Guild Wars 2

I am trying to figure our what would give the highest damage.

My base power is around 2500. What will give most damage: Superior Bloodlust or Superior Force?

I am still trying to figure out how the sigils work as well. Will Force give +5% to the total skill damage or +5% after armor reduction?

And how much increased damage will +250 power (25 stacks crom Vloodlust) give?

Many thanks!

bloodlust gives you 10% increased damage at maximum stacks considering your base power is 2500, sigil of force add 5% to your current power so it gives you around 125 power before reduction, cmiiw if you really want to have the highest dps output try combine bloodlust with sigil of air(if you have high critical chance).

Pretty sure the sigil of air would be the sigil you replace to take bloodlust.

Aceofsppades.6873:

Pretty sure the sigil of air would be the sigil you replace to take bloodlust.

That’s what I’ve always done. I almost exclusively use Fire and Air. On the set I use Bloodlust on, Air gets replaced.

robertjan.2197:

I am still trying to figure out how the sigils work as well. Will Force give +5% to the total skill damage or +5% after armor reduction?

It’s the same, as damage reduction from armor is a relative effect, not a flat value.

Thanks for the feedback! How come that force is so much more expensive than bloodlust? Especially in wvw the 25 stacis take very few time.

Sigil of fire and sigil of air stack? What damage will t do when triggered and can both be triggered at the same time?

The problem with sigil of bloodlust is that it’s a pain to stack and you can lose your stacks easily(going into water, dying,switching maps) and if a fight occurs that you don’t have sigil stacked, then you have a handicap; also if a gvg occurs it’s considered bm to fight with stacked sigil.
That’s why it’s not that popular in wvw anymore(but it’s still very good for that game mode); in pve it’s not that good since you might wanna swap/unequip weapons for different encounters or you don’t want to rely on stacking the sigil to be efficient (also if you happen to go down in a fight you lose all the stacks which forces you to restack the weapon)

Sigils of fire and air stack,can be triggered at same time and are usually used in bursty builds that you often see in pvp or wvw (thieves and shatter mesmers for instance used to run this setup). They both have a damage coefficient, which means the damage they will do depends on your power,weapon strength and enemy’s armor, but generally sigil of air hits harder a single target and sigil of fire hits for less but aoe; that means fire sigil is decent only when you fight many enemies at once(that means better in wvw but not that good in pve)
with 2.5k power vs heavy armor target (3k armor)
air:~632 every 3 sec-> 210 dps on single target
fire:~325 damage every 5 sec-> 64dps on single target or 325 dps on 5(max) targets
hope that helps and hope my math is right :p

robertjan.2197:

Thanks for the feedback! How come that force is so much more expensive than bloodlust? Especially in wvw the 25 stacis take very few time.

PvE is where most players are and bloodlust is pretty lackluster in content where sigils really matter like raids/fractals/dungeons. In some of them it’s not even possible to get 25 stacks and they will reset when you die.

Critical Lag.9075:

robertjan.2197:

Thanks for the feedback! How come that force is so much more expensive than bloodlust? Especially in wvw the 25 stacis take very few time.

PvE is where most players are and bloodlust is pretty lackluster in content where sigils really matter like raids/fractals/dungeons. In some of them it’s not even possible to get 25 stacks and they will reset when you die.

So if I don’t do raids/fractals/dungeons, and I rarely die, then would bloodlust be preferable?

First of all: Superior Sigil of Bloodlust looses to Superior Sigil of Cruelty if you have a decent critchance.

As for Cruelty vs Force:

• Fractals are too short and you always start at 0 stacks. Even without dieing I rarely fill the 25 stacks. Force would be better.
• Dungeons depends on the dungeon. For some longer dungeons Cruelty could be nice, but for shorter dungeons Force is better.
• For Raids I would definitely recommend the Superior Sigil of Force.
• For open world and any situation where you have to kill a lot of cannon fodder early on, the Superior Sigil of Cruelty is king. Or Bloodlust if you don’t have the critchance.

They really need to rework those “stacking” sigils! We should only lose the stack when we die. Losing it just by going underwater or switching maps is lame.

Mea.5491:

They really need to rework those “stacking” sigils! We should only lose the stack when we die. Losing it just by going underwater or switching maps is lame.

