How to make Signets fun again!

[Ovark.2514]

Signet trait: Maintain signet passives while in shroud even while the skill is on CD.

Signet of Vampirism: Is all around pretty strong and can be used selfishly and/or for your team's benefit. A+

Signet of Spite: Passive is BORING. New passive: Damage modifiers persist X seconds longer. Examples: Reapers Onslaught Ferocity bonus, Soul Barbs, Vampiric Presence (life siphon dmg only?), Might, Carapace (if Deadly strength is equipped), Precision from Furious Demise, etc. . .

Signet of Spite Active: Add a decent chunk of strike damage onto this skill so it can benefit from the new passive modifiers.

Plague Signet: Passive is EXCITING but WEAK. New Passive: Transfer conditions (1) from up to 5 nearby allies to yourself when using Shroud skill #3. This is more active and engaging AND the player can build into it.

Signet of Undeath: Passive doesn't really synergize well with the active since you don't spend LF to revive players (even though it will help keep you alive while you recover health spent). New Passive: While gain barrier based on a percentage of outgoing damage. Active: Same. This way you can gain a lot of barrier in shroud by doing big DPS, then when you see an ally is down you can pop out and spend much less health on the active revive portion. Additionally, this doesn't make it too easy to stay in shroud indefinitely which I think anet had a problem with before.

Signet of the Locust: Passive is very WEAK by today's standards and also doesn't synergize with the active or with shroud. New Passive: Your skills grant swiftness AND as long as their effectiveness is diminished by a boon (stab, protection, resolution, resistance, aegis), they also apply vulnerability per strike. [Edit: I also think the skill would be fine if the vuln was applied if your attacks ARE diminished by the enemy's boons. This would be easier to achieve. . . ]

Signet of the Locust Active: Remove boons on nearby foes based on the number of stacks of vulnerability they have (1 boon removed for every 5 stacks of vuln) and heal for each boon removed.

 

Edited December 19, 2023 by Ovark.2514
More Thoughts

[SeTect.5918]

35 minutes ago, Ovark.2514 said:

Signet trait: Maintain signet passives while in shroud even while the skill is on CD.

Just yes.

36 minutes ago, Ovark.2514 said:

Signet of Vampirism: Is all around pretty strong and can be used selfishly and/or for your team's benefit. A+

Yeah agree this one is pretty fine.

36 minutes ago, Ovark.2514 said:

Signet of Spite: Passive is BORING. New passive: Damage modifiers persist X seconds longer. Examples: Reapers Onslaught Ferocity bonus, Soul Barbs, Vampiric Presence (life siphon dmg only?), Might, Carapace (if Deadly strength is equipped), Precision from Furious Demise, etc. . 

Dont know. Find 180 power pretty useful. Tho if these 180 power are gone i believe power dmg of necro would get a slight buff to get back to the original number anyway. Interesting idea tho. 

39 minutes ago, Ovark.2514 said:

Signet of Spite Active: Add a decent chunk of strike damage onto this skill so it can benefit from the new passive modifiers.

Spite active was actually pretty useful for condi so i believe it should keep being useful for condi.

41 minutes ago, Ovark.2514 said:

Plague Signet: Passive is EXCITING but WEAK. New Passive: Transfer conditions (1) from up to 5 nearby allies to yourself when using Shroud skill #3. This is more active and engaging AND the player can build into it.

Interesting idea. But this way it would have this signet to work in shroud to begin with because the whole signet would be set around shroud 3. At least it wouldn't randomly transfer condis from allies to you while just passing by tho. And it would work well with the trait in curses that transfers condis from u to enemies on shroud 2 bc u could just shroud 3 then 2. I like this one actually tho.

46 minutes ago, Ovark.2514 said:

Signet of Undeath: Passive doesn't really synergize well with the active since you don't spend LF to revive players (even though it will help keep you alive while you recover health spent). New Passive: While gain barrier based on a percentage of outgoing damage. Active: Same. This way you can gain a lot of barrier in shroud by doing big DPS, then when you see an ally is down you can pop out and spend much less health on the active revive portion. Additionally, this doesn't make it too easy to stay in shroud indefinitely which I think anet had a problem with before.

I think it should keep the passive with life force as passive but your idea actually brought an idea to me.

How about it works this way: While not in shroud, 2% of your damage is converted to life force. While in shroud, 2% of your damage is converted to barrier.

