Guild Wars 2

Before the last Sigils change, you were limited in terms of what combos you could do. This wasn’t a good thing, however the current system is actually worse in my opinion. With the current system, there is actually LESS variation than there was before (as far as PvP goes and sometimes WvW).

If I’m going for DPS, there is almost no reason to use anything other than Fire/Air. The amount of extra DPS this gives you is crazy. Another popular combo is either Battle/Energy or Battle/Doom. Even if you’re not might stacking it doesn’t hurt to have a Sigil of Battle considering how strong it is. There is also so much passive regen in this meta that having high uptime poison access is very useful.

My suggested change is as follows:

Only allow 1 type of sigil per weapon set. By type I mean “On Crit/Hit,” “On Swap,” “+Duration,” or “On Kill.” This will make you actually have to choose what kind of runes you want rather than defaulting to the same combo every time. Do you want poison or endurance? Do I bring Air OR Fire and what do I bring with it?

If this doesn’t solve all of the problems than perhaps we need to look into buffs/nerfs. I preferred it when sigils were just little extras on your build, unlike now where they can be almost as important as traits/gear.

BurrTheKing; doesn’t this just mean a partial revert to pre-April 15 where Sigils sharing cooldowns necessitated that people take different types anyway? I hardly think that Anet would be willing to take 1 step forward, only to take another one back.

I think it might be better to instead to think about; and I mean really think about, what the design intent of each Sigil is, why stacking certain sigils is strong, and why other combos are overlooked.

With respect to Air/Fire stacking, there’s a simple change that infantrydiv suggested that I think is extremely clever:

infantrydiv.1620:

I think a good, practical start would be to make sigil of fire only hit stuff around your actual target (instead of the target itself), and increase the healing from blood, making it no longer do damage. With that change fire, air, and blood each have a unique purpose.

If those changes went through, then maybe they could change Air sigil to be similar to Doom, where it procs on first hit after weapon damage (thinking like 2.5-3k damage, once per swap). Although, I could see this being a problem with classes frontloading damage from stealth…aka mesmer/thief.

At a stroke this gives Air a proper focus – single target pressure; and Fire a different focus – AoE pressure. Obviously the coefficients would have to be adjusted but this change is probably one of the smartest ways to remove this apex choice.

With respect to Battle Sigil, I’m just going to quote myself from a few weeks ago:

MonMalthias.4763:

snip
An alternative implementation would be to simply make the Sigil proc either 3 Might for 12 or 15 seconds.

• At 15 seconds, 50% Might Duration is still needed to get 6 Might stacks. 75% Might Duration yields 26.25 seconds per proc, which locks out the third proc (and 9 stack breakpoint) at 27 seconds.
• At 12 seconds, again, 50% Might Duration is needed to get 6 Might stacks, but only if the weapon is swapped on cooldown. Has the potential to make the Sigil a lot less attractive to other classes, though.

Eliminating the third proc by a shave of 5 seconds is all that’s required. That’s 37 × 2 × 3 (222) bonus offensive stats eliminated from the Celestial Bruisers (D/D ele, Cele Engi) at a snap; or a 50% reduction in absolute contribution to the Might stacking Might floor that Battle adds.

With regards to Battle/Energy; I believe that Battle/Doom is currently in the lead due to the preponderance of D/D eles requiring high Poison uptime. I don’t see Energy being that much of an apex choice given the circumstances; but I guess we’re only 2-3 shaves to D/D ele away from Doom being less necessary.

It would be more of a revisal rather than a reversal. The problem before was that the CDs of swap and crit/hit sigils were overlapping. This would still allow more combos than the old system, but you won’t be able to stack the effects to stack some of the most powerful effects at the same time.

This change would also not require redesigning entire sigil effects. Of course they would need to allow players to strip off sigils that violate the new system for free.

I can’t really say I like the idea of Fire only hitting those around your target, it would make it useless for many engagements and thematically it just feels weird to have an effect that doesn’t hurt your target. I would be on board with any nerf to Sigil of Battle at this point, I’m fed up with might stacking meta and would much rather have 10% of my crit damage back.

