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Stacking Sigils


lodjur.1284

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@lodjur.1284 said:So have it on a underwater weapon so you don't lose stacks, it's ideal there as well...

I use that as an example, but in reality, losing the stacks from being insta-downed and map swapping are the real culprits.

@lodjur.1284 said:If you get downed just stack it up again. Not like it's hard, just annoying, which is why I want it removed, because it's almost always ideal, but always a pain.

You need to decide on your goal here. If you're trying to convince me to use it, you aren't succeeding, because you're telling me what a PITA it is. If you want it removed, again your argument is flawed since you're describing all the weaknesses that sigil has that balance out the benefits it brings.

@lodjur.1284 said:So do it in fights you already won/guards?

Tail shouldn't wag the dog

@lodjur.1284 said:Or just get the stacks when you swap to cleave like you say you do anyway...But bloodlust on staff would outperform your hydromancy while you're camping your hammer, which you admittedly do most the time. Even when you swap to staff for cleaving it's arguable that bloodlust would give more damage.

Disagree. In the 3 DPS scenarios I listed, the extra 250 power will have less of an impact than the AoE blast of chill and damage. 250 power doesn't CC, doesn't cleave / tag independently, and doesn't help weaken a 1v1 opponent. In none of those circumstances is a little more damage going to show results. Downed players are downed, but hitting 5 (or more, is it even target capped?) just by swapping to a weapon or legend does more to finish of those players / stop a revive.

Technically what you said about the +250 adding to my damage on Hammer is true.

If I have a full 25 stacks.

If I just swapped maps, or came up from downed state, the sigil is worth nothing.

This isn't about just raw damage numbers, it is about using the tool that will perform the best under most circumstances, and for me, Bloodlust doesn't pass muster.

@lodjur.1284 said:

You will definitely out perform me on a Golem in the special forces training area, but seeing as that isn't where I play WvW, I question the accurateness of your assertion.

On a golem I'd have 0 stacks. It would be a very poor choice.

Indeed, you see it now, while my Hydromancy or Force will still perform at 100%, as they will in every single circumstance ever.

Chicken or the Egg? Presence over Potential? Presence will win, because it is consistent with no variables.

EDIT: I should add I don't profess to be the God Emperor of Hammer Revs. I've tried Bloodlust, I've tried what I use now, and I find my choices have led to superior results. That doesn't mean others won't find better results with Bloodlust over what I've chosen, and I'm fine with that. But I won't come out and tell other people they are making an inferior choice based on what I perceive to be the truth. There are far too many variables in WvW for such definitive statements.

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@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Clownmug.8357 said:How will I know if an enemy is easy to kill because they sacrifice utility for raw numbers though?

Yes all the utility of 1 sigil from the less used weapon /s

The only builds where stacking sigils aren't optimal that I can think of are some warriors build and most supports/healer builds, but do tell me

You see just one sigil, I see someone that probably makes many poor choices for their "optimal" build.

I mean, my biggest mistake is probably picking a class that isn't that strong atm, but beyond that I don't actually think I have anything suboptimal in my current build, at least not that is suboptimal in the "strictly better/worse" sense.

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:I used to use Bloodlust on my Hammer with Sigil of Force on my Rev, but as Burn DH became more and more common on the field, I swapped it out instead for Sigil of Generosity, and I saw a huge boost to my survivability. Making that switch was an overall DPS gain vs. getting downed, swapping to staff more frequently to cleanse, or running Mallyx as my second legend.

You say that removing them would increase 'variety', but by removing 1 option you are doing the exact opposite. The mistake you are making is you are clinging to the napkin math that shows Bloodlust is superior over all, but WvW isn't played on a napkin.

Yet swapping out force and moving bloodlust to your staff would usually have been the correct move, even just replacing force and keeping bloodlust frontbar would be better in the vast majority of situations.

I like doing math on things because it's not subject to opinions or preferences. Having strictly better options generally aren't good for diversity, for most builds there's essentially only 3 sigil slots because of the stacking one.

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:Keep them. There are other sigils that provide better benefits to a build than raw stats. The stacking Sigils are best at meeting breakpoints when you otherwise would not (like crit chance or hitting a 1k increment of a stat). These sigils compete with sigils of energy, hydromancy, cleansing, battle, absorption, draining, and any number of others that provide great benefits.

There's no breakpoints for anything but expertise and precision. There's nothing special about 1k increments.

Only battle is comparable to the stacking sigils (as they do very similar things). It comes up very short. Providing an average of 180 power/condi, this is of procced on cooldown (with no boon duration), first at 39% boon duration does it become equally good. However realistically you're not weapon swapping instantly everytime it's off cooldown, especially on some builds. In addition to this, might has a cap and can be corrupted/removed.

This is assuming 2 might sigils, or using them on a warrior (with shorter swap cd), with only 1 sigil and full cd it doesn't even get halfway there.

The biggest benefit is still that they give their buff on both bars, if they did not they'd not be BiS, they'd just be slightly better bursting/force. This would essentially remove them.

The only roles that the stacking sigils of absolutely a must have are 1shot meme builds and we're about to see those get nerfed hard. So keep the sigils, you'll need them to make up for the damage nerfs that are coming.

Must have are a question of definition. They're optimal for most builds. Nah dmg will still be fairly high next patch

Sigil of Battle will do different things depending on the class using it. I.e. a warrior can get up to 4000 healing and 12 endurance on weapon swap with that sigil and the right build even if might capped. This is only one example of why stacking sigils are not necessarily the best in slot. Great filler though if you can't find something more useful.

Yes and warrior is basically the only exception to the stacking sigil situation because weapon swap sigils are extremely strong when you have 5 sec swap CD. They are the only class that has that tho, my warrior builds are essentially the only ones where I don't run stacking sigils (usually). I even mention it in a previous post.

Except that the swap sigils have a 9s ICD ><. Warrior benefits no more from them than anyone else.

Meaning that I can have might on one bar on warrior and manage to trigger it every 10 sec, instead of needing it on 2 bars to proc it on CD. So I can run 4 swapping sigils (that I can proc on CD) instead of 2 (or 4 I can only proc every 20 sec, or some combination of the 2).

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:I used to use Bloodlust on my Hammer with Sigil of Force on my Rev, but as Burn DH became more and more common on the field, I swapped it out instead for Sigil of Generosity, and I saw a huge boost to my survivability. Making that switch was an overall DPS gain vs. getting downed, swapping to staff more frequently to cleanse, or running Mallyx as my second legend.

You say that removing them would increase 'variety', but by removing 1 option you are doing the exact opposite. The mistake you are making is you are clinging to the napkin math that shows Bloodlust is superior over all, but WvW isn't played on a napkin.

But what if we gave him a pen and dice too?

Wizard is OP on paper, but Fighter is OP in practice lol.

Not even the same game, but traditionally in dnd style games, Wizards are way more op once you teach higher levels than a fighter could ever be, but this is hardly the place for such a discussion.

I think you missed his dice and pen comment. Schrodinger's Wizard is OP, but in practice they are limited but what the memorized for the day. Fighter however always has the means to do its job. Particularly in Pathfinder. Hence the strong on paper versus practice statement.

