Does anyone have any GW2 underwater content that they would actually recommend to anyone? My experience has been universally horrible, but I’m told that part of that is playing an Elementalist, where the trident has vastly worse skills than anything on land. I am at the endgame now, and there is an entire zone of sunken Orr, which means dense risen swarms in 3D. It is like they balanced the water to have the same density of enemies as the land, only in continuous layers rather than one layer and the occasional cave. (And the risen enemies do seem to be balanced for geared endgame characters, rather than what we have now. Which, hey, great, then.)
I do like quaggans.
: Zubon
Its all universally terrible.. I think the mobs have been scaled similar to their on land counterparts but then we have less damage, less diversity, and traiting gets kinda messed up since you mainly spec for on land.
probably just visit the Quaggans, Pirate Quaggans in Lornars pass are awesome. ooh and have you played the Quaggan organ yet..
Environments are pretty though
Well, Elementalist just sucks when going diving, so I can understand any frustration caused by underwater content. He has some great utilities, but his damage is horrible.
The feeling is totally different if you take a stronger class. Especially the ranger will just wipe the floor, err, seabed with anything he encounters underwater. The pet spares him a lot of aggro and the speargun has really good damage for a ranged weapon. A shark will, when firing your F2 skill, let your damage go through the roof, as it will easily pile on 12 stacks of bleeding as well as a ton of hits onto the target. He is squishy though, so keep a bear or armored fish as second pet for tankiness.
I enjoy the swimming around, and underwater is beautiful. The combat though? No, not really. Prefer Vash’jir in WoW for underwater combat.
I quite like it, but then I’m playing a Guardian. Their spear attacks stack vulnerability, and they have a decent short cone to do damage. Some blind, some burning, and I bring spirit weapons down into the sea so that the mob aggro is dispersed some. Trident offers range, some heal, teensy control with a sink.
I watched an engineer swim along the same Orr riverbed as me and totally decimate single mobs in half the time I took though. Scary explosive-carrying fella.
The Risen do seem balanced for better gear. I wear a cheaper magic find set most of the time when soloing and it takes me a little longer than if I was wearing my set of rares and 1 exotic.
The underwater mobs that give me the most nightmares are the krait as a group though. They seem to act in concert, controling with sink, immobilizes, and then bleeds, poisons – conditions simply melt me, go right past armor, poison screws up self-healing, urgh.
Cute underwater content? Some Asuran Inquest commander has a pet named Fluffy…
Oh, that Guardian spear. You can imagine the first time I took mine underwater after playing an Ele for dozens of levels. “Did I just take out half its health with my 2?!”
Yeah, krait and risen are “overbalanced,” as my guildmates call them. And then there are the swaths of risen krait.
Yeah, Elementalist gets the shaft hardcore. Ranger on the other hand… I would almost prefer to level entirely underwater for how quickly attacks like the Piranha one kill things.
I passionately hate the trident as an ele. Underwater combat, I like.
Maybe I would like feeling a little less restricted with my utility skills, but meh.
Mrs Bhagpuss, not generally a fan of underwater combat in any MMO, said to me at one point that she almost preferred being underwater in GW2. I enjoy it most of the time although I could do without the very annoying clack-clack-clack sound effect of the speargun.
I haven’t played underwater as anything other than a ranger, though, and gameplay underwater as a ranger is pretty similar to gameplay as a ranger on land. As a fully paid-up member of the “Balance is Bad” clique, I’ll be very pleased if it turns out that content I love while playing one class turns out to be content I hate on another.
Hate it. End of story. I spend the bare minimum amount of time underwater to get hearts and skills. Have hated every underwater event and have no intention to do any more.
There isn’t a single shred of underwater content I would recommend to anyone. Ever. There is nothing good about the underwater implementation in this game.
The only reason I will ever go underwater is if I have no choice (ie, for any of the World Completion parts: Renown heart, waypoint, point of interest, vista, skill point).
There’s lots of good things about the underwater implementation. It doesn’t give me simulator sickness the way other games do so they must have done something right there, and some professions have really fun and novel skills as opposed to a game like WoW where it’s all the same skills as on land, just with the added difficulty of being underwater. You have to at least give them credit for coming up with unique ways of utilizing the nuances of water vs. land combat. The ele’s air bubbles and mesmer’s illusionary anchor tickle me in particular.