Also sorry about the late reply, I’ve finally unlocked the Phantom Bow on BF4. Which was a total waste of time seeing how terrible it is.

Interesting.

I never really thought about this, but looking at my characters, 90% of the time I use 2 sigils of the same type. Wether it be ‘on crit’ or ‘weapon swap’ etc.

I like the suggestions MonMalthias has given/quoted.
Though, I belive its probably not as easy as that. I can see where the popularity for Air/Fire sigils as a combinations comes for.
Its a straight damage buff that some builds (imo) need to do any acceptable damage, while its a complete overkill on others.
If something like this were to be implemented we’d have to take a look what builds and why they are running this combo and how we could give them a slight damage boost as a compensation.

I am cool with the battle sigil suggestion. Great stuff.

#weaponswap sigils are kittening awesome.

BurrTheKing.8571:

It would be more of a revisal rather than a reversal. The problem before was that the CDs of swap and crit/hit sigils were overlapping. This would still allow more combos than the old system, but you won’t be able to stack the effects to stack some of the most powerful effects at the same time.

Though this new system does address some of the issues, it doesn’t really get to the core of the problem which is reduced opportunity costs for both damage and defense. One could run something like Intelligence/Air under this new system where it would previously be Intelligence/Hydromancy (Warrior); and again one runs into the issue of gaining passive burst output where none existed previously. I strongly believe that some of the Sigils; like Battle/Energy/Hydromancy and Air/Fire/Blood contribute a lot to the furthering of the bunker/burst dichotomy – causing extremes of offense and defense that add to power creep. But only these specific subsets of Sigils.

Attacking specific Sigil combinations rather than completely revising the Sigil mechanic would be a little more surgical. Anet made their bed by reducing opportunity costs for Sigils; now it’s time for them to lay in it and address what’s risen to the top over everything else.

BurrTheKing.8571:

This change would also not require redesigning entire sigil effects. Of course they would need to allow players to strip off sigils that violate the new system for free.

I can’t really say I like the idea of Fire only hitting those around your target, it would make it useless for many engagements and thematically it just feels weird to have an effect that doesn’t hurt your target. I would be on board with any nerf to Sigil of Battle at this point, I’m fed up with might stacking meta and would much rather have 10% of my crit damage back.

Also sorry about the late reply, I’ve finally unlocked the Phantom Bow on BF4. Which was a total waste of time seeing how terrible it is.

With regards to Fire sigil only hitting those around the target I suppose the proc could be reworked to deal desultory damage to the target itself; but greater damage to those around it. The main issue is that of overlapping effect for Fire/Air. Both are on-crit procs that deal damage – one is single target, one is AOE, one has a shorter ICD.

I’m going out on a limb here and I am going to infer that the design intention of the Fire and Air Sigils was for sustained direct damage pressure. Crit procs bypass the Block/Aegis/Dodge mechanic. It was clear towards the end of 2013 and going into 2014 that direct damage builds lacked the sustained pressure that Condition builds could put out in the face of all those avoidance mechanics. Slapping Air and/or (emphasis key here) Fire on any Power build these days gives it pressure. It was certainly night and day for me running 100mines or standard SD with EG/TK/RT – now my autoattacks had legitimate threat over time where previously I would have to rely on Incendiary Powder. So the buffs to Sigils were legitimate and did increase build variety to some degree.

Where the change became toxic was stacking. Where running just Air Sigil gave me legit pressure, Air/Fire gave me burst on autoattack; with the bonus of cleave. Hitting for 3-4k on Crits should be the work of skills with cooldowns; not autoattacks. So I think there might be a good improvement in the overall reduction of passive burst if Fire was instead to become “the cleave Sigil” and Air was to become “the Zerker pressure Sigil” – coefficients adjusted accordingly.

