Underwater Gear Poll

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

Underwater content is quite controversial. Some players consider it a valuable part of the game, others try to avoid it at all costs.

 

When playing that content myself, I often run into players without any gear at all or low-level stuff. Although many voices spread the knowledge about the importance of the 7th rune on the aquabreather, there are still plenty unaware of it. And I have barely met any player who acknowledged to use a swimspeed infusion. But that are only my personal impressions.

 

When we talk about content on the forums, we always lack the data to backup our assumptions. Every discussion is a weird mix of wild guesses about how many players are/do/think something. 97 % of them are made up, including this one. The forum-community is not representative to the entire player-community. But it would be a start. Help us gather some facts for once. And share your personal experience regarding underwater gear (optional). 

 

Thank you for participating! 

 

Note: Main character(s) only. Not talking about mules or gatherers. Only characters which are already geared for regular content, you log into them and start playing right away. 

[Trinnitty.8256]

now that we have legendary armory i have 7 legendary runes and 8 legendary sigils.  Then i made the 3 legendary underwater weapons too.  

 

I would make a legendary aqua breather if it comes out.  I currently have a mix of aqua breathers and just 1 swim speed infusion which is a waste with underwater mount.

 

I would make legendary infusion if they have account bound AR so never have to swap them again.

Edited August 9, 2021 by Trinnitty.8256

[Infusion.7149]

If you have a power build there is no reason not to have the Wegloop air mask from bitterfrost frontier , a +10 / +15 / +20 swim infusion depending on budget and how often you do aquatic fractal, and a serpent slaying sigil which is a few silvers.

 

Personally I have Wegloop mask on every character plus a Diver's Breather Veil on Chrono that I had drop. When I was slowly working my way to wegloop mask/breather or whatever they call it on all characters I had some on the exotic Rime-Rimmed Mariner's Rebreather.

 

Characters I don't do underwater fractal with have exotic weapons worth ~1g with the serpent slaying sigil (Impaler Spear or Rhongomyniad , Peasant's Solution / Coiler for Tridents, X6-31 Beta or Serpentsniper for harpoon gun). The 5% loss vs ascended is not a big issue if you barely do underwater content.

[ArchonWing.9480]

I only have ascended water weapons on my main main, which is my Guardian.

 

A while back, I gathered enough berries to get ascended aquabreathers on all characters I use a lot. And if you have an ascended aquabreather, you may as well stick a swim speed infusion in it since 15 and below are pretty cheap.

 

For sigils, I didn't really care much except the stacking sigils for WvW (you need one in the underwater weapon or else the stacks are lost.)

[Nexxus.5347]

Anet needs to provide a legendary aqua breather. So these OCD kittens can complete their collection. Maybe a collection to go along with that new Fishing mastery. 

Edited August 9, 2021 by Nexxus.5347

[Touchme.1097]

I have played the game for months with a lvl 60 green breathing apparatus and 2 lvl 78 blue/green underwater weapons on my main character. Because of the lack of underwater content and the scarsity of underwater gear offered by vendors, considering the majority of players hate underwater combat I was good with what I had.

Maybe if Anet revolutionized underwater combat and offered more water based content I would be happy to invest more time for the relative gear

Edited August 9, 2021 by Touchme.1097

[Khisanth.2948]

34 minutes ago, Nexxus.5347 said:

Anet needs to provide a legendary aqua breather. So these OCD kittens can complete their collection. Maybe a collection to go along with that new Fishing mastery. 

Hehe ... how about this

 

Terrible idea #xyz: The aquabreather precursor will only be obtainable as  random drop from a container you can only get while fishing and of course it is account bound

[Konrad Curze.5130]

Full ascended in all my chars, mostly due to OCD. I don't give a s.... about underwater content and go out of my way to ignore it as best as I can

[Beleron.9347]

The sad truth is, I don't even know what most of my underwater weapon skills do. 😳 Guess I need to change that soon...

[Danikat.8537]

I've got exotic weapons and aquabreather with a rune and sigils on my main character, and that's comparable to most of my equipment. That character does have a full set of ascended equipment on land, but she's the only one, I'm mostly using exotics with some ascended mixed in and I'm in no hurry to change it because I don't need full ascended for the stuff I'm doing.

 

I wouldn't want swim speed infusions, I've collected a lot and sold them all. I'm not in a hurry to rush through the game, I don't use speed boosts in other situations unless I need to, and I don't even use mounts all the time and often just for the novelty of it.

[Chichimec.9364]

While I'm not a big fan of underwater combat, I do have my three mains equipped for it. All three have ascended breathers and weapons with the appropriate sigils and runes. Two of the three have +20 swim-speed infusions. The third only has a +19 swim-speed infusion. Even though I do have an underwater mount, I still have to dismount to fight, and some of the underwater battles are spread out, so I like having a bit of a speed advantage.

Personally, I like the giant bubble of the Diver's Breathers the best and for some reason, that skin doesn't always work when transmuted onto other breathers. So part of of my daily farming routine is to open one sunken treasure chest a day and farm 10 krait to get another key for those chests. Atm I have 640 of the +10 swim-speed infusions in mat storage so I can get another Breather whenever I need one.

