Finding the perfect way to employ your sigils requires considering the other sigils you’re using, as well. You want them to work together to maximize your goals. This week, we’re going to look at some of the best Warrior sigils and design some basic rules for using them for maximum effectiveness.
Sigils
While these rules for Sigils are primarily focused on PvP, this breakdown will help you in PvE, too. Here are some of my main choices that I use in structured PvP.
Sigil of Superior Force : A very good sigil that increases damage. This only works for the weapon you have equipped (don’t equip this with a shield build, for example, and it won’t stack with an off-hand, either).
Sigil of Superior Bloodlust : Every time you kill a target you gain 50 power (up to 5 times) until you are in a downed state. To gain those 50 power each time you kill a foe, you need the weapon set the sigil is on equipped. Does not stack with the same kind of sigils (life, accuracy etc).
Sigil of Superior Fire : A 30% chance on crit to proc an AOE fire damage that deals damage relative to your power stat. To be used with decent power build only (>1850 at the very least). Generally stronger than Air, but still does slightly less damage.
Sigil of Superior Air : A 30% chance on crit to proc a lightning surge that deals damage considering your power stat. To be used with decent power build only (>1850 at the very least).
Sigil of Superior Blood : It has a 5-second cooldown and not a 2-second cooldown like the tooltip says. It deals a decent amount of damage (around 450) and does not scale with power. It also leeches your target’s life for the same amount. A sigil balanced between offense and survivability.
Sigil of Superior Water : 30% to heal allies with a 10-second cooldown. Good tool to support your allies.
Sigil of Intelligence : A very good tool to make your eviscerate crit (or any other kind of big, damaging blow). The downside is that it can miss.
Sigil of Superior Energy : If you feel like you lack endurance, this is a decent choice to increase your survivability.
Sigil of Superior Battle : It is a good sigil to increase your might and has a 9-second cooldown. Vulnerable to boon removal.
Sigil of Nullification : Your only way to remove your target’s boons. While its usefulness is still a matter of debate, this is a good sigil in theory. It should work fine against professions that rely on a boon for survivability (protection or regeneration, for example).
Sigil of Rage : Overpowered quickness that requires you to react quickly to take full advantage of it. Considering it’s random, it can also proc at a bad moment. The downside of this Sigil is that it puts a 45-second cooldown on every on proc and on-swap sigils.
As a reminder, on-swap and on-crit sigils share an internal cooldown. For example, if you proc Air, you won’t be able to proc Leeching for the next 5 seconds. If you proc Energy, you won’t be able to proc Blood for the next 9 seconds.
Rules:
If you use Sigil of Rage, your remaining sigils should be Force and Bloodlust.
A stacking sigil should never be combined with another stacking sigil.
An on-swap sigil should never be combined on the same weapon set as an on-proc sigil.
An on-proc sigil should never be combined on the same weapon set as an on-proc sigil.
An on swap sigil should never be combined on the same weapon set as an on-swap sigil (the one proccing is randomized). Leeching can miss.
Example combinations:
Fire / Blood + Bloodlust
Air / Force + Bloodlust
Force / Rage + Bloodlust
Blood / Energy + Bloodlust
Nullification / Bloodlust + Blood
Force + Fire / Force + Blood
Force + Water / Bloodlust + Water
etc… Many combinations are usable.
About Heightened Focus and Berserker’s Power
You should be able to build adrenaline by now and you are most likely comfortable with all the burst skills you have access to. When you first look at those two traits, understand that just because they are in tier 1 doesn’t necessarily reflect their importance.
At max stage, Berserker’s Power is a 12% damage increase. That’s around a 200 power equivalent, which makes a huge difference in your numbers. Heightened Focus is 9% crit at three stages of adrenaline, which is half a Fury boon. It becomes possible to go up to 80% critical chance in PvP.
In PvE (and in PvP, to a lesser extent), Heightened Focus reduces the amount of crit you need and then buffs your damage in an exponential way, thanks to more critical damage. The more you take advantage of Heightened Focus, the more you will deal damage, and it should never feel like a big amount of adrenaline to build. There is no need to prove that Berserker’s Power should be picked in every build when it is only 10 points into a tree with a passive power increase.
Those two buffs mean that you have to get enough adrenaline generation to instantly regain your three stages as soon as possible. Or you could choose to not use burst skills, which is actually the best option in most cases and is one of the sad statements of Warrior PvE builds. This fits perfectly well with a Greatsword and a Rifle, since their burst skills are weak (and this works in PvP too). It doesn’t hold quite as true with your axes, but those two buffs are still better than using an adrenaline ability that will greatly reduce the damage you will deal later (only in PvE).