52 minutes ago, Ovark.2514 said:

Signet of the Locust: Passive is very WEAK by today's standards and also doesn't synergize with the active or with shroud. New Passive: Your skills grant swiftness AND as long as their effectiveness is diminished by a boon (stab, protection, resolution, resistance, aegis), they also apply vulnerability per strike. [Edit: I also think the skill would be fine if the vuln was applied if your attacks ARE diminished by the enemy's boons. This would be easier to achieve. . . ]

Signet of the Locust Active: Remove boons on nearby foes based on the number of stacks of vulnerability they have (1 boon removed for every 5 stacks of vuln) and heal for each boon removed.

Agree straight 25% movement speed is kinda useless with the swiftness/superspeed spam these days. At least for pve. And the idea is quite interesting. Duration should be quite low on both swiftness and vulnerability then tho. Maybe 2 sec (pvp/wvw) for both to avoid an enemy having 25 vulnerability stacks within 2 sec. 

[Ovark.2514]

10 minutes ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Just yes.

Yeah agree this one is pretty fine.

Dont know. Find 180 power pretty useful. Tho if these 180 power are gone i believe power dmg of necro would get a slight buff to get back to the original number anyway. Interesting idea tho. 

Spite active was actually pretty useful for condi so i believe it should keep being useful for condi.

Interesting idea. But this way it would have this signet to work in shroud to begin with because the whole signet would be set around shroud 3. At least it wouldn't randomly transfer condis from allies to you while just passing by tho. And it would work well with the trait in curses that transfers condis from u to enemies on shroud 2 bc u could just shroud 3 then 2. I like this one actually tho.

I think it should keep the passive with life force as passive but your idea actually brought an idea to me.

How about it works this way: While not in shroud, 2% of your damage is converted to life force. While in shroud, 2% of your damage is converted to barrier.

Agree straight 25% movement speed is kinda useless with the swiftness/superspeed spam these days. At least for pve. And the idea is quite interesting. Duration should be quite low on both swiftness and vulnerability then tho. Maybe 2 sec (pvp/wvw) for both to avoid an enemy having 25 vulnerability stacks within 2 sec. 

Ah yes. I did overlook the fact that Plague Signet passive wouldn't do anything without the trait. Hmmmm, how about it be like "transfer condi's to you when using weapon skill #3" That way it's got a use out of shroud too.

You're idea for passive Undeath is good as well!

Spite Active would still be useful for condi. it would just also be useful for power builds. I forgot to mention that the conditions signet of spite would apply would still stay.

 

[Dadnir.5038]

I must say that your way of making signets "fun" don't suit my taste.

• Signet of suffering: I think most of us will agree that the current version of the trait is trash. I also doubt the devs will go back to allowing the passive effect while in shroud (they most likely removed this option for good reasons). Personally, I'd like to see this trait take over the passive effect of Signet of Undeath on top of what it currently does, adding a passive 1% LF generation every 3 seconds to every signets passive effects.
• Signet of vampirism: I do agree that this one is "alright". I'd prefer a more reliable way to apply the passive, thought. The 180 range around our character just isn't good enough.
• Signet of spite: The passive is alright. The active, on another hand, have always felt to punishing for what it does. Now, it doesn't mean that I want more things on the active, but that I have an issue with the drawback (mainly the CD). I'd rather have this signet only apply 3 conditions with a 20s CD than the current 7 conditions with 40s CD (30s CD in competitive modes).
• Plague signet: The active is great, the passive is a relic of a failed past. Make the passive reduce incoming condition damage by 20%.
• Signet of Undeath: Since I move it's passive to Signet of suffering, it need a new passive. I think this signet should passively reduce incoming hard CC duration (stun, daze, fear and taunt) by 20%.
• Singet of the Locust: It's passive is very convenient to solo players so I'd rather not see any change to this passive. It doesn't need to be "stronger" than what it is now. The active is very powerful but I wouldn't say that I "like" it. Still not liking it doesn't mean that it need any change.

If life sacrifice (you know, the crap that they put everywhere on the beta swords skills) is going to be a thing in the futur, I'd like to see the introduction of an elite signet with a passive related to life sacrifice. This way we might find it somehow rewarding to use such crippling mechanism (because, let's face it, sword failed at making life sacrifice feel "rewarding").

