Guild Wars 2

Every time I’ve been forced to fight under water, it’s always a prolonged 5 minute battle where I’m barely staying alive, taking a 3rd of my health every time I’m struck, and barely doing a bit of damage to the enemy.

I kite the enemies to the shore when I can, and at that point I end up killing them in 5 seconds.

I am not even exaggerating.
I spent several minutes fighting these creatures, eventually said “screw this” when I realized they were not even at 75% health, went to the shore, and ended the fight within seconds.

Did you have underwater gear, or you still using a level 1 item?
Also what class are you talking about?
While underwater combat seems to last a bit longer for me, I can almost never die in it..

I just don’t like not having all my skills

Make sure you have an updated underwater weapon. I don;t have that much trouble underwater, I’m just a little bit weaker.

I like ele underwater skills better than the regular skills. The underwater version of Tornado is OP. My standard routine is to start in Air and use the bubble skill that floats them to the top and keep shooting while they cant hit me. Then switch to Earth and use the sinking skill that also keeps them from attacking. Then hit them with the Earth blind. Its a long period where the enemy can’t attack you.

Weylin.6478:

Every time I’ve been forced to fight under water, it’s always a prolonged 5 minute battle where I’m barely staying alive, taking a 3rd of my health every time I’m struck, and barely doing a bit of damage to the enemy.

I kite the enemies to the shore when I can, and at that point I end up killing them in 5 seconds.

I am not even exaggerating.
I spent several minutes fighting these creatures, eventually said “screw this” when I realized they were not even at 75% health, went to the shore, and ended the fight within seconds.

What class are you playing?
If you say thief and you’re hoping to score well against 10+ underwater enemies at the same time, ‘I hear you mate’

don’t forget the rune on your aquabreather

Southsun shark kills are the best. One group comes then the next in a cross pattern. Combat only sucks if you can’t do it.

I love it,underwater combat is something new and original,if you think that combat suck,its more likely that you suck cause i with my thief have no problems at all.It has lot more sense then casting fireball in water lol..

Personally one of the things I most enjoy playing GW2 is underwater, I wish there were more events or cities there, anything, marine events there will be just spectacular!

It is a unique experience, but it’s also infuriating because elementalist appearently sucks in water.

You could say that I suck, but I can’t really imagine what I’m doing wrong, using every tool at my disposal, restricting enemy movement, activating combos, kiting, using obstacles to avoid some attacks and get enemies close together…

Weylin.6478:

It is a unique experience, but it’s also infuriating because elementalist appearently sucks in water.

You could say that I suck, but I can’t really imagine what I’m doing wrong, using every tool at my disposal, restricting enemy movement, activating combos, kiting, using obstacles to avoid some attacks and get enemies close together…

Elementalists underwater are generally meant to be really close to enemies. Earth sucks like usual and does little damage in exchange for condi, while water attunement works well for both close and far range.

First, make sure all your underwater gear is up to the highest level; next, make sure you’re running useful sigils on the weapons and breather. Then, equip the long range weapon first, swim in circles around your target, which pretty much is like dodging on land. Don’t stop moving. Weaken your foe with that, then switch to your close range weapon and pop whichever number is the most damaging; preferrably one that either pulls them to you or pulls you to them.

PRACTICE… a lot. Underwater fighting is something many people avoid simply because they haven’t done it enough to get good at it. Personally, I do so much of it that I feel just as comfortable in the water as I do on land, no matter which profession I’m using.

Underwater combat is in need of a lot of work for certain.

Underwater combat needs work, BUT I love it none the less!

The main problem with underwater combat is it’s just not balanced. I love it on necro, but not guard. Will see how I like it on thief when I start her up.

Course I’m talking PVP, golden rule of water PVP: If you’re target is a condi necro in the water, just run.

Tharassin.8240:

don’t forget the rune on your aquabreather

This is a pro-tip I actually didn’t realize until fairly recently. Was wondering why my runes weren’t procing their 6th bonus.

I love the underwater combat, although I think it depends on the profession. My Mesmer seems at times stronger underwater whereas my Thief barely knows how to swim.

Celestina.2894:

The main problem with underwater combat is it’s just not balanced. I love it on necro, but not guard. Will see how I like it on thief when I start her up.

Course I’m talking PVP, golden rule of water PVP: If you’re target is a condi necro in the water, just run.

Next rule: If it’s Power Necro, you know you’re so dead even if he goes AFK in UW Shroud.

All classes are easy in water if you know how to play them.

Thief for example, spam #2 and #5 on spear, these skills trade initiative for evasion, making you nearly invulnerable. For Elementalist, use Air for damage, the Air & Fire areas, you can also leap through combo fields using the Water leap, which also does tons of damage to objects. If you’re Condi built, use Earth.

