Guild Wars 2

Hi, I have been wondering how to choose the mentioned sigils. Can anyone tell me when I should take a particular sigil over the others? Profession in case is thief, for that matter.

If you play with bad pugs take strength. If you play with average to good pugs take frailty or accuracy. If you play in very good or perfect groups take air or impact.

I’m not a thief as main but I can tell you Sigil of air/fire are commonly used in anything PVP and WvW roaming.
Sigil of frailty is used in Fractals and daytime pve.
Sigil of force + sigil of the night for Nighttime content (dungeons, cof, AC, SE,.. )
Sigil of strength I don’t see often on thiefs. Phalanx warriors do use it

Seeing these sigils are expensive you should have multiple weapon sets.

Neyensb.2581:

Sigil of strength I don’t see often on thiefs. Phalanx warriors do use it

Using Sigil of Strength on warrior is completely useless, since you’re wasting a damage modifier that you could have used in place of that Sigil of Strength.
You can easily maintain 25 might by just using strength runes, and if you’re having trouble with that you can just use dumplings as food, but I would NEVER use a Sigil of Strength as a phalanx warrior

bladex.9502:

Neyensb.2581:

Sigil of strength I don’t see often on thiefs. Phalanx warriors do use it

Using Sigil of Strength on warrior is completely useless, since you’re wasting a damage modifier that you could have used in place of that Sigil of Strength.
You can easily maintain 25 might by just using strength runes, and if you’re having trouble with that you can just use dumplings as food, but I would NEVER use a Sigil of Strength as a phalanx warrior

So wrong on so many levels
1. you don’t awnser OP question
2. you just attack my helpfull comment?!
3. I know it’s not the best 100% meta kittin kittennitt..

I myself prefer sigil of peril or a sigil of force, but just wanted to make example for OP..
Good for you that you would NEVER use it..

Neyensb.2581:

bladex.9502:

Neyensb.2581:

Sigil of strength I don’t see often on thiefs. Phalanx warriors do use it

Using Sigil of Strength on warrior is completely useless, since you’re wasting a damage modifier that you could have used in place of that Sigil of Strength.
You can easily maintain 25 might by just using strength runes, and if you’re having trouble with that you can just use dumplings as food, but I would NEVER use a Sigil of Strength as a phalanx warrior

1. you don’t awnser OP question

How did I not answer the OP? he asked if sigils of strength are a good thing to use and I explained why not.
But if you really want :
Sigil of frailty is nice if there is a lack of vuln stacking, but if you have a competent team with 2 elementalists that use their glymph of storms right, there isn’t really any need for sigil of frailty. You can carry a weapon with a sigil of frailty around if you are a true min-maxer, but its not really the best all round option.

For thief Sigil of Air would be a good option, since it has a high single target spike, and you’re often focusing on single targets anyways.
Although I think there is currently a bug with the internal cooldown of sigil of air, making it recharge for 5 seconds instead of the mentioned 3.

All of this applies to daytime dungeons and fractals.
Most dungeons and fractals are set at night time, which makes a weapon with sigil of night and sigil of force the best option.
Also, the sigils you listed are good, but not necessarily optimal, if you really want to achieve the highest possible efficiency you can carry a weapon with force + insert dungeon specific sigil here around, or swap sigils.

I usually have 4/5 weapons of the mostly used sort on every character (GS on warrior, staff on ele etc).
One with force + sigil of the night
One with force + sigil of undead slaying (for arah)
One with force + sigil of justice (for CM)
One with force + accuracy
And a bonus staff with undead slaying and energy for lupi solos

TLDR : go with air for daytime dungeons in your case

Edit : since you’re a thief and you’re not gonna swap shortbow out a lot generally, you can put sigil of force + a stacking sigil (bloodlust for instance) on there

You guys do realize air sigils bugged right? ICD is 5s instead of 3 and nor do you cap vuln in longer fights without frailty or an engi.
PS War without fast hands: 3-4 vuln
Ele: 3-4 vuln
Thief: 3 vuln assuming perfect CnD rotation. And no I don’t count sundering strikes as its useless. Practiced tolerance is so much better.
Guard: 1 vuln
So that’s 13-16 vuln. Frailty adds 10 vuln if everyone uses it.
So please tell me why frailty is bad in longer fights?
And yes obviously frailty is useless in fights that are under 15s cause ele glyph but where do you take frailty exactly? Mostly FotM.
For CM and HoTW you obviously swap sigils and if you don’t then I guess air can be good in CM and frailty for HoTW.

Amicable Pugs.4503:

You guys do realize air sigils bugged right? ICD is 5s instead of 3

Yep! The major sigil of Air does the same damage at the fraction of the price. You can also use both at the same time because they are bugged to do their cool downs separately.

bladex.9502:

Neyensb.2581:

Sigil of strength I don’t see often on thiefs. Phalanx warriors do use it

Using Sigil of Strength on warrior is completely useless, since you’re wasting a damage modifier that you could have used in place of that Sigil of Strength.
You can easily maintain 25 might by just using strength runes, and if you’re having trouble with that you can just use dumplings as food, but I would NEVER use a Sigil of Strength as a phalanx warrior

Wrong. Alone without sigil and food you can’t maintain 25 stack of might. Even with food you can’t. The group usually have at least 1 other source of might to maintain the 25. Remember that we lost 30% boon duration with the patch. PS Warrior might last less longer than it used to do. Strengh on a PS warrior isn’t a waste. Remember that Dumpling is in limited supply and will continue to rise in price until february next year. So someone that play that, but don’t want to pay the food could use a sigil of strength. Not the best, but a viable option still.

