Guild Wars 2

Land combat is great. I love running duel daggers and having to position myself, dodge, using Heartseeker for mobility, timing Leaping Death Blossom for evasion…

But underwater combat is just dull. It suffers from a few problems.

1. One of the general problems in underwater combat is the lack of dodging that is required or beneficial to the player. Most attacks are standard, fast attacks and are pointless to dodge. Compare this to land where enemies may have super powered wind up attacks, or aoe attacks, which encourage dodging.
2. Restriction of elite skills. Of the six or so elites I have on land, underwater I’m restricted to one skill. Why? Why aren’t the other skills appropriated for underwater?
3. Spear is totally non engaging when an enemy isn’t attacking you. None of the skills are interesting to use in this situation. In fact there are no good skills. None of your Spear skills do high damage, I find myself auto attacking and just watching TV instead.
4. Flanking Strike and Shadow Assault are too similar. They both serve the same function; moderate damage while evading. I don’t see what the purpose of Flanking Strike is.
5. Shadow Assault is neither fun to use, or to encounter in an enemy. You spend a couple of seconds watching your character move around, if you fight somebody using Shadow Assault all you are going to see is “evade, evade, evade” if you attack. While you can do other things while they are evading, attacking may be your only real option.
6. Nine Tailed Strike is a fun skill, but is limited to when you are being attack. When you are not its useless. In underwater dynamic events such as bosses, you will never use this skill.
7. Harpoon Gun=kite mode if you can be bothered. Again this weapon doesn’t do a lot of damage and its dull. Basically you just stand there and use Deluge whenever its up. Occasionally you may use Escape or Disabling Shot to kite.
8. I’ve never encounter a situation where Ink Shot is useful, apart from travelling around underwater slightly faster. Perhaps you could pull of some nice escapes in PvP, but in PvE its all but useless.

I hope underwater thief skills are improved because currently it can best be described as a chore.

Considering most classes are absolutely kittened underwater, and a thief does fine, I think it’s safe to say that underwater combat for them is working as intended.

I disagree completely. I’ve used a handful of professions and toyed around with their underwater skills and I find the thief’s spear set to be the most fun in the entire game. With Nine-Tailed Strike you have an instant-cast block that does a TON of damage, two different evasive attacks, one of which lasts almost two full seconds (!), a pulling attack that is great for PvP, and an auto-attack that poisons every 3rd hit. I find it to be a great skill set. It has good offense and absolutely fantastic defensive capabilities. If you’re good enough, you can take on Veteran mobs without even taking damage. It’s very engaging because you have to be actively watching your enemy to know when to use Nine-Tailed Strike or Flanking Strike for the best effectiveness. Shadow Assault is probably one of my favorite skills in the entire game. Watching my thief dance around for a few seconds, hitting everybody around me while evading every attack is very satisfying, especially in PvP where I can hold my own against as many as three enemies at the same time.

Basically, thief spear owns underwater.

I will say, I agree with your assessment about the Elite skills, though. It would be nice if I could use some of my other Elites while underwater.

You know… Nine-tailed strike is pretty good moreover because it has NO cooldown (initiative) and at high levels when u have init regen, you can spam it like hell… Shadow assault can also be spammed 5-7 times so u don’t get hit at all during that time lol

Yeah. Best thing about Nine-Tailed is if you don’t get hit during it, you get all the initiative back. Since it’s pretty much instant-cast you can use it when an enemy is about to attack, and if you mess up and they weren’t attacking you, just tap it again and you have all your initiative again, attack for a couple seconds with 1, and when they’re about to attack again, bam, Nine-Tailed Strike. Amazing.

I completely agree. Thief underwater combat is simultaneously overpowered and underpowered. Overpowered if you’re the target of an enemy, underpowered if you’re not. Incredibly boring in either case. But it’s not just thieves. I’ve played several classes (really all but necro) and the only one that has underwater combat that’s even a little bit exciting is Engineer.

The whole underwater combat system is a bust, and I dread coming upon an area where I need to utilize it.

3-5-3-5-3-5-3-5-3-5-3-5

We are really strong underwater and the second speargun skill, when you spam bullets.. is lethal with haste in pvp.

underwater combat is really bad and annoying, buts its not just bad and annoying for the Thief. its bad and annoying for all classes.

Spamming 5 with the spear may be effective… but it’s boring as hell.