Guild Wars 2

I do think that this skill has a bit too long effect duration especially compared to some other professions and with all other ranger tanky skills but thats not the reason why I am making this post here…

The thing that bothers me with this skill is what its Signet, so when you target a ranger and you look at his bar you cant clearly tell if the Signet is activated and Ranger will take zero damage or its just standing there as passive effect…

So what I am asking is to change the look of the passive and active effect of the signet (I know it starts blinking at the end of passive but thats only last 2-3 seconds of effect) so its clearly visible when its activated or not like with other profession and their skills such as Endure Pain, Distortion, Mist Form, Elixir S and others where you can clearly see when its activated or not…

Yes i second this. Change pls anet thx.

What if, instead of changing a little icon or putting some flash around a player, we go for something like a Health Bar of a targeted player glows silver when they’re immune to physical damage? That way it’d affect monsters in PvE as well, which would be nice for event situations and certain bosses.

There is actually a huge exploding icon over the ranger’s head when it’s activated.

solrik.6028:

There is actually a huge exploding icon over the ranger’s head when it’s activated.

Yes, there is big icon for 0.5sec when its activated but after that next 3-4 seconds icon at health bar is the same as when its passive effect, then last few seconds starts blinking to show thats near end…

You cant possible pick out which of the signets is activated though.

L U X A.9452:

solrik.6028:

There is actually a huge exploding icon over the ranger’s head when it’s activated.

Yes, there is big icon for 0.5sec when its activated but after that next 3-4 seconds icon at health bar is the same as when its passive effect, then last few seconds starts blinking to show thats near end…

And when you see the icon, you’ll know that the ranger will only take condition damage for the next 6 seconds.

akaCryptic.2389:

You cant possible pick out which of the signets is activated though.

Why not?

Because you have many other things to worry about like, boons and conditions on you and your target, your cooldown, enemy attack animations,pet attack animations, line of sight and it gets much worse in 3v3 etc. The image on signet is such a tiny detail. It should just give the ranger the “effect” icon.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Effect

I don’t have any issue with this, but if other people need help then I guess make it more distinguishable. In the meantime, it won’t ever be Signet of the Hunt that is popped, so you can rule that out.

If you’re not playing condi against the ranger, and if you’re worried about SoS then I’m assuming you’re not, then it prolly won’t be Signet of Renewal either.

And Signet of the Wild turns them into giants, which is pretty easy to notice.

So basically, if you’re playing power, and they pop a signet, and they don’t get huge, then 90% chance it was Signet of Stone.

Also, if you see a Signet used, and don’t know which one it was between SoR and SoS, one basic attack is all you need to find out.

All that aside, they could just turn them into stone like Obsidian Flesh, since that’s a damage immunity that people are already familiar with, and it makes sense. (sort of)

akaCryptic.2389:

You cant possible pick out which of the signets is activated though.

Uhm. Yes, you can.

SotW makes you huge. SotH and SoR REMOVES the icon from the health bar when activated. SotH is even replaced it with the “Attack of Opportunity” icon.

Signet of the stone is the ONLY signet that doesn’t change the apperance of the character or the icons on the health bar.

L U X A.9452:

I do think that this skill has a bit too long effect duration especially compared to some other professions

Endure Pain has a shorter cd and is a stun break. Without traiting. Signet of the Stone is fine as it is.

I might be wrong but…
… Doesn’t the signet icon start ticking into translucent mode when it is activated?
Because all boons start doing that when it’s going to last less than 5 seconds. And since Signet of stone lasts for 6 seconds – the 1st second you can see the icon above the head, and the rest you can see the icon.

I didn’t have any problem realizing the mode he is in so far. But if the change happens, I wouldn’t probably mind.

The signet active effects are really quite massive, and are doubled up on the pet. There is no way you’re going to miss it or guess the wrong signet if you’re paying attention to the ranger. The skill affects of just about every other skill on every other profession are far more subtle.

On top of all that, the use of signets is very predictable. First of all notice which signets a ranger is running before he uses them because you need to plan what you’re doing and are not just spamming. If you condi bomb a ranger or his allies, he’ll use SoR 95% of the time. If you put direct pressure on a ranger he’ll use SoS 90% of the time.

The signet active effects are really quite massive, and are doubled up on the pet. There is no way you’re going to miss it or guess the wrong signet if you’re paying attention to the ranger. The skill affects of just about every other skill on every other profession are far more subtle.

On top of all that, the use of signets is very predictable. First of all notice which signets a ranger is running before he uses them because you need to plan what you’re doing and are not just spamming. If you condi bomb a ranger or his allies, he’ll use SoR 95% of the time. If you put direct pressure on a ranger he’ll use SoS 90% of the time.

Also SoR is pretty uncommon among people who don’t main ranger, so signet active = he’s immune to direct damage, use CC and condi instead.

Fluffball.8307:

The signet active effects are really quite massive, and are doubled up on the pet. There is no way you’re going to miss it or guess the wrong signet if you’re paying attention to the ranger. The skill affects of just about every other skill on every other profession are far more subtle.

On top of all that, the use of signets is very predictable. First of all notice which signets a ranger is running before he uses them because you need to plan what you’re doing and are not just spamming. If you condi bomb a ranger or his allies, he’ll use SoR 95% of the time. If you put direct pressure on a ranger he’ll use SoS 90% of the time.

Also SoR is pretty uncommon among people who don’t main ranger, so signet active = he’s immune to direct damage, use CC and condi instead.

