Guild Wars 2

For those who aren’t familiar with it (it’s the Signet everybody is using nowadays, almost mandatory):
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Agility

Does anyone know how the condition clearing work?
Is there some sort of priority in clearing?

I used it numerous times, expecting it to clear the most threatening condi stack, (meaning the condition with the highest number on it) but it would clear something terrible completely absorb-able.

Example: You get hit pretty bad by a condi warrior, and now you have ebola.

1.you get 6 stacks of burn, 2 bleed, 1 vulnerability, 3 torments.
2. You use SoA
3. Bleeding is cured.
4. You are now left with 6 Stacks, 1 Vul, 3 Torments.

Please help/explain.

I also heard is clears Taunt? It doesn’t.

It only clears one condition on you it’s just horribly worded, priority is the same as all non specific clears, last on first off

It only clears one condtion and is really not usable as a cleanse. The LIFO rule helps to illustrate just how much better SE and PR and HIS are as cleanses as far as getting rid of the nasty damaging stacks is concerned.

.Want to explain to me SE PR and HIS?

I think this Last In First Out technique is kind of outdated… It shouldn’t be too hard to reprogram and repurpose the Signet to clear the Condi with the most stacks.
SoA is not intended to clear conditions. That’s obvious. It saved my life numerous times when SS was on CD.

Anyways, now that I know how it works, it is quite upsetting that despite how flawed the utility is, we are heavily dependent on it.

Read he skills……

Clearing the condition with most stacks will start pushing conditions back to where they were when only a few builds viable. It also diminishes strategy making a cleanse too easy. I like the LIFO system myself as it forces a person to use covers when applying and forces a person to deal with those covers on removal.

The fact that something like SE goes after just damage adds yet more variety.

Assume you face a burn guardian. They really have little in the way of torment poison bleed and confusion. If you face one with SE in your build you can be all but certain you will remove burn on stealth.

If you use EA you never can be sure what you will remove. PR and HIS are much the same. They ignore cover conditions and go right for damaging ones.

Skill level being equal , if a condition p\d thief that relies on stealth and SE for cleanses faces a d\d condition thief that relies on EA , the former will usually win. He can cleanse damaging conditions more easily.

SOA as a cleanse does have its moments but they are very niche. As example you are with a group that all take fire from a fire field. You can cleanse yourself and those friends of it. That said situations where you are taking fire and only fire are limited.

I find the passive and the endurance gain from the active much more useful.

Yup, it’s always been last on first out. If you want condi cleanse you should really be running some combination of traited withdraw, pain response, agility signet and shadowstep anyways, and that’s ignoring Shadows embrace, escapist’s absolution, the food that cleanses on heal and generosity/purity sigils. Thief isn’t lacking in cleanses these days.

I guess you guys make good points . but still not satisfied with the way it’s implemented.

I am ok praying for Improv to proc and refresh my ShadowS, it’s a risk I am willing to take.
But if something is guaranteed to cure one condition, it should be efficient and cure the most damaging condition.

It is a bad idea to cleanse conditions with most stacks instead of last one applied to you, and I can easily explain why.

First of all, if you face a condi-build, you better rely on something stronger, than just Signet of Agility. People tend to use Withdraw with Trickster to cleanse chilled, crippled, immobilized, torment plus one more condition every ~15 sec. And ofc there are also Shadowstep in pretty much every single Thief build, it cleans three conditions on way back. In rare situations you can also go for Escapist’s Absolution in Daredevil tree for extra condition cleanse every successful dodge including Withdraw.
Second, there are two control effects, that are counted as conditions: Fear and Taunt. Those can be cleansed by Stun-breakers, but using something like 50 sec cd Shadowstep to do so is a bad idea. Same goes for Withdraw – it will cleanse Fear/Taunt, but will also roll you in opposite direction and heal you, when you probably don’t need it.

Now let’s look at Signet of Agility: it cleanses one last applied to you and your team-mates condition. If you predict enemy actions or you are just fast enough – you can cleanse enemy Taunt/Fear right after it got applied to you. If it was AoE Taunt/Fear, then you will also cleanse it from everybody (upto 5 players) around you in small radius (360).

See, people want to talk about condition cleansing. I want to talk about SoA in particular. Yes, Withdraw with Trickster is solid, SA trait is also good for that. So is Escapist’s A, we can keep going.

So it does clean Taunt and Fear ? … I just need to be fast enough. I ll take this advice.

I personally don’t think, that in general, Fear is more threatening than 4-7 stacks of burn. It’s arguable, but in general I would rather lose control of my char for 2 secs than be downed in 3-4 seconds.

You can not suggest SOA need to clean just the most damaging stack and simply ignore other condition cleanses. SOA is not intended as a main source of Condition cleanses. It a bonus.

The Signet is fine as is and would be fine even without that added cleanse just for the precision and endurance add. It on so many builds because it that good and a “most damaging stack” add (an argument one can make for ANY cleanse) would make it that much more used.

Right now it our best signet which is why so many use it.