Guild Wars 2

Just wondering if the negative vibe around setting more than 1 of the utility skills to a signet is anything more than people hating on something for no reason. From my view I can’t see what would be wrong with it if it fits your build and playstyle

It’s like having a full signet mesmer.

Sure, the signets are okay….but you’re missing out on much better abilities.

Wasn’t aware of a negative vibe regarding Ranger signets o_O. I usually run with SotH for the passive speed buff and SotW for the extra regen (which adds up if NH is traited), leaving the third skill slot open for either QZ or LR depending on the situation (e.g. QZ for mobs and LR for bosses). This setup has been working well for me (albeit passively), and previous attempts to drop one more signet have proven to be too detrimental to be worth it for my build and the parties I typically run with.

I was in a match running 3 before and someone made some snide remark about it being the laziest option.

This perception is the reason for the stigma – i.e. it’s easy mode, for people who don’t want to/can’t use too many skills.

The reality is just the opposite – with normal skills you have to manage cooldowns. With signets you have to manage cooldowns and make strategic decisions about when to sacrifice passive effects. In other words there is more complexity in signet play (Exception is people who never use actives or eles who don’t lose passive effects when traited).

You must be joking right? Ranger signets are awesomely powerful.

As Lyndis points out the regen on SotW is a very good passive regen when traited. This also goes even better if you have lots of other regen skills or spec higher in healing (Clerics?)

SotH is a massive 25% speed boost. Add to this the rangers innate speed boost when carrying a melee weapon, they can get out of any sticky situation and survive (GS) or chase down any squishy targets and stick like glue (Sword)

SoS when traited is a game winner. 6 whole seconds of invulnerability is just Win. If you are worried about being CC’d and it being wasted, there is your elite that gives you 20s of swiftness AND stability AND more dmg. (the satisfaction of face tanking warriors doing HB and beating the crap out of them as they take more dmg is amazing)

The signet synergy to traits are really good. Only SoS has an active worth using. The other 2 are for passive. There is good synergy between skill+trait+weapon. You just have to look deep for it.

Good to know, I was hoping those claims were baseless and that there wasn’t anything behind the scenes making them terrible. Not that I planned to be all signets but I do like the regen one and the one that removes conditions.

the beef is about signet warrior, and its more about using signets only for their passive effects. however its a valid playstyle, and i think the real problem is many of the active effects they put on the signets are lackluster. If you give people a worthwhile skill on signet use without an insane cool down, people will use it.

KensaiZen.3740:

SoS when traited is a game winner. 6 whole seconds of invulnerability is just Win.

unfortunately it doesn’t give invulnerability, it only mitigates direct damage – going against classes which are condition specced it’s useless

It’s like,
The buffs themselves can be fairly good, but on a mechanical level they’re just really boring to work with. I’m not really making any weighty timing decisions or interesting choices between between attaining an interesting thing at the cost of another, because there’s prettymuch only one interesting thing on each of them and when it’s the passive it doesn’t require my input at all.

For example, Signet of the Wild and Signet of Stone.
Despite the fact they’ve spent some fair time on my bar and I’m thoroughly a Beastmaster, I can count one hand how often I’ve wanted to sacrifice pet regen for pet stability, and count even less fingers for how often I’ve given the 120 toughness loss a passing thought for gaining the evasion-like invulnerability effect.

Now, if Signet of the Wild had it’s own passive effect with Signet of Stone’s active; that’s suddenly much more engaging. For a dangerous situation you’d have to make a judgement call that it would be worth it to prevent damage up front as opposed to recovering it in the long run. It would be an agonizing choice, as it should be, because you want both those things.

Even if the buffs themselves can basically hold our profession mechanic together like chewing gum and duck tape sometimes. Saddling good effects with mediocre or tangential ones just makes Signets not very interesting to work with.

Wanderer.5471:

KensaiZen.3740:

SoS when traited is a game winner. 6 whole seconds of invulnerability is just Win.

unfortunately it doesn’t give invulnerability, it only mitigates direct damage – going against classes which are condition specced it’s useless

If you equip a remove conditiion on crit for weapons it will solve those. That and you can still use TU which gives enough healing to negate any condition stacks.

Like I said, if you combine it with “protect me” you have 12 seconds to kill anyone at will. If you have stability and swiftness from elite. You cant be stopped for that whole duration.