Guild Wars 2

Why do Signets grant passive stats while not on cool down? Seems like it promotes less skill variety because of people and their stat optimization obsessions.

Depends on the signet. Some have much better passives and their actives are relatively useless. For those, they are just buttons I ignore. For my ranger however, going full signet gives you some pretty decent burst damage. But for most classes I do use the passives of signets almost exclusively. Seems to be a bit of a faulty design, but maybe they get more use in pvp. Wouldn’t know, I’m a casual pve carebear.

Only signet I use on CD is signet of rage.

Otherwise they’re better used for passives. Then again I’m a big passive playstyle type of player and like signets as I tend to forget and not use skills otherwise.

It depends on the signets. Some signets are really great when you activate them. They are very situational, especially in pvp or a boss fight, or when you’re getting low on health.

The best way to use signet is to know when to use their active ability and when to save them for the passive ability.

But…
In my opinion:
- Healing signet: is bad as the Passive healing is to good and the Active healing is to bad.
- Signet of Judgement: passive gives you -10% incoming Damage but the Active is weak, the only good thing with it is the stun break … But I could argue if using it as a stunbreaker is a good decision. If so, only in realy bad situations.
- Signet of the Hunt: has in my opinion to long CD for 50% more damage on one attack even if the attack is an AoE the extra damage is still on one target. I use this signet but I never use it’s active ability.

Because many classes have much more involved weapon skills and class mechanics than others and have a hard time paying mind to utility skills.

Take ele for example, the class can be played entirely without utility skills.

Sometimes signets are far more useful than normal utility skills, synchronize with and make far more builds possible, and promote skill rather than hinder it.

If I have to use the active on my healing signet as a warrior then I’m doing something terribly wrong. All the others I use when needed.

Precision: Always good for extra crit; use active to get full adrenaline so I can drop a fire field from bow to burst stack might before a boss.
Strength: Only use in world bosses; don’t even remember what the active does
Dolyak: passive toughness is great; active stun break/stability is even better
Endurance: passive and active save my kitten every time vs Mai Trin especially with how fast she can stack bleeds/cripple
Rage: “about to burst the kitten out of something” button