Water fighting for Elementalists
As Ele, we suck under water. As you have stated only 1 Elite currently works under water, it is a good one though and does plenty of damage. Personally i go with Earth as i am a condition build and our under water conditions are even worse than our on ground ones.
Take the 25% movement speed increase as it means you get to get out of water faster.
Tornado is the only underwater ele barring racials.
Your skills for underwater are dependant on a PVE of PVP/WVW setting. PVE, just spam everything. Your group will benefit from the regen/vigor/blind/etc. that you’ll be throwing out and as most of your skills are AOE, the target doesn’t really matter. On the end of a rotation try to leave earth as last since the Bleed AA spam is probably our most effective AA.
PVP/WVW setting however, you are a CC machine. Start off in lightning and use your lightning cage. If they stability, swap to fire and use immobilize. If they don’t stability, force them to the surface with your bubble then go to fire. Afterwords, get in front of them and swap to water. Use your Swim Dash when they’re immob.- as it’s really your hardest hitting attack. Ice wall immediately after and swap to earth. Submerge them and then blind them. (This rotation changes a lot but gives you a basic thought).
Take Armor of Earth, Arcane Shield, then Mist Form.
The lightning auto underwater will do good damage if you are up-close on the target. All three bolts will hit. It’s the highest dmg I’ve found from the wep skills underwater.
Earth auto is good for the bleed and is a close second (first if you are not up-close).
I only use fire/water just for some of the situational skills (fire field, blind, regeneration, mobility).
Part of me thinks that someone in ANet was thinking “hey, wanna see something funny? Watch this…”
As Ele, we suck under water.
Disagree. Water attunement is pretty powerful underwater. If you can time the Ice Globe and Ice Wall explosions well, they’ll take a huge chunk out of your target’s hp. If you can aim Tidal Wave well, you can instagib targets. Add to that the fact that eles have no less than 4(!) crowd control skills, you can actually do quite a bit underwater.
Earth however is fairly weak underwater. I’ll admit that. But water…even the auto attack from water attunement is strong underwater.
If you can read this then it is proof that ArenaNet’s moderators just, kind and fair.
I don’t mind underwater fighting to much with an elementalist. It sucks regardless of what class you are but I’ve always found it amusing that water attunement seems to be good one. must be all that extra water.
#ELEtism
What players usually overlook is that you simply need to rotate through the attunements and use your main damage spells. You also need to remember that you also have combo fields underwater (fire/lightning and smoke) that you can combo with. Usually you will try to use the main skills as they come off cooldown then switch attunements. You dont really have any “epic” spells underwater, they are all pretty lackluster. The spell you will use the most is probably the air autoattack from close range.
Abaddon’s Mouth (DE)
You dont really have any “epic” spells underwater, they are all pretty lackluster.
What’s not epic about Ice Globe? It can oneshot if you time it right.
If you can read this then it is proof that ArenaNet’s moderators just, kind and fair.
We are fine underwater. Here’s a tip:
If you are underneath or above whatever you are fighting, lightning auto-1 will almost always have all three bolts hit, and does considerable damage with high crit rates.
This is even enhanced with Air Bubble, to interrupt your foe and make them float up, so all you have to do is slide underneath and continue to auto-1 them.
“There’s no lag but what we make.” – biofrog
Of course Air 1 will also miss a lot of the time due to being bugged…
Eles do fine underwater. Whirlpool elite is strong and water has high aoe burst. There are quite a few bugs, like Undercurrent not working with Cleansing Water and conditions are difficult to get rid of, but otherwise it’s fine.
Earth 5, water 5 = stealth.
Air 5, water 5 = cleanse + a crapload of damage.
About face, ice wall to propel yourself away.
Fire 5 for vigor dodging away.
Sink/levitate enemy to get more range on them.
I use air 2, water 5, fire 5 for getting through gaps of water. Like from south camp, toward se tower, in WvW. Or descending to the 4th boss in the frostgorge champ chain.