Guild Wars 2

“…a player will no longer be able to gain 25 stacks and then un-equip the sigil.”

Engineers and Elementalists only have 2 sigil slots (after the patch), not 4 like every other class. They can still keep one of their 4 options for stacks of bloodlust or the like, while we are much more limited. How is this equal? Are we going to be able to equip a kit with a sigil? No of course not.

I would love to see an anet response on this. In the meantime, anyone have any constructive ideas about possible fixes for the situation?

Despite the “Anet fails” hyperbole in the title, I am glad for the change. I don’t think it was ever intended (as this change would suggest), and ended up requiring you to carry extra weapons just for min-maxing.

As for hurting Engineers more? It is no different than any other downsides of not having weapon swap. We’ve always had access to less sigils in combat, I don’t see how this changes that. If you want Bloodlust that badly, sacrifice for it.

I have an idea that might work, but I’m hesitant to share in fear that they will see it and make sure it doesn’t work

Adamantium.3682:

Despite the “Anet fails” hyperbole in the title, I am glad for the change. I don’t think it was ever intended (as this change would suggest), and ended up requiring you to carry extra weapons just for min-maxing.

As for hurting Engineers more? It is no different than any other downsides of not having weapon swap. We’ve always had access to less sigils in combat, I don’t see how this changes that. If you want Bloodlust that badly, sacrifice for it.

If it wasn’t intended, they would have changed it, like, when the game came out. Not after 20 months.
Also, we could have said the same for kits and sigils. Yet they nerfed them instead of just fixing something that “wasn’t intended”. Quite the opposite for two handed weapons, that are getting a free buff (guess that somehow they intended to buff them 20 months later, unlike kits).
And where other classes sacrifice a sigil and have other three left – all of them working together as long as they’re different from each other – we have just a single one apart from the stacking one.
So yeah, the change is effectively hurting engineers and elementalists more than the other classes. It would be false to say otherwise.

I love the change as well. I think someone farming stacks of bloodlust, and the applied guard stacks from WvW, every time they go out to roam is against the spirit of the whole concept. I am okay engineers being at a deficit when it comes to sigils. We have a different weapon set for each kit. Its amazing.

I think, however, that this can set us back a little further. Players can have 25 stacks for less sacrifice than us. In addition Kit damage, grenade and bombs, is scaled to exotic level damage, not ascended.

I think a great change would be to base the kit damage off the weapons you were wielding. If you had exotic weapons, then exotic levels. If you own an ascended/legendary weapon then let it scale to that!

Manuhell.2759:

If it wasn’t intended, they would have changed it, like, when the game came out. Not after 20 months.

This statement ruins your credibility and shows that you don’t have a strong understanding of game design.

It’s not a fact that it hurts Engineers and Elementalists more. That’s an opinion. What is a fact is that Engineers and Elementalists have access to potentially far more weapon skills at any one time than the other 6 professions. It is also a fact that those extra skills are meant to balance the lack of a second weapon set for Engis and Eles. It would be your personal opinion whether that is a worthwhile tradeoff, not a fact.

Jones.9756:

I love the change as well. I think someone farming stacks of bloodlust, and the applied guard stacks from WvW, every time they go out to roam is against the spirit of the whole concept. I am okay engineers being at a deficit when it comes to sigils. We have a different weapon set for each kit. Its amazing.

We aren’t elementalists, whose profession mechanic is those four attunements/weapons. Our kits are optional, and should be so even while balancing.
Also, they are – or should be – already balanced by themselves (just compare any of them with a proper main weapon).
Instead we have fixed penalities due to optional utilities.

Manuhell.2759:

We aren’t elementalists, whose profession mechanic is those four attunements/weapons. Our kits are optional, and should be so even while balancing.
Also, they are – or should be – already balanced by themselves (just compare any of them with a proper main weapon).
Instead we have fixed penalities due to optional utilities.

This is where I agree with you, but unfortunately the fact of the matter is that we are balanced around using kits. A Dev has said as much in the past. That ship has sailed, for better or worse we are balanced around using kits.

It’s far easier saying they shouldn’t be balanced this way than actually doing it though. Would you rather our main hand weapons be stronger? Thus making us OP by using kits? Would you rather kits be nerfed to be as strong as the 1 utility skill that they are? This would make kits basically useless. There really isn’t an easy fix for this, it’s a rock and a hard place type of situation.

This is pretty far off topic though, and has been hashed and re-hashed ad nauseam in other threads.

Jones.9756:

I love the change as well. I think someone farming stacks of bloodlust, and the applied guard stacks from WvW, every time they go out to roam is against the spirit of the whole concept. I am okay engineers being at a deficit when it comes to sigils. We have a different weapon set for each kit. Its amazing.

I think, however, that this can set us back a little further. Players can have 25 stacks for less sacrifice than us. In addition Kit damage, grenade and bombs, is scaled to exotic level damage, not ascended.

I think a great change would be to base the kit damage off the weapons you were wielding. If you had exotic weapons, then exotic levels. If you own an ascended/legendary weapon then let it scale to that!

