Guild Wars 2

I have Runes of Strength on my armour so I have Sigils of Strength on my non-gs weapons since with the trait my GS already gives might on crit, but point is I’ve been running
Sigils of Strength + Sigils of Air
On GS: Sigil of Air + Bloodlust or Force

Basically my question is should I swap the Air out for Force on my non-GS weapons?

Example: Sigil of Strength + Sigil of Force

Now I’m not the biggest expert when it comes to Warrior or PvE but since this would most likely have to do with raids, I’d suggest no, that’s not a great idea. Warriors will mainly want to be on their GS for the fast attacks and the ability to stack might quickly, but the second set is extremely circumstantial (Mace/Shield for hard CC) and will generally lower the DPS dramatically. Air offers decent DPS while Force would possibly decrease the DPS (mace isn’t known for majestic numbers), so I don’t recommend it.

Helasia.6871:

Now I’m not the biggest expert when it comes to Warrior or PvE but since this would most likely have to do with raids, I’d suggest no, that’s not a great idea. Warriors will mainly want to be on their GS for the fast attacks and the ability to stack might quickly, but the second set is extremely circumstantial (Mace/Shield for hard CC) and will generally lower the DPS dramatically. Air offers decent DPS while Force would possibly decrease the DPS (mace isn’t known for majestic numbers), so I don’t recommend it.

This wasn’t specifically for Raiding and my second set is Axe/Shield or Rifle depending on what I’m doing, but oki thanks

It depends a lot on your crit chance and hit rate which depends on the weapon. For rifle you will definitely want Force, but Axe is better with Air. Even in that case you will want a crit chance of +50%.

But I suspect you play with a berserker setup anyway, so just stick with Air on that Axe. On rifle it’s likely that you will only proc the Air Sigil once every Volley so you would be better off with a Force Sigil.

Yannir.4132:

It depends a lot on your crit chance and hit rate which depends on the weapon. For rifle you will definitely want Force, but Axe is better with Air. Even in that case you will want a crit chance of +50%.

But I suspect you play with a berserker setup anyway, so just stick with Air on that Axe. On rifle it’s likely that you will only proc the Air Sigil once every Volley so you would be better off with a Force Sigil.

So the slower weapons will be better off with Force? Thankies!

force is bleh for most instances. if your are dealing very high numbers though in a sustained dps type role….it has its place. Thats why rifle was suggested as a usage for force since the hits are usually from 10-25+k.

Easiest way to think of it is count up the total damage you do (in general) during 3 second intervals or however long it takes u to proc air usually. If force is higher….go with force over air.

For run and gun pvp type fights air is better generally since you can’t do sustained dps on anyone of value. Its more tap here…wait a bit….tap there….type of fighting. And air is superior given its only drawback is a cd between procs.

Consider also the air gives an adrenaline proc. Really air is the safest bet if you just dont know, can’t go wrong with it atm. When you consider things like fire, thats when you consider whether force is a better option.

Also we dont know what you are running and for what u are running it for. Like whats ur other weapon other than gs? whats ur gear? those are all important things to consider.
I mean in most cases having 2 sigils of air on ur build is a waste. Most would put hydromacy on their gs if they are swapping to and from it enough.

Like I put air+force on my rifle and hydro+bloodlust on my gs. for what I do (wvsw) thats really the best damage combination for a spvp sniper build.

Cerby.1069:

force is bleh for most instances. if your are dealing very high numbers though in a sustained dps type role….it has its place. Thats why rifle was suggested as a usage for force since the hits are usually from 10-25+k.

Easiest way to think of it is count up the total damage you do (in general) during 3 second intervals or however long it takes u to proc air usually. If force is higher….go with force over air.

For run and gun pvp type fights air is better generally since you can’t do sustained dps on anyone of value. Its more tap here…wait a bit….tap there….type of fighting. And air is superior given its only drawback is a cd between procs.

Consider also the air gives an adrenaline proc. Really air is the safest bet if you just dont know, can’t go wrong with it atm. When you consider things like fire, thats when you consider whether force is a better option.

Also we dont know what you are running and for what u are running it for. Like whats ur other weapon other than gs? whats ur gear? those are all important things to consider.
I mean in most cases having 2 sigils of air on ur build is a waste. Most would put hydromacy on their gs if they are swapping to and from it enough.

