Stacking sigils don't work.
Stacking sigils provide a higher than average stat advantage. This is compensated via other drawbacks.
I do agree that they are a type of leftover remnant from way back (originally you could stack the buff up, replace the weapon and get the benefit of max stack sigil buff without having the sigil equiped) and feel lackluster in todays meta.
Making them stack faster might be a solution but would be a problem for sPvP. Having them stack slower leaves them balanced in sPvP but leaves them weak in PvE.
I don´t see the problem.
You only need these stacks in combat, so you get these stacks through combat.
Just kill 25 things that drop loot and it´s fine.
By the way there´s no class that needs 250 power for example, so badly or generally, there´s no class that needs these adapptive stats so badly.
Making them stack faster might be a solution but would be a problem for sPvP. Having them stack slower leaves them balanced in sPvP but leaves them weak in PvE.
In sPvP (before stacking sigils and many other sigils were removed) killing a foe would add 5 stacks. So you would only need 5 player kills to get 25 in sPvP.
In all fairness, runes and sigils could do with a major overhaul, but that is for another topic.
I think its good that you lose stacks when you are:
- Downed – The sigil rewards you from staying alive
- Unequip the stacking weapon – otherwise the sigils generate gameplay where you use one weapon to charge yourself and then swap to a weapon with damaging sigils → annoying and unnecessary
So OP the sigils are working as intended and not as thread title state don’t work
I think that they should rebalance around 5 stacks (so each stack does 5 times as much as the current stacks do, giving you the same effect as in WvW), but have each stack wear off after 3-5 minutes.
This would reward constant killing of foes to keep your stacks up.
These sigils, as they are right now, are very lackluster. People either use an Alt weapon to build stacks and then swap away from it, or they never use them at all.
Letting you get the highest buff more quickly while also putting it on a timer would make them much more useful, without making them overpowered.
People either use an Alt weapon to build stacks and then swap away from it
That doesn’t work. That’s even one of the things the OP takes up as the sigils “not working”.
Swapping between weapons that do have the same sigil should keep the stacks though. Have to double check mine…
People either use an Alt weapon to build stacks and then swap away from it
That doesn’t work. That’s even one of the things the OP takes up as the sigils “not working”.
Swapping between weapons that do have the same sigil should keep the stacks though. Have to double check mine…
That’s what I meant by “alt” weapon. Your secondary that you swap to just to build stacks but you swap out of once you have max stacks.
For example, on my Rev I use a Sword/Axe in mainhand and a hammer in off. I swap to the hammer just to build Ferocity stacks (or in the rare case I need to range something) and then just camp Sword/Axe. (this is obviously for open world play, you’d have a set rotation and meta sigils for instanced content).
You do not need both main and off hand to have the sigil, either will work to build and hold stacks. The OP means that if you build stacks and then change your weapon with another from your inventory, the stacks are gone (which didn’t use to happen but was changed to work that way some time ago).
What’s the gain from building stacks with the hammer if you have the sigil slotted on one of the “main” weapons? (honestly confused)
What’s the gain from building stacks with the hammer if you have the sigil slotted on one of the “main” weapons? (honestly confused)
You build your stacks on the hammer, then get the benefit of those stacks when you swap to the main weapon set.
The stacks are NOT removed on normal weapon swap (i.e. the ~ key).
They ARE removed if you unequip the weapon that earned the stacks, enter water (unless you have an underwater weapon equipped that has the same Sigil), leave the map/instance, or get transformed.
Something I wish they’d do is make different ranked enemies give more stacks.
Regular = 1
Vet = 2
Elite = 3
Champs = 5
They should just remove/rework them tbh. They contribute to unhealthy play anyhow just like seaweed +% dmg while moving did.
After you kill a foe, gain (insert buff) for 30seconds increasing your (insert stat) by 250.
So instead of encouraging people to runaway, it encourages them to push harder.
I agree with OP: It’s ridiculous that we always loose all stacks upon switching maps or instances. When the map gets empty and you volunteer for a more populated map, you’re supposed to be REWARDED, not PUNISHED by stripping all your sigill stacks! Who in their right mind volunteers for a new map-instance when at 25 stacks?
And having so many monsters that don’t award stacks doesn’t sit right with me either. You’re supposed to get 1 stack per kill. Not “yeah, you might be getting a stack or not, depending on your circumstances”.
And I don’t agree with Justine that they’re contributing to unhealthy play. You’re tagging lots of mobs for loot anyway. Whether they’re actually dropping loot or not, the tagging mentality is already there. If anything they’re making players try to stay alive instead of engaging groups of veterans Leeroy-Jenkins-Style and making their lava font on downed state part of their damage rotation. I’m even running the sigil in HoT on a full glass-cannon ele and it’s at full stacks 90% of the time.
