Guild Wars 2

Just expressing my satisfaction with the signet’s being buffed.

Added a 7s 5 stacks of bleed to signet of earth.
Increases damage of fire signet by 100%.
Reducing cooldowns of air/water to 25s.

These buffs are gonna help a lot with signet builds, this is more than I was expecting for signet buffs and im pleasantly surprised. Signets now are two relatively hard hitting actives and our stun break got reduced by 5s. Can’t wait to test em out in battle!!!

I’ve been playing a D/F signet condi build with some success in hot joins lately. The changes make me happy too, especially the Signet of Earth changes

I just wish they’d buffed Signet of Fire a bit more. Perhaps making the active an AoE burn…that would have been amazing. Ditto with Signet of Water.

But yeah, I’m happy. In an otherwise underwhelming update (the only other change I’m excited for is the Glyph of Storms change), this was a bright spot.

Oh worth yeah signet of earth also got a 5 second cooldown reduced and they all have 1/2 cast times instead of 3/4ths as well. Incredibly good stuff ^^

That Signet of Fire change is odd. Will its direct damage actually not be rubbish?

Edit – looked it up. Its direct damage is being buffed to the same as the other Signets, i.e still rubbish.

Signet of Earth got the biggest buff, BY FAR. Lower cooldown like air and water, 1/2 casting time immobilize, and stacks of bleeding on top of it.

Watch it getting used on celestial builds.

Signet of Fire + Earth might also be a good combo to apply burning and bleeding outside of fire and earth attunements, right after the opponent cleanses their conditions.

I was thinking the same. The damage increased on the fire signet i believe is only the physical aspect and not the burn condition damage. Right now my signet of fire burn effect does 15k of damage if it is not removed. If the condition damage is increased 100% it would be extremely overpowered. Literally 1 shoting anyone that does not remove it and that can easily be accomplished by masking it with other conditions.

This was an huge buff to aurashare build. A great step to build diversity. GJ anet!
:)

This may be the new meta build.

What is this condi build you speak of? I haven’t seen it and I’m curious (:

the only signet i use is signet of air (and just for the 25% speed increase), and signet of restoration but this still is the same

Until eles don’t die to a stiff breeze anyone using signets over cantrips is pretty bad. PVE I get the precision signet, but for pvp or wvw… they are just bad.

Aaron.4807:

Until eles don’t die to a stiff breeze anyone using signets over cantrips is pretty bad. PVE I get the precision signet, but for pvp or wvw… they are just bad.

I’ve had decent success w/ signets in wvw roaming and pvp. It’s been l2p for me, and I’ve lost more than I’ve won. However, I feel like I’m at the tipping point of winning more than I lose.

That being said, signets are nowhere near forgiving as cantrips.

I still wish they made all the signet have an aoe to them only hitting one target is kind of meh for ele when every thing ele has hits at least 3.

Fellow DnD eles , practice now with 02246 and signets. Its good training when patch day comes out.

Signet of air is a more viable stunbreak option now… however, I still will find it hard to ditch any of cleansing fire (needed for immob breaks), armor of earth (needed for stomps), or lightning flash (needed for everything, from mobility and escapes to warping up terrain to pressure and surprise updrafts). Armor of earth is probably what I would consider dropping, just because it has a long cooldown and stability can get stolen/corrupted easily.

Signet of earth is a bit intriguing for a condi build, although it is still hard to cover conditions as ele. Would be nice if it gave poison too.

Signet of water… I just don’t know why it exists. The active is worthless outside of a “written in stone” build. Make it a 10s cooldown and we’ll talk.

Jabberwock.9014:

Signet of air is a more viable stunbreak option now… however, I still will find it hard to ditch any of cleansing fire (needed for immob breaks), armor of earth (needed for stomps), or lightning flash (needed for everything, from mobility and escapes to warping up terrain to pressure and surprise updrafts). Armor of earth is probably what I would consider dropping, just because it has a long cooldown and stability can get stolen/corrupted easily.

Signet of earth is a bit intriguing for a condi build, although it is still hard to cover conditions as ele. Would be nice if it gave poison too.

Signet of water… I just don’t know why it exists. The active is worthless outside of a “written in stone” build. Make it a 10s cooldown and we’ll talk.

Yes, signet of earth is a double CC trait.

Signet of water is pointless given that we can cleanse most condis and add hoelbrak we get -60% condi. 4s chill and its effects are fun to have but require specific builds to get the most of it.

LF is a must have. That is one cantrip no ele, staff,dnd or s/f.d can live without.

Armour of earth is good to have but not a must.

So SoR+LF+SoE+SoF+FGS = good fun when you combine auras for constant fury and protection.

We still have to wait for patch.

Doesn’t aura share only work with weapon abilities? I don’t see how this helps too much if you are referring to Fire’s Embrace trait.

JETWING.2759:

This was an huge buff to aurashare build. A great step to build diversity. GJ anet!
:)

This may be the new meta build.