You don’t loose the stacks if you have the same stacking sigil on your underwater weapon. But I agree: Loosing the stacks when switching maps and the fact that certain event mobs don’t give stacks (and don’t trigger on kill effects in general) is just lame.

Thanks a lot for everyones feedback. Much appreciated!

Another factor that makes stacking sigils undesirable is “trash” event mobs. That is, mobs that give no XP, no loot, and NO STACKS when you kill them. These mobs show up a lot in HOT events, as well as in some fractals and dungeons where you face an infinite number of respawning foes.

Another reason that Force is more valuable is that it ALWAYS works, 100% of the time. No stacking, no losing stacks, no depending on critical hits (which don’t work on objects/barriers). That makes it useful in ANY situation.

All stacking sigils will do better at 25 stacks, it is how they were designed, but how much better varies based on the base you start with. This is simply a question of efficiency.

5% of 2,500 is 125 which is equal to 12.5 stacks of sigil of bloodlust. However you can’t have half a stack so you need 13 of the stacks to do better.

Let’s change the base to 2,750 in power. 5% is now 137.5 which is equal to 13.75 stacks, again you can’t have a partial stack, so you need 14 now.

Let’s change the base to a realistic 3,000 power which can achieved through traits, top gear, food, effects, auras, etc. 5% of this is now 150 which means you need 15 stacks to be doing equal to one Sigil of Force.

Sigil of Force is not better because it always does more damage. It’s better because the more power you get from other sources the more dynamic it becomes and if you don’t at any time, have that number of stacks you are completely losing damage. So for instance during the build of those 13 stacks you are doing less damage than you would have with only Sigil of Force. If you go down often enough you are guaranteed to be doing less damage and if you have a high amount of power, say 3,250, it becomes harder and harder to achieve the number of stacks required to beat it.

This is readily apparent in some fractals where there are not many enemies. You’ll never hit 25 stacks. In some you’ll never hit 12. Speedruns typically don’t go through droves of enemies either and most try to skip them as best they can.

That said Sigil of Cruelty is better than Sigil of Bloodlust.

I’m not sure how you reached the conclusion that ferocity is better than power but it doesn’t seem like that’s the case to me
let’s assume that a skill has 1.0 coefficient, you have 100% crit chance,2.5k power and 220% crit damage
bloodlust=250 power → skill gonna hit 2.2×1.0×2750=6050
cruelty=250 ferocity (~237% total crit damage) → skill gonna hit 2.37×1.0×2500=5925
and that’s the best case scenario with 100% crit chance

BunjiKugashira.9754:

First of all: Superior Sigil of Bloodlust looses to Superior Sigil of Cruelty if you have a decent critchance.

As for Cruelty vs Force:

• Fractals are too short and you always start at 0 stacks. Even without dieing I rarely fill the 25 stacks. Force would be better.
• Dungeons depends on the dungeon. For some longer dungeons Cruelty could be nice, but for shorter dungeons Force is better.
• For Raids I would definitely recommend the Superior Sigil of Force.
• For open world and any situation where you have to kill a lot of cannon fodder early on, the Superior Sigil of Cruelty is king. Or Bloodlust if you don’t have the critchance.

no. the answer is never cruelty.

assuming some optimized zerk/assassin mix, bloodlust is approximately similar to cruelty when you have high might stacks and 90-100% crit rate. under every other condition, bloodlust is better.

cruelty can only be better than bloodlust in the absence of ferocity, which should not be the case. because no one runs knights gear for open world.

ardhikaizecson.3697:

bloodlust gives you 10% increased damage at maximum stacks considering your base power is 2500, sigil of force add 5% to your current power so it gives you around 125 power before reduction, cmiiw if you really want to have the highest dps output try combine bloodlust with sigil of air(if you have high critical chance).

Not quite. Sigil of force is a DAMAGE multiplier, not stat multiplier. Using procession of blades on DH as an example, with 2306 power, it’s damage is 3370. With another 250 power, it goes up to 3740. Sigil of force would give a much lower damage boost primarily because of the trap’s skill coefficient being 5.5. If a skill’s coefficient is .5 or lower, sigil of force will give more damage than bloodlust. That being said, bloodlust is a worse choice in some areas, whether due to lack of stuff to kill, or because it’s harder to NOT go down.

