Guild Wars 2

I was just wondering how others found elementalists under water? I am not sure if its just me but they feel very weak under water and makes the underwater stuff very horrible to play cos you spend so much time doing nothing but trying to get away because you have nothing of value. Also the lack of an under water elite is kinda sad, Asura Elementalists dont get an under water elite not sure bout the other races so it makes it more irritating to even have your skill number reduced

Yeah I don’t think anyone has an elite underwater skill? I’m not sure though, but I know my hubby doesn’t have one either (asura guardian).

I love using Air underwater, and the Earth Anchor to keep things away from me. Using the Air Cage and then either Bubble or Anchor to force them to get stunned is fun =)

I find its useful if you have someone else around to help out but alone (like during a story) you cant really stay alive and do damage. I always end up running around for 20mins trying to stay alive and eventually die because i cant kite under water and attack at the same time . ( swimming back is too slow). Also my ranger has under water elites and feels a lot more fluid and balanced in terms of doing damage and being able to stay alive.

I kind of like the elementalist underwater, but I feel like fire could use some buffing. Think of the others: they’ve all got a float or sink and stun or blind or heal and decent damage. Fire has cripple and no extra damage.

Also, elementalists NEED an underwater skill. The Engineers can use our Tornado underwater as Whirlpool via Elixir X, but we can’t use our own skill underwater? -_-

I do my best to avoid being underwater at all, or lure the enemies near the shore and blast them from there. I’ve been focusing more on condition-damage for my damage-dealing skills, but underwater there doesn’t seem to be a lot of options along that line. Consequently, my power is a bit low, so my skills seem pretty useless. I’m actually stuck on a part of the personal story that involve a long underwater journey and so far it’s proving very difficult.

As far as an elite, I thought I read somewhere that tornado works underwater as “whirlpool” or something, but I don’t have it yet, so I could be wrong.

Edit: Wait, the whirlpool skill only works for Engineers? Lame.

My biggest issue i found was that the “support” attunement seemed to do the most damage under water to single targets which is pretty silly considering lighting should in theory be more focused on single target damage than the water attunement ( i made this assumption via the tool tips). The fires aoe is perfert vs more mobs but we cant survive so unless someone else takes agro for us fire is fairly pointless since you are most likely aiming to 1 on 1 mobs underwater

Elementalists are GREAT underwater. It’s not all about dat deeps; the Elementalist’s underwater skills have insanely intricate crowd control. You can warp yourself or send yourself to the surface; you can send foes backwards, up, or down; you can pull yourself to foes; you can create stun fields and cripple foes…the list goes on and on.

I’m pretty sure Tornado works under water. I used it in sPvP.

Tornado doesnt work underwater at least in PvE it has the water sign with a cross through it and i cant equip any elite. I just checked. Also i don’t deny elementalists are good in groups but I have serious issues underwater vs anything more than a 1on1 with a normal mob. (i am comparing this to my ranger underwater)

You have to cycle through pretty much all of your abilities to kill something. The water has a few attacks that do a lot of damage and should be used on CD. Use the knockback / ice wall first, blow it up. Then use the 5 skill to dive to the target and do massive damage. After this swap to lightning and use the stun box / air bubble to put distance on the mob. Go back to fire and use those abilities (#4 for a cripple, then #2 for the aoe heat). So your water skills should be back up if you need them to do big damage again.

Yeah, for some reason Tornado/whirlpool doesn’t work underwater in PvE, only in sPvP.
This means that eles don’t get any elite underwater, and sylvari (and human too or so I’m told) just don’t have ANY underwater elite.

You have to strafe-swim around the mob. In other words, you pick a direction, lets say left. You hold left to swim sideways, but at the same time you rotate your camera in the direction of the mob to constantly almost-face it. So you’re basically always holding the right mouse button and one of either direction keys, and at the same time trying to rub a hole in your mouse pad.

If the mob is directly behind you, you cannot cast. Swimming towards it tends to shorten your life span The way I suggest, you always move away from the mob, but you still face it enough to cast your spells.