Something to consider, a ps warrior with no food/strength rune can probably get 25 on trash mobs. Are trash mobs what you want to build towards? What about single enemies that you don’t constantly dps down? For example, Mai trin and diviner. Your not constantly going to get perfect 100b rotations when you have to actually whirlwind out of it to stay alive. Also consider bosses with large amounts of down time like snowblind final boss and mossman. Might is going to possibly drop in these spots.

With that said, for nighttime I currently go night sigil + force, and day time I go force + air, because it is still useful in both good and bad groups. While a strength sigil is wasted in good groups.

Hmm.. so in non-ideal world where might and vuln are not capped and 5 man group situation in case.
The rule is strenght>frailty>air? is it correct?

Obviously this is for daytime dungeon or fractal only.

gin.7158:

Hmm.. so in non-ideal world where might and vuln are not capped and 5 man group situation in case.
The rule is strenght>frailty>air? is it correct?

Obviously this is for daytime dungeon or fractal only.

Yes and no.

Sigil of Air = About 1-2% personnal dps increase, but only single target.

Sigil of Frailty = About 3-5% group dps increase. But it can be zero if your group is good enough. Usually in pug this isn’t a problem.

Sigil of Strength = About 5-8% group dps increase. But it can be zero if your group is decent. Which happen relatively often.

So you are kind of right. But I would never use a sigil of strength because it will be useless the majority of the time.

I would say use Force/Frailty. It’s the best bet IMO.

Sigil of Strength isn’t a 5-8% group DPS increase, we’re talking about a thief here. If you need the extra might on a PS Warrior take FGJ over SoF and spam Heal Signet when out of combat (like you should be anyway).

Assuming you’re not pugging you won’t have Engineer in the same group composition anyway so milk vuln wherever you can.

Thaddeus.4891:

bladex.9502:

Neyensb.2581:

Sigil of strength I don’t see often on thiefs. Phalanx warriors do use it

Using Sigil of Strength on warrior is completely useless, since you’re wasting a damage modifier that you could have used in place of that Sigil of Strength.
You can easily maintain 25 might by just using strength runes, and if you’re having trouble with that you can just use dumplings as food, but I would NEVER use a Sigil of Strength as a phalanx warrior

Wrong. Alone without sigil and food you can’t maintain 25 stack of might. Even with food you can’t. The group usually have at least 1 other source of might to maintain the 25. Remember that we lost 30% boon duration with the patch. PS Warrior might last less longer than it used to do. Strengh on a PS warrior isn’t a waste. Remember that Dumpling is in limited supply and will continue to rise in price until february next year. So someone that play that, but don’t want to pay the food could use a sigil of strength. Not the best, but a viable option still.

There is a difference between viable and optimal.
Sure, maybe its a more safe option to go with sigil of strength, but 99% of the time you’re wasting a 5-10% personal DPS boost.
We have no idea for which situation the OP is gonna use these sigils, so making an estimation based on very niche situations in which your party is not gonna be on 25 might is completely useless
Overall you’re gonna keep your party at 25 might easy (with a proper rotation and maybe use of buff food), and sigil of strength will be a DPS waste

kitten y is correct, Frailty takes 7 seconds to “ramp up” which is just about when Glyph Vuln starts going away. The real question is, when do you use Sigil of Air over Sigil of Force?

I have a short check list for you when you consider the second sigil to take next to Force (if it’s day) or Night (if it’s.. er.. night)

1, Slaying if possible
1.5, Force (if nighttime)
2, Strength – the second your might is not capped, str will always be stronger
3, Frailty – worthless if vuln is capped (glyph etc) and has a ramp up time
4, Accuracy – if you’re downscaled or no banner (lol y not?), +7% doesn’t scale down.
5, Air

Go down the list and take the highest number that fits your situation.

Except Air is better than force is many, many fights. It’s like the opposite of Frailty. You get all the Air damage right up front, whereas Force takes time to equal Air. the shorter the fight the bigger Air’s advantage.

Air is especially advantaged if you in a situation like Ranger longbow or PS warrior Axe. You will only be on those sets for a small portion of the fight right at the beginning. Best dps is to do your Axe vuln skills (proccing Air) or Rapid Fire and then swap to your 10%/5% main set. This way you get the benefit of Air front loaded damage but don’t have to live with the long term consequences of Air’s ICD.

For extremely casual fractal pugs and with a Devil May Care persona:

1. Slaying if feeling hardcore and have spare sigils to swap.
2. Night + Force, if feeling cheap and have only one ascended weapon.
3a. Strength – with decent crit chance buff and vuln application, no Might access but benefit from both Power and Condi.
3b. Accuracy – with most damage coming from crit procs, have ferocity buff and no crit chance buff, have low attack rates and Might is not imperative.
3c. Frailty – universally works with all classes, however used only when feeling willful enough to support/carry an average group. Most important for a reflect mesmer when vuln is not capped.
4. Air – has good attack/crit rates, might and vuln are not issues, long fight with no burst potential. Of all characters of mine, the only one that has Air sigil is my mesmer, in her greatsword.

I seem overestimated the damage from sigil of air. I think I’ll keep force, night, strength, and frailty.

Maybe justice and undead slaying when I feel rich. Ty all for the input. That sigil of air though, I think it has been a bug for a long time(since release?). Anet pls.