Guild Wars 2

It really seems like in taking away crit sigils you’re not only limiting my choices in building but also your own choices in balancing. For instance I would never take generosity as it is on this list because it has a 50% high icd than purity, and I don’t think potentially 50% less conditions purged is worth applying what will likely be 2-3s of a random condition. I don’t think purity and generosity can be balanced against each other by icd alone, they need different procing methods otherwise one will always be better than the other in my eyes.

If on-interrupt sigils are meant to be the replacement to on-crit sigils in pvp, they’re going to need internal cooldowns and to have a wider variety of effects than generating vuln and might.

I think it’s important to have sigils that deal PbAoE on activation, they are reliable way to clear blind spam and I think taking that away is going to be very frustrating for a lot of players. Adding a damage component to Sigil of Stagnation would be likely be the only way this sigil might be used. Similarly if Sigil of Exposure was PbAoE instead of on next strike it might be worth taking but as is I don’t see it being very good at any amount of vuln stacks. Even if the strike was reduced to be zero or effectively zero damage (I wouldn’t do this, I think it’s an awkward solution but it could be done lol) it would still provide a way to get off a strike through blind spam. Also, if you gave these sigils damage you could remove the strike from Sigil of Hydromancy to make it competitive over which one to take, the stronger cc or the blind clear.

Sigils provide all classes with a ton of complexity, just be careful what changes you make. x_x

I think a good solution would be to have damaging conditions get bonus damage from sigils, and have non-damaging conditions get bonus duration.

Chill/Vuln/Weakness duration sigils are currently +20% duration on live, so I think buffing them to 25% would be good. They would be a little more competitive for the slot and I don’t think a 5% would break any of these.

Burning/Bleeding/Poison/Torment are all +20% duration currently and I think buffing some of these by even 5% could have unintended consequences. Also as many have pointed out, due to conditions being frequently cleansed, bonus duration for bleeding will never really be equal in value to bonus duration in burning. I think if these conditions instead got bonus damage from sigils, it would be easier to balance them against each other. +10% bleeding damage IS (more or less) equal to +10% burning damage.

Not sure if it works like this in GW2 or not but if you go on a long enough win streak the system should become “unsure” of your rating and your gains should start to go up again.

charchar.2149:

This list is far better than V1 but you guys are spinning your wheels, and degrading the game by leaving out sigils like Accuracy, Transference, Water and whatever other good sigils that are getting flat out deleted.

Agreed. This list is a major improvement over the first one, but I still think this would be a regressive change. I think crit sigils and kill stacking sigils could have their damage normalized and even nerfed, but removing them takes out some complexity from the game.

I understand people see on-crit sigils as “random” but I encourage you to go into pvp and equip a 1050 or even 900 Precision amulet and sigils of fire and air and attack a target golem. You’ll see that they proc almost on cooldown. The idea of “critical hits” is RNG in the first place, but it’s weighted. Having 50% crit chance means roughly every other hit will crit, you just don’t KNOW which ones.

I personally like the idea that some sigils (specifically on hits that deal damage or apply conditions) are gated behind having a decent amount of crit chance. It prevents tanks and bruisers from getting more free damage, but allows more damage oriented builds to have good (and interesting) sigil options.

I don’t see taking out most damaging sigils as really accomplishing the goal of reducing power creep in pvp, either. I think the power budget for sigils in general is pretty small and while fire, air and blood might be overturned in live but they are not conceptually broken.

Saiyan.1704:

Why keep them?

I actually use most of them, because I think the current system has a lot of depth and complexity. The build I’ve been running all day has one On-Swap, two On-Crit, and one kill stacking sigil.

Are we going to remove unpopular amulets next until we’re all rolling Marauder’s or Viper’s? It takes time time and effort to take something out of the game, and it will undoubtedly affect PvP in some (likely small, but still important) way, to remove them because “no one is using them” is incredibly short-sighted. How does it improve balance to have us all taking the same sigils? Why not truly balance the game and only allow premade build sheets with everything chosen for you?

OriOri.8724:

And @Everyone crying about reduced diversity, not really. ANet has the numbers, most of the sigils aren’t being used currently. Just because there are more now than there will be doesn’t mean diversity will be reduced if currently players are only using a small portion of the available sigils

Shaogin.2679:

They have also stated they will be having a balance patch alongside the sigil updates. This is a huge move, but definitely a move in the right direction. You can’t even say they are simplifying things. Go take a look at something like metabattle and tell me all the sigil diversity you see there.

