Guild Wars 2

what would be fantastic to see in relation to this is in WvW or PvP using the Itzel harpoons to fire at and shoot players out of the sky who are gliding down from above.

Andred.1087:

Well, since the current way players deal with the awfulness of underwater content is by trying to avoid it as much as possible, I don’t think it would be a very good use of the devs’ time trying to improve something that most people want to never see again. Like you said, it’s a catch 22, but I, for one, certainly don’t feel like I’m missing anything.

Also, what are you on about land spears? That’s not a thing.

Yeah sorry about the land spears thing, I had forgotten that they were not doing those.

With the expansion, and it’s major assets announced is there any hope to see changes/developments with Underwater content?

My hope is yes, and for a few of these reasons:

ANET has announced and showcased some new camera technology which could be a huge asset to Underwater combat and mobility.

Professions new and old are being worked on to adjust for the new defiant, taunt, and slow conditions. Thus allowing an opportunity to make adjustments for Uw content

A focus on vertical maps is being pushed for HoT. allowing map developers to explore the Z axis more, an axis previously unique to Uw content alone.

Land spears? why not new Uw weapons as well (possibly daggers)

New challenging mechanics which could be transferred over into a potential Uw world boss, or event chain.

Mastery systems, additional benefits to Uw content.

Where HoT will have gliders for traversing the Z axis, why not an inverse where Uw content has “iron boots” for sea floor movement.

A hopeful return of Uw maps to PvP, aiding in the new gametype, partial Uw sections or even a Full Uw map (custom arena choice only)

These are my thoughts/hopes on the subject. Unfortunately underwater content is and has been caught in a catch 22 of development hell. Its not developed upon because nobody plays it, and nobody plays it because its not developed upon enough.

Part 2

Now proposed Ideas on how to fix/help with these issues.

1. No need for a separate trait build like that in pvp, simple additions/ alterations to current traits will do fine. Traits that benefit land only abilities/ weapons have added traits that will benefit aquatic only abilities and weapons. I.E. (10% of toughness is converted to power = no changes. Greatsword skills recharge 20% faster = GS and spear abilities recharge 20% faster.)
2. Craftable breathers of all qualities, including ascended. Breathers now drop from underwater mobs only, helmet drops removed from underwater mobs (or keep them in, doesn’t matter to much on that detail)
3. Additional Skins for breathers. I was super disappointed that “gas mask” skin was not for underwater. Ideas for additional skins: full helmet, gas mask like helmet (can see your face), breather/goggles combo, breathers like those from SW: Episode 1, old timey dive helmet, or anything you guys can think up.
4. Add an underwater world boss. Since underwater fights include the Z axis the mechanics will need to change from normal world bosses. Possible mechanics: multi level shockwaves that run in the X and Z axis (alternating for increased difficulty), all encompassing aura of damage while in close proximity (like Claw of Jormag’s Ice field), “Water tension”: boss sends mobs to wipe out those trying to escape to the surface, whirlpools: drag you to the bottom or throw you in a random direction… most ideal location for this would be Aquabase Terror Seven: Inquest, while researching “insert plot device” Unleash/ Attract from neighboring waters a (Water Elemental, Crazed experiment, Giant something, etc.) Terror base seven has a large enough area with sparse naturally occurring mobs. and it has 3 waypoints somewhat close by so people can get there accordingly ( block off the closest during the boss fight of course)
5. One of my favorite parts of this game is the underwater mini dungeon in Diessa Plateau, it has puzzle mechanics, a difficult boss, and a good dynamic event leading up to it. Hell it is the best underwater dungeon in the game. HotW has underwater parts, but the boss fights seem crowded and have terrible camera angles/obstructions. Add additional underwater paths to dungeons, or an entire new dungeon that is mostly underwater. Large underwater areas (openish world, or a large sea cavern. Final boss fight in a not super clustered room, add smaller hallways for the inbetweens (ex: Underwater fractal) or even darkness like in the aforementioned fractal. New dungeon armor that is underwater themed.
6. Adjust the scaling for underwater events so that it correctly scales to the players in the vicinity, add dynamic event chains that are more than an escort quest (Orr).
7. Remove the ground targeting aspect of those utilities while underwater and have them just drop wherever the player is. Banners can turn into bouys or bobbers, aoe rez skills just rez in the immediate area.
8. Add at least one additional underwater elite for each class or alter the current ones so they can be used underwater. (reskin the lich form to something underwatery, call in the thieves guild while underwater, new underwater only tome (mix of offense and defense) “waterlogged Tome”, not sure what to alter for elementalist, so maybe just an new elite.
9. Add one underwater elite for each race. Charr: depth charge (sends out depth charges all around the charr, enemies explode on impact. Human: Servants of Lyssa (dolphins come to your aid and attack your foes). Norn: Become the Polar Bear (same as become the bear). Asura: Summon Dive suit (you summon a dive suit golem to attack foes, looks more aquatic than the normal suit). Sylvari: Algae ( send out and aura of algae, blinding/crippling foes and healing allies
10. AoE skills that normally are only shown via circles on the ground should be aesthetically altered to be thin bubbles surrounding the area they are effecting, it could be anything from a color change to particle effects surrounding/filling that area. kind of like the guardian bubble or elementalist boil/ electric field.
    #More/diverse whales, combatable dolphins/turtles, eels, squid/octopi, water elementals, alligators/crocodiles (if they exist in this world), giant versions of sea creatures, pirana, deep sea fish, karka (while underwater)
11. Finally what would really float my boat is a mostly underwater area, with only a few areas of actual land (small islands, a conglomeration of sea vessels, floating town/city) The rest of the map ranging in coral life, caves, deep waters, shallows, and tide pools.