Certainly kits should be scaled off the weapon you have slotted. Not the base damage of the weapon itself of course (otherwise rifle users will have stronger kits) but the rarity as you suggest.

I am a bit confused though, in the OP you seemed pretty upset at this change but here you say you love it?

Adamantium.3682:

This statement ruins your credibility and shows that you don’t have a strong understanding of game design.

That’s just your opinion. If you think it wasn’t intended and yet they waited until now without any apparent reason and while ever saying nothing about that, well, i can just laugh.

Adamantium.3682:

It’s not a fact that it hurts Engineers and Elementalists more. That’s an opinion.

That’s your opinion. That is, by the way, completely wrong. Facts say otherwise.
First, to use stacking sigils, we and elementalists can have just one other sigil. Other classes have three.
But even if we just talked about non-stacking sigils, the other classes can benefit from the different recharges to always have them process as soon as they swap weapons (and some classes, like warriors, greatly benefit from this due to fast hands). Thus having up to four different sigils processing.
We and elementalists cannot – as we are always using those same sigils. Thus two at most.
Even if we accounted for the free swaps and processing of on-swap sigils – again, only if we use our optional kits – we can at most process them a second earlier compared to other classes, assuming we time it precisely enough. This is the only advantage we have compared to other classes, and definitely not enough to account for all the disadvantages.
And those are all facts.

Adamantium.3682:

What is a fact is that Engineers and Elementalists have access to potentially far more weapon skills at any one time than the other 6 professions. It is also a fact that those extra skills are meant to balance the lack of a second weapon set for Engis and Eles. It would be your personal opinion whether that is a worthwhile tradeoff, not a fact.

What_is_a fact is that kits are optional, yet we get fixed penalities for them, even when we aren’t using them. It is also a fact that they’re balanced differently from a normal weapon, something you could see even just comparing them to any main weapon.
What is also a fact is that when we aren’t using our optional kits, we end up having the least skills of any profession, weapon ones included.

Adamantium.3682:

Not the base damage of the weapon itself of course (otherwise rifle users will have stronger kits) but the rarity as you suggest.

You are correct. I forgot about the dmg difference in two handed weapons vs single.

Adamantium.3682:

I am a bit confused though, in the OP you seemed pretty upset at this change but here you say you love it?

No I love the progress they are making with this change. It made sense that you have to sacrifice to keep the stacks. I just think that they didnt bother to think of us when they made it. And because of that and previous nerfs to our kits we are being hurt without any sort of adjustment. My post was made so that we can bring this all to light and try to balance this issue.

yeah we get the short end of the stick but i hardly think it’s anything major. i was never a fan of stacking sigils anyway and the only reason i used it in pvp was because there was no other alternative.

I don’t see any nerfs to our kits. I think we’re balanced just fine without a second weapon set, and the two sigils that would accompany it. If you don’t share that viewpoint that’s fine, but what does confuse me is that someone could think that Engineers are balanced poorly but then somehow having access to 2 extra sigils would make it all okay. Sigils don’t make that much of a difference.

Most classes went from 5 Sigils to 4, losing their pocket stacks. 20% loss.

Ele/Engi went from 3 to 2. 33% loss.

Definitely hurt Ele/Engis more, no matter what you say about them being balanced around kits/attunements. What should happen to fix the problem is a better discussion, since it can’t be decided by simple facts.

Personally, I would argue that because Ele/Engis are designed to be balanced without the benefit of 4 sigils, they shouldn’t get any kind of bandage sigil fix to make up for this loss. Rather, they should get a damage buff across the board to their output that is equivalent to 70% efficiency of the two sigil slots. So approximately 350 (adjustable for balance) power worth of damage added into the base amount of each of their skills.

This means that these classes are stronger in situations where other classes can’t get full value out of their extra sigils (like chill preventing a weapon swap). It means that if standard classes are min/maxing properly, they’ll be stronger but require more preparation.

Or possibly removing any sigil that has an effect after you swap it out (or making their effects baseline to all professions). Since it feels mandatory to min/max, it doesn’t add a beneficial play pattern. Things like on-swap and on-hit have a mechanic that adds skill cap to the game without being absolutely necessary to track. Holding a spell for .3 seconds so your sigil is off cooldown to proc again is strategic, but doesn’t have such a large effect that it will become mandatory.

Just my personal opinion on the matter.

Adamantium.3682:

I don’t see any nerfs to our kits. I think we’re balanced just fine without a second weapon set, and the two sigils that would accompany it. If you don’t share that viewpoint that’s fine, but what does confuse me is that someone could think that Engineers are balanced poorly but then somehow having access to 2 extra sigils would make it all okay. Sigils don’t make that much of a difference.

Kits were nerfed when they implemented sigils to work with them (even if they “don’t make that much of a difference”, according to you). So it would seem they did make that much of a difference at that time for the devs, assuming it wasn’t just an excuse to nerf kits.
Something they aren’t doing with two handed weapons, by the way, despite them clearly not balanced with two sigils in mind.
And our weapons, according to the balance philosophies, have their dps nerfed due to the possibility of using kits. Thus unless we use kits we aren’t balanced at all, by design.

