Guild Wars 2

…when you can’t change the sigils like you change their stats?

I mean, what good is a weapon that — in theory — can be used by all your characters, when you constantly have to overwrite expensive sigils with new ones or spend RL money in order to buy tons of upgrade extractors?

It makes the whole thing 100% pointless, unless it’s for the purpose of showing off (or if you like the skin).

pretty much for showing off or the skin
able to switch stats easily but doesn’t come with the capability to do the same for sigil already defeat the purpose of flexibility

They would definitely be a lot more attractive if they somehow allowed you to switch back to any sigils you have previously placed on the weapon.

Maybe Legendary Sigil soon? Unlock or collect all sigils like achievement to get it lol

EvilReaperZ.7920:

Maybe Legendary Sigil soon? Unlock or collect all sigils like achievement to get it lol

Oh, I like the idea of a legendary sigil!

It is the skin and showing off. From a stats POV it is the same as ascended unless you think you will be changing stat sets.

Menadena.7482:

It is the skin and showing off. From a stats POV it is the same as ascended unless you think you will be changing stat sets.

Yes, I know that. My question was more of a rhetorical nature — and criticizing the fact that after more than four years, the devs still haven’t considered this problem important enough to do something about it.

It’s the main reason I haven’t invested too much into legendaries yet, because I somehow don’t see the point in doing so. For instance, playing a Druid, I would like a staff I could adept to my current build — it would spare me some inventory space. But since I can’t change the sigils at will like I could the stats, there is no point in acquiring one (other than the skin).

They keep adding legendaries, but they can’t do something about this vital issue? How sad is that?

Ashantara.8731:

…when you can’t change the sigils like you change their stats?

This is a silly question.

Remember when Legendary Weapons were introduced Ascended Weapons did not and even after their introduction the ability to change their stats was not immediate. A completely hotswappable always up-to-date weapon that takes up just one slot is going to always be worth more than whatever paltry gold you spend on sigils. The only time it becomes cumbersome is if you’re constantly swapping which is not a problem of the system but a problem of player consistency.

The developer shouldn’t have to, in my opinion, answer for your willingness to just constantly change your mind.

Just remember, the real value of legendary gear is to stat swap imo. Sure you’re not minmaxing out, but if you want to minmax, you basically create a set JUST for that.

If you have a legend sword, and then want to swap to condi armor, you swap the sword to condi (bad example but follow), you’re not fully caring about that sigil as much. If you did, then you’d already have a condi sword ready to go with proper sigil.

HOWEVER do want sigil swap and soon rune swapping for armor!

SkyShroud.2865:

pretty much for showing off or the skin
able to switch stats easily but doesn’t come with the capability to do the same for sigil already defeat the purpose of flexibility

+1

Still think the Legendary weapons would be better off with replacing the ability to swap stats with the ability to always cost 0 transmutation charges to change skin. So the weapon would truly be specialized in it’s role of “showing off”.

Ashantara.8731:

…when you can’t change the sigils like you change their stats?

I mean, what good is a weapon that — in theory — can be used by all your characters, when you constantly have to overwrite expensive sigils with new ones or spend RL money in order to buy tons of upgrade extractors?

It makes the whole thing 100% pointless, unless it’s for the purpose of showing off (or if you like the skin).

Just curious, what Sigil is so expensive or hard to get that using an upgrade extractor would make sense?

Roundabout.1752:

Ashantara.8731:

…when you can’t change the sigils like you change their stats?

I mean, what good is a weapon that — in theory — can be used by all your characters, when you constantly have to overwrite expensive sigils with new ones or spend RL money in order to buy tons of upgrade extractors?

It makes the whole thing 100% pointless, unless it’s for the purpose of showing off (or if you like the skin).

Just curious, what Sigil is so expensive or hard to get that using an upgrade extractor would make sense?

sigil of concentration

Legendaries were designed to be purely cosmetic.