Edited December 20, 2023 by Dadnir.5038

[arazoth.7290]

Signet of undeath active side reviving players => Make it sacrifice large chunk of Life Force instead, then their is Synergy.

And it also fits the necromancer theme. You  drain lifeforce from players by overall what you do and transfer now that lifeforce to revive your ally.

[SleepyBat.9034]

Just revert the last change to Signets of Suffering and we're back in business.

[zeyeti.8347]

15 hours ago, SleepyBat.9034 said:

Just revert the last change to Signets of Suffering and we're back in business.

Signets of Suffering rework was really bad , like necro need more boon removal that he already has ... it was not a great dps option but could fit in with very low intensity build playing with signet of vampirism , spite and undeath , for some great life force management and increased power even in shroud. It was not busted at all , ppl played it in some solo content or just to chill as reaper.

[XECOR.2814]

Signet active and passives are fine.

The Signet of Suffering trait effect change was a wrong decision.

I think the changes were made people to force them into dropping undeath signet amd vampirism signet and taking new Blighters Boon trait(which is laughable attempt). Other signets got killed in the crossfire.

In a black box.

- The signet trait had its place and use cases, it was not an outlier. People played it on their niche build and it enabled a play style which wasn't optimal but still fun.

- Now, the signet trait has 0 practical use case. Every signet skill is now effectively garbage. No one is playing the signet traits in the whole game except people who are oblivious to the change. The new effect doesnt enable any new play style.

If i did a change analogous to this in my job, it would be on my performance review, just saying.

Edited December 22, 2023 by XECOR.2814

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

my take:

Signets of Suffering:

• Sacrifice heals each time you use a signet (10%). Gain the benefits of your equipped signet passives while in shroud and continue to grant their passive bonuses while recharging.

Signet of Vampirism:

• Passive: Steal life from your foes when you inflict bleeding on them.
• Active: Heal yourself and morph into an invulnerable, vaporous mist for a brief time.

Signet of Spite:

• Passive: Decrease healing effectiveness by 33% on yourself. Increase all damage you deal by 10%.
• Active: Inflict all damaging conditions on yourself. Stun your foe for 1 second for each active (damaging) condition you have.

Plague Signet:

• Passive: Transfer conditions every 3 seconds to nearby foes (conditions transferred per foe: 1).
• Active: Transfer conditions from nearby allies to yourself. Gain Life Force for each condition you transfer.

Signet of Undeath:

• Passive: Summon a jagged horror while in combat (there, stop whining about the rune).
• Active: Destroy all your minions. Revive an ally in a target area for each minion destroyed (max. 3).

Signet of the Locust:

• Passive: Summon a swarm of locusts that apply 1 stack of bleeding to nearby foes every 3 seconds.
• Active: Command your swarm to feed on your blood, applying 5 stacks of bleeding every second for 3 seconds on yourself. Gain Superspeed for 3 seconds.

Signet of Souls (brand new Elite Signet):

• Passive: Gain life force (1%) every second for each signet equipped while in combat.
• Active: Consume all your life force to teleport to the target location, creating a wave that knocks down enemies and deals increased damage based on the amount of life force consumed.

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

5 hours ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

Signets of Suffering:

• Sacrifice heals each time you use a signet (10%). Gain the benefits of your equipped signet passives while in shroud and continue to grant their passive bonuses while recharging.

I think this one just needs another positive effect, like gaining some additional life force or something when activating signets or improving the passives. I think 10% health sacrifice is a steep drawback for just retaining the passives. Considering that the other profession traits that grant permanent passives also have other benefits and don't have any drawback.

5 hours ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

Signet of Vampirism:

• Passive: Steal life from your foes when you inflict bleeding on them.
• Active: Heal yourself and morph into an invulnerable, vaporous mist for a brief time.

Like the old old rune of vampirism, I quite like it, and thematic too. 

5 hours ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

Signet of Spite:

• Passive: Decrease healing effectiveness by 33% on yourself. Increase all damage you deal by 10%.
• Active: Inflict all damaging conditions on yourself. Stun your foe for 1 second for each active (damaging) condition you have.

Interesting passive, the active feels like it might be a little too strong, considering there are 5 damaging conditions you will always apply a 5 second stun. I would maybe skip the self infliction of conditions and just have it inflict stun on foes based on damaging condition threshold. 1s base, 1.5s with 3 damaging conditions, 2s with 5 damaging conditions.

