Guild Wars 2

Does anyone else try to avoid water if possible?
I mean most of our skills are rubbish under water. We have no decent elite for underwater either.

It’s somewhat doable if you kite with trident, but only if you’re condition damage specced.

I play a condition build.

If I have to do underwater combat I only use Trident 1 and summon a lot of minons. Also their AI is crap and I haven’t invested a single trait point in them, they are still the most reliable way to deal damage in underwater combat.

The worst thing about underwater combat is how insanely weak death shroud is.
The casting speed of the life blast is so slow it’s ridicolous and on top of that it deals less damage. In additon to that life transfer is gone wich is pretty much the best thing about the shroud. I only use death shroud to flee because it’s completely useless to activate it if plan to fight.

I sometimes use the aquatic death shroud to drain conditions from my allies. But otherwise it’s really only there if you need to run away or if you get focused.

Amen. Before I realized how awful necros were underwater, I’d try to cap the ruins in capricorn and inevitably die either to sharks (/facepalm) or the other team. Now I don’t even try anymore and just let teammates handle the underwater stuff.

aznricepuff.5086:

Now I don’t even try anymore

That’s about the worst thing a designer responsible for a profession can get to read. It’s true, though.

I just 1-spam people down with trident.
/shrug

Feels like it stacks bleeds faster than scepter… and in a small aoe to boot.

With PvE, I barely get problems, you best bet is to make most of your utility skills a signet. It dissapoints me that wells don’t work underwater, considering I know how they could make it work. Just make it a sphere around the location and just make ground targeting for it disabled.

In PvP, I avoid water unless I can get a teammate to come with me, that is were the potential for the underwater Necromancer really shines. Sinking tomb while another character busts the person up can be devastating.

What I suggest doing is 1-spam for a few hits, cast 2, then 4 to sink the mob and get a little air and if in trouble… 5 for a huge damage boost. Cast time sucks, tho.

Coffietire.2783:

With PvE, I barely get problems, you best bet is to make most of your utility skills a signet. It dissapoints me that wells don’t work underwater, considering I know how they could make it work. Just make it a sphere around the location and just make ground targeting for it disabled.

And the ground targeting trait should just increase the spheres radius.

well trident has some, i don’t know..bug?

on battleground when attacking siege i can attack enemies up on the keep that using cannon from underwater. even i can atk enemies above the bridge from underwater without getting obstructed….and then epidemic.

i’m condition spec btw

I really, really, really dislike fighting underwater as Necromancer. It’s plain awful and there’s no way around it. Even as Con spec, spamming 1 is not fighting, it’s boring and bad. Underwater is my main issue with the class.

The good news about underwater is you have so much mobility. Swiftness on Spear and that charge on the 3 key of Trident. I also think that the whirly spin on 2 of the Spear speeds you up? Might just be my imagination, but it looks awesome.

Completely agree, I try to avoid it like my life depended on it.

Have to agree, I despise necro underwater combat. I am also under the impression that if the target is moving quickly enough, trident 1 will do not damage since it seems to spawn an AoE cloud of damage at the targets position, which it can move out of and therefore avoid. Awful.

If you’re condition specced, the trident 1-spam kills everything pretty quick. Since it’s AOE, combine with epidemic to double-stack bleeds on the rest of the group and they drop in a hurry.

Sad that only one spec is any good though.

Valentinerose.1379:

Does anyone else try to avoid water if possible?

Ha ha! Yes! I do. I thought it was just me. But being a necro in an underwater fight is just terrible, the worst. We are broken on land too but underwater it is worse.

I seem to do ok in water as long as I don’t get surrounded. I use the Blood Fiend for healing and to tank a little and I prefer to use a Spear with either heavy Power/Prec or Toughness/Vitality.

I LOATHE underwater combat, whoever is saying trident does decent damage is kidding themselves, it’s horrible. 5 ability does decent burst but has a long CD

edit – and I’m condition spec’d

the weapon skills are quite nice but death shroud and utility and elite choices are just awful. I dont see why well (as orb where it was casted or with targeted trait to appear on targeted enemy. ) couldn’t work in water or flesh golem to swim

I have no idea what you guys are going on about. I constantly take on 3-4 underwater enemies. The amount of AOE damage we have is ridiculous.

