Guild Wars 2

This last build we saw buffs applied to the passive speed signets of the Ranger, Necromancer, and Elementalist classes, matching them with the thief. I presume the rationale was that these signets weren’t equal in effect, so increasing them to match the thief signet was the most obvious thing to do.

I’m worried about the impact that this buff will have, especially in the WvW setting. Mobility is hugely important in WvW, both out of combat (getting across the map to defend an objective) and in combat (chasing down enemies, or getting away from a larger force). This gives me the impression that the developers have marked one utility skill as being essential in a WvW setting, potentially pigeonholing each of the classes that has a passive speed signet. The other consequence is that they’ve given a disadvantage to classes (Mesmer, Guardian) that lack reliable options for speed.

Full disclosure, I do play a Mesmer so my view of this is biased. The buffs are discouraging for me, because as a counter to all of the utilities, runes and weapons that I’ve equipped to give me speed, these classes can now just equip a passive signet, and all the effort in the world can’t make me run faster than they do. It seems to me that the presence/absence of a signet is a pretty good indicator of who you should and shouldn’t bother chasing after a fight.

I’m trying to avoid a knee-jerk response, so I’d like to hear the honest opinions of those who play Rangers, Necromancers, and Elementalists about the recent buffs; I wouldn’t be happy if Mesmers were given their own passive speed signet, because that’d be a wasted slot for me.

If you play one of these classes, do you think these signets are now more important in WvW, and do you equip them more often than you did before? How did you feel about your previous mobility options?

I think what you are forgetting is that by equipping this signet, you are essentially giving up a skill slot for increased speed…

Necromancer here, and we can easily have 33% speed buffs on us about 95%-100% of the time if we want to with Spectral Walk and Warhorn 2. Increase from 10 to 25% on Signet of the Locust doesn’t mean anything to me. It has a lousy heal too. Wish they fixed the many bugs we have more instead of that meaningless signet.

I’ve played WvW in games where NO CLASS gets a speed buff. Anyone can get away if they are smart about it. Some of the most intense pvp I’ve had has been escaping… just. Usually there’s in-combat & out of combat speed. If the escapee doesnt attack, they keep the out of combat speed while attackes are slowed by in-combat. It works very well. You need to hit the escaping person with a slow & use terrain knowledge to catch them. In my opinion it’s more fun.

Fourth.5603:

I think what you are forgetting is that by equipping this signet, you are essentially giving up a skill slot for increased speed…

This. You trade combat effectiveness for the lazyman’s “mount” signet, especially since most professions can run perma-swiftness if they really desire mobility.

Fourth.5603:

I think what you are forgetting is that by equipping this signet, you are essentially giving up a skill slot for increased speed…

That’s kind of my point, actually. It’s also why I’m waiting to hear from people who play these classes.

The scenario I’m worried about is this: If I can equip a signet which puts me ahead of the rest in the race to catch enemies or make a run for it after a lost battle, then why shouldn’t I? If I give it up for the sake of effectiveness in a fight, someone on my side will still equip it, and there will be enemies who have it equipped.

If, a while after this buff, it turns out that you need a signet to keep pace in WvW, and if you don’t you’re too slow, that’s simply marginalizing all of the builds for a class that exclude the signet, as well as hurting those classes that don’t have it at all.

The problem with signets is that you get them independently of all your swiftness and gap closer options. Instead of managing swiftness as a team, it’s haves and have-nots.

Who cares if a few classes can run around faster? Your mesmer still has access to aoe swiftness on the focus and portals. Who do you want on your team, a thief who can run around by himself at 25% or a mesmer who gives huge buffs to group mobility and utility?

Thieves were always at 25%, they’re acknowledged to be the most mobile/escapable class and while that has controversies of its own, my concern is the impact of making this a universal thing. That includes the impact of giving a similar buff to mesmers at some point.

I think Snowpea has tapped into what my worry is (I was writing my first reply): instead of having to work at your escape/chasing options, this is a switch you can just flick on.

SoggyFrog.4170:

I think Snowpea has tapped into what my worry is (I was writing my first reply): instead of having to work at your escape/chasing options, this is a switch you can just flick on.

You can’t flick it on in combat since you can’t switch utilities in combat. If you’ve left combat then you can just waypoint or really do whatever you want. If people want to sacrifice combat power for sub-swiftness speed as a chasing/escape option, more power to them. People really interested in chasing/escaping will catch/escape from these signet users since they’ll be using swiftness.

I just realized that speed buffs and swiftness don’t stack! There had been posts in other threads indicating otherwise, but they were wrong, so I guess I can drop this topic.

I have both a 80 ele and ranger and I can say that I wouldn’t be that worried about it. From my ele’s perspective we already have access to a great deal of swiftness that it would be pointless to use the signet still. I only have it equipped for underwater so I could swim faster so from your standpoint, you shouldn’t feel that great of a difference before and after the patch. For hunter, they really don’t have much for condition cleansing. For chasing both I would get good at using Temporal Curtain (focus) and its cripple/pull. The pull wont work when they have stability but the cripple will so try finding out when is best to use it.

Fourth.5603:

I think what you are forgetting is that by equipping this signet, you are essentially giving up a skill slot for increased speed…

True, but for many players it opens up different weapon opportunities. Rangers for example can drop the warhorn that most used just for the speed buff and now use an offset they actually want

I play a necromancer, and I still prefer spectral walk, mainly because it is a stun-breaker as well.
Before I started using spectral walk I also used the signet a lot (before the buff) and it’s health steal thing was omg save me now, awesome in some fights.

I might test it out.

Then again, I’m not the type of girl you’d see run “the most op build of my class”
Then again, NECROMANCERS ARE SO BUGGED. I just asume everything is bugged.

This was very important for us rangers because the warhorn was the only source of out-of-combat swiftness (besides from RaO) and even that didn’t have great uptime if not traited. While the warhorn is considered a great off-hand weapon it was also near-mandatory in WvW.
Now running two two-handed weapons is actually a possibility.

Disagree with the change tbh, the signet for the Thief was better because we can only obtain swiftness (on our own) via traiting to have it on dodge, and that’s far from perma swiftness. I can see why mesmer can do with speed buffs, the others, unnecessary.

Mesmers want speed buffs? For what? Mesmers are fine as they are right now tbh, for most classes the Mesmer is a pain in the kitten to handle, they have 2 stealths, have a speedbuff of their own and blink… Mesmers shouldn’t complain.

Even Guardians can have quite some mobility with several weaponsets.

I don’t see the big issue here. The only time I have my speed signet on in WvW is when traveling and even now I more often than not leave it off because I can easily switch to 3 stealth utilities and use the 50% speed buff in stealth, after those are on CD I use bow/dodge swiftness to fill the gap between CDs.