Any and all thoughts, criticisms, contrasts, previews, or really any information at all would be greatly appreciated on any of these topics.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, if you have.

Part 1
The current state

If you take all the underwater areas in the game it at the very least makes up around 4 entire zones, or roughly 1/8 of the current playable map. So why is 1/8 of the world in such terrible shape as far as combat and content goes, and why has there never been a serious discussion or anything addressing underwater development from Anet (as far as I have searched)?

So to start I will list some of the current problems with underwater content that drives many players from it entirely.

1. Current trait builds have little to no added benefits for underwater combat.
2. There are no joined underwater/on land traits, so pretty much everyone suffers underwater.
3. Breathers cannot be crafted, the highest quality of breather is “rare”, and they only are obtainable as a rare drop Tequatl or on the TP for an exorbitant price.
4. Breathers only have 3 available skins (white, grey, and red)
5. There are no World Bosses for underwater content.
6. Dungeons with underwater parts are avoided or disliked due to the disadvantage of
   playing in them.
7. There are no Major Dynamic events that take place underwater, and those dynamic events that do are often flooded by mobs and undoable by single people (talking about the inquest event in bloodtide near Sorrowful Waypoint.
8. Ground targeted utilities have no use underwater as you can only target surfaces.
9. Thief, Necro, Guardian, and Elementalist have only 1 elite that works underwater.
   Warrior has 2, however one is a banner (see above for ground targeted skill problems)
10. No races have any underwater Elites.
11. Most Area of Effect skill ranges are impossible to determine while underwater, unless against/near a surface.
12. There is a lack of diversity with underwater enemies. (dragon corrupted -primodus, sharks, 1 whale, inquest, pirates, krait, hylek, baracudas, skelk, wurms, jellyfish, maybe 3 largos, and drakes)

Spunter.5847:

In fighting off the various threats, the Charr have taken point, the Norn have taken point, Humans
have taken point, the Asurans haven’t taken point, but are ALWAYS there offering their tech to help. Were are the Sylvari? NO WERE!!!

Sure ya know, except for the part where they are in the most risen infested areas of the game fighting off everything. In one of the final story missions you are escorted by a squad of elite Wardens that wreck face indiscriminately.

