Guild Wars 2

I a trying to figure out the best shortbow sigil for my build so I though I would ask some advice. Currently I’m specced heavy pow/prec (47% crit presently) with some %crit pieces. My second weapon is longbow and for that I am using Rage since I can “usually” time the quickness proc and get off a complete Rapid Fire channel, which seems to work out pretty well for me. I have been using Rage also on the shortbow, but it seems a bit underwhelming.

Options I’m currently considering:
Fire for some AoE splash
Air for the DD nuke.
Ice for maintaining distance in PvP

Any advice?

I like bloodlost, or earth myself.

Fire is almost as much a DD nuke as Air but with AoE.

I highly recommend it for the best dps increase option on a high crit build for pvp.

I use a Superior Sigil of Perception in my longbow.
Kill 25 trash mobs and it stacks 250 precision, giving a nice crit chance increase.

Actually I’m more concerned with Explorables/WvW so I am not really considering the stacking Sigils since there is a high likelihood of being downed in that content, which resets the stack.

Does anyone happen to know how the Fire sigil scales compared to Air?

Full glass cannon I recall around 50 to 85 damage non crit difference. Very minimal considering well over 1k non crit hits.

That’s not bad. Especially since Fire has a decent radius for AoE. Probably going to go for Fire then. At 1K on normal hits that is considerable more than a non-crit autoattack hits for on my shortbow. Even in full exotics I’m lucky if my autoattack hit 700-750, on plate it is more like 500-600.

I went with Force sigil but I’m power/vit/toughness spec. I could’ve went with the siigl that gives power on kills, but I don’t think the damage will be much bigger, or very noticeable and since I just don’t want to have to kill 25 mobs after dying (lazy) it just fits. But yeah for high power/crit fire sigil is probably the best direct damage sigil if you’re looking for more AoE damage. I personally just don’t like relying on crit procs very much, at least not for anything but bleeds.

@OP
First, I play only PvE, and have no problems in stacking the perception sigil.

My base crit chance 48%. With the best sigil of fire or air, my odds of the sigil triggering is 1 in 6. I open with Hunter’s Shot, followed by Rapid Fire, then usually the knock-back shot, then repeat as necessary. That is 12 shots. With a 1 in 6 chance, I could expect1 trigger from the sigil during that cycle, then it goes on 5 sec cooldown and have no further access to the bonus. Also, I will need luck to get another crit hit during that cycle

With the superior sigil of perception, once it is fully stacked, my crit chance increases to over 60%. That is a constant 2 in 3 chance of a crit until you are downed or log off the game. Over a 12 shot cycle I can expect at least 2-3 crit hits.

Yes, you need to keep it fully stacked for the max bonus, but this is easy. Farm a field of moas for a few minutes and you you are at max stack. If you are too lazy or in a rush, in PvE you will find enough mobs around to fill the stack soon enough. Also, as you stack precision, you become more efficient …

I like the Vampirism one, Sigil of Blood if i’m not mistaken.
It does less damage than say air, but if you have a high critical chance, it’s better since the cooldown is 2 seconds and not 5 seconds. That and it heals you

Is the fire AoE on player or on target?

@AsteriskCGY,

The fire does AoE on the target, which is nice.

Single target: Air
Multiple enemy: Fire

I am running fire on Longbow and air on Shortbow, as I use SB pretty much only for 1vs1, and LB when i fight group of enemies or from a safe long distance. Basically 1200 to 1500

also you could keep a spare bow in your bags with a sigil that stacks power or crit, then when you have the 25 stacks swap to the air or fire bow. just a thought. haven’t tested it out with the power or crit ones. however i do this with the magic find in pve and it works so don’t see why these would not work.

Shilian.5873:

Single target: Air
Multiple enemy: Fire

I am running fire on Longbow and air on Shortbow, as I use SB pretty much only for 1vs1, and LB when i fight group of enemies or from a safe long distance. Basically 1200 to 1500

Try using Fire for single target as well. It’s barely less damage than Air, but will kill necro pets, Illusions etc

Ive tested both fire and air, and I decided to stick with air. Fire is weaker but aoe based. I tend to get 1400-1750 air procs depending on how much might I have, fire tends to be around 1200-1300.