go full-in.
I think, perhaps conceptually, I would even be fine without having the opportunity to do high damage. I would simply love to enable others to be more amazing. To quote Tycho of Penny Arcade when he's talking about the medic from TF2, "This has all got to be a part of some recognized psychological profile. I place greater value on enabling victory than actually securing it."
It's why I loved playing hard supports in Dota 2. Now, that may not necessarily fit Hydros' role if he's supposed to be more tanking than healing, and hell, I don't even know if a similar paradigm of a hard support would work in this game. But outlasting my opponent, and providing a benefit to my ally through that survival, would be cool!
So it's March and it seems the rework worked. I didn't play the February build, but he seems pretty solid in PvB now - enough that I could manage on my own when the AI didn't respond to my ping spam.
He seemed strong enough early on, I was able to bully Vela and Celesta out of the middle ground at T1. Of course the bots don't micro well, but he has enough damage and slow to catch and kill some units out of position. Which seems good enough for a tank.
Woot!
Yeah I really enjoy playing Hydros. He feels pretty kickass now and didn't previously. My current biggest concern is the way that melee units path. Gotta tune dat up <3!
Just don't fix it tooo much
. Body blocking with the shellmen is really easy right now, and that's one reason he's so good!
Body blocking IS easy with the Scuttlebros, at the expense of them body-blocking each OTHER at times, haha. I was going to wait a bit to write up a more detailed "how I feel now" response, but in general the squad feels much "tankier" which is a great thing. Before, I just felt like slightly healthier units that didn't do much.
I think part of the reason I don't feel as worthless on titans is because, in addition to the survivability, the titans themselves no longer do the "get out of range or I'll break your face" move I cited above. This means I Just have to worry about taking out the bombs that are laid down.
Kind of putting my random Hydros-related thoughts into this thread with a bit of a necro, simply because I didn't feel like starting a new one.
I was thinking of how underutilized Aquas and Quads are right now, which is a shame since they used to be a core component of my Hydros gameplay (and, of many others). I'm going to step outside of my normal "just report on what happened and how I felt about it" box and make a suggestion. It's based on @Day9 's comment of:
I would love, if not for Hydros then one of his units (Quads replace Plated Shell?), to have a capability where it either healed or offered a damage shield whose potency was inversely proportional to the health percentage of the unit being targeted. Basically, the weaker the unit is, the stronger the ability. This way, you get very little benefit from casting it on someone before battle, but you're greatly rewarded for that "incredible, last second save" by twitch reaction when you see a unit going down quickly. Your allies would be ever so thankful if you cast it on them when they're at 20% health or so. Similarly, it would put more onus on the enemy to quickly kill off any low-health units very quickly.
I'd love to refine this idea but I feel in my heart of hearts that something like this would give Hydros those impactful (or "punchy" if you prefer) moments.