Guild Wars 2

I was just wondering what you ppl think about signets – shouldn’t the passive effect always be active, even after using the active effect, in the same manner as how spirits work?

It’s a long cooldown on signet of the wild for example, to be worth sacrificing the active ability with 2 minutes of no gain from the passive ability.

I think there should be a cooldown on the passive when activating signets, however I think that some cooldowns, specifically signet of the wild and signet of stone, should be reduced so the player isn’t punished so much for activating.

Signet of the wild passive is always on my bar. Having multiple sources of regen is a huge boon to survivability. I always hate myself when I accidently trigger it by mistake.

I agree, ranger signets the CD is way to long to really be of any benefit without huge trade off.

as far as passive still active… no there needs to be some trade off, that is what makes signets signets.

Works if you are a lazy shmuck like me and want less skills to fire off, or for more gutsy get some good bang for the effort with some down time to wait for passive to come back. Currently there is little bang, and takes way to long to reload muzzle load musket ranger signets.

i have two signets on, but I never activate them. The passive effects outweigh the triggered effects.

Orbys.4895:

i have two signets on, but I never activate them. The passive effects outweigh the triggered effects.

Yes I agree, and I never activate my signets either because of this.

Now for any dev reading this (yeah right!) – kitten don’t get any ideas to nerf the passive effects now!
hey are not that great, but they sure are better than the active abilities most of the time. Letting the passive part remain even after activating would see more use of active abilities, they are on long cooldowns anyway.

i agree why need to activate it if the passive effects is much better..

If ANet would just reduce the cooldown of Signet of Stone and Signet of the Wild that would add one more viable build to the Rangers arsenal. Just think with Signet of the Beastmaster trait and Signet of the Wild with a 60 sec cooldown (48sec if signet traited). Same thing with Signet of the stone. Rangers would actually be awesome.

Signet of Stone I can somewhat understand the need to have a long cooldown. Signet of the Wild on the other hand, the active ability is not that great to gimp yourself for 2 minutes (untraited) afterwards.

Agreed. I used to run Signet of the Wild on my skillbar a lot but I found that I rarely activated it because the cool down was just too long to justify the loss of the passive effect for an active effect that wasn’t all that great.

I wanna know why thieves get a major trait which gives them 5 stacks of might upon signet activation, when their signets have 30-45 sec cooldowns (excluding the healing one which has a 15 sec cooldown). While the similar ranger mjaor trait only gives 1 stack of might even though our cooldowns are mostly 120 sec. Seems like it should be the other way around.

If I’m reading the wiki right, it sounds like the active effect from signet of the hunt (next pet attack does extra damage) is retained for over 16 minutes. So you could activate it, then enjoy the passive effect after the cooldown is up. If your pet attacks something within 16 min, the first attack will get the extra damage.

Thoughts on signet

As a nearly universal game mechanic there is large discrepancy between the signets and traits supporting them. Mostly the fact that ranger is the only profession that need a grandmaster trait just to have the signet active effect affect themselves.

Discrepancies within the signet themselves.

Signet of Renewal has a 60 second base cool down the closest parallel is the guardian Signet of Resolve while is a heal on activation has a base 40 second cool down and can be traited to have remove two condition every ten seconds.

Signet of Stone cool down 120 second. Passive 35 toughness for the Ranger 120 Toughness for the pet.
Active: Active: Your pet takes no damage from attacks (for 6 second). Parallels: Warriors’ Dolyak Signet grants the Warrior 90 toughness passively and can be activated for 8 seconds of Stability. For an active parallel we have endure pain that is a 5 second take no damage skill, that also breaks stun, and can be traited for addition duration on a 90 second cool down.
Guardian’s Signet of Judgement passive is by far the best in this general type of signet with a flat 10% damage reduction, a 20 second cool down and an angry active for such a low cooldown.

Signet of the Hunt: So far the only signet with direct cool down equality for recharge however the active ability is a cut and paste of Attack of Opportunity and is not label as such. For active ability similarity there is Assassin’s Signet for only an addition 15 second base cool down affects give 5 attack at 15% additional damage.

Signet of the Wild long cool down similar passive as the warrior’s healing signet only weaker and with a much longer cool down.

Trait discrepancies. As it needs mentioning a second time a grandmaster trait is need to have the active effect of signet apply to the ranger and with that Signet of Renewal is not modified in the least as the Active effect is not one a Ranger would want to have.

Beastmaster’s might 1 stack of might for 5 seconds after using a signet, is a Master tier trait. Signet of Power Thief Adept tier 5 stack of might for 5 seconds after using a signet. Ranger signet cool downs are one at 30 second, one at 60 (that will likely kill the pet if activated) and 2 at 120 second. Thief signet cooldowns shortest 15 seconds (heal) and longest 45 (with the ability to reduce the cool down 20% and gain 2 initiative for one trait).

