Let’s talk underwater combat

[saerni.2584]

So I had a weird fight today. A burn guard decided to engage me in WvW underwater in the camp south of Hills.

 

Which made me wonder, how long ago did I adjust my underwater load out? Are my sigils even optimized or is this yolo time? Can this guard be sure he can win underwater versus a land battle?

 

So I was wondering, what do you bring underwater? Is there anything you do because half our skills don’t really work underwater? Do you like underwater combat? There was a rework so the skills are probably stronger damage than the ones on land...so what do you do?

 

And more importantly, do you even have an ascended weapon for this? Lol.

[UNOwen.7132]

Thief is pretty broken underwater thanks to spear 5, especially if youre playing DE. You can just chain evades near-infinitely. But its not very interesting. Underwater combat isnt nearly optimised enough to be enjoyable.

[kash.9213]

I like underwater combat but I have to stay casual enough with it to sink and rise when I need to and to orient myself. I swap both weapons a lot but they're both just mirrored to my land kit and those slots. I use all of the skills as much as I can maybe mostly just to keep them fresh so I know what I have down there but we get a nice couple of sets. Utility choice isn't very good, so I mirrored my land builds with Scorpion Wire, Blinding Powder or Mercy, and RFI since I can't take Shadowstep. I also take Basilik venom, it's a great burst lockdown that can flip a fight fast underwater especially in a group. Pulling someone down from land isn't fun for them. I have to de-target like some land skills sometimes to move out or around while fighting. When I run into a better player I can sometimes overextend and find myself with nothing to do, that's a weird feeling.

[Doug.4930]

Never really liked underwater combat. So many skills the devs just never bothered to code for use underwater. I'd wager that it takes a back seat balance wise too. I think the devs and the community agree the game doesn't need any more underwater pvp, so its fallen by the wayside. Basically I've built 2 nomad underwater weapons with energy and cleansing sigils on each of them. Which aid me in staying alive so that I can exit the water asap.

[Hannelore.8153]

People say Thief underwater combat is OP because of all the evades on Spear. However that's ignoring the fact that Thief has more disabled water skills than any other class, which makes their underwater fights *especially* uninteresting.

 

But the answer is, the key to winning underwater fights is to keep your enemy close (unlike on land, where its to keep them far). Its the opposite of kiting, so Pull skills in particular are useful, as are any soft CC like Cripple and Immobilise. This is because its much easier for your enemy to get away in a three-dimensional space, especially since water fights usually have minimal Swiftness, few teleports and almost no hard CC besides the occasional Float or Sink, plus its easier to revive from "Drowning" state.

[Fat Disgrace.4275]

> @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> Thief is pretty broken underwater thanks to spear 5, especially if youre playing DE. You can just chain evades near-infinitely. But its not very interesting. Underwater combat isnt nearly optimised enough to be enjoyable.

 

What? That's a noob skill. Use flanking dive then you will know what broken is.

[Tails.9372]

I usually don't use thief for underwater content, at least not if it involves fighting. I just switch to my Holosmith as they can still use Photon Forge underwater which beats pretty much everything else for underwater combat no contest.

[saerni.2584]

What do people think of Spear versus Harpoon Gun? Seems a lot of spear OP opinions floating around.

[kash.9213]

> @"saerni.2584" said:

> What do people think of Spear versus Harpoon Gun? Seems a lot of spear OP opinions floating around.

 

They kind of complete each other. Harpoon Ink shot is good cheap fast travel (I swam a lot for that reason before mounts) and the other skills are nice to fight while moving also. Switching to Spear feels natural and everything on it is fun and adaptive.

[ASP.8093]

imo:

 

Roll for Initiative move your stunbreak (since Shadowstep is not available)

Cleansing + Energy on at least one weapon

Swim Speed Infusion

 

Because a good 80% of underwater combat as a thief is escaping nasty chase scenarios.

[saerni.2584]

I finally decided to get ascended underwater weapons and the ascended breather.

 

Now if I can just find someone to fight me underwater....

[saerni.2584]

> @"saerni.2584" said:

> I finally decided to get ascended underwater weapons and the ascended breather.

>

> Now if I can just find someone to fight me underwater....

 

So many people have been jumping into the water lately.

 

Now we just need a true underwater section of a WvW map.

[kash.9213]

> @"saerni.2584" said:

> > @"saerni.2584" said:

> > I finally decided to get ascended underwater weapons and the ascended breather.

> >

> > Now if I can just find someone to fight me underwater....

>

> So many people have been jumping into the water lately.

>

> Now we just need a true underwater section of a WvW map.

 

With Desert map feeling too big for a lot of people they should cut the map in corners by large rivers connecting to a large body of water with the current jungle ruins points in the center as a bunch of little islands. Then add docks on sentries along the three rivers that spawn a couple of different sized boats for one of the currencies that you can place siege on with the larger being wide enough for fights and the smaller can be stealthed. It's mostly a response map at this point anyway so might as well let us do dumb stuff like have naval siege and pirate battles. I like my builds on Desert but it's a lot of travel even for a thief for sparse one to five minute bits of action.