Anyway, apart from the blatant incoherency in balancing they are once again showing off, having such amount of sigils do matter, also due of the changes on how they work. Just think of the possibilities – one stacking sigil and an on-swap sigil on one set (battle, for example), sigil of fire+sigil of air on another weapon. Or a set with sigil of purity + sigil of generosity for condition defense purposes (again, while having stacks from a sigil on the other weapons and another sigil usable).

Adamantium.3682:

I don’t see any nerfs to our kits..

You mean besides the reduced damage potential of exotic vs ascended/legendary. And the 30% damage reduction when they changed kits to finally work with sigils. Please dont ask me to dig through the patch notes for the exact quotes, but they are easily searched and quoted on the reddit.

Adamantium.3682:

Sigils don’t make that much of a difference.

A superior sigil of perception @ 25 stacks grants 250 perception. Thats a 12% chance to crit. If you do not think that is a difference, then this discussion is at a stalemate. Yes I can sacrifice for it as you have said. But that’s the thing. Every other class doesnt have to sacrifice. They can have every sigil I have AND a stacking sigil, but the opposite is not true..

Adamantium.3682:

what does confuse me is that someone could think that Engineers are balanced poorly but then somehow having access to 2 extra sigils would make it all okay

I think you have me confused. I am only trying to shed light on this single issue of sigils and weapon setups. Not balance our class. I don’t think this single thing will make everyone even, but lets start somewhere?

I think you guys are placing far too much emphasis on sigils, but I can see we’re not going to agree so I’ll leave it at that.

dont get sucked in to the sigil crap… dont get sucked in… resist…

i simply hope that they manage to make the stacks not disappear on kit usage or element change. if they don’t mess this one up, i don’t care about anything else.

Really? I doubt ANet intended us to get full stacks with a weapon, switch it and enjoy the full benefits of 2 sigils at once in the first place.

So the solution being implied by the OP is that engineers and eles should be allowed to swap out their stacking weapons still? How is that fair?

In some cases, it’s actually an advantage to have only one set of sigils. For instance, if warrior (or any other profession with two weapons sets) wants to benefit from a sigil of energy no matter which weapon set they’re swapping away from, they need to use two sigils of energy. In comparison, an engineer or elementalist can gain the same potential benefit that those two sigils would provide by only using one sigil, since it would be possible to proc it on every attunement or kit swap.

So in a way, it means engineers and eles can do the same thing with sigils at half the cost. That’s an oversimplification, of course, but I don’t think the perceived imbalance the OP implies is there.

Yamsandjams.3267:

So the solution being implied by the OP is that engineers and eles should be allowed to swap out their stacking weapons still? How is that fair?

I don’t think it is a good idea either.
But complaining about its fairness? Heh, cause the alternative is much fairer, right?

Seems like people here enjoy being treated as a second-rate class…

Yamsandjams.3267:

In some cases, it’s actually an advantage to have only one set of sigils. For instance, if warrior (or any other profession with two weapons sets) wants to benefit from a sigil of energy no matter which weapon set they’re swapping away from, they need to use two sigils of energy. In comparison, an engineer or elementalist can gain the same potential benefit that those two sigils would provide by only using one sigil, since it would be possible to proc it on every attunement or kit swap.

So in a way, it means engineers and eles can do the same thing with sigils at half the cost. That’s an oversimplification, of course, but I don’t think the perceived imbalance the OP implies is there.

…and things like this further confirm those opinions.
You are saying that it is an advantage because, hey, we can’t use more sigils, so we spend less.
Following the same reasoning, it would be an advantage even if we couldn’t equip weapons and had to fight bare-handed. Heh, we wouldn’t have to spend money on weapon, quite a nice advantage, isn’t that good?
How should i even comment such opinions? Seriously? When did having more limited possibilities ever became an advantage?
I wonder why i am even wasting my time here.

Manuhell.2759:

…and things like this further confirm those opinions.
You are saying that it is an advantage because, hey, we can’t use more sigils, so we spend less.
Following the same reasoning, it would be an advantage even if we couldn’t equip weapons and had to fight bare-handed. Heh, we wouldn’t have to spend money on weapon, quite a nice advantage, isn’t that good?
How should i even comment such opinions? Seriously? When did having more limited possibilities ever became an advantage?

That’s not at all what he’s saying, if you took time to understand people’s posts instead of trying to tear them apart you might actually learn something.

I wonder why i am even wasting my time here.

You’re not the only one, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

I see the Bloodlust Rune(s) change as more of a bug fix. It was never intended and the weapon-unequipping is nothing more than an exploit.

I welcome this change.

To clarify, the December 14, 2012 allowed sigils to work with kits. For balance, the Grenade kit’s first skill “Grenade” was reduced in damage by 30%. Aside from a bug fix with Elixir Gun’s Super Elixir, no other kits were touched in that update.

Source: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/December_2012

SentinelArk.5109:

To clarify, the December 14, 2012 allowed sigils to work with kits. For balance, the Grenade kit’s first skill “Grenade” was reduced in damage by 30%. Aside from a bug fix with Elixir Gun’s Super Elixir, no other kits were touched in that update.