Since they are immune to dragon corruption they are always on the front lines killing risen and corrupted. You can see them in virtually every encampment in orr, and being one of the main defenses leading out of Orr and into Sparkfly and Mount Maelstrom. They even ensure their less immune comrades don’t rise again once they have fallen in combat. I assure you, as we expand into new zones and hunt other dragons, you will always see sylvari on the front lines of battle.

Part 2

Now proposed Ideas on how to fix/help with these issues.

1. No need for a separate trait build like that in pvp, simple additions/ alterations to current traits will do fine. Traits that benefit land only abilities/ weapons have added traits that will benefit aquatic only abilities and weapons. I.E. (10% of toughness is converted to power = no changes. Greatsword skills recharge 20% faster = GS and spear abilities recharge 20% faster.)
2. Craftable breathers of all qualities, including ascended. Breathers now drop from underwater mobs only, helmet drops removed from underwater mobs (or keep them in, doesn’t matter to much on that detail)
3. Additional Skins for breathers. I was super disappointed that “gas mask” skin was not for underwater. Ideas for additional skins: full helmet, gas mask like helmet (can see your face), breather/goggles combo, breathers like those from SW: Episode 1, old timey dive helmet, or anything you guys can think up.
4. Add an underwater world boss. Since underwater fights include the Z axis the mechanics will need to change from normal world bosses. Possible mechanics: multi level shockwaves that run in the X and Z axis (alternating for increased difficulty), all encompassing aura of damage while in close proximity (like Claw of Jormag’s Ice field), “Water tension”: boss sends mobs to wipe out those trying to escape to the surface, whirlpools: drag you to the bottom or throw you in a random direction… most ideal location for this would be Aquabase Terror Seven: Inquest, while researching “insert plot device” Unleash/ Attract from neighboring waters a (Water Elemental, Crazed experiment, Giant something, etc.) Terror base seven has a large enough area with sparse naturally occurring mobs. and it has 3 waypoints somewhat close by so people can get there accordingly ( block off the closest during the boss fight of course)
5. One of my favorite parts of this game is the underwater mini dungeon in Diessa Plateau, it has puzzle mechanics, a difficult boss, and a good dynamic event leading up to it. Hell it is the best underwater dungeon in the game. HotW has underwater parts, but the boss fights seem crowded and have terrible camera angles/obstructions.. Add additional underwater paths to dungeons, or an entire new dungeon that is mostly underwater. Large underwater areas (openish world, or a large sea cavern. Final boss fight in a not super clustered room, add smaller hallways for the inbetweens (ex: Underwater fractal) or even darkness like in the aforementioned fractal. New dungeon armor that is underwater themed.
6. Adjust the scaling for underwater events so that it correctly scales to the players in the vicinity, add dynamic event chains that are more than an escort quest (Orr).
7. Remove the ground targeting aspect of those utilities while underwater and have them just drop wherever the player is. Banners can turn into bouys or bobbers, aoe rez skills just rez in the immediate area.
8. Add at least one additional underwater elite for each class or alter the current ones so they can be used underwater. (reskin the lich form to something underwatery, call in the thieves guild while underwater, new underwater only tome (mix of offense and defense) “waterlogged Tome”, not sure what to alter for elementalist, so maybe just an new elite.
9. Add one underwater elite for each race. Charr: depth charge (sends out depth charges all around the charr, enemies explode on impact. Human: Servants of Lyssa (dolphins come to your aid and attack your foes). Norn: Become the Polar Bear (same as become the bear). Asura: Summon Dive suit (you summon a dive suit golem to attack foes, looks more aquatic than the normal suit). Sylvari: Algae ( send out and aura of algae, blinding/crippling foes and healing allies
10. AoE skills that normally are only shown via circles on the ground should be aesthetically altered to be thin bubbles surrounding the area they are effecting, it could be anything from a color change to particle effects surrounding/filling that area. kind of like the guardian bubble or elementalist boil/ electric field.
11. More/diverse whales, combatable dolphins/turtles, eels, squid/octopi, water elementals, alligators/crocodiles (if they exist in this world), giant versions of sea creatures, pirana, deep sea fish, karka (while underwater)

Finally what would really float my boat is a mostly underwater area, with only a few areas of actual land (small islands, a conglomeration of sea vessels, floating town/city)
The rest of the map ranging in coral life, caves, deep waters, shallows, and tide pools.

