Signet of Malice
Mostly due to a lack of condition healing otherwise. Most thieves use hide in shadows for mostly that reason.
SoM is pretty own with Assassin’s Reward and Sigil of Blood
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Is there really so little condition removal that we’re forced to use Hide in Shadows?
Yes, it’s the condition removal problem. Unless you have Shadow’s Embrace (Shadow Arts – 10 pt) and use at least x1 ability that generates Stealth, you’re going to have to “waste” at least x1 skill slot or more for DOT (Bleed, Burn, Poison) removal. Since most people don’t use the Sword (or don’t want to burn through that much Initiative for condition wiping), we’re left with Hide in Shadows as our Heal #6.
We do have some condition removal in our Utility skill slots. However most of the Thief builds that I’ve seen are just starved for Utility skills, so it’s really hard justifying your condition removal in those slots unless those specific skill are exactly what you need. The whole reason that I’m using Superior Runes of Lyssa on my Venomous Aura character is for the condition removal. While the Lyssa’s buffs are nice, it’s conditions that are my main concern.
EDIT
On a side note, I’ve always felt that Hide in Shadows was also pretty much required for any PvE who doesn’t normally use a Stealth generating skill. With all of the various PvE needs for an aggro wiping power, HiS just fullfills too many useful functions for your standard PvE Thief (or a PvP / WvW Stealth build).
We are Test Group F. (Don’t ask about what happened to the previous Test Groups.)
(edited by Wiser with Age.3714)
I use HiS because not only does it heal me and give regeneration, it also puts me in stealth, drops aggro, blinds nearby enemies, gives me 2 stacks of might for 25 seconds, and heals me for ~350 while I stay in stealth. Also, it’s always good.
With my build, I’d have to get ~75 hits for the SoM passive to be equal to one HiS. I usually don’t get 75 hits off in one PvE encounter. I’d rather take HiS because it doesn’t rely on having multiple enemies to hit, and because it does so much more than just heal.
The best heal to use all depends on how well it synergizes with your build. As Dacromir noted, a heavy stealth setup is going to benefit a lot more from the stealth that HiS provides. Signet of Malice benefits heavily from a high hit volume setup, as well as builds that benefit from signet use. Some of the other posts have pointed out how the SoM doesn’t provide stealth or condition removal. These are issues with specific weapon sets, but anything x/D provides stealth and S/x provides easy condition removal, as well as dodge-heavy builds utilizing Signet of Agility. If you’re running these things you don’t need HiS to fill gaps and SoM gets a more favorable comparison.
That said, none of the other heals can touch Signet of Malice in terms of raw healing potential, but that doesn’t always mean that SoM is the best choice.
SoM all the way here. 15 second cooldown compared to 30 seconds? Yes please.
I can heal twice for every one time from a HiS user.
With my build, I’d have to get ~75 hits for the SoM passive to be equal to one HiS.
You do realize you just compared the passive effect of SoM to HiS?
Are you trying to say that SoM passively does a comparable amount of healing as HiS does actively?
Are you trying to say that SoM passively does a comparable amount of healing as HiS does actively?
Depends on the situation, but I can definitely say that in the vast majority of PvE situations I get >150 hits per minute, which is the stated break-even point for SoM’s passive and HiS active.
(edited by Tulisin.6945)
Depends on the situation, but I can definitely say that in the vast majority of PvE situations I get >150 hits per minute, which is the stated break-even point for SoM’s passive and HiS active.
I feel like I get very similar numbers, between the fast attack of d/d and bleeds+poison or the ability to hit multiple targets with the sword I just feel like SoM is better overall for PvE healing.
condition removal problems can be gone by traiting for Pain Response in the Acrobatics line, (Slowed pulse is not as good) which means you can then go for signet of malice
You can also remove conditions once every 3 secs in stealth by traiting for it in the shadow arts line which can be triggered by using cloak and dagger or any stealth utility such as blinding powder.
These traits allow you to use signet of malice and have condition removal
the malice itself is great for slowing down a bleed or poison as your healing while getting bleeded or poisoned when you attack
(edited by Webley.1295)
I find the “on use” heal effect of Malice to be too weak and the lack of condition removal is detrimental.
Malice is ok if if suits your build and you stack a lot of self-healing and fast, frequent attacks. But it only works well if your in a controlled environment.
This isn’t always the case in PvE and never in PvP.
We’d need much more Vitality and many more hitpoints to get much out of SoM. Currently our limited HP pool just doesn’t allow us to wait for a lot of the self-healing to kick in.
SoM is pretty awesome on a condition build if you get the Vigor on heal trait. You have pretty much perma self-healing with Caltrops, Choking Gas, Cluster Bomb, Death Blossom and kinda fast melee dagger swings.
If you feel like you need the active effect, you get a 10s Vigor for more dodging to make up for the loss of self-healing. For me it’s much more enjoyable to play with SoM than with HiS. But that’s probably just me.
But it only works well if your in a controlled environment.
Maybe if you refuse to use the active. Even without traiting towards signets the active heal on SoM rivals either of the other heals for burst healing in a pinch. It isn’t one or the other, SoM gets both amazing passive heals and active burst when you need it. The tradeoff is no condition removal or stealth.
You’re right that SoM requires a more controlled environment, but the phrasing makes it seem like such a thing is out of the thief’s hands. Control your environment and reap more benefits.
shadow embrace + signet of malice=win
SoM is a beastly skill.
I use it in my D/D, S/P build with Assassin’s Reward and I don’t use Caltrops (usually).
