Guild Wars 2

Another topic I’ve wondered is what do others here think of the signets?

Honestly it feels like they were built for leveling at first but when people reached 80 they started to become questionmarks, at least some.

Healing signet
Regen? What is th- and you’re dead. Oh let me just activa… 3000 heal.. oh… ohhh…. ;_;

Signet Of Might
For what it’s worth, it’s nice for solo content but for great justice is a nobrainer for any group situation which in might becomes worthless, really. That and fury is nice.. I barely use this but I can’t say it’s bad per se. In dungeons/wvw/grouping it just feels like youre doing less for the group by holding on to it since the FGJ affects everybody and does A TON more by doing that.

Signet Of Stamina
This is actually a very good one for a lot of pve situations due increased dodging. Cooldown is long, even if you consider full condi removal. Honestly, how often do you have all conditions? When does it really become effective as compared to mending or shake it off? I feel activating this is pointless, even at desperate situations since you lose that dodge increase for whatever it is you needed it. (shaman fractal anyone)

Dolyak Signet
I don’t feel the 100 toughness when I play this on, the increase from it feels very insignificant. The active mode is nice but, one, it’s not a stunbreaker like balanced stance and two, the cd is too long.

Signet Of Fury
4% crit chance increase is o k I guess as passive. Active mode is fantastic. I like it.

Signet Of Rage
Nothing to say. It does what it’s supposed to.

Of course there’s the cool trait that gives 40 prec for keeping signets passive but that became a bit irrelevant since omnoms got nerfed and signet of healing just can’t keep up alone. The insane critting was the thing that kept you alive along with the healing signet..

Also decreased CD for signets as trait is also something to consider but I feel the 20% won’t cut it at all. It’s only nice for Signet Of Rage and nothing more honestly..

what are signets? I thought there were only 6 useful warrior utils! THIS IS ALL NEW TO ME OMFG!!!?!?!?!?!?!?

I feel Signets has room to improve. The devs have improved the banners and they still are pretty useful for team-wide stat buffing that you can’t get from other utilities.

Some people want the passives improved (and I’d say some need to as well), but I’d prefer the actives to be improved. When you get to a certain point, relying on stat boosts for having all signets is a detriment as you need stun breakers, CC, cleansing and all that good stuff. So why not add to the actives instead of the passives? Make them useful somehow as click burst effects.

For ideas in what to do, I’ve suggested one avenue before. To me, it seems like stat mod utilities are kind of Warrior’s niche, especially with the banners. I’d love for that to be taken into the signets, giving their click effects something like +% to a stat…basically, buffs that can’t be removed and amplified by boons.

My previous suggestion was this:

Dolyak Signet
Passive: Same as now.
Active: Gain stability (8s). Improves boon duration and lowers duration of conditions on you (15s)

Healing Signet
Passive: Maybe improved a bit.
Active: Heal yourself. Improves healing power, 10% Toughness and 10% Vitality become a bonus to Healing power (20s).

Signet of Fury
Passive: Possibly a bit more precision, like 120.
Active: Gain adrenaline. Go on a rampage for every bar of adrenaline used(15s). Each bar of adrenaline grants 2sec of rampage. Rampage = grow larger and red, gain stability, gain 25% bonus to power and HP. Note: you can still use your own weapon skills, not the ones you get during Rampage.

Signet of Might
Passive: Should also improve condition damage.
Active: Gain might. 10% of Power and 10% of Condition Damage is given as a bonus to Toughness (15s).

Signet of Stamina
Passive: Same as it is now.
Active: Cure all conditions. Gain a 2.5% bonus to all stats for each condition removed (15s)

Signet of Rage
Passive: Same as now.
Active: Gain fury, might, and swiftness. Share fury with allies around you.

Granted, yeah, those numbers might be a bit over the top, but it was more an example. For instance, you mentioned “when am I going to have all conditions for Sig of stamina?” and I agree. You’re likely only using it when you have an insane amount of bleed or like 4+ conditions. Regardless how many conditions you remove though, adding a bonus might make that cooldown not so harsh….or if you have to click healing sig for emergency healing, it could also come with the bonus of bolstering your applied regen or your water combos until it’s off cooldown.