When the game came out all legendaries were exotics (ascended equipment didn’t exist) and there was no way to change the stats at all. (If I remember correctly they all had Soldier’s stats.) There was also no wardrobe so if you wanted different stats your only option was to obtain another exotic weapon and use a transmutation stone to combine the two – destroying both the original legendary and the exotic to give you 1 weapon with the stats and skin you wanted.

That only changed when they introduced ascended weapons (much later, weapons were one of the last pieces to be added) because they were advertising ascended weapons as being extremely hard to get – about 1/2 way between exotics and legendary – so the idea of making a legendary and then having to make another ascended weapon to transmutate it with wasn’t appealing. (The wardrobe still didn’t exist at this point so you’d have to destroy both the original legendary and the ascended weapon.)

Since sigils were completely unchanged in this time, and still haven’t changed, they presumably didn’t feel any need to change how they’re added to legendaries. I suspect, based on how they were originally designed, that Anet never intended players to be constantly changing the stats, and therefore didn’t see any need to make changing the sigil cheaper or easier to do.

(I’m not saying it shouldn’t be changed, just trying to explain the history and the reasoning behind it.)

@Ashantara.8731,
By far the best Legendary (IMO) is Ad Infinitium. You can change the stats without any repercussions. After making Ad Infinitium, I decided to work on Kraitkin, only because it won’t change stats on my Necro, being a Condi weapon, it will always contain a condi stat combo.

I believe that to be part of the concept behind stat changing. For example, a Thief can run Valk, Assassin, Berserker, or some other weapon stat combo. All of them would still classify as Power in nature. It allows for some stat building flexibility, being able to change your weapon.

Switching the weapon to a different profession, or min/max your character is a different story though. As others have mentioned, if you need a particular stat and sigil combo for your build, then you have to keep it the way it is. But, if you branch out a bit, and stay within the realms of your sigils (Power / Condi / Healing / Whatever….), you have a weapon that allows for some diversity.

I endorse the idea of adding Legendary Sigils/Runes for Legendary Weapons/Armor that have to be unlocked by achievements and can be swapped in and out at anytime by the use of a currency like Unbound Magic or Karma.

For swapping between Bifrost and Nevermore to annoy your friend :P
They give you a long term/heavy resource goal, MMO needs those. I sort of just wilt if I don’t have a goal in the game.

Legendaries have always been about bragging rights and sparklies.

DGraves.3720:

Ashantara.8731:

…when you can’t change the sigils like you change their stats?

This is a silly question.

No, it is not. First of all, many players I have met in the game think so, too, and second, I believe your argumentation to be “silly”:

Remember when Legendary Weapons were introduced Ascended Weapons did not and even after their introduction the ability to change their stats was not immediate. A completely hotswappable always up-to-date weapon that takes up just one slot is going to always be worth more than whatever paltry gold you spend on sigils. The only time it becomes cumbersome is if you’re constantly swapping which is not a problem of the system but a problem of player consistency.

What nonsense. There are professions that are versatile for a reason. Take my Ranger, for instance. At least three full sets of armor and trinkets are required (I even have four), along with weapons with different sigils that fit the current build:

- Viper (full Condi for Fracs and Raids)
- Magi (full heal for Raids, if required)
- Commander (for WvW)
- optional: Berserker (Glyph DPS build), IMO the best for your everyday solo PvE

Two of these builds require a staff, several of them a sword and/or an axe. All with different stats and sigils. I am not complaining about this, it’s my choice to want to be versatile — I love it, it’s fun.

Now back to my point: When you invest tons and tons of time, effort and mats into building a Legendary Weapon, you should be able to make it usable in any build you want, and just changing the stats does NOT do the trick if you want 100% efficiency. You are better off having simple ascended gear for that purpose than Legendaries, as the latter are only good for their skins and graphic effects — the stat change without the ability to change sigils along with them can only be viewed as a “mere inconvenience” by very few professions whose builds don’t depend on different sigils. It is quite ignorant to say otherwise.

The developer shouldn’t have to, in my opinion, answer for your willingness to just constantly change your mind.