Trident 2 + 3+ 5 + 1(not burst aoe, but still reliable) , Spear 2 + 3 + 4 + 1 (if positioned correctly) + Bone Minion Pops.
All DEAD, and I hardly even sweat.

I personally LOVE underwater combat, I find it such a new and fun combat style for Necromancer.

HOWEVER. I do find it very unreasonable to disable so many skills underwater. Why can’t my flesh golem swim? Why can bone minions swim then? Why are you taking away so many skills, but not giving me something else in return? Why is there only one available elite skill under water?

Why is the design philosophy for water combat to take away so much? I understand that skills like well would be hard to make use of, but there ought to be compensation.

Apart from that, I’m impressed with the water combat system. Love the underwater zones too!

in all honesty I feel like too much is taken from the necro minion master underwater.
-wells should work but instead create a corrupt bubble
-the flesh golem should be able to swim, just give it a swimming animation

I am mostly fine with the weapon skills (can hold my own pretty well, at least with minions around), but the amount of utility which is lost is really just awful oO

The underwater weapons aren’t as bad as they look once you get used to them, but there still are numerous problems. There isn’t really much choice in terms of utility skills in PvE, I use wells heavily on land, but they don’t work underwater… corruption skills are a bit awkward without Death Swarm as well. The signets are ok, but you rarely want more than one and the spectral skills… dunno, not a fan of them. Grasp isn’t needed because you have many mobility / pull skills on the weapons already, specral walk doesn’t help much in combat and spectral armor is… okay. I haven’t played with it much since in open world gameplay offensive abilities are usually better.

Underwater Death Shroud is just bad however. Slow casting speed and extremely unresponsive for some reason. I also don’t see why it even needs extra underwater skills, all the normal DS skills would work just fine… or am I missing something?

LMAO – And all of my friends(playing different professions) thought I was crazy for saying that I hated underwater fighting… I thought I was alone until now.

I got my Necro to 30 and was so happy to be able to finally get a minion not made of tissue paper — the Flesh Golem. Then I go under water…no Elite Skill

Frankly, I do not understand. My ranger has a pet underwater & can switch once without any cool down. However, when a Necro loses minions there is a cool down and the most powerful minion available is NOT available underwater.

Necro underwater is easily the most painful thing in the game. It’s horrible.

Kixx.2730:

Necro underwater is easily the most painful thing in the game. It’s horrible.

Engineer underwater is worse, but necro comes close second.

WINDoSt.5973:

Kixx.2730:

Necro underwater is easily the most painful thing in the game. It’s horrible.

Engineer underwater is worse, but necro comes close second.

What. All I’ve been hearing is how brokenly strong the Grenade kit is underwater.

Hey, nice to see so many people saying they hate it too. I avoid underwater where possible. I find most of the short range skills to be too underpowered for the danger of closing to melee range. The minions are mandatory when underwater, just for the bit of extra aggro distraction and damage.

Underwater combat is absolutely horrific

I’m an 80 Necro in full exotics(including my underwater weapons). I can barely beat a shark in Raid on Capricorn; those sharks are seriously OP.

Worse, though, I can barely beat another player. I can barely beat a couple risen in Malchor’s Leap, and I just straight up ignore all underwater combat in Cursed Shore and train them til they leash.

And the weapons are so mismatched; the Tridents 5 is a Power ability, even though it clearly is supposed to be a condition weapon. The spears 4 and 5 are Condition abilities, even though it clearly is supposed to be a power weapon. The only solution is to get both power and condition damage on both weapons, which makes for a whack build.

In my opinion, the overall problem is the casting time on all the abilities. The trident’s 1-spam is very slow, because the damage animation has to nearly finish before you can cast another stack. I would venture a guess that the trident stacks bleeds about 2/3 the speed of the scepter, which is far too slow. Life blast underwater is an absolute joke. The 5 on the trident casts WAYYY too slow to be legitimately effective. The cooldown on the trident’s 4 (the sink) makes it unusable unless you are sinking a fleeing enemy player, because if you use it for the battle then it won’t be up when you’re trying to finish another player.