Source: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/December_2012

Wrong. All of them were toned down.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-December-14-2012/999226

This part, specifically:

General balance

Engineer Kit Sigils. The Engineer now benefits from the sigils on their weapons when they swap to a kit. So, this means that you will have the ability to get sigil procs on your Flame Thrower, or Grenade Kit, etc. This means we had to tone down some of the kits accordingly, the biggest of which was the Grenade kit.

Engineer Grenade Kit Changes. We didn’t want to totally take away the power of this kit, but when it is able to proc sigil abilities, it becomes very strong due to its powerful AOE nature. So we’ve toned down this kit a little due to the sigils now working on engineer kits.

Guess i have to post here after all. People keep spreading misinformations otherwise.

Adamantium.3682:

That’s not at all what he’s saying, if you took time to understand people’s posts instead of trying to tear them apart you might actually learn something.

“So in a way, it means engineers and eles can do the same thing with sigils at half the cost. That’s an oversimplification, of course, but I don’t think the perceived imbalance the OP implies is there.”

Yep. It says exactly that. Just a matter of costs and we’re overstating the imbalance.

Yet, as described above, kits were supposedly nerfed just for a matter of sigils. So…are they that important or not? Choose one, and the nerf on kits was unwarranted. Choose the other, and we’re getting a nerf with the change they’re doing now.

I’m not sure what the point is of talking about something that happened over a year ago? Especially when it clearly didn’t do any significant harm, as nades are still arguably the best kit…

I was editing the post to add it. Also, they’re adding a sigil to two-handed weapons without any rebalancing of said weapons involved. And that goes clearly against what they did to kits at the time. They had set a precedent, now they should abide to it.

Manuhell.2759:

“So in a way, it means engineers and eles can do the same thing with sigils at half the cost. That’s an oversimplification, of course, but I don’t think the perceived imbalance the OP implies is there.”

Yep. It says exactly that. Just a matter of costs and we’re overstating the imbalance.

Yet, as described above, kits were supposedly nerfed just for a matter of sigils. So…are they that important or not? Choose one, and the nerf on kits was unwarranted. Choose the other, and we’re getting a nerf with the change they’re doing now.

That is exactly what he said, you’re right. However if you were not only interested in tearing people’s posts down and being comative, I don’t believe you would have gone off on your tangent of “oh we might as well not even use weapons right? kitten kitten I’m so clever!”. You may have also noticed he admitted it was an oversimplification and not a reason that using 2 sigils is actually better than 4, instead of jumping on him for making the oversimplification itself.

I don’t get what you’re trying to prove bringing up changes from over a year ago. At that point, they determined using sigils on top of Engineer kit skills would be too powerful. 15 months later (during a sigil revamp no less) they decide 2 handers should not have the disadvantage of only 1 sigil compared to dual wielding. How are the two even related, let alone proof that there’s some conspiracy against Engineer kits or whatever you’re saying?

Engineer kits are clearly in a good spot now (except for the FT, which is still great as a utility) so where does the idea that our kits are nerfed and are hurting us even come from? Who cares what they did over a kitten year ago, it obviously worked out as everyone uses kits because they’re so good right?

The only “nerf” to the engineer regarding sigils is an indirect one where warriors will get even stronger with the sigil changes. But if you don’t PVP, this shouldn’t concern you.

Adamantium.3682:

That is exactly what he said, you’re right. However if you were not only interested in tearing people’s posts down and being comative, I don’t believe you would have gone off on your tangent of “oh we might as well not even use weapons right? kitten kitten I’m so clever!”. You may have also noticed he admitted it was an oversimplification and not a reason that using 2 sigils is actually better than 4, instead of jumping on him for making the oversimplification itself.

Because it isn’t just an oversimplification, it is a terribly stupid one. Obviously we will spend less if we can use just those two, but why one should even consider it an advantage?Because of the reduced costs in doing so? And thus the “weapons” example.

Being limited in choices and their applications isn’t and never will be an advantage.

Adamantium.3682:

I don’t get what you’re trying to prove bringing up changes from over a year ago. At that point, they determined using sigils on top of Engineer kit skills would be too powerful. 15 months later (during a sigil revamp no less) they decide 2 handers should not have the disadvantage of only 1 sigil compared to dual wielding. How are the two even related, let alone proof that there’s some conspiracy against Engineer kits or whatever you’re saying?

Why does them being old even matter? They were applied and their effects are still there. And we’ve got a rather precise description about why they nerfed them at the time: due to sigil processing.
And were two handed weapons balanced for two sigils when they designed them?
No, like kits supposedly weren’t. Thus they have no reason to give them a free buff.
And this is a different matter from the sigil revamp altogether – albeit, if they suddenly decide that sigils processing isn’t that important to warrant a balancing when they add slots to weapons, they should be coherent and revert the past kit changes.
So either they’re coherent and apply the same line of balancing to kits and two handed weapons, or they aren’t coherent. And this isn’t even an opinion, i’m stating a fact.

The whole sigil rework is a different matter (and we’re getting the shaft there as well, anyway; especially when the reason for kits nerfing was sigil processing…and now they’re giving to other classes a way to process up to 4 of them, when before they were limited by the “same activation type” rule, whereas we’re limited to 2; and that’s excluding the whole stacking+ others debacle, where we’re getting shafted even more).

