Guild Wars 2

The activation time of Signet of Malice is a hold over from when the active ability healed for a larger amount than now.

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If the purpose of the active heal is to be used for a larger short burst of health, in many scenarios, by the time SoM is activated, the player is healed for the amount of damage they received while activating. (SoM takes 1 1/4 seconds to activate and only takes 50% of healing power)

Since the passive healing was raised and the active healing was lowered, in most scenarios, it makes more sense to keep attacking and apply pressure than wait to activate the heal leaving the active part of the skill useless.

The only time I ever use the Active healing now is for extra might and initiative when not being attacked.

Suggestion: Decrease the activation time to 1/2 s. Or let the active be 100% affected by Healing Power.

Clovis.7386:

Since the passive healing was raised and the active healing was lowered, in most scenarios, it makes more sense to keep attacking and apply pressure than wait to activate the heal leaving the active part of the skill useless.

I don’t see anything wrong with this. SoM supports a more offensive play style where the best option to heal yourself is to continue being aggressive. The active is not useless because of its use in situations where you cannot be aggressive (running away, or no available targets), and because of its incredibly short traited cooldown allowing you to activate “on heal” synergies from traits/runes.

The three thief heals are very well balanced so that each is situationally amazing, the role you’re finding SoM weak at is well-filled by the other two heals.

imo the roll is better than signet of malice

Negated.4105:

imo the roll is better than signet of malice

it is kind of dumb that the roll heals more/cures conditions and is a DODGE and is instantly activated.

Tulisin.6945:

Clovis.7386:

Since the passive healing was raised and the active healing was lowered, in most scenarios, it makes more sense to keep attacking and apply pressure than wait to activate the heal leaving the active part of the skill useless.

I don’t see anything wrong with this. SoM supports a more offensive play style where the best option to heal yourself is to continue being aggressive. The active is not useless because of its use in situations where you cannot be aggressive (running away, or no available targets), and because of its incredibly short traited cooldown allowing you to activate “on heal” synergies from traits/runes.

The three thief heals are very well balanced so that each is situationally amazing, the role you’re finding SoM weak at is well-filled by the other two heals.

Its a bit hard to judge SoM due to how broken/poorly designed some of our weapon sets are. Our 2 highest hit volume abilities (Unload, Pistol whip) have issues (P/P is underpowered and poorly designed, PW is a good way to spend 5 init, stand in place, and do less DPS than autoattack). If it weren’t for Caltrops and P/D “stealth at every opportunity for sneak attack” builds, SoM would be completely useless, and even in those builds its very easily countered (Don’t stand in caltrops).

I also have a feeling even with a well designed P/P or Pistol Whip, the ability would be subpar. 1.25 seconds for a heal that does less than either of our heals, doesn’t have a secondary component (Stealth, dodge) and doesn’t remove conditions is unadulterated crap. The heal on hit isn’t great either, and outside caltrops and choking gas, we don’t currently have effective skills with high hit volume. I’d suggest upping the heal on hit, but that’s a playtesting issue (and since Anet can’t correctly implement trait changes at patch time, I don’t think they have time for playtesting).

evilapprentice.6379:

Tulisin.6945:

Clovis.7386:

Since the passive healing was raised and the active healing was lowered, in most scenarios, it makes more sense to keep attacking and apply pressure than wait to activate the heal leaving the active part of the skill useless.

I don’t see anything wrong with this. SoM supports a more offensive play style where the best option to heal yourself is to continue being aggressive. The active is not useless because of its use in situations where you cannot be aggressive (running away, or no available targets), and because of its incredibly short traited cooldown allowing you to activate “on heal” synergies from traits/runes.

The three thief heals are very well balanced so that each is situationally amazing, the role you’re finding SoM weak at is well-filled by the other two heals.

Its a bit hard to judge SoM due to how broken/poorly designed some of our weapon sets are. Our 2 highest hit volume abilities (Unload, Pistol whip) have issues (P/P is underpowered and poorly designed, PW is a good way to spend 5 init, stand in place, and do less DPS than autoattack). If it weren’t for Caltrops and P/D “stealth at every opportunity for sneak attack” builds, SoM would be completely useless, and even in those builds its very easily countered (Don’t stand in caltrops).