@OP Please correct the title of this thread. As has been pointed out by others here, the sigils do in fact function and apply the correct benefit proportional to the number of stacks the player possesses.
@OP & BunjiKugashira in the grand scheme of things I hardly think that these problems are “big”, nor “ridiculous”, nor “PUNISHMENT” nor requiring of “solutions”. The sigil offers a reward that you have to work for, encourages good play and requires careful behaviour on the part of the user. There should be more sigils like these ones.
To me the only design elements in this field that I would like to see changed are how the Sigil of Demon Summoning works. Right now the demon pet is weak, does not interact with the player’s skills & traits and appears whether the player wants it to or not. To improve matters I would suggest the following:
1) The demon needs a flat buff to all of its stats, particularly hit points. Without some baseline DPS and the ability to survive with support for its whole duration there would be no point building around this potentially interesting sigil choice.
2) The demon should inherit all applicable pet-related traits that the user is running: so that means the minion traits if the user is a necromancer; the turret & gyro traits if the user is an engineer; pet traits if the user is a ranger; illusion traits if the user is a mesmer and so forth. This would turn the demon from being merely a thing that happens to being something that the player can build around, particularly for pet-heavy builds that might be more interested in most to this sigil.
3) The demon should only summon when the sigil is at 25 stacks AND the wielder uses their heal skill. Making the sigil skill-activated would give the player some control over when the pet is summoned, necessary if the player is going to use it intelligently.
Professor Sprout.1560
The stacking sigils don’t work in the current format. If you swap between a weapon with the sigil to a different weapons with same sigil in inventory stacks are lost, you never unequipped the sigil. Second changing zones or moving to higher pop servers is a mechanic that happens often in normal play, for this mechanic to drop stacks again doesn’t work it’s punishing the player for playing with the group. Not to mention other mechanics that randomly wipe stacks for no rhyme or reason. Food doesn’t drop in this manner so why sigil stacks do doesn’t make sense.
Professor Sprout.1560
The stacking sigils don’t work in the current format. If you swap between a weapon with the sigil to a different weapons with same sigil in inventory stacks are lost, you never unequipped the sigil. Second changing zones or moving to higher pop servers is a mechanic that happens often in normal play, for this mechanic to drop stacks again doesn’t work it’s punishing the player for playing with the group. Not to mention other mechanics that randomly wipe stacks for no rhyme or reason. Food doesn’t drop in this manner so why sigil stacks do doesn’t make sense.
Right, that translates to disliking the way that stacking sigils work, for reasons that many people agree with. That’s different from a bug.
The spiders in BFF that people were AFK farming? The ones with the loot removed as the solution to AFK farming after they promised their solution to AFK farming wasn’t going to shaft legitimate players?
Those spiders?
I hadn’t actually noticed that the mobs the lying weasels nerfed didn’t contribute stacks, although I only have the sigils on a couple characters.
Suppose I was completely distracted by the broken promise to notice.
shrug
There is absolutely no evidence to support that it would.” -AnthonyOrdon
They should just remove/rework them tbh. They contribute to unhealthy play anyhow just like seaweed +% dmg while moving did.
After you kill a foe, gain (insert buff) for 30seconds increasing your (insert stat) by 250.
So instead of encouraging people to runaway, it encourages them to push harder.
They already have a whole category “gain X stat/buff for 30 second on kill” for food, which almost never gets used due to it being unreliable. Its in a bad place because the damage bonus is irrelevant against trash mobs, it takes too long to kill vets+, and you’d want the damage up front for those fights anyway.
The Bloodlust was popular for a long time. because it both had a bigger bonus and persisted long enough to matter. Now days Force/Night and Malice works better in raids/dungeons since they don’t reset on down. Especially raids, since you can’t rebuild stacks if you wipe on a boss segment.
If you had to improve it, it would have to be a cross of opening strike and grace of the land, where the sigil grants a buff that triggers (on strike) into a damage bonus that lasts 30 seconds, and resets the trigger on mob kill. That allows the stacks to pile up on kill streaks, but still offers front loaded damage bonus. Balancing it would be a problem though. It would need <50% uptime without kill streaks, and still have provide at least 50 per stack (5 max) to be worth using.
If we’re going single stack, it’ll have to be +250 to break even with Force in most set ups, but can’t be 100% up time. Could go +300 with some down time and “on kill” refresh; but it’ll end up being best in slot or not worth taking over force.
The problem really boils down to needing something you can front load AND has to renew on its own in order to compete with passive versions for Raids and Fractals. And frankly, Fractals/Raids are the only place that justifies investing in the majority of sigils.