Guild Wars 2

Swap the active effects for these skills.

Signet of the Hunt

• Passive: +25% Runspeed
• Active: Revealed 6s

Sic ’em

• +40% Damage, +40% Movement Speed to the pet
• +150% on next attack to you and your pet

This makes it so that there is an incentive to activate signet of the hunt, where as currently it is only used by a small number of maul-focused builds. It’s old active effect also synergizes better with sic ’em, creating more potential for player/pet burst damage.

Some changes would probably have to be made. Signet of the hunt’s CD should likely be increased to at least 30s. Sic ’em’s damage buffs for the pet could be merged, but it would also be interesting to leave them. A single high damage strike from player/pet followed by more sustain by the pet.

Thoughts?

Although it makes sense, I’d rather keep them on seperate skills. I want to keep the 25% movement speed.

But it would make my build far more powerful, since I wouldn’t have to slot Sic ’Em anymore when encountering thieves. I would always have it available. It would maybe be a bit too powerful.

Also, revealed on Sic ’Em does make sense. It’s basically telling the pet to track the target down. Making it impossible for the thief to hide.

Also, Sic ’Em requires a target, but (currently) Signet of the Hunt doesn’t. You don’t want to waste the revealed because the thief dropped your target a split second before you use it.

Holland.9351:

Although it makes sense, I’d rather keep them on seperate skills. I want to keep the 25% movement speed.

I can see wanting to keep the speed. But I think, as I believe ANet has said, there should be an incentive to use the active of a signet and not simply rely on the passive alone.

Holland.9351:

Also, revealed on Sic ’Em does make sense. It’s basically telling the pet to track the target down. Making it impossible for the thief to hide.

Signet of the hunt seems fitting to countering thieves as well.

Holland.9351:

Also, Sic ’Em requires a target, but (currently) Signet of the Hunt doesn’t. You don’t want to waste the revealed because the thief dropped your target a split second before you use it.

It would need to be changed to single target. Whether it should remain the 2000 range that the effect had on or drop to 1200 I’m not sure. Maybe somewhere in the middle? 1500 range so that it works with LB? I do think that it would need to remain instant though.

I actually like it.

Currently, Signet of the hunt active is very gimmicky, and still wont be highly useful after the update, and sic’em really only shines in BM. Your way makes them universally useful in all builds. And I would say flavor wise, they still work thematically.

2 things though

how would the revealed apply itself?

why does it make sense to have 2 damage modifiers for the pet on one skill (sic’em)? Merging would have to be involved as you said.

Khalic.3561:

Holland.9351:

Also, Sic ’Em requires a target, but (currently) Signet of the Hunt doesn’t. You don’t want to waste the revealed because the thief dropped your target a split second before you use it.

It would need to be changed to single target. Whether it should remain the 2000 range that the effect had on or drop to 1200 I’m not sure. Maybe somewhere in the middle? 1500 range so that it works with LB? I do think that it would need to remain instant though.

The 2000 range is fine. It’s the same as the leash range of the pet. Also remember, it’s impossible to use Sic ‘Em if the target is already in stealth and thief’s Steal can be a 1500 range instant gap closer.

Zatoichi.1049:

how would the revealed apply itself?

I would assume the same way that it currently does. If for some reason it needed another effect to be applied, add a very small damage element like some other signets use.

Zatoichi.1049:

why does it make sense to have 2 damage modifiers for the pet on one skill (sic’em)? Merging would have to be involved as you said.

I’m not sure what would be best here. Just using a +150% damage buff for one attack is too weak. My first thought would be to give it a damage buff to both player and pet for some duration. But the length of the buff and the % would have to be changed. And it wouldn’t really fit with the current style of ranger shouts.

Being selfish I’d be fine with this change because I want the 25% movement speed and any incentive to use the signet would be great. That said, you can always pop it for maul crits etc.

Something this game lacks is a hunter’s mark type skill from WoW. Not in regards to seeing a stealthed target, but more so you can focus fire a specific target with people outside of your group. If Signet of the Hunt simply made a arrow appear over a targets head for 10 seconds in addition to the current effect I’d probably use it more often.

One of the issues I find with the proposed change is that it would put sic ’em back into the realm of obscurity. The primary reason that skill is useful is due to the revealed applicaiton, which is why they tacked it onto it in the first place.

I think the passive effect on signet of the hunt needs improvements so it’s not so underwhelming, or perhaps it just needs the base cooldown reduced so it’s less costly to pop it. However, I don’t think taking away the thing that makes sic ’em worthwhile is the proper answer, even if you can make it fit thematically.

At least if you remove the stealth detection from Sic ‘Em the entire shout system for the Ranger class is total crap so it’ll be easier to redesign the whole thing from the ground up.

Personally, I think sic em reveal should be a non-targeted AoE. Stealth is way over powered. There should be a counter to all the stealth.

This would be a pretty harsh nerf to Sick ‘Em, which would be rather sad. I enjoy the skill. I enjoy the idea of ranger shouts giving the pets commands and buffs. Currently this is the only shout that seems especially useful, so I’d hate to see it’s one unique contribution to a build taken by a utility that is already popularly used.

I have been running with both of them with my most recent BM build though. I find myself using Signet of the Hunt’s active ability fairly often since I used it and Sick ’Em together to deliver an especially large burst from my ranger. Maybe once the patch hits and rangers benefit from signet actives as well others will start using that active as well.

Tyeme.6589:

Personally, I think sic em reveal should be a non-targeted AoE. Stealth is way over powered. There should be a counter to all the stealth.

That would be way too strong, especially since shouts are instant cast. When someone stealths you could immediately pop it and get a free reveal against anyone around you. The only thing that would keep it in check at that point is a low reveal duration or a small radius.

The way it is now, it prevents someone from entering stealth rather than removing it from someone who’s in stealth. It’s much better to set it up this way because the stealth is an important survival mechanism for thieves, mesmers, and engineers (to an extent), and such stealth removal would be too potent. With the current implementation, you have to either predict when the opponent will enter stealth (i.e. when they’re hurting), or do it in reaction to their casting (i.e. during hide in shadows or mass invis animation, or when a d/p thief is sitting in their powder getting ready to heartseeker). This makes it require some semblance of skill and timing instead of simply being a free way to remove stealth, which I believe is a much fairer way to do it.