Guild Wars 2

The Gates Assassin.9827:

PopeUrban.2578:

Mega Skeleton.8259:

Simon.3794:

and people saying on crit sigils should be brought down, i mean, it’s not the sigils.
it’s thief and mesmers…

just like it’s not might.
it’s engis and eles

I say just add more on-hit sigils than changing the crit ones. More variety is better and it gives a unique value to precision. (and fury)

Precision and fury already have a unique value in the form of on crit traits and greater DPS. Those are far easier to balance as they sit in a more controlled design space, where as sigils do not. Those sigils don’t add variety at all, and in fact they actively decrease variety by requiring builds that want to utilize them to emphasize critical hits in ways that may not be internally consistant with their class design simply to be able to use a crucial sigil.

Contrast this with all other sigils, which are universally applicable regardless of build. Sure, you might not want to put a + bleed duration sigil on a build without bleeds, but your build does not directly control the access to the sigil’s effects. Crit sigils require, rather than incentivize over-reliance on a particular stat setup because of the double-rolling nature of first having to crit, and then having to roll the dice on the sigil, making them completely unreliable and unusable unless your build includes an inordinately high amount of crit chance.

An on hit sigil is universally accessible to all builds, despite not being overly useful to some and an on-crit sigil is not. In a combat system which prizes active defenses and a lack of passive defenses, and a lack of randomness influencing the outcome of battles, crit sigils are design anomalies that work against rather than in favor of the overall design of the combat system, and the potential for build variety.

This is interesting. Let’s take an example though. Let’s say Sigil of Fire was turned into an on hit sigil. It would need to be nerfed in some way to allow for this extra power (less dice rolling):

1. Reduce the damage
2. Increase the recharge
3. Reduce the chance to proc.

I definitely don’t like #3 or #1, so #2 sounds like the most viable version.

1. If it went to like 10-15 seconds, do you think it’d still be taken?
2. Would it break anything to let basically any build regardless of crit chance take a fire sigil?
3. What about other crit sigils like nullification, generosity or blood? I could see nullification or generosity being pretty good on some builds. Especially Purity + Generosity on a support/bunker build. Even maybe just the defensive set of an offensive build.

Recharge timer increases seem to me like the best balance, as they make the sigils similarly avaliable to all builds without over-emphasizing critical chance or RNG. This would allow them to function similarly to how they already do on crit builds, but would allow non-crit builds the option of using those sigils the same way.

In addition, they don’t weirdly add a certain “more DPS sigil” option that is only applicable to builds that have already traited specifically for more DPS anyway whilst simultanteously removing a “more support or sustain sigil” option from builds that already built for support or sustain. This in stead give those builds the option of that using the sigils to minmax further toward their build focus, or fill holes in their build as personal preference inclines..

The Gates Assassin.9827:

PvP Specialist Here

It seems like the idea from this thread is this:

1. Doom is strong because celestial is the meta. It’s a necessary evil to counter those builds.
2. Energy is another necessary evil to make up for a lack of defense in certain classes (Mesmer, necromancer mostly)
3. Fire and Air is mostly seen as too much.

Is that about right?

---

I have some other questions about this topic:

1. It’s hard to bring up Doom without also bringing up celestial. If celestial wasn’t the meta and instead we were back to an old meta (Two bunkers, 3 DPS or maybe the Decap meta), do you think we’d still be calling this sigil OP?
2. Let’s say Air was changed to be 5 stacks of vulnerability for 5s, thus removing this combo. Do you think any builds in particular would no longer be viable? Try to ignore what my example for Air is here. Assume that air would be balanced, but still deal no damage.
3. Energy sigil is fairly uncommon now I’ve found. In the past with builds like the Decap engineer or Bunker Guardian, it was very strong and downright annoying. We’ve now sort of stepped away from that bunker meta and only glassy classes take it (Shatter mesmer, S/D thief). Do you think this is the same case as the Doom sigil in that it’s only seen as underpowered because the meta has shifted this way?

The “old meta”? You mean the meta we have now and have always had since the launch of this game? 2 Ele/Warrior bunkers with 3 damage dealers/roamers! Except because of power creep, celestial Elementalists and Warriors are better than the old Guardian bunkers! Slightly less survivability for way more teamfight, damage, and mobility potential! Also what the heck was the decap meta? You mean decap Engis? A useless build that never won anything ever?

But if you want to talk about sigils, Doom always has been and will always be powerful because conquest! Conquest involves standing on points and if you want to stand on a point successfully, you need to be a beefy bruiser or bunker and if you want to do that, you need sustain! There will always be a high sustain build because that’s how the game and game mode are balanced!

That Air Sigil change is terrible! Nobody would use it!