This is the last I am entertaining the pathfinder analogy. (not I've only played pathfinder 1, not 2 so if anything is different there I wouldn't know)

Comparing a wizard to fighter in a traditional dnd style ruleset will basically always come down to

First few levelsFighter is tanky and hits hardWizard is squishy, does low dmg and has a few very weak spell slots

They have about similar tools outside of just doing dmg

Higher levelsFighter can hit a bit harder and a bit more times/turn
> Wizard can fly, mind control, stun entire encounters and has a ridiculous amount of spell slots, there's a reason a ton of spells are categorized as save-or-lose

This right here is Schrodinger's wizard. Nominally the y can do everything, but in reality only what they took for the day (Fighter can fly now btw without a wizard's help, and get bane on demand)

Wizard has an absurd amount of slots at higher levels.

Interesting I did not know that was added, what book?

There were two player's companions released: The Armor Master's Handbook and the Weapon Master's Handbook. Each turns Armor Mastery and Weapon Mastery of the base Fighter into strong class abilities. For Weapon Mastery, you can take Advanced Weapon Trainings. One of which lets you place a weapon enhancement equal to your Weapon Training bonus onto your weapon, part of which can be a magic enchantment, of which Bane is eligible. There is another Advanced Weapon Training called Item Mastery which allows you to pick up one of the Item Mastery feats with only meeting part of the prereqs. One of these mastery feats lets you fly some number of times per day. As far as DPR Olympics go the three highest damage dealers are an Arsenal Chaplin Warpriest with Longbow, A Vanilla Fighter with Longbow, and the Inquisitor with a Longbow. Granted these are scored at level 10. At level 11 when the fighter gets another iterative he becomes top DPR.

Maybe my playgroup will get em.

Outside of combat, there's very few things the wizard can't do, the fighter is essentially still just an extremely good athlete.

The wizard's utility outside of combat is too big to really describe here.

In addition to this, generally the fighter is rather the character that looks op on paper cause you get big dmg/turn but it has no utility, making it a very strange analogy.

Back to the issue at hand

Stacking sigils are very strong both on paper as they give a high dmg boost (or other kinda boost less commonly) as well as in practice because their opportunity cost is so low, given that you can slot them on the less commonly used weapon.

The strong in practice is relative to the rest of the build which is what has been raised. If you spec into a single condi for damage (Burn guard for example). Then have a condi on crit sigil and a sigil of smoldering on each set is best since the cover condi's keep the burn ticking and the smoldering keeps them ticking for longer. If you need Might (MMR+MM or Blighter's Boon for instance) then Sigils of Battle and Strength become better than a stacking sigil.

Well smoldering is a weak sigil actually that for a wide variety of reasons poorly compare to corruption. It's essentially 300 expertise that only works for 1 condi and takes 2 slots. Condition damage is generally a stronger stat, due to clears. 2 sigil slots is a much bigger opportunity cost.

If the only condi you care about maintaining over a long period has a unique sigil then its best to run that + a cover condi sigil if you class/build doesn't offer cover condis, otherwise bursting is better than a cover condi sigil.

It's still only 300 expertise, spread out over 2 sigils, which means 150 expertise/sigil, which is weaker than 250 condi dmg. That's in addition to smoldering not affecting cover condis anyway.

The stacking ones are heavily overbudgeyed when it comes to stats and as they're like having a better bursting on both bars but it only takes 1 slot.

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@lodjur.1284 said:

@Clownmug.8357 said:How will I know if an enemy is easy to kill because they sacrifice utility for raw numbers though?

Yes all the utility of 1 sigil from the less used weapon /s

The only builds where stacking sigils aren't optimal that I can think of are some warriors build and most supports/healer builds, but do tell me

You see just one sigil, I see someone that probably makes many poor choices for their "optimal" build.

I mean, my biggest mistake is probably picking a class that isn't that strong atm, but beyond that I don't actually think I have anything suboptimal in my current build, at least not that is suboptimal in the "strictly better/worse" sense.

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:I used to use Bloodlust on my Hammer with Sigil of Force on my Rev, but as Burn DH became more and more common on the field, I swapped it out instead for Sigil of Generosity, and I saw a huge boost to my survivability. Making that switch was an overall DPS gain vs. getting downed, swapping to staff more frequently to cleanse, or running Mallyx as my second legend.

You say that removing them would increase 'variety', but by removing 1 option you are doing the exact opposite. The mistake you are making is you are clinging to the napkin math that shows Bloodlust is superior over all, but WvW isn't played on a napkin.

Yet swapping out force and moving bloodlust to your staff would usually have been the correct move, even just replacing force and keeping bloodlust frontbar would be better in the vast majority of situations.

I like doing math on things because it's not subject to opinions or preferences. Having strictly better options generally aren't good for diversity, for most builds there's essentially only 3 sigil slots because of the stacking one.

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:Keep them. There are other sigils that provide better benefits to a build than raw stats. The stacking Sigils are best at meeting breakpoints when you otherwise would not (like crit chance or hitting a 1k increment of a stat). These sigils compete with sigils of energy, hydromancy, cleansing, battle, absorption, draining, and any number of others that provide great benefits.

There's no breakpoints for anything but expertise and precision. There's nothing special about 1k increments.

Only battle is comparable to the stacking sigils (as they do very similar things). It comes up very short. Providing an average of 180 power/condi, this is of procced on cooldown (with no boon duration), first at 39% boon duration does it become equally good. However realistically you're not weapon swapping instantly everytime it's off cooldown, especially on some builds. In addition to this, might has a cap and can be corrupted/removed.

This is assuming 2 might sigils, or using them on a warrior (with shorter swap cd), with only 1 sigil and full cd it doesn't even get halfway there.

The biggest benefit is still that they give their buff on both bars, if they did not they'd not be BiS, they'd just be slightly better bursting/force. This would essentially remove them.

The only roles that the stacking sigils of absolutely a must have are 1shot meme builds and we're about to see those get nerfed hard. So keep the sigils, you'll need them to make up for the damage nerfs that are coming.

Must have are a question of definition. They're optimal for most builds. Nah dmg will still be fairly high next patch

Sigil of Battle will do different things depending on the class using it. I.e. a warrior can get up to 4000 healing and 12 endurance on weapon swap with that sigil and the right build even if might capped. This is only one example of why stacking sigils are not necessarily the best in slot. Great filler though if you can't find something more useful.

Yes and warrior is basically the only exception to the stacking sigil situation because weapon swap sigils are extremely strong when you have 5 sec swap CD. They are the only class that has that tho, my warrior builds are essentially the only ones where I don't run stacking sigils (usually). I even mention it in a previous post.

Except that the swap sigils have a 9s ICD ><. Warrior benefits no more from them than anyone else.

Meaning that I can have might on one bar on warrior and manage to trigger it every 10 sec, instead of needing it on 2 bars to proc it on CD. So I can run 4 swapping sigils (that I can proc on CD) instead of 2 (or 4 I can only proc every 20 sec, or some combination of the 2).

