Guild Wars 2

Lately I have been doing mainly pvp, equipping an “On a Kill Sigil” which I like. Stacking it up to 25 isn’t a great deal and gives a nice buff.

But I went to wvw and noticed that every time I dive and come out of water the stack gets resetted. Has it always been like this? I remember stacks used to stay…

Than I noticed that some ppl put these sigils on weapons for under water fights. Does the stack stay whenever I come out from water? If yes, this would allow me to use the 4 sigil slots we have on the two weapon sets for other type of Sigils and yet retain the buff from the stack.

Am I correct?

If you have sigil of bloodlust or any other on you current underwater weapon stack will stay.

Yes, having a matching stacking sigil on your water weapons prevents you from losing your stacks.

Does that still work? I’ve heard that it has been nerfed.

In the distant past: You could stack buffs from a weapon, then switch weapons entirely and keep the stacks. This was nerfed.

In the not-so-distant past: You could stack buffs as long as any of your weapons still had the stacking sigil. So you could put a stacking sigil on your underwater weapon and this would allow you to swap out your regular weapon and keep the stacks. This was nerfed also.

Now: Think of going underwater as replacing your weapon sets (like if you went into inventory and literally changed your slots). If your underwater set doesn’t have a stacking sigil (of the same type as your land-based one), you’ll lose your stacks underwater. IIRC there’s some occasional weirdness with whether you can keep underwater stacks on land. But, in general, this will always work: keep one of the same sigil on your land-bound weapons and your underwater set and you won’t lose stacks when you transfer.

Alternatively, enter the water very carefully and skim over the top. You won’t change weapons and you’ll get to keep your stack (you can’t fight this way).

ASP.8093:

keep one of the same sigil on your land-bound weapons and your underwater set and you won’t lose stacks when you transfer.

This is a bit meh since I hoped I could use 4 on-land sigils for others than the stacking one.

Thanks for clarifying anyway

ASP.8093:

enter the water very carefully

Did anyone else laugh? The idea of stepping into the water carefully while in the middle of a fight or after you stack and move at south garri into the water.

I’m not laughing at you, more laughing at the situation. You are correct about how it can be managed this way.

trooper.2650:

This is a bit meh since I hoped I could use 4 on-land sigils for others than the stacking one.

They’ve gone backwards. I don’t like how it works now and as ASP has pointed out it creates a ballerina play style around water, or buy the stacking sigils for ANY occasion you may think you need and place them on your water weapon before hand. It’s just silly.

I won’t even comment on the PvE in water before you PvP.

GG Anet.

Tibstrike.2974:

Does that still work? I’ve heard that it has been nerfed.

Works for me.

7 characters with at least 2 (4 in the case of my engineer) different builds using different stacking sigils. Add that cost to the power creep of ascended and the inflation of the economy from PvE activities, and outfitting each of those builds becomes an unreachable goal (or at least unpleasant enough to dissuade me, I’m not into grinding excessively).

I’m not a player who dedicates their life to a single “main”, not even to a main build on most characters. I like to theorycraft and try experimental builds.

The guild I used to run with disbanded, and most guilds I see now want meta builds only. Finding a group that is both coordinated and open to experimentation is difficult in today’s WvW climate. The expense of testing builds is just another hurdle.

I’m not saying the stacking sigil change alone is killing build variety. It’s just another thing on the list discouraging it, and the list of reasons NOT to play alts and different builds has become far too long.

Thrashbarg.9820:

I’m not saying the stacking sigil change alone is killing build variety. It’s just another thing on the list discouraging it, and the list of reasons NOT to play alts and different builds has become far too long.

Err, the stacking sigil change is making you actually commit weapon slots to your stacks. I don’t think it’s unfair. It does slightly favor builds who “park” one weapon and only swap on occasion (since you can “hide” your stacking rune on that other set); but most of the on-swap sigils heavily favor builds who swap weapons on cooldown, so I really don’t see a problem here.

Compared to the old way of doing things, now you don’t need a second weapon with different sigils to make optimal use of your stacks.

I just put superior sigil of perception in everything because i can buy like 10 of these with the price i would pay on 1 bloodlust. And extra precision isn’t bad unless you have 100% crit chance already.

ASP.8093:

Thrashbarg.9820:

I’m not saying the stacking sigil change alone is killing build variety. It’s just another thing on the list discouraging it, and the list of reasons NOT to play alts and different builds has become far too long.

Err, the stacking sigil change is making you actually commit weapon slots to your stacks. I don’t think it’s unfair. It does slightly favor builds who “park” one weapon and only swap on occasion (since you can “hide” your stacking rune on that other set); but most of the on-swap sigils heavily favor builds who swap weapons on cooldown, so I really don’t see a problem here.

Compared to the old way of doing things, now you don’t need a second weapon with different sigils to make optimal use of your stacks.

I think you missed my point, or I am missing yours.

I’m talking about requiring a 2nd sigil of each type, for each build, on each character. Sure you don’t need a weapon with a second sigil if you want to be optimal, but you need a second sigil of the same type and to sacrifice a slot on an underwater weapon (this hits engis and eles twice as hard as everyone else, but let’s not go there for now).

I don’t unequip my weapons when I get in and out of the water. It’s just lazy coding since they can’t seem to get the transition in and out of water working properly. They will probably just leave it like this because it’s sort of fixed compared to before, and any time it gets mentioned on the forum a bunch of people chime in with “derrr, buy moar sigilz” so they probably don’t think many people even care, which maybe they don’t I guess.

They still haven’t stated if this change was intended and it’s not in the patch notes anywhere. Until they give us an answer we should assume it is a bug they are too lazy to fix and keep giving feedback in this thread https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Stacks-disappear-underwater/page/3#post4152762

Thrashbarg.9820:

I don’t unequip my weapons when I get in and out of the water.

I think the idea is that there’s so little water around that letting you keep your stacks just because you have a second copy of the sigil on a water weapon even after you switch out your real weapons.

The “dive in and lose your stacks” thing is an unfortunate consequence.

Some of the other sigils are pretty good since they got buffed.

Tibstrike.2974:

Does that still work? I’ve heard that it has been nerfed.

Works about half the time.

It was also quite the kitten move by Anet to institute this change; it’s basically like kicking the chair out from under someone as they are trying to sit down, completely unnecessary. Your better off losing the stacking sigils as they are no longer reliable. Although, people now have a taste of what Rangers experience in their pets losing their stacks the second they hit the water (never understood that one either), as it makes the trait next to useless.