Guild Wars 2

I’m a Power Necro, looking for a good Sigil for my Axe. Force is an option, but is 5% additional damage worth it or is it hardly noticeable? My other options are Incapacitation, Frailty, Blood, Air and Rage. I’m not running Ice because I’m not running Deathly Chill, opting for Reaper’s Onslaught instead.

Well, consider this: the difference between exotic and ascended gear is approximately five percent damage output. You can do the math from there.

(but, short answer long, yes, it’s worth it, generally speaking, for a power damage based build.)

Yes. It is definitely worth it as you are adding 5% contact damage to all of your hits. Unlike other +damage sigils there is no condition nor cooldown you need to be to get the damage buff; it’s free.

• Incantation and frailty are meh as those conditions are very commonly found so you would never see the benefit of these.
• Sigil of blood is easily replaced by a Food (Omnomberry Ghost comes to mind) as the health and damage siphoned procs too infrequently to be worth it compared to what Food offers.
• Sigil of rage is on waaaay to long of a cooldown, and Quickness is one of those “dime a dozen” buffs if you’re doing group content. Even solo the sigil has 10% uptime.
• Air is a good contender as you get an extra source of spike damage. This is a good catch all if you don’t have another sigil to take it’s place such as creature/race-specific slaying sigils.

savacli.8172:

• Sigil of blood is easily replaced by a Food (Omnomberry Ghost comes to mind) as the health and damage siphoned procs too infrequently to be worth it compared to what Food offers.

That one is a bit messy.

Sigil of Blood has kitten CD while the food has a 2s CD.

Sigil of Blood also scales with power while the food does not. At high enough power the sigil will beat the food and you free up the food slot for 100 power/70something else or a +% damage food

Sigil of Blood, at most, would be doing just under 700 damage/proc and ~630hp siphoned. This were to assume you somehow maxed out both your Power (with 25 might) and Healing Power. Though this only occurs every 5 seconds.

Omnom Ghost is stuck on a static 315 damage/proc and 325hp siphoned with only a 2 second cooldown.

So in 10 seconds you have:

• Sigil: ~1400 damage, ~1260 HP (max Power and Healing Power)
• Ghost: 1,575 damage, 1625 HP

Thus, even if you have high stats, something like Omnom Ghost still wins. Granted, I’m not saying that OP should take either Blood Sigil nor Omnom Ghosts, but rather that was just for the sake of comparison Blood Sigil is easily outmatched if he was after HP siphoning.

Thanks everyone! I’ve decided to stick with Force for the reliable damage boost. 5% just didn’t seem like that much to me but clearly I was looking at it the wrong way.

Okami.7049:

Thanks everyone! I’ve decided to stick with Force for the reliable damage boost. 5% just didn’t seem like that much to me but clearly I was looking at it the wrong way.

Oh! I’m not actually sure anyone said it, or if it was obvious to you … this only improves power damage, not condition damage. So if you use it on, say, your condition build necromancer, it’s going to be way less useful than on your power oriented whatever.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

Okami.7049:

Thanks everyone! I’ve decided to stick with Force for the reliable damage boost. 5% just didn’t seem like that much to me but clearly I was looking at it the wrong way.

Oh! I’m not actually sure anyone said it, or if it was obvious to you … this only improves power damage, not condition damage. So if you use it on, say, your condition build necromancer, it’s going to be way less useful than on your power oriented whatever.

Yeah, I’m not a fan of Condi Necro. I’d rather go Sigil of Bursting for that one xD

Okami.7049:

Yeah, I’m not a fan of Condi Necro. I’d rather go Sigil of Bursting for that one xD

Sigil of force, really worth it. No other sigil come even close to the dmg improvement for a power build.

Sigil of bursting on the other hand, sadly not worth it, both earth and geo are better (unless you are purely ranged where geo dont work)

Okami.7049:

SlippyCheeze.5483:

Okami.7049:

Thanks everyone! I’ve decided to stick with Force for the reliable damage boost. 5% just didn’t seem like that much to me but clearly I was looking at it the wrong way.

Oh! I’m not actually sure anyone said it, or if it was obvious to you … this only improves power damage, not condition damage. So if you use it on, say, your condition build necromancer, it’s going to be way less useful than on your power oriented whatever.