It might even be good to make something like Sigil of Air on hit instead of on crit; thus opening up this pressure to lower crit-rate builds and further lowering the burst potential. Sigil of Fire with a toned down on-target damage and higher AOE damage would thus serve the role of cleave augmentation and punishing AI builds.

As for the other combinations mentioned: Battle/Doom or Battle/Energy; I mentioned before that simply removing the third proc would lower the Might floor. I don’t think that Doom or Energy in and of themselves are overtuned right now; they serve a specific role (Doom for countering regen builds; Energy for low Vigour classes). Energy Sigil’s opportunity costs may have been lessened now that you can double-proc; but I think that in the absence of the classes historically reliant upon them (Mesmer, Necro) becoming dominant gods (they aren’t); Energy can stay where it is at the moment. The combo feels strong because Battle is strong.

Doing a “surgical change” to sigils or sigil combinations won’t work. If you change Sigil of Fire, people will replace it with something else like Sigil of Blood. If you want to add a new sigil in the future, then you’re really restricted as to what you can do.

Here’s where power creep came into play when each sigil had its own cooldown:

• On-crit sigils can activate at the same time for high burst.
• On-swap sigils are balanced around “normal” weapon swap mechanics and you aren’t necessarily going to swap weapons on cooldown. So for elementalist and engineer, which swap constantly, that’s no longer a factor.
• Warriors with Fast Hands can have 4 on-swap sigils activated within 10 seconds. That’s like having 4 sigils in one weapon set – basically two air and two fire sigils at once.

Having all sigils of the same activation mechanic share a cooldown is the best way to address all of those issues. And as long “shares a cooldown with other <on-swap, on-critical, on-hit> sigils” is in the text, it’s not overly confusing.

Sigil of Battle still needs a duration reduction, even with these changes.

The only other alternative I see is to significantly nerf the effects of all sigils so that they have less overall impact on gameplay.

Exedore.6320:

Doing a “surgical change” to sigils or sigil combinations won’t work. If you change Sigil of Fire, people will replace it with something else like Sigil of Blood. If you want to add a new sigil in the future, then you’re really restricted as to what you can do.

That’s the point of the change though. If people move on to another sigil then that would mean success.

Right now the on-crit Sigils are pretty poorly defined in terms of what role they play. Air and Fire have significant overlap in role – they both deal damage on crit, at full power, to the target. 1v1, there is no difference in role whatsoever.

So there’s a lack of definition between Air and Fire. There’s no downside to using one or the other in a certain situation – they’re good in both. As for Sigil of Blood; its toughness ignoring damage and minor sustain gives it a role against tanky targets; yet because of the way it is designed (flat damage with desultory scaling) it does not affect squishier targets any more than tanky targets.

Exedore.6320:

Here’s where power creep came into play when each sigil had its own cooldown:

• On-crit sigils can activate at the same time for high burst.
• On-swap sigils are balanced around “normal” weapon swap mechanics and you aren’t necessarily going to swap weapons on cooldown. So for elementalist and engineer, which swap constantly, that’s no longer a factor.
• Warriors with Fast Hands can have 4 on-swap sigils activated within 10 seconds. That’s like having 4 sigils in one weapon set – basically two air and two fire sigils at once.

Having all sigils of the same activation mechanic share a cooldown is the best way to address all of those issues. And as long “shares a cooldown with other <on-swap, on-critical, on-hit> sigils” is in the text, it’s not overly confusing.

Sigil of Battle still needs a duration reduction, even with these changes.

The only other alternative I see is to significantly nerf the effects of all sigils so that they have less overall impact on gameplay.

Honestly the power of Sigils could stand to be reduced. Double swap sigils on Warrior with Fast Hands was said by many (including me) to be potentially OP. Yet it can be seen in the ESL weeklies and the WTS that this is not as dominating a force as previously thought – though this is confounded by recent nerfs to Warrior Adrenaline mechanics.

