Guild Wars 2

Last night I was thinking of how we could make signets great again. We have two main signet utilities that are used frequently by most elementalists: Signet of Fire and Signet of Earth.

To me, these two signets are fine, along with Signet of Air. The main problem is Signet of Water. This signet is so useless. I don’t think there’s been a situation where I’ve said to myself this signet would be useful or beneficial to my build. I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen any elementalist with this signet’s buff on their bar.

What I’m proposing here today are changes to this signet (hoping ArenaNet is reading this):

• Keep the passive as it is and maybe reduce it to 6-8 seconds. Change the active to a skill similar to the necromancer’s Plague Signet.
  The range on both skills are 1,200. Have this Signet of Water become a stun-breaker and make the active send conditions to a foe, ideally 3-5. You could also make the passive AoE so that it affects allies too.

By doing this, you’ll be opening up a lot more build options and ways to play the elementalist class differently. You’d be seeing a lot more signet builds come into play, hopefully causing an end to this boring meta.

I have a few more ideas in mind, but they don’t really compliment the concept of Signet of Water.

Please share your own suggestions and changes you’d like to see happening to this signet or any other you feel that isn’t up to scratch.

sending conditions is not fitting of the elementalist class in general

a way to make signet of water more useful would be to have it only remove a condition when you actually have a condition. As it is it just triggers every 10 seconds, whether you have one or not, so that when you do have one it’s on cooldown and won’t remove it for another 6 or so seconds, which is obviously useless.

You’re right about it being crappy. I dont think i’ve ever used it at all since this game came out. It’s just plain terrible. Personally, I’d prefer they make it remove a condition only when you have one as a passive, or a -33% condition duration as a passive. Preferably the – condition duration. Or possibly something similar to the scrapper’s trait that reduces condition damage you take by 20%. Or maybe something entirely original that they’ve never done before. “As long as this signet is active you cannot be affected by more than 3 different conditions at once.” And make the active remove 5 condis or give you 10s of resistance.

If we had something like that we wouldnt be forced to take so many traits and utilities just to survive and it would open up more dps oriented builds for roaming in wvw. It sucks being forced to take every condi removal we have available and still being overwhelmed by the ridiculous amount of condi spam going on in wvw. Personally im really in favor of making it so that we cant have more than a certain amount of condis affecting us at once. or maybe make it so we cant have more than 5 stacks of any condi on us.

Nikkinella.8254:

You’re right about it being crappy. I dont think i’ve ever used it at all since this game came out. It’s just plain terrible. Personally, I’d prefer they make it remove a condition only when you have one as a passive, or a -33% condition duration as a passive. Preferably the – condition duration. Or possibly something similar to the scrapper’s trait that reduces condition damage you take by 20%. Or maybe something entirely original that they’ve never done before. “As long as this signet is active you cannot be affected by more than 3 different conditions at once.” And make the active remove 5 condis or give you 10s of resistance.

If we had something like that we wouldnt be forced to take so many traits and utilities just to survive and it would open up more dps oriented builds for roaming in wvw. It sucks being forced to take every condi removal we have available and still being overwhelmed by the ridiculous amount of condi spam going on in wvw. Personally im really in favor of making it so that we cant have more than a certain amount of condis affecting us at once. or maybe make it so we cant have more than 5 stacks of any condi on us.

I completely forgot about resistance. I like what you said towards the end, “As long as this signet is active you cannot be affected by more than 3 different conditions at once.” And make the active remove 5 condis or give you 10s of resistance." I would definitely use this signet if it were changed to this.

reikken.4961:

sending conditions is not fitting of the elementalist class in general

a way to make signet of water more useful would be to have it only remove a condition when you actually have a condition. As it is it just triggers every 10 seconds, whether you have one or not, so that when you do have one it’s on cooldown and won’t remove it for another 6 or so seconds, which is obviously useless.

This would probably make more sense as well, but I am really liking the resistance idea Nikkinella posted earlier.

Maybe have it increase healing power or vitality as a passive and as an active it can remove 5 conditions.

Kyon.9735:

Dahir.4158:

Nikkinella.8254:

You’re right about it being crappy. I dont think i’ve ever used it at all since this game came out. It’s just plain terrible. Personally, I’d prefer they make it remove a condition only when you have one as a passive, or a -33% condition duration as a passive. Preferably the – condition duration. Or possibly something similar to the scrapper’s trait that reduces condition damage you take by 20%. Or maybe something entirely original that they’ve never done before. “As long as this signet is active you cannot be affected by more than 3 different conditions at once.” And make the active remove 5 condis or give you 10s of resistance.

