Guild Wars 2

I know there are some older posts about Sigils and how the internal cooldowns work and whatnot, but I have a specific question regarding Sigil stacking. I plan on trying to make a viable lifesteal Reaper, and that means most of my Sigils/Runes are going to have to also possess some form of lifesteal (along with Blood Magic, which I wish would get a little update). My main question is this: how would Sigil of Blood and Sigil of Leeching work since they both have internal cooldowns, but work off of different systems? Since Blood has a chance to activate on crits, while Leeching activates on wep swaps, would it be possible to activate Blood on a crit before swapping (or switching into Shroud) weps and activate Leeching? The Wiki doesn’t exactly answer my question, so sorry if I’m simply repeating something that someone else asked eons ago, I tried searching but couldn’t find what I was looking for out of the flood of info out there.

Thanks in advance for your time and help!

Short story: sigil of blood and sigil of leeching on the same weapon set work together.

However, the OP didn’t mention what sigils were on their second weapon set and that could matter. The short version of that is:

• Don’t use two stacking sigils.
• It’s okay to use the same “on swap” sigil on both sets (e.g. leeching)
• You can use matching sigils on both sets, so e.g. leech+blood and leech+blood will work (using one cooldown for both ‘bloods’).
• Be sure to use a main-hand weapon in both sets: there’s a bug that causes loss of weapon strength and (sometimes) sigil use when in shroud or other transformations.

(I am not addressing whether any of this is efficient or not —that’s a different sort of discussion. I’m just trying to cover how the mechanics work and leaving the OP to make their own choices.)

For those who want the full details, voila: everyone’s favorite thing on the forums (a wall of text!).

Sigil of leching + blood on the first weapon set: no problem and it’s even covered directly in the wiki (although I can’t blame the OP for missing it; the examples are currently wordier than they need to be).

From the wiki (emphasis is mine)

…the two sigils … provide their effects independently as long as the base sigil is different. The exceptions to this are the stacking sigils: only one stack effect can be active at a time. Additionally, sigils with the same base sigil will share cooldowns between weapon sets.

EXAMPLES

• A warrior is wielding a greatsword with … a Superior Sigil of Air (…damage …on crit…) and a Superior Sigil of Earth (chance to … Bleed… on crit…)… Both sigils will roll their chance to activate on every attack the warrior makes, and each sigil will run its own cooldown timer after it activates.

The wiki’s example is a narrower case than the OP’s scenario: two on-crit sigils, which end up using a different cooldown, because the only exceptions to “both sigils working” are stacking sigils and sigils with identical base properties

Second weapon set interactions

The choice of sigils on the second weapon set matter as follows. There are three scenarios and I’ll cover them separately:

1. Two complete weapon sets, the sigils differ across the sets.
2. Two complete weapon sets, the sigil pairs are identical.
3. The money-saving option of (a) Main-Hand & Off-hand plus (b) just the off-hand (one less weapon, one less sigil to acquire).

1 — Two complete weapon sets, the sigils differ across the sets.
The simplest. This follows the wiki’s example: as long as there aren’t two or more stacking sigils (or matching base effects), all four sigil effects will work. Each on-crit effect will have its own cooldown.

2 — Two complete weapon sets, the sigil pairs are identical.
All sigils work, as long as there is at most one stacking and no like-named sigils (e.g. Major Force and Superior Force — only the Superior will be in effect).

In the OP’s case of blood + leeching on both sets:

• Every crit hit causes life steal via Sigil of Blood, but the cooldown remains even after swapping weapons.
• Every attack after swapping will steal some health. The cooldown is 9 seconds, regardless of how many times you swap, but since the default swap time is 10 seconds, that usually doesn’t affect necros.

3 — (a) Main-Hand & Off-hand plus (b) just the off-hand
This should be identical to scenario 1, but due to a bug, it’s not when you go into Shroud or other transformations. You only get the benefit of some of the weapons and therefore some of the sigils (the benefits depend on where the sigils are).

Someone on reddit covered the details and you can read up if you want. The short story is: equip two full weapon sets; the money saved isn’t worth it until the bug is fixed.

edit: grammar

Those 2 sigils should stack since they are of different type(on swap+ on crit). I think things get a bit trickier only when you use sigils of the same type or identical sigils
Edit: you can test this stuff out in pvp golems when in doubt

Thank you! I did not know about the Golems, sorry I don’t PvP cuz I’m still a noob, just recently got into the game. I’ll give it a try though, thanks my friend!

You don’t have to pvp to enter pvp lobby, it’s basically a pve area with pvp rules(under pvp>enter pvp lobby), where you can equip most of the sigils/runes that are in game and check them out without buying completely new gear.
As a sidenote, most of the sigils will work together except equiping 2 stacking sigils at the same weapon set or 2 identical sigils;
equiping 2 sigils of air at the same time for instance should increase the proc chance a bit but will share the same cd so will only proc once then both go on cd

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Short story: sigil of blood and sigil of leeching on the same weapon set work together.