Rocketmist.5436:

Doesn’t aura share only work with weapon abilities? I don’t see how this helps too much if you are referring to Fire’s Embrace trait.

JETWING.2759:

This was an huge buff to aurashare build. A great step to build diversity. GJ anet!
:)

This may be the new meta build.

Nope, Aura traits work with Fire’s Embrace+Signets

oh wow thats pretty nice then.

This change makes signet of earth usable, and signet of air even more usable. A 25s CD stunbreak on signet of air is excellent, and the move-speed is nice in some builds. The reduction of earth signet’s cast-time to 1/2 s is the biggest buff for that, although the 5 bleeds will certainly hurt in a might-stacking build. I am sure some D/D or even burst eles will use this for the high damage + CC or simply short-CD, long-duration immob to set-up burst.

A lot of the buffs to these under-used skills at least make them good enough to try and theorycraft a build around.

Yeah unlike cantrips, signets are something you can use multiple times in one fight, and now even more so, I think this makes signet mastery potentially usable now as well.

BlackBeard.2873:

This change makes signet of earth usable….A lot of the buffs to these under-used skills at least make them good enough to try and theorycraft a build around.

These signets have been used with AoE and LF with the 3rd being SoE or SoA with SoW being the least favourite due to ele condi clearing ability.

Eles rely heavily on mobility and positioning. So LF will remain extremly important. Mistform post nerf was not used very much. and i doubt Anet will buff it.

SoF is fantastic if u are in an assist train and out of dnd close range. So when u chuck in SoE now, the effects are going to be really substantial. I would however add that new dnd else practice first with the 3 popular cantrips before migrating to signet. But who knows.

Not sure the signet buffs are enough to make them worth taking over cantrips because the loss of survivability is so great. There is also the fact that it’s a 70pt investment for a signet-aura build.

I mean sharing fire aura is again probably the worst aura to share. Doesn’t really do anything defensively… Also burn doesn’t stack and you’d be giving it to people with low condition damage. I had a thread not too long ago about my aura suggestions, but fire aura still is pretty bad XD

Rocketmist.5436:

I mean sharing fire aura is again probably the worst aura to share. Doesn’t really do anything defensively… Also burn doesn’t stack and you’d be giving it to people with low condition damage. I had a thread not too long ago about my aura suggestions, but fire aura still is pretty bad XD

I could’ve sworn that the point of aura-sharing was the buffs provided by the traits when applying auras…

Just thought about an Elite signet yesterday, something like “Signet of Elemental Power”: you would get the passive effect of each signet depending on your current attunement (that would stack with other signets possibly equiped – except SoR) while the active would be the same in a more powerful version (more damage or more duration, or make it AoE)

Edit: SoW could also buff Vitality/Healing Power passively, that would make it more interresting i think, as Fire and Earth already boost Precision/Toughness.

At the very least, the active abilities of Signet of Earth, Signet of Fire, and Signet of Water should all be 240-radius AoE around the target just like Signet of Air.

Personally, though, I’d like to see Signet of Water become a completely defensive utility skill offering passively increased vitality (180) or regeneration (180 health/second?) with the active removing 2 conditions… Or maybe just change the passive to one of the aforementioned.

Either way, these skills need to have that 240-radius AoE property that Signet of Air has for them to be considered at least somewhat competitive.

Velimere.7685:

At the very least, the active abilities of Signet of Earth, Signet of Fire, and Signet of Water should all be 240-radius AoE around the target just like Signet of Air.

Personally, though, I’d like to see Signet of Water become a completely defensive utility skill offering passively increased vitality (180) or regeneration (180 health/second?) with the active removing 2 conditions… Or maybe just change the passive to one of the aforementioned.

Either way, these skills need to have that 240-radius AoE property that Signet of Air has for them to be considered at least somewhat competitive.

No, SoE and SoF are fine being single target 1200 range

Yes, SoW needs buff to vit/healing(either one) to match the other signets.

Fuzzion.2504:

No, SoE and SoF are fine being single target 1200 range

Then they’ll remain to have useless actives in PvE that are only useful 1v1 in PvP.

Signet of earth, with my condition build, is now a 5 second immobilize with 2+ covering conditions.

Churning earth… might actually be worth more than the games slowest blast finisher.

I never thought this day would come.

I already use Earth in my zerk Staff PvP build (Ice Bow is far too clunky, and I rarely trust my allies to use the second one well - but the signet gives great single-target control and has a short enough cooldown to be regularly useful).

I am very much looking forward to using it after patch!

Does this stack, like if you shared 3 people a fire aura with your signet active, and you have the trait that gives 3s protection, will you get 12s protection? Or are you talking about the buffs going to them?