Like I put air+force on my rifle and hydro+bloodlust on my gs. for what I do (wvsw) thats really the best damage combination for a spvp sniper build.

Oh okay that makes more sense,
I’m in full Zerker and generally run GS with a switch to Shield/Axe or Mace or Rifle depending on situation, most of the time I’m in Fractals or PvE
Sigils atm is Air and Force on GS, Strength on Shield, Strength on Rifle, Air on Axe, nothing on mace (haven’t bought an Air for it yet), and Air on Rifle

Force shouldn’t even be a consideration for most of ur gametypes then. I would only stick force on when you want raw power and lightning isn’t applicable, or when u alrdy have lightning and need something to fill the last space (what i do).

If your group isn’t hitting 25 might stacks…..put strength sigil on ur gs.

Gs:
-Strength (shared might beats you having +150 power…..ur first proc gives 150 power amongst a 5 man group afterall, 5×30)
-Air probably (im not sure but it might proc might from strength and/or greatsword trait or food, definitely want it if it does).

Offhand:
-bloodlust (or whatever on-kill sigil)
-generally a sigil swap (hydromacy or earth for mobs) if ur offhand isn’t doing the primary damage. Otherwise get what ur group needs most. If you needed more tank for example (since ur running shield in some of them) go for sigil of energy….that also does damage with reckless dodge. Or a leeching of some kind or interrupt leech…you have many options depending on how u play. Speed run groups……you should probably just look online on metabattle or elsewhere and see the kind of sigils they run and copy them where needed.

ya even with the info u gave i can only give vague general recommendation still haha. check out the build editor and run through the sigils, look up any of the wiki u don’t know about if you haven’t already. there isn’t much option for direct damage though unfortunately.

Intresting topic. I didn´t count numbers and use force in my GS for my WvW roamign build. I fighty mostly with the GS due to second set is for mobility. I am not full zerker so you say it´s better to run air. I still do good bursts at 7k arch divider and 10k hits afterwards and so if i activate zerk mode force seems quite good. I estimate after zerk activation might add 1k damage in about 1s timeframe when i do about three strong hits. So hmmm

I suppose I’m not really getting the reasoning for using air over force. Force being a flat 5% damage boost and air is a 50% chance on crit (which is basically always if you geared out right) to do a lightning strike every 3 seconds. Why not just run strength and force runes on everything?

why not just run strength and force runes on everything?

I’m assuming you meant strength runes and force sigils. Just calculate ur normal damage output over 10 seconds or so with an air sigil. Then calculate what an extra 5% of your normal damage yields, and compare that with air’s 3 procs damage.
5% of a 10k hit is 500 damage……hitting with lightning though is gonna net you 1-2k damage if it procs. It should be easy to see how in pvp and spvp, where bursts and every hit possible really count, that air is a better choice. air also gives an extra adrenaline proc…..so 3 extra adrenaline every 10 seconds.

Then you have other options like fire. Why is fire viable? cause it can proc 4-5 adrenaline on a multi target hit. It only does like 500-1k damage, kinda like force does. but thats still a potential 5×5 = 2500 damage and 5 adrenaline procs vs just 500 damage when you do a 10k hit on some1.

Really, by that logic fire and air are always superior to force in specific situations except when you aren’t criting or when you potentially are in a specific situation where you have perma quickness and are doing rapid hits on a target that isn’t avoiding them.

So look at what specific situations you run into the most, and which ones you need the most damage for…..
Air is always the safest option of the 3 though.

Cerby.1069:

why not just run strength and force runes on everything?

I’m assuming you meant strength runes and force sigils. Just calculate ur normal damage output over 10 seconds or so with an air sigil. Then calculate what an extra 5% of your normal damage yields, and compare that with air’s 3 procs damage.
5% of a 10k hit is 500 damage……hitting with lightning though is gonna net you 1-2k damage if it procs. It should be easy to see how in pvp and spvp, where bursts and every hit possible really count, that air is a better choice. air also gives an extra adrenaline proc…..so 3 extra adrenaline every 10 seconds.

Then you have other options like fire. Why is fire viable? cause it can proc 4-5 adrenaline on a multi target hit. It only does like 500-1k damage, kinda like force does. but thats still a potential 5×5 = 2500 damage and 5 adrenaline procs vs just 500 damage when you do a 10k hit on some1.