5 hours ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

Plague Signet:

• Passive: Transfer conditions every 3 seconds to nearby foes (conditions transferred per foe: 1).
• Active: Transfer conditions from nearby allies to yourself. Gain Life Force for each condition you transfer.

I like this, flipped version of the existing one, only because I like to be in control of the conditions I gain rather than having them passively applied to me from allies.

5 hours ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

Signet of Undeath:

• Passive: Summon a jagged horror while in combat (there, stop whining about the rune).
• Active: Destroy all your minions. Revive an ally in a target area for each minion destroyed (max. 3).

Another old rune covered, nice. Active is interesting but I'm not sure how useful it is given that effective minion masters already want to run a full bar of minions anyway.

5 hours ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

Signet of the Locust:

• Passive: Summon a swarm of locusts that apply 1 stack of bleeding to nearby foes every 3 seconds.
• Active: Command your swarm to feed on your blood, applying 5 stacks of bleeding every second for 3 seconds on yourself. Gain Superspeed for 3 seconds.

Giving Necro more mobility is nice, not sure if the cost is too steep or not. I guess it depends on durations and such.

5 hours ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

Signet of Souls (brand new Elite Signet):

• Passive: Gain life force (1%) every second for each signet equipped while in combat.
• Active: Consume all your life force to teleport to the target location, creating a wave that knocks down enemies and deals increased damage based on the amount of life force consumed.

I like this.

Overall I think I would like most of these but three of them give something to Necro that it is often missing, that being hard CC and mobility, which I think Anet deliberately leaves out of the Necro design philosophy. Doesn't mean they wouldn't be nice to have though.

 

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

2 hours ago, Remus Darkblight.1673 said:

I think this one just needs another positive effect

ArenaNet loves to hurt us. Considering that we are the only ones with a useless signet trait, we hae to sacrifice something to be on air with others.

2 hours ago, Remus Darkblight.1673 said:

and thematic too

when it comes to ideas for skills, I always think in something related to the name of the skill in question

2 hours ago, Remus Darkblight.1673 said:

the active feels like it might be a little too strong

yeah, I went over my head with this one but just throwing ideas and once again, I was aiming to match the skill name.

2 hours ago, Remus Darkblight.1673 said:

Active is interesting but I'm not sure how useful it is given that effective minion masters already want to run a full bar of minions anyway.

that the best I could come with, again, preserving the whole name thing =:P

2 hours ago, Remus Darkblight.1673 said:

not sure if the cost is too steep or not

mayhap, but it has potential and synergy with necro.

2 hours ago, Remus Darkblight.1673 said:

most of these but three of them give something to Necro that it is often missing, that being hard CC and mobility, which I think Anet deliberately leaves out of the Necro design philosophy

luckily, we are moving away from that obsolete philosophy (new necro sword or Harbinger having 2 leaps).

[Dadnir.5038]

59 minutes ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

ArenaNet loves to hurt us. Considering that we are the only ones with a useless signet trait, we hae to sacrifice something to be on air with others.

We aren't the only ones... There is also thief...

[CafPow.1542]

On 12/22/2023 at 5:16 AM, XECOR.2814 said:

Now, the signet trait has 0 practical use case. Every signet skill is now effectively garbage. No one is playing the signet traits in the whole game except people who are oblivious to the change. The new effect doesnt enable any new play style.

This. I quote it because it’s just true. This „change“ from the trait made absolutely no sense and i hate it.

and i really don’t think my „afk signet open world build“ was that much of a problem really.

now the only one who could consider using signet is scourge cause he has no shroud… yeah.

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

All we need is just a revert on the Signet trait change.

The only possible explanation for this nonsensical change, in my headcanon, is that a bad dev got salty after losing to a Necro but he didn't know what the Necro played. He looked up Necro builds and thought the Signet build was meta due to its popularity and nuked the trait as revenge.  

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

All we need is just a revert on the Signet trait change.

The only possible explanation for this nonsensical change, in my headcanon, is that a bad dev got salty after losing to a Necro but he didn't know what the Necro played. He looked up Necro builds and thought the Signet build was meta due to its popularity and nuked the trait as revenge.  