I also have a feeling even with a well designed P/P or Pistol Whip, the ability would be subpar. 1.25 seconds for a heal that does less than either of our heals, doesn’t have a secondary component (Stealth, dodge) and doesn’t remove conditions is unadulterated crap. The heal on hit isn’t great either, and outside caltrops and choking gas, we don’t currently have effective skills with high hit volume.

You mentioned PW doing less DPS than auto attack and benefiting heavily from SoM in the same breath, but instances like the latter are exactly why the former isn’t broken. PW’s initiative cost is somewhat justified in the hit volume it grants and resulting synergy with on-hit effects, as well as its evasion/interrupt properties. It, like most thief skills, has great situational use, but since it has actual decent DPS instead of situational non-DPS abilities like Black Powder this somehow negatively reflects upon it.

Saying SoM “doesn’t have a secondary component” is misleading, the passive is easily a match for the secondary components of the other two, and SoM additionally has access to Signet synergy, and consequently on-heal Synergy thanks to signet traits pushing it to the lowest heal cooldown.

You need to maintain a >2/second hit volume to make SoM more powerful than the thief’s strongest active heal (Withdraw), but even in situations where this is not attainable SoM contributes substantial healing without any significant investment.

The main issue people seem to have with SoM is that it doesn’t mesh with the bursty PvP assassin play style that tries to land a few high-damage blows and then break contact. Both other heals support this play style very well, while SoM supports longer engagements and has better PvE applications.

Well when traited SoM only has a 12 sec CD, which I’m pretty sure would give it the highest HPM. Combined with the passive, the activation time might be justified.

But I’m certainly not against making it faster.

EDIT: And I agree with Tul’s last paragraph completely.

Tulisin.6945:

I don’t see anything wrong with this. SoM supports a more offensive play style where the best option to heal yourself is to continue being aggressive. The active is not useless because of its use in situations where you cannot be aggressive (running away, or no available targets), and because of its incredibly short traited cooldown allowing you to activate “on heal” synergies from traits/runes.

The three thief heals are very well balanced so that each is situationally amazing, the role you’re finding SoM weak at is well-filled by the other two heals.

I think you misunderstood the point of this thread. I’m not having a philosophical discussion about whether something can or cannot be useful, it wastes time and energy.

Just use the signet for whatever build you want, play some PvP WvW or run some dungeons, and then tell me you thought that the 1.25 activation time was useful in ANY situation where you are not being left alone. That means a heck of a lot more to me than conjecture.

I will clarify, I think SoM is a great heal, both in passive and active healing. But in any scenario where things are actually attacking, the activation time makes the active heal more of a hindrance than a utility.

Clovis.7386:

I will clarify, I think SoM is a great heal, both in passive and active healing. But in any scenario where things are actually attacking, the activation time makes the active heal more of a hindrance than a utility.

To reiterate:
Good. That is how it should function. If you want a heal to pop while being heavily beat on, the other two are excellent choices. SoM is not well-suited to that particular situation, nor should it be altered to be. There are sufficient uses for the SoM active as-is.

Tulisin.6945:

Clovis.7386:

I will clarify, I think SoM is a great heal, both in passive and active healing. But in any scenario where things are actually attacking, the activation time makes the active heal more of a hindrance than a utility.

To reiterate:
Good. That is how it should function. If you want a heal to pop while being heavily beat on, the other two are excellent choices. SoM is not well-suited to that particular situation, nor should it be altered to be. There are sufficient uses for the SoM active as-is.

The active skill is only useful when enemies are not attacking,so let’s not change it. Great.

Its not like I could just keep using the passive while not being attacked therefore rendering the active part of the skill useless.

Oh wait,

Tulisin.6945:

evilapprentice.6379:

Tulisin.6945:

Clovis.7386:

Since the passive healing was raised and the active healing was lowered, in most scenarios, it makes more sense to keep attacking and apply pressure than wait to activate the heal leaving the active part of the skill useless.

I don’t see anything wrong with this. SoM supports a more offensive play style where the best option to heal yourself is to continue being aggressive. The active is not useless because of its use in situations where you cannot be aggressive (running away, or no available targets), and because of its incredibly short traited cooldown allowing you to activate “on heal” synergies from traits/runes.

The three thief heals are very well balanced so that each is situationally amazing, the role you’re finding SoM weak at is well-filled by the other two heals.