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:I used to use Bloodlust on my Hammer with Sigil of Force on my Rev, but as Burn DH became more and more common on the field, I swapped it out instead for Sigil of Generosity, and I saw a huge boost to my survivability. Making that switch was an overall DPS gain vs. getting downed, swapping to staff more frequently to cleanse, or running Mallyx as my second legend.

You say that removing them would increase 'variety', but by removing 1 option you are doing the exact opposite. The mistake you are making is you are clinging to the napkin math that shows Bloodlust is superior over all, but WvW isn't played on a napkin.

But what if we gave him a pen and dice too?

Wizard is OP on paper, but Fighter is OP in practice lol.

Not even the same game, but traditionally in dnd style games, Wizards are way more op once you teach higher levels than a fighter could ever be, but this is hardly the place for such a discussion.

I think you missed his dice and pen comment. Schrodinger's Wizard is OP, but in practice they are limited but what the memorized for the day. Fighter however always has the means to do its job. Particularly in Pathfinder. Hence the strong on paper versus practice statement.

This is the last I am entertaining the pathfinder analogy. (not I've only played pathfinder 1, not 2 so if anything is different there I wouldn't know)

Comparing a wizard to fighter in a traditional dnd style ruleset will basically always come down to

First few levelsFighter is tanky and hits hardWizard is squishy, does low dmg and has a few very weak spell slots

They have about similar tools outside of just doing dmg

Higher levelsFighter can hit a bit harder and a bit more times/turn
> Wizard can fly, mind control, stun entire encounters and has a ridiculous amount of spell slots, there's a reason a ton of spells are categorized as save-or-lose

This right here is Schrodinger's wizard. Nominally the y can do everything, but in reality only what they took for the day (Fighter can fly now btw without a wizard's help, and get bane on demand)

Wizard has an absurd amount of slots at higher levels.

Interesting I did not know that was added, what book?

There were two player's companions released: The Armor Master's Handbook and the Weapon Master's Handbook. Each turns Armor Mastery and Weapon Mastery of the base Fighter into strong class abilities. For Weapon Mastery, you can take Advanced Weapon Trainings. One of which lets you place a weapon enhancement equal to your Weapon Training bonus onto your weapon, part of which can be a magic enchantment, of which Bane is eligible. There is another Advanced Weapon Training called Item Mastery which allows you to pick up one of the Item Mastery feats with only meeting part of the prereqs. One of these mastery feats lets you fly some number of times per day. As far as DPR Olympics go the three highest damage dealers are an Arsenal Chaplin Warpriest with Longbow, A Vanilla Fighter with Longbow, and the Inquisitor with a Longbow. Granted these are scored at level 10. At level 11 when the fighter gets another iterative he becomes top DPR.

Maybe my playgroup will get em.

They're not PFS legal if you run PFS, but that is because its a lot of new rules with a lot of variations to keep track off, which can throw off the speed of PFS games.

In regards to the benefit of stacking sigils versus duration, an extra 250 condi damage at the most is 8% more damage, less for condis like bleed, where as the flat condi duration increase sigils are a flat 20% more. As before it depends on the build. If you only care about one damaging condition, like burning, then smoldering will be a better choice if you had to pick between the two, if you didn't have to pick and were willing to sacrifice some utility then you could take both, but that's the trade off since there is now one less sigil slot for something like energy, cleansing, hydromancy, or any of the other beneficial sigils.

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@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Clownmug.8357 said:How will I know if an enemy is easy to kill because they sacrifice utility for raw numbers though?

Yes all the utility of 1 sigil from the less used weapon /s

The only builds where stacking sigils aren't optimal that I can think of are some warriors build and most supports/healer builds, but do tell me

You see just one sigil, I see someone that probably makes many poor choices for their "optimal" build.

I mean, my biggest mistake is probably picking a class that isn't that strong atm, but beyond that I don't actually think I have anything suboptimal in my current build, at least not that is suboptimal in the "strictly better/worse" sense.

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:I used to use Bloodlust on my Hammer with Sigil of Force on my Rev, but as Burn DH became more and more common on the field, I swapped it out instead for Sigil of Generosity, and I saw a huge boost to my survivability. Making that switch was an overall DPS gain vs. getting downed, swapping to staff more frequently to cleanse, or running Mallyx as my second legend.

You say that removing them would increase 'variety', but by removing 1 option you are doing the exact opposite. The mistake you are making is you are clinging to the napkin math that shows Bloodlust is superior over all, but WvW isn't played on a napkin.

Yet swapping out force and moving bloodlust to your staff would usually have been the correct move, even just replacing force and keeping bloodlust frontbar would be better in the vast majority of situations.

I like doing math on things because it's not subject to opinions or preferences. Having strictly better options generally aren't good for diversity, for most builds there's essentially only 3 sigil slots because of the stacking one.

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:Keep them. There are other sigils that provide better benefits to a build than raw stats. The stacking Sigils are best at meeting breakpoints when you otherwise would not (like crit chance or hitting a 1k increment of a stat). These sigils compete with sigils of energy, hydromancy, cleansing, battle, absorption, draining, and any number of others that provide great benefits.

There's no breakpoints for anything but expertise and precision. There's nothing special about 1k increments.

Only battle is comparable to the stacking sigils (as they do very similar things). It comes up very short. Providing an average of 180 power/condi, this is of procced on cooldown (with no boon duration), first at 39% boon duration does it become equally good. However realistically you're not weapon swapping instantly everytime it's off cooldown, especially on some builds. In addition to this, might has a cap and can be corrupted/removed.

This is assuming 2 might sigils, or using them on a warrior (with shorter swap cd), with only 1 sigil and full cd it doesn't even get halfway there.

The biggest benefit is still that they give their buff on both bars, if they did not they'd not be BiS, they'd just be slightly better bursting/force. This would essentially remove them.

The only roles that the stacking sigils of absolutely a must have are 1shot meme builds and we're about to see those get nerfed hard. So keep the sigils, you'll need them to make up for the damage nerfs that are coming.

Must have are a question of definition. They're optimal for most builds. Nah dmg will still be fairly high next patch

Sigil of Battle will do different things depending on the class using it. I.e. a warrior can get up to 4000 healing and 12 endurance on weapon swap with that sigil and the right build even if might capped. This is only one example of why stacking sigils are not necessarily the best in slot. Great filler though if you can't find something more useful.

Yes and warrior is basically the only exception to the stacking sigil situation because weapon swap sigils are extremely strong when you have 5 sec swap CD. They are the only class that has that tho, my warrior builds are essentially the only ones where I don't run stacking sigils (usually). I even mention it in a previous post.

Except that the swap sigils have a 9s ICD ><. Warrior benefits no more from them than anyone else.

Meaning that I can have might on one bar on warrior and manage to trigger it every 10 sec, instead of needing it on 2 bars to proc it on CD. So I can run 4 swapping sigils (that I can proc on CD) instead of 2 (or 4 I can only proc every 20 sec, or some combination of the 2).

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:I used to use Bloodlust on my Hammer with Sigil of Force on my Rev, but as Burn DH became more and more common on the field, I swapped it out instead for Sigil of Generosity, and I saw a huge boost to my survivability. Making that switch was an overall DPS gain vs. getting downed, swapping to staff more frequently to cleanse, or running Mallyx as my second legend.