The bunkers, aka Warriors and Elementalists, of this meta don’t use Energy because they already have permanent vigor! Energy Sigil has much less value on those that are inherently tanky with tons of dodges already!

Basically if you dislike celestial builds, you’ll find nerfing Doom and Energy buffs the same builds you dislike! The logic!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

I can always depend on ArrDee for a heaping cup of truth tea.

As stated earlier, I don’t think nerfing energy or doom is the way to go.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

PvP Specialist Here

It seems like the idea from this thread is this:

1. Doom is strong because celestial is the meta. It’s a necessary evil to counter those builds.
2. Energy is another necessary evil to make up for a lack of defense in certain classes (Mesmer, necromancer mostly)
3. Fire and Air is mostly seen as too much.

Is that about right?

---

I have some other questions about this topic:

1. It’s hard to bring up Doom without also bringing up celestial. If celestial wasn’t the meta and instead we were back to an old meta (Two bunkers, 3 DPS or maybe the Decap meta), do you think we’d still be calling this sigil OP?
2. Let’s say Air was changed to be 5 stacks of vulnerability for 5s, thus removing this combo. Do you think any builds in particular would no longer be viable? Try to ignore what my example for Air is here. Assume that air would be balanced, but still deal no damage.
3. Energy sigil is fairly uncommon now I’ve found. In the past with builds like the Decap engineer or Bunker Guardian, it was very strong and downright annoying. We’ve now sort of stepped away from that bunker meta and only glassy classes take it (Shatter mesmer, S/D thief). Do you think this is the same case as the Doom sigil in that it’s only seen as underpowered because the meta has shifted this way?

Yes, Doom is used to counter sustainable builds for the most part which the current meta is. This is an example of the players adapting to the meta using the current tools available to us. Trying to balance sigils with every meta does not seem like a good idea to me. (The players are doing the balancing instead here.)

Energy is used by any class that wants more active defense. Generally glass-cannon specs that don’t have either good defense or have access to vigor will value this sigil more than other specs/classes. I believe more people would use this sigil if the meta changed to zerk specs. In general, defensive sigils have to be stronger than offensive sigils in order for players to consider using them since you aren’t always being targeted/attacked in a group fight but you are always getting the benefit of an offensive sigil while attacking another player.

Air/Fire is stronger than the above sigils (and other similar sigils) because of two combined reasons:
1) You get great damage for such a short cooldown.
2) You are always benefiting from the additional damage these sigils provide while other sigils such as Energy and Doom may provide little to no benefit at all depending on the situation. (For e.g. being full on Energy already or having Doom cleansed.)

The Gates Assassin.9827:

From reading this thread, I’m getting that:

1. Doom is in a fair place. It’s the meta that makes it strong.
2. Fire and Air are too strong, but some think that some builds need it to stay viable (S/D Thief)
   1. Is this really true? It’s easy to test this. Someone who plays S/D thief, try running with some other sigil besides fire/air or air/blood.
3. Energy is in a decent place when on classes that need it, but a bit much on builds that take it for crazy amounts of defense.

Any disagreement here?

1. Don’t Agree. What I see is that Sigil of Doom is one of the stronger sigils, but there’s concern that reducing its power it may make the current meta worse. I think it warrants more investigation and play-testing. Its presence is part of a bigger problem with the condition system – adding more condition types greatly magnifies the power of builds which utilize conditions for damage, including celestial builds.
2. Air + Fire needs to go. If it makes some builds uncompetitive, then fix those builds in a better way. Strong procs with no counter-play are not fun. I would try to change Sigil of Fire to a different effect which emphasizes its area damage aspect and then tone down Air’s damage a little. Maybe reduce Air’s damage more and add a vulnerability stack or two.
3. Partially disagree on Sigil of Energy. You have to look at on-dodge effects from professions as well as well as Vigor up-time. Elementalist doesn’t use Energy because it already has high vigor up-time. Mesmer takes Energy for survival and because it gives them access to another clone. Bunker guardian used two because of the heal on dodge. IMO, the biggest problem with Energy is that you can dodge instantly after the weapon swap, which gives longer windows where you avoid a lot of damage.

How about energy is changed to just give vigor for 5s (or 4s to prevent it being too much with boon duration)? This would keep mesmers and necros (and other builds that need the dodges) completely viable (same number of dodges per second) while making them useless in classes that could potentially abuse it (now or in the future) like ele, engie, and warrior?

Lopez.7369:

Sigil of Doom would be viable no matter the meta. It’s just an absurd sigil. It gives various classes an enormously powerful condition that they’re not supposed to have in the first place. It’s no surprise that throws off balance.

Completely agree. However, it’s stuck in a giant web of balance and it’s hard to pull it out without doing a major overhaul of everything.