The biggest problem is the lack of balance between professions. Some are much stronger than others under water. Also, the downed mechanic under water is awkward.
Elem here too and not liking it :)
I don’t like underwater as much as land, but I still enjoy it, even as an elementalist. Granted, my ele has only been past Metrica Province to complete a story quest.
Underwater looks great but for the most part the combat is kind of lack luster. I’m hoping that now that the game is out they revisit it and balance it a bit further. Until then like The Ogre said, I try and stay out of it as much as possible.
I find underwater combat to be quite enjoyable. I play an ele and don’t even hate trident that much. I see it as very similar to staff in many respects, except that water is a pretty major damage dealer. I have yet to hit Orr though, so I have yet to see the horror that awaits me.
It’s definitely a mixed bag depending on profession. Sometimes my mesmer felt more powerful under water than on land (spear is insanely strong, in particular) but I struggle on my thief. If it’s practice you’re looking for, the underwater WvW zones are great because you can pull krait individually. I also find ele pretty enjoyable under water, primarily water and air skills.
I would also suggest picking a hot key for swimming straight down if you don’t already have one. It’s such a little thing but makes a big difference.
I think Anet has a good concept for their underwater content, but it needs a balance pass. Many other posters have commented on the balance problem, and I agree. I always feel significantly less powerful underwater than i do on land (thief). If it gets a good balance pass so that the pace and difficulty feel the same as on land, it should be fine.
As a mesmer i feel totally Overpovered with spear underwater. skill 2 that charge the mesmer forward on a very short cooldown is simply making him able to survive nearly everything because he is so hard to catch.
Its hard not to like underwater content when thats the case.
No, it’s terrible al the way around. Time spent developing the underwater content should have gone towards other game systems.
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned the underwater open world puzzle ‘dungeon’ in Diessa Plateau. Have been through there three times now and each time it was fun!
I never wanted it, but it’s ok. The 3D problem is an interesting challenge. Fun? Eh…
Guardian is a beast underwater so that’s cool.
I love underwater combat. But then I play an engineer.
I hate underwater combat, despite being an engineer.
I don’t care. Grenades are grenades, regardless of the surrounding element. :)
Ele focusing for earth scepter on land, and then I go underwater and can’t bleed (earth with no bleeding?!?). Also very annoying in that my standard land tactic is circle-kiting, but underwater:
(1) I move slower
(2) I don’t get the same DoT effects
(3) I often accidentally break the surface while kiting.
3 is a real pain, because all my skills are suddenly disabled, and I’m sitting there unable to see or react to any foes while they continue to attack me. Worse, I find that the “go down” key doesn’t actually work on the surface, so I have to manually dive.
eart att. skill 1 and skill 2 cause bleeding. fire att. skill 5 causes burning.
Diving a bit deeper and tilting your camera while strafing takes care of the surface breaking.
Generally you need a much better awareness of your surroundings when fighting underwater.
You are wrong at the first and second point, while the third is just your lacking awareness of your surroundings.
1) You don’t. Swimming is just as fast as running.
2) Wrong, once again. The Ele also has bleed when diving while attuning to earth. Both Rock Blade and Rock Spray bleed the enemy. While attuned to fire, you’ve got access to burn. Poison is not accessible for an Ele, be it on land or underwater.
3) As I said, that is you being not aware of where you are. That’s no design flaw, but a personal lacking of experience, that can be overcome with time.
With an engineer, while underwater I feel like I’m cheating. I just equip the grenade kit and then proceed to pull 3-4 mobs and just … own… EVERYTHING.
It’s hard not to love it, really.
I’m kinda shocked so many people say their Ele underwater skills are weaker. My own subjective impression was they are actually stronger than land skills. I assumed that was precisely because people have a harder time fighting in 3D, so Anet balanced in a little more leeway.
What spec? Fire staff spec is torture underwater compared to land, especially with a double summon build. Air spec is better underwater, but not great for land PvE.
Uhm, good question… 30/10/0/20/10 I think? I don’t spec for specific weapons, as I switch between staff and scepter/dagger whenever I feel like it. Besides, my statement is not based on any testing or simulation to determine a theoretical .5% difference in damage. As I said, my very subjective impression … :)
I just recently paid more attention to the character animations underwater. Since then I could watch myself strafe left and right all day.