I will also poste this in the Nodes feedback thread, but I think it deserves it’s own as it’s not strictly a new node but rather a design discussion.
I think Sigils of Hope upkeep should be a bit more straightforward/less clunky to mantain for builds that only need them for the passive effects.
I understand there’s a balance to find because Sigils can provide a respectable amount of damage and sustain, as well as enabling builds that use Divine Flare, but for the sake of this discussion we’ll focus first on Sigils as buffs.
At the moment, the most reliable way to use Sigils involves the 1 point Node “Last Wish” that gives a 6% chance to gain a sigils on Kill. This is great for echoes but is almost useless on mob, even with adds. 6% is actually so low that even in low density echoes you might have to manually cast Sigils.
There are several ways I think to balance sigils to keep the power level but reduce clunkyness.
New Passive Node (after Last Wish:) increased proc chance on kill, add proc chance ON HIT, but as a downside you can no longer summon sigils : using the skill only refreshes the duration of any existing sigil. This would prevent divine flare from casting as you no longer gains sigil.
New Passive Node: Using Sigils of Hope refreshes the duration of all existing Sigils, with a downside on damage or sustain buff. Being able to refresh would be a net buff, requiring maybe a nerf to compensate (if they need to keep the power level as is).
New passive nodes: when casting sigils of Hope, gain all sigils, but sigils’ duration is reduced.
I don’t know if it’s just a personal grievance, but while I enjoy paladin I feel like there is too much power into passive effects like Holy Aura, healing hands is still W.I.P., with judgement the only actual paladin skill that’s really usable. I’d like for a bit more interactivity with the few skills he has, or QoL change if they want to keep them just a passive buffs that you have to maintain.
There have been a fair number of discussions on SoH - mostly about how clunky it feels to keep it active and stacked…
The devs have indicated that they generally dont really want passive skills and prefer that players actively use things… this is generally true barring skills like Holy Aura which I dont think anyone actively uses because its passives are good enough to just put it on your skill bar and forget about it.
SoH is a very powerful skill for buffing so it has to come with some sort of limitation… being active as it currently is, makes it a choice that players have to consider when spec’ing it… Imho, because of its power, making it more passive would require some sort of nerf/penalty to keep it balanced…
Perhaps if the devs were willing to change their approach to passive skills (maybe allowing each class just one passive focussed skill) then they may consider changes like you have suggested… but they would have to do some balancing all around to make this kind of skill fair and accessible.
Tricky… but yes, SoH is irritating to use… but very powerful if you can get around this…
I am of the similar mind that Sigils of Hope could use some tweaks - I had even written some initial Paladin feedback expressing my frustration with maintaining the sigils even with maximum duration from Idols and Skill Passives.
Last Wish should definitely be changed, though, I believe the problem is with the node itself. I like your idea of either:
Increasing proc chance on kill
or
Convert to proc chance on hit
Either of those would be suitable. The 6% chance is almost entirely unnoticeable - to the point that I rarely get any procs when I enter low level areas and easily chew through hordes of enemies.
I do, however, strongly disagree with the change to make it unable to be cast - the chance to summon on hit/kill would have to be pretty significant otherwise (33-50%).
Having the skill duration refresh on cast is a great idea. It is annoying currently because the UI timer only shows the most recent cast duration - not the closest to expire. Being able to know that the UI timer is accurate for effectively all of your Sigils would be a great change.
Again, I am unsure as to why a QoL feature like this requires a nerf to damage or duration - this shouldn’t even be a new node, this should be a base function of the skill.
I fully support the idea of this becoming a new passive skill node. However, the duration is already such an issue. If anything, make Sigils of Hope cost more mana (100%) to cast per sigil summoned - bringing it into line with other skills that function similarly (summon all totems, etc.)
Hmmm, it’s a wonder they changed it… The skill feels really awful to use. It wouldn’t be nearly as bad if it were an upper-body animation and the character could still run - but it would honestly be much easier to revert it…
Oh, I do agree that SoH is strong, in fact I wouldn’t ask for straight buffs. However, I think the gameplay of keeping up SoH by manually recasting is not compelling, especially when SoH interrupts movement and does nothing on its own.
That’s why I think they should allow for a more integrated approach that either moves the focus on the resource (mana spent, available sigil stacks, etc) that doesn’t stop the player from his gameplay that often.
To make an example: Judgement and Consecrated Ground.
Consecrated Ground, or Consecrated Aura, are powerful effects that you might want to keep up as often as possible, but they come with a significant mana cost for Judgement (especially on Warpath where you don’t regen mana while channeling) and a change to your gameplay (you need to manually cast Judgement).
However, even if Consecrated Ground gives me less power than Sigils, I find it more fun to use because Judgements hits for a decent amount, is satisfying to watch and has nice SFX.
Compare that to Sigil’s where you just stop and raise your weapon with the same animation you use for Healing Hands.
About suggestion 3, I think that even as a baseline feature, that solutions still wouldn’t solve one of the main grievance that Sigils feel bad to self-cast.
Another, more compelling solution, could make turning SoH into something that actually IS fun to use by adding an active effect on cast. For example, you can’t self-cast a sigil more often than oncee every 5 seconds, BUT on self cast you stun in an AoE around you (possibly proc smite with another node?).