Engineer kits are clearly in a good spot now (except for the FT, which is still great as a utility) so where does the idea that our kits are nerfed and are hurting us even come from? Who cares what they did over a kitten year ago, it obviously worked out as everyone uses kits because they’re so good right?

No, everyone uses kits because we’re nonsensically balanced toward their use (even if they should be optional) and thus there aren’t many alternatives. Them being good or not doesn’t even matter, we are just making up with what we’ve got.
Having a single weapon slot makes us automatically inferior to other classes if kits aren’t taken. Can’t do much just with pistols and rifle autoattacks after all, even if the rifle one is nice. Since we would end up using those most of the time, cause of cooldowns of the other ones.

Manuhell.2759:

Adamantium.3682:

That is exactly what he said, you’re right. However if you were not only interested in tearing people’s posts down and being comative, I don’t believe you would have gone off on your tangent of “oh we might as well not even use weapons right? kitten kitten I’m so clever!”. You may have also noticed he admitted it was an oversimplification and not a reason that using 2 sigils is actually better than 4, instead of jumping on him for making the oversimplification itself.

Because it isn’t just an oversimplification, it is a terribly stupid one. Obviously we will spend less if we can use just those two, but why one should even consider it an advantage?Because of the reduced costs in doing so? And thus the “weapons” example.

Being limited in choices and their applications isn’t and never will be an advantage.

One way of looking at it is that you effectively have four sigils across two weapon sets, it’s just that you have to have the exact same sigils in both the weapon sets. It is restrictive, yes, but it doesn’t necessarily set you at a disadvantage. For instance, if any profession that can weapon swap has the same sigils in both weapon sets (i.e. two energy sigils and two force sigils), then it’s actually equivalent to an engineer equipping both those sigils.

Is there a specific type of sigil combination that you’re wanting to use? It would be more meaningful if you could show an example of a certain combination you need to use for a particular build for a particular purpose that isn’t being allowed by only having two sigils. Saying 4 is better than 2 may or may not be true given the context.

The only thing I really see as a true deficit comes with the stacking sigils. Professions that can weapon swap can have the stacking sigil on one of their sets, so they can use one set for stacking and use a different bonus on the other set. The engineer/ele would have an advantage in the sense that they wouldn’t have to be sure to use a particular weapon set for stacking, but that’s generally not too big an issue in the first place.

However, I feel the only fair change one could suggest is to give engineers and elementalists proper weapon swapping like the other professions have. That would put everyone on the exact same playing field. They don’t have it currently because it’s a characteristic of engineers and elementalists around which they are balanced.

KraunK.2319:

Last, but I’m not sure about it, change the fact that equipping a rifle is better in terms of damage than P/P or P/S while using a kit.

The kit damage is actually separate from weapon damage. It’s as though you are equipping a different weapon entirely while using them (although you still get your sigils and stats and whatnot).

As such, you shouldn’t experience a change in damage output whether or not you have a rifle or pistol equipped. The damage output can still changed based on the stats on those weapon though.

I’m very confident this is how it works, although I couldn’t find a reference from doing a quick browse of the wiki. They talked about this in a much older game update though, but I don’t feel like digging up the notes for it.

I don’t really see why people keep bringing this up as if its a new issue.

Before the stack-sigil nerf, Engineers had 2+1 (stack) sigils. While other professions had 4+1 (stack) sigils. Assuming both players were stacking then swapping weapons to another weapon.

Now they’ll have 2 compared to 4.

Both parties are losing a “free” sigil, so why are people acting like Engineer and Elementalist are getting hit “harder” or become worse in relation to sigil count than they were before? The imbalance existed prior and it will continue to exist after.

Electro.4173:

I don’t really see why people keep bringing this up as if its a new issue.

Before the stack-sigil nerf, Engineers had 2+1 (stack) sigils. While other professions had 4+1 (stack) sigils. Assuming both players were stacking then swapping weapons to another weapon.

Now they’ll have 2 compared to 4.

Both parties are losing a “free” sigil, so why are people acting like Engineer and Elementalist are getting hit “harder” or become worse in relation to sigil count than they were before? The imbalance existed prior and it will continue to exist after.

regarding wvw, choosing double one handed sets is somewhat rare but more importantly the sigils will no longer share cooldowns which will cause a tremendous power creep in the game, but barely for engies and eles.
having a power based class come at you with fire+air and still hold 25 stacks of bloodlust or a condition based class dropping 2 on crit conditions on you from sigils while having 25 corruption will hurt and won’t be possible on an engie/ele as you are limited to 2 sigils.

right now, I run with torment sigil when I hit 25 stacks of corruption because it doesnt share cooldowns with sigils of battle. A single crit, will put 5 condies on a target as it is. after the patch I’ll have to make a choice, the rest of the classes won’t. more then that, the rest of the classes will have more stuff accessible, able to run stuff like chill+torment+corruption, or energy+battle / energy+ bloodlust for example.

hardly seems fair to me.