Any and all thoughts, criticisms, contrasts, previews, or really any information at all would be greatly appreciated on any of these topics.

Part 1

These are my thoughts on the subject. (copypasta’d from an earlier post of mine)

If you take all the underwater areas in the game it at the very least makes up around 4 entire zones, or roughly 1/8 of the current playable map. So why is 1/8 of the world in such terrible shape as far as combat and content goes, and why has there never been a serious discussion or anything addressing underwater development from Anet (as far as I have searched)?

So to start I will list some of the current problems with underwater content that drives many players from it entirely.

1. Current trait builds have little to no added benefits for underwater combat.
2. There are no joined underwater/on land traits, so pretty much everyone suffers underwater.
3. Breathers cannot be crafted, the highest quality of breather is “rare”, and they only are obtainable as a rare drop Tequatl or on the TP for an exorbitant price.
4. Breathers only have 3 available skins (white, grey, and red)
5. There are no World Bosses for underwater content.
6. Dungeons with underwater parts are avoided or disliked due to the disadvantage of
   playing in them.
7. There are no Major Dynamic events that take place underwater, and those dynamic events that do are often flooded by mobs and undoable by single people (talking about the inquest event in bloodtide near Sorrowful Waypoint.
8. Ground targeted utilities have no use underwater as you can only target surfaces.
9. Thief, Necro, Guardian, and Elementalist have only 1 elite that works underwater.
   Warrior has 2, however one is a banner (see above for ground targeted skill problems)
10. No races have any underwater Elites.
11. Most Area of Effect skill ranges are impossible to determine while underwater, unless against/near a surface.
12. There is a lack of diversity with underwater enemies. (dragon corrupted -primodus, sharks, 1 whale, inquest, pirates, krait, hylek, baracudas, skelk, wurms, jellyfish, maybe 3 largos, and drakes)

For some time now it has seemed, to me at least, that Anet stays away from talking about underwater content like its the plague.

I would like to have a discussion with the devs and the community about the current state and future of underwater content.

If Anet responds to this thread then that will be wonderful. If not, then we can at least discuss and possible create an outline of what we, as a community, would like to see come from underwater.

The discussion is now open.

@anyone from Anet in the discussion right now.

Now that the vertical progression discussion seems like it has come to a near conclusion, is there any chance someone can touch, even slightly, on the topic I raised from page 21.

It concerns both horizontal and vertical and is pretty much the sole purpose I came to this thread. Any acknowledgement of the topic would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Part 2

Now proposed Ideas on how to fix/help with these issues.

