@Staff Ele
Opinions on the Battle Sigil nerf incoming?
@Staff Ele
I will probably still continue to use Sigil of Battle on my Ele. It’s the only character where I swap attunements/weapons often enough to benefit from it.
I understand why the nerf was necessary, although I wish ANet had split it so that the nerf only affects PvP.
Would it be better to simply axe the duration by half? 20 seconds is a long time, even without the boon duration increases.
Sigil of battle is done for.
Sigil of strength will be far superior to battle after this nerf.
Battle Sigil will still continue to be good, and will account for ~6 stacks of might on a D/D ele (180 power and condition damage). Sigil of strength will be just around the same, accounting for 6-7 stacks of might assuming you constantly hit your enemies. The difference is, battle is more consistent and easier to get, so is still superior.
Stat-wise, battle is still one of the better sigils. 360 total stats is still better than any of the stacking sigils, still more damage than fire/air, and still more power AND condition damage than force/accuracy. Maybe geomancy or hydromancy will be worth it, but its hard to consistently be in-range when you proc them. Leeching might be an option if you want to maintain SOME damage and get back some the sustain from not cancel-casting lightning whip. The only sigil worth taking over battle still is energy, and that is really bunker-ing up when you are going to need all the damage you can get if you still want to kill anything.
training my thief gameplay now :p
Its just I fear that the battle sigil was a nice variation in damage sigils and I really don’t want the meta for damage sigils to become double procs and force or bloodlust – battle sigil was a nice variation to this and strength sigil too. I wouldn’t like it to be trimmed down to even less sigil variation.
@Staff Ele
Nerfing the sigil of battle is an adjustment that affects all might-heavy classes, and that is a lot of them. Therefore the classes that can generate might without relying on the sigil of battle will have a comparative advantage. We have many blasts and fields, so in a way we are getting better off!
Retired elementalist theorycrafter
‘Yay!’ because they are actually doing something
And ‘Boo!’ because the something they are doing isn’t going to help anything
No change to class balance is going to make more viable builds in PvE until they make major changes to the dodge system and encounter design.
Similarly, no change to class balance is going to make more viable builds in PvP until they change the win condition.
I agree that running full might duration in combination with stacking the battle sigil could end up in having an uptime of 420 power, however to maintain this situation the fight needed to last atleast like 30 seconds and to achieve this amount of might, you need to invest alot of traitpoints, runes and utility boosts in it. Is it that bad if a sigil becomes stronger by making a build that uses every single bit of the class to unleash his full potential? Even when people agree that they still think this sigil is OP, you should start thinking WHY is this sigil OP. When not running any boon duration, sigil of battle is very mediocre so wouldn’t it be wiser to nerf superior sigil of strength?
Well incase you still think that Battle sigil is OP and should be nerfed, you should realize that the elementalist is currently balanced out including the battle sigil(xcept for kittened spvp cele eles) by nerfing battle sigil you will end up in having a major nerf without any reason why. If you want to nerf battle sigil that’s okey, but then plz just boost our total dmge by 3% or something.
Even when people agree that they still think this sigil is OP, you should start thinking WHY is this sigil OP. When not running any boon duration, sigil of battle is very mediocre so wouldn’t it be wiser to nerf superior sigil of strength?
Sigil of strength requires a high crit chance and constantly hitting your target to function. Against a single target you would end up with slightly more might than a (current) battle sigil and a decent amount more against groups of enemies when you can get multiple chances at the 60% proc for each hit.
Sigil of battle having no requirement other than weapon swapping is its advantage, it should provide less might than the equivalent sigil that needs more effort to maintain.
If you’re critting a lot and fighting groups/always on your target then sigil of strength is better, if you don’t crit and hit your target enough (mostly a pvp thing) then you can have a lesser effect for less effort.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually change other “On Swap” sigils to be slightly less effective than their “On Crit/Hit” counterparts (like sigil of geomancy performing an aoe of 3 bleed stacks for 10s on a 9s cooldown while sigil of earth (which needs crits) is only 5s bleeds to a single target on a 2s cooldown.)
Imo, I wished only might damage was nerfed and not this sigil.
I just want my gold back, I hate to pay to kitten load of gold to something then it become worthless.
Is power creep too high
Could be… first off — they will never find the perfect balance. Anet reacts to a reality, players adjust, a new reality emerges, and so on.
With the last couple of patches I’ve felt they tried to work on the balance direct-condition damage, and that’s needed.
I have a s/f fresh air build, I’m affected, but overall, I feel they are doing a good job balancing. I started WvW summer 2013 and I think it’s much better now.