Yeah, I’m not a fan of Condi Necro. I’d rather go Sigil of Bursting for that one xD

Well, the specific class was an example. SoF works only on power damage, which means only the “initial hit” of attacks of any class, not on the conditions they leave behind.

I’m sure you did understand that correctly, but I’d rather tell you what you know than accidentally mislead someone.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

Okami.7049:

SlippyCheeze.5483:

Okami.7049:

Thanks everyone! I’ve decided to stick with Force for the reliable damage boost. 5% just didn’t seem like that much to me but clearly I was looking at it the wrong way.

Oh! I’m not actually sure anyone said it, or if it was obvious to you … this only improves power damage, not condition damage. So if you use it on, say, your condition build necromancer, it’s going to be way less useful than on your power oriented whatever.

Yeah, I’m not a fan of Condi Necro. I’d rather go Sigil of Bursting for that one xD

Well, the specific class was an example. SoF works only on power damage, which means only the “initial hit” of attacks of any class, not on the conditions they leave behind.

I’m sure you did understand that correctly, but I’d rather tell you what you know than accidentally mislead someone.

Yer good man, and I agree it’s better to make sure someone’s informed rather than leave them under this assumption or that xD thanks for making sure if not for me, I’m sure someone else reading this thread could benefit from all of the extra info.

Sigfodr.9576:

Okami.7049:

Yeah, I’m not a fan of Condi Necro. I’d rather go Sigil of Bursting for that one xD

Sigil of force, really worth it. No other sigil come even close to the dmg improvement for a power build.

Sigil of bursting on the other hand, sadly not worth it, both earth and geo are better (unless you are purely ranged where geo dont work)

Earth and Geo are only for inflicting Bleed, it doesn’t do anything to help with Condi Damage at all. Reapers right now can easily stack up to 30 Bleeds with just Shouts in PvE thanks to Deathly Chill, but those bleeds will only do 22 damage per second (or in this case 660) without Condi Damage/Duration while Burning from Dhuumfire (for example) does 657.5 damage per second with only 5 stacks (the max you can get without Expertise and while running Reaper’s Onslaught for the additional attack speed). Bursting or Malice would benefit both Condi Damage as well as Duration, which allows you to stack more Condis and keep them on your target longer for more DoT.

Earth and Geo aren’t bad options, but they’re just for applying Condis (in this case Bleed), not for increasing Condi Damage or Duration (which is where Condi players get their DPS).

Okami.7049:

Sigfodr.9576:

Okami.7049:

Yeah, I’m not a fan of Condi Necro. I’d rather go Sigil of Bursting for that one xD

Sigil of force, really worth it. No other sigil come even close to the dmg improvement for a power build.

Sigil of bursting on the other hand, sadly not worth it, both earth and geo are better (unless you are purely ranged where geo dont work)

Earth and Geo are only for inflicting Bleed, it doesn’t do anything to help with Condi Damage at all. Reapers right now can easily stack up to 30 Bleeds with just Shouts in PvE thanks to Deathly Chill, but those bleeds will only do 22 damage per second (or in this case 660) without Condi Damage/Duration while Burning from Dhuumfire (for example) does 657.5 damage per second with only 5 stacks (the max you can get without Expertise and while running Reaper’s Onslaught for the additional attack speed). Bursting or Malice would benefit both Condi Damage as well as Duration, which allows you to stack more Condis and keep them on your target longer for more DoT.

Earth and Geo aren’t bad options, but they’re just for applying Condis (in this case Bleed), not for increasing Condi Damage or Duration (which is where Condi players get their DPS).

The problem is that the extra stacks of bleeding from Earth and Geo both do more actual damage than the Bursting Sigil does, because it was very poorly implemented. It only adds 6% to your BASE condition damage (i.e. it ignores all of your condition damage from gear).

mtpelion.4562:

Okami.7049:

Sigfodr.9576:

Okami.7049:

Yeah, I’m not a fan of Condi Necro. I’d rather go Sigil of Bursting for that one xD

Sigil of force, really worth it. No other sigil come even close to the dmg improvement for a power build.

