Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone,

some guildies who recently came into the game are trying to complete their dungeon master title, and I’ve decided to join and help them.

This implies to get back to HotW P2 and 3 that feature underwater combat. Truth is, I haven’t been there for a while and I’ve forgotten how to be a good player when fighting underwater. I’ve looked at gw2dungeons.net but I feel there is something missing for these 2 paths

Anyone has advices on :

• What are the optimal dps rotations underwater ?
• What builds/trait allocations are efficient/inefficient while UW ?
• Which profession performs better in UW combat ?
• Any tip you can think of you want to share.

Thanks in advance.

And before someone asks, I do not focus on a specific profession so bring it on. The more knowledge is shared, the better.

Only really know 2 things about under water combat

Do not use Engi nades, they spread out way too far and only 1 hits usually. Bombs are good though.

Do not drop that weird movement thing on mesmer or your group will hate you. (in combat that is)

The one thing I do know is Warrior should be running Phalanx Strength to keep 25 might. Keeping might maxed is super hard underwater.

This is what I use underwater on engineer.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAEF9ZtkLubh8rRSLoRdHQ/iVU3P3gEEAA-TBSBABFqjQU1Ke4CCQpqKmpE8q9HlHkpEDgHEQAgDAnf+5nf+597v/+7v/OKAxC-e

Main source of dmg is from is from the hard hitting skills in your kits and harpoon gun 2/4 and using bomb autoattack as a filler between the cooldowns.

Pretty much spam Harpoon 2/4, Bomb kit 2 and BoB, Toolkit 3 and EG 4 off cooldown and return to bomb autoattack in between.

Elementalists have a pretty good rotation underwater that does decent damage as follows:

fire 2->arcane wave->arcane brilliance->water 2->water 2 detonate->water 3->water 3 detonate->water 5->air 2->air auto until arcane wave and arcane brilliance comes off cooldown and then repeat the rotation

There’s enough blasts in this rotation to keep 12 stacks of might while water 2 and water 5 both do decent damage (water 5 being similar to pre-nerf fgs rush)
air 2 provides some vuln and air has the hardest hitting auto if all 3 hits connect.

Rorschach.6159:

Elementalists have a pretty good rotation underwater that does decent damage as follows:

fire 2->arcane wave->arcane brilliance->water 2->water 2 detonate->water 3->water 3 detonate->water 5->air 2->air auto until arcane wave and arcane brilliance comes off cooldown and then repeat the rotation

There’s enough blasts in this rotation to keep 12 stacks of might while water 2 and water 5 both do decent damage (water 5 being similar to pre-nerf fgs rush)
air 2 provides some vuln and air has the hardest hitting auto if all 3 hits connect.

Also worth noting that Ele’s should run fresh air when underwater and swap to Air between the fire and water attunes doing a few auto attacks in air for the FA ICD.

For elementalist

TBH I hope there’s no underwater combat in the new expansion. It feels really clunky and we don’t have access to like half our skills anyway. I’m pretty happy anets been phasing it out with the removal of the Raid on Capricorn pvp map and the water areas in wvw.

More on topic: I vaguelly recall mesmer underwater downed state being basically a rapid-fire machinegun a while back. Is that still the case?

Thanks for all the tips. I’m compiling this in a .txt file.

About UW combat : the idea was nice but the implementation was not perfect by a long shot, having half your skills made irrelevant is bad ofc, but what bugs me is the interaction with the traits which is even worse.

I still think UW combat has a place in this game but it would require an awful lot of rework to truly shine.

Some things I’ve observed with underwater combat, at least in regards to skill/trait swapping:

Warrior: perhaps the easiest to transition from surface combat to UW combat, as all GS traits (inluding the all-important might-stacking Forceful Greatsword) also apply to spear (although, meleeing the HoTW P2 boss is usually not a good idea) On top of that, pretty much all the meta utility skills (including banners) can be used underwater as well. You might retrait for Phalanx strength to make up for the shortage of underwater might, but other than that, A GS warrior usually doesn’t have to change a thing before diving in.

Engineer: Man, do you remember the good ol’ days when Grenade Kit was the best UW weapon by a mile? (I don’t, didn’t start playing GW2 until after the nerf.) Still, if you abhor mid-dungeon trait-swapping, Grenade 1 (which underwater, is a autoattack) is arguably still better than Harpoon Gun’s AA (half the base damage per ‘nade and a lower power coefficient, but attacks twice as fast, and if the target is near a wall/floor/ceiling, still a pretty good chance of hitting with two or more ’nades if you stay close, even with the spread) but a couple of quick trait swaps to use bomb kit might be better, or at least more reliable. Other than that, the only really frustrating thing is that Healing Turret is a no-go for underwater combat; Elixir H is arguably the next best engi heal, especially if you move those two trait points from tools over to alchemy for shorter elixir cooldowns, but Med Kit’s Bandage Self is also acceptable.

Thief: Suffers the most from the UW skill lockout; Almost half their utility skills, including all their stealth utility skills (save the Hide in Shadows heal) are locked once you go below the surface. With no weapon skills that grant stealth on spear and harpoon gun, nor any underwater smoke field and/or leap and blast finishers, your only options for stealth other than that heal are traited effects, Mesmer Mass Invis or an Ele blasting a Murky Water with Arcane Brilliance or Ice Wall. Honestly, as someone who has done HotW paths with my Thief, my advice for underwater Thief is not to do underwater Thief… but if you must, you’re going to want to craft a signet and/or venom build that does not depend on you stealthing in any regular or predictable manner, if at all.

Necromancer: I know, not a dungeon favorite, but for the sake of the profession I felt it worth mentioning that a Necro, whether D/F or DS, can go from surface to aquatic combat with just a couple trait swaps (replacing any focus or axe traits, though I’m not sure whether or not Chill of Death can work underwater) and almost no change to their utility bar (though plague is the only underwater elite skill available to necros)

Guardian: The typical GS<>S/F build depends on a couple weapon-based traits that don’t apply to underwater weapons (Like Zealous Blade and Right-Hand Strength) Plus your main reason for taking any consecration traits (Wall of Reflection) can’t be used underwater. I usually go with a x/0/6/6/x Shout build when I’m going UW, but you might try a 2/4/6/0/2 Medi build, or 2/6/0/4/2 and pick up Two Handed Mastery and Perfect Inscriptions rather than Right-Hand Strength to improve Bane Signet’s passive power boost.

No real experience with Mesmer, Ranger or Ele in HotW, though a quick look at the Mesmer meta build suggests that, like warrior, very little swapping is needed for UW combat (sword trait also buffs spears, and mantras, Feedback and Time Warp are usable underwater) Might be best to wait for someone with more experience with Mesmer to confirm that before writing it down though.

Mesmer rotation is 352(2)1111112(2)11111231111121111123… (spear). 6 6 0 0 2 full DPS with 3+ mantras (Nothing worth reflecting UW).

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Mesmer rotation is 352(2)1111112(2)11111231111121111123… (spear). 6 6 0 0 2 full DPS with 3+ mantras (Nothing worth reflecting UW).

After reading all the replies, I get there is a consensus about mantra way being the go-to build UW and if I remember correctly the 6/6/0/0/2 allocation is for optimised personal damage.

What about a 6/4/0/0/4 trait allocation for maxing phantasm damage ? Or is the spear phantasm so dreadful that it’s not worth it ?

And btw I suppose spear 2 is to be used in front of a wall just like ele water #5 for extra fun.

Ele: Trait for Fresh Air, swap to Fire Water and Earth attunements and cast their burst skills and swap to Air as much as possible in between. Use Sink and Float skills to disable bosses.