Maskaganda.2043:

Electro.4173:

I don’t really see why people keep bringing this up as if its a new issue.

Before the stack-sigil nerf, Engineers had 2+1 (stack) sigils. While other professions had 4+1 (stack) sigils. Assuming both players were stacking then swapping weapons to another weapon.

Now they’ll have 2 compared to 4.

Both parties are losing a “free” sigil, so why are people acting like Engineer and Elementalist are getting hit “harder” or become worse in relation to sigil count than they were before? The imbalance existed prior and it will continue to exist after.

regarding wvw, choosing double one handed sets is somewhat rare but more importantly the sigils will no longer share cooldowns which will cause a tremendous power creep in the game, but barely for engies and eles.
having a power based class come at you with fire+air and still hold 25 stacks of bloodlust or a condition based class dropping 2 on crit conditions on you from sigils while having 25 corruption will hurt and won’t be possible on an engie/ele as you are limited to 2 sigils.

right now, I run with torment sigil when I hit 25 stacks of corruption because it doesnt share cooldowns with sigils of battle. A single crit, will put 5 condies on a target as it is. after the patch I’ll have to make a choice, the rest of the classes won’t. more then that, the rest of the classes will have more stuff accessible, able to run stuff like chill+torment+corruption, or energy+battle / energy+ bloodlust for example.

hardly seems fair to me.

Everyone currently using a stacking sigil from their inventory will have to make a choice. Not just Engineers.

I’m with Electro. We’ve had access to less sigils since the game came out, I don’t think it’s all of a sudden a big deal.

Adamantium.3682:

Maskaganda.2043:

Electro.4173:

I don’t really see why people keep bringing this up as if its a new issue.

Before the stack-sigil nerf, Engineers had 2+1 (stack) sigils. While other professions had 4+1 (stack) sigils. Assuming both players were stacking then swapping weapons to another weapon.

Now they’ll have 2 compared to 4.

Both parties are losing a “free” sigil, so why are people acting like Engineer and Elementalist are getting hit “harder” or become worse in relation to sigil count than they were before? The imbalance existed prior and it will continue to exist after.

regarding wvw, choosing double one handed sets is somewhat rare but more importantly the sigils will no longer share cooldowns which will cause a tremendous power creep in the game, but barely for engies and eles.
having a power based class come at you with fire+air and still hold 25 stacks of bloodlust or a condition based class dropping 2 on crit conditions on you from sigils while having 25 corruption will hurt and won’t be possible on an engie/ele as you are limited to 2 sigils.

right now, I run with torment sigil when I hit 25 stacks of corruption because it doesnt share cooldowns with sigils of battle. A single crit, will put 5 condies on a target as it is. after the patch I’ll have to make a choice, the rest of the classes won’t. more then that, the rest of the classes will have more stuff accessible, able to run stuff like chill+torment+corruption, or energy+battle / energy+ bloodlust for example.

hardly seems fair to me.

Everyone currently using a stacking sigil from their inventory will have to make a choice. Not just Engineers.

I’m with Electro. We’ve had access to less sigils since the game came out, I don’t think it’s all of a sudden a big deal.

the sigils will work differently, thats what makes it a big deal. regarding sigils, engies and eles will lose effectiveness compared to everything else.

Maskaganda.2043:

more then that, the rest of the classes will have more stuff accessible, able to run stuff like chill+torment+corruption, or energy+battle / energy+ bloodlust for example.

hardly seems fair to me.

Yeah, if it wasn’t for the stacking sigils, then I think things would be fair across the board. But since they apply a global bonus and not a weapon set specific bonus, it causes this issue.

The way they have it set up now is that other professions can essentially benefit from stacking sigils while not actively having it equipped. It would be like if a force sigil applied it’s +5% damage to both weapon sets even if it’s only in one weapon set.

One solution would be to make it so that the weapon stacks only apply when you use that weapon. So let’s say I’m a thief with d/d and shortbow, and my bow has the stacking sigil but the daggers don’t. If I build stacks and then swap to my daggers, I don’t benefit from those stacks, although I still have the stacks. Swapping back to my shortbow allows me to benefit from the stacks. If instead I have a stacking sigil in both the shortbow and one of the daggers (assuming it’s the same stacking sigil type, like bloodlust in both), then I can benefit from the stacks in either weapon set. That way, engineers and elementalists aren’t handicapped, and there doesn’t have to be some kind of special rule in place for engg/ele (i.e. they can unequip stacking weapons whereas others can’t).

Another solution would be to change the nature of the stacking sigils so that they take up a different slot. That is, every character has access to a single “stacking sigil slot” that they can put a bloodlust, corruption, or whatever in, and then they still have access to their weapon sigil slots for the other sigil types (on crit, on swap, flat bonus, &c.). That way, all professions can benefit from the stacking sigils, and engineers and eles don’t have the inherent disadvantages when it comes to stacking sigils.

This is for once a change in the right direction, especially for WvW.

Builds that only work off sigil/Applied Strength stacks and food buffs should not be viable in the first place. Those are just troll builds by definition. Killing stuff with 2.5k condition damage (and even more) while sitting on 2.6k armour (often more) and 22k hit points (often more) takes absolutely no skill and should not be allowed to begin with.