You say that removing them would increase 'variety', but by removing 1 option you are doing the exact opposite. The mistake you are making is you are clinging to the napkin math that shows Bloodlust is superior over all, but WvW isn't played on a napkin.

But what if we gave him a pen and dice too?

Wizard is OP on paper, but Fighter is OP in practice lol.

Not even the same game, but traditionally in dnd style games, Wizards are way more op once you teach higher levels than a fighter could ever be, but this is hardly the place for such a discussion.

I think you missed his dice and pen comment. Schrodinger's Wizard is OP, but in practice they are limited but what the memorized for the day. Fighter however always has the means to do its job. Particularly in Pathfinder. Hence the strong on paper versus practice statement.

This is the last I am entertaining the pathfinder analogy. (not I've only played pathfinder 1, not 2 so if anything is different there I wouldn't know)

Comparing a wizard to fighter in a traditional dnd style ruleset will basically always come down to

First few levelsFighter is tanky and hits hardWizard is squishy, does low dmg and has a few very weak spell slots

They have about similar tools outside of just doing dmg

Higher levelsFighter can hit a bit harder and a bit more times/turn
> Wizard can fly, mind control, stun entire encounters and has a ridiculous amount of spell slots, there's a reason a ton of spells are categorized as save-or-lose

This right here is Schrodinger's wizard. Nominally the y can do everything, but in reality only what they took for the day (Fighter can fly now btw without a wizard's help, and get bane on demand)

Wizard has an absurd amount of slots at higher levels.

Interesting I did not know that was added, what book?

There were two player's companions released: The Armor Master's Handbook and the Weapon Master's Handbook. Each turns Armor Mastery and Weapon Mastery of the base Fighter into strong class abilities. For Weapon Mastery, you can take Advanced Weapon Trainings. One of which lets you place a weapon enhancement equal to your Weapon Training bonus onto your weapon, part of which can be a magic enchantment, of which Bane is eligible. There is another Advanced Weapon Training called Item Mastery which allows you to pick up one of the Item Mastery feats with only meeting part of the prereqs. One of these mastery feats lets you fly some number of times per day. As far as DPR Olympics go the three highest damage dealers are an Arsenal Chaplin Warpriest with Longbow, A Vanilla Fighter with Longbow, and the Inquisitor with a Longbow. Granted these are scored at level 10. At level 11 when the fighter gets another iterative he becomes top DPR.

Maybe my playgroup will get em.

They're not PFS legal if you run PFS, but that is because its a lot of new rules with a lot of variations to keep track off, which can throw off the speed of PFS games.

Alright, gonna look into it, could be a nice addition to help partially fix the issues with physicals scaling poorly.

Especially getting some amount of stuff that isn't just more dpr.

In regards to the benefit of stacking sigils versus duration, an extra 250 condi damage at the most is 8% more damage, less for condis like bleed, where as the flat condi duration increase sigils are a flat 20% more. As before it depends on the build. If you only care about one damaging condition, like burning, then smoldering will be a better choice if you had to pick between the two, if you didn't have to pick and were willing to sacrifice some utility then you could take both, but that's the trade off since there is now one less sigil slot for something like energy, cleansing, hydromancy, or any of the other beneficial sigils.

20% is only if they're your only source of increased duration, normally you'd run some pieces of trailblazer and possibly runes that can give up to 50% if you're a build focused on mostly one condi, sometimes even more from traits.

Going from 180% condi duration to 200% is only an 11% dmg increase actually, if you need to have smoldering on both bars that drops down to 5.5%/sigil. Yet this is only if nothing gets cleared, usually things usually get cleared or the target is dead before it runs out and assuming you only have 1 condition that does damage, even burnguard does some amount of dmg with other conditions. Corruption is often roughly 8-12% more dmg (very rarely below 8%), depending on build/main condis/amount of might.

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I think you make some really good points:

-so much better than other sigils that they're BiS on almost every build, removing them increases diversity-removing them decreases damage and healing across the board, especially gimping one-shot builds out dps outliers-they're not fun to play with. having to be on the right weapon set whenever you land a kill is an interruption of the combat flow-the only people really affected by this change are wvw players

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Bloodlust is a no brainer on teef builds, which use shortbow as second weapon. This weapon is only used to run away or spam skill 4 on downed players. You get a free 10% (excluding might stacks) of damage. Math: 250 power on marauder+scholar+infusions = 2438 power = 10.25%).

If you swap your weapons frequently like necros or revenants, then the sigil becomes a worse choice. In general that 10% is bound to an annoying amount of grinding mobs whenever you die or change the map.

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@lodjur.1284 said:I think removing these would give some more variety with regards to sigils and remove a minor annoyance.

Let’s get one thing straight here. Removing things does not give more diversity, or variety. In all cases, removing things whether they are stronger or weaker than other things will ALWAYS yield less diversity. This isn’t a claim it’s a mathematical proof. (It’s also one reason why I predict this upcoming balance patch is going to be terrible.)

Now even if something is extremely oppressive, to the point where it competes for other slots and is always reserved one slot on all builds, one can essentially equate that instead of have 4 slots to choose a sigil, you only have 3... reserving one slot always for a stacking sigil, thus the less slots available decrease diversity/variety in the pool of available choices.

However the above case is true ONLY when it applies for all possible builds one could create where the stacking sigil is the most effective, which for stacking sigils simply isn’t true, like others have pointed out.

Stacking sigils shine most in large scale WvW, where players can cover the weaknesses of other players, thus these players can focus on min maxing their strengths rather than covering for their weaknesses.

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For its drawbacks, the sigil is balanced in my opinion.

  • Needs a ramp-up time
  • Disappears once you get downed or switch maps
  • Practically useless at the start and needs more or less 15 stacks (YMMV) to overtake Force or Bursting
  • Needs the weapon it's slotted on to be currently in use to get credit
  • Have to pair it up with an underwater weapon or else say goodbye to it once you go for a swim

But of course, in very skilled hands, as with anything under the sun - it snowballs really hard. Extra 250 power/condition damage is nothing to scoff at.

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@KrHome.1920 said:Bloodlust is a no brainer on teef builds, which use shortbow as second weapon. This weapon is only used to run away or spam skill 4 on downed players. You get a free 10% (excluding might stacks) of damage. Math: 250 power on marauder+scholar+infusions = 2438 power = 10.25%).

If you swap your weapons frequently like necros or revenants, then the sigil becomes a worse choice. In general that 10% is bound to an annoying amount of grinding mobs whenever you die or change the map.

Teef is an excellent example of a class where it's even more of a no brainer, but even on most other classes getting the equivalent of 2 force sigils on both bars for the cost of 1 sigil is kinda broken.

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@"lodjur.1284" said:I think removing these would give some more variety with regards to sigils and remove a minor annoyance.

Let’s get one thing straight here. Removing things does not give more diversity, or variety. In all cases, removing things whether they are stronger or weaker than other things will ALWAYS yield less diversity. This isn’t a claim it’s a mathematical proof. (It’s also one reason why I predict this upcoming balance patch is going to be terrible.)

Removing/nerfing things can absolutely create variety.