Honestly, damage from conditions needs re-evaluated in general:

• Is it a primary damage source and stat like power? If so, the types of conditions, especially ones with secondary effects, and their durations need to be tightly controlled within professions and builds. Putting them on sigils and runes in anything more than small amounts should be taboo.
• Or is it a supplement to power damage like precision and ferocity? In this case, condition damage needs reigned in significantly and scaling of skills re-evaluated. However, adding more powerful conditions as rune and sigil effects doesn’t have as big of an impact.

Lopez.7369:

Sigil of Doom would be viable no matter the meta. It’s just an absurd sigil. It gives various classes an enormously powerful condition that they’re not supposed to have in the first place. It’s no surprise that throws off balance.

Honestly, somebody would have to fundamentally misunderstand how strong poison is to not get that.

Are we blowing Doom’s power a little out of proportion here? What makes Doom an “enormously powerful condition”? It applies Poison on one target for 6s… procing every 10s. It’s base Condi damage is 2x less than Fire and Airs. Does a hair more if you’re a condition class. I understand Fire, Air, and even Energy… But you can completely counter play Doom with Cleanses. You have more than enough time to do so.

Note
The Abjured: Both Ele’s(Doom), Necro(2xEnergy), Engi(Doom).
Only 1 Doom equipped for each class. That’s approximately 6s of poison every 9s.
Air/fire would do almost twice the amount of damage than doom, assuming doom doesn’t get cleansed. They’re obviously using it to offset healing with the -33% debuff.
If there’s any type of nerf talk about doom, it’s about the healing debuff.

Saiyan.1704:

Are we blowing Doom’s power a little out of proportion here? What makes Doom an “enormously powerful condition”?

-33% healing effectiveness. The damage is a bonus. It’s also somtimes a cover condition for burning (cleanse order isn’t consistent between abilities).

Note
The Abjured: Both Ele’s(Doom), Necro(2xEnergy), Engi(Doom).
Only 1 Doom equipped for each class. That’s approximately 6s of poison every 20s.
Air/fire would do almost twice the amount of damage than doom, assuming doom doesn’t get cleansed. They’re obviously using it to offset healing with the -33% debuff.
If there’s any type of nerf talk about doom, it’s about the healing debuff.

Try that again. Elementalists and Engineers proc sigils on attunement swap and kit swap, respectively, so they can activate Sigil of Doom every 9 seconds (though in reality it’s probably a little higher since you’re not swapping on CD every time).

-33% healing on builds that don’t have access to it is huge and completely broken.

Saiyan.1704:

Lopez.7369:

Sigil of Doom would be viable no matter the meta. It’s just an absurd sigil. It gives various classes an enormously powerful condition that they’re not supposed to have in the first place. It’s no surprise that throws off balance.

Honestly, somebody would have to fundamentally misunderstand how strong poison is to not get that.

Are we blowing Doom’s power a little out of proportion here? What makes Doom an “enormously powerful condition”? It applies Poison on one target for 6s… procing every 10s. It’s base Condi damage is 2x less than Fire and Airs. Does a hair more if you’re a condition class. I understand Fire, Air, and even Energy… But you can completely counter play Doom with Cleanses. You have more than enough time to do so.

Note
The Abjured: Both Ele’s(Doom), Necro(2xEnergy), Engi(Doom).
Only 1 Doom equipped for each class. That’s approximately 6s of poison every 20s.
Air/fire would do almost twice the amount of damage than doom, assuming doom doesn’t get cleansed. They’re obviously using it to offset healing with the -33% debuff.
If there’s any type of nerf talk about doom, it’s about the healing debuff.

yes, poisons strength is the healing debuff, not the damage it deals. doom more or less says your opponent gets to play with 33% less sustain/healing (especially when timed well). good players use so many active defenses that the expected length of almost any fight is more than 1 heal cd. cutting the healing by 33% is what shortens the fight more than anything else. thats why doom is strong. because heals really matter.

So…if we took Doom away (or weakened it), who really gets affected? I think it would be cele d/d eles and cele shoutbow warriors, who rely on doom to cut down on enemy sustain and then out-sustain them. Poison is very strong vs. cele users, and this is why cele builds use it.

On the flip side, giving cele eles and warr’s access to poison so reliably reduces the importance of poison from other sources. Perhaps if doom were taken away, the other classes that have high access (esp. rangers, necros, and engies) would be able to better compete and fill kitten in helping take down these sustain/bruiser builds.

BlackBeard.2873:

So…if we took Doom away (or weakened it), who really gets affected? I think it would be cele d/d eles and cele shoutbow warriors, who rely on doom to cut down on enemy sustain and then out-sustain them. Poison is very strong vs. cele users, and this is why cele builds use it.

