On the topic of Underwater content...

So this expansion seems very well lined up to deal with Selbbub... We even recently got underwater mounts. You think we might get another underwater weapon? What are the possibilities for that? How far could anet go? (Also make kalla usable underwater pointed smile) What do y'all hope underwater content will look like? Do you think it'll change? What should change? I'm just curious as to what everyone thinks/hopes/wants for uw stuff in an expansion =D

I really hope the UW content is minimum or better yet, nonexistant. Keep the Jade Sea frozen.

There aint enough lipstick in the world for that pig, man

I'd love to see an UW rework as I really enjoy underwater combat and exploration. Anet would need to overhaul some of the skills and classes, especially the revenant as this class was built without UW in mind.

@"lokh.2695" said:I'd love to see an UW rework as I really enjoy underwater combat and exploration. Anet would need to overhaul some of the skills and classes, especially the revenant as this class was built without UW in mind.

The devs might do more, but Anet did a huge underwater skills rework in 2018.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/39192/game-update-notes-may-8-2018

@Swagger.1459 said:

@"lokh.2695" said:I'd love to see an UW rework as I really enjoy underwater combat and exploration. Anet would need to overhaul some of the skills and classes, especially the revenant as this class was built without UW in mind.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:

@"lokh.2695" said:I'd love to see an UW rework as I really enjoy underwater combat and exploration. Anet would need to overhaul some of the skills and classes, especially the revenant as this class was built without UW in mind.

So start a thread in the profession section and let the devs know what you think the problems are and what to work on. Right?

They could do a repeat of the May 2018 update and double the power of all UW skills. That would make UW combat a bit more tolerable. The only profession I remotely enjoy UW on is Ranger, with that awesome piranha attack. Oh! Give everyone that as their auto-attack! Flavored appropriately, of course: purple butterflies for mesmer, little robotic fish for Engie, etc. UW combat improved immensely!

The best way I think Anet could rework underwater is by mixing the weapon pools.

Many players want new Land weapons added to the game which is foolish to do at this point largely because of how many skins they wouldn't have access to on said new weapons, this is one of the reasons giving new pre existing weapons to classes with Elite Specs has been a positive rather than a negative experience.

There are however 3 weapons that have been in the game since launch that we can't use on land that already have tons of skins available.. the Harpoon, The Trident and the Harpoon Gun.Making these weapons usable on land and giving them new skills to go with it would be a great way to satisfy this demand for entirely new weapons.

Harpoon could easily become the Spear, a two handed Melee weapon or Ranged throwing weapon.Trident could easily become a two handed Melee Weapon or a Ranged Magical weapon.Harpoon Gun could easily be made into a Crossbow type weapon and given new skins to reflect this design (This would be no different to how Rifle currently works as a Rifle, Sniper Rifle or Shotgun depending on the class you give it too and it's skills.)

As for the Underwater side of the deal.. well there are so many land weapons that could gain new skill sets and get underwater variants.Sword, Dagger, Shield, Focus, Sceptor, Torch, Axe.. add a few of these weapons to each class and fix the current problem with so many utility skills and elite skills not having an underwater variant and that's it.. that's all Underwater Combat needs now to become awesome.

Anet already has a great foundation for Underwater content.. Gw2 by far has the best Underwater system in any MMO.Now we have an Underwater mount to fix a mobility issue all we need is to flesh out the Underwater combat build diversity problem and it'll be perfect.

@Swagger.1459 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:

@"lokh.2695" said:I'd love to see an UW rework as I really enjoy underwater combat and exploration. Anet would need to overhaul some of the skills and classes, especially the revenant as this class was built without UW in mind.

But if you want the short version, you can look in my post in one of the other underwater threads here:https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1322868/#Comment_1322868

TL/DR version:Too small underwater weapon selection, bad synergy between underwater weapons and existing traitlines, even worse synergy of those weapons with the normal land builds, no automatic gear/traitline switch between aquatic and land mode, and (the least important, but still impactful) many skills still not working underwater.Number tweaking on individual skills is not going to help any of those.