Velimere.7685:

Rocketmist.5436:

I mean sharing fire aura is again probably the worst aura to share. Doesn’t really do anything defensively… Also burn doesn’t stack and you’d be giving it to people with low condition damage. I had a thread not too long ago about my aura suggestions, but fire aura still is pretty bad XD

I could’ve sworn that the point of aura-sharing was the buffs provided by the traits when applying auras…

Rocketmist.5436:

Does this stack, like if you shared 3 people a fire aura with your signet active, and you have the trait that gives 3s protection, will you get 12s protection? Or are you talking about the buffs going to them?

…sort of.

I’m not quite sure about signets, but I expect they work similarly to my Staff auramancy:
Blasting an ice field repeatedly will boons for the first aura, and seems to ‘save up’ the boons granted for the other blast finishers’ auras – they get applied at about the time that the original frost aura expires.
If multiple procs of signet fire auras work in the same way, all boons will eventually be applied but they may not all appear at once if a second aura is created before the first expires?

I guess this is good for us, because it means that a quick boonstrip may only get the first set of boons (which will be reapplied a second or two later).
It’s still hella confusing.

eeeeeh

Cheese, aura made through combo arent shared …

Rocketmist, if you have trait that grant boon on aura, allies will get them, that the purpose of the aura share build ^^

Mattmatt.4962:

Cheese, aura made through combo arent shared ...

Blast finisher + ice field = AoE Frost Aura.

Leap finisher auras? Yeah they’re personal and they’re not shared by Powerful Aura... but (most of) the ones I create are shared automatically. I don’t take that trait in my build! ^__^

My standard trait setup for auramancy support staff is 0/2/2/4/6, with the auramancy traits in Air/Earth, Aquamancer’s Alacrity in Water so I can lay down fields more often, and Arcane Mastery + EA + EA in Arcana - with higher dps gear Blasting Staff might help, but for the vast majority of the stack-and-nuke fights it’s entirely unnecessary and I find lower cooldowns on blast finishers/stunbreak (Arcanes Brilliance, Wave and Shield) much more useful.
I really like it for with PuGs - currently running largely Cleric’s gear/Zerk trinkets but moving to Celestial as I create my ascended set. Might stacking, high fury/prot uptime, shiny heals. Wheeee.

Just need to watch out for Guards spamming light fields everywhere.

EDIT: oh, re-reading Mattmatt’s post it’s clear that you just misunderstood the questions being asked.

If you reapply one aura on top of itself (e.g. create a fire aura while you already have a fire aura active) it won’t stack - but the new aura’s duration will replace the old one’s remaining duration.

Rocketmist was asking if the boons applied by auramancy traits are reapplied if you overwrite an aura; as the buff isn’t being freshly applied in this situation - because one copy of it is alreay active - it’s reasonable to assume that the game might not proc auramancy traits again.

Mattmatt.4962:

eeeeeh

Cheese, aura made through combo arent shared …

I’m positive it does, or at least it did because I’ve tested this many times before. Any time you apply an aura EXCEPT the resurrection aura skill in the arcane works with the aura sharing water trait, and everyone who gains the aura will also gain whatever buffs you gain from the aura through traits.

The share range is really short, and sometimes a little wonky, so it may seem like it doesn’t share on leap finishers, but it does.

EDIT: No, you guys are right, it doesn’t work anymore. When did they change that? And more importantly, WHY ON EARTH DID THEY CHANGE THAT!? This build has never been overpowered or ever particularly popular, what on earth would possess them to nerf one of the only interesting build paths that eles have when it isn’t even powerful enough to see competitive play in any game mode?

Conncept.7638:

Mattmatt.4962:

eeeeeh

Cheese, aura made through combo arent shared …

I’m positive it does, or at least it did because I’ve tested this many times before. Any time you apply an aura EXCEPT the resurrection aura skill in the arcane works with the aura sharing water trait, and everyone who gains the aura will also gain whatever buffs you gain from the aura through traits.

The share range is really short, and sometimes a little wonky, so it may seem like it doesn’t share on leap finishers, but it does.

Sorry, thoughts are a bit jumbled here, might tidy it up with an edit after this event.

It definitely doesn’t – I just tested again to make sure, doing leap finishers with a Flame Axe (both in and out of combat). I’m currently queued for teq and don’t have a dagger on me, so can’t test Magnetic Leap.

Most traited auras are shared, aye – Tempest Defence and Fire’s Embrace. Arcane Resurrection isn’t, no, and this is likely because it already affects another target besides the caster.

Combo auras are never shared (apart from the innately AoE Frost Aura from blasting ice fields)…. unless the Dagger’s Magnetic Leap can proc Powerful Aura? The trait description does say “Weapon Skills”, but then blast finishers from a weapon into an ice field don’t proc PA so it’d be odd if other weapon combos did cause aurashare to happen.

And yes, all shared auras (through PA procs or those fun, fun ice blasts) proc the Air and Earth auramancy traits. Wheeee! ^_^

When patch hits I’ll be swarmed with insults for using a “sh#t cheesy build, go l2p noob” and also the “play a real pvp build scrub”.

I look forward to this day, extremely.

rearranges 10+ stacks of Superior Ballistas in inventory