We all mostly use the same crap for everything because it is the best, plain and simple. This is a move to help cut out on the random proc damage and effects, get rid of the clutter of useless sigils, and start fresh with sigils that make sense.

Tell me, what sigils are you worried to see go that is making this such a big deal for you?

Why remove sigils if they aren’t being used and aren’t broken? If they aren’t used isn’t it wasted effort to remove them? Why even have this conversation? Removing options reduces player choice. You may not use many of these options but I would say I use a good 75% of sigils. And removing entire categories of sigils (kill stacking, condition duration, on crit) simplifies what a sigil is, and can do in PvP. For what purpose? I don’t think reducing power creep is a compelling reason to remove these sigils. If sustain needs to be nerfed, that can be done without trivializing sigils.

apharma.3741:

The sad part about this is that we won’t see anything till 1st May now which is nearly 2 months away. No balance patch, no sigil changes, runes changes nothing.

Yes, that’s why this is being posted now. It’s a tentative list. It’s here to be discussed because the devs obviously want feedback on it.

Honestly if these changes went through as is with basically no notice THIS patch I would stop playing PvP, at least for a while. It’s not that these changes would be game breaking, but they are unnecessarily harsh to large swaths of sigils and are basically a sign that the developers want this game to be more simple, rock-paper-scissors and that build diversity will probably continue to shrink.

Well, I made a wall of text. Originally each section had an explanation but the post was too long, so hopeful my wall speaks for itself.
/wall of text

Chance on Crit

Sigil of Fire
75% chance: Trigger a Flameblast for (400+10% Power) Damage, 240 AoE
(CD: 5s)

Sigil of Air
75% chance: Trigger a Lightning Strike for (400+20% Power) Damage,
(CD: 5s)

Sigil of Blood
50% chance: Steal life, dealing (400+10% Power) damage and healing for (300+10% Healing Power)
(CD: 5s)

Sigil of Earth
75% chance: Cause bleeding for 5s
(CD: 5s)

Sigil of Tormenting
75% chance: Cause torment for 3s
(CD: 5s)

Chance on Hit

Sigil of Strength
50% chance: Gain Might (3 Stacks, 5 Seconds)
(CD: 10s)

Sigil of Rage
50% chance: Gain Fury (5 Seconds)
(CD: 10s)

Sigil of Nullification
50% chance: Remove a Boon from your target.
(CD: 9s)

Sigil of Generosity
50% chance: Transfer a Condition to your target.
(CD: 9s)

Sigil of Frailty
50% chance: Inflict Vulnerability (10 Seconds)
(CD: 5s)

Sigil of Ice
50% chance: Inflict Chill (2 Seconds)
(CD: 5s)

Sigil of Blight
50% Chance: Inflict Weakness (3 Seconds)
(CD: 5s)

On Weapon Swap

Sigil of Agility
Gain 5 seconds of swiftness and 1 second of quickness when you swap to this weapon while in combat.
(CD: 9s)

Sigil of Battle
Gain 3 stacks of might (10 seconds) when you swap to this weapon while in combat.
(CD: 9s)

Sigil of Energy
Gain 25% of your endurance when you swap to this weapon while in combat.
(CD: 9s)

Sigil of Cleansing
Remove 1 condition when you swap to this weapon while in combat.
(CD: 9s)

Sigil of Doom
Your next attack after you swap to this weapon while in combat inflicts Poison (5 seconds).
(CD: 9s)

Sigil of Lethargy
Your next attack after swapping to this weapon while in combat slows your target (1 Seconds).
(CD: 9s)

Sigil of Geomancy
Your next attack after you swap to this weapon while in combat inflicts 3 stacks of bleeding (5s).
(CD: 9s)

Sigil of Hydromancy
Hit nearby foes when you swap to this weapon while in combat, inflicting chill (2s) and dealing (100+10% of Power) damage (240 Radius).
(CD: 9s)

Sigil of Stagnation
Hit nearby foes when you swap to this weapon while in combat, inflicting cripple (3s) and dealing (100+10% of Power) damage (240 Radius).
(CD: 9s)

Sigil of Leeching
Steal life from nearby foes when you swap to this weapon while in combat, dealing (100+10% of Power) damage and healing (75+10% of Healing Power) (240 Radius).
(CD: 9s)

Sigil of Intelligence
Your next three attacks after swapping to this weapon while in combat have a 100% critical chance.
(CD: 9s)

Passive

Sigil of Compounding
Deal 1% extra damage per condition applied your foe.