Having said that, beyond just Battle, Energy, Fire, Air and/or Doom (depending on your profession perspective) there are many other sigils like Hydromancy, Geomancy that could stand to be toned down. Changing the mechanic might address some combinations but it still leaves 2k Hydro crits against squishies or Geomancy inflicting 100% Bleed uptime and so on intact. Reducing the overall power of Sigils should be something that is done before mechanics are overhauled; because it may be that a shave is all they need.

Honestly, given the extreme size of the customization-tree of GW2 – and, coming with that, the excessive amounts of balance-complexity – I’d be for a much more radical approach to rebalancing Runes and Sigils both.

You know how in sPvP, Rune-set is just a single slot you always equip an entire set on? Yeah, like that.

• One slot for your sigil. Your one. It’s just “active”, it’s not part of the weapon. “Your critical hits cause lightning to strike your targets.”, “When swapping weapons (automatically changed into kits/stances as appropriate), you gain Might”, etc.
• One slot for your rune. I’d also remove the stats from these (sec on that), and just make it a single effect. But, that’d also be the differentiation: Sigil is sort-of an offense bonus, and always centered on your weapons or your attacks or hitting stuff. Runes are a defense bonus, and always centred on your armour, being hit or defending. “Become mist when hit below 20% health” or “Attacks against you sometimes cause you to drop a bomb at your feet”.

Why that gross simplification? Because we already have lots of traits, trait slots, abilities, gear choices. There’s so many combinations that it’s a dreadful prospect to even balance a tiny tiny fraction of them. I’d rather remove some of the less character-bound options to make it easier to sort balance for the remaining options.

Internal imbalance and apex choices have always been part of GW2’s PVP and even PVE. Perhaps even WvW, but the large skill gradient there and stupidly overpowered Food boosts allows for somewhat greater variety than what’s meta.

Carighan.6758:

Honestly, given the extreme size of the customization-tree of GW2 – and, coming with that, the excessive amounts of balance-complexity – I’d be for a much more radical approach to rebalancing Runes and Sigils both.

You know how in sPvP, Rune-set is just a single slot you always equip an entire set on? Yeah, like that.

• One slot for your sigil. Your one. It’s just “active”, it’s not part of the weapon. “Your critical hits cause lightning to strike your targets.”, “When swapping weapons (automatically changed into kits/stances as appropriate), you gain Might”, etc.
• One slot for your rune. I’d also remove the stats from these (sec on that), and just make it a single effect. But, that’d also be the differentiation: Sigil is sort-of an offense bonus, and always centered on your weapons or your attacks or hitting stuff. Runes are a defense bonus, and always centred on your armour, being hit or defending. “Become mist when hit below 20% health” or “Attacks against you sometimes cause you to drop a bomb at your feet”.

Why that gross simplification? Because we already have lots of traits, trait slots, abilities, gear choices. There’s so many combinations that it’s a dreadful prospect to even balance a tiny tiny fraction of them. I’d rather remove some of the less character-bound options to make it easier to sort balance for the remaining options.

That’s definitely one way to go about it. I think Anet definitely was right in “simplifying” the Amulet/Jewel/Rune system for PVP; because it eliminated several silly combos like 4 Monk/2Water or 2Strength/2Hoelbrak/2Fire. On the other hand, the same patch also introduced insane power creep by buffing Strength Rune, Balthazar, Krait, Hoelbrak, Pirate and Nightmare through the roof. I’ll also miss 5Scholar/1Divinity or Valks/Zerker Jewel X/dagger 30 Water Elementalist. Both damage and defense are now higher than ever before and the Sigil changes exacerbate that.

I just worry that doing the same thing to Sigils as what was done to Runes is going to lead to the same thing – that Anet somehow feels the “need” to compensate for a limited Sigil loadout by making them insane. For example:

Carighan.6758:

“Your critical hits cause lightning to strike your targets.”

This is exactly what I’d expect Anet to do if Sigils were to be limited to just 1 per player. 1.1 Power Coefficient Lightning Strikes on a build like the meta Cele Ele 0 0 2 6 6 full defense build would be just insane; because it essentially adds 3 points in Air Magic for no trait point cost.