Anyway, the more I think about it and the more I think the main reason people like Holy Aura even if the buff and uptime is weaker is that Holy Aura doesn’t interrupt you.
I agree that it would need to occur alongside a few other changes. Most of these proposed changes SHOULD occur because the skill feels horrible to use.
If the skill was changed to summon all of the Sigils at once at default, this would be a great idea. Add a cool-down and a triggered effect.
The skill already has some passive nodes like “heal on activation”, change it to become an AoE heal and add some other AoE effects on cast and you have yourself a much more interesting and engaging skill.
I fully support your idea and would definitely look forward to it being implemented.
I’ve never had a problem playing SOH on my paladin builds. I always get the proc on kill node, which keeps them going while clearing an echo. There are passives and idols to extend their duration, which often feels long enough to not be a concern on boss fights. If you still don’t like it, you can always go with the single sigil passives and try that.
The maximum possible duration with all four passive points allocated and two huge idols is 37 seconds.
This is, in my opinion, not nearly enough time for the amount of effort being put into the skill. It is awkward and clunky to use.
Also, can you elaborate more on the reasoning for taking the Soliloquy passive node as a remedy to duration? It does not extend the time of the sigils.
If the skill summoned ALL the sigils by default, there would be no point in having actually 3 sigils to mantain at all. Since, you know, you already get three by just casting once.
I think having some limitation is not necessarily bad for the skill, even if it requires effort to keep the buffs up, my complaints are more about it feeling clunky when self cast . IMHO even making Sigils of Hope a skill that attacks enemies and then give you the sigil buff on hit would be a huge QoL because at least you would be doing something rather than just buffing yourself.
I am afraid I don’t ultimately understand what you’re trying to say here. The skill currently summons the sigils one at a time, each with their own independent duration.
If the skill was changed to summon all sigils at once (base three, with some passive nodes offering up to five) there would be no change to the purpose of having the sigils active. This would only be a QoL change.
Since each sigil offers buffs independently (stacking based on the number of sigils you control), it would be ideal for a character to control the maximum number of sigils possible (not considering skills that consume sigils to gain additional bonuses).
On the contrary, I appreciate the skill for its passive ability to provide buffs. Once multiplayer releases I will be making a support build with the Paladin. The current function of the Sigils as a passive buff is ideal, I wouldn’t want that to be changed.
For what you are proposing it would be best to create an entirely new skill.
Outside of the increased resistances (which Paladin can get plenty of elsewhere) you would receive more of a buff from summoning additional sigils.
How quaint.
I think it is quite obvious that Sigils of Hope is a mechanical outlier in comparison to other skills. The fleeting duration and constant need to recast coupled with the need for the character to stop moving entirely to cast breeds an objectively unpleasant experience.
I don’t know that it is that simple. I think the real issue is what you are not doing instead. Should you be moving around the arena to avoid the boss attack? Should you be hitting a different button for a better skill?
I don’t even think that Sigils is far from being good. It just requires way too much maintenance currently. Change Last Wish to have up to 3 points in it (5%/10%/15%) and the same percentage to trigger ‘on hit’ on a rare or boss enemy. That change alone would fix the vast majority of peoples problems with it. To go further, there could be a single point node behind Last Wish that made it so all sigil duration is refreshed when a new sigil is summoned.
Believe me @Revelasti, I don’t have a problem with clicking buttons, I have a problem with clicking buttons that do nothing.
Let me make an example: I don’t know how many expansions ago, In order to make the game more accessible World of Warcraft’s developers turned most DPS buffs (the "CD"s, like Avatar or Avenging Wrath) from an instant cast into a spell (in wow terms, they put them on the Global Cooldown timers, aka the 1 sec windows between spells).
While the playerbase agreed with the change, they noted that the change itself made the abilities feel dull, as you were waiting 1 sec doing nothing. And even the devs agreed with them. So, they instead added another effect to the ability: you still had to wait for the gcd to elapse, but the ability itself turned into an attack or something else. Given, the whole change still didn’t make everyone happy, and they shifted it back with Shadowlands, but anyway.
The point is: clicking something just to strengthen the subsequent clicks doesn’t feel particularly great.
And, to @TehGrief, no, having the skill summons all the sigil at once is not just QoL, because it essentially triples the amount of buffs you get with that single click. You’re wasting less time, possibily less mana, and having 3 Sigils from a single click just makes the point of having 3 separate sigils quite redundant unless you take other nodes. I understand you appreciate it for the passive buffs, and being able to summon your buffs faster is, by itself, a buff. But I see your point and I understand why you wouldn’t want Sigils to turn into an attack. TBF even I think that it would defeat the name and theme of the skill.
FInally, @Darkdeal, it seems that summoning a sigil to refresh all the existing one was a thing, I’d like if it was reverted to how it was then.
The problem was that when it worked like this it was the no-brainer of all no-brainers to run it in every build that had access to it. I think nerfing it by making it very annoying and awkward to use was definitely the wrong way, but the old version was not exactly ideal either.
Yea, there should be a cost associated with the convenience of refreshing duration. That is why I proposed a skill point gated behind another on the tree that would allow it. I think investing points into the skill is a fair tradeoff to make the skill a little easier to manage.
Sure, I also wanted to have it behind a skill node. I’d also take a small nerf like a small channel (around 1 sec) to summon them all or to refresh them all.