My willingness? I hardly know any players who don’t agree with me on this. But hey, as long as you are happy, everyone else should be too, right?

Danikat.8537:

Legendaries were designed to be purely cosmetic.

When the game came out all legendaries were exotics (ascended equipment didn’t exist) and there was no way to change the stats at all. (If I remember correctly they all had Soldier’s stats.) There was also no wardrobe so if you wanted different stats your only option was to obtain another exotic weapon and use a transmutation stone to combine the two – destroying both the original legendary and the exotic to give you 1 weapon with the stats and skin you wanted.

I didn’t know that. Even though I created my account on release day, I didn’t start playing the game actively until Christmas 2015. Thanks for the insight.

Ashantara.8731:

Remember when Legendary Weapons were introduced Ascended Weapons did not and even after their introduction the ability to change their stats was not immediate. A completely hotswappable always up-to-date weapon that takes up just one slot is going to always be worth more than whatever paltry gold you spend on sigils. The only time it becomes cumbersome is if you’re constantly swapping which is not a problem of the system but a problem of player consistency.

What nonsense. There are professions that are versatile for a reason. Take my Ranger, for instance. At least three full sets of armor and trinkets are required (I even have four), along with weapons with different sigils that fit the current build:

- Viper (full Condi for Fracs and Raids)
- Magi (full heal for Raids, if required)
- Commander (for WvW)
- optional: Berserker (Glyph DPS build), IMO the best for your everyday solo PvE

Two of these builds require a staff, several of them a sword and/or an axe. All with different stats and sigils. I am not complaining about this, it’s my choice to want to be versatile — I love it, it’s fun.

Now back to my point: When you invest tons and tons of time, effort and mats into building a Legendary Weapon, you should be able to make it usable in any build you want, and just changing the stats does NOT do the trick if you want 100% efficiency. You are better off having simple ascended gear for that purpose than Legendaries, as the latter are only good for their skins and graphic effects — the stat change without the ability to change sigils along with them can only be viewed as a “mere inconvenience” by very few professions whose builds don’t depend on different sigils. It is quite ignorant to say otherwise.

He’s not saying that it’s not an inconvenience. Just that it’s not due to the system only, but due to players as well. Players who don’t min-max or just focus on one area of play aren’t inconvenienced by the system as it stands.

The problem with changing the system now is that it may tank the last sigil market that’s not sitting at vendor value. And eventually rune market as well when legendary armor becomes more common. And ANet may not want to do that so it may be wary of adding in sigil swapping.

Not to mention more players would likely go for legendary weapons and drive up the prices of items a decent amount of players are already saying have reached the point where it’s not worth it to buy them and the wait is too long for the quantity needed. The one I’m thinking about is Mystic Coins.

It would be great if they could come up with a system to allow for easier sigil swapping, I just don’t see it happening soon given the current state of the economy. Don’t get me wrong, I do sympathize and I hope ANet can solve the problems adding sigil swapping (or something similar) will bring sooner rather than later.

Legendary weapons are:

1. A supposedly long-term project in a game genre that requires such to keep some people busy.
2. A carrot for those who like shinies.
3. Part of the GW2 economic stimulus initiative.
4. The varicolored badge of the MMO aficionado.
5. So that those who want to can draw their Twilight in a jumping puzzle and troll other players by obscuring the path.

As some people already stated the meaning of legendary weapons is and was always the skin. As Danikat told the ability of legendary weapons to swap statts is as best to describe as a side effect. From arenanet’s standpoint they were meant as pure cosmetic item. They introduced the switching solely because many complained that their fresh legendary had completely horrible satts and they could not include theme in their build. So most skinned another weapon with better statts and never used their legendary.

I still can relate to your problem, but I would like to have a different approach here. Changing your statts on the fly is a feature that 100% of all players would benefit from. Therefore, I am strictly against any measures that includes only legendary weapons/equipment including a legendary sigil.

