Guild Wars 2

I’ve never really bothered using Assassin’s Signet because I was confused as to whether the passive outperforms the active, or vice versa. Also, I wasn’t sure when (if at all) to use the active effect, which gives 15% extra damage on the next five attacks.

Thanks.

I do not use it on trash. I pop the signet when I’m fighting a boss if he hasn’t been melted by ice bows already and I’m going in w/ my heartseekers.

It’s only ever worth using if you’re using Signets of Power and only intend on needing 5 attacks to take your target down. Otherwise the power bonus it gives will net you similar numbers and for a longer period of time.

Simply, if I’m in PvE, I leave it passive, and just switch my signet traits to Side Strikes and Practiced Tolerance.

In a dungeon-type environment:

Save it for trash, just not worth popping it.
Keep the passive for bosses that are 33%> and pop it if you are sure the boss will die after 5 heartseekers (or shortly after) AND you are sure it is recharged before the next bossfight.
If not, dont pop it to keep the passive bonus.

This way, you wil benefit from the passive AND active where possible.

There might be some situations where the 15% damage modifier will not out-do the +180 power, but I’m not sure about this, and definately am not going to do the math.

Brilliant, thanks guys.

On a related note, would you say Assassin’s Signet is better for general PvE, dungeons etc than Signet of Shadows? I usually use Signet of Shadows for the 25% movement speed buff and the AoE blind it gives. But I’ve got a feeling people are gonna complain if I run it in dungeons :/

I haven’t removed it from my utility bar unless other utilities take extreme precedence since starting thief at release and have not had issues.
Unless you’re in competitive speed clear groups it really doesn’t matter.
If anything just swap into Signet of Agility for its passive precision to boost DPS when approaching a stackable boss.

It’s also important to remember that as soon as you activate the signet the power granted by the passive is subtracted. That means you don’t get 15% more damage than with the signet on passive but only 15% more damage than without signet at all.
Depending on how much power your character has from other sources that can mean that the active bonus is quite negligible (I tested it downleveled on Bloodtide Coast and with the signet active I got only about 2% more damage than with signet passive. Basically, the more power you have from other sources, the smaller the contribution of the passive power bonus and the bigger the bonus of the active).

BolkovonHarnfeldt.1372:

It’s also important to remember that as soon as you activate the signet the power granted by the passive is subtracted. That means you don’t get 15% more damage than with the signet on passive but only 15% more damage than without signet at all.
Depending on how much power your character has from other sources that can mean that the active bonus is quite negligible (I tested it downleveled on Bloodtide Coast and with the signet active I got only about 2% more damage than with signet passive. Basically, the more power you have from other sources, the smaller the contribution of the passive power bonus and the bigger the bonus of the active).

Again, which is why I strictly recommend never using the signet’s active effect at all unless one is traited for Signets of Power, as Power is always a better bonus because it increases your damage by much more against high-armor foes than a % modifier.

Waste of utility slot, don’t bother with it. There are better alternatives.

The only time this is used is if you have a kamikaze-burst-build where you activate all signets to trigger Signet of Power before backstabbing someone. It’s kamikaze because if you failed to take out your target…you’re doomed.