Guild Wars 2

Granted im only lvl 70,D/D mostly with a bit of staff, but honestly i try to avoid underwater combat because it just feels like eles are sooo underpowered with their trident skills.

I die more underwater by FAR then i ever do on land.

So, ive come to the conclussion that underwater batttles with an ele just arnt worth doing. They arnt fun ( for me anyway )

Anyone else?

Inbefore L2P and ele underwater combat is fine, is it easier with other classes, surely it has to be.?

I really dislike underwater combat as well.

My ele is my 80. I’m doing my 100% map completion on a guardian because I hate being in water on the ele. However, I want to explore the underwater areas beyond beelining to the points of interest then gtfo back to land.

So yes, it’s much better on some classes, though thieves appear to be in the same boat we are.

It’s not that it’s not doable on ele; you have a lot of AoE CC, so you can muck around and stay alive. The problem is that it takes forever and you have very little room for error — and the longer you’re in combat, the more likely it becomes that your timing is off or you pull an extra add or two. My time to kill on water and land is so different it’s not even funny.

I focus mostly on condi damage with my gear which makes it worse, because earth attunement is awful underwater even if you ARE at juuuust the right angle to get your 2 skill to hit. The AoE blind is nice on a very long cooldown; the anchor just puts them out of melee range which if I’m trying to stack bleeds, I don’t want.

EDIT: I also REALLY miss skill combos. Trident feels very staff-y, but lacks the combo abilities that actually make staff fun/dynamic to play and forces you into point blank range if you want many of your attacks to hit.

I cannot ever freaking kill skelks that regenerates health! It is much worse underwater. Never had this problem with my guardian

You either abandon all your defense and spam the Air1 attack in melee range, or you fight at range and do crap damage. If you can somehow corner your target, Water5 can do a ton of damage though.

I have the same problems in water, though in my experience, underwater is more dangerous in general, not just for Elementalists. It isn’t so much the abilities, for me, but the underwater environment setup. For example, that last heart I completed underwater (Sylvari starter area) was more difficult than the land hearts due to various factors:

1. Krait “patrolling” in pairs
2. Barracuda trios near certain quest objectives
3. Krait 1-2 levels above the heart level hanging around mid-water
4. Non-aggressive, stationary sea urchins that will intermittently start shooting out poison that will kill you in mere seconds.
5. Various non-aggressive mobs nearby to accidentally aggro
6. Lower visibility deeper down (murkier), easier to miss mobs
7. Mobs can come at you from above and below, unlike on land

We just happen to be a squishy and fiddly class to play, so IMHO the difficulties of underwater may seem magnified. My main problem underwater is how much easier it is to pick up unwanted adds. 1 vs 1 is no problem (albeit rather slow), but when I get a second or third mob on me — on land or on water — things can get hairy.

It is a shame, because I LOVE exploring underwater! So I do so very, very carefully. After completing an underwater heart though sometimes I feel like the whole lake is one big death trap. :P

in my opinion, soloing underwater is easier with a trident than soloing on land with a staff. many things you can simply kite, and you’ll never even take damage. you’re still rather versatile compared to staff… the only thing i dislike about underwater play as elementalist is how long it takes to do anything… unless you can nuke something successfully with your water’s 5th ability for 10+k damage…