I think that it’s fair to say that the meta builds these days are at least mostly defined by their Sigils and Runes.
IP on Engi doesn’t really hurt until you put in Balthazar Rune.
Terrormancer thrives on Nightmare Rune.
D/D Ele running Strength or Hoelbrak have something like 15-20% higher effective Power than runes without Might Duration. (CMC has the exact calculation; I forget the exact percentiles)
Mesmer and Thief derive their auto pressure from – you guessed it – Air and Fire Sigil.
Warrior can hit 2-3k weapon swaps with Hydromancy Sigil; and guarantee an Earthshaker combo triple crit with Intelligence Sigil.
Condi Ranger’s Entangle is scary; but even scarier with Krait Runes.
Guardian’s down state control – already the highest in game – becomes ludicrous with Mercy Runes.

The meta builds have largely remained the same post April 14; but their power level has never been higher. The only new builds to emerge/re-emerge were Celestial Rifle Engi (driven by Backpack/Chaith); Cleansing Water 0 0 2 6 6 D/D Cele Ele (let’s be real, as SOON as the ICD for CW was removed Anet should have known that this would make the rounds again).

An argument can be made for Celestial Shoutwar (Driven by Tarcis), Power Ranger (driven by Eurantien) and Mesmer re-entry (thanks to Thief nerfs, and Helseth sticking with it) but builds like Hambow, Terrormancer, Condi Engi, D/P or S/D Thief and Condi Ranger are all still here; mostly recognisable; and a lot stronger than ever before.

That Battle, Energy, Fire, Air, Doom, Intelligence, Hydromancy and Geomancy are so favoured over others for the aforementioned builds should speak volumes as to the internal imbalance in GW2. These same sigils were favoured before April 15; they’re still favoured now.

Anet needs to seriously consider the possibility that the other sigils in the lineup are either not up to par; or the meta ones are too powerful and require nerfing. Though the balance between professions has never been better; what’s meta has changed little; because the effects of Runes and Sigils is so dominant in augmenting what’s already powerful.

MonMalthias.4763:

That’s definitely one way to go about it. I think Anet definitely was right in “simplifying” the Amulet/Jewel/Rune system for PVP;

Agree with the rune changes, but completely disagree with the amulet changes. We need more stat customization in PvP, not less. It’s very hard to create a DPS build with even a little bit of extra armor. As a result, most DPS builds are super-squishy, which makes them easy prey for thieves and keeps them out of the meta.

MonMalthias.4763:

I think that it’s fair to say that the meta builds these days are at least mostly defined by their Sigils and Runes.
IP on Engi doesn’t really hurt until you put in Balthazar Rune.
Terrormancer thrives on Nightmare Rune.
D/D Ele running Strength or Hoelbrak have something like 15-20% higher effective Power than runes without Might Duration. (CMC has the exact calculation; I forget the exact percentiles)
Mesmer and Thief derive their auto pressure from – you guessed it – Air and Fire Sigil.
Warrior can hit 2-3k weapon swaps with Hydromancy Sigil; and guarantee an Earthshaker combo triple crit with Intelligence Sigil.
Condi Ranger’s Entangle is scary; but even scarier with Krait Runes.
Guardian’s down state control – already the highest in game – becomes ludicrous with Mercy Runes.

Disagree with some of this:

• Incendiary Powder is still far too strong even without Balthazar runes.
• I don’t know where you’re getting 2000 damage from Hydromancy procs. Even 1000 damage against low armor is stretching it (0.25 coefficient, but can crit).
• Guardians still run Trooper (formerly Soldier) runes over Mercy because they need the HP, and the condi cleanse is arguably better for them.

That Battle, Energy, Fire, Air, Doom, Intelligence, Hydromancy and Geomancy are so favoured over others for the aforementioned builds should speak volumes as to the internal imbalance in GW2. These same sigils were favoured before April 15; they’re still favoured now.

Agree here except Hydromancy. If you use Sigil of Force (+5% damage) as the metric for balance, then Battle (without boon duration) and Air are clearly way too good.