Sigil of Punishment
Deal 1% extra damage per Boon applied to your foe.

Sigil of Anguish
Deal 1% extra damage per Condition applied to you.

Sigil of Judgement
Deal 1% extra damage per Boon applied to you.

Sigil of Ruthlessness
Critical Hits Deal 10% extra Damage

Sigil of Smouldering
Burning deals 10% more damage

Sigil of Venom
Poison deals 10% more damage

Sigil of Agony
Bleeding deals 10% more damage

On Kill

Sigil of Cruelty
Gain a charge of +10 Ferocity each time you kill a foe, five if you kill an enemy player.

Sigil of Perception
Gain a charge of +10 Precision each time you kill a foe, five if you kill an enemy player.

Sigil of Life
Gain a charge of +10 Healing Power each time you kill a foe, five if you kill an enemy player.

Sigil of Corruption
Gain a charge of +5 Expertise each time you kill a foe, five if you kill an enemy player.

Sigil of Inspiration
Gain a charge of +5 Concentration each time you kill a foe, five if you kill an enemy player.

Before I begin what will probably be a lengthy and poorly formatted post, I just want to say I’m happy this is being discussed. Even if these changes go through largely unchanged I will feel like I got to voice my opinion on it at least.

I don’t dislike most of this. I like most of the weapon swap additions, I even thought the slow sigil would have been fine if reduced to 1s, I see that as comparable to other weapon swap effects. (leeching, doom, agility) I think adding a condition cleanse on swap is actually a needed addition right. I like changing might to an on hit instead of an on crit. I think the passive sigils are well designed replacements for sigil of force and are situational, which makes them interesting.

What I really don’t like about this list is the context around it, specifically that sigils not listed here would be removed. That would mean thirty-four sigils would be removed as it stands, not including sigils listed here but changed. That, to me, seems like a large amount of sigils. I understand that these changes intend to balance out and set a table more or less for the power sigils provide, and that’s admirable, but I think that can be achieved without homogenizing build options to such a degree. 34/43 sigils currently in the game would be removing 79% of our options. Even with the additional eight sigils proposed in the OP that’s still only seventeen sigil options.

Sigils that activate on critical hits are pretty important to the game in my opinion. Having certain sigil effects gated behind actually landing critical hits is something I think is both good for balance, and something that adds a lot to making builds, it makes critting more desirable than it would be otherwise. I like changing Sigil of Might to an on hit instead, as I think might stacking isn’t something that needs to be gated behind crits. But I disagree with changing Sigil of Earth to an on hit. I think having a bleed on hit that doesn’t require landing critical hits consistently (ie, taking precision or a trait that gives you crit chance) would be giving free condition damage from a sigil that to builds that currently don’t have access to. No, it wouldn’t be game breaking but it would shift more power into builds that already have plenty.

There are many classes and many builds that do not rely on weapon swapping on maximum cooldown, or that rely on weapon swaps for special purposes and so only do it rarely. These classes are going to be punished heavily by these changes. Revs, Eles, Engis and Warriors are all going to have a ton more options to utilize to full potential, while classes like Necros, Thieves and Guardians will have a majority of their options taken away, forcing them to awkwardly use on swap sigils in many cases. There should be a set amount of dps a balanced sigil can provide if proced on CD repeatedly, only differing in means of procing (on hit, on crit, or on swap) and application (direct damage, lifesteal, conditions). Sigil of Blood might leech 450 on kitten CD and Sigil of Leeching might leech 900 on a 9s CD, but over the course of 30s they will both give the same benefit if used on cooldown, so you would take the one you think will be more be more frequently procing. The idea would be sigils are not able to be abused because everyone SHOULD be able to find sigils they can proc on CD if they are playing well. If there are builds that are excluded from using this system, people will either work around it (to their disadvantage), largely ignore the sigil system, or find a build that makes better use of weapon swaps.

I think I’m going to post my own list of proposed sigils. It might be boring to read but I think it would more clearly express what I think sigils should and should not do in pvp.

Honestly every single amulet that’s been removed from pvp. I don’t think stat combinations are ever inherently broken, I think classes can be broken and get too much benefit from certain stats. Previously the PvP team has said amulets were removed because they said it was a change they could make without affecting the rest of the game, but since then some skills have been split into PvE and PvP versions.