1. No need for a separate trait build like that in pvp, simple additions/ alterations to current traits will do fine. Traits that benefit land only abilities/ weapons have added traits that will benefit aquatic only abilities and weapons. I.E. (10% of toughness is converted to power = no changes. Greatsword skills recharge 20% faster = GS and spear abilities recharge 20% faster.)
2. Craftable breathers of all qualities, including ascended. Breathers now drop from underwater mobs only, helmet drops removed from underwater mobs (or keep them in, doesn’t matter to much on that detail)
3. Additional Skins for breathers. I was super disappointed that “gas mask” skin was not for underwater. Ideas for additional skins: full helmet, gas mask like helmet (can see your face), breather/goggles combo, breathers like those from SW: Episode 1, old timey dive helmet, or anything you guys can think up.
4. Add an underwater world boss. Since underwater fights include the Z axis the mechanics will need to change from normal world bosses. Possible mechanics: multi level shockwaves that run in the X and Z axis (alternating for increased difficulty), all encompassing aura of damage while in close proximity (like Claw of Jormag’s Ice field), “Water tension”: boss sends mobs to wipe out those trying to escape to the surface, whirlpools: drag you to the bottom or throw you in a random direction… most ideal location for this would be Aquabase Terror Seven: Inquest, while researching “insert plot device” Unleash/ Attract from neighboring waters a (Water Elemental, Crazed experiment, Giant something, etc.) Terror base seven has a large enough area with sparse naturally occurring mobs. and it has 3 waypoints somewhat close by so people can get there accordingly ( block off the closest during the boss fight of course)
5. One of my favorite parts of this game is the underwater mini dungeon in Diessa Plateau, it has puzzle mechanics, a difficult boss, and a good dynamic event leading up to it. Hell it is the best underwater dungeon in the game. HotW has underwater parts, but the boss fights seem crowded and have terrible camera angles/obstructions.. Add additional underwater paths to dungeons, or an entire new dungeon that is mostly underwater. Large underwater areas (openish world, or a large sea cavern. Final boss fight in a not super clustered room, add smaller hallways for the inbetweens (ex: Underwater fractal) or even darkness like in the aforementioned fractal. New dungeon armor that is underwater themed.
6. Adjust the scaling for underwater events so that it correctly scales to the players in the vicinity, add dynamic event chains that are more than an escort quest (Orr).
7. Remove the ground targeting aspect of those utilities while underwater and have them just drop wherever the player is. Banners can turn into bouys or bobbers, aoe rez skills just rez in the immediate area.
8. Add at least one additional underwater elite for each class or alter the current ones so they can be used underwater. (reskin the lich form to something underwatery, call in the thieves guild while underwater, new underwater only tome (mix of offense and defense) “waterlogged Tome”, not sure what to alter for elementalist, so maybe just an new elite.
9. 1 underwater elite for each race. Charr: depth charge (sends out depth charges all around the charr, enemies explode on impact. Human: Servants of Lyssa (dolphins come to your aid and attack your foes). Norn: Become the Polar Bear (same as become the bear). Asura: Summon Dive suit (you summon a dive suit golem to attack foes, looks more aquatic than the normal suit). Sylvari: Algae ( send out and aura of algae, blinding/crippling foes and healing allies
10. AoE skills that normally are only shown via circles on the ground should be aesthetically altered to be thin bubbles surrounding the area they are effecting, it could be anything from a color change to particle effects surrounding/filling that area. kind of like the guardian bubble or elementalist boil/ electric field.
11. More/diverse whales, combatable dolphins/turtles, eels, squid/octopi, water elementals, alligators/crocodiles (if they exist in this world), giant versions of sea creatures, pirana, deep sea fish, karka (while underwater)

Finally what would really float my boat is a mostly underwater area, with only a few areas of actual land (small islands, a conglomeration of sea vessels, floating town/city) The rest of the map ranging in coral life, caves, deep waters, shallows, and tide pools.

Any and all thoughts, criticisms, contrasts, previews, or really any information at all would be greatly appreciated on any of these topics.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, if you have.

Part 1

Since this is a discussion thread, can we have a serious conversation about progression both vertical and horizontal in regards to underwater?

I touched on these ideas on page 4, but i feel as they have gone overlooked.

If you take all the underwater areas in the game it at the very least makes up around 4 entire zones, or roughly 1/8 of the current playable map. So why is 1/8 of the world in such terrible shape as far as combat and content goes, and why has there never been a serious discussion or anything addressing underwater development from Anet (as far as I have searched)?

So to start I will list some of the current problems with underwater content that drives many players from it entirely.

1. Current trait builds have little to no added benefits for underwater combat. There are no joined underwater/on land traits, so pretty much everyone suffers underwater.
2. Breathers cannot be crafted, the highest quality of breather is “rare”, and they only are obtainable as a rare drop Tequatl or on the TP for an exorbitant price.
3. Breathers only have 3 available skins (white, grey, and red)
4. There are no World Bosses for underwater content.
5. Dungeons with underwater parts are avoided or disliked due to the disadvantage of playing in them.
6. There are no Major Dynamic events that take place underwater, and those dynamic events that do are often flooded by mobs and undoable by single people (talking about the inquest event in bloodtide near Sorrowful Waypoint.
7. Ground targeted utilities have no use underwater as you can only target surfaces.
8. Thief, Necro, Guardian, and Elementalist have only 1 elite that works underwater. Warrior has 2, however one is a banner (see above for ground targeted skill problems)
9. No races have any underwater Elites.
10. Most Area of Effect skill ranges are impossible to determine while underwater, unless against/near a surface.
11. There is a lack of diversity with underwater enemies. (dragon corrupted -primodus, sharks, 1 whale, inquest, pirates, krait, hylek, baracudas, skelk, wurms, jellyfish, maybe 3 largos, and drakes)

Probably covered in other peoples’ posts already, but here I go.