Most importantly, water combat is mostly attrition fights, this means you should bring some healing (besides #6) with you. For Necro this is #3( I think) on spear, which summons vampiric creatures to heal you. Most classes have access to Regeneration as well, for example #4 on the Elemenetalist Water skills.

I recommend practicing off the beaches of Southsun Cove.

Depends on the Profession-Guardian underwater combat kinda sucks (no offense, I love my Guardian), but my Mesmer is really OP underwater (uber trident), and the Engineer with Grenadier and its auto targeted grenades is rather OP as well. My thief has two skills that make her survive forever underwater as well. My Staff Elementalist can do similar OP attacks underwater, though I have to be more careful than with my Mesmer or Engineer.

Warrior is powerful but just OK underwater-better than Guardian for sure.

I would rate PvE underwater combat with Mesmer/Engineer rather easy, with Thief not that far off. Elementalist, Ranger (the Shark is the best pet in the game, IMHO), Warrior, Guardian. My necromancer is a bit too young for me to comment on her underwater prowess, though so far nothing is as easy and relaxed as underwater Mesmer/Engineer combat.

It’s also good to get used to it to farm sharks on Southsun Cove if that’s your thing. Just had a literal blast this morning with my Engineer throwing grenades at/bombing the poor creatures.

I do remember disliking underwater combat because my first character was my Guardian-my Mesmer was the first to change my mind, and then I got used to it on the other Professions as well.

I still find it difficult to solo Champion Megalodons/Sharks, though, due to the hard to see coming tackle of death that one shots you (the other underwater champs are easy… well no, forgot about the Krait Witch. :P)

Just want to say I am one of those that love the underwater combat in this game, want more as

Poisonwell.1209 says

" I wish there were more events or cities there, anything, marine events there will be just spectacular! "

But be sure to update your weapons, aqua-breather and set your utilities (must be set underwater).

cheers

Underwater combat is pretty imbalanced. I love it on my ranger for my harpoon gun, but it’s because it has an AOE hard hitter, it makes everything easy. Same for engy, underwater nades are ridiculous.

I just wish there was a full underwater zone so people would care to update their items. With it they could release exotic/ascended breathers with cool new skins, many new spear/harpoon gun skins, and perhaps even some underwater only skills.

Maybe your gear just sucks as I’m a guardian and I can kill monsters quite quickly, even vets, underwater with no problems.

Happened to me, then I noticed I was using lvl1 and lvl 15 underwater weapons, upgraded them to ascended, god, warrior are good swimmers…

You have to learn your underwater weapons and assign a sink key.

Other than that and some unusable utilities it’s exactly the same, every time the underwater daily comes up I do it, at places I pull 5~10 mobs then kill them all.

Putting it shortly, you’re doing it wrong if you’re dying all over the place.

I’m not sure how many answers you’ve got above but I’ll try to give you a proper answer.

Even though GW2 has a 3D combat system it is essentially 2D with some vertical components. Ground targeting circles are 2D. When you move to fully 3D underwater combat this all falls apart, essentially, and there is no ground targeting of area effects. This destroys whole utility skill lines such as traps and makes the weapon sets dull. Many problems with the camera, depth perception, etc also get exposed. Human failings are also exposed in tracking targets in 3D.

There are other problems too with the downed states, the incapable state you’re in when you are on the water surface, rebreathers as replacement equipment for helmets, inability to change land utilities when underwater (and visa versa), sharing of cooldown timers between land and underwater skills, sharing traits between land and underwater, and so on. Technically there is a big shortfall between land combat and underwater combat and nobody should think that there’s only a quick fix needed to get it right.

Underwater combat is done the only way it can be given that there is an extra dimension to worry about.

The things that are bad about the underwater combat is your traits usually don’t reflect your underwater abilities (unless you’re lucky and are something akin to a Warrior with Greatsword traits as they also affect Spear) and some skills being unusable (ground targeted ones should just be PBAoE).

Depends on which class you play I guess.

As a warrior I enjoy killing stuff underwater because it’s really fast – contrast to my brother for example, he complains every time that his elementalist is severely underpowered under water.

We once did a test…I only used auto-attack to kill one mob, he used all of his skills on another one of the same type. I killed it faster just with auto attack while he used all of his skills and the mob had only half of its health reduced – and we are fully geared and put same boons etc.

So I guess it’s more of an issue of balance between professions for underwater combat which sucks.

Engi is great underwater, grenade kit will spam everything to death even better than above water. Mesmer is pretty good, spear has great mobility and the trident can spit out a lot of boons & conditions. Warrior is okay, but the speargun seems lacking. Thief is easymode in PvE, just spam block with the right timing and everything dies.

OK, so it’s not water combat that sucks, it’s just that the elementalist is incredibly difficult to be effective with?

I mean, I was trying pretty hard to do damage.

So far I’ve only died once in water combat, it’s just very unproductive…

Like I said, I drag the enemies to the shore and vaporize them in seconds with with basically 2 skills.

