Guild Wars 2

I’ll make this short and sweet-

My contention is that the water attunement on most weapons sacrifices too much damage for the support that it offers. I’m not necessarily saying it isn’t good, but I find myself only ever switching to it when I have a support-heavy build, which most of the time there’s not a good reason to do.

It’s practically unusable when solo and even in a group is only situationally useful. There’s also the whole philosophy behind the concept that water is only life-giving and not destructive when in fact it can be extremely destructive.

not sure if you mean pve,spvp or wvw,but,for one thing,the damage loss is negligible,because if you manage your other attunement cooldowns,you could just swap to air when you’ve used your water support skills (which,well,air SHOULD have more damage,which is the problem with staff/scepter,water isn’t the problem,but that’s a different topic) and earth for the heavy-hitting skills (eruption,churning earth,ring of earth,even magnetic wave has high damage for being instant)
maybe even make sure you have fire or air finished before entering water if you’re having that much trouble deciding if you should use it or not

for another thing,not sure what you’re talking about “only life-giving” as i never heard that been said in this game,but,Ice Spike hits like truck,Frozen Burst and Comet are blast finishers for might stacking,and fury,if traited,and frost aura reducing damage by 10% along with chill is very powerful for defense and offense in nearly any situation

Shatterstone needs to be stronger,yes,of course,everyone knows this part,they keep updating it but it’s still never really worth it

so there are offensive uses to water attunement,and the support can definitely be worth it to remove conditions with healing rain and cleansing wave,the heals may seem useless without healing power,but they definitely add up for being fairly quick to cast,especially for not being a class-specific heal,and they’re all AoE for allies,that extra healing can help a disengage go much more smoothly,pve,or wvw,i don’t spvp much but can only imagine if you can hide behind some of the terrain until your healing skill recharges
especially spamming Water Blast in front of yourself while running
even with 0 healing power,400 per blast is more than regeneration at 1,200+ healing power