18 replies to this topic

[Aggelos]

I was thinking about doing a Retaliation build, based on the Spite/Blood Magic traitlines doing damage by reflecting it back and absorbing health to keep myself alive. I even added the Rune of Sanctuary (

5% chance to gain retaliation for 10s when hit. (cooldown: 30s)

and the two traits in Spite line: Spiteful Spirit and Spiteful Vigor and the Axe#3 Unholy Feast to get an almost permanent Retaliation.

But I was soon disappointed. First, Spiteful Vigor only triggers with skill #6. It doesn't even trigger with Deathly Invigoration.

Well, I could live with that. As I already could keep up an almost permanent retaliation. But I finally gave up on this build when I noticed Retaliation damage is considered a Condition.

It ignores armour and does a constant damage independent from the damage received. The only way to improve its damage is by adding Malice It's actually a fixed 132 hit damage that ignores armour.

The damage is pretty high for a DoT (I think it uses a similar formula to Burning), but my build wasn't spec into Curses, as both major traits come from the Spite line. Also, the weapon that applies retaliation is a DD weapon, directly affected by Power and Expertise (longer Vulnerabilities).

So, what do you think of this? I can't find a reason for this, as it makes all necro builds to rely on condition damage. I understand conditions are our thing. But I really don't like DoTs, I like conditions to build pressure and I want to kill by doing direct damage. And that's specially important in group PvP as you want to kill people fast. Well, at least, that's the playstyle I want to choose.

Why can't retaliation be calculated based on the damage received? It would make so much more sense!

Edited by Aggelos, 05 May 2012 - 06:15 AM.

[Dirame]

Did you actually test that malice affects the damage retaliation does?

[Aggelos]

Nope, calculations from videos. I didn't notice the retaliation numbers during my gameplay as there were too many numbers floating around.

[Dirame]

What videos? And how could you really tell it was improved by retaliation?

Edited by Dirame, 04 May 2012 - 06:34 PM.

[Aggelos]

Let me get home and I can collect you the data.

But I also saw it posted somewhere over the forums


EDIT
So I was wrong. It's a plain 132 damage, unaffected by anything. I got confused by other numbers but the 132 repeats itself across all videos I carefully watched now.

It still makes retaliation pretty worthless unless you expect to kill an enemy's jagged horror, but nothing noticeable to make people stop hitting you like some have proposed.

Edited by Aggelos, 05 May 2012 - 06:18 AM.

[Dirame]

Aggelos, on 05 May 2012 - 06:18 AM, said:

Let me get home and I can collect you the data.

But I also saw it posted somewhere over the forums


EDIT
So I was wrong. It's a plain 132 damage, unaffected by anything. I got confused by other numbers but the 132 repeats itself across all videos I carefully watched now.

It still makes retaliation pretty worthless unless you expect to kill an enemy's jagged horror, but nothing noticeable to make people stop hitting you like some have proposed.

That's the thing, it's not noticeable until it begins to multiply. A hammer War may not feel it but a greatsword War would, a bow thief may not feel it but a dagger thief would. It all depends on how quick the person is hitting you. And I don't think Anet wants you to depend on retalition to do your damage especially when it can be quite powerful and is very similar to confusion.

[Scol]

A thief uses Unload on you + you have Retaliation = Thief gets hit for 1320 damage
A thief uses Dagger Storm near few guys with Retaliation = Thief is dead

Retaliation is not supposed to be counter to every attack, it's counter to multihit attacks, just like 'block next attack' is counter to heavy single-hit attacks. 'Block next attack' skills don't do much against Unload and retaliation don't do much against Kill Shot.

Edited by Scol, 05 May 2012 - 02:59 PM.

[Aggelos]

1320 damage is pretty low to let yourself be hit by a full Unload... I'd rather dodge every time an enemy starts channeling me.

The thing is I doubt it's worth any major trait. Or it could not be there on axe #3 and it wouldn't make a difference at all. Maybe a party retaliation would work to counter AoE attacks, but at least for the necro that's not the case.

So, I still don't see the point of giving retaliation to necros as it is now.

