Guild Wars 2 news » November 13: Salvage Runes and Sigils

Runes and sigils are becoming salvageable. That’s right, no more minor runes and sigils clogging up your bag space!

When runes and sigils are salvaged, they’ll yield a new material called a lucent mote. You’ll also have a chance to salvage rarer materials: symbols from sigils, and charms from runes. Lucent motes can be refined by all crafting disciplines and—along with symbols and charms—used in recipes to create sigils and runes.

The chance to extract runes and sigils from a salvaged item using a salvaging kit will change to a chance to salvage runes and sigils. You’ll still be able to obtain runes and sigils directly through new Mystic Forge recipes that make use of the salvaged materials.

Black Lion Salvage Kits will retain their current functionality with a 100% chance to extract upgrades from salvaging gear. Additionally, the price of Upgrade Extractors will be adjusted from one for 250 gems to three for 250 gems, ten for 700 gems, and twenty-five for 1500 gems.

Recipe Changes for Runes and Sigils

Many recipes now use the new rune and sigil salvage materials rather than their previous basic crafting materials. We’re also adding several recipes for runes that could previously only be obtained by salvaging them from gear. Numerous recipes will be available from crafting trainers, but you can discover others as rare drops or rewards throughout Tyria.

Rune and Sigil Revamp

Runes and sigils can be strong augmentations to builds, but some have been less useful. With this update, the majority of runes and sigils in Tyria have changed in some fashion—some subtly, some dramatically—with the goal of creating more meaningful choices from a bunch of interesting options.

We’ve aimed to remove randomness in general so you can better evaluate and depend on an item’s benefits. Dubious advantages like gaining aegis when you’re struck can actually encourage you to get hit. This feels odd, and is even worse when getting hit isn’t guaranteed to give you that benefit. So, we’re getting rid of the vast majority of “when struck” upgrades and all of their unpredictability.

Below you’ll find a few examples of runes and sigils that are getting tuned up, tuned down, shifted laterally, or reworked entirely to offer you greater variety and choice.

Rune of Dwayna

Rune of Dwayna will hone in on solidifying its support role while also providing a nice boost to your own survivability. As described earlier, the chance to gain regeneration when you’re struck is disappearing.
Old:
(1): +25 Healing
(2): +10% Regeneration Duration
(3): +50 Healing
(4): 25% chance to gain regeneration for 10 seconds when struck. (Cooldown: 45 Seconds)
(5): +100 Healing
(6): +20% Regeneration Duration; after you use a healing skill, you and nearby allies gain regeneration for 5 seconds. (Cooldown: 10 Seconds)

New:
(1): +25 Healing
(2): +10% Regeneration Duration
(3): +50 Healing
(4): +20% Regeneration Duration
(5): +100 Healing
(6): +10% Maximum Health; regeneration you apply is 20% more effective.

Rune of the Ogre

The new Rune of the Ogre now summons a stalwart rock-dog ally upon entering combat instead of granting you a chance to summon one when struck. If you’re still in combat when the cooldown is over, your rock dog will be automatically resummoned.

Old:
(1): +25 Power
(2): +35 Ferocity
(3): +50 Power
(4): 25% chance to summon a rock dog when struck. (Cooldown: 90 Seconds)
(5): +100 Power
(6): +4% Damage

New:
(1): +25 Power
(2): +35 Ferocity
(3): +50 Power
(4): +65 Ferocity
(5): +100 Power
(6): +4% Damage; summon a rock dog while in combat. (Cooldown: 60 Seconds)

Rune of the Scholar

The new scholar rune parts with half of its damage modifier while you’re healthy, but gains a significant dose of ferocity, giving you a more reliable damage increase at the cost of highly conditional damage.

Old:
(1): +25 Power
(2): +35 Ferocity
(3): +50 Power
(4): +65 Ferocity
(5): +100 Power
(6): Increase damage by 10% when health is above 90%.

New:
(1): +25 Power
(2): +35 Ferocity
(3): +50 Power
(4): +65 Ferocity
(5): +100 Power
(6): +125 Ferocity; increase damage by 5% while your health is above 90%.

Sigil of Vision

The new Sigil of Vision takes the core concept of the Sigil of Intelligence and pushes it a little further. Three critical strikes can be meaningful, but they’re often consumed immediately. By switching to a duration of time, more impactful choices can be made about whether to invest in your precision and critical strike chances or to rely on windows of opportunity.

Old (Sigil of Intelligence): The next three attacks have a 100% chance to critically strike after swapping to this weapon in combat. (Cooldown: 9 Seconds)
New (Sigil of Vision): Critically strike an enemy for 3 seconds after swapping to this weapon in combat. (Cooldown: 9 Seconds)

Sigil of Celerity

Celerity will change from granting you quickness at a potentially awkward and unpredictable time to granting quickness when you decide to disable a foe, creating a chance to capitalize on the enhancement.

Old: Gain 1 charge after killing a foe, and gain 5 charges after killing an enemy player. At 25 charges, gain quickness for 5 seconds. (All stacks are lost when in a downed state.)
New: Gain quickness for 5 seconds after disabling a foe. (Cooldown: 20 Seconds)

Sigil of Concentration

Concentration has been impacting boon-granting professions for some time. While it has enabled a few very strong builds, it also makes the Sigil of Concentration mandatory in high-end PvE content, without any way to replace it. So, we’re adding a couple of utility options that will help with this while tuning the sigil to a reasonable level.

Old: Applying a boon increases its duration by 33% for 7 seconds after swapping to this weapon in combat. (Cooldown: 9 Seconds)
New: +10% Boon Duration

We’ve been working on this project for a long time, and we are looking forward to sharing it with you.
—The Guild Wars 2 Systems Team