Why creating a system built on a bad compromise solution? Why build a system only a few percentages of the player base would benefit from if it would help everyone? I can’t find any arguments to support this.
Especially when you think about arenenet’s approach on legendries lately. They cancel the project and only gave us the already finished ones because the development time is not worth it, as the number of players who will get them is far to low.

There is a better solution for this. Build templates. A system where you could change your skills weapons, runes, sigils, and armor statts wherever and whenever you like. This would include legendary, ascended, exotic and if you want even all the other tiers of equipment. You would no longer have to buy a sigil twice for one character, once it is added to your wardrobe just change it as you like. How to build this system is of course another question, probably with some kind of character based unlock feature to not crash the market.

Lastly would this devalue legendary weapon? Only slightly, but in my opinion nothing would be lost here. They would return to their status as pure cosmetic item with special look as they have always been intended. But you could always compromise here giving them the ability to unlock all statts at once maybe.

I’m not a big sigil swapper personally. I just go with what I feel works for what I’m using, which means I don’t really min-max.

That said, I’m not opposed to them adding some sort of functionality to ‘add’ sigils to legendaries and have them ‘remember’ what’s been added, thus creating the ability to swap a sigil ooc to any sigil that has been ‘learned.’

Mithos.9023:

As some people already stated the meaning of legendary weapons is and was always the skin. As Danikat told the ability of legendary weapons to swap statts is as best to describe as a side effect. From arenanet’s standpoint they were meant as pure cosmetic item. They introduced the switching solely because many complained that their fresh legendary had completely horrible satts and they could not include theme in their build. So most skinned another weapon with better statts and never used their legendary.

I still can relate to your problem, but I would like to have a different approach here. Changing your statts on the fly is a feature that 100% of all players would benefit from. Therefore, I am strictly against any measures that includes only legendary weapons/equipment including a legendary sigil.

Why creating a system built on a bad compromise solution? Why build a system only a few percentages of the player base would benefit from if it would help everyone? I can’t find any arguments to support this.
Especially when you think about arenenet’s approach on legendries lately. They cancel the project and only gave us the already finished ones because the development time is not worth it, as the number of players who will get them is far to low.

There is a better solution for this. Build templates. A system where you could change your skills weapons, runes, sigils, and armor statts wherever and whenever you like. This would include legendary, ascended, exotic and if you want even all the other tiers of equipment. You would no longer have to buy a sigil twice for one character, once it is added to your wardrobe just change it as you like. How to build this system is of course another question, probably with some kind of character based unlock feature to not crash the market.

Lastly would this devalue legendary weapon? Only slightly, but in my opinion nothing would be lost here. They would return to their status as pure cosmetic item with special look as they have always been intended. But you could always compromise here giving them the ability to unlock all statts at once maybe.

Hear Hear! +1

Build Templates for great victory, Or really any system to make sigils/runes another thing ot equip, and not lock to the armor/weapons. Separate equip slot or something!

Ashantara.8731:

DGraves.3720:

Ashantara.8731:

…when you can’t change the sigils like you change their stats?

This is a silly question.

No, it is not. First of all, many players I have met in the game think so, too, and second, I believe your argumentation to be “silly”:

There’s a surprise.

…

What nonsense. There are professions that are versatile for a reason. Take my Ranger, for instance. At least three full sets of armor and trinkets are required (I even have four), along with weapons with different sigils that fit the current build:

- Viper (full Condi for Fracs and Raids)
- Magi (full heal for Raids, if required)
- Commander (for WvW)
- optional: Berserker (Glyph DPS build), IMO the best for your everyday solo PvE

Two of these builds require a staff, several of them a sword and/or an axe. All with different stats and sigils. I am not complaining about this, it’s my choice to want to be versatile — I love it, it’s fun.

What legendary armor does is reduce the “Four Sets of Armor and Assorted Weapons I have!” to one. It compacts the process of change. When you start talking about sigils and runes the cost effectiveness is going to be based off of your actual gameplay behavior.