I actually think they should go further and grant stacks (sigils and Applied Strength/Fortitude) for player kills only. Applied Strength/Fortitude should also be only temporary buffs (say they last for 30 seconds after you killed a player). Food should be banned from WvW or significantly reduced in efficiency. Farming mobs and buying buffs off the Trading Post to be “pro” at PvP is not how it should work.

I am only commenting the sigil stacking. In general I think power creep is bad and the rest of the rework is exactly that.

Maskaganda.2043:

Adamantium.3682:

Maskaganda.2043:

Electro.4173:

I don’t really see why people keep bringing this up as if its a new issue.

Before the stack-sigil nerf, Engineers had 2+1 (stack) sigils. While other professions had 4+1 (stack) sigils. Assuming both players were stacking then swapping weapons to another weapon.

Now they’ll have 2 compared to 4.

Both parties are losing a “free” sigil, so why are people acting like Engineer and Elementalist are getting hit “harder” or become worse in relation to sigil count than they were before? The imbalance existed prior and it will continue to exist after.

regarding wvw, choosing double one handed sets is somewhat rare but more importantly the sigils will no longer share cooldowns which will cause a tremendous power creep in the game, but barely for engies and eles.
having a power based class come at you with fire+air and still hold 25 stacks of bloodlust or a condition based class dropping 2 on crit conditions on you from sigils while having 25 corruption will hurt and won’t be possible on an engie/ele as you are limited to 2 sigils.

right now, I run with torment sigil when I hit 25 stacks of corruption because it doesnt share cooldowns with sigils of battle. A single crit, will put 5 condies on a target as it is. after the patch I’ll have to make a choice, the rest of the classes won’t. more then that, the rest of the classes will have more stuff accessible, able to run stuff like chill+torment+corruption, or energy+battle / energy+ bloodlust for example.

hardly seems fair to me.

Everyone currently using a stacking sigil from their inventory will have to make a choice. Not just Engineers.

I’m with Electro. We’ve had access to less sigils since the game came out, I don’t think it’s all of a sudden a big deal.

the sigils will work differently, thats what makes it a big deal. regarding sigils, engies and eles will lose effectiveness compared to everything else.

I hear you, and I understand. I agree that Engis/Eles get the short end of the stick here. I just don’t understand why it’s a big deal when it’s been that way since the game was released. The game is balanced around it working that way. You’re one of many Engineers with awesome butt kicking videos out there, so it clearly isn’t hurting us in a measurable way. The sigils are being updated and that’s why it’s now such a big deal? Seems pretty arbitrary to me.

Adamantium.3682:

Maskaganda.2043:

Adamantium.3682:

Maskaganda.2043:

Electro.4173:

I don’t really see why people keep bringing this up as if its a new issue.

Before the stack-sigil nerf, Engineers had 2+1 (stack) sigils. While other professions had 4+1 (stack) sigils. Assuming both players were stacking then swapping weapons to another weapon.

Now they’ll have 2 compared to 4.

Both parties are losing a “free” sigil, so why are people acting like Engineer and Elementalist are getting hit “harder” or become worse in relation to sigil count than they were before? The imbalance existed prior and it will continue to exist after.

regarding wvw, choosing double one handed sets is somewhat rare but more importantly the sigils will no longer share cooldowns which will cause a tremendous power creep in the game, but barely for engies and eles.
having a power based class come at you with fire+air and still hold 25 stacks of bloodlust or a condition based class dropping 2 on crit conditions on you from sigils while having 25 corruption will hurt and won’t be possible on an engie/ele as you are limited to 2 sigils.

right now, I run with torment sigil when I hit 25 stacks of corruption because it doesnt share cooldowns with sigils of battle. A single crit, will put 5 condies on a target as it is. after the patch I’ll have to make a choice, the rest of the classes won’t. more then that, the rest of the classes will have more stuff accessible, able to run stuff like chill+torment+corruption, or energy+battle / energy+ bloodlust for example.

hardly seems fair to me.

Everyone currently using a stacking sigil from their inventory will have to make a choice. Not just Engineers.

I’m with Electro. We’ve had access to less sigils since the game came out, I don’t think it’s all of a sudden a big deal.

the sigils will work differently, thats what makes it a big deal. regarding sigils, engies and eles will lose effectiveness compared to everything else.

I hear you, and I understand. I agree that Engis/Eles get the short end of the stick here. I just don’t understand why it’s a big deal when it’s been that way since the game was released. The game is balanced around it working that way. You’re one of many Engineers with awesome butt kicking videos out there, so it clearly isn’t hurting us in a measurable way. The sigils are being updated and that’s why it’s now such a big deal? Seems pretty arbitrary to me.

I don’t feel it’ll have a very profound effect on the gameplay either (although I could be wrong), but the question arises as to what engineers and eles get as a tradeoff. There is an inherent disadvantage here, yet nothing seems to be done to compensate for it.

For instance, the grenade kit had it’s damage reduced as a result of changes being made to sigils in a previous patch. Now that engineers are inherently disadvantaged when it comes to making use of stacking sigils, does that mean they should have that damage partially reverted as compensation? For the record, I don’t think that’s any kind of compensation whatsoever, I was just using it to illustrate a point.

