Aquatic fractal needs to go.

[Einsof.1457]

There is nothing fun or challenging about this fractal. Back in 2013 it was neat, but its really really bad by modern standards. 

[Nephalem.8921]

It bullies mechanists. I like it a lot.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Someone forgot to bring a Scrapper build to switch to. 😛

[stormemperor.3745]

Underwater combat very fun and easy. I would rather have aquatic fractral over sirens reef. 

[Bakeneko.5826]

9 hours ago, stormemperor.3745 said:

Underwater combat very fun and easy. I would rather have aquatic fractral over sirens reef. 

Hell, i'd run dolphin route all day if I have a choice to do it over Sirens reef labyrinth.

[Fueki.4753]

The Aquatic Fractal is fine.

It's already terrible that Arenanet mostly neglects creating underwater content and and refuses to make new weapon skins for it. They should not start removing the already sparsely existing underwater content.

We need more underwater content, not less.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

8 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

Hell, i'd run dolphin route all day if I have a choice to do it over Sirens reef labyrinth.

Especially since most of my groups seem to treat this as Pokemon, where the goal is to collect all the ghosts. I'm usually having to clear out 30+ ghosts so I can use the Mistlock Singularity.

 

I still don't have the achiev after all these years because players are impatient.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Valisha.8650]

Agreed 100%, I hate underwater combat. Literally invalidates your whole rotation and replaces it with boring, dull underwater skills.

[eyelogix.1654]

On 8/7/2022 at 10:18 PM, stormemperor.3745 said:

Underwater combat very fun and easy. I would rather have aquatic fractral over sirens reef. 

agreed Siren's Reef is cough not fun cough

[samsar.9152]

I agree with this, just because, water combat in the game is really bad in general. 

[Wolfshade.9251]

I wish we got a proper underwater combat rework to make it more enjoyable. I mean, imagine how epic an underwater raidboss could be.

[Kantharr.2308]

1 hour ago, Wolfshade.9251 said:

I wish we got a proper underwater combat rework to make it more enjoyable. I mean, imagine how epic an underwater raidboss could be.

 

I bet/hope this is what the company is going to try to do in the future. Underwater combat does need a good amount of rework since some classes/specs are useless underwater (ex. Mechanist) while others work okay/decent (ex. Virtuoso & Deadeye).

[anbujackson.9564]

Better than sirens reef and deepstone any day.

[vinterberg.2783]

I find Solid Ocean much less challenging than Aquatic, they really should spice up Solid Ocean in higher tiers. Aquatic is fun, and it's not like it's a daily every other day, unlike Sirens Reef which is a daily way too often. 

[ASP.8093]

I like the idea of it. It's just annoying that the final encounter is a huge hp sponge with no breakbar.

[Bakeneko.5826]

16 hours ago, ASP.8093 said:

I like the idea of it. It's just annoying that the final encounter is a huge hp sponge with no breakbar.

Old Solid Ocean had better mechanic - luring jelly into electrified cages would deal a lot of damage, but it was removed for some reason.

[Fueki.4753]

35 minutes ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

Old Solid Ocean had better mechanic - luring jelly into electrified cages would deal a lot of damage, but it was removed for some reason.

You mean the old Aquatic Ruins fractal.

[Bakeneko.5826]

42 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

You mean the old Aquatic Ruins fractal.

yup, Aquatic 😄

[Cyninja.2954]

Aquatic fractal rework followed 1 design decision first and foremost: make it take longer. Making it fun was an after thought it seems.

 

The old aquatic fractal, while sharing some of the issues with the current one in regards to class/skill viability underwater, was designed in a way that allowed speedrunning it a tad to fast by very dedicated/organized groups.

[Hotride.2187]

Either fix mechanist underwater or remove the scale. Every time I do the scale with a ham in the group I have to switch to hfb to cover for a whole "new" spec not working underwater... While the ham player either switches to scrapper or sits there and watches.