Let's say hypothetically we added a rune that had the 6 piece bonus"You take 75% less dmg from all sources"And a sigil with the effect"You deal 300% more damage (and condi dmg)"

We would have added things yet reduced diversity. Then let's say we removed those new items, then we would have removed something to increase diversity. Clear best choices aren't options.

Now even if something is extremely oppressive, to the point where it competes for other slots and is always reserved one slot on all builds, one can essentially equate that instead of have 4 slots to choose a sigil, you only have 3... reserving one slot always for a stacking sigil, thus the less slots available decrease diversity/variety in the pool of available choices.

However the above case is true ONLY when it applies for all possible builds one could create where the stacking sigil is the most effective, which for stacking sigils simply isn’t true, like others have pointed out.

Yet there's extremely few builds where a stacking sigil isn't the correct thing to pick up, essentially only warrior (where it's a viable but not clearly superior option) and support/healing build as there's no amazing stack sigil there and you generally wanna invest fully into just survivability.

For the vast majority of builds you pick 3 sigils and what weapon you wanna dump your bloodlust/corruption sigil

Stacking sigils shine most in large scale WvW, where players can cover the weaknesses of other players, thus these players can focus on min maxing their strengths rather than covering for their weaknesses.

They shine literally anywhere where you can easily stack them up, which is everywhere in WvW.

@"borgs.6103" said:For its drawbacks, the sigil is balanced in my opinion.

  • Needs a ramp-up time
  • Disappears once you get downed or switch maps
  • Practically useless at the start and needs more or less 15 stacks (YMMV) to overtake Force or Bursting
  • Needs the weapon it's slotted on to be currently in use to get credit
  • Have to pair it up with an underwater weapon or else say goodbye to it once you go for a swim

But of course, in very skilled hands, as with anything under the sun - it snowballs really hard. Extra 250 power/condition damage is nothing to scoff at.

None of those are drawbacks tho, they're all just annoyances. More along the lines of having "longer loading screens" or similar stuff as a "drawback".

They also overtake much earlier because you can essentially count their bonus twice.

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@"lodjur.1284" said:Removing/nerfing things can absolutely create variety.

Let's say hypothetically we added a rune that had the 6 piece bonus"You take 75% less dmg from all sources"And a sigil with the effect"You deal 300% more damage (and condi dmg)"

We would have added things yet reduced diversity. Then let's say we removed those new items, then we would have removed something to increase diversity. Clear best choices aren't options.

You messed up because let’s just say that there were only 2 choices to begin with... let’s say your overpowered sigil and rune were one choice along with another less powerful sigil and less powerful rune as another choice. Because you took that rune and sigil away from the game, you now have less overall choices not more.

I won’t argue about this much further because it’s a mathematical proof...not an opinion. Removing things is an overall reduction in diversity, no matter how you flip the coin.

In other words you can’t “take something away” and expect to gain something...1-1 does not equal 2. It’s a mathematical impossibility, as it is in practice.

Now even if something is definitely and obviously oppressive to other things, the way you would solve that issue without diminishing diversity is to make more things that serve to compete with that choice...or make the other current choices able to compete.

In my time making builds and observing metas, builds choose stacking sigils because there are no better options. Especially if you can’t crit and don’t swap weapons, that only leaves you with stacking sigils (which is current BIS for healing in WvW btw and your wrong about it not being BIS for healers).

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@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@"lodjur.1284" said:Removing/nerfing things can absolutely create variety.

Let's say hypothetically we added a rune that had the 6 piece bonus"You take 75% less dmg from all sources"And a sigil with the effect"You deal 300% more damage (and condi dmg)"

We would have added things yet reduced diversity. Then let's say we removed those new items, then we would have removed something to increase diversity. Clear best choices aren't options.

You messed up because let’s just say that there were only 2 choices to begin with... let’s say your overpowered sigil and rune were one choice along with another less powerful sigil and less powerful rune as another choice. Because you took that rune and sigil away from the game, you now have less overall choices not more.

If you added those to the current game you'd only have 1 choice as opposed to the dozens you have now. If an "option" completely eclipses all others, it lowers diversity. But if you think that adding +300% dmg sigils to the game would increase diversity then idk what to say...

I won’t argue about this much further because it’s a mathematical proof...not an opinion. Removing things is an overall reduction in diversity, no matter how you flip the coin.

This isn't even comparable to a mathematic proof, this is just you throwing terms around

In other words you can’t “take something away” and expect to gain something...1-1 does not equal 2. It’s a mathematical impossibility, as it is in practice.

I mean there's so many scenarios where that's incorrect. Of the directly comparable things, bloodlust makes force, strength, battle, accuracy and impact all look terrible

Now even if something is definitely and obviously oppressive to other things, the way you would solve that issue without diminishing diversity is to make more things that serve to compete with that choice...or make the other choices able to compete.

If one option is problematic you can also just remove it...

You can't make a choice that competes with bloodlust/corruption without introducing massive powercreep, which they're trying to remove, hence the great patch we're getting that fixes a lot of issues.

Especially if it's bland and actively annoying to use.

There's no way to balance these particular sigils without a complete rework.

In my time making builds and observing metas, builds choose stacking sigils because there are no better options. Especially if you can’t crit and don’t swap weapons, that only leaves you with stacking sigils (which is current BIS for healing btw and your wrong about it not being BIS for healers).

Why would I ever pick that over defensive options on a healer if I'm not in a zerg.

Also there's tons of options in general in the game they're all just worse than stacking sigils. If you believe you need crit chance for on crit sigils then idk mate

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You call it powercreep but frankly you don’t understand what powercreep actually is. Powercreep has nothing to do with the current discussion.

Lastly, your perception of diversity is just wrong. When you talk about choices, and removing stuff “increases” diversity, you are just talking about shifting the availability of choices. There was a long thread that was made a few months back now which explored the balance v diversity thing where all that was sorted out.

Like I said in my previous post, assume you had two choices...unless both choices are absolutely 100% the same, one of them is going to be “better” than the other. Removing the better choice only serves to shift the availability of choices...in this case you now have only one choice rather than two.

You also can’t just “balance” the two choices because balance implies that the two must be exactly the same. You can’t have your cake and eat it too, otherwise balancing games would be easy. The only way to balance without decreasing diversity is to introduce more choices, or to make the current available choices as close as they can to being equal in viability, without being the same. Mind you that the 2nd option is impossible to truly achieve, because as they approach balance, they approach being the same thing.

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@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@"lodjur.1284" said:

You call it powercreep but frankly you don’t understand what powercreep actually is. Powercreep has nothing to do with the current discussion.

You say that you could "fix" stack sigils by introducing sigils that are equally powerful.Stacking sigils are currently overpowered.Hence introducing more similarly powered options is powercreep.

Lastly, your perception of diversity is just wrong. When you talk about choices, and removing stuff “increases” diversity, you are just talking about shifting the availability of choices. There was a long thread that was made a few months back now which explored the balance v diversity thing where all that was sorted out.

If removing one things means that there's 5 options that can replace it with no clear winner, then yes the (real) options increased even though the theoretical options decreased.

Also claiming it was all sorted out is rather pretentious, especially as there's a much more likely alternative....