Horizontal Progression:

• Gear- When I first started the game, one of the major things that attracted me was the no grinding for better gear, just for different and unique looking gear. I set out on my quest to get my arah light armor for my necro, after weeks of running paths with both successful and unsuccessful pug groups I finally got the armor pieces I wanted. It was the best feeling to see my character in the outfit I envisioned for him.

While this still exists it would be great to expand and encourage this even more. You have heard it before and I’ll say it again… PvE lockers.

A place where you can store skins for future use; not necessarily to skip grinding for gear, but to retain gear that you may not need right now or want to utilize later. The best example would be (exclusive) backpack skins.

“Wow I got X skin, and its soulbound on acquire for some reason, man this would look great on my other character, too bad its stuck on this guy, if only there was a locker to save my skin in.” OR “Awesome a new back pack skin, now I can farm a whole new ascended back piece or lose my current exclusive skin to a transmutation, if only there was a PvE locker”

• Character story- While every main story mission from here out will be at level 80 already, the next set of main story missions should be encompassing, not only of your previous exploits with traehearn, but also include aspects of the living story you have gone through.

Characters who remember you (problems with this during QJ when rox and Braham did not remember you), and who share in your story both in the living world and personal. Progression vertically with the story is a must, new things should definitely happen, but horizontal progression should also be a major part.

Expand on previous relations from the personal, revisit your old allies from the starting of your story, and from your order. Basically, enrich what is already there. I kind of want to hear this, “Hey there! I have not seen you since (insert location/mission), what have you been doing all this time?”… “Lets see… killed Zhaitan, defeated the mad king and his son, halted an invasion of karka and got revenge, took down all of Scarlet’s armies, saved a few hundred thousand lives. So you know, not too much.”

Vertical Progression-
THIS IS WHAT I WOULD LIKE ANSWERED OR EXPANDED ON MORE THAN ANYTHING, THANK YOU

• Underwater content/gear- Both vertical and horizontal is needed here.
  Underwater was so promising and one of my absolute favorite things when I started this game, however due to a lack of development in that area it fell short. The areas are some of the most beautiful in game, but there is a lot to be desired.
• More breather skins (gas mask would look amazing as a breather skin)
• Traits that aid both underwater and land combat (staff/trident skills recharge 20% faster, for example)
• additional/reskinned elites for underwater- some classes only have 1 option available for underwater elites.
• Breathers of a higher quality than green- currently the only ones that are yellow are extremely hard to obtain, this should not be the case. In addition most people who are at level 80 still have their original rebreather equipped from the start of the game, due to these armor pieces being so difficult to obtain.
• Craftable breathers
• Underwater World bosses- you don’t need many, just one to start. This one can be somewhat easy to kill in order to reintroduce people to fighting underwater. If the boss is too hard to kill, it will put many people off and they will ignore it entirely. Make it in an open underwater area with a low populace of other mobs. Think shadow behemoth’s area, but underwater… OH, and be creative, not just “look a krait witch :/” or a “giant jellyfish :/”. I believe in you.
• another underwater mini dungeon, much like the one in Diessa Plateau

*Any thoughts on this from you would be much appreciated, even a quick we’re working on it would make me happy as a clam. Of course, any details you can give or counterpoints to my underwater suggestions would be more than welcome as well.

• Thoughts on Ascended
  I like that it is in no way required, 5% stat increase is nice, while not game breaking. The main thing I am looking forward to doing is obtaining those few additional AR slots that I need. Well done, could have been introduced at launch so it didn’t get as huge of a backlash, but hey… lesson learned.

