Ele underwater?
Our swimming abilities seem more control oriented rather than damage (sink, float, slow, cage, blind) rather than doing lots of damage. The only good damage skill is the elite (which is funny because the on land version/tornado is pretty bad).
The thing about elementalist underwater is that you pretty much have to be in melee range to be most effective…even though you are using a trident. And Nageth, tornado is not bad at all…you just have to be the right kind of build for it and use it at the right time.
So, here’s some thoughts on underwater abilities by attunement:
Fire: You want to keep them from moving a lot. You can achieve this by using the lava chains ability (4) and kiting in small circles. This is because most of the damage from the 1 ability comes from when the magma balls explode a couple seconds after they hit. If the enemy is moving too much, those explosions miss. Also, the 2 ability is a great AoE damage ability. You just need to keep them inside of it. Close range kiting in a squishy attunement like fire can be tough, but that’s why you have 3 (AoE blind) and 5 (3-prong damage and burn PLUS vigor for you and allies). With those, you can keep them from hitting you and you can dodge more. Just remember to keep the enemy in roughly the same area if you can.
Air: Decent damage on the 1 ability if you’re in melee. That’s the only way that all three prongs will hit. 2 ability is a pretty powerful AoE. 3 skill is great for getting away when you need to. It teleports and damages foes at detonation location. Good mobility tool. 4 ability is a float. Floats and sinks are basically your underwater stuns. You have 3 as an elementalist. Use them. 5 is awesome. Keeps them in place and stuns them if they try to leave.
Earth: 1 ability does very very low damage but it makes up for it by inflicting 3 bleed stacks per hit when you’re in melee range. You can basically hold 3 to 6 bleed stacks on the target permanently by just repeating the 1 ability. Great if you’re rolling a condition build. 2 ability does very nice cone damage PLUS 3 stacks of bleed that last longer. Very useful ability for damage. 3 is a gap closer (useful). 4 is a sink (stun). 5 is an AoE blind field. Use it. Again, this attunement works even better if you can keep them in roughly the same area just because it’s easier to keep all of your bleeds hitting. If you’re good at aiming your attacks, that will help a lot, too. But the more you can kite them through the murky water, the better.
Water: This attunement is surprisingly powerful underwater. 1 does moderate damage and isn’t worth too much mention, but 2 does pretty good AoE damage on detonation. 3 is not only an underwater line of warding, but its detonation does awesome AoE damage just like 2. 4 has two great uses. Regen for self and allies AND AoE sink. Super good ability. Now, the 5 ability in this attunement is one of the best underwater abilities in the game, in my opinion. It is a linear charge, but it does high damage to all foes in the path AND heals all allies. It’s incredible for group fights once you figure out when to use it.
The problem with elementalists is that their underwater abilities are so much different from their land abilities that it’s hard to get used to them. On top of that, some of the attunements have major abilities that are hard to get the hang of using well (like the fire 1 ability). Eles can be really good underwater, though. Just stick with it.
So are you disputing my observation that whirlpool is in many cases more powerful than tornado (yes this includes build)?
As far as the rest, good point talking about water. It is quite good at damage (especially #5 which I kind of spaced on). People are trained to think of water as being lower damage by all the land abilities only for it to be higher damage underwater. It is also the most effective attunement for longer range.