Guild Wars 2

At present time I see 4 classes with a Signet that increase run speed as a passive effect.

Thief: Signet of Shadows
Passive: Grants 25% increased movement speed
Active: Blind foes near your target (30s Recharge)

Ranger: Signet of the Hunt
Passive: Grants 10% increased movement speed to you and your pet
Active: Your pet’s next attack deals more damage (30 Recharge)

Necromancer: Signet of the Locust
Passive: Grants 10% increased movement speed
Active: Steal health from nearby foes (60s Recharge)

Elementalist: Signet of Air
Passive: Grants 10% increased movement speed
Active: Blind your target and nearby foes (20s Recharge)

Now call me crazy, but why does the Thief have a 25% passive movement speed increase with an AoE Blindness every 30 seconds. Elementalist seems to have a similar AoE Blindness on a lower cooldown, but only a 10% movement speed increase.

Then the Ranger only has a 10% passive movement speed and 1 single pet attack dealing +50% damage (on a single target) every 30 seconds on activation. And lastly the Necromancer with a 10% movement speed increase with Steal Health AoE on activation every 60 seconds.

Do you think that this is balanced? Personally I don’t think it is.

Unless I’m missing something here, I would suggest bringing all passive movement increase signets in line with one another.

You forgot the Ele’s signet of air.

zetherin.8372:

You forgot the Ele’s signet of air.

You’re absolutely right. I’ll edit the OP; thanks

Thieves require on their mobility to survive without the defensive options of the elementalist, the distractions and pets of rangers, the necromancer’s durability, or the engineer’s many ranged playstyle options. Face it, of these four classes, Thief needs the speed the most. Thief is the only one of these classes that actually melees. Besides, thief’s are supposed to be fast on their feet.

Iarkrad.8415:

Thieves require on their mobility to survive without the defensive options of the elementalist, the distractions and pets of rangers, the necromancer’s durability, or the engineer’s many ranged playstyle options. Face it, of these four classes, Thief needs the speed the most. Thief is the only one of these classes that actually melees. Besides, thief’s are supposed to be fast on their feet.

Disagree. From a rangers point of view, if you are relying on your pets to aggro, you are doing it wrong. Outside of normal PVE, pets die VERY quickly. Thieves and rangers specialize in 2 different things. A thief uses stealth and conditions to control the opponent. A ranger SHOULD rely on movement speed and better endurance regen for dodges (lightning reflexes). I suppose the only reason rangers DON’T have the 25% is that we have an elite that grants 33% speed for a little while.

Personally, I like it this way, since the elite can be specced to have a lower recharge time, so you get a nice 33% speed boost every minute or so.

I have to agree on this. Just have been pondering why thieves have that 25% while others have only 10%. Also they could say there are traits for Elementalist to increase speed but alas they do not stack with the Signet of Air (not to mention that Windborne Dagger doesn’t work at all, it just doesn’t boost your speed). Whether that is intentional or not, it is just not okay.
I would love if a balancer dev looked at this, seriously.

I could say that guardian and warrior need such signets, but, they abilities that close the gap + some skill that give pretty good swiftness. But then again, thief isn`t attached only to melee, + he also has gap closing abilities + stealth and in the end 25% speed. So why shouldn`t all others have similar signets?

Thieves have close to 0 access to Swiftness though. Swiftness which is 33% movement speed. Elementalists can spend nearly all their lives under that boon if they want.

Elementalists got a IV trait that give them 25% move speed when attuned to air long enough.

As a ranger, with 10% movement speed constantly, 33% movement speed most of the time, a working attack range of 1500, and more evade/leap skills for larger distances… Oh, and then the huge access to cripple, chill, knockback, fear, and immobilize…

I’m pretty sure if you gave me a significantly faster movement speed, along with the fact that I’ve got possibly the most amazing mobility, and more ways to prevent enemy mobility than almost any two other professions put together, it would be absolutely awesome for the two days before the crying started and the nerf bat hit me.

Lol elementalist can always be in swiftness they don’t use at all that signet, Thief need mobility to survive, they don’t have vapor form or 1000 of skill that to dodge.
For the rest i feel like only necro don’t need signet of locust but thief and ranger need it at all. And as is now is fine.

It’s simply not supposed to be balanced.

To my knowledge Anet does not balance proffesions 1 on 1. That being said I do agree that all classes should have the same speed signet available.

I’m playing a thief now and could never go back to play another profession because of the lack 25% speed increase.

Wrong. Elementalists can’t keep swiftness up all the time. That’s an engineer you are talking about And I’m not saying they should make Signet of Air 25%, if they made the 10% stackable with 15% of the Windborne Dagger trait (and if the trait worked at all, cause now it does nothing except taking the points spent on it), there would be no problem.