Guild Wars 2

I’ve noticed this problem on my Elementalist much more frequently than my Ranger or Guardian (and my other characters aren’t high enough yet that I’ve done enough underwater combat to care). Sometimes, I’ll be absolutely stationary, using Air 1 to duke it out up close with some critter because that’s the only way I can get DPS sufficient to overcome Skale regeneration… and, without me moving at all, the enemy will suddenly become invulnerable and disengage. It will be 10-15 seconds before I can start dealing damage to them again, usually again WITHOUT MOVING, just sitting exactly where I was when they decided to ignore me, still spamming auto-attacks in the direction they’ve wandered off in. This happens to my Elementalist every 2-3 fights.

This isn’t a Kiting thing. I’m not especially mobile down there, because any movement at all seems to make my targeting go to crap, and my damage with it. I make a lot of use of defensive abilities, and pick my fights with things I can just stand up to. This happens when me and the enemy have been completely stationary, in melee range, since the fight was engaged. Any ideas what’s up?

This also happens to the npc fighters in the mists. They normally go invulnerable and reset after I use an invulnerable skill, like warrior shield 5 (3sec block)

I hypothesize that it’s a targeting/tethering issue, as I’ve had it happen to me on numerous occasions when dealing with underwater skill points/underwater story quests. Using any type of float/sink on the foe or moving them away from their spawn point typically exacerbates this issue. I’ve also noticed that simply using air 1 or earth 1 on close range foes causes this as well, which sometimes results in a miss if you’re right on top of them followed by periods of them being invulnerable thereafter.

It’s probably the same issue that people have with problems of mobs being slightly above or below their plane of view: even though the caster is within hitting range the mob is considered ‘invulnerable’ because the caster is outside a certain % of degrees in the caster’s position in relation to the target. (Ex: being on a cliff above a centaur and considered in range to cast skills but mob is invulnerable)

I first noticed it last night. I felt like it was maybe related to the trident abilities that dart you forward or back but I’m not sure.

Does anyone know if we auto-attack the closest mob when switching to air under water too?

I’ve been seeing this sometimes as well. As an extension of Josh’s hypothesis, I’ve seen them go invuln mostly when I’m close to the surface of the water near a shoreline. Anything that shifts my position (water2, air4) potentially puts me over the threshold where the game thinks I’m on land.

This has been happening as far as I remember since game was launched. So could be even from beta test as well. And this happen quite often to me, but I haven’t figured out any consistency when it happens.

I get it a lot too.

Especially when I use whirlpool…they stand at the same place, they dont move…but sometimes they get hit…sometimes they get invulnerability and sometimes they just evade. Even though they don’t do any dodging action and just stand at the same spot and keep attacking…they just evade.