Like I said in my previous post, assume you had two choices...unless both choices are absolutely 100% the same, one of them is going to be “better” than the other. Removing the better choice only serves to shift the availability of choices...in this case you now have only one choice rather than two.

Well you're looking at in a strange vacuum where we only have 2 things we can pick. The problem is that in GW2 there's a ton of sigils to pick from, yet bloodlust for example completely overshadows 3 options in every scenario and another 2 in an overwhelming majority of cases. The existence of stacking sigils means that on most builds I only make 3 decisions, without them I'd make 4.

More decisions = More varietyMore "options" (quotes because it's not really optional) =/= More variety

You also can’t just “balance” the two choices because balance implies that the two must be exactly the same. You can’t have your cake and eat it too, otherwise balancing games would be easy. The only way to balance without decreasing diversity is to introduce more choices, or to make the current available choices as close as they can to being equal in viability, without being the same. Mind you that the 2nd option is impossible to truly achieve, because as they approach balance, they approach being the same thing.

That's very incorrect.

First off balancing by making things similar is generally a very poor idea as then you get more clear "best" options.

Like between corruption and bursting it's very clear that corruption is much stronger. Because they are similar enough to make direct comparisons.

Now compare sigil of hydromancy to sigil of torment, there's no clear "best" here because they don't do the same things.

Secondly none of this addresses the fact that they are

  1. Overpowered
  2. Annoying to play with (not hard or challenging or similar, just plain annoying)
  3. Poorly designed
  4. Inconsistent with the rest of the game
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@"lodjur.1284" said:If removing one things means that there's 5 options that can replace it with no clear winner, then yes the (real) options increased...

This is where you are wrong my friend. Let me show you some introductory game theory:

You have Rock, Paper and Scissors. Paper beats Rock, Rock beats Scissors, and Scissors beats Paper.

Let's now hypothetically, change it so that Scissors beats both Paper and Rock. Clearly, the better choice to pick when we play the game will be scissors.

So you decide as a developer to just remove scissors. This means now, that only Rock and Paper are left, and in this situation, Paper always beats rock, so the clear choice to pick is paper in all situations.

Now as a developer, you decide to remove paper...this only now leaves rock left...

As you can tell, removing choices will always decrease diversity. It also happens to ruin balance, when the obvious choice as a developer should have been to keep all three in the game, but either make Scissors only beat Paper. Or the other option as a developer, to make it so that Rock could beat Paper and Scissors, and Paper able to beat Rock and Scissors. The second option will always end in a tie, but this is still a perfectly valid option, as no option is more overpowered than another.

Just to quote Sam Harris : The buck never stops...because in a game as complex as gw2, there will always be a "better option." Simply removing things won't solve issues, and only serve to decrease diversity, and shift the availability of choices.

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@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@"lodjur.1284" said:If removing one things means that there's 5 options that can replace it with no clear winner, then yes the (real) options increased...

This is where you are wrong my friend. Let me show you some introductory game theory:

Introductionary game theory using an example of an activity and not a game

You have Rock, Paper and Scissors. Paper beats Rock, Rock beats Scissors, and Scissors beats Paper.

Let's now hypothetically, change it so that Scissors beats both Paper and Rock. Clearly, the better choice to pick when we play the game will be scissors.

So you decide as a developer to just remove scissors. This means now, that only Rock and Paper are left, and in this situation, Paper always beats rock, so the clear choice to pick is paper in all situations.

Now as a developer, you decide to remove paper...this only now leaves rock left...

Problem here is that rock paper scissors actually isn't a game. It lacks a crucial part of what makes something into a game.

There's no player agency, there's no decisions in rock paper scissors, it's essentially the same as flipping a coin.

As you can tell, removing choices will always decrease diversity. It also happens to ruin balance, when the obvious choice as a developer should have been to keep all three in the game, but either make Scissors only beat Paper. Or the other option as a developer, to make it so that Rock could beat Paper and Scissors, and Paper able to beat Rock and Scissors. The second option will always end in a tie, but this is still a perfectly valid option, as no option is more overpowered than another.

Well the biggest problem is that rock, paper scissors isn't a game and gw2 is but there's more problems with this reasoning.

It's already an activity with only 3 pieces, that are all "balanced" to begin with. GW2 is a system with thousand of combinations (millions if you use a less strict definition) where it's incredibly hard to determine something is "best".

This is analogy is actually about removing "counters" (even if the term is strange when talking about an activity and not a game). Stacking sigils do not counter anything, nor are they countered by anything.

Just to quote Sam Harris : The buck never stops...because in a game as complex as gw2, there will always be a "better option." Simply removing things won't solve issues, and only serve to decrease diversity, and shift the availability of choices.

There's a big difference between "better" and "strictly better". Things should generally not be "strictly better" than something else, as it essentially renders one of the options useless. Stacking sigils are more or less "strictly better" than similar sigils.

Also still haven't addressed why there should be items that are overpowered, tedious to use and that are Inconsistent with other game mechanics.

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@"lodjur.1284" said:None of those are drawbacks tho, they're all just annoyances. More along the lines of having "longer loading screens" or similar stuff as a "drawback".

They also overtake much earlier because you can essentially count their bonus twice.Yeah, no.If you can't kill anything or always get downed because you're fighting outnumbered or a higher-skilled opponent, it's useless. If in case you win and you're on the wrong weapon and swap is on cooldown, you get no stacks; not to mention you're forced to swap when you don't really need to. Those are drawbacks. You get nothing instead of something given the wrong circumstances. Compare that to Force for example - it's always on effect whenever you're doing damage, even when you're downed. No drawbacks there.

All drawbacks are technically annoyances. Because you know, they're annoying.

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@"lodjur.1284" said:Introductionary game theory using an example of an activity and not a game......Well the biggest problem is that rock, paper scissors isn't a game and gw2 is but there's more problems with this reasoning.

Game Theory is an established area of research (one that you can even google and look up the Wikipedia article to) and It's not up for debate whether Rock paper scissors is a game or not (which it is). Games like gw2, and in fact every game that exists, are only made possible via the study of game theory.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory

This is analogy is actually about removing "counters" (even if the term is strange when talking about an activity and not a game). Stacking sigils do not counter anything, nor are they countered by anything.

Your missing the point. The game of RPS isn't about counters, it's about choices. You CHOOSE to play Rock, and you can also CHOOSE to play Paper or scissors. Your choice is dictated by what would be a better choice. In a balanced rock paper scissors game, all choices are equally viable choices, and the only thing that differentiates them IS chance. When you introduce or take away elements that seek to imbalance the game, you gain an understanding of how important choices are, and how important balance between these choices are.

The counters you are talking about is just competition between the available choices. it is incorrect to assume that if X counters Y, that X is better than Y, . The two compete with each other via the choices made by "rational agents." If X and Y are equally viable, both can either counter each other or not counter each other right, because it's arbitrary... But they still COMPETE for the same availability in choices. That's what RPS is about... It's arbitrary whether Rock counters paper, or scissors, nails or hammers. It's all about the choices available to you, and how these choices are balanced in the game.

