Sigil of Power

Why does the skill now have an internal cooldown on stage gain, on top of the already existing mana spent threshold?
As of the 3.12.1/3.12.2 patch and hotfix cycle there's a (very approximately) 1.2 second cooldown between gaining the second and third, and third and fourth stage. Consequently it takes, after casting, at a minimum around 2.5 seconds to reach the fourth stage of the Sigil, regardless of how soon the mana threshold is met.
This isn't mentioned anywhere on the skill gem or during the skill reveal, and considering the skill already relies on supports (such as AoE and duration increases) to feel playable this cooldown makes it substantially weaker.

I can only assume this is a bug that will be corrected. Bug report here.

I'd make a change of the cast time being instant. Many times when I'm in a thick fight and when the sigil finally disappears, I'm too busy teleporting around trying to find safe place to stand so that I can recast the sigil. If it were instant cast, it'd be much more useful and have a more consistent up time.

The other change I'd make to it is give it some jewel or item that lets us do something interesting. Like, maybe once it gets to max stacks it casts Consecrated Ground under you, or change the damage prevention into a Hinder+DoT effect. Maybe a skill that lets you banish a fully charged sigil to hex everything on screen with a linked curse. Then if the sigil was instant cast as I suggested above, you could recast and have your curses ready again by the time you hit max stacks.

It's an okay skill but I found it to be one more button I had to press, and in most fights outside of bosses I mostly didn't cast it. Even then, most of the time you're just teleporting away and then the damage prevention isn't as useful and you can't raise it's stacks, so I'd instead cast an Arcane Cloak and get on with my life like I used to as if this skill didn't exist.

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kahwigulum wrote:

It's an okay skill but I found it to be one more button I had to press

Just use it with trigger wep or Kitava's hat, besides this the ICD BUG needs to get fixed PRONTO, but I have little hope of this getting done

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2952187

Apparently the issue with the internal cooldown is not a bug but intended behaviour. The bug is that this information is lacking from the gem and skill tooltip, as well as never having been mentioned in the skill reveal posts or in any other way communicated.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2952187/page/1#p23706731

Probably a good skill idea but current implementation is just shit doesn't fit to this game pace and design.

A skill with base duration of 12 seconds, 4 of them doing virtually nothing.
5 seconds delay before you getting (questionable) protection bonus while your character is obligated to stay inside of (not sufficient even with insane investments) skill area.

Such unreasonably long cooldown between phases would be acceptable if each stage give anything besides (crappy) flat damage.

Sigil of Power could use adjustments. Specifically the main problem is the buildup.
I find the current numbers are fine.

First, I feel the skill would be much better having the skill grant less damage received per stage, rather than its current setup: total less damage received once it reaches its final stage.
At gem level 1, granting 10% less damage received, divided by 4 stages would be 2.5% less damage per stage.
At gem level 20, granting 19% less damage received, divided by 4 stages would be 4.75% less damage per stage.

Although this runs into rounding issues at lower gem levels, and less damage received, it's still better than nothing.
If rounding is an issue, round down, and Having the skill gain a benefit upon reaching maximum stages will even out the distribution.
The alternative is reworking the numbers to (mostly) evenly scale upwards.
Proposed Table:
CSV file Pastbin: https://pastebin.com/QYzzA4LE

The other problem is the mana buildup.
At gem level 20, I cast sigil of power, granting me one stage. I cast a spell costing 600 mana.
If I spend over 400 mana to cast a skill, while the sigil is only at stage 1, I should not have to keep recasting skills to gain more stages at this point.
The skill itself has an internal stage cooldown, of a minimum time of one second between gaining stages.
If the skill is changed, because I've already spent over the mana cap, it should still take minimum 4 seconds to reach max stages.

However in its current state, it feels clunky, and in reality the time between stages is much higher, and its time effectiveness at maximum stages is lower.
This makes the skill less effective overall, as most users probably don't have skill effect duration scaling to outweigh this clunkiness.

12 seconds - 4 seconds (ramp up) = 8 seconds of theoretical less damage received. However this number is in practice closer to 4-6 seconds at best without duration scaling.

Spending mana once that exceeds its total threshold will allow it to continue to automatically gain stages, rather than having to exceed this threshold every time a new stage is gained.

What this fixes: Not being punished for stopping skills to avoid incoming damage.
Right now the skill works for prolonged fights, but only gives its less damage received on maximum stages.
If you need to use a movement skill to dodge incoming damage, and you are not at maximum stages, your lowering the abilities effectiveness.

This is mostly a problem for long boss fights, but not really a problem in other areas like wave of monsters.

When you have Eldritch Battery allocated, Sigil of Power should gain stages with Energy Shield expenditure.