Guild Wars 2

Signets exist. Almost every profession has them (with the Engineer being the only exception). Almost all of them suck. No, really. Most signets absolutely blow because of three basic factors:

1) They rarely synergize with eachother.
2) They passive rarely works with the active.
3) The very concept that signets are built around is a flawed one.

So let’s start with part 1. Signets generally don’t work very well together. We’ll consider the Warrior, Guardian, Ranger, and Thief to be the exceptions to this, given that their signets cover the basics well enough. There is no real synergy between the Ele signets, Mesmer Signets, or Necromancer Signets.

Secondly, passives and actives feel stuck together most of the time. Take this dialogue between a Mesmer and a Necromancer.

“Oh, this signet increases your boon duration and you can activate it to blind foes. Yay…..”

“Oh, yeah? Well my signet improves my power despite its active being condition based.”

“Well… that’s pretty bad, but my Condition Damage signet can be activated to Immobilize the foe.”

“Wouldn’t that be better on a burst build?”

“Exactly.”

Lastly, signets are just… not a good concept as they are. Guild Wars 1 Signets brought something unique to the game’s mechanics, as they allowed for free spells in an energy/mana-based game. Obviously, that mechanic can’t be carried over to Guild Wars 2 without changing to an energy system, which would most likely be a bad move, but there is a serious opportunity cost issue with the current signets. The active is rarely worth losing the passive. Forced choices aren’t necessarily a bad thing, but it just doesn’t work in this scenario. The only signets that get run are generally run for their passive effects or traits – with the only real exceptions being crowd control signets such as Signet of Domination or survivability signets such as Signet of Stone.

Might I suggest:

1) Overhauling signets completely. Redesign them to synergize with eachother and make sure that the passive and active work well together. The new signet system should involve long cooldowns with actives that are worth using. No lost passive effects when you activate the signet.

2) Give Engineers signets as well. Noone would complain about the added equality.

In the recent sotg the developers stated they are thinking about reworking signet actives. Apparently the warrior is the beta version of seeing how it does. What that means is that when you activate signet of might, your next 3 attacks are unblockable.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

1) Overhauling signets completely. Redesign them to synergize with eachother and make sure that the passive and active work well together. The new signet system should involve long cooldowns with actives that are worth using. No lost passive effects when you activate the signet.

They’re already doing the synergy between Signets. Look at the following traits:

• Inscribed Removal
• Deep Strike
• Beastmaster’s Might
• Signet Use
• Signets of Power
• Fire’s Embrace
• Blurred Inscriptions
• Cleansing Inscriptions
• Signet Power

That is in fact most of the Signet traits. And each of them gives a benefit that is directly tied to how many Signets you have. However, that system is very fragile. Make the bonuses too strong and you end up with 5 signet characters, like the 5 signet warriors. Make them too weak and no one will care enough to use them.

Also, I think that the current system is good enough, they just need to balance the effects. For example, pretty much no one who uses a +25% movement speed signet uses the active effect. On the flip side, you never catch a Warrior with the Signet of Rage passive effect.

2) Give Engineers signets as well. Noone would complain about the added equality.

You’re wrong there. You would have a few choices if you did that:

1. Remove 1 existing Engineer utility per new signet
2. Add 1 new skill to every other class per new signet for Engineer
3. Let Engineers end up as the only class with more utilities than the rest

• The first would result in an outrage by anyone playing an Engineer.
• The second would result in an outrage if the new skills were not good enough or they were in a family that wasn’t deemed useful. For example, not giving Warriors a new Stance or Shout.
• The third would result in an outrage by everyone who is not an Engineer

I don’t like signets. Your skill bar in guild wars 2 is already quite small, with many abilities only being used very rarely/situationally or not at all. Then you add passive signets in there for more buttons that you’re encouraged not to press.

Vargs.6234:

I don’t like signets. Your skill bar in guild wars 2 is already quite small, with many abilities only being used very rarely/situationally or not at all. Then you add passive signets in there for more buttons that you’re encouraged not to press.