I don’t think the passive effect should remain when activating a signet. That’s the mechanic of a signet and there needs to be a trade-off for activating it. However, as Ranger signets sit now, there’s generally no incentive to activate them. The passive effects are just right, but the activated abilities are too weak to jusitfy losing the passive bonuses while waiting for the CD.

A post I made about a month ago regarding Ranger signets:

TL:DR – Ranger Signets suck! Big cooldowns for lackluster abilities and you are basically forced to put 30 points in Marksmanship for Signet of the Beastmaster just to get the benefits (if any) for yourself (…which also sucks btw)!

For some time now I’ve been wanting to compare the similarities and differences between Signet skills of the Ranger compared to other classes. Especially because it seems that a number of times the Ranger seems to draw the shortest straw.

So here is a listing of our Signet skills that the Ranger has available where I compare their active components to similar utility skills from other classes.

Signet of Renewal (60s)
Active: Your pet pulls all conditions from nearby allies to itself.
Breaks stun

Similar utility skills:
Signet of Stamina (45s) Warrior
Active: Cure all conditions.
Save Yourselves! (60s) Guardian
Draw conditions from nearby allies to yourself. Gain multiple boons for a short duration.

So we have a Warrior has an ability that can cure all conditions every 45s and a Guardian that draws conditions to himself and gains numerous boons every 60s. Yet the Ranger version basically kills the pet without any benefit every 60s. And I wonder what would happen to the Ranger if they had Signet of the Beastmaster and activated this one. Signet of Renewal? To me it sounds more like Signet of the Moron because you have to be one to use it.

Signet of Stone (120s)
Active: Your pet takes no damage from attacks (6s).

Similar utility skills:
Endure Pain (90s) Warrior
Take no damage from attacks (5s). (bugged and only gives 3s?)
Breaks stun
Renewed Focus (90s) Guardian
Focus, making yourself invulnerable (3s) and recharging your virtues.

So here we have our (imo) most powerful utility skill; 6 seconds of invulnerability. However, this is on a 120s cooldown and only applies to our pet (unless you spec 30 points in marksmanship for Signet of the Beastmaster).

6 seconds is great, but this comes very close to the Warrior version which applies to the Warrior without requiring 30 points and a grandmaster trait and is available every 90s and breaks stun as an added bonus.

The Guardian has a similar effect, but as an ‘Elite’ ability that grants him 3s and recharching his Virtues on a 90s cooldown.

So the Ranger needs to invest 30 points in marksmanship and take the Signet of the Beastmaster in order to get 6s of invulnerability for himself (which doesn’t break stun) on a 120s cooldown where the Warrior ability functions the same way but also breaks stun and takes 30s less on cooldown.

Signet of the Wild (120s)
Active: Your pet grows larger, dealing more damage and gaining stability (12s).

Similar utility skills:
Dolyak Signet (60s) Warrior
Active: Gain stability (8s).
Rampage as One (120s) Ranger
Rampage with your pet, gaining stability, fury, and swiftness. You and your pet also grant might to each other when you attack.

Another potent Signet, but again only affecting our pet (unless traited with Beastmaster) and with a similar cooldown to our actual Elite ‘Rampage as One’ with its 120s. This makes you wonder why some of these Signets need to have cooldowns normally reserved for the (usually much more potent) elite skills.

Signet of the Hunt (30s)
Active: Your pet’s next attack deals more damage.

As several other classes have the same passive 25% movement speed on their own signet, let’s compare their active abilities:

Thief: Signet of Shadows
Active: Blind foes near your target (30s Recharge)

Necromancer: Signet of the Locust
Active: Steal health from nearby foes (60s Recharge)

Elementalist: Signet of Air
Active: Blind your target and nearby foes (20s Recharge)

How very peculiar… The signets from other classes all function as an AoE where the Ranger’s only active ability is a 50% damage increase to ONE (auto)attack from their pet. And only by investing the 30 points to get Signet of the Beastmaster will the Ranger get the same 50% damage increase to ONE (auto)attack.

The Signet of the Hunt seems to have the weakest activation effect compared to similar signets from other classes; especially since the effect is only applied to our pet (unless specifically traited). And even though the cooldown is only 30s, other classes (with the exception of the Necromancer) have similar cooldowns and much more potent abilities that offer more benefits.