The spear is well balanced, and handles well. I would venture to guess that 80% of my underwater combat relies on the spear to deal damage, since the trident bleed is slow and weak. The 1 hits for acceptable damage, the 2 deals respectable damage, and the 3 grants swiftness. As a ranged caster, I am using a melee weapon for underwater combat.

Being underwater as necro blows!

My god it is bad.. and even worse when your trying to attack a moving player.

Damage from both weapons is mediocre at best and everything in DS is just plain bad compared to its dry land counterpart, as someone else said why cant we just have the normal skills during underwater combat.
And so many utilities not usable underwater.

The worst thing about gw2 for me and my necro right now is underwater combat, which is a shame as the underwater environments are so amazing

I agree. The underwater fight for warriors was patched today (more skills available), maybe sometimes the necro will get improved as well. Then underwater fight will be more enjoyable.

I have to agree with those who find the underwater necro to be lacking, especially the trident and death shroud.

I’m one of the few that don’t think death shroud is meh on land. It surely isn’t overpowered, but if used well and traited right for your playstile it can be more than just a panic button.

Underwater death shroud, however, is a completely different beast. Most noticeable is the sloooooooooow life blast, which makes it useless as DPS is laughable, and skill 4.

Skill 4 on land is just right: you use death shroud for survivability and it just makes sense to drain life force from surrounding enemies to make it last a little longer while inflicting damage. Also, it’s a nice AOE, but it’s balanced around the fact it generates a lot of aggro, and therefore if you don’t use it right you get a lot of mob attention that can kill you very quickly.

But underwater DS 4? I’m trying to survive and what I get is to make my situation worse by taking conditions on myself? Are you kidding me? The very soul of the necromancer profession lies in support and survivability and both things lack greatly while underwater.

It needs a serious rework IMO. Please make at least underwater DS 1 and 4 identical to their land counterparts, if not the whole DS.

It’s a shame as a necromancer I can’t enjoy the spectacular underwater content and combat system ANet has put in the game.

Plase give us necros the feeling of having always a plan B when things get tricky underwater. It’s the feeling that makes me love my necro so much on land.

Edit: another thing: as a support necro I love the blood trait “transfusion” which allows me to heal allies around me while using life transfer. Tha fact life transfer isn’t available underwater, however, makes this otherwise nice trait completely useless in that environment. It’s just another example of how our support role is greatly crippled when we are not on land.

In addition to Mirrar: Underwater combat as necro in WvW is also awesome, have not lost a single 1v1, 2v2 or 2v3. Even won several 2v4, which might say that Necros have too much survivability in underwater combat.

PvE is a nice swim. If you go into elite plague even 10 sharks/kraits will make you bored.

Kerael.6879:

In addition to Mirrar: Underwater combat as necro in WvW is also awesome, have not lost a single 1v1, 2v2 or 2v3. Even won several 2v4, which might say that Necros have too much survivability in underwater combat.

PvE is a nice swim. If you go into elite plague even 10 sharks/kraits will make you bored.

This is likely largely due to the fact that most players joining WvW probably don’t have their underwater skills unlocked and have no idea what they’re doing underwater.

As for Plague, LOL. Try to plague down the sharks in Raid of the Capricorn. You won’t even be able to kill one before it kills you, let alone before Plague ends. 10? You make me laugh

phooka.4295:

aznricepuff.5086:

Now I don’t even try anymore

That’s about the worst thing a designer responsible for a profession can get to read. It’s true, though.

This.

Necro is absolutely useless at the moment in every aspect of the game.
It feels as if interims have designed the class or some game design schools designed as part of a project…. just lame.

IOno, i only go in water to farm things.