However, they haven’t disclosed everything from the patch yet, so maybe there’s something in there that could sort of serve as a balancing mechanism. I’m guessing this is just an angle they haven’t considered, but we can’t say with absolute certainty.

Adamantium.3682:

Maskaganda.2043:

Adamantium.3682:

Maskaganda.2043:

Electro.4173:

I don’t really see why people keep bringing this up as if its a new issue.

Before the stack-sigil nerf, Engineers had 2+1 (stack) sigils. While other professions had 4+1 (stack) sigils. Assuming both players were stacking then swapping weapons to another weapon.

Now they’ll have 2 compared to 4.

Both parties are losing a “free” sigil, so why are people acting like Engineer and Elementalist are getting hit “harder” or become worse in relation to sigil count than they were before? The imbalance existed prior and it will continue to exist after.

regarding wvw, choosing double one handed sets is somewhat rare but more importantly the sigils will no longer share cooldowns which will cause a tremendous power creep in the game, but barely for engies and eles.
having a power based class come at you with fire+air and still hold 25 stacks of bloodlust or a condition based class dropping 2 on crit conditions on you from sigils while having 25 corruption will hurt and won’t be possible on an engie/ele as you are limited to 2 sigils.

right now, I run with torment sigil when I hit 25 stacks of corruption because it doesnt share cooldowns with sigils of battle. A single crit, will put 5 condies on a target as it is. after the patch I’ll have to make a choice, the rest of the classes won’t. more then that, the rest of the classes will have more stuff accessible, able to run stuff like chill+torment+corruption, or energy+battle / energy+ bloodlust for example.

hardly seems fair to me.

Everyone currently using a stacking sigil from their inventory will have to make a choice. Not just Engineers.

I’m with Electro. We’ve had access to less sigils since the game came out, I don’t think it’s all of a sudden a big deal.

the sigils will work differently, thats what makes it a big deal. regarding sigils, engies and eles will lose effectiveness compared to everything else.

I hear you, and I understand. I agree that Engis/Eles get the short end of the stick here. I just don’t understand why it’s a big deal when it’s been that way since the game was released. The game is balanced around it working that way. You’re one of many Engineers with awesome butt kicking videos out there, so it clearly isn’t hurting us in a measurable way. The sigils are being updated and that’s why it’s now such a big deal? Seems pretty arbitrary to me.

oh don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s a huge gamebreaking deal for engies and eles. but it isn’t exactly fair, mainly because of the new sigil cooldown and 2 hander rules.

it’s a matter of efficiency. while I foresee my necro, guardian, thief, warrior, mesmer being more powerful due to sigil rules changes, my engie will stay the about same (actually slightly worse at 25 stacks) and my ele doesn’t need a stacking staff anymore but gains no more power either.

Manuhell.2759:

If it wasn’t intended, they would have changed it

They are. It was never intended, this is a bug fix and I welcome it. If you want Bloodlust just slot it in.

kinda wondering what will happen if you leave bloodlust on your underwater weapon.

insanemaniac.2456:

kinda wondering what will happen if you leave bloodlust on your underwater weapon.

Shhhhhh!

Zaviel.1245:

Manuhell.2759:

If it wasn’t intended, they would have changed it

They are. It was never intended, this is a bug fix and I welcome it. If you want Bloodlust just slot it in.

It isn’t a bug fix, especially since it was there since the start of the game and they never, ever did anything about it even if it was so widespread. We’re talking about 20 months here. And i can’t think of a single person infracted or banned for such “bug abusings”.
I can agree it may have been not intended at the start, but its use was widely accepted by then. Even the blog post refers to the change as them having “more strict rules”.

Anyway, i can only hope the “removing restrictions” post will be about us and eles getting that second weapon…

maybe on other classes make it so they need to have a sigil of blood lust on both weapon sets so the buffs just drop when they swap weapons, then its the same for everyone.

Manuhell.2759:

Zaviel.1245:

Manuhell.2759:

If it wasn’t intended, they would have changed it

They are. It was never intended, this is a bug fix and I welcome it. If you want Bloodlust just slot it in.

It isn’t a bug fix, especially since it was there since the start of the game and they never, ever did anything about it even if it was so widespread. We’re talking about 20 months here. And i can’t think of a single person infracted or banned for such “bug abusings”.
I can agree it may have been not intended at the start, but its use was widely accepted by then. Even the blog post refers to the change as them having “more strict rules”.

Anyway, i can only hope the “removing restrictions” post will be about us and eles getting that second weapon…

If you use a Rifle just slot it into your brand new Sigil slot

Berengar.6951:

insanemaniac.2456:

kinda wondering what will happen if you leave bloodlust on your underwater weapon.

Shhhhhh!

oh. my bad.

kits need to be buffed like

if player = lvl 79 or less kit= exotic-rare 2h weapon stats

if player = lvl 80 kit= ascended 2h weapon stats

or kit = weapon rarity +2h stats

and get rid of the 30% damage drop when sigils on kits was implemented