I don't think it will be entirely underwater, more like a 30/70 water/ground ratio like Orr.I'd love to see a map design similar to Jolly Roger's Lagoon from Banjo-Tooie where you can actually explore underwater caverns and cities.

@Konrad Curze.5130 said:I really hope the UW content is minimum or better yet, nonexistant. Keep the Jade Sea frozen.

There aint enough lipstick in the world for that pig, man

Agreed. Underwater combat with its own skills and weapons is a really cool concept. Unfortunately, it also takes everything I love about GW2 combat and pretty much throws it in the garbage.

So, here's hoping underwater combat isn't a central focus in this expansion.

WOW did this in a zone. It was somewhat interesting but highly unpopular as far as I could tell. I, myself, never liked underwater combat but maybe it would actually get people making more underwater ascended weapons. Please, in Joko's name, no seahorse mounts like WOW!!!!

Personally i find the newest maps lacking depth, I actually enjoyed going into the water fighting in a 3d space (also gw2 has the best water combat of all mmo's, no obnoxious bows under water or standing still while attacking in water).

Water combat made you rethink your play style in many ways (one thing i would love to see however is Twist of Fate being up to be used in water.. seriously that would look amazing to spin backwards).

Now that we have a skimmer that can dive under water, give us a reason to use it.

UW as of now is rather pushing away than pulling in people. If they don't totally remaster it, then don't make uw content.

Before they do, they need to seriously rework the underwater weapons, so that each character has at the very least a viable condi and viable dps build under water.

@Swagger.1459 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:

@"lokh.2695" said:I'd love to see an UW rework as I really enjoy underwater combat and exploration. Anet would need to overhaul some of the skills and classes, especially the revenant as this class was built without UW in mind.

The "problem" with UW combat is that people wanted to have the same mobility and use the same skills/weapons they use on land even when they dived in the dephts. Which is nonsense. But people refused to adapt to the underwater environment, so they instead declared that it sucked and demanded Anet to basically remove it from the game. And sadly, Anet did. Now, as one of the few who actually enjoys underwater content and exploration, i would love to see underwater areas in the new expansion with stuff to do in it. Haven't had that since core game. And I think (hope) there will be some, otherwise i don't understand the purpose of suddenly allowing the Skimmer to dive underwater three years after the release of PoF.

@JekthAvid.1408 said:So this expansion seems very well lined up to deal with Selbbub... We even recently got underwater mounts. You think we might get another underwater weapon? What are the possibilities for that? How far could anet go? (Also make kalla usable underwater pointed smile) What do y'all hope underwater content will look like? Do you think it'll change? What should change? I'm just curious as to what everyone thinks/hopes/wants for uw stuff in an expansion =DA renewed focus of underwater content would be the best thing Arenanet could do to send me looking for a new game.

@"Konrad Curze.5130" said:I really hope the UW content is minimum or better yet, nonexistant. Keep the Jade Sea frozen.

There aint enough lipstick in the world for that pig, man

The Jade Sea was already "melting" back in GW1. Don't get your hopes up.

I personally wouldn't go into the next expansion expecting there to be a lot of underwater content.

@"Sir Alric.5078" said:The "problem" with UW combat is that people wanted to have the same mobility and use the same skills/weapons they use on land even when they dived in the dephts.Nah. The problem is, that if you are running any build that is not a power dps, the whole complex build system stops working for you the moment you get underwater. And even for power dps it often doesn't work all that good either, because a lot of weapons are either plain bad, or not designed with the highly mobile style underwater combat is supposed to be in mind. Which is not surprising, seeing as classes have access to at best two different underwater weapons - and some have no choice at all.

The sad truth is simply that underwater combat was still only in half-finished state when Anet rushed the game to launch a year early (due to certain pandas). And that they seemingly never had the workforce to finish it after the launch, as those devs were likely repurposed to other things, like LS.