I solo fought from 4 to about 10 mobs at a time and won his way, although the highest level area I’ve tried this at is bloodtide coast (lvl 45-55?), so I am not sure how this method is going to hold in the higher level areas.

Plus ranged enemies are a pain, I recommend taking them out first. Also I use cleansing fire to remove stun and conditions, arcane shield (if I get stunned and cf is on cooldown), and the healing skill that restores hp every time you cast.

And switch switch switch between attunements.

Ele underwater is no walk in the park, but it is doable. I too miss the elite skill :’(
Hope this helps.

I love you Jon! You always bring the best news!

Thanks for the help daemonrus, will try the strafing thing. I also was using Arance shield but didnt really think of CF for the removal of stuns will attempt to use this method and see how it goes.

and thanks so much Jon you made my evening

Excellent. Fire is indeed poop underwater right now. Air rocks though.

Elementalist under water has a ridicolous poor damage output compared to on the land.

I needed to bug around and strafe like hell so the mobs would`nt have a LOS to complete some of the events and story Q.

Whoop whoop for whirlpool

Not sure I agree that fire is bad (well the auto attack kinda is I guess :-/) But I like the aoe steam thing skill (forgot the name) you can use the fire chain skill first to keep the mob in place (would be nice if it was an aoe stun), then the steam bath, does some nice aoe dmg

Riyu.2103:

Elementalist under water has a ridicolous poor damage output compared to on the land.

If I had to describe ele underwater, it would be kind of like humping a rock until you make a hole in it

daemonrus.4703:

If I had to describe ele underwater, it would be kind of like humping a rock until you make a hole in it

Sounds like a job for earth attunement.

Water’s 5th skill is really, really strong. I can sometimes take half an HP bar from it alone. If there’s one underwater skill that might get nerfed for eles someday, it’ll be this one, I guess. But I wouldn’t want that without being compensated somewhere else, because there’s no single other skill that’s as reliable and satisfying for damage as this one for other elements.

Earth’s 3rd skill, the one that pulls you to your foe, disables your skills longer than the skill lasts, which seems broken to me. It puts me at melee range unable to do anything for a while. I see no advantage in using it at all – I much prefer to simply swim forward or use the much better air’s version.

In general water attunement is really fun for damage. Exploding walls, exploding ice shards, etc. Air has cool crowd control, and is generally interesting, and so is earth outside of the annoying 3rd. There’s also lot of mobility in those three attunements, which makes attunement changing more interesting. Trident overall feels like a mix between Staff and Daggers.

Fire, however, is the attunement that bores me. I can’t quite point why, but I believe it’s the “low” damage coupled with less interesting mobility and crowd control skills. Fire attunement is usually interesting for the big numbers and for the crazy burst combos (scepter, dagger, I find Staff’s fire slightly boring). Trident’s fire lacks this fun. You’re dealing about as much damage as other attunements, and you have less mobility/ CC tricks I think. Or maybe as much, but slightly less exciting. :P

I also find myself overwhelmed by anything more than 1 mob underwater. On land I am able to be extremely mobile but underwater I feel sluggish and boxed in, although I gain an axis on which I can move.

JonPeters.5630:

We are working on getting Whirlpool working in PvE so that Elementalists have an underwater Elite skill. I’m not sure what the problem is but am looking into it.

Thanks,

Jon

Thank you for the response, this is something I’ve been wondering ever since I played my first raid on Capricorn.

On a related note: Excellent job by the mods and developers of listening to the community and giving feedback themselves. Makes me want to stay with this game for awhile.

I feel like the monsters are much harder underwater as an elementalist.

I feel pretty weak underwater as well. I thought maybe it was just me. :c

Quintal.6594:

Sounds like a job for earth attunement.

Especially with that dagger auto attack XD

I usually stick with water attunement while underwater. The 5th torpedo skill is very powerful and the 2nd skill does decent damage, just remember to press it again to detonate while it’s close to the target.

I hate being underwater so much. I’ve tried tons of different things and none of it helps.

It also annoys me how some traits don’t work underwater— for example Evasive Arcana doesn’t work consistently underwater. Am I supposed to have a completely different build just to go underwater?