Which is why I think a “you don’t lose the passive, but your active has a longer cd” design would be better for them.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Vargs.6234:

I don’t like signets. Your skill bar in guild wars 2 is already quite small, with many abilities only being used very rarely/situationally or not at all. Then you add passive signets in there for more buttons that you’re encouraged not to press.

Which is why I think a “you don’t lose the passive, but your active has a longer cd” design would be better for them.

That won’t really solve the problem.

Currently, a lot of the passives are not worth keeping at all. The change they’re making will make those passives rather strong, so keeping them while having the effect will be overpowered in some cases. As a good example, there’s Signet of Malice on a Thief or Healing Signet on a Warrior.

On the other hand, increasing the cooldown on some of the actives will make them useless in turn. For example, no one uses Dolyak Signet on a Warrior because the cooldown is longer than Balanced Stance.

Olba.5376:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

1) Overhauling signets completely. Redesign them to synergize with eachother and make sure that the passive and active work well together. The new signet system should involve long cooldowns with actives that are worth using. No lost passive effects when you activate the signet.

They’re already doing the synergy between Signets. Look at the following traits:

• Inscribed Removal
• Deep Strike
• Beastmaster’s Might
• Signet Use
• Signets of Power
• Fire’s Embrace
• Blurred Inscriptions
• Cleansing Inscriptions
• Signet Power

That is in fact most of the Signet traits. And each of them gives a benefit that is directly tied to how many Signets you have. However, that system is very fragile. Make the bonuses too strong and you end up with 5 signet characters, like the 5 signet warriors. Make them too weak and no one will care enough to use them.

Also, I think that the current system is good enough, they just need to balance the effects. For example, pretty much no one who uses a +25% movement speed signet uses the active effect. On the flip side, you never catch a Warrior with the Signet of Rage passive effect.

2) Give Engineers signets as well. Noone would complain about the added equality.

You’re wrong there. You would have a few choices if you did that:

1. Remove 1 existing Engineer utility per new signet
2. Add 1 new skill to every other class per new signet for Engineer
3. Let Engineers end up as the only class with more utilities than the rest

• The first would result in an outrage by anyone playing an Engineer.
• The second would result in an outrage if the new skills were not good enough or they were in a family that wasn’t deemed useful. For example, not giving Warriors a new Stance or Shout.
• The third would result in an outrage by everyone who is not an Engineer

Poor rangers and their “Grants 1 stack of might for 5 seconds.” piece of kitten trait.

Lévis.5489:

Olba.5376:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

1) Overhauling signets completely. Redesign them to synergize with eachother and make sure that the passive and active work well together. The new signet system should involve long cooldowns with actives that are worth using. No lost passive effects when you activate the signet.

They’re already doing the synergy between Signets. Look at the following traits:

• Inscribed Removal
• Deep Strike
• Beastmaster’s Might
• Signet Use
• Signets of Power
• Fire’s Embrace
• Blurred Inscriptions
• Cleansing Inscriptions
• Signet Power

That is in fact most of the Signet traits. And each of them gives a benefit that is directly tied to how many Signets you have. However, that system is very fragile. Make the bonuses too strong and you end up with 5 signet characters, like the 5 signet warriors. Make them too weak and no one will care enough to use them.

Also, I think that the current system is good enough, they just need to balance the effects. For example, pretty much no one who uses a +25% movement speed signet uses the active effect. On the flip side, you never catch a Warrior with the Signet of Rage passive effect.

2) Give Engineers signets as well. Noone would complain about the added equality.

You’re wrong there. You would have a few choices if you did that:

1. Remove 1 existing Engineer utility per new signet
2. Add 1 new skill to every other class per new signet for Engineer
3. Let Engineers end up as the only class with more utilities than the rest

• The first would result in an outrage by anyone playing an Engineer.
• The second would result in an outrage if the new skills were not good enough or they were in a family that wasn’t deemed useful. For example, not giving Warriors a new Stance or Shout.
• The third would result in an outrage by everyone who is not an Engineer

Poor rangers and their “Grants 1 stack of might for 5 seconds.” piece of kitten trait.

That is pretty crappy compared to Necros getting 3 for 10 and Thieves getting 5 for 5.