It is also a fantastic money sink, however for those who have issues making gold it seems daunting.

That is it for now, thanks for doing this and I hope this gets read.

6. Underwater AoE skills have very little visibility as well as no red/white rings unless you are next to a surface. Adding a visual effect such as a bubble for AoE would be fantastic. This is done already somewhat with Elementalists with their electric cage/boiling water. Adding similar effects to AoEs such as plague form, increasing the size of the plague to the entire area of effect, creating a very visible attack.

These effect bubbles could cause issues with latency, so to counter this effect, they could be thin and sparsely detailed. Any outline of attacks is good though.

7. Currently the highest concentration of underwater areas are around Orr and the coast leading up to it. Unfortunately most of these waters are highly ignored or passed over, with most people swimming on the surface instead of exploring below. This isn’t an issue with the areas themselves, but more of a problem with people disliking underwater combat. With the previous improvements underwater combat can be greatly improved and these areas may be filled again.

In addition to this adding additional underwater events and even world bosses can greatly add to underwater combat. Such world bosses could be an Water elemental, giant sea monster (there are enough megaladons), or water dragon (provided Bubbles confirmation).

Apart from all that, most underwater areas are beautiful and should be appreciated more.

8. Additional Underwater enemies. While I love skelk, jellyfish, krait, sharks, barracudas, and wurms. There are many more options for viable underwater enemies.

Possible additional enemies: crazed quaggans, largos, large sea snakes/eels, killer whales, varied forms of sharks (can I get a hammer head?), giant squids/octopi, Leviathans (up for interpretation), Sirens, karka, turtles, etc.

Any additional ideas or criticisms are more than welcome. Thanks for reading.

Current Problems:

1. Highest quality breather is Masterwork
2. Trait builds have little to no benefit for Underwater Combat
3. Combat mobility is cumbersome
4. Only 2 options for breather skins, normal and Consortium
5. 1/2 the professions have only 1 option for underwater profession elites. (ele, necro, guard, thief)
6. AoE circles have limited to no visibility.
7. Underwater events/areas are highly ignored
8. Repetitive underwater enemies.

For this post I will speak upon improvements from the perspective of playing a necromancer. My main is a necro and is the profession I have the most underwater experience with.

Suggested Improvements:

1. Upgrade the quality of underwater breathers to exotic and eventually ascended. Add recipes to the crafting professions, add drops to underwater mobs/events, etc.

2. Much like PvP, a separate trait build for underwater combat is extremely beneficial. The trait would switch when the person is underwater, much like the weapon/ head slot switch already does. Trait building can be edited at any time by switching to the water icon on the Hero panel. effects only take effect when underwater.

As a necromancer who uses wells, my trait build underwater is all but useless, as I can imagine the same can be said for other professions and builds.

In the underwater trait page, all weapon benefits (staff skills recharge 20% faster) would be changed to benefit underwater weapons (trident skills recharge 20% faster)
Other land only beneficial traits would also be changed to benefit underwater combat.

3. Better animation or dodging while underwater. Instead of simply swimming a little bit faster an animation of spinning underwater would add more visibility and enjoyment of swimming .
example 0:20-0:26

4. Additional ideas for breather skins:
Full face breathing mask (like those of the largos, or just a breather with a face mask.)
Diving helmet(could be old school or something original)
A literal bubble around your head ex: from ATLA
The breathers from Star Wars E:1 (beard freindly)

5. Underwater only elite skills. Most elite skills are catered to on land combat; however, with this the underwater elites are extremely limited. Additions of one or more profession oriented Elite skill would greatly support combat.

Necros only have plague form, an undead elite minion, or elite form (like lich form) would benefit other trait builds.

Guardians could use support/ attack elites underwater other than their current immunity and F1-4 recharge elite.

Additonal, the npc Gerrvid will not begin the quest to the halls, he merely sits there and says to go away or to stop looking at his research. Do i need a group to get him to talk or is it bugged?