But yeah, that’s just my take on possible improvements to the profession and its concept.

The passive effects need improved really, not the active effects. Other active effects like “Stances” however need greatly improved. Perhaps these ideas could be stances instead?

Stances have their own problems.

Honestly, I’d say stances only really need a good trait or two to get procs off of to make them perfect.

Leo G.4501:

Stances have their own problems.

Honestly, I’d say stances only really need a good trait or two to get procs off of to make them perfect.

The entire point of signets though is there passives, there active effects should be a lot worse then other active effects, just an added bonus.

Daecollo.9578:

Leo G.4501:

Stances have their own problems.

Honestly, I’d say stances only really need a good trait or two to get procs off of to make them perfect.

The entire point of signets though is there passives, there active effects should be a lot worse then other active effects, just an added bonus.

That’s one viewpoint.

Arguably, that viewpoint isn’t true for most signets while in combat except for some of the healing signets. In more cases than not, the point of signets is to provide ‘something’ while you’re not using them but also ‘something more’ when you do.

It may be possible to give the passives some decent effects for Warriors, but unless they can fulfill something other active skills cannot do, they’ll just suffer from poor use. And to me, it’s poor design to create something you can use and punish you for it. It makes no sense. Why even give them active abilities if you get next to nothing for it?

Another means to fix that though, is a trait that gives you something for activating signets (other professions have traits that do things from granting stacks of might, to gaining fire shields, distortion and many other effects). The only trait warrior has for signet effects is keeping unused signets. Adding something like blocking attacks for a duration after using a signet would be something like I’m talking about and feel rewarding for using the signets even if the active isn’t very useful.

The point though, is actually making them useful advantageous skills. Simply buffing the passive effects doesn’t really do that, not by itself.

I’m not sure what could be done to Signets, as generaly a Banner would be better in their place.

Signet of Might and Fury (unless you got a heavy adrenaline a build, like one that focuses on Eviscerate or Kill Shot) get outdone by Banner of Discipline and Strength

Dolyak Signet gets crushed by Banner of Defense

Signet of Stamina is very good in my opinion.

As for stances, make Endure Pain give 5 seconds of Protection when it ends, Balanced Stance is fine, Frenzy just needs to have the damage you take reduced, make Berserker Stance increase damage by 20% for half the duration or make it 10% for the full duration

Daecollo.9578:

The passive effects need improved really, not the active effects. Other active effects like “Stances” however need greatly improved. Perhaps these ideas could be stances instead?

Stances need improvements? Have you seen how many people run Balanced Stance or Endure Pain?

If you ask me, Berserker Stance is the one that needs looking at.

Grok Krog.9581:

As for stances, make Endure Pain give 5 seconds of Protection when it ends, Balanced Stance is fine, Frenzy just needs to have the damage you take reduced, make Berserker Stance increase damage by 20% for half the duration

As I mentioned before, I think Stances would be about perfect if they just added to Sure Footed. Make it “Increases Stance duration and gives Protection”.

Endure Pain = the protected stance. You get something like 10sec of Protection from using EP with that trait.
Balanced Stance = a steady stance. Gain 3sec of protection for each CC effect you nullify while the stance is active.
Berserker Stance = a frontline-fighter stance. Gain 3sec of protection for each Burst skill used while under its effects.
Frenzy = the raging stance. Gain protection for its duration. Basically reducing part of its penalty.

Stances are good, currently, because they break stuns too and are instant. They only need a small push to make them something really nice that you can make super strong with the right build.

Olba.5376:

Daecollo.9578:

The passive effects need improved really, not the active effects. Other active effects like “Stances” however need greatly improved. Perhaps these ideas could be stances instead?

Stances need improvements? Have you seen how many people run Balanced Stance or Endure Pain?

If you ask me, Berserker Stance is the one that needs looking at.

I think it’s partly because they are the only decent source of Stability and damage reduction on Warriors…

Frankly, Endure Pain (traited) is rather crap compared to Ranger Signet of Stone (traited, has nearly the same recharge, the same duration but Ranger gets constant toughness when it’s not in use + pet also takes no damage). Balance Stance is moderately good compared to other stability skills and the other two seem meh.