I hate how the whole gameplay seems to completely shift underwater. On land I can be mobile and avoid mobs attacks. That doesn’t work for me underwater. I basically swim in their face and just switch through the attunements using everything on cooldown until it dies. Which takes a lot longer than on land.

The best thing that’s worked for me is relying heavily on arcane skills to finish mobs off.

I am not satisfied with the underwater combat for the Elementalist at all. Fire is supposed to be intense damage with burning, but only one skill actually burns; Heat Wave, which seems to miss for some reason far too frequently. That coupled with the primary skill, Magma Orb, making Fire Attunement lackluster.

Water Attunement is supposed to be support/heals, but for some reason it has the hardest hitting abilities (maybe since you are under water, controlling water is more powerful?). The Ice Globe and Ice Wall detonations deal good damage, and if you get a foe trapped against the wall, Tidal Wave can decimate it.

I find that I rarely use Air Pocket in Air Attunement, as the teleport disorients me more than anything. The majority of foes I use Lightning Cage on, don’t move, forcing me to use Air Bubble to take advantage of it. This means I am having to use two skills to take advantage of one.

The bleeds that come from Earth Attunement’s Rock Blade are far too short. I am lucky to get a 6 stack on anything for longer than a second (usually around half a second). The Magnetic Current skill is nice, however being that we are a ranged profession, I generally do not want to use a skill that will put me right into the fray.

I have a few suggestions for the Underwater Combat to make much more appealing to Elementalists.

Fire

• Magma Orb – Remove the delay from the explosion. Have it explode when it hits the target (which would mean combining explosion and impact damage), and have the explosion cause 1 second of burning.
• Boil – No changes necessary.
• Steam – No changes necessary.
• Lava Chains – No changes necessary.
• Heat Wave – Other than fixing the targeting with this ability, nothing.

(continued in next post)

Water

• Water Missile – No changes necessary.
• Ice Globe – Reduce damage of detonation and add either a heal/regen/chill.
• Ice Wall – No changes necessary.
• Undercurrent – Doesn’t seem to work 100% of the time… might be a range issue.
• Tidal Wave – No changes necessary.

Air

• Forked Lightning – No changes necessary
• Electrocute – Reduce the damage a bit and add weakness for maybe 2 seconds (Currently hiting a target with all 3 bolts from Forked Lightning does far more damage).
• Air Pocket – Sometimes you might not want to teleport. Remove the automatic teleport, give it a shorter cooldown (3 seconds) but have the detonation increase the cooldown to the original 12 seconds.
• Air Bubble – No changes necessary.
• Lightning Cage – Something should happen to the enemy that is caged. Damage maybe… I don’t really know. Becomes more of a dilemna to move and be stunned or sit here and take damage?

Earth

• Rock Blade – Bleed should be much much longer. Instead of throwing three blades (we have two abilities that throw 3 projectiles) why not throw one blade (like a circular saw blade) that pierces every foe in a straight line. Causing bleeding for 3-5 seconds.
• Rock Spray – No changes really needed except I don’t really see a graphic for this spell. I have no idea how to judge the ranges.
• Magnetic Current – Add a secondary skill that repels either the enemy, you, or both, and deals damage to the target.
• Rock Anchor – No changes necessary.
• Murky Water – No changes necessary.

I think any number of these changes will improve the underwater combat drastically.

Mister Stranger.3986:

Elementalists are GREAT underwater. It’s not all about dat deeps; the Elementalist’s underwater skills have insanely intricate crowd control. You can warp yourself or send yourself to the surface; you can send foes backwards, up, or down; you can pull yourself to foes; you can create stun fields and cripple foes…the list goes on and on.

The list doesn’t go on. That’s pretty much it. And what if, instead of all that, you want to kill a monster? That’s right, then you wish you weren’t playing an elementalist.

Definitely need a significant buff to damage.

Underwater doesn’t really do it for me to be honest. It’s not really bad, just not as interesting or fun as land combat. It’s mostly just circle strafing around target while casting spells, there isn’t much more to it.