[continued]
So now my question to you guys. Do you think our Signets are balanced when compared to similar skills found in other classes? Personally I think the Ranger is still at the bottom of the pile. Mostly because of the immense cooldowns on some Signets combined with the fact that they only apply to the pet unless you actually invest 30 points in Marksmanship in order to get Signet of the Beastmaster. And even the signets that have ‘normal’ cooldowns, the active abilities seem pretty lackluster (Hunt) or even dangerous (Renewal) to use.

I personally wouldn’t mind it if Jon would simply remove the active ability on our current Signet of the Hunt and give us something similar to what we saw with the Wintersday Scout ability (invisibility/swiftness).

Signet of the Hunt
Active – Your pet becomes invisible (3s) and gain swiftness (10s).
(which would also apply to you if you have Signet of the Beastmaster)

Which brings me to the point of this Signet of the Beastmaster Grandmaster trait. It’s not even a signet yet seems a forced requirement in order to get Ranger signets to work properly. To me it sounds more like a flawed mechanic which basically gimps the Ranger. As such I’d love to see this trait removed and replaced with something else. That way all active abilities on the Signets could be changed to ‘you and your pet’ and balanced accordingly where needed.

After all, why should Rangers be a class where their signets only function for ‘half a Ranger’ (aka their pet; which has problems of its own) unless you spend 30 points for a trait?

I also made a post about Signets a while back.

BTW, what the OP is asking for, Elementalists can do with a trait

Signets in general are way too focused on pets. I think Anet thought pets would be far more valuable than they turned out to be.
Just looking at Passive Abilities
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Signet of the Wild: Heals your pet for more than double the amount that you get healed.
Player: 62 health/s
Pet: 125 health/s
Lets compare to other classes. All lvl 80
Warrior: 200/s (healing signet)
Elementalist: 202/cast (signet of restoration)
Thief: 100/hit (signet of malice)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Signet of Stone: Gives your pet 3.4 times the amount of Toughness that you get.
Player: 35 Toughness
Pet: 120 Toughness
Lets compare to other classes. All lvl 80
Elementalist: 90 Toughness (signet of earth)
Warrior: 90 Toughness (dolyak signet)
Guardian: 10% less damage (signet of judgement) ~ arguably better than all classes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In conclusion, the passive effects of ranger signets are far too weak to even be worth the slot because pets take the majority of the benefit when they are far more squishy than the player. Raising the player’s benefits would fix this, which could possibly be tied to Signet of the Beastmaster, even though I think the raise should be traitless

Passive effects should definitely be traded off when you activate a signet, it’s just that our actives are all really, really poor unless you’re willing to put 30 points in marksmanship. I really think they should all affect you and your pet by default.

I have no illusions of Anet changing these anytime soon, but here’s how I would modify the active abilities:

Signet of Stone: Affects you and your pet (and I’d still trade it for the warrior’s 5s every 90)
Signet of Renewal: Your pet pulls all conditions from nearby allies to itself, each condition is converted into a random boon
Signet of the Wild: Affects you and your pet (maybe drop the added damage if it’s considered OP)
Signet of the Hunt (the worst of all, it’s basically a free crit for your pet): You and your pet gain Camouflage for 3 seconds (if this encroaches too much on thief skills, substitute with cripple or chill to nearby enemies)

Daemon.4295:

Signet of the Hunt (the worst of all, it’s basically a free crit for your pet): You and your pet gain Camouflage for 3 seconds (if this encroaches too much on thief skills, substitute with cripple or chill to nearby enemies)

I wouldn’t say this encroaches too much on thief skills at all. After all, in the more recent descriptions it stated that the Ranger shared some mobility aspects of the Thief (or something along those lines), yet we don’t appear to have any mobility aspects that come even close.

Also, regarding Camouflage there was an ability by that name present for Rangers.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Camouflage

Next to that it feels like a natural ability for a Ranger to have; either by allowing to line up for an opener or as a means to try and escape. At present time the Ranger is probably one of the least mobile characters with the least number of escape mechanisms.

However, for some strange reason it was taken out prior to launch (probably at the time prior to launch when the Nerf-nuke hit Rangers and left them a broken shell of their former potential) and the only remnant we have is the Hide in Plain Sight trait.

As such I would suggest changing the active component on Signet of the Hunt to something like this:

Signet of the Hunt
Active – Your pet gains camouflage (3s) and swiftness (10s).
(which would also apply to you if you have Signet of the Beastmaster)

That way it would provide Rangers with the means to either set themselves up for an opener, or provide a potential escape mechanism. And the Ranger would then have to decide on the choice to either keep their passive 25% speed bonus, or use the Camouflage+Swiftness from the active component.

However, regarding Beastmaster, I’d rather see signets providing their active effects to both Ranger and pet by default; and change Signet of the Beastmaster into something else.