I don’t think stances are bad, but there’s nothing special about a build that revolves around stances…which is sad because that’s what I wanted to do.

Leo G.4501:

Olba.5376:

Daecollo.9578:

The passive effects need improved really, not the active effects. Other active effects like “Stances” however need greatly improved. Perhaps these ideas could be stances instead?

Stances need improvements? Have you seen how many people run Balanced Stance or Endure Pain?

If you ask me, Berserker Stance is the one that needs looking at.

I think it’s partly because they are the only decent source of Stability and damage reduction on Warriors…

As a shout warrior, it does make me sad that I would have to drop one of my three healing, condition removing shouts if I wanted Stability.

Frankly, Endure Pain (traited) is rather crap compared to Ranger Signet of Stone (traited, has nearly the same recharge, the same duration but Ranger gets constant toughness when it’s not in use + pet also takes no damage). Balance Stance is moderately good compared to other stability skills and the other two seem meh.

Rangers do have medium armor and lower health, though.

The way I see it is that the useful Stances are very situational. Sadly, Frenzy and Berserker Stance have massive issues. Frenzy is currently rather weak, but I think the nerf was necessary, CC>Frenzy>100B wasn’t even funny. Berserker Stance has far too much competition when it comes to switch adrenaline gain for a Warrior, mainly with the traits in the Discipline line and Signet of Fury/Healing Surge.

Honestly, I think Berserker Stance could use a full redesign, considering how inferior it is to the other options for gaining adrenaline. Not sure on what could be done with Frenzy, as increasing the effect duration wouldn’t really make it any more useful due to cooldowns, but I like the idea behind it: it’s our glasscannon thing.

The extra toughness they get brings them up to heavy armor rating. They have way better healing. They have way better condition removal. They also have 33% Protection.

They have almost double our armor.

Olba.5376:

The way I see it is that the useful Stances are very situational.

Hah, yeah that’s true. I think the only ‘universal’ stance is Balance Stance. Use and abuse that puppy for its stun break/stability because it’ll likely be recharged by the next time you need it…and Boon Duration improves it

Sadly, Frenzy and Berserker Stance have massive issues. Frenzy is currently rather weak, but I think the nerf was necessary, CC>Frenzy>100B wasn’t even funny. Berserker Stance has far too much competition when it comes to switch adrenaline gain for a Warrior, mainly with the traits in the Discipline line and Signet of Fury/Healing Surge.

I never really used Frenzy much…I did use Last Chance though. Seemed like a better use than that skill, IMO.

Honestly, I think Berserker Stance could use a full redesign, considering how inferior it is to the other options for gaining adrenaline. Not sure on what could be done with Frenzy, as increasing the effect duration wouldn’t really make it any more useful due to cooldowns, but I like the idea behind it: it’s our glasscannon thing.

On the subject of Berserker Stance, I’ll always suggest the solution for it being more uses for adrenaline. More uses for Adrenaline and Burst skills would create a need for that stance but I dunno what suggestions would be good and balanced…I can only keep throwing ideas at the wall and maybe someone else will think they are good ideas.

…but if not any of that then yeah, I guess reworking Ber.Stance into something else would be the other better option.

A signets build is an incredibly easy and effective when leveling, to the point that warrior do not need to learn to play. So before ‘improving’ signets some consideration should be given to when they need to function better and how that can be achieved without further breaking solo PvE.

Dolyak – Meh, would rather have the shorter cooldown stability.
Fury – I love when I’m running my sniper build.
Might – I don’t feel like it’s worth the utility slot for only more might.
Stamina – LOVE this trait. I mostly power through most conditions on my hammer build and simply dodge around and have this available when I get loaded with conditions.
Rage – Only elite I like using. And it is a pretty amazing elite since I also run rune of lyssa.

Warrior healing signet should heal percent based every second.

Oh and as for the healing signet. I do like it, but the reason I don’t use it is because the activated heal is so low. I’d rather have it on a long cooldown with a big heal than the short very small heal. Similar to the guardians healing signet that removes conditions.

You typically need a big heal in emergencies so if you get really low, you’re in pretty big trouble because now you’ve used the signet for a very small heal and lost your heal over time from it.