Guild Wars 2

Suggestion: Make underwater helms cosmetic only.

Currently, breathers serve no purpose in the game except to nerf builds and to make setting up gear more difficult and costly:

• There are no rare, exotic, or ascended breathers (the exceptions are supplied at too low a rate to benefit the community as a whole).
• All breathers require karma, meaning they cannot be salvaged for materials or to regain any valuable runes. They also cannot be transferred to another character.
• They have no functional impact: characters can remove the helm and function under water without ill effect, aside from the loss of a sixth rune.

With the new wardrobe, there’s an easy solution (from the player perspective — I have no idea if this would be difficult to code or not): use the currently equipped helm for stats/runes and apply the cosmetic look of the skin from a wardrobe. This could still cost 1 transmutation charge, but I doubt many would use it since there are precious few breather skins available.

tl;dr remove breathers as equipment; use the regular helm as gear and a cosmetic skin for looks.

+1 this is a great idea and with the removal of water in pvp

+1

There’s exactly ‘one’ breather I can live with the look of, and it’s light. I’d rather just use the helmet for stats, and use the old breather slot as a cosmetic piece, or nothing.

Honestly, I’d probably just want to hide the slot altogether.

And for the record, when I sheath my staff, it’s floating 6 inches off my back, before anyone gets all bent out of shape about ‘immersion’ (pun intended). Immersion is too subjective.

I’ve thought about the same but have been too lazy to post. Glad someone is less lazy. :p

I’ve suggested this before and it still makes sense now. It shouldn’t have to wait for any other water combat changes as it seems stunningly simple.

I’d rather have them make high level aquabreathers available via crafting and such. Underwater combat needs more love.

But IF they aren’t willing to do that, then yah, I agree that this suggestion is the next best thing.

Either make their availability and power comparable to normal helmets, or switch it to a cosmetic.

There does need to be a wider selection of Aquabreathers available. The only rare types come from the Teq event and the only remotely fashionable skins have to be obtained from Creator Zee in Bloodtide Coast. There needs to be a much wider selection.

Electro.4173:

I’d rather have them make high level aquabreathers available via crafting and such. Underwater combat needs more love.

But IF they aren’t willing to do that, then yah, I agree that this suggestion is the next best thing.

Either make their availability and power comparable to normal helmets, or switch it to a cosmetic.

Making higher level breathers does not solve the other problem.
To get the #6 bonus at all times for a rune set you need 7 runes.

Yes please. This should have been done a long time ago.

+1