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@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@"lodjur.1284" said:Introductionary game theory using an example of an activity and not a game......Well the biggest problem is that rock, paper scissors isn't a game and gw2 is but there's more problems with this reasoning.

Game Theory is an established area of research (one that you can even google and look up the Wikipedia article to) and It's not up for debate whether Rock paper scissors is a game or not (which it is). Games like gw2, and in fact every game that exists, are only made possible via the study of game theory.

I am not saying game theory isn't an area of research. Idk where you would have gotten that from, ofc it is. I am saying that trying to educate someone on it using an example that isn't even a game is very weird and shows a lack of understanding of the field.

RPS is an activity not a game.

Since you like wiki. This is from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game.

"Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction."

RPS lacks 2/4 key components of a game

RPS has

A clear goal (to have paper when your opponent has rock etc)

Clear rules (paper beats rock etc)

But it lacks "challenge and interaction"

There's no challenge because there's every decision gives you exactly 1/3rd chance at winning and improvement is impossible

There's no interactionYou're not reacting to what your opponent does, for obvious reasons

This is analogy is actually about removing "counters" (even if the term is strange when talking about an activity and not a game). Stacking sigils do not counter anything, nor are they countered by anything.

Your missing the point. The game of RPS isn't about counters, it's about choices. You CHOOSE to play Rock, and you can also CHOOSE to play Paper or scissors. Your choice is dictated by what would be a better choice. In a balanced rock paper scissors game, all choices are equally viable choices, and the only thing that differentiates them IS chance. When you introduce or take away elements that seek to imbalance the game, you gain an understanding of how important choices are, and how important balance between these choices are.

That's a lot of words. If all choices are exactly the same, as they are in RPS, then there's no choice. RPS is the exact same as flipping a coin (except it has 3 outcomes I guess).

The counters you are talking about is just competition between the available choices. it is incorrect to assume that if X counters Y, that X is better than Y, . The two compete with each other via the choices made by "rational agents." If X and Y are equally viable, both can either counter each other or not counter each other right, because it's arbitrary... But they still COMPETE for the same availability in choices. That's what RPS is about... It's arbitrary whether Rock counters paper, or scissors, nails or hammers. It's all about the choices available to you, and how these choices are balanced in the game.

Your example removed scissors, it makes the activity go from a coinflip to tic-tac-toe (ie an activity (not a game) that always becomes a draw if both participants are aware of the rules).

It does this because there's only 2 choices, but one of them is better in 100% of the cases, specifically because it counters the other choice. So your example is entirely about how removing counters from a system removes diversity if the system is structured after the awful idea of RPS, which I agree with.

@borgs.6103 said:

@"lodjur.1284" said:None of those are drawbacks tho, they're all just annoyances. More along the lines of having "longer loading screens" or similar stuff as a "drawback".

They also overtake much earlier because you can essentially count their bonus twice.Yeah, no.If you can't kill anything or always get downed because you're fighting outnumbered or a higher-skilled opponent, it's useless. If in case you win and you're on the wrong weapon and swap is on cooldown, you get no stacks; not to mention you're forced to swap when you don't really need to. Those are drawbacks. You get nothing instead of something given the wrong circumstances. Compare that to
Force
for example - it's always on effect whenever you're doing damage, even when you're downed. No drawbacks there.

I fight mostly outnumbered, I am well aware that deaths happen, that doesn't change the fact that it's trivial (but tedious and boring) to stack the sigil up again, if stacks were removed at the end of combat they'd have an actual drawback.

All drawbacks are technically annoyances. Because you know, they're annoying.

No, a drawback stops being one when you can do stuff before the fight that completely removes it.

Drawbacks doesn't need to be annoying either take this new trait being added to thief for example

Deadly Aim (NEW): This trait causes your pistol and harpoon gun abilities to pierce, affecting up to five enemies, but reducing damage inflicted by those skills by 5%.

Real drawback, not annoying at all to play with.

All this is like saying that the cost of Ascended armor is a drawback.

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@lodjur.1284 said:

@lodjur.1284 said:Introductionary game theory using an example of an activity and not a game......Well the biggest problem is that rock, paper scissors isn't a game and gw2 is but there's more problems with this reasoning.

Game Theory is an established area of research (one that you can even google and look up the Wikipedia article to) and It's not up for debate whether Rock paper scissors is a game or not (which it is). Games like gw2, and in fact every game that exists, are only made possible via the study of game theory.

I am not saying game theory isn't an area of research. Idk where you would have gotten that from, ofc it is. I am saying that trying to educate someone on it using an example that isn't even a game is very weird and shows a lack of understanding of the field.

RPS is an activity not a game.

Since you like wiki. This is from
.

"Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction."

RPS lacks 2/4 key components of a game

RPS has

A clear goal (to have paper when your opponent has rock etc)

Clear rules (paper beats rock etc)

But it lacks "challenge and interaction"

There's no challenge because there's every decision gives you exactly 1/3rd chance at winning and improvement is impossible

There's no interactionYou're not reacting to what your opponent does, for obvious reasons

This is analogy is actually about removing "counters" (even if the term is strange when talking about an activity and not a game). Stacking sigils do not counter anything, nor are they countered by anything.

Your missing the point. The game of RPS isn't about counters, it's about choices. You CHOOSE to play Rock, and you can also CHOOSE to play Paper or scissors. Your choice is dictated by what would be a better choice. In a balanced rock paper scissors game, all choices are equally viable choices, and the only thing that differentiates them IS chance. When you introduce or take away elements that seek to imbalance the game, you gain an understanding of how important choices are, and how important balance between these choices are.

That's a lot of words. If all choices are exactly the same, as they are in RPS, then there's no choice. RPS is the exact same as flipping a coin (except it has 3 outcomes I guess).

The counters you are talking about is just competition between the available choices. it is incorrect to assume that if X counters Y, that X is better than Y, . The two compete with each other via the choices made by "rational agents." If X and Y are equally viable, both can either counter each other or not counter each other right, because it's arbitrary... But they still COMPETE for the same availability in choices. That's what RPS is about... It's arbitrary whether Rock counters paper, or scissors, nails or hammers. It's all about the choices available to you, and how these choices are balanced in the game.

Your example removed scissors, it makes the activity go from a coinflip to tic-tac-toe (ie an activity (not a game) that always becomes a draw if both participants are aware of the rules).

It does this because there's only 2 choices, but one of them is better in 100% of the cases, specifically because it counters the other choice. So your example is entirely about how removing counters from a system removes diversity if the system is structured after the awful idea of RPS, which I agree with.

@lodjur.1284 said:None of those are drawbacks tho, they're all just annoyances. More along the lines of having "longer loading screens" or similar stuff as a "drawback".

They also overtake much earlier because you can essentially count their bonus twice.Yeah, no.If you can't kill anything or always get downed because you're fighting outnumbered or a higher-skilled opponent, it's useless. If in case you win and you're on the wrong weapon and swap is on cooldown, you get no stacks; not to mention you're forced to swap when you don't really need to. Those are drawbacks. You get nothing instead of something given the wrong circumstances. Compare that to
Force
for example - it's always on effect whenever you're doing damage, even when you're downed. No drawbacks there.