Aidan Savage.2078:

ardhikaizecson.3697:

bloodlust gives you 10% increased damage at maximum stacks considering your base power is 2500, sigil of force add 5% to your current power so it gives you around 125 power before reduction, cmiiw if you really want to have the highest dps output try combine bloodlust with sigil of air(if you have high critical chance).

Not quite. Sigil of force is a DAMAGE multiplier, not stat multiplier. Using procession of blades on DH as an example, with 2306 power, it’s damage is 3370. With another 250 power, it goes up to 3740. Sigil of force would give a much lower damage boost primarily because of the trap’s skill coefficient being 5.5. If a skill’s coefficient is .5 or lower, sigil of force will give more damage than bloodlust. That being said, bloodlust is a worse choice in some areas, whether due to lack of stuff to kill, or because it’s harder to NOT go down.

Uh.. not quite,power is a damage multiplier as well so coefficient is irrelevant; 250 power is always better than +5% damage, unless you have 5000 power (which is practically unattainable)
on the other hand assuming you sit at 3k power, which is commonplace with 20-25 mightstacks, force is better only if bloodlust is stacked to 15 stacks or below(+150 power)
Also regarding cruelty it’s worse than bloodlust 100% of the time
edit: not sure why forum underlines automatically sentences xd can’t help it

Ime stacking sigils are a bad habit. I feel their benefit at max stacks is outweighed by those times you’ll either lose the stacks, or not have them maxed when you really need it.

I think it more comes down to the choice of an always-on bonus, or one that can fluctuate depending on what you’re doing…. not which one gives you the most damage. It was kinda difficult for me because I was so used to them, but I dropped stacking sigils a while ago.

~EW

Nordom.3485:

Aidan Savage.2078:

ardhikaizecson.3697:

bloodlust gives you 10% increased damage at maximum stacks considering your base power is 2500, sigil of force add 5% to your current power so it gives you around 125 power before reduction, cmiiw if you really want to have the highest dps output try combine bloodlust with sigil of air(if you have high critical chance).

Not quite. Sigil of force is a DAMAGE multiplier, not stat multiplier. Using procession of blades on DH as an example, with 2306 power, it’s damage is 3370. With another 250 power, it goes up to 3740. Sigil of force would give a much lower damage boost primarily because of the trap’s skill coefficient being 5.5. If a skill’s coefficient is .5 or lower, sigil of force will give more damage than bloodlust. That being said, bloodlust is a worse choice in some areas, whether due to lack of stuff to kill, or because it’s harder to NOT go down.

Uh.. not quite,power is a damage multiplier as well so coefficient is irrelevant; 250 power is always better than +5% damage, unless you have 5000 power (which is practically unattainable)
on the other hand assuming you sit at 3k power, which is commonplace with 20-25 mightstacks, force is better only if bloodlust is stacked to 15 stacks or below(+150 power)
Also regarding cruelty it’s worse than bloodlust 100% of the time
edit: not sure why forum underlines automatically sentences xd can’t help it

Be mindful of using

+'s in posts as +'s

You do also understand that something being strictly better does not mean it’s ALWAYS better? If you’re a player who’s squishy as kitten regardless of your class, bloodlust sucks balls, as does cruelty. You lose stacks faster than you build them. That means sigil of force will be better for you. That’s also true in areas where the damage you take is going to be so high that you will go down at some point. If you’re in areas where there really arent a lot of things to kill, sigil of force will be better for you.

I’d agree with Aidan’s point… stacking sigils are theoretically good, but either impractical or unnecessary in most situations.

In situations that you need every bit of DPS (i.e. high fractals, raids, arguably HoT maps) it is either difficult to max your stacks (not enough mobs), or difficult to maintain them (you get downed often).
In situations where it is easy to max and maintain your stacks (i.e open world), you don’t really need that extra DPS (killing something in 3s vs 4s)
In PvP or Wvw, if you’re able to max and maintain your stacks, you’re already on the winning side and the sigil wasn’t needed anyway.

Only niche case I can imagine is if you run a low DPS, high survival build (e.g. Nomad’s) and you need a bit more DPS.