Guild Wars 2

I’ve noticed that Sigil of Fire is getting more popular lately and decided to try it out.

For a Double Dagger Elementalist I can honestly say that Sigil of Fire feels more useful. The AoE burst damage is nasty in PVP. In longer single target fights however, I can see Sigil of Battle being better. With the amount of boon removal and boon steal tools Thieves will have; I won’t be missing Might much.

The biggest difference I’ve noticed is a change in game play.

When I had Sigil of Battle I use to constantly swap attunements to keep the Might stacks as high as possible. When I needed burst healing, condition removal or protection; it wasn’t available because the Water and Earth attunements were always on cooldown.

Using Sigil of Fire no longer requires me to constantly keep switching attunements. Making Water and Earth always available when I need it. I generally stay in Air and Fire for Damage. Water for healing and condition cleasing. Earth for protection and control.

I’m finding myself more effective in PVP and PVE.

I usually take Energy instead of Battle, but I run a more offensive trait set than the normal bunker, and dodges are golden.

With a standard bunker build, sigil of fire would proc about every 6th-7th hit after each cooldown. In a 1v1 I wouldn’t think that would be as reliable damage as Battle, but in bigger groups, aoe would make Fire proc more reliably (in 1v1, scepter autos and dagger fire #1 would be your best bets to proc Fire).

I’ve been trying out sigil of doom in pvp and liking it. Having access to poison is really helpful, -33% healing can better than straight up damage in many cases. Used to not work for us but I guess they fixed that bug.

That is pretty interesting. Do you have any information on the kind of numbers of a feel for how much damage you are putting out. I notice SIGNIFICANTLY when sigil of battle isn’t working (sometimes if its on the offhand rather than main-hand) as the might really does take my damage from pathetic to decent. I can see how sigil of fire could be useful, but do you spec slightly more into air for greater precision (so the fire sigil procs as close to the 10s count as possible).

The only reason I haven’t invested in the sigil of fire is because sigil of battle’s synergy with the boon duration is just awesome. Also, might stacks affect condition damage (which is a very good portion of our output). I usually don’t actively worry about swapping to maintain maximum might -it can only proc every 10s anyway, so you don’t need to swap like a spaz. The only time I actively try for the swap bonus is when churning earth is ready to pop if I am not worried about covering up the bleeds with the cripple from earth 2, although air 2 works relatively well for that as well. Air is the best attunement to swap after earth anyway, so that fire can precede earth for either additional aura or additonal might.

Finally, I wouldn’t worry about the thieves stealing might. It is far down on the list of boons of to steal (supposedly the mechanic prioritizes defensive boons first), so it shouldn’t be a major concern. Maybe you are playing at a higher level than me where you actively switch to earth for the protection. The only attunement I swap to for active use of the boon is water, but that’s more for the cleansing and cleansing-wave EA. I usually work in fire and earth as my primary damage, and feel air is mostly defensively (air 2 and 3, as well as air EA decrease incoming dps) because only the auto-attack is reliably available due to the long CD on RTL and updraft. Air auto-attacks are good, but I feel I usually only get off a couple swings before switching out for some damage skills. Anyway, the point is that I find that I maintain the max might stacks with sigil of battle even after slowing down my skill output naturally (thank goodness for drakes-breath).

@Thrashbarg
I have also toyed around with sigil of poison for use in pvp for the -healing, and it packs some extra punch if you go for a condition build. I may give it another shot after they nerf sigil of battle and energy (they are on the chopping block). I think there are a lot of interesting sigils to try, but they can’t currently be justified with how good battle and energy are.

I have 20 points into Air. With gear, fury and food buffs I’m sitting at 50% crit chance.
I don’t do sPVP.

The AoE burst is really nasty. Blazing Speed + Ring of Fire into 5 people is almost guaranteed to activate an AoE fire blast from the Sigil. Add in a Fire Grab for good measure.

I was contemplating on taking Sigil of Energy and reducing my investment in Arcana but, the extra 10 points into Air or Fire is just terrible.

Sigil of Fire is activating an average of twice per NPC in Cursed Shore. Granting an extra 2,000 to 3,000 damage. Sigil of Battle doesn’t come close to this in short duration encounters.

The one thing I do find odd is that its damage is nearly equal to Sigil of Aire, yet it is AoE. Shouldn’t Air be much higher?