Specifically I’d like to see Celestial returned. I know it’s a problematic amulet for a couple reasons so I’m skeptical this will ever happen, but I think this amulet can allow for some really interesting builds. In the past I only ever remember this amulet being “broken” with d/d eles, and they’ve since been nerfed.

I’d also like to see Crusader and Vigilant returned. It was posted that the PvP team didn’t want 4 stat amulets with toughness as a primary stat in them, but I honestly can’t see why. Both of these stat combinations have niche use, even more so in pvp where you can’t mix and match equipment. Running Crusader’s requires using traits, sigils and runes for landing critical hits, and Vigilant gives condi AND boon duration without any condi damage, making it one of the most awkward stat sets to utilize. I honestly feel removing these two amulets did nothing but limit the amount of viable builds.

There are a ton of of other amulets I would like to see either added or added back, as there are quite a few niches that have no or few amulets. Healers are hurting for amulets the worst I think, with only three amulets with healing power at all. Sage (while a great amulet) has power as a major stat and healing as a minor so it’s not really suited for straight condi/healing builds like something like the old pvp Settler’s amulet was. Magi’s is more or less obsolete with Mender’s in the game. Even adding something like Dire would be a nice option but I’d really like to see something like Apothecary’s or Trailblazer’s as a condi/tank option and Minstrel’s or Nomad’s for healers.

I get why adding some of these amulets might be seen as dangerous, but I really think it can only help build diversity. Broken builds come from broken skills and traits, not stat combinations. Seeing that Marauder’s is not only allowed to be here but actually gets clones (Destroyer, Paladin) I don’t see adding these amulets as making any radical changes to the meta. If too many amulets is a concern something like a weekly amulet rotation could be established, where there are standard of maybe 7-9 (mostly 3-stat) amulets and another 7-9 (mostly 4-stat) amulets.

Phaeton.9582:

Honestly this change shows how little thought is being put into this.

This is what really bothers me about this change. Taking away ANY amulet is completely missing the target; stat combinations have never been a problem, even celestial was never an issue on its own. All amulets provide the same amount of raw stats, it’s up to the class to use (or abuse) them. Professions, traitlines, and skills are what make builds broken; the amulets being used are merely symptomatic of this.

The fact that they removed two of the least popular amulets while giving a nonsensical and nonspecific reason like “pushed gameplay in a direction that we weren’t happy with” is just insulting. They make no mention of what direction that is, or what about these amulets makes them unhappy. Claiming no 4 stat amulet should have toughness or vitality as a primary stat is equally ridiculous, as they give no reasoning or context on this idea. Why are 4 stat amulets given these constraints but not 3 stat? Mender’s was just added, so we are to assume healing power is allowed as a primary stat on these amulets, despite also being a “tank stat”? Why? Also, are supposed to ignore that all amulets with concentration have been systematically removed? Is this a coincidence or are the stated reasons something thought up after?

I can’t even begin to criticize or even conceptualize the design process when the communications director fails to deliver even the most basic ideas to us. This is the kind of Orwellian abuse of language I expect from Riot games, not Arena net.

Impact.2780:

The “we” is probably a group on the losing side of one such one-sided match. Solution is to work at getting better – because this system can indicate to you whether you need to, while the previous system just put you against others at your level so you never really knew where you stood overall.

Did you read the post? “We” is OP and his wife, and the problem isn’t a loss streak, it’s the direction the game has taken. I can’t really blame him either, the evade spam, cc spam and condi spam are at unprecedented levels across the board, and the balance team seems to think removing certain (largely unused) amulets is the way to go.

Goodbye OP, and good luck.

Instead of just insinuating like most people, I’ll directly ask:

Does ANYONE in your department actually play pvp?

I’m pretty happy to see most of these bugs fixed, things like combo circles instead of red circles was a daily annoyance.

Also glad that no more amulets were removed today, lol

This is high level satire. Online is going to make the pvp community realize how ridiculous it is, one nonsensical post at a time.

My first suggestion would be to switch out your signets for shouts. Shelter or Receive the Light are good choices for a tank/healer. Signet of Courage’s passive is not very strong without the trait and the cast time makes is pretty difficult to use well. You will also want to take Purity of Voice over Force of Will, both because of the AoE condi clear it provides and you’ll want the CDR when running 4-5 shouts.