On top of all that, the visual effect when activating the signet is probably going to be the most noticable because it is very high above the ranger, probably the highest in the game.

Yes the affect is only outdone by perhaps that gigantic guardian bubble. It’s very noticeable.

L U X A.9452:

I do think that this skill has a bit too long effect duration especially compared to some other professions …

If you compare no damage skills, then yes, on paper, Signet of Stone looks great…

…but do you really think that those 2 seconds make a ranger more hearty than a warrior? A guardian?

This is why you can’t do skill balance in a vacuum.

Dahkeus.8243:

L U X A.9452:

I do think that this skill has a bit too long effect duration especially compared to some other professions …

If you compare no damage skills, then yes, on paper, Signet of Stone looks great…

…but do you really think that those 2 seconds make a ranger more hearty than a warrior? A guardian?

This is why you can’t do skill balance in a vacuum.

Endure Pain – 4 sec invulnerability against white damage, 60s cooldown
Traits,
Grandmaster Defy Pain – Use Endure Pain when at 25% health
Adept Sure-Footed – Increases duration to 5 seconds
Adept Vigorous Focus – Add a 6 sec vigor to the effects

Signet of stone – 6 sec invulnerability against white damage, 80s cooldown
Traits,
Adept Signet Mastery – Reduce cooldown to 64s
Master Beastmaster’s Might – 15s might 3x

You decide.

Just don’t complain when you see a ranger that you can’t hurt for 12 seconds while getting pew-pew’d by a 12 second quickness longbow.

It’s worth bringing up that glass LB’s 2 greatest weakeness are condi and CC, neither of which SoS protects against. I know I’m in the extreme minority, but I would never take SoS on a glass LB. Sort of off topic but anyway.

I might be the only one who is bothered by this a bit but I wish every skill that gives immunity changes characters look for a bit that can be clearly visible when play has buff like that because in my opinion its biggest buffs in the game, especially when you are being able to regen HP at the same time…
For example how they added visible aura on buffed lord in WvW or something similar.

Its easier to notice if you are fighting 1v1 and you are focus on single target but you cant always just focus on one target when you need to watch map, others around you, your health/cooldowns and your party health, enemies health bar and other things, there is a chance you will miss that big signet icon for 0.5 second…

I wish this change happens to every skill with same/similar effect, not just ranger, maybe the reason why I posted about the ranger is what its signet so its the same icon when its activated or just passive so when I target a ranger I need to question myself is it active and I should wait for 5 seconds for burst or its passive and I can burst it, while the other classes get that extra icon near their health bar…

The thing is if they had unique character glows for all the different types of immunities, the fight would be more confusing than it is now, where you just have to pay attention.

For example you’d need an effect for true invulnerability, you’d need one for signet of stone that doesn’t prevent CC or condis, you’d need one for defiant stance that doesn’t prevent anything but instead absorbs damage, you’d need one for berserker stance that doesn’t prevent CC or direct damage but does prevent condis, you’d need one for protect me that doesn’t prevent anything but instead transfers damage to the pet, etc etc. etc.

The way it is works without making things overly complicated. The designers have talked about how they’re constantly trying to simplify the huge graphical mess they’ve made. There may indeed be a better way to indicate various effects, but we don’t want them to go backwards with it. Right now it at least works, so I’d be pretty hesitant to start adding random graphical effects.

At the very least, if you hit a ranger and do zero damage, you know what’s going on.

Fluffball.8307:

It’s worth bringing up that glass LB’s 2 greatest weakeness are condi and CC, neither of which SoS protects against. I know I’m in the extreme minority, but I would never take SoS on a glass LB. Sort of off topic but anyway.

Actually, I believe that this is a very important point.

Overall, I feel that the uptime of Signet of Stone is fine. However, the duration of the active effect is questionable when considering glassy builds with LB (and/or GS). SoS can carry a Ranger through a whole rotation so he can pull off two burst rotations without any mentionable risk. This is where your argument kicks in.

Yes, it might not protect you from conditions and CC. But are there reasonable ways to counter SoS with conditions or CC? First, I’d argue that in a 1vs1 scenario it is very unlikely that a Ranger will encounter a build which is capable of such a massive condition burst that he will be threatened or even die while SoS is active (although he shouldn’t have popped SoS in this scenario to begin with…). It’s not impossible. But I can see very few builds pulling that off. Second, access to CC is very limited unless you specifically build for it. What happens when the Ranger is CCed? Either his rotation is delayed or he will just skip the interrupted skill. Will this get him in trouble? Sometimes. Would I consider it a reliable counter? Probably not.

Personally, I feel that a lower duration (and a lower cooldown, of course), will make SoS easier to counter while maintaining its value for the Ranger. Right now, it is way too yolo for my taste.

It sounds like it’s a personal playstyle thing. My perspective is coming form a WvW roaming berserker LB ranger and a condi PvP ranger against glass LBs. On both of them I use entangle, wolf, drakehound, and usually muddy terrain.

The LB ranger, I just CC people until the die. I ran that back even before the RF or RtW buffs. If someone (usually war) gets past the CC, I swap to s/d and outdamage them while evading. But if something like a condi necro or engi gets past, I asplode in seconds, my only shot is SoR.

In PvP, I play against LB rangers. I have way more CC options than any LB ranger has escapes, and sooner or later I’m going to unload a geo sigil, bonfire, spliteblade, etc. burst on them and they’re toast.

That’s my perspective on why I’d never run SoS on LB. Well I shouldn’t say never, it is a good skill, it just doesn’t fit my playstyle at all.