I am not going to say that you, as a player, are wrong but it generally is not something most players are facing probably because it isn’t that big of an expense or an issue. The cost of anything is, presuming no foul play by the developers for the most part, dictated by the market but even the most expensive runes and sigils aren’t overly expensive with very few crossing a line that would truly dictate how you played. I can see the frustration, no doubt, but permanency would actually make the situation worse.

Permanency would greatly increase the price. This hurts all of the other not-so-hardcore not-swapping-all-the-time not-playing-six-roles-at-a-time players incredibly. The minority approves because the minority benefits. But ironically the minority which is the party that approves and benefits would be in the best position for wealth because they do all of this extra content. It’s an economic game of greed and balance.

Do not mistake me as calling you greedy. I am not. I am just saying that the commoner would not face these issues so the commoner is really not represented in this particular discussion which.

Now back to my point: When you invest tons and tons of time, effort and mats into building a Legendary Weapon, you should be able to make it usable in any build you want, and just changing the stats does NOT do the trick if you want 100% efficiency. You are better off having simple ascended gear for that purpose than Legendaries, as the latter are only good for their skins and graphic effects — the stat change without the ability to change sigils along with them can only be viewed as a “mere inconvenience” by very few professions whose builds don’t depend on different sigils. It is quite ignorant to say otherwise.

“If I get a character to level 80 I should be able to simply have the best armor.” This is the same argument reframed into something you’d find ludicrous. You are not entitled to sigils or runes for the armor. You are fully entitled to maximize the armor or weapon as you see fit. The same as you are fully allowed to change traits all the way through when you hit 80 (not including Elite professions). They’re separate.

…

My willingness? I hardly know any players who don’t agree with me on this. But hey, as long as you are happy, everyone else should be too, right?

You likely know and associate with only players who would agree with you on this as they face the same dilemma. You shouldn’t use bandwagoning if your bandwagon is going to appeal to a very specific minority. That’s like an oil baron thinking that oil needs to be used more and saying that his “buddies” agree.

The reality is that you’re the one trying to insist for a vast majority when in fact you represent a very distinct minority. Most people aren’t running X armors for each class to run an entire plethora of material throughout all game modes as required by their homebody friends. It’s just not true.

Do not get me wrong about your plight; I do recognize it as legitimately a problem for high-end players but the fact that high-end players distinctly fail to disconnect the reality of the weapon from the reality of it’s components and upgrades is unfair. Of course at 100% efficiency you want everything to hum in tune but you could always exaggerate that out to a new level of ridiculous just as I did with taking a level 80 and stating I deserve a legendary for it and all the associated accolades of play regardless of how it impacts the economy.

Ashantara.8731:

Now back to my point: When you invest tons and tons of time, effort and mats into building a Legendary Weapon, you should be able to make it usable in any build you want,

Can’t say that I agree. At the time that anyone set out to spend that time, effort, and mats it was known that sigil changing was not a part of the deal. If you know that something you are purchasing does not include X before making the purchase then there is no, “should,” have been included.

DGraves.3720:

You likely know and associate with only players who would agree with you on this as they face the same dilemma. You shouldn’t use bandwagoning if your bandwagon is going to appeal to a very specific minority. That’s like an oil baron thinking that oil needs to be used more and saying that his “buddies” agree.

The reality is that you’re the one trying to insist for a vast majority when in fact you represent a very distinct minority. Most people aren’t running X armors for each class to run an entire plethora of material throughout all game modes as required by their homebody friends. It’s just not true.

Do not get me wrong about your plight; I do recognize it as legitimately a problem for high-end players but the fact that high-end players distinctly fail to disconnect the reality of the weapon from the reality of it’s components and upgrades is unfair. Of course at 100% efficiency you want everything to hum in tune but you could always exaggerate that out to a new level of ridiculous just as I did with taking a level 80 and stating I deserve a legendary for it and all the associated accolades of play regardless of how it impacts the economy.

It would increase the costs in the short term while people bought the sigils they wanted. But once most players had the sigils they wanted, the price would drop drastically since players aren’t having to buy multiple ones when they want to make a new set.