Best way to handle Hydra probably would've been to increase its range and charge rate, and leave the damage where it was.
Hell, a good first step for pretty much every weapon would be to actually list all of its stats instead of only showing three.
Shooter stat listings don't touch on mobility, ink cost, or accuracy in any capacity, and every other type is missing valuable information as well.
Yeah, I've always thought it weird they only give 3 stats, and those stats aren't even the same three across different weapons. I realize they wanted to make it simple and not confuse younger players, but the result is kind of useless metrics.
The Hydra's buff is a little weird in all honesty. I don't really understand why Nintendo thought it was necessary to buff our damage over our range or our speed. I had always thought that if Nintendo was going to buff the Hydra, they'd choose to give it more range or a slightly faster charge speed. Honestly... It is a bit annoying to think the Splat Charger fully out ranges the Hydra now and the E-Liter is even faster while we're....still slower than a snail. :p I can't lie and say that I'm not enjoying the buff. I'm a Hydra main. Of course I'm enjoying the buff. I can easily wipe out entire teams in Tower Control now thanks to the buff. But I would have honestly preferred a buff to our range and/or charge speed over our damage.
I think the problem is, if they made it longer range, it competes with squelchers and even the Pro now. If they make it charge faster it steamrolls the heavy - the two become almost identical in charge and damage, and the hydra just has more range and longer fire. Heavy users found the hydra useless before because it's so slow, but does the same damage (with less cancel/retry ability.) If it were longer range who would use a squelcher? So they had to carve a unique position for hydra - its not a long agile shooter, it's not a fast, easy to use charged splatling - but it is exactly what it presents itself as: A slow, heavy powerhouse heavy turret gun. Moderately long range, slow to use, but intense hitting power. At least from a "concept" standpoint this is exactly the right playstyle for hydra and the reason to choose it over it's speedier smaller sibling without stepping on shooter's toes. And the game was missing a proper heavy weapon (unless you count the old Tentatek :P )
The Hydra doesn't deserve to be nerfed a lot since our weakness still lies in our range and speed. Now that Splat Chargers fully outrange us, our range is even weaker because we have to get the jump on all long range chargers if we want to splat them before they splat us. The damage increase wasn't the best idea though in retrospect. I do kind of hope that Nintendo will roll back the damage buff in exchange for a buff to our range or damage. Can we at least match the Splat Charger again? :(
If there's a charger filled match the hydra still has weaknesses. But after the charger nerfs there's going to be a lot more teams without any chargers around (and a lot more where the charger is a squiffer.) So, like going in without cold blooded, it's not ALWAYS going to be a weakness.
Personally, I ALWAYS targeted hydras. They were always trouble :P But then, you have to be a hydra player to appreciate how dangerous a hydra is...at least pre-buff ;) Playing Fresh squff yesterday I realized how OP the hydra is now though. I could approach nowhere NEAR them without being taken out faster than I could do anything. I like the buff...but....I can't deny it might be broken. It's like a longer range squiffer with a slow charge and a dozen shots that don't have to be aimed :P
(as a slosh plus splash damage from a bomb precisely splats with no Damage investment if the opponent also has no Defense, I figured that was a nice benchmark to keep; besides, I tend to like pushing the damage of the regular Sloshers and SMs)