Haste+DS+SoM=full heal, lots of AoE dps
Haste+PW+SoM=10k AoE dmg, lots of heal
then you have DB+SoM which heals a good 1-2k
And with the speed daggers attack at that means I heal 300-400 health for every auto-attack cycle.
SoM is highly underrated but it’s more of a niche ability. If you build for the self-healing thief using Assassin’s Reward and SoM you’ll have some amazing survivability that rivals Guardians.
You do realize you just compared the passive effect of SoM to HiS?
Are you trying to say that SoM passively does a comparable amount of healing as HiS does actively?
Well… yeah. The SoM active heal is trash for my build, and even with most builds it’s worse than HiS and far worse than Withdraw. If you can use the SoM active heal exactly on cooldown, it will heal slightly more than HiS. However, you’ll spend 150% more time casting SoM than you will HiS, and if you can’t get that heal off every 15s on the spot or if its long cast time gets interrupted, it drops horribly in efficiency.
If you’re going to be using a healing skill every 15s, Withdraw will serve your purposes far better. Rather than having a long cast time, it casts instantly and evades well casting. SoM active forces you to spend 5 seconds every minute casting, whereas Withdraw forces you to spend ~4s every minute evading.
In my opinion, SoM is good for:
- Active heal with a signet build.
- Passive heal for any build with a high hit volume. Requires either constant AoE or attacks like Unload and Pistol Whip.
Withdraw is good for:
- Mobility and highest total healing.
- A guaranteed heal (can’t be interrutped, evades while casting).
- Builds that give you some bonus when you heal and require you to heal frequently.
HiS is good for:
- Builds that benefit from stealth
- PvP (it’s a great escape skill)
- Condition removal
I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of SoM, but HiS has it’s place too. it really comes down to your playstyle. A backstab build isn’t going to want SoM, nor is a P/D bleed build. But a Deathblossom bleed build, or an unload or S/P build will want it. Sometimes I switch depending on what i’m about to do. The other heal, the third one… yeah I can’t figure out what to do with that thing.
Tell Anet’s boss what you think: http://tinyurl.com/arkgzku
The other heal, the third one… yeah I can’t figure out what to do with that thing.
Well Withdraw has the highest total healing of the three healing skills (except for SoM with 160+ hits per minute). It also has a guaranteed success. HiS and SoM active have a cast time and an obvious blue animation that means you’re healing, so they can be interrupted. There can also be times where they’re off cooldown but you can’t use them right away (say, you need to dodge or you need to interrupt the enemy or something). Withdraw cannot be interrupted because you’re evading while you cast it. Not only do you get healed, you get immunity to everything for about a second.
It’s best with a ranged build. It breaks movement-impairing effects on you, so it makes it much easier to kit the enemy. It also opens quite a big gap (rolls ~450"). When you’re melee, I’ve found that it’s not really worth it because it forces you to give up your position. If you’re fighting someone who’s trying to kite you, Withdraw will put you far away from them.
It also works well if you grab traits, food, or runes that give you _ when you use a healing skill, because of its ultra-short cooldown.
I’ve progressed from HiS to Withdraw to SoM. IMO in general PvE nothing really beats the signet. Pull out the sword which hits many enemies at once if you stack them which is hugely useful against event mobs where hordes of enemies spawn. My bro who is a guardian sitting next to me watched about 15 mobs gather on me as we were trying to duo the lyssa event which quickly drained my life away initially…..then came pistol whip and i went from 25% to full in 2 seconds….he was stun’d and said all he saw was countless 100, 100, 100 fly along my screen. Against large stacks of mobs you are nearly invincible with it passive
it also helps against those dungeon mobs with retaliation…
(edited by Walker.2184)
SoM is clearly better with some setups than with others, which is fine. However, I do feel that HiS is slightly above-average as a default heal skill while SoM is slightly below-average as a Signet/passive heal skill. I tend to feel that the heal/hit on SoM is a little on the low side and that HiS has some hard-to-pass-up utility.
absolutely…i would probably never use SoM with a d/d build for instance….it is nice to have a selection of heals to fit the situation
I take it not many people use a sword, because Infiltrator’s Strike is free on-the-spot condition removal, available almost at all times.
Gnome Child [Gc]
Resident Thief
Resident Thief
SoM is clearly better with some setups than with others, which is fine. However, I do feel that HiS is slightly above-average as a default heal skill while SoM is slightly below-average as a Signet/passive heal skill. I tend to feel that the heal/hit on SoM is a little on the low side and that HiS has some hard-to-pass-up utility.
SoM is so very effective with high hit volume that altering it might make it too powerful in some situations. It runs into the same issues that venoms have in that they’re balanced around people using them to their fullest so someone casually throwing it into a non-synergized build will find it mediocre.
I take it not many people use a sword, because Infiltrator’s Strike is free on-the-spot condition removal, available almost at all times.
I use S/D, but my initiative regen is fairly low and I can’t afford to remove conditions with IS. 5? per condition is way too much of a cost, especially when it might remove a cripple or something which is hurting me but not nearly as much as the damaging conditions. HiS is guaranteed to remove all damaging conditions on you, and you don’t have to worry about it removing the 3s weakness in stead of the ten stacks of bleeding.
I always engage starting off with IS from a distance to make quick escapes and break conditions before re-engaging, rinse + repeat. It’s worked wonders in dungeons etc.
Gnome Child [Gc]
Resident Thief
Resident Thief
@Dacromir
Thanks for the info on Withdraw (or is it withdrawl lulz) I may actually use it now.
Tell Anet’s boss what you think: http://tinyurl.com/arkgzku