Guild Wars 2

Hi,

I was wondering what people think about the new downed skills Signet of Agony ?

As most of you know it is the 5th downed skill shared between all professions and can only be used in open world, dungeons and fractals. It does not work in pvp, wvw or raids. It is gained through Spectral Aid -mastery and to be able to train it you must own HoT.

The signet passive is automatically on when you go downstate and makes your attacks steal life. I don’t know if there is an internal cooldown on life steal. Signet active gives Spectral Agony -damage to opponents in huge area and also a lot of torment (I saw like 12 stacks on Pocket Raptors when I was testing this) and other conditions too.

I think it is pretty powerful. I went to HoT maps with my full viper ranger and let the enemies down me on purpose. With signet passive I was able to rally from previously impossible situations and signet active was a huge bomb too, it for example 1 hitted the group of Pocket Raptors that downed me in testing.

As for what I think about the skill I was first very surprised to see something like this. We have seen new skills that are limited to their own maps previously and I thought the masteries are going to be like that. I really don’t know what to think now that I have gotten over the initial surprise. I don’t know is it too good or not.

EDIT:
A direct example of this skill in action is that I was able to solo https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Coztic_Itzel_Belongings Hero Point -event on my ranger. Even though the boss got me downed 3 times he was unable to finish the job because with ranger downed pet heal skill and the signet life gain I was gaining too much life for the boss and was able to constantly rezz my self as a ranger. I hadn’t been able to get the hero point before.

What do you think?

The lifesteal component is very strong on certain professions, like guardian and (I imagine) necro and thief, their 1 attack hits very quickly and for good damage. It is very insignificant on mesmer, as your 1 attack is very slow to cast, and skills 2 and 3 don’t have you deal any damage.
Otherwise its a very interesting idea.

I haven’t really played with it, but the lifesteal made me wonder: does the lifesteal from the signet stack with the lifesteal that necros get naturally on their downed 1 skill?

nottsgman.8206:

I haven’t really played with it, but the lifesteal made me wonder: does the lifesteal from the signet stack with the lifesteal that necros get naturally on their downed 1 skill?

Yes. Yes it does, my friend. And it’s awesome.

nottsgman.8206:

I haven’t really played with it, but the lifesteal made me wonder: does the lifesteal from the signet stack with the lifesteal that necros get naturally on their downed 1 skill?

Hi,

It seems to me that it does indeed stack. I let a White Mantle patrol put me down without doing anything to them and then used skill 1 to kill one of them and rally. I took a look at the combat log and looks like the signet did trigger for every necro down state #1 tick.

nottsgman.8206:

I haven’t really played with it, but the lifesteal made me wonder: does the lifesteal from the signet stack with the lifesteal that necros get naturally on their downed 1 skill?

I don’t think so – haven’t seen any difference here. On the other hand, on condi necro skill 5 is almost instant ress if you have the heal on condi trait active.

Completely useless on my Mesmer, very good on my Guardian, not great on my Ranger. It made the already god-like downstate of the Guardian (and Ranger) even stronger. And didn’t do anything for the Mesmer that could use some help in downstate. So I have my doubts about the implementation of this skill.

Games get old with time

Anet stated that masteries were there answer to progression and this down state is akin to gliding as it’s usable in areas outside the region borders. I’m all for this downstate skill as its a form of power creep. What if antitoxin spray came back as a global mastery skill and what other skills could they add. With HoT we gained 4 playable maps and in LS3 we are also up to 4 maps.

HoT came with more maps if you add in guild halls, desert bdl, and any pvp map i may have forgotten. Meaning minus them adding more guild halls/WvW maps its completely feasible for a new expansion to have at least 6-7 maps. This would spread the player base out thinner.

These power creep masteries will help keep old content in action which is needed considering we really don’t know the true nature of how future expacs work in regards to F2P. We know HoT will be free with the next expac however if its F2P players getting it free then old content in HoT will have a steady stream of players in it. However if HoT become F2P with purchase of the new expac for new players then you can see things dry out for the old content at which point as stated global masteries will become more and more important.

Coinhead.7591:

EDIT:
A direct example of this skill in action is that I was able to solo https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Coztic_Itzel_Belongings Hero Point -event on my ranger. Even though the boss got me downed 3 times he was unable to finish the job because with ranger downed pet heal skill and the signet life gain I was gaining too much life for the boss and was able to constantly rezz my self as a ranger. I hadn’t been able to get the hero point before.

What do you think?

That is not entirely true. It only needed to down you one more time and you would have gone directly to defeated unless the signet also removes downed penalty.

I feel like this has been one of the most useless masteries we have gotten so far but I feel the same about all the traits that are related to being downed.