Guild Wars 2

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Assassin's_Signet

At 2000 power*, 180 additional power translates to roughly 9% increased damage. That’s a permanent 9%. If you activate it, you get 15% damage increase on five attacks on a kitten ** cooldown. So you basically five attacks that do 5-6% more damage, on a kitten cooldown. Is this a joke or is there absolutely no incentive to activate the signet?

You need both signet traits to make the utility even remotely viable on activation. With both the 5 might stacks (175 power) and 20% lower cd; you get the “intended” effect which should be a flat 15% bonus damage on 5 attacks, followed by lower damage for 26 seconds (36s – 10s of might equivalent to the signet passive).

Don’t get me wrong, 180 power is great for a signet, but the activation is very very underwhelming comparatively to the passive effect. Now, I do understand that anet loves their passives (oh come on – I had to), but unless you fully trait for signets, you actually LOSE damage by activating the signet.

I feel like the recent buff to signets placed this specific signet in a very weird place. What do you guys think?

*Thief builds will have anywhere from 1839 to 2304 power based on runes and traits given a power based amulet/jewel.

**FORTY FIVE SECOND – come on censorship.

Yep. The only reason to activate the signet is if you got traits that give you benefits from it.

They adjusted signets to have better passives, but didn’t bother to check the actives to see if they introduced a conflict/made something redundant. SOP for Anet.

They likely won’t increase the damage percentage on the active, but they definitely need to add something innate to the signet that makes it worth using.

evilapprentice.6379:

They adjusted signets to have better passives, but didn’t bother to check the actives to see if they introduced a conflict/made something redundant. SOP for Anet.

They likely won’t increase the damage percentage on the active, but they definitely need to add something innate to the signet that makes it worth using.

Wonder if making it bypass Protection and Aegis would be OP’d or good. They could always increase the cooldown to compensate.

Dual.8953:

evilapprentice.6379:

They adjusted signets to have better passives, but didn’t bother to check the actives to see if they introduced a conflict/made something redundant. SOP for Anet.

They likely won’t increase the damage percentage on the active, but they definitely need to add something innate to the signet that makes it worth using.

Wonder if making it bypass Protection and Aegis would be OP’d or good. They could always increase the cooldown to compensate.

Not a bad suggestion, but a bit too narrow IMO. I’d prefer something more generally useful – perhaps adding a leech effect to each strike (which would add static damage) would be good? It could help increase thief survivability (via the health leech), and increase damage in a controlled manner (you could adjust the power scaling to ensure the additional damage wasn’t over the top).

Something a little less orthodox could be interesting – For the next 5 strikes that connect, your attacks do 5% more damage, compounding. First strike does 5% more damage, next 10%, and so on. It would add a tactical layer to the whole thing (Evaded attacks would reduce the overall effectiveness of the signet, it would force you to plan out your attacks if you wanted 25% more damage on that backstab/HS, etc), though it might be a bit too cumbersome.

Dual.8953:

Wonder if making it bypass Protection and Aegis would be OP’d or good. They could always increase the cooldown to compensate.

Giving the thief a tool to bypass defensive stuff could be a solution to the problem that we need to build heavy damage stats to have meaningful effects on tanks leaving us very squishy, AND destroying anything that isn’t a tank itself.

Stuff like armor ignoring attacks like there was in GW1. Assassin signet could work like that : for 5s after activation, physical damage you do ignores Protection and counts the armor stat as for a cloth user with no toughness from stuff or traits or skills.

The point is to use the active to burst down the remaining 15% of health or so that a target has remaining – presumably, because after the target is down, you can wait for the signet to recharge.

The problem is, in most situations, you need some kind of sustainable strategy – the battle isn’t over after one kill, so in almost all situations it’s better not to activate your signet – unless you’re going to die anyway, and it gives you that tiny chance that killing your opponent first will allow you to survive.

I’d like to see a CD reduction across the board on all signets (of every class).

For Thief signets specifically, I’d love to see a trait that gives signet reset on some condition, kind of like Guardian virtues (like resetting courage on kill).

Assassin’s Signet: CD is reset when you do 10% of your targets health in a single strike.
Signet of Agility: 5% chance to reset CD on critical strike
Signet of Shadows: Reset CD when you successfully evade an attack.
Infiltrator’s Signet: Reset CD when initiative reaches full (???)

The reason that the Assassin’s Signet’s active ability seems underwhelming is because Anet had to nerf it from what it originally was, one strike with 50% extra, rather than 5 with 15%. 50% added damage to a backstab was unacceptable but Anet wasn’t gonna just destroy the whole thing, so this is the compromise.
Even as a thief, you gotta admit that 50% extra damage on a backstab is a little bit too much.

Thief signets are only good for might stacks and stats.

or they can probably give it like when active next 3 attack are unblockable or something.

We are theives. You think ANet cares about us? Think again! Dec 10 doomsday for thief!

Ha!, i was thinking that just this weekend as i browsed the signets. It’s a terrible active!

Necros get a signet which does 7k damage as an active, and we get one which actually reduces our damage output for 5 attacks.

Really?

This signet is the only utility in game, which actually punishes you for activating it. Well, Haste is on pair with it, but as opposed to the signet, you shouldn’t even put it on your utility bar (unless you are a masochist).

Still, assassin’s signet a very powerful tool for PvE, as it gives a lot of passive damage.

@edit
Sorry, I forgot about Healing Signet of warriors – it’s designed as bad as AS.