Mister Stranger.3986:

Elementalists are GREAT underwater. It’s not all about dat deeps; the Elementalist’s underwater skills have insanely intricate crowd control. You can warp yourself or send yourself to the surface; you can send foes backwards, up, or down; you can pull yourself to foes; you can create stun fields and cripple foes…the list goes on and on.

I thought the air teleport might be some untapped potential…but if I really need to GTFO, I find I usually just teleport and aggro more mobs, which doesn’t actually help at all.

Underwater combat on an ele isn’t impossible…it’s just exceptionally tedious. I am a huge fan of the underwater environments, but I’m mostly saving those for a guardian alt so it’s not so frustrating. I feel significantly nerfed underwater.

The difference in underwater performance between the two classes is night and day.

All you need to do as an elementalist under water is go into water attunement, use number 2, make sure to explode it by hitting number 2 again when it gets near the enemy, then when they chase you use number 4 and explode it when they are near it. you can switch to air to use the cage and cc ability then go back to water. All the other attunements suck so just stick with these 2 and you will be fine.

I agree that Guardian’s underwater is more fun. It’s simpler and more effective. Elementalists’ underwater seem to be too busy with too many skills that do too little. It requires more effort for less reward.

Yeah, compared to other classes. I feel elementalist is very weak underwater. On my warrior or engineer I just rip through things underwater. But on my ele, I can barely survive.

Thieves seem to have it pretty bad underwater, too. I duo with one frequently and we usually do the underwater hearts, grab the points of interest and GTFO — which is a shame because, as I said ,the environments are gorgeous. Combat for us, though, is just not fun.

Water is by far the best underwater attunement overall, best damage, best healing, best mobility.

@Malos

Not to mention rework the targeting of forked lightening and Rock blade.. because right now if you on even level as your target several of the projectiles miss at point blank… you have to be slightely above them to hit with all three projectiles <.<

Fire could use a small damage-buff, but ele unterwater is balanced imo.

That said, unterwater combat is not as interesting as land combat. I miss combo fields (can’t blast my own fire fields for might stacks) and auras (I have a supporty aura-build – auras are shared to nerby allies and grand fury, swiftness and protection)

I have no trouble whatsoever underwater, in fact I feel more powerful than on the ground (using staff up there) thanks to the water skill bursts (torpedo up close, wall + trident charge ftw). Can take a veteran with a few bouncers no problem, just learn to kite and use all of the attunements. Bubble and anchor for control, chains and wall for slows, Every attunement has something good. If you kite them in a circle you can take large groups down.

We are built as kitten glass cannons due to various factors, healing included, but we have no freaking healing underwater so underwater survivability is ridiculously laughable.

Actually 4 and 5 on water heal underwater.

Personally I don’t mind underwater combat, I used to think it sucks as well, until I tried out water attunement some more and it just does massive damage, especially Tidal Wave once you figure out how to aim it properly.

In the rare cases you can unleash full Tidal Wave on a mob you can oneskill mobs. If that isn’t a crapload of damage I don’t know what is :P

My biggest issue under water is mobs randomly resetting and going into the invulnerable state for no reason whatsoever.

The class shouldn’t be considered balanced just because you might get a mob in a corner and be able to one shot them with a skill that is intended to only hit them in passing. The rest of the time it’s just as likely to whiff even if aimed properly. The mob might move, or the skill might just decide to be silly and go off in a random direction. I find underwater combat to be a chore on my elementalist. The overall damage output needs a buff. The skills are okay (except earth 3 which stuns you instead of the target, I still hope this is a bug) but none of them do comparable damage to land skills. Besides the slot heal, we only have regen skills. The bleeds are barely noticeable, there’s almost no way to cause burning or chilled status, mobility skills are fiddly at best or buggy at worst. The whole heart of the class is missing. And of course, no combos. Underwater elementalist is all glass, no cannon.

I was actually rather pleased that Fire seems to be less effective underwater than aboveground. It makes logical sense to me; the effort a mage would have to put into spells relying on combustion in the presence of a vast extinguishing agent to get the same result as in an oxygen-gas-rich environment would be staggeringly more, and so the spells would effectively dial down to ways to manipulate the heat of the water.