The fractal itself is fine, the underwater combat itself is fine. But making pushed garbage like mechanist and then crippling it underwater is not fine. When half your party is consistently mechanist (because someone wanted to make a lazy overperforming spec and did a great job at it) best make sure those players can perform in content they have to do.

Edited December 12, 2022 by Hotride.2187

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

12 hours ago, Hotride.2187 said:

Either fix mechanist underwater or remove the scale. Every time I do the scale with a ham in the group I have to switch to hfb to cover for a whole "new" spec not working underwater... While the ham player either switches to scrapper or sits there and watches.

The fractal itself is fine, the underwater combat itself is fine. But making pushed garbage like mechanist and then crippling it underwater is not fine. When half your party is consistently mechanist (because someone wanted to make a lazy overperforming spec and did a great job at it) best make sure those players can perform in content they have to do.

There's a theory going around right now that they're fixing it underwater since they added underwater animations to the mech not long ago, and you can even summon it underwater with a bug.

[Kuma.1503]

On 12/13/2022 at 3:13 AM, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

There's a theory going around right now that they're fixing it underwater since they added underwater animations to the mech not long ago, and you can even summon it underwater with a bug.

I've not heard of this bug. How do you perform it? For scientific reasons of course

[Infusion.7149]

Had 2 power mechs in my party last night trying to do aquatic. They didn't swap. I did twice their DPS on an alac tempest.

Mech needs to be rethought underwater.

For reference here is what discretize recommends:

• Condi Firebrand: high dps and easy access to Stability and Quickness
• Power Holosmith: very high underwater dps
• Power Soulbeast: very high underwater dps and decent offensive capabilities
• Power Reaper or Condi Scourge: very high cleave
• Power Tempest: decent damage and cleave
• Power Chronomancer: very high single target dps, pulls.

Edited December 20, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

9 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Had 2 power mechs in my party last night trying to do aquatic. They didn't swap. I did twice their DPS on an alac tempest.

Mech needs to be rethought underwater.

For reference here is what discretize recommends:

• Condi Firebrand: high dps and easy access to Stability and Quickness
• Power Holosmith: very high underwater dps
• Power Soulbeast: very high underwater dps and decent offensive capabilities
• Power Reaper or Condi Scourge: very high cleave
• Power Tempest: decent damage and cleave
• Power Chronomancer: very high single target dps, pulls.

Yesterday we ran aquatic and my Bladesworn was doing 5x the DPS of every party member combined. I realised the main reason for this wasn't their builds, but that gunsaber is actually a decent weapon underwater whereas many underwater weapons are garbage. If you look at the list of effective underwater damage classes, nearly all of them have a kit, transform or some kind of alt weapon that is copy/pasted from land, and thus doesn't have the rampant undertuning the devs applied to all the underwater combat skills.

 

Machinist isn't the only bad one out. Thief has zero skills underwater, they're all literally unavailable except venoms, which means if you aren't running a condi build you're completely useless.

 

The TL;DR is, many classes, weapons and utilities are deliberately bad underwater. This was obviously a decision made very early on at ArenaNet, most likely by devs who are no longer there, and its really something that needs to be revised and reversed. Unfortunately, as they've shown with End of Dragons, their preferred approach these days is to just remove all underwater combat whenever possible instead of making an effort. Our water-themed expansion, with literally flooded maps, had almost all fights take place on dry land.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if Aquatic Fractal actually does get removed, like the PvP map did.

Edited December 21, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Fueki.4753]

3 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

and thus doesn't have the rampant undertuning the devs applied to all the underwater combat skills.

I don't think under water weapons should be considered undertuned. They used to be as effective as land weapons. The issue is just that Arenanet mostly abandoned underwater content and thus refused to powercreep them alongside land weapons.

That means, most weapons on land are just overtuned in comparison to what we once had. Whether this is a boon or a bane for the combat depends on individual opinions.

Edited December 21, 2022 by Fueki.4753