The other option would be to switch a traitline (Valor, but possibly Virtues) for Radiance so you can get the signet trait. This would also let you spam Justice active for aoe blind, aoe might and additional burning for your team. While this option is less ideal in terms of tanking and healing you would be able to keep your signets and provide strong offensive support for your party.

Swap out Smiter’s Boon. It provides no support, no healing, and amounts to 1 condi clear every ~30s. Strength of the Fallen is an automatic condi clear every 10s, making it three times better. Focus mastery is also a strong choice if you choose to take focus over shield.

Water runes are a good choice. Monk runes would provide more healing, while Leadership runes would provide more boon duration+condi clear. Ultimately any of the three are good choices.

Vatlaaw Doomtooth.

Greatsword or Longbow, either would be great.

I don’t think it’s the stance that’s too strong, but the traitline. Herald has too many amazing traits that synergize too well with everything Revenants have to offer. There are top tier builds that don’t use dragon stance (Shiro/Mallyx) but none without Herald. In particular, facet of nature and shield offer too much to every single other stance and build that they’re choking out other builds.

There are about a dozen examples of this.

Compare Radiant Retaliation to Empowering Vengeance.
Compare Perfect Inscriptions to Signet Precision.
Compare Retributive Armor to Rousing Resilience.
Compare Force of Will to Selfless Amplification.
Compare sword/shield to rev or warrior sword/shield.
Compare Save Yourselves to Pain Absorption.

Guardians have more poorly designed/intentionally weak traits and skills than any other class by far.

If I’m allowed to make a crude analogy;

Revenants are to Warriors what Elementalists are to Necromancers.

The big big difference is that necros were underpowered for years and were slowly brought up while warriors used to be overpowered and have been slowly nerfed. To make matters worse necros got an elite spec that is incredibly strong in pvp while warriors’ elite is easily the weakest trait line they have right now.

Meanwhile Revs and Eles are taking full advantage of having insane amounts of utility and healing on top of endless evades, blocks and invuln.

First of all I want to say I think these threads are a good idea. Guardians have some of the most outdated/backwards traits in the game and I think talking about them as individual trait lines/skill groups is a good way to keep these conversations centered instead of devolving into general “guardians are bad, change everything.”

I don’t think signets themselves are bad. Signet of Judgement is arguably the strongest defensive signet in the game. Wrath/Bane signets are also fine, the passives and actives are both useful. Courage is a very strong signet, it’s biggest problem is having to compete with the other guardian elites.

If I could make one major change to Radiance traits it would be swapping Perfect Inscriptions and Right-Hand Strength. First of all, right hand strength is a kitten trait no matter how you look at it. The increased crit chance has very little use in any guardian build, and CDR on sword skills is similarly useless because sword is so bad. If it were swapped and made into a grandmaster trait it could be reworked to be an actually useful trait, such as having either a flat damage increase or might on hit with main hand weapons.

As for Perfect inscriptions, I don’t think it’s a bad trait as it is now. In fact, I think it’s a very strong trait. The biggest problem it has is that as a GM trait in Radiance, it’s impossible to justify taking it over Amplified Wrath. If you’re going to take the radiance trait line, you’re going to take AW, period. If it were switched with Right-Hand Strength and was an Adept trait (similar to the warrior signet trait) it would become viable to take.

A huge problem with guardian traits as they exist now is that almost all skill traits (specifically Expeditious Spirit, Perfect Inscriptions, Monk’s Focus and Pure of Voice) are Grandmaster traits. The only exceptions to this are consecrations and traps, so unless you’re a dragon hunter or running some strange shelter+ all consecration build, you are very limited in what GM traits you can take. For this reason it’s very difficult to run builds with traits like Writ of Persistence, Retributive armor or Radiant Retaliation, regardless of the strength of the traits themselves.

Finally, I want to say that while I’ve never been able make a build with Radiant Retaliation work, I am a big fan of the trait in concept. I think it’s a great idea for a trait, it fits thematically with guardians, it fits thematically with the radiance traits, and its a ton of fun to think about from a build perspective. The problem is it just isn’t viable with the way traits are right now, largely because of the GM trait issue. If the changes I outlined above would be enough to make it viable or if RR itself needs further changes, I don’t know, but either way I would like to see it stay in the game.

TL;DR:
-Make Right-Hand Strength a GM trait, give it flat damage or might on hit
-Make Perfect Inscriptions an adept trait
-Having 4/6 skill traits as GM traits is hugely restrictive