On the flip side, giving cele eles and warr’s access to poison so reliably reduces the importance of poison from other sources. Perhaps if doom were taken away, the other classes that have high access (esp. rangers, necros, and engies) would be able to better compete and fill kitten in helping take down these sustain/bruiser builds.

Good point, it might make rangers more needed. Although i guess it would probably just make engis even better. Hmm.

BlackBeard.2873:

So…if we took Doom away (or weakened it), who really gets affected?

Only considering the meta and top builds, in 1v1, cele d/d ele and shoutbow warriors (or similar) are hurt most. This is a good thing.

However, when you consider team fights, things get convoluted. For example, let’s take a 2v2 fight with each side having a cele d/d ele and a DPS which was originally a 1v1 between the eles for a short time. What happens if the d/d eles aren’t poisoning each other beforehand or during the fight? Does it make each more powerful since they have higher sustain and used less cooldowns before it turned into a 2v2 fight? Does it make them weaker because now they’re doing less damage if they chose to focus the opposing DPS? And at the same time, the allied d/d ele may be giving more healing output to his or her DPS.

I think I’d go with the d/d ele being weaker and the DPS being more important – especially with what utilities they bring. If one DPS brings poison and the other doesn’t, the side which has poison will have an advantage in a drawn-out fight. It makes choices of who goes where more important. And I think the trade-off of the d/d ele picking up a bit more sustain in a mirror match at the cost of some damage and offensive utility is good.

Lopez.7369:

Sigil of Doom would be viable no matter the meta. It’s just an absurd sigil. It gives various classes an enormously powerful condition that they’re not supposed to have in the first place. It’s no surprise that throws off balance.

Honestly, somebody would have to fundamentally misunderstand how strong poison is to not get that.

With the same reasoning, necro and Mesmer should have not access to energy sigil as they have no natural access to vigor, then air+fire sigil use mechanics coming from ele, so they should be removed too…

Mesmer has vigor on crit.

BlackBeard.2873:

How about energy is changed to just give vigor for 5s (or 4s to prevent it being too much with boon duration)? This would keep mesmers and necros (and other builds that need the dodges) completely viable (same number of dodges per second) while making them useless in classes that could potentially abuse it (now or in the future) like ele, engie, and warrior?

I like this. And as a boon there is place for counterplay removing it. Best suggestion abaout sigil of energy posted in this topic.

xDudisx.5914:

IMO sigils that need a nerf are:

-doom: too strong, gives poisons for classes that should’t have it. easy to apply and covered with condi spaming other condis it is not hard to keep it up

-energy: too strong becuase gives 1 free dodge every 9s

-air+fire combo: gives the ability for people to spec defensive and still do crazy spike dmg (sw+dg thief, mes gs, etc..)

-geomancy: too much condi from a sigil that is so easy to proc. needs to be toned down like sigil of battle was

I totally agree with you on the air and fire sigils combo. 2/0/0/6/6 thieves have ridiculous survivability while doing close to 2/6/0/0/6 damage thanks to the sigils.

sigil of energy should just add vigor duration. sigil of doom should add aoe poison for 3 seconds instead of long duration single target

Lopez.7369:

Supreme.3164:

With the same reasoning, necro and Mesmer should have not access to energy sigil as they have no natural access to vigor, then air+fire sigil use mechanics coming from ele, so they should be removed too…

Not really. There’s a way to make some sigils supplemental instead of defining. I think Sigil of Air and Fire accomplish that since they’re not that strong. Sigil of Energy is definitely overboard, although it’s not too much on necromancer since changing to staff on cooldown is a big DPS loss.

But Sigil of Doom gives nearly full poison uptime to classes that aren’t supposed to have poison. That doesn’t just make some classes overpowered, but* it robs other classes of a unique role they’re supposed to play in team fights*.

You’re 100% correct on that, a sensible solution would be to reduce poison duration on doom sigil from 6s to 2-3s while maintaining the 9 CD or….remove doom sigil but gives an additional condition to profession lacking poison, so that a condition build remain somewhat viable:

-eles get torment
-warriors get chill

Regarding air/fire, what happens is that both sigils triggers at the same time, dealing well over 3k dmg together, that’s a bit over the top

Sigil of air base dmg 988, reduce to 540 and coefficient 1.0, increase CD to 4s
Sigil of fire coefficient is 0.8, reduce to 0.60

Lopez.7369:

Supreme.3164:

With the same reasoning, necro and Mesmer should have not access to energy sigil as they have no natural access to vigor, then air+fire sigil use mechanics coming from ele, so they should be removed too…

Not really. There’s a way to make some sigils supplemental instead of defining.

That’s what my main point has been. I’m sick of sigils being build defining instead of something that just supplements it.

While they were boarderline useless at launch, that was better than what we have now imo.

I agree sigils should be an addition, not show top dmg in death breakdown. Sigil of force accuracy bursting are good examples