Guild Wars 2

I have absolutely no problem with my Elementalist (I play Staff, for whatever that might be worth), be it in PvE or PvP — as long as I’m fighting on land.

But when I need to fight underwater… I can barely do anything, really. At most I can fight a single level appropriate enemy at a time, while on land I’m always fighting multiple enemies and/or veterans. I feel like I don’t have nearly enough versatility, or perhaps I’m simply not getting used to underwater controls and targeting….
Mostly I just want to know if that’s just me, or if underwater combat as an Elementalist is indeed a bit of a pain.

Underwater combat is a bit different for Elementalists. Unlike other classes, underwater combat for the Ele is all about setting up for a huge hit. We have 2 really useful control skills (the Air skill that floats, and the Earth skill that sinks) that can be used to set up big attacks like the Fire 2 skill combined with the Air 2 skill/Air auto-attack. Also, the Water 2 and 5 skills are amazing when landed correctly. In PvP I sunk an enemy to the floor and then hit him with every pulse of the Water 5 skill and drained his hp from 100% to 0%. Try setting up more combos, that is my only advice.

I indeed did not try the floating and sinking skills a lot. Gotta try them out a bit more. Thanks.

Eles underwater (especially after the Whirlpool nerf) are a CC bot, that’s about it.

Use spells with sinergy: fire n2 has a “dot” aoe spell, mobs will easily get out of the spell’s radius, but if you switch immediatly to water and use ice wall to trap your target it will take all the damage from your fire spell. Other than that i try to kite as much as possible and use water spells to deal damage.

Also Undercurrent (water 4th) is a pbaoe sink, i use it to gain distance from one or more mobs.

As for pvp, i dont have enough experience to comment, all I can say is having the higher position helps as many wont even notice you in a crowded fight.