Which the underwater Fire spells do. And, by contrast, Water and Air attune weapon spells seemed to be amped up in effectiveness (dat cage).

I mained an ele in GW1 for years, and I was always dissatisfied that Fire was essentially the only attribute line that could be effective in HM and end-game situations (with some occasional Earth builds tossed in). So to see that sort of a effectivness disparity pleases me from a diversity standpoint.

Avatar Roku.1653:

I have no trouble whatsoever underwater, in fact I feel more powerful than on the ground (using staff up there) thanks to the water skill bursts (torpedo up close, wall + trident charge ftw). Can take a veteran with a few bouncers no problem, just learn to kite and use all of the attunements. Bubble and anchor for control, chains and wall for slows, Every attunement has something good. If you kite them in a circle you can take large groups down.

Heh, my problem is not that it’s not doable … it’s that “kite in a circle for awhile until they’re dead” is just a chore. It’s boring, it’s long, and it starts to be MUCH less effective in some of the areas where the undead have yanks.

It just feels slow, and really same-y. Effectively it boils down to “Drop AoE, use kiting/CCs to keep them in that area until they’re dead.”

Water attunement is actually pretty fun (and as others have said, the most effective). The rest feels like playing a staff elementalist, and I don’t much enjoy playing a staff elementalist in general.

EDIT: The thing I DO enjoy about staff play is all the combo use…but I don’t get that underwater and Evasive Arcana does nothing underwater, either, so a major trait that I love does nothing for me there. And let’s not get into the fact I’m geared mostly into condition damage …

Allamorph.5943:

I was actually rather pleased that Fire seems to be less effective underwater than aboveground. It makes logical sense to me; the effort a mage would have to put into spells relying on combustion in the presence of a vast extinguishing agent to get the same result as in an oxygen-gas-rich environment would be staggeringly more, and so the spells would effectively dial down to ways to manipulate the heat of the water.

Which the underwater Fire spells do. And, by contrast, Water and Air attune weapon spells seemed to be amped up in effectiveness (dat cage).

I mained an ele in GW1 for years, and I was always dissatisfied that Fire was essentially the only attribute line that could be effective in HM and end-game situations (with some occasional Earth builds tossed in). So to see that sort of a effectivness disparity pleases me from a diversity standpoint.

It does make logical sense, but it also makes gearing and traiting for both situations (above land and under water) a nightmare. My condition damage build seems pretty effective on land, especially because with the staff I can use so many combo fields and combo finishers to inflict conditions and stack might high. Under water I can’t do that and I can barely inflict any damage-causing conditions at all. So what happens is I just try my best to avoid under water combat.

Underwater elementalist is like playing a glass cannon without the cannon part.

The huge lack of reliable defensive utility for a profession with the lowest hp/armor is a far bigger problem than the damage output.

Wildclaw.6073:

elementalist is like playing a glass cannon without the cannon part

I’ve been feeling that exact way and telling my friends. My elementalist friend agrees. We seem to do okay when there’s large groups of friendlies distracting enemies and when the fights are prolonged, but with such poor survivability the solo fights rarely last long enough for our damage to catch up…. Except when the Fiery Greatsword elite skill is off cooldown.

My biggest issues with underwater combat are:
1. Lack of bleed/conditional damage options since that’s my primary spec. (primary fire earth seems entirely ineffective compared to lightning underwater)
2. The fact that my abilities often over- or under-shoot enemies and that I can do nothing to compensate for this.

I like the mix of skills we have underwater, actually. However, it takes me forever to kill things. My thief kills things a lot faster underwater than my Ele. I saw this in beta as well, where my warrior seemed to take about half as long to kill something underwater as my ele. If they just took a look at providing some buffs to damage for the proper skills, I think we’d be fine, but considering how low our damage output seems to be now, I think these would have to be some pretty major damage buffs.

Not really sure what happened in the design process. Almost seems like someone entered the wrong multipliers at some phase of balancing and never realized how low the damage output is in the game environment vs. other professions.