Atm, underwater leggies would be a low priority for me. I'm working on leggy armor and weapons right now, then the accessories, sigils and runes in that order. Underwater leggies would be last on the list.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 9, 2021 by Chichimec.9364

[Eraden.8740]

I have both an ascended underwater weapon and an ascended underwater airbreather on my main character. I do not bother with swim speed infusions because my skimmer outperforms anything that can be achieved with infusions, in terms of travel. When in combat, I have rarely encountered a situation in which I would have wanted to swim away from the combat. As an elementalist, I simply burninate anything around me until either it's dead or I am. 99% of the time it's the critter who is dead. When fighting a champion, I try to use the underwater terrain around me to my advantage so that I don't get into a situation where I have to run. Honestly, I have had far less problems with underwater combat than I have had with combat on dry land. Underwater scenarios are, I find, rather boring.

[Junkpile.7439]

4 hours ago, Beleron.9347 said:

The sad truth is, I don't even know what most of my underwater weapon skills do. 😳 Guess I need to change that soon...

This. I have played ele for example close to 4k hours and i still just smash random buttons when i am in underwater. 

Edited August 10, 2021 by Junkpile.7439

[mungozen.2379]

I find it interesting that players don’t use swim speed infusions when +10 swim speed is basically free to add if you do the associated content.  I can understand not wanting to grind for 32 +10 infusions to trade for a +15 cause, hard work and all. 
 

What else do you put in that infusion slot if it isn’t swim speed?

[BlueJin.4127]

I use exotic weapons, major sigils, ascended breather, superior rune, and +10 swim speed infusion.

 

The only reason I use an ascended breather is since there isn’t an accessible exotic/rare alternative with stats I want.

Edited August 10, 2021 by BlueJin.4127

[Eraden.8740]

3 hours ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

I find it interesting that players don’t use swim speed infusions when +10 swim speed is basically free to add if you do the associated content.  I can understand not wanting to grind for 32 +10 infusions to trade for a +15 cause, hard work and all. 
 

What else do you put in that infusion slot if it isn’t swim speed?

How about a +5 Condi +9 Agony infusion? That's what I use. I find there is simply no need for any kind of swim speed infusion as my skimmer is VASTLY superior to a swim speed infusion. Mounted on my skimmer, there is nothing in the water that can keep up with me and when I dismount to fight, it's because I am going to WIN that fight....easily. Having a fully mastered skimmer means I get to pick and chose when, where and who I am going to fight. I should also note that I often spend a fair bit of time underwater as there are very nice mining/collecting nodes to harvest in places like Orr, Bitterfrost, and Sandswept Isles.

Edited August 10, 2021 by Eraden.8740

[ASP.8093]

Full ascended, +15 swim speed, Accuracy/Cleansing on Spear to guarantee a big burst and Energy/Air on Speargun for better escapes and some chip damage.

 

WvW thief underwater is srs bsns.

Edited August 10, 2021 by ASP.8093

[ASP.8093]

43 minutes ago, Eraden.8740 said:

How about a +5 Condi +9 Agony infusion?

The idea is that you don't need the extra AR since there's no underwater Fractals above level 90.

 

(And the extra swim speed is actually at least moderately desirable in Underwater Ruins.)

Edited August 10, 2021 by ASP.8093

[Omega.6801]

I love underwater content and have time and resources to spend. So my characters are decked out in at least ascended UW gear.

[Dante.1763]

7 hours ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

I find it interesting that players don’t use swim speed infusions when +10 swim speed is basically free to add if you do the associated content.  I can understand not wanting to grind for 32 +10 infusions to trade for a +15 cause, hard work and all. 
 

What else do you put in that infusion slot if it isn’t swim speed?

Nothing, most of breathers dont have an infusion slot to begin with.

[Pifil.5193]

My characters have ascended rebreathers from Bitterfrost and exotic weapons but I spend very little time underwater so most don't have the correct runes or sigils and a few have the wrong stats now.

 

There's very little reason to go underwater in the areas I play in so I feel no need to change that.

[LSD.4673]

I have an underwater skimmer. He bypasses 99% of underwater combat, so i don't have to.

[Geckoo.6018]

With my main character i have 2 sets of gear with proper ascended underwater breather, weapons, runes and sigils.

With other characters though... i don't even know what they have, it could be something they got from leveling, it could be green, blue, level 15... or even an empty slot.

 

Sadly there is not enough underwater combat or situations to justify having good underwater gear, but i do not regret having those 2 sets even if it's just for my own sense of having a 'complete' character.

[Tyncale.1629]

Interesting poll, I had to go online to check on my Main character. 🙂

I have exotic underwater weapons with stats that came with them, so not optimized. 😅

 

Considering I am sporting Legendary weapons in all 4 slots for landbased weapons, I am not giving much attention to the underwater weapons. Reason probably is that 99% of underwater combat is underpowered, stuff dies automatically.  I think they nerfed this a long time ago, I can remember it being a lot harder early in the game. 

Edited August 10, 2021 by Tyncale.1629

[genjonah.1253]

I have Kraitkin, want to get the legendary spear eventually (I refuse to legitimize the speargun), winterberries are super easy to get the ascended rebreather. Don’t really have proper runes, infusions or sigils, though, they’re hardly necessary since underwater combat is so easy (and easy to avoid now that skimmer works UW, as well)