This is one of those features where, no matter how much I think about it, I can’t find any reason as to why these things exist.
#1: They make gearing out a full set of any kind of armor difficult, because you cannot craft or choose stat prefixes for them.
#2: Since they replace your helmet while underwater, it’ll ruin rune bonuses, so you have to buy an additional rune for the helmet slot.
#3: If you have multiple sets, you’ll have to buy multiple aquatic helms for UW combat.
#4: The only way to get an exotic helm is to be around on wintersday. Otherwise, you have to buy a rare helm from the TP.
They exist solely to nerf you underwater.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
Ascended ones are supposed to be coming with the FoTM changes.
But honestly I spend so little time underwater that I only use the one exotic wintersday breather. Even if I decide to go swimming in WvW, which doesn’t happen very often. No sense dealing with the rest of it for the fraction of a time I go swimming.
“We have now left Reason and Sanity Junction. Next stop, Looneyville.”
I agree with OP, but yeah, at least we’ll be able to make aquabreathers with the stats we want and need soon.
I feel like aquabreathers were going to be something with lots of lore/mechanics behind it, but got nerfed before release.
For example, I would’ve expected that a character cannot go underwater for an extended period of time without one- e.g. you would be hit with degen and slowly die. This would have explained aquabreathers “lore-wise” and made them necessary. Right now it doesn’t matter if you have one equipped or not- you can still “breathe” underwater. The only difference it makes is stats/upgrade-wise.
Aquabreathers are totally redundant if you don’t actually need one to survive underwater. I wish that they were more important for survival, but it would be too complicated. They should’ve been removed altogether really, but I guess now being able to craft an ascended one adds some excitement and a bit of a gold sink.
Now you made me think …
The wintersday breather has that nice frost aura effect, but that effect is tied to the item, not the skin, so if I get an ascended breather I’ll lose the effect from the wintersday breather.
Charter Vanguard [CV] – HoD Bardy Belzebuson – Ranger Sir Belzebu – Herald
(and the other 8 elite specs maxed too)
Now you made me think …
The wintersday breather has that nice frost aura effect, but that effect is tied to the item, not the skin, so if I get an ascended breather I’ll lose the effect from the wintersday breather.
There is a spot in the wardrobe for aqua breathers. Oddly the Winters day one doesn’t appear in that section
Attachments:
“We have now left Reason and Sanity Junction. Next stop, Looneyville.”
Yes, that is why I know that the effect is tied to the item and not the skin, because the wintersday breather have no unique skin to attach the effect to it, like legendary does.
Charter Vanguard [CV] – HoD Bardy Belzebuson – Ranger Sir Belzebu – Herald
(and the other 8 elite specs maxed too)
I have long advocated that they change the current system of aquatic helm as piece of armor (requiring an extra rune and potentially AR) to one in which the breather is just a skin. Unless we change traits automatically when underwater, there’s no reason to require a 7th armor piece.
As it stands now, breathers-as-armor-pieces are an unnecessary complication — in my opinion, they violate the spirit of the NPE.
tl;dr turn breathers into skins and keep it simple®.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
What I don’t understand is why is it needed in the first place?
All your other armor works just fine underwater why doesn’t your helm?
Oh and let’s not go down the “The breather allows you to breath underwater” road. Take your breather off its equipment slot and put it in your bag inventory, now jump into the water. Guess what, you breath juuuust fine.
Actually, I like the idea that water breathers fulfill the useful role of allowing you to breathe underwater and I’d welcome the change, that if you dive without breather, you get a breath timer and go into downed state, when the timer elapses.
That would give the breather actual purpose.
The other thing, that is long overdue is a standardized crafting recipe for aquabreathers. How comes we can craft Spears, Tridents and Spearguns, but cannot research the recipe for aquabreathers by combining the appropriate materials?
It would also allow us to decide what stat combination we want to craft for our breathers.
What I don’t understand is why is it needed in the first place?
All your other armor works just fine underwater why doesn’t your helm?
Oh and let’s not go down the “The breather allows you to breath underwater” road. Take your breather off its equipment slot and put it in your bag inventory, now jump into the water. Guess what, you breath juuuust fine.
Because you need the Agony infusion slot for Lvl 100 fractals
What I don’t understand is why is it needed in the first place?
All your other armor works just fine underwater why doesn’t your helm?
Oh and let’s not go down the “The breather allows you to breath underwater” road. Take your breather off its equipment slot and put it in your bag inventory, now jump into the water. Guess what, you breath juuuust fine.
Originally, it was needed for going underwater. But they removed that mid-development because they felt it was an unnecessary hindrance to exploring the game.
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
What I don’t understand is why is it needed in the first place?
All your other armor works just fine underwater why doesn’t your helm?
Oh and let’s not go down the “The breather allows you to breath underwater” road. Take your breather off its equipment slot and put it in your bag inventory, now jump into the water. Guess what, you breath juuuust fine.
Because you need the Agony infusion slot for Lvl 100 fractals
We won’t get credit for any AR in the breather except while under water. So why not just make the breather a skin and have the terrestrial helm serve as aquatic armor, too?
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
Unless they provide an easy way of obtaining (at least) exotic breathers, allowing crafting of ascended ones will just widen the gap between the crafters and the non-crafters even more.
Getting extremely tired of this whole “craft, or go home” scenario, in a supposedly grind-free game.
“Turns out when people play the game, they don’t admire your feet at all.” sephiroth
What I don’t understand is why is it needed in the first place?
All your other armor works just fine underwater why doesn’t your helm?
Oh and let’s not go down the “The breather allows you to breath underwater” road. Take your breather off its equipment slot and put it in your bag inventory, now jump into the water. Guess what, you breath juuuust fine.
Originally, it was needed for going underwater. But they removed that mid-development because they felt it was an unnecessary hindrance to exploring the game.
My point exactly “Originally, it was needed”. Keyword: was
What I don’t understand is why is it needed in the first place?
All your other armor works just fine underwater why doesn’t your helm?
Oh and let’s not go down the “The breather allows you to breath underwater” road. Take your breather off its equipment slot and put it in your bag inventory, now jump into the water. Guess what, you breath juuuust fine.
Originally, it was needed for going underwater. But they removed that mid-development because they felt it was an unnecessary hindrance to exploring the game.
Actually, no, it was never needed by anyone who played the game, since it was removed “mid-development.” Instead, we have (for three years) suffered an unnecessary hindrance to gearing up (16% increased rune costs, loss of stats while underwater) due to something that never mattered, because someone on the dev side forgot that they had converted breathers into more of a skin and no longer needed separate stats for it.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