Its a bit hard to judge SoM due to how broken/poorly designed some of our weapon sets are. Our 2 highest hit volume abilities (Unload, Pistol whip) have issues (P/P is underpowered and poorly designed, PW is a good way to spend 5 init, stand in place, and do less DPS than autoattack). If it weren’t for Caltrops and P/D “stealth at every opportunity for sneak attack” builds, SoM would be completely useless, and even in those builds its very easily countered (Don’t stand in caltrops).

I also have a feeling even with a well designed P/P or Pistol Whip, the ability would be subpar. 1.25 seconds for a heal that does less than either of our heals, doesn’t have a secondary component (Stealth, dodge) and doesn’t remove conditions is unadulterated crap. The heal on hit isn’t great either, and outside caltrops and choking gas, we don’t currently have effective skills with high hit volume.

You mentioned PW doing less DPS than auto attack and benefiting heavily from SoM in the same breath, but instances like the latter are exactly why the former isn’t broken. PW’s initiative cost is somewhat justified in the hit volume it grants and resulting synergy with on-hit effects, as well as its evasion/interrupt properties. It, like most thief skills, has great situational use, but since it has actual decent DPS instead of situational non-DPS abilities like Black Powder this somehow negatively reflects upon it.

Saying SoM “doesn’t have a secondary component” is misleading, the passive is easily a match for the secondary components of the other two, and SoM additionally has access to Signet synergy, and consequently on-heal Synergy thanks to signet traits pushing it to the lowest heal cooldown.

You need to maintain a >2/second hit volume to make SoM more powerful than the thief’s strongest active heal (Withdraw), but even in situations where this is not attainable SoM contributes substantial healing without any significant investment.

The main issue people seem to have with SoM is that it doesn’t mesh with the bursty PvP assassin play style that tries to land a few high-damage blows and then break contact. Both other heals support this play style very well, while SoM supports longer engagements and has better PvE applications.

I disagree, PW is 100% a skill in need of fixing. Opponents can walk out of the last swings (reducing its effectiveness as a high hit volume attack, which is why I said SoM theoretically works well with PW), the root begins before the evasion opening the thief up to stuns and high damage, and it does less DPS than just swinging your sword. Of course there are situations where it’s useful, but its supposed to be our burst classes Init → Damage dump. It isn’t.

SoM Has an active heal and a passive heal on hit. Once you use SoM, the passive is lost for 15 (or 12) seconds. Withdraw breaks all snares and roots, heals, AND dodges. HIS cures poison, burning and bleeding, grants stealth, AND grants regen. It has the longest activation time, and most importantly, does nothing to mitigate damage when used – Both Withdraw and HiS have secondary components that help you deal with being targeted – a dodge or stealth. If you SoM while being targeted (and manage to get it off with its long cast), you’re still getting beat down just the same once you’re done.

evilapprentice.6379:

I disagree, PW is 100% a skill in need of fixing. Opponents can walk out of the last swings (reducing its effectiveness as a high hit volume attack, which is why I said SoM theoretically works well with PW), the root begins before the evasion opening the thief up to stuns and high damage, and it does less DPS than just swinging your sword. Of course there are situations where it’s useful, but its supposed to be our burst classes Init -> Damage dump. It isn’t.

This is where we differ in opinion and what I was trying to get at with the line " but since it has actual decent DPS instead of situational non-DPS abilities like Black Powder this somehow negatively reflects upon it." Post-nerf, I see PW as a utility-heavy skill with decent damage, not as something that “should work” as a burst skill. Nobody thinks BP should be a burst skill because it isn’t even close, but it is a good tradeoff nonetheless. PW is a good tradeoff in some situations (admittedly rare in PvP), but since it has decent damage people view it as a too-weak damage skill instead. That said, I’d like to see PW become more viable in PvP, but I don’t think it would be able to retain what it currently has if the self root was removed.

SoM Has an active heal and a passive heal on hit. Once you use SoM, the passive is lost for 15 (or 12) seconds. Withdraw breaks all snares and roots, heals, AND dodges. HIS cures poison, burning and bleeding, grants stealth, AND grants regen. It has the longest activation time, and most importantly, does nothing to mitigate damage when used – Both Withdraw and HiS have secondary components that help you deal with being targeted – a dodge or stealth. If you SoM while being targeted (and manage to get it off with its long cast), you’re still getting beat down just the same once you’re done.