If we had something like that we wouldnt be forced to take so many traits and utilities just to survive and it would open up more dps oriented builds for roaming in wvw. It sucks being forced to take every condi removal we have available and still being overwhelmed by the ridiculous amount of condi spam going on in wvw. Personally im really in favor of making it so that we cant have more than a certain amount of condis affecting us at once. or maybe make it so we cant have more than 5 stacks of any condi on us.

I completely forgot about resistance. I like what you said towards the end, “As long as this signet is active you cannot be affected by more than 3 different conditions at once.” And make the active remove 5 condis or give you 10s of resistance." I would definitely use this signet if it were changed to this.

reikken.4961:

sending conditions is not fitting of the elementalist class in general

a way to make signet of water more useful would be to have it only remove a condition when you actually have a condition. As it is it just triggers every 10 seconds, whether you have one or not, so that when you do have one it’s on cooldown and won’t remove it for another 6 or so seconds, which is obviously useless.

This would probably make more sense as well, but I am really liking the resistance idea Nikkinella posted earlier.

Maybe have it increase healing power or vitality as a passive and as an active it can remove 5 conditions.

The last proposed buffs are downright OP. 10s resistance or limit incoming condis? Nope.

IMO we don’t need defensive actives on signets as they can be used by bunker builds as well. To be exact, defensive buffs must be on offensive traits to avoid overpowering bunker builds.

Here are my proposed changes for their active skills.

Signet of Air – Teleport to your foe and stun them for 1s if you hit. Range 900, CD 30s. Breaks stun. Requires target (target doesn’t need to be in range)
-More in-battle mobility and control/setup

Signet of Water – Freeze your target for 2s. Range 1200, CD 40s. 2s cast time.

Signet of Fire – Add 2 stacks of torment and daze your target for 2s. Range 1200, Retain current CD. 1s cast time

Signet of Earth – Remove Immobilize and Cripple effect, add 2s knockdown. blockable Range 1200, CD 50s. 2s cast time.
- On the contrary, we can make it unblockable but reduce the range significantly.

Reason for changes – open up possibilites for Control Ele and more setup for DPS Eles. As all ele knows, we need as many defensive utilities and traits. Going for 2 or more of these signets reduces survivability significantly so I think these changes are balanced

#BringBackTheControlEle
#NoMoreBunkering
#MakeDPSEleGreatAgain

Edit: changed CDs and added ccast time

Kyon.9735:

Here are my proposed changes for their active skills.

Signet of Air – Teleport to your foe and stun them for 1s if you hit. Range 900, CD 30s. Breaks stun. Requires target (target doesn’t need to be in range)
-More in-battle mobility and control/setup

Signet of Water – Freeze your target for 2s. Range 1200, CD 40s. 2s cast time.

Signet of Fire – Add 2 stacks of torment and daze your target for 2s. Range 1200, Retain current CD. 1s cast time

Signet of Earth – Remove Immobilize and Cripple effect, add 2s knockdown. blockable Range 1200, CD 50s. 2s cast time.
- On the contrary, we can make it unblockable but reduce the range significantly.

Reason for changes – open up possibilites for Control Ele and more setup for DPS Eles. As all ele knows, we need as many defensive utilities and traits. Going for 2 or more of these signets reduces survivability significantly so I think these changes are balanced

#BringBackTheControlEle
#NoMoreBunkering

Edit: changed CDs and added ccast time

I like your ideas. With Signet of Air I would keep it at 1,200 range because 900 sucks (Lightning Flash as an example). Since your suggestion requires a target I would imagine it’d be harder to pull off if you somehow manage to de-target while fighting and in a real need to port away.

For Water, when you say freeze your target, do you mean like the reaper elite that freezes/stuns? If so, I’d like that a lot, but the passive for this particular signet annoys me. I feel that 10 seconds to remove one condition is maybe a bit too long. Why not remove 2 conditions instead? That sounds reasonable.

Nice idea with torment added to Signet of Fire. Condi ele users would love this (I DO), but I think the daze may be a bit too much; wouldn’t mind it though.

Would your Signet of Earth changes work? Sometimes using a signet while immobilized wont work because the target may be behind you or on the side, so would it still work if the skill misses? Like I said before with Fire, the knockdown may seem OP so I wouldn’t even know if they’d implement this change onto the signet. I still like the idea, just seems a bit much.

Dahir.4158:

Kyon.9735:

Here are my proposed changes for their active skills.

Signet of Air – Teleport to your foe and stun them for 1s if you hit. Range 900, CD 30s. Breaks stun. Requires target (target doesn’t need to be in range)
-More in-battle mobility and control/setup

Signet of Water – Freeze your target for 2s. Range 1200, CD 40s. 2s cast time.

