Guild Wars 2

I find it tragically ironic that elementalists are so horrible underwater however I want to try to make it work(or at least give myself courage to chase people who go under). Does anyone have a trait/utility/etc spread that isn’t horrible? Right now I just sit in water attunement unless I absolutely need to CC but am lost as to utilities and possible traits for terrestrial synergy.

I recently tried signets s/f(25/15/30/0/0) on land after May’s patch and find it just passable but when underwater signets seem to be the only logical choice though looking at the other options boggles the mind.. Why isnt there a trident trait in arcane? Why doesnt evasive arcana/conjures/most glyphs have an underwater alternative? Why is earth 1 so incredibly weak? The game has been out for far too long for these issues to still exist.

I should note that this is asking for advice versus players, not npc’s.

Balance according to Anet: Elementalist should suck because it has aoe dmg, and then they nerfed aoe and mobility.

I’m not gonna go into too much detail here, just gonna say:
1. You don’t trait for underwater combat
2. Arcane wave and blast extra good underwater because they do good damage. While normal skills do significantly less.
3. You shouldn’t be confused by the water combat, ele plays very much the same underwater as staff ele on ground. Atleast when playing 30 arcane.
Keep blowing #2s on each attunument while rotating them around just like you would in staff. Use everything in water. CCs comes naturally when rotating around constantly. Best place to land in you rotation – final destination – is air spam #1.

Just do your usual kitten like you were on ground, and you should quickly notice, aaahhh this feels more natural and better.

How to win as elementalist underwater:

1. Use earth anchor (skill 4 earth) on enemy to sink them to the ground
2. switch to water and use skill 5 next to enemy directly into groound

This will cause all hits of water 5 trident rush to connect, causing massive damage and often killing from near full health. Use arcane wave at the same time for added potency. Many times you won’t even have to use anchor since enemies love chilling near the ground anyways. Also this is a good way to get rid of annoying downed people underwater.

Sadly once you’ve blown this combo and burned whirlpool, you don’t bring much else to the table damagewise. Retreat and come back once cooldowns are done.