Yes, you’ve done an excellent job of explaining why SoM’s non-active damage mitigation mainly takes place prior to activating and the other two healing skill’s non-active damage mitigation takes place after activating the skill, but not why this is a bad thing. I think it is great that this tactical variety is available. Two of our healing skills function best under fire and help mitigate damage for a time after the burst heal, one of our healing skills helps mitigate damage constantly as long as you’re aggressive but the passive mitigation stops after dropping the burst. It is a better healing paradigm than most professions get, and a great way to support different play styles.

I’m not arguing that the cast time of SoM doesn’t make SoM weaker, just that it is logically and consistently designed to be that way, and SoM is still powerful despite it. It could be changed to make it more powerful, but at what cost?

How about adding a Trait for thieves, similar to what an Elementalist has, Written in Stone? Keep the passive effects of the signets, even while they are on cooldown.

Put this trait deep in the Critical Strikes tree, so that you have to build for it, and it isn’t a freebie.

Albane.8367:

How about adding a Trait for thieves, similar to what an Elementalist has, Written in Stone? Keep the passive effects of the signets, even while they are on cooldown.

Put this trait deep in the Critical Strikes tree, so that you have to build for it, and it isn’t a freebie.

That would be great because of all our other traits, most of them are nerfed anyways.

Yes, you’ve done an excellent job of explaining why SoM’s non-active damage mitigation mainly takes place prior to activating and the other two healing skill’s non-active damage mitigation takes place after activating the skill, but not why this is a bad thing.

But, you just alluded to the problem in your own post?

one of our healing skills helps mitigate damage constantly as long as you’re aggressive but the passive mitigation stops after dropping the burst.

Why would you ever need to drop your burst unless the damage you were being dealt was larger than your regeneration? You wouldn’t.

So the only time you would need the active heal in combat is a scenario where you are heavily damaged. Following? NOW, as a thief you have a few options in this scenario, you could stealth to break aggro, dodge to get out of aoe, or use condition removal. A combination of those options are represented in the other two healing skills. So what is SoM left with?

A burst of healing. Which is great! Sometimes you can go a long way with that extra 3000 health. One problem. While you are casting this heal you are left completely vulnerable to knock down, fear, daze, interrupt, pull, spike damage, etc. FOR 1.25 SECONDS. Your thief literally raises his hand and signals “pleas hit me!". And even if you manage to activate SoM, the healing is so low(which only receives 50% from Healing Power) that if you are disengaging from combat because your passive heal is being out damaged, chances are you would lose 3000 damage in the time it took you to activate SoM.

So in all rational thought, it makes more sense to just use dodge/stealth with utilities and hope you can be removed from combat. THEREFORE, making SoM only useful outside of combat. Wait? 2+2= a bad activation time left over from beta that didn’t update with the skill change. SO, how do we fix this without making the skill overpowered?

Oh! Oh! I have an idea! Why don’t you just reduce the activation time so you can receive your healing more reliably when you need it? Like you know, how it’s supposed to work.

Hmmmmm, it’s almost like I’ve heard this all before on a first post somewhere… oh well, waste of time on deaf ears.

Clovis.7386:

Yes, you’ve done an excellent job of explaining why SoM’s non-active damage mitigation mainly takes place prior to activating and the other two healing skill’s non-active damage mitigation takes place after activating the skill, but not why this is a bad thing.

But, you just alluded to the problem in your own post?

one of our healing skills helps mitigate damage constantly as long as you’re aggressive but the passive mitigation stops after dropping the burst.

Why would you ever need to drop your burst unless the damage you were being dealt was larger than your regeneration? You wouldn’t.

So the only time you would need the active heal in combat is a scenario where you are heavily damaged. Following? NOW, as a thief you have a few options in this scenario, you could stealth to break aggro, dodge to get out of aoe, or use condition removal. A combination of those options are represented in the other two healing skills. So what is SoM left with?

A burst of healing. Which is great! Sometimes you can go a long way with that extra 3000 health. One problem. While you are casting this heal you are left completely vulnerable to knock down, fear, daze, interrupt, pull, spike damage, etc. FOR 1.25 SECONDS. Your thief literally raises his hand and signals “pleas hit me!". And even if you manage to activate SoM, the healing is so low(which only receives 50% from Healing Power) that if you are disengaging from combat because your passive heal is being out damaged, chances are you would lose 3000 damage in the time it took you to activate SoM.