Sigil of bursting on the other hand, sadly not worth it, both earth and geo are better (unless you are purely ranged where geo dont work)

Earth and Geo are only for inflicting Bleed, it doesn’t do anything to help with Condi Damage at all. Reapers right now can easily stack up to 30 Bleeds with just Shouts in PvE thanks to Deathly Chill, but those bleeds will only do 22 damage per second (or in this case 660) without Condi Damage/Duration while Burning from Dhuumfire (for example) does 657.5 damage per second with only 5 stacks (the max you can get without Expertise and while running Reaper’s Onslaught for the additional attack speed). Bursting or Malice would benefit both Condi Damage as well as Duration, which allows you to stack more Condis and keep them on your target longer for more DoT.

Earth and Geo aren’t bad options, but they’re just for applying Condis (in this case Bleed), not for increasing Condi Damage or Duration (which is where Condi players get their DPS).

The problem is that the extra stacks of bleeding from Earth and Geo both do more actual damage than the Bursting Sigil does, because it was very poorly implemented. It only adds 6% to your BASE condition damage (i.e. it ignores all of your condition damage from gear).

Though that is true, what I was saying is Earth and Geo are wasted Sigils since Reaper can stack 30 Bleeds with ease, which may not be the limit (which is 1500) but without Expertise it’s wasted slots. Geo only happens on weapon swap (which isn’t always ideal, especially if your rotation falls on camping a specific weapon set like Power does with GS) and Earth has a 2s ICD that only procs on Crit (stack lasts for 5s) so as far as Bleed stacking goes, unless you’re running Scepter (for Necro) you won’t be able to reliably stack Bleed. Plus, like i said, 30 Bleed stacks equals 5 Burning stacks (without Condi Damage/Duration), so I’d much rather focus on boosting Condi-Damage or Duration rather than simply trying to add an additional stack or two. It’s just a personal preference, if I ever did play Condi.

EDIT: apparently the number 5 counts as an ‘S’ and you can’t say ‘as’ before ‘5’ (ugh)

mtpelion.4562:

The problem is that the extra stacks of bleeding from Earth and Geo both do more actual damage than the Bursting Sigil does, because it was very poorly implemented. It only adds 6% to your BASE condition damage (i.e. it ignores all of your condition damage from gear).

That is false. It does not ignore condition damage from gear unless weapons and armor doesn’t count as gear. It can not work the way you describe because it would be 6% of 0 all the time.

Starting from 0 condi damage.

Equip an exotic carrion(239 condi damage) staff with sigil of bursting in it → 253 condi damage (239 * 1.06)

Equip an ascended viper hat(+54 condi damage, +25 from the rune = 318 total) → 337 condi damage ( 318 * 1.06)

Equip an ascended sinister amulet (+157 condi damage = 475) → 503 condi damage (475 * 1.06)

Eat a spicy pumpkin cookie (+70 condi damage = 545) → 578 condi damage (545 * 1.06) not sure how they are doing the rounding, 503.5 did not round to 504 but 577.7 rounds to 578

Use a tuning icile (60, +46.84 = 651.84 or +60,40 = 645) → 685
This is where things get a bit weird. It looks like the +171 vitality in my Carrion staff does not apply to the utility consumable’s “Gain condition damage equal to 4% of your vitality” but on the other hand 645 * 1.06 is only 683.7 so even if you round that up it should only be 684 there is an extra point from somewhere.

Khisanth.2948:

mtpelion.4562:

The problem is that the extra stacks of bleeding from Earth and Geo both do more actual damage than the Bursting Sigil does, because it was very poorly implemented. It only adds 6% to your BASE condition damage (i.e. it ignores all of your condition damage from gear).

That is false. It does not ignore condition damage from gear unless weapons and armor doesn’t count as gear. It can not work the way you describe because it would be 6% of 0 all the time.

It is based on your base stats (meaning armor + weapons), but it do not include food, might, banner buff, GotL, pinpoint distribution, rune of thorns buff, lingering curse, targeting the weak or any other extra condition dmg increase that I might have forgotten to mention. This mean the the 6% increase is not 6% at all, and for org. group plays, bursting will therefore be worse then earth or geo. If you do solo play only and want to optimise for that, then I really dont know if earth or bursting will be the best, but I guess earth will still pull ahead. Bursting is just that bad.