Or, they were somehow influenced by the sPvP "community" which is notorious for it's hate on passive effects/traits and they made use of the opportunity of removing the cool down reduction traits in order to make the signet trait more active instead of it's previous passive nature. In this update on CD reduction traits removal, some won (elementalist/guardian), some neither won nor lost (mesmer/warrior/ranger) and some lost (necromancer/thief... not that the thief trait was especially attractive previously but now, it's just plain worse).

NB: the curious thing is that necromancer managed to still keep it's CD reduction on master of corruption.

[CafPow.1542]

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Or, they were somehow influenced by the sPvP "community" which is notorious for it's hate on passive effects/traits and they made use of the opportunity of removing the cool down reduction traits in order to make the signet trait more active instead of it's previous passive nature. In this update on CD reduction traits removal, some won (elementalist/guardian), some neither won nor lost (mesmer/warrior/ranger) and some lost (necromancer/thief... not that the thief trait was especially attractive previously but now, it's just plain worse).

NB: the curious thing is that necromancer managed to still keep it's CD reduction on master of corruption.

Maybe. But the only build i am aware of using signets was a necro signet roamer in wvw.

i am baffled. Full signet builds where very rare outside of open world (cause there it’s convenient) and not that string so i really don’t get this nerf. But… it is what it is.

now the trait is pointless to take, and with spectral and wells we now have 3 schools of abilities we can’t trait into. Soon our talent choice will not impact our selected abilities anymore at all so we can all go reapers onslaught and death perception for ever and ever and ever….

[Dadnir.5038]

43 minutes ago, CafPow.1542 said:

Maybe. But the only build i am aware of using signets was a necro signet roamer in wvw.

i am baffled. Full signet builds where very rare outside of open world (cause there it’s convenient) and not that string so i really don’t get this nerf. But… it is what it is.

now the trait is pointless to take, and with spectral and wells we now have 3 schools of abilities we can’t trait into. Soon our talent choice will not impact our selected abilities anymore at all so we can all go reapers onslaught and death perception for ever and ever and ever….

First of all, I don't think it's a bad things that some utility skills or weapon don't have any dedicated trait. As a result it mean that we have more trait whose effects apply to a large variety of builds instead of within a limited choice of weapon and utilities.

Now if we want to analyse the situation objectively, we have to take into account a few things:

The first thing is the reputation of the necromancer. as a matter of fact many have the prejudice that necromancer is a low skill floor profession that deal to much damage while having to much survivability. Personally i'd say that these claim are arguable but it's very difficult to break prejudices, especially when necromancer have few active defense mean compared to other professions and as a result is forced to rely on face tanking to survive.

The second point is that each necromancer player have a very different ideal image of what the necromancer "should" be. Some still picture it as a minion master and wish for minions to be more "rewarding" in a very passive manner, some are "vampire" wanabe often disappointed by the low effectiveness of life siphon despite it's somewhat "balance" level that still make other professions cry river, some are GW1 nostalgic mourning the countless loss of the necromancer in the few hundred years gap between GW1 and GW2... etc.

The third point is that the developper have to make the players actively play the game in order to keep their product interesting. For this they can only target an ideal gameplay for each profession. Everything in the professions need to have value in being "used" (you can argue that they fail at this).

The fourth point is that they introduced harbinger which is a mid range specialization that benefit a lot from staying in shroud.

So what was the issue with the previous signet of suffering? Simply put it allowed the character to stay in shroud ad nauseam. It mean that it dumbed down the gameplay to the single use of the shroud, lowering even further the skill floor of a profession that was already labelled as "low skill". The fact that some players exploited this build option also meant that the "interesting" options given by the developper through traits where ignored, seen as low value. Lastly harbinger's potential with signet was a dangerous possiblity from a balanced point of view (For many players, Harbinger is already walking on the edge of being OP in competitive modes, if it could stay in shroud undefinitely with it's high sustain, there is a high probability that it would generate a lot more teary complaints than right now).

 

I think the ideal solution would have been to change singet of undeath passive effect, however, let's be fair, if it was what they had done, there would have been the same number of thread crying about the change of SoU than there are crying about the change of SoS. What players mourn here isn't a good "trait" but the loss of a very low skill floor. Personally I can still pisture some use for SoS in competitive modes. I'll still use Signet of locust for the movement speed quality of life. I'll still use spite signet of it's extra power. I'll still use plague signet for it's easy cleanse. I still see use for vampiric signet. I'll still loath singet of undeath and it's crapy life sacrifice. I don't think signets are dead nor do I think the trait is complety useless. It's just that now it's less convenient.