Necro is good at AoE Farming with Trident/Spear Combo

Trident Starter with First AoE. (Skill 1)
Follow Up with Long Casting Ice AoE (Pretty good damage) (Skill 5)
Switch with ~
Use 2nd skill that leeches life aoe
Use 1st Skill that does aoe spin
Use 4th skill that aoe pulls them to you
Switch with ~
Finish them off with starting combo (By 2nd ice usually everythings dead if not sooner)

But yea I agree 1 v 1 we suck. So i stick to underwater events where we can just get tons of exp/drops from our aoes hitting everything. LoL

Mathemagician.7314:

Kerael.6879:

In addition to Mirrar: Underwater combat as necro in WvW is also awesome, have not lost a single 1v1, 2v2 or 2v3. Even won several 2v4, which might say that Necros have too much survivability in underwater combat.

PvE is a nice swim. If you go into elite plague even 10 sharks/kraits will make you bored.

This is likely largely due to the fact that most players joining WvW probably don’t have their underwater skills unlocked and have no idea what they’re doing underwater.

As for Plague, LOL. Try to plague down the sharks in Raid of the Capricorn. You won’t even be able to kill one before it kills you, let alone before Plague ends. 10? You make me laugh

Against other full 80s in WvWvW? I really doubt that they have not unlocked these skills.

I judge by Orr, Frostgorge Sound and WvWvW underwater combat. Not a single place on sPvP map that is meant to pose challenge for all (capturing the ruins should be meaningful).

Trident is extremely powerful underwater. It is superior to any scepter setup. The only thing it’s missing is Deathly Swarm. You’re missing out if you truly believe that the Necromancer underwater kit is weak.

Isn’t underwater combat almost universally bad?

Xomic.5792:

Isn’t underwater combat almost universally bad?

I find underwater combat on my Mesmer fun.

Just underwater combat as a Necromancer seems lacking.

Ya I agree underwater versions of Necromancer skills are complete garbage, especially the death shroud ones. IMO the underwater DS needs to be almost completely reworked.

Yeah I have to admit, I find Necro underwater combat to be painfully difficult and, perhaps more importantly, dull. Ive tried underwater combat with quite a few other professions and I cant say that I find any other profession bores me as much as Necromancer does.

I have to say that I spend most of my time using a spear (even as a conditonmancer) because I have more direct damage abilities available. Besides, the tridents huge aoe just ends up pulling more mobs than you want.

I have tried underwater combat a few times, my opinion is that Trident’s skill set is surprisingly good, while Spear’s #1 and #2 were ok, #3 was meh, #4 and #5 were terrible.

As for DS in the water, Life Blast on the land was already slow enough for me, in the water they’re even worse! Takes so long to channel and finally blast it.

DS’s #2 and #3 are ok, but I absolutely have no idea what #4 is for…my build is not something that can transfer or convert the condition on me, so other than sacrificing myself for my teammate, that skill is worthless for me.

Other than the above issues, I find Necro’s underwater combat much more fun than Engineer’s

I hate underwater combat on my necro. It iskitten and everything is AoE based so most of the time instead of fighting the 1 mob I want to, i hit the 3+ neutral mobs just because I hit a button that isn’t 1. Except with the spear, then even 1 AoEs on the last hit. Not to mention I play support/well spec, so I get completely Fed over underwater since not a single of my 4 wells gets replaced with anything useful. I understands wells are a ground target that hits anything standing above them, why not make it a bubble shape underwater that hits anything inside of them instead of rendering me just about useless cause the rest of utils are borked because of my spec. Also, the whole use one class elite underwater kind of sucks, it’s like that with most professions, I have no problem with the elite they give though as with my spec it’s the elite I use anyways. Doubled health and at level 80 about a 2k+ to toughness is rather useful.

To be fair after playing a Warrior and Thief underwater Necromancer is A LOT BETTER than them.

I don’t mind it, get a few enemies, use Vampiric shrimp, then spear spin, swap to trident and use the number 5 for mass aoe. Whatever survives eats poison from the dash and feared with wave from deathshroud. Repeat.

AuraofMana.1279:

To be fair after playing a Warrior and Thief underwater Necromancer is A LOT BETTER than them.

Right because like the thief a necro can spam 5 with a spear dealing massive damage with the right spec and evade the entire time :]

Underwater combat for necromancer needs to be reworked. As a power build there is no synergy with any underwater attacks and all power based slot skills are disabled.

Along with this the downed state mechanic is clumsy and should be removed in the water.