However, the OP didn’t mention what sigils were on their second weapon set and that could matter. The short version of that is:

• Don’t use two stacking sigils.
• It’s okay to the same “on swap” sigil on both sets (e.g. leeching)
• You can use matching sigils on both sets, so e.g. leech+blood and leech+blood will work (using one cooldown for both ‘bloods’).
• Be sure to use a main-hand weapon in both sets: there’s a bug that causes loss of weapon strength and (sometimes) sigil use when in shroud or other transformations.

(I am not addressing whether any of this is efficient or not —that’s a different sort of discussion. I’m just trying to cover how the mechanics work and leaving the OP to make their own choices.)

For those who want the full details, voila: everyone’s favorite thing on the forums (a wall of text!).

---

Sigil of leching + blood on the first weapon set: no problem and it’s even covered directly in the wiki (although I can’t blame the OP for missing it; the examples are currently wordier than they need to be).

From the wiki (emphasis is mine)

…the two sigils … provide their effects independently as long as the base sigil is different. The exceptions to this are the stacking sigils: only one stack effect can be active at a time. Additionally, sigils with the same base sigil will share cooldowns between weapon sets.

EXAMPLES

• A warrior is wielding a greatsword with … a Superior Sigil of Air (…damage …on crit…) and a Superior Sigil of Earth (chance to … Bleed… on crit…)… Both sigils will roll their chance to activate on every attack the warrior makes, and each sigil will run its own cooldown timer after it activates.

The wiki’s example is a narrower case than the OP’s scenario: two on-crit sigils, which end up using a different cooldown, because the only exceptions to “both sigils working” are stacking sigils and sigils with identical base properties

---

Second weapon set interactions

The choice of sigils on the second weapon set matter as follows. There are three scenarios and I’ll cover them separately:

1. Two complete weapon sets, within non-matching sigil pairs.
2. Two complete weapon sets, with identical sigil pairs.
3. The money-saving option of (a) Main-Hand & Off-hand plus (b) just the off-hand (one less weapon, one less sigil to acquire).

1 — Two complete weapon sets, within non-matching sigil pairs.
The simplest. This follows the wiki’s example: as long as there aren’t two or more stacking sigils (or matching base effects), all four sigil effects will work. Each on-crit effect will have its own cooldown.

2 — Two complete weapon sets, with identical sigil pairs.
In the OP’s case of blood + leeching on both sets:

• Every crit hit causes life steal via Sigil of Blood, but the cooldown remains even after swapping weapons.
• Every attack after swapping will steal some health. The cooldown is 9 seconds, regardless of how many times you swap, but since the default swap time is 10 seconds, that usually doesn’t affect necros.

3 — (a) Main-Hand & Off-hand plus (b) just the off-hand
This should be identical to scenario 1, but due to a bug, it’s not when you go into Shroud or other transformations. You only get the benefit of some of the sigils (which slightly depends on where the sigils are).

Someone on reddit covered the details and you can read up if you want. The short story is: equip two full weapon sets; the money saved isn’t worth it until the bug is fixed.

Wow, thanks a bunch for all the info! I also found something else out (I don’t think you mentioned it) while I was running my tests: Shouts activate Sigil of Leeching. I’m guessing it’s because you’re doing damage without using a weapon, so the system counts it as a ‘swap’ but whatever the reason, it actually helps a bit (“Your Soul Is Min” with Leeching is really effective for a glass cannon like me). I’m probably going to do what you suggested though, which is not having identicals. I found that Sigil of Generosity and Blood on Greatsword works better than Leeching and Blood; since I’m using a Staff second set I figured Sigil of Purity would work better than Leeching (still figuring out the last one that works with my playstyle).

Thanks again for all the info! Not only for me, but for everyone else that comes to this thread. Your effort and time are beyond appreciated my friend!

Okami.7049:

Wow, thanks a bunch for all the info! I also found something else out (I don’t think you mentioned it) while I was running my tests: Shouts activate Sigil of Leeching. I’m guessing it’s because you’re doing damage without using a weapon, so the system counts it as a ‘swap’ but whatever the reason, it actually helps a bit (“Your Soul Is Min” with Leeching is really effective for a glass cannon like me). I’m probably going to do what you suggested though, which is not having identicals. I found that Sigil of Generosity and Blood on Greatsword works better than Leeching and Blood; since I’m using a Staff second set I figured Sigil of Purity would work better than Leeching (still figuring out the last one that works with my playstyle).

Thanks again for all the info! Not only for me, but for everyone else that comes to this thread. Your effort and time are beyond appreciated my friend!

Shouts do not count as a swap. Are you using Rune of Vampirism?