The title says it all really. And while I know underwater combat tends to be a bit weaker over all, the fact that the earth main attack does single digit damage and an extremely weak bleed is just crazy. None of the other attunements are any better either.
I actually made a post about this ages ago when I found out that every elementalist underwater has the same abilities, which is super annoying as air and earth attunements require you to be melee range in order to maximize damage. I just tend to stay out of the water as much as possible now days.
It seems like it takes at least twice as long to kill anything underwater as it does on land. We have some cool abilities but they all just feel extremely weak for some reason. Yeah, I pretty much just avoid water too, especially in PVP.
It seems to be a pretty systematic problem with our class that too many of our abilities are too close range in concert with us being too squishy. Underwater combat, which is already a pain, is no exception.
I don’t understand how. The water attunement alone is enough to make underwater combat one of the elementalist’s strong points (given that you’ve spent the time to upgrade your trident, of course).
I actually made a post about this ages ago when I found out that every elementalist underwater has the same abilities, which is super annoying as air and earth attunements require you to be melee range in order to maximize damage.
Of course, if you think about it Elementalists have twice as many mainhand skills underwater as any other profession out there, and pretty much every other profession has half of their underwater abilities as melee/close ranged.
It’s just that they get it all on one weapon instead of the two for everyone else.
I have to say that I’ve never really had that much trouble underwater as an elementalist. A lot of the skills involve some sort of condition or movement control anyway. Ever put up an ice wall then detonate it as you use tidal wave? In SPvP that combo can take out more than half a heavy armor’s health bar easily.
We have an insane amount of CC underwater, but our auto attacks are incredibly weak, but with whirlpool you can solo 3 people with the amount of damage it pumps out.
While I find Elementalist to be a profession which has serious problems (especially in sPvP), I disagree with this thread.
The Trident imho is the best Elementalist weapon, offering a ton of damage and a lot of CC. The thing is that unlike other Elementalist weapons it’s auto attacks are purposefully weak. So do not rely on them. Use all your abilities and switch attunements constantly and you’ll always have something off of cooldown, almost all of which are amazing skills.
(I posted the following on another thread as well:)
The synergy between different skills in each attunement is something I wish other weapons had (especially staff).
I tend to switch fire→water→lightning→back to fire again, using my auto attack very little, as this switching means you’ll always have something off cooldown.
Fire’s skills do excellent underwater AoE and burning damage. Water has an incredible charge move that does immense damage, a powerful and short cooldown heal that also gives regeneration and works on your party, an escape backwards skill that leaves a defensive ice wall behind you that you can explode. Lightning has two excellent CCs and a weird teleport bubble that seriously confuses your foes. Earth is bleeds focused, yet offers even another powerful CC.
Or you can just log on to your warrior, and do anything you need to with no more than 10 keys and a single weapon switch underwater. Oftentimes you can get by with just a spear and ignore the speargun, so that brings it down to 5 keys. (The spear even has a gap closer, or rather a pulling action.)
The elementalist is…overdesigned here, I think. Way too much busy work.
@ LiuliRenai.3928 wow, really?
that’s sounds like MVP or DRG apm level to do something half decent.
Well, lemme give you this example (as 61 elem that has a lvl 19 warrior now):
On my warrior I jump in water, gather some mobs, press 5, then 2 and loot drop. About 1/4 of the time it takes for your great elementalist to kill 1 mob – while being sure you don’t aggro 2 and die – I kill about 3 or 4.
Enjoy your elementalist, I did too until I tried other classes and understood how badly/underpowered elem actually is compared to thief, warrior, guardian … it’s really, not even funny.
I thought all classes were weaker underwater. Then I played a ranger with a shark pet. It takes my elementalist forever to kill a mob due to all the kiting required and the pathetic auto attack damage between my long water cooldowns. With the ranger it’s simply send shark→cast piranhas→collect loot. Seriously, my mercy shot misses more than half the time because my target is already dead. Shark pet > elementalist profession in the water.
Everybody thinks they are underpowered underwater, even warriors.
Its usually a result of not upgrading underwater weapons, or a profession’s water weapons being power based while the player is building for condition damage or vice versa.
I’d love to have some of the water abilities on land. Thieves are invincible in water, but they have no AoE and their damage is purely reactional so if they aren’t getting hit, they can’t kill things at all.
Most of the spear jab clones are stronger than land skills.
I always thought elementalist was super weak underwater too until I started attunement swapping more. Auto attack damage is admittedly pathetic but with attunement swapping and using a variety of abilities it at least halves the time it takes to kill things. I’m not gonna claim that makes it awesome but it does make underwater bearable in PvE instead of irritatingly unbearable.
Open with Boil and Lava Chains. Switch to Air for Electrocute and Lightning Cage. Switch to Earth for Rock Spray as they close. If that doesn’t kill em, switch to water, Detonate Ice Globe, Detonate Ice Wall, Tidal Wave to finish them off and heal up on the way to the next fight. That seems to kill most things just fine and for the rest there are 2 blinds, a sink, a float, a heal that also sinks them, and vigor for extra dodging to keep you alive.
Plus we have almost twice as many movement controlling/CC abilities as any other class which is pretty awesome for avoiding fights or kiting just about anything. I can’t say how useful it is in sPvP though because I generally avoid the ruins on that map and just stick to dry ground.
I play a necro and an ele. I avoid underwater like the plague on my necro. Ele, fire, water both do good damage, electricity has good escape and a cc, earth….well we have the other 3.
Personally I tend to stick with Water attunement if I’m underwater. Ice Mine and Wall are actually quite powerful (and the retreat wall has is nice too), and Undercurrent being able to sink foes (even if the description doesn’t say it), and Tidal Wave’s dash makes water a surprisingly active skillset. On the flip side, I don’t really like using Fire underwater. It seems, ironically, underpowered in my eyes, and the slow explosions on skill one don’t help to endear me to the attunement.
Since people tend to get this wrong oh so many times …
On land we have 4 types of weapons (Sta, Daggers, Focus and Scepter). In all of those Fire is most offensive elementfire does over 70% of total combined dmg
In water we have ONE weapon, and look at the surprise, the most offensive element IS WATER …….. as in water in water …rlly …nobody got that ….. What the **** can fire do in water ….ever tried to use fire in water…
Please kids, leave your computer now and then, go outside, and try to use fire from a lighter or torch to kill a fish INSIDE of water -.-
Whirlpool…
4k5 4k5 4k5 4k5 4k5 4k5 4k5 4k5 4k5 4k5 4k5 4k5…
4k5 4k5 4k5 4k5 4k5 4k5 4k5 4k5 4k5 4k5 4k5 4k5…
I mean come on… we have the best underwater elite skill in the game. Even tho that’s our only good skill.
+ we have the highest amount of CC underwater. 2 sink, 1 float, 1 stun. We have a criple, burning, bleeding, AoEs, charge, pull to target, 2 blinds, chill, teleport… what else do you want? wow… We even have the damage we are supposed to have on thoses abilities. Unlike out of water where our damage is subpar.
Just try using 2 and 4 on fire with a 5 from lightning then charge in with a 2 from water sink them with 4 then chill blast them with a double 3 then throw your 2 and sink them with 4 in earth.
If you guys seriously think that most classes are remotely good underwater then you haven’t tried an Engineer with Grenade Kit underwater. Every class should get grenade kit when underwater, it is seriously that good.
…How can I explain this to you …. I’m soo sorry that I have to be the one to say this …but…..