Signet of Fire – Add 2 stacks of torment and daze your target for 2s. Range 1200, Retain current CD. 1s cast time

Signet of Earth – Remove Immobilize and Cripple effect, add 2s knockdown. blockable Range 1200, CD 50s. 2s cast time.
- On the contrary, we can make it unblockable but reduce the range significantly.

Reason for changes – open up possibilites for Control Ele and more setup for DPS Eles. As all ele knows, we need as many defensive utilities and traits. Going for 2 or more of these signets reduces survivability significantly so I think these changes are balanced

#BringBackTheControlEle
#NoMoreBunkering

Edit: changed CDs and added ccast time

I like your ideas. With Signet of Air I would keep it at 1,200 range because 900 sucks (Lightning Flash as an example). Since your suggestion requires a target I would imagine it’d be harder to pull off if you somehow manage to de-target while fighting and in a real need to port away.

For Water, when you say freeze your target, do you mean like the reaper elite that freezes/stuns? If so, I’d like that a lot, but the passive for this particular signet annoys me. I feel that 10 seconds to remove one condition is maybe a bit too long. Why not remove 2 conditions instead? That sounds reasonable.

Nice idea with torment added to Signet of Fire. Condi ele users would love this (I DO), but I think the daze may be a bit too much; wouldn’t mind it though.

Would your Signet of Earth changes work? Sometimes using a signet while immobilized wont work because the target may be behind you or on the side, so would it still work if the skill misses? Like I said before with Fire, the knockdown may seem OP so I wouldn’t even know if they’d implement this change onto the signet. I still like the idea, just seems a bit much.

Signet of Air – I wanted to minimize the range because it has too many effects. Teleport, Break stun, and even a stun on target upon hit. This will synergize perfectly on scepter eles but we need some kind of counterplay. Reduce the range, it only stuns WHEN you hit the enemy (you must be exactly 900 range or below). The teleport works like Rev’s Shiro PT so it can be used as a gap closer.

Signet of Water – Yes, it is basically a single target Reaper Elite. TBH Anet kittened up when they gave that elite to reapers instead of Eles. Eles should be the master of fire and Ice. And as for the passive, I agree that it should only start the timer upon condi removal.

Signet of Earth – Same as Signet of Air, I had to put in some counterplay thus the 2s cast time and “LoS”, so use it wisely. However, it will still be on 1200 range to compensate for the LoS counterplay. And to counterplay the range, it will be blockable. We can make it unblockable by reducing the range significantly.

Signet of Fire – You’re right. Honestly speaking, daze seems out of place on fire signet but I think it would open up options for Lightning Rod builds as a low CD interrupt.

No matter what they do, I think most eles will agree that signets are pretty lackluster. I mean, they used to have a use when we had that trait in fire. But how often do any of our signets get used now? even our healing signet isnt used that much anymore, except by a few stubborn few of us that still play d/d despite how meh that build is now. Hell, even glyphs, our terrible glyphs see more use than our signets now. I dont know, maybe people use them in pve, I have no clue about that. But in wvw they’re trash.

Nikkinella.8254:

No matter what they do, I think most eles will agree that signets are pretty lackluster. I mean, they used to have a use when we had that trait in fire. But how often do any of our signets get used now? even our healing signet isnt used that much anymore, except by a few stubborn few of us that still play d/d despite how meh that build is now. Hell, even glyphs, our terrible glyphs see more use than our signets now. I dont know, maybe people use them in pve, I have no clue about that. But in wvw they’re trash.

So true.

Is this the trait you were talking about? Fire’s Embrace. I would really love for this trait to come back. I even made a thread about it last month.
When you activate a signet, you gain a fire shield.

Combine that with Invigorating Torrents and you’ll be able to cleanse conditions via auras and activating signets. If that’s not enough then consider this, you’ll have insane amount of condi removal if you have Cleansing Water, Invigorating Torrents and Burning Fire selected. The Fire trait line would be good again, plus it helps certain builds out.

Let’s not forget about Sunspot. This trait inflicts damage at your location when you attune to fire and you gain a fire aura. More condi removal! You wouldn’t even need Arcane attunement anymore if you’re still using it.

If this doesn’t open up build diversity then I don’t know what will.

Yeah that’s the trait i meant. I can’t understand any reasoning at all for removing that. They killed of quite a few rarely even used builds when they changed the traits around. Took that trait out, left conjurer. I don’t get that decision. Its really sad because the fire traitline was always one of my favorites. I had a whole fire theme going on with my ele at one point. Fire was good for awhile, but then they totally gutted it. It was a sad day for my ele.

How about…

Signet of Water clears 1 condition and cures Chill every 10 seconds. Succesful hit on the active applies Frost Aura.

Same buff for Signet of Fire’s active, but with Fire Aura instead.

Swap the passive and active. Passive: signet of hydromancy. Active: remove damaging conditions