Guild Wars 2

Underwater combat is a part of this game which, although at times frustrating, is one of the better versions of underwater combat to be seen in most MMO’s.

This thread will not be discussing the pros or cons of underwater combat. It seeks to create a dialogue of how an underwater WvWvW map may work, its mechanics, its design, and any ideas we creative WvW types have.

I believe that an underwater map could be designed, and it could introduce some neat new features.

Map shape
I think the best design for an underwater map would be a tetrahedron. (If you don’t know what that is, google it.)

I think that three of the ‘points’ of the map should house the respective B/G/R keep, and the centre of the tetrahedron holds the “stonemist” style keep. The fourth point should have a mercenary keep (quaggans or Largos), who will permeate the map for your team if you succeed in capturing it. or, an suggested alternative, cause very light current streams across the map which gives an advantage to the team who captures it

This way we can have a 3 Dimensional map.

Castles, Towers, Keeps and Camps

Naturally, these will need to be spherical. They can be attacked from all directions, (unless they are wedged into the terrain). The design of these could very easily mimic Quaggan Architecture, or Charr architecture (spherical black citadel), with gates, and walls which are harder to knock down.

Defence
Obviously with the current system, defenders are safe within the walls and they may venture onto the walls to fire down onto the invaders. This won’t work in a 3D environment, so my suggestion is portholes through which skills may pass, but characters can’t. They can be clear, like glass. Defenders may hide around the ring of the portholes, where they are safe, and periodically swim out to fire their weapons at invaders. Furthermore, siege may pass through these portholes.

Siege
Some siege will not work in an underwater environment. A perfect example is the arrow cart. It is my suggestion that Any ground-targeted siege can be traded for underwater siege at a siege master in the respective servers safe zone.

Below is a list of prospective replacements
Arrow Cart can be replaced by a player-targeted siege weapon which bleeds/poisons and damages the water near them in a sphere.
Flame Ram It is my understanding that flame rams can be deployed underwater already. However, unlike the current system, it is best if siege deployment is done directly where the character is, and is not ground targeted.
Ballista No need to change this, aside from a change in the way it is deployed.
Catapult The current way a catapult is designed is to fire a projectile with left-right positioning options and a charge to fire in a greater distance. This won’t work undertwater in a 3 D environment. Instead, a catapult should be ground targetable, but the mouse button shows no grund targeting sphere, and holding down the mouse button increases the frange of fire. It should also be designed with an underwater theme in mind, and might end up looking more like a slingshot.
Trebuchet it is possible that this could be implemented as ground targetable, and could alter the player using it’s field of vision to accommodate for this. However, I will need to do more thinking re this idea.
Cannon Same as arrow cart, the underwater version of this could be player targetable and create a sphere of influence
Mortar I think this could be more interesting, since there really is only one currently used mortar skill. Mouse buttons 1,2,3,4 could be left-right-up-down directions, allowing for say, 45 degrees movement in each direction, and hold down to charge on 5.
Burning Oil These could be placed to any side of the gate, and simply cause a burning sphere where they are ground targeted to, in a very short range.
Golems no change. They already function underwater.

Mercenaries
Some ideas for mercenaries include Krait, Quaggans (as a main merenary with a significant part of the map), Hylek, and everybody’s favorite, LARGOS

Ideas for environments

Underwater cavers, tunnels and caves. Kelp forests, open oceans. Giant coral, deep, dark areas where you have limited visibility, Icy, glacier like areas which have large, floating, moving icebergs.

What needs to change
Underwater combat isnt perfect. Specifically, the low amount of underwater weapons. Every class needs to be given a ranged weapon AT LEAST, to make him/her WvW viable. I have seen suggestions for underwater weapons including claws (melee range) wands, chakras/discs, fans.

Can’t wait to hear what you all think

-Arhovinh

If they spent time and money on underwater garbage rather than what people have been asking for for 2 years now they could kiss their game good bye.

Helpful, thankyou

Cool idea! Maybe that would bring some focus on underwater combat, which is like 0,1 % of the game right now.

Why underwater combat is frustrating:

- Hard to tell how far away people are, making melee a massive chore.
- Cannot stomp downed players.
- Controlling the Y-axis is incredibly sloppy.
- Ranger pet OP.
- You need a 7th Rune on the ‘breather’.
- If you change armour sets, you need a 2nd ‘breather’ with the matching rune.
- Some classes are way OP underwater, some suck entirely.
- Lots of skills are simply disabled, instead of having an underwater version.
- And combat tactics are non existent when it becomes more than 3v3.

Imagine a ZvZ underwater, you can’t move and use combo fields like you can on land. You can’t aoe CC people like you can on land. Downed players cannot be stomped, and they can run away more than mist form.

It’ll be 2 lines of people ranging each other, swimming to safety when downed. People who do try to melee will be annihilated. Repeat for infinity or until Alt + F4.