I fight mostly outnumbered, I am well aware that deaths happen, that doesn't change the fact that it's trivial (but tedious and boring) to stack the sigil up again, if stacks were removed at the end of combat they'd have an actual drawback.

All drawbacks are technically annoyances. Because you know, they're annoying.

No, a drawback stops being one when you can do stuff before the fight that completely removes it.

Drawbacks doesn't need to be annoying either take this new trait being added to thief for example

Deadly Aim (NEW): This trait causes your pistol and harpoon gun abilities to pierce, affecting up to five enemies, but reducing damage inflicted by those skills by 5%.

Real drawback, not annoying at all to play with.

All this is like saying that the cost of Ascended armor is a drawback.

I’m sorry but your wacky definition of what is a game and what is an activity doesn’t apply here. Read the link you yourself linked....It says it right there that RPS is a game....

If you don’t want to actually read your own linked article just read the wiki article on RPS:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_paper_scissors

If you are really lazy, then just scroll down to the “Analogues in game design” section.

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Stacking sigils are fine. The bonus is good, but it takes time to build up the stacks and if you go down you lose them. It has a clear trade-off.

The only thing I thing should be changed the way you get stacks. Killing trash npc should give no stacks. Make tower, keep, SMC lords give 5 stacks and the trash guards give 0.

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@ArchonWing.9480 said:Make it so it only works with a weapon set that actually has the sigil.

Make it +7 instead of 10.

Ofc it doesn't matter for me; I run energy/cleansing, because I'm afraid of dying.

This, so much this. I used to run stacking sigils when I used to run glass cannon builds, but I grew out of those years ago and now run builds that have some utility and less chance of dying to a stiff breeze- all that extra damage is useless if your dead.

Of course if your mainly a glass cannon type or thief, then I can see why you think stacking sigils are the best. In theory, maybe. In practice, nine times out of ten you will be better off with something else.

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@ArchonWing.9480 said:Make it so it only works with a weapon set that actually has the sigil.

Make it +7 instead of 10.

Ofc it doesn't matter for me; I run energy/cleansing, because I'm afraid of dying.

Those changes would balance them, yes.

@xDudisx.5914 said:Stacking sigils are fine. The bonus is good, but it takes time to build up the stacks and if you go down you lose them. It has a clear trade-off.

The only thing I thing should be changed the way you get stacks. Killing trash npc should give no stacks. Make tower, keep, SMC lords give 5 stacks and the trash guards give 0.

Something taking time isn't a trade off if all that time can be spent before the current fight.

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@lodjur.1284 said:Introductionary game theory using an example of an activity and not a game......Well the biggest problem is that rock, paper scissors isn't a game and gw2 is but there's more problems with this reasoning.

Game Theory is an established area of research (one that you can even google and look up the Wikipedia article to) and It's not up for debate whether Rock paper scissors is a game or not (which it is). Games like gw2, and in fact every game that exists, are only made possible via the study of game theory.

I am not saying game theory isn't an area of research. Idk where you would have gotten that from, ofc it is. I am saying that trying to educate someone on it using an example that isn't even a game is very weird and shows a lack of understanding of the field.

RPS is an activity not a game.

Since you like wiki. This is from
.

"Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction."

RPS lacks 2/4 key components of a game

RPS has

A clear goal (to have paper when your opponent has rock etc)

Clear rules (paper beats rock etc)

But it lacks "challenge and interaction"

There's no challenge because there's every decision gives you exactly 1/3rd chance at winning and improvement is impossible

There's no interactionYou're not reacting to what your opponent does, for obvious reasons

This is analogy is actually about removing "counters" (even if the term is strange when talking about an activity and not a game). Stacking sigils do not counter anything, nor are they countered by anything.

Your missing the point. The game of RPS isn't about counters, it's about choices. You CHOOSE to play Rock, and you can also CHOOSE to play Paper or scissors. Your choice is dictated by what would be a better choice. In a balanced rock paper scissors game, all choices are equally viable choices, and the only thing that differentiates them IS chance. When you introduce or take away elements that seek to imbalance the game, you gain an understanding of how important choices are, and how important balance between these choices are.

That's a lot of words. If all choices are exactly the same, as they are in RPS, then there's no choice. RPS is the exact same as flipping a coin (except it has 3 outcomes I guess).

The counters you are talking about is just competition between the available choices. it is incorrect to assume that if X counters Y, that X is better than Y, . The two compete with each other via the choices made by "rational agents." If X and Y are equally viable, both can either counter each other or not counter each other right, because it's arbitrary... But they still COMPETE for the same availability in choices. That's what RPS is about... It's arbitrary whether Rock counters paper, or scissors, nails or hammers. It's all about the choices available to you, and how these choices are balanced in the game.

Your example removed scissors, it makes the activity go from a coinflip to tic-tac-toe (ie an activity (not a game) that always becomes a draw if both participants are aware of the rules).

It does this because there's only 2 choices, but one of them is better in 100% of the cases, specifically because it counters the other choice. So your example is entirely about how removing counters from a system removes diversity if the system is structured after the awful idea of RPS, which I agree with.

@lodjur.1284 said:None of those are drawbacks tho, they're all just annoyances. More along the lines of having "longer loading screens" or similar stuff as a "drawback".

They also overtake much earlier because you can essentially count their bonus twice.Yeah, no.If you can't kill anything or always get downed because you're fighting outnumbered or a higher-skilled opponent, it's useless. If in case you win and you're on the wrong weapon and swap is on cooldown, you get no stacks; not to mention you're forced to swap when you don't really need to. Those are drawbacks. You get nothing instead of something given the wrong circumstances. Compare that to
Force
for example - it's always on effect whenever you're doing damage, even when you're downed. No drawbacks there.

I fight mostly outnumbered, I am well aware that deaths happen, that doesn't change the fact that it's trivial (but tedious and boring) to stack the sigil up again, if stacks were removed at the end of combat they'd have an actual drawback.

All drawbacks are technically annoyances. Because you know, they're annoying.

No, a drawback stops being one when you can do stuff before the fight that completely removes it.

Drawbacks doesn't need to be annoying either take this new trait being added to thief for example

Deadly Aim (NEW): This trait causes your pistol and harpoon gun abilities to pierce, affecting up to five enemies, but reducing damage inflicted by those skills by 5%.

Real drawback, not annoying at all to play with.

All this is like saying that the cost of Ascended armor is a drawback.

I’m sorry but your wacky definition of what is a game and what is an activity doesn’t apply here. Read the link you yourself linked....It says it right there that RPS is a game....

You mean the wikipedia definition of a game? My definition is actually slightly different. Now that two Wikipedia articles contradict each other is interesting. Most likely the writers of the RPS page weren't very into game theory.

Would you say that flipping a coin is a game?

If you don’t want to actually read your own linked article just read the wiki article on RPS:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_paper_scissors

If you are really lazy, then just scroll down to the “Analogues in game design” section.

Well I read your section and there's no games that are near gw2 in complexity listed there, in fact not a single mmorpg (or other game with similar levels of complexity) that has pvp listed, this could be because game designers realized that RPS is a horrible design model for this type of game.

Gw2 is most assuredly not designed with RPS as a model.

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