I did not mention malice that it as far as I know not is worth it. Since you already with easy hit the 100% duration cap. So unless you dont have the gear/weapons, no reason to use malice.

ohh the difference between the 2 are btw

Base: about 1412 condi dmg
with normal buffs/food: about 3177 condi dmg

I might have forgotten a buff or 2, its late

Sigfodr.9576:

It is based on your base stats (meaning armor + weapons), but it do not include food, might, banner buff, GotL, pinpoint distribution, rune of thorns buff, lingering curse, targeting the weak or any other extra condition dmg increase that I might have forgotten to mention. This mean the the 6% increase is not 6% at all, and for org. group plays, bursting will therefore be worse then earth or geo. If you do solo play only and want to optimise for that, then I really dont know if earth or bursting will be the best, but I guess earth will still pull ahead. Bursting is just that bad.

I did not mention malice that it as far as I know not is worth it. Since you already with easy hit the 100% duration cap. So unless you dont have the gear/weapons, no reason to use malice.

Grace of the Land doesn’t affect the Condition Damage attribute. Applying it in the special forces training area doesn’t change what is displayed in the hero panel.

It increases the damage done by conditions similar to Hidden Barbs and Poison Master . It is also multiplicative with those.

With 1243 condition damage a single stack of bleed does …
1243*.06 + 22 =96.58(97)
+ hidden barbs(33%) = 128.4514(128)
+ GotLx5(10%) = 141.29654(141)

Sigfodr.9576:

ohh the difference between the 2 are btw

Base: about 1412 condi dmg
with normal buffs/food: about 3177 condi dmg

I might have forgotten a buff or 2, its late

So checking in the special forces area. The difference between no buff and all the buff is 320 after adding in the missing 150 from Pinpoint Distribution and without consumables. I am checking with exotic weapon and armor but even with the increase from that it would require consumables to add over 1000 to reach the numbers you quoted.

Khisanth.2948:

Sigfodr.9576:

It is based on your base stats (meaning armor + weapons), but it do not include food, might, banner buff, GotL, pinpoint distribution, rune of thorns buff, lingering curse, targeting the weak or any other extra condition dmg increase that I might have forgotten to mention. This mean the the 6% increase is not 6% at all, and for org. group plays, bursting will therefore be worse then earth or geo. If you do solo play only and want to optimise for that, then I really dont know if earth or bursting will be the best, but I guess earth will still pull ahead. Bursting is just that bad.

I did not mention malice that it as far as I know not is worth it. Since you already with easy hit the 100% duration cap. So unless you dont have the gear/weapons, no reason to use malice.

Grace of the Land doesn’t affect the Condition Damage attribute. Applying it in the special forces training area doesn’t change what is displayed in the hero panel.

It increases the damage done by conditions similar to Hidden Barbs and Poison Master . It is also multiplicative with those.

With 1243 condition damage a single stack of bleed does …
1243*.06 + 22 =96.58(97)
+ hidden barbs(33%) = 128.4514(128)
+ GotLx5(10%) = 141.29654(141)

Sigfodr.9576:

ohh the difference between the 2 are btw

Base: about 1412 condi dmg
with normal buffs/food: about 3177 condi dmg

I might have forgotten a buff or 2, its late

So checking in the special forces area. The difference between no buff and all the buff is 320 after adding in the missing 150 from Pinpoint Distribution and without consumables. I am checking with exotic weapon and armor but even with the increase from that it would require consumables to add over 1000 to reach the numbers you quoted.

About GotL: Why importent here, it is a 10% dmg increase (also work for conditions), so if you do 1000 bleeding dmg pr. sec without GotL, you will do 1100 with GotL.
The reason this is worth mentioning is that the 6% increase from bursting do NOT affect the extra 100 dmg from GotL.
1 extra stack of bleeding from earth on the other hand will do more dmg with GotL.
GotL is therefore importent to take into the picture when talking about sigils

About the difference between Armor/weapon (base), and with full buffs, here is a breakdown (I am going to use condi necro as an ex. as OP was talking about necro)

Base
Armor: 376 condition dmg.
runes (thorn): 175 condition dmg.
Tinkets (amulet+rings sinister, rest viper): 645 condition dmg.
weapons: 216 condition dmg.
Total: 1412 condition dmg.

With all buffs:
Base: 1412 condition dmg.
lingering curse: 150 condition dmg.
Taget the weak(1728*13%): 225 condition dmg.
Might (25 stacks á 30 condition dmg.): 750 condition dmg.
food: 170 condition dmg.
banner of strength: 170 condition dmg.
pinpoint distribution: 150 condition dmg.
3? stacks of thorhs buff: 150 condition dmg.
Total: 3177 condition dmg.