So in all rational thought, it makes more sense to just use dodge/stealth with utilities and hope you can be removed from combat. THEREFORE, making SoM only useful outside of combat. Wait? 2+2= a bad activation time left over from beta that didn’t update with the skill change. SO, how do we fix this without making the skill overpowered?

Oh! Oh! I have an idea! Why don’t you just reduce the activation time so you can receive your healing more reliably when you need it? Like you know, how it’s supposed to work.

Hmmmmm, it’s almost like I’ve heard this all before on a first post somewhere… oh well, waste of time on deaf ears.

The thing is, by the time it takes you to use SoM, you usually are taking 3 times the damage you needed to heal, because the heal amount is literally 2-3 times less then the other heals, with almost a bigger cast time.

Daecollo.9578:

The thing is, by the time it takes you to use SoM, you usually are taking 3 times the damage you needed to heal, because the heal amount is literally 2-3 times less then the other heals, with almost a bigger cast time.

While that is true in a lot of high lvl content, I was being modest so that it could apply to combat encounters across the board, but the principles remain the same.

ALSO, I like the idea for a written in stone trait. But not in the critical trait line. They have too many good traits as is. Vit could lose hard to catch and gain this trait.

I actually think it should be in the critical strikes tree, just because it has such good traits.

D/D would want Executioner or Stealth 100% Criticals, but for other non-stealth type weapons like P/P and S/P this would be awesome, and really, we need more help for these builds.

1. While you are engaged on a target SoM’s passive provides heal throughput.

2. When you are disengaged from a target, you cannot use SoM’s passive. Therefore SoM’s active provides a supplemental option. When you are disengaged from a target, you are unlikely to be greatly affected by the activation time.

SoM’s active is a non-“I am actively engaged in direct combat” mechanic. Think of it that way, instead of as a “burst heal”, and re-consider its balance.

Perhaps the active should heal for more raw health, but over 3-5s. Shrug. I don’t know, but I also know that the activation time is integral to the concept of the ability and that shortening it won’t really help a huge amount (since you are deactivating the passive).

Clovis.7386:

Why would you ever need to drop your burst unless the damage you were being dealt was larger than your regeneration? You wouldn’t.

Your post continues on this false assertion.

If you were stealthed and wanted to heal but don’t want to lose stealth by attacking.
If you were disengaging and wanted to heal while running away.
If your target disengages or is otherwise unattackable but you still need healing.
If you want whatever traited benefits you gain from SoM and are burning it for those benefits instead of primarily as a healing measure.

All viable situations to burn the SoM active. You’re trying to use a screw to hammer in nails and finding it ineffective. Grab a hammer for that role, the screwdriver is quite good at what it does. SoM isn’t built to be a big burst of healing that heals hard enough to counteract its lack of stealth/condition removal, and frankly it’d be overpowered if it was.

The three heal skills are one of the most elegantly balanced parts of the entire profession, it is not a balance that would be good to upset.

You guys are repeating the disengaged scenario I already mentioned.

The active is useless unless you are not being attacked. I’ve already said as much.

Lowering the activation time would allow the skill to remain the same while also being slightly more useful in a scenario where you are being attacked. It makes the skill more useful without making it overpowered. Oy vai.

The active is not useless when you are being attacked. It’s still healing you once in 15/12 seconds for a modest ‘burst’ amount.

The active only has a direct cost / issue when you are actually attacking — because you are trading your heals per strike.

Of course, it could probably be shortened by 0.25s or something just because it’s annoying. Annoying is not a really objective statement about balance though.

This would be a “QOL” change, not a “fix” or a “needed buff”.

Signet of malice really only works one way. If you have a lot of hits to make. But you also have to know what counts as a “hit” for it.

Every tick from Shortbow skill #4 heals you per enemy hit.

Beleive same goes for caltrops from trait or utility.

Dagger storm, dear lyssa what a heal.

Death blossom, each enemy hit heals you.

Combine something like Signet of Malice with the trait that heals you per initiative spent and you will see how effective the passive is. As for the Active, it really should have a quicker activation time or be slightly more influenced by healing power. As it stands, it is pointless to use the active unless you just defeated a mob and it’s DoT is about to kill you.

Or you’re running away and you don’t want to risk death from a Kill Shot or <insert random ranged attack>.