[CafPow.1542]

I like your analysis. Especially about harbinger, it makes sense tho it sucks to nerf the trait for reaper in the same time but welp.

i generally agree with you mostly and for most parts, i really enjoy playing necro, especially reaper. That’s (for me) one of the most fun specs in the game.

only thing I’d really like for reaper / necro would be, to have a little mobility on GS and faster autos but yeah.

 

+yeah, i do mourne the loss of a low skill floor trait. But also because it was the trait, that made a passive ability into an active one, but it was still nice for open world (where i ised it…) but that’s just me ofc. ^^

Edited December 25, 2023 by CafPow.1542

[XECOR.2814]

On 12/25/2023 at 4:39 PM, Dadnir.5038 said:

First of all, I don't think it's a bad things that some utility skills or weapon don't have any dedicated trait. As a result it mean that we have more trait whose effects apply to a large variety of builds instead of within a limited choice of weapon and utilities.

Now if we want to analyse the situation objectively, we have to take into account a few things:

The first thing is the reputation of the necromancer. as a matter of fact many have the prejudice that necromancer is a low skill floor profession that deal to much damage while having to much survivability. Personally i'd say that these claim are arguable but it's very difficult to break prejudices, especially when necromancer have few active defense mean compared to other professions and as a result is forced to rely on face tanking to survive.

The second point is that each necromancer player have a very different ideal image of what the necromancer "should" be. Some still picture it as a minion master and wish for minions to be more "rewarding" in a very passive manner, some are "vampire" wanabe often disappointed by the low effectiveness of life siphon despite it's somewhat "balance" level that still make other professions cry river, some are GW1 nostalgic mourning the countless loss of the necromancer in the few hundred years gap between GW1 and GW2... etc.

The third point is that the developper have to make the players actively play the game in order to keep their product interesting. For this they can only target an ideal gameplay for each profession. Everything in the professions need to have value in being "used" (you can argue that they fail at this).

The fourth point is that they introduced harbinger which is a mid range specialization that benefit a lot from staying in shroud.

So what was the issue with the previous signet of suffering? Simply put it allowed the character to stay in shroud ad nauseam. It mean that it dumbed down the gameplay to the single use of the shroud, lowering even further the skill floor of a profession that was already labelled as "low skill". The fact that some players exploited this build option also meant that the "interesting" options given by the developper through traits where ignored, seen as low value. Lastly harbinger's potential with signet was a dangerous possiblity from a balanced point of view (For many players, Harbinger is already walking on the edge of being OP in competitive modes, if it could stay in shroud undefinitely with it's high sustain, there is a high probability that it would generate a lot more teary complaints than right now).

 

I think the ideal solution would have been to change singet of undeath passive effect, however, let's be fair, if it was what they had done, there would have been the same number of thread crying about the change of SoU than there are crying about the change of SoS. What players mourn here isn't a good "trait" but the loss of a very low skill floor. Personally I can still pisture some use for SoS in competitive modes. I'll still use Signet of locust for the movement speed quality of life. I'll still use spite signet of it's extra power. I'll still use plague signet for it's easy cleanse. I still see use for vampiric signet. I'll still loath singet of undeath and it's crapy life sacrifice. I don't think signets are dead nor do I think the trait is complety useless. It's just that now it's less convenient.

Harbinger shroud doesnt replace hp so it cant be broken even if it stays in shroud all the time in competitive.
The only thing that makes it meta or viable previously is that it outputs damage a lot so in aggressive comps it fits well.
Also, it still cant remain in shroud no matter what. The concept of creating and consuming blight automatically lowers the overall time harbinger can stay in shroud by consuming life force when it scales with hp.
The perma shroud build was not optimal and was not an issue.
The signet of suffering change has been in my opinion to cleanup code by removing all the additional effects  + giving back some of the boon removal/corrupts which were removed on the same patch from other skills.
This is just very abstract way of thinking and it doesn't pan out in practical. But since the trait originally had that effect they were confident in pushing this change out.

It was a show of lack of understanding. This is not a deliberate change to remove the perma shroud builds using signets from the game because they wouldn't give the blighters boon change on the same patch then which make perma shroud insanely easy with no extra trait investment in the meta builds aside from itself.

Edited December 28, 2023 by XECOR.2814