Really, by that logic fire and air are always superior to force in specific situations except when you aren’t criting or when you potentially are in a specific situation where you have perma quickness and are doing rapid hits on a target that isn’t avoiding them.

So look at what specific situations you run into the most, and which ones you need the most damage for…..
Air is always the safest option of the 3 though.

To my knowledge this was a PvE thread, not sure why PVP was brought up (rune choices in PVP are vastly different, but yes often include air if you’re running a power build).

Anyways no I didn’t mean Strength runes and Force Sigils, I meant Strength Sigils vs Air Sigils. You’re right that on a 10k hit you’re going to net 500 extra damage with a force sigil whereas an air sigil will net you a 1.1 damage coefficient based on unarmed weapon strength of 690.5, which is somewhere between 1 and 2k. However that proc is only every 3 seconds on crit. But with your average zerker meta build, every hit should crit, so assume every 3 seconds you’re getting a little over 1k hit. Now also assume that with your average meta build you’re pushing a little over 20k dps with realistic buffs and rotation (not hard to maintain). Meaning force should be a bonus of roughly 1k dps to Superior Sigil of Air’s 1k ish (lets say 1.5k for the sake of math) spread over 3 seconds, being 500 dps. Using this logic, I’d wager it’s a safe bet to run force/strength sigils on both sets UNLESS you don’t need help with might (rev in party for example), in which case then you’d want to run force and air.

Sazdek.6830:

Cerby.1069:

why not just run strength and force runes on everything?

I’m assuming you meant strength runes and force sigils. Just calculate ur normal damage output over 10 seconds or so with an air sigil. Then calculate what an extra 5% of your normal damage yields, and compare that with air’s 3 procs damage.
5% of a 10k hit is 500 damage……hitting with lightning though is gonna net you 1-2k damage if it procs. It should be easy to see how in pvp and spvp, where bursts and every hit possible really count, that air is a better choice. air also gives an extra adrenaline proc…..so 3 extra adrenaline every 10 seconds.

Then you have other options like fire. Why is fire viable? cause it can proc 4-5 adrenaline on a multi target hit. It only does like 500-1k damage, kinda like force does. but thats still a potential 5×5 = 2500 damage and 5 adrenaline procs vs just 500 damage when you do a 10k hit on some1.

Really, by that logic fire and air are always superior to force in specific situations except when you aren’t criting or when you potentially are in a specific situation where you have perma quickness and are doing rapid hits on a target that isn’t avoiding them.

So look at what specific situations you run into the most, and which ones you need the most damage for…..
Air is always the safest option of the 3 though.

To my knowledge this was a PvE thread, not sure why PVP was brought up (rune choices in PVP are vastly different, but yes often include air if you’re running a power build).

Anyways no I didn’t mean Strength runes and Force Sigils, I meant Strength Sigils vs Air Sigils. You’re right that on a 10k hit you’re going to net 500 extra damage with a force sigil whereas an air sigil will net you a 1.1 damage coefficient based on unarmed weapon strength of 690.5, which is somewhere between 1 and 2k. However that proc is only every 3 seconds on crit. But with your average zerker meta build, every hit should crit, so assume every 3 seconds you’re getting a little over 1k hit. Now also assume that with your average meta build you’re pushing a little over 20k dps with realistic buffs and rotation (not hard to maintain). Meaning force should be a bonus of roughly 1k dps to Superior Sigil of Air’s 1k ish (lets say 1.5k for the sake of math) spread over 3 seconds, being 500 dps. Using this logic, I’d wager it’s a safe bet to run force/strength sigils on both sets UNLESS you don’t need help with might (rev in party for example), in which case then you’d want to run force and air.

pve was never specified for this thread (look through it). but ya if im cleaving 5 silvers in a corner with my gs then lightning is gonna be inferior to force…it only hits 1 of the 5 and im landing rapid successions of hits over an extended period of time.

It was in the second comment and in the third comment OP replied with saying “not raids specifically”. Context clues help.

Sazdek.6830:

It was in the second comment and in the third comment OP replied with saying “not raids specifically”. Context clues help.

…? You just repeated what I said though. Pve was never specified. He/she said not raids specificallly…..raids are a specific form of pve, that has nothing to do with the rest of pve/wvsw/pvp/spvp/whatever.

Those context clues meant nothing other than “not raids specifically” lol