I like underwater combat. Its pretty awesome unless your guardian or ele, as their damage feels like its lacking underwater. Every other class has something OP about it underwater. Ranger almost unkillable with pet res, Necro life blast fast cast, engi targeted grenades + op mines +net, mesmers trident and theif with so many evades. I dont have a war atm so i cant comment on them.

Weylin.6478:

OK, so it’s not water combat that sucks, it’s just that the elementalist is incredibly difficult to be effective with?

I mean, I was trying pretty hard to do damage.

So far I’ve only died once in water combat, it’s just very unproductive…

Like I said, I drag the enemies to the shore and vaporize them in seconds with with basically 2 skills.

If I can destroy the Ash Horizon on Air atunement, I am sure you can kill a few mobs.

I wish it was fun. I wish it didn’t take so long to kill things. I wish my Elementalist attacks could hit things at point blank.

For me, only engineers and elementalists are slow underwater. I can hit and hit and hit the enemies and their healthbars won’t go down even with rampager or berserker gear.

Then I grab a thief and I kill things in literally 1 hit.

Underwater combat needs a lot of work done.

I guess that’s why they removed it from one PvP map, and the one that keeps water is not part of the tournament rotation.

Stooperdale.3560:

I’m not sure how many answers you’ve got above but I’ll try to give you a proper answer.

Even though GW2 has a 3D combat system it is essentially 2D with some vertical components. Ground targeting circles are 2D. When you move to fully 3D underwater combat this all falls apart, essentially, and there is no ground targeting of area effects. This destroys whole utility skill lines such as traps and makes the weapon sets dull. Many problems with the camera, depth perception, etc also get exposed. Human failings are also exposed in tracking targets in 3D.

There are other problems too with the downed states, the incapable state you’re in when you are on the water surface, rebreathers as replacement equipment for helmets, inability to change land utilities when underwater (and visa versa), sharing of cooldown timers between land and underwater skills, sharing traits between land and underwater, and so on. Technically there is a big shortfall between land combat and underwater combat and nobody should think that there’s only a quick fix needed to get it right.

All of this is true!

Whenever I’m not 100% happy with underwater combat, I say to myself, “well, more to fix/add/change when they release the underwater expansion”. I’m an optimist! (Is there a thread to collect ideas for that, yet?)

MithranArkanere.8957:

For me, only engineers and elementalists are slow underwater. I can hit and hit and hit the enemies and their healthbars won’t go down even with rampager or berserker gear.

I can only comment on engi because I don’t know my elementalist well enough yet, but it doesn’t feel slow to me at all. The harpoon gun skills kind of suck for damage (except #2) but bombs and grenades are wonderful. Some other utility skills are more useful under water than on land, so my typical under water skills are completely different from my typical land skills. I used to think that underwater combat was clunky and slow, but that was before I remembered that I had kits.

Engineer grenades are nice at underwater.

Well, something like 1+ year ago Engineers were op underwtaer, no one had a chance against their Granades shoting Gatling Gun kit, up to 3 granades per 0.3s( and 0.15s with quickness), it was a DPS to be reckoned with, but yea underwater fight is not only unbalanced but also rather unfinished concept.

Weylin.6478:

OK, so it’s not water combat that sucks, it’s just that the elementalist is incredibly difficult to be effective with?

I mean, I was trying pretty hard to do damage.

So far I’ve only died once in water combat, it’s just very unproductive…

Like I said, I drag the enemies to the shore and vaporize them in seconds with with basically 2 skills.

Can we have some more context, please? What level are you, and what level are your underwater weapons? And what particular mobs are we talking about?

Ele has tons of damage on trident, in every attunement except earth (unless you’re built for condi rather than power, in which case you may do damage in earth). Fire auto-attack hits twice, the 2 skill gives a persistently damaging field, 4 and 5 skills do decent damage too. Water 2 and 3 each do considerable damage (you have to remember to use them twice, though, to make the explosions happen). Air is good for auto-attack and the 2 skill. That’s just for damage. You have sinks on Water 4 and Earth 4, a float on Air 4, a Stun field on Air 5, and a persistent Blind field on Earth 5 (bonus points if you use Water 5 through Earth 5 to stealth yourself).

Klonex.4562:

it sucks? really? ~ i thoroughly enjoy it. ~ i also beat the enemy quite quickly.

I agree. I really enjoy underwater combat and I often find that I kill aquatic enemies faster than land enemies.

Also, +1 to aquatic cities and explorable areas. I would love an entirely aquatic zone and more aquatic skills and gear designs ( <3 Largos! ) and maybe foot armor replaced with fins or some other aquatic alterations to armor.

I enjoy underwater combat as a mesmer. However, after the reveal of the next dragon, and the news about the removal of Raid on the Capricorn, I am sure that underwater combat improvement is at a very low priority on the to-do list.