[buffelaar]

Well... you're right, retaliation ATM is UP, I played guardian, which also has the possibility to go retaliation heavy, but it just doesn't do nearly enough. IMO it should do a % of the damage you got and still ignore armor, something like 15-20% so that if someone hits you, you still take way more damage, but it does some decent damage!

[On_Slaught]

Weak. Just like confusion.

Expect both to be a little diff next BWE.

[Pete]

I wouldn't find Retaliation useful. The purpose is to dodge out of the way of the attacks, not get hit purposely to get the effect.

[Tevesh]

It's not that retaliation is horrible in design. The current damage numbers are a bit weak, but I believe if they add scaling off condition damage it could be brought to some 250-300+ damage per proc which would be great against spam attackers like greatsword mesmers.

Quote

I wouldn't find Retaliation useful. The purpose is to dodge out of the way of the attacks, not get hit purposely to get the effect.

You cannot dodge out of everything and spending dodges on spammable skills is not worth it. And, tbh, necro's effective health numbers with death shroud and spectral armor reach six digits easily, so why not take advantage?

[Nyth]

I don't think it was ever intended to make builds around retaliation. I agree it's still rather weak (especially considering retaliation isn't even THAT easy to get hold of); but its still probably only a little extra.

Then again it might be nice to have something like that being a viable spec. Especially since it would totally fit inside the necromancer style.

[Dirame]

Nyth, on 06 May 2012 - 06:13 PM, said:

I don't think it was ever intended to make builds around retaliation. I agree it's still rather weak (especially considering retaliation isn't even THAT easy to get hold of); but its still probably only a little extra.

Then again it might be nice to have something like that being a viable spec. Especially since it would totally fit inside the necromancer style.

Guardians can get retalition like it's water so that's probably the reason why they haven't made it powerful. If they nerf the duration and increase the damage, then it would be a perfect proactionary/reactionary tool.

Edited by Dirame, 07 May 2012 - 09:20 AM.

[Tevesh]

It's not like necro dont 'get it like water' either. Axe 3 into 5 targets = 100% uptime, and you also get that spiteful spirit trait.

[Dirame]

Tevesh, on 07 May 2012 - 04:37 PM, said:

It's not like necro dont 'get it like water' either. Axe 3 into 5 targets = 100% uptime, and you also get that spiteful spirit trait.

That's very situational. Mostly PvE and WvW based scenarios, for sPvP you can't get that much uptime all the time. Guardians on the other hand, can call 36 seconds of retaliation at any time if they so desire.

[Aggelos]

I was thinking retaliation needs to be the thing where an enemy really needs to decide whether they risk hitting you and loose lots of life or wait for the boon to dissappear. A quickened Ranger or Warrior or a Backstab Thief doesn't really have any counters, as they can stun lock you before you can apply Aegis or Weakness.

Tanky professions like guardians and necros I think were given Retaliation with that purpose, to make someone think if they want to hit you or not. (The same with Confusion for Mesmers). But right now it's not doing that. A bigger independent damage wouldn't make up for it, because a 1k reflect on a thief who backstabbed you for 16k+ is really not something noticeable either. It needs to be a % of the damage done to you, so even if you die because of the 16k+ backstab, the thief still would get hit for e.g. 33% of the damage = 5k. That for a glass cannon thief is also a death sentence. Sure, it would be OP if you can upkeep retaliation all the time, but a reduced duration/source would fix that easily.

[Dirame]

Aggelos, on 07 May 2012 - 05:15 PM, said:

I was thinking retaliation needs to be the thing where an enemy really needs to decide whether they risk hitting you and loose lots of life or wait for the boon to dissappear. A quickened Ranger or Warrior or a Backstab Thief doesn't really have any counters, as they can stun lock you before you can apply Aegis or Weakness.

Tanky professions like guardians and necros I think were given Retaliation with that purpose, to make someone think if they want to hit you or not. (The same with Confusion for Mesmers). But right now it's not doing that. A bigger independent damage wouldn't make up for it, because a 1k reflect on a thief who backstabbed you for 16k+ is really not something noticeable either. It needs to be a % of the damage done to you, so even if you die because of the 16k+ backstab, the thief still would get hit for e.g. 33% of the damage = 5k. That for a glass cannon thief is also a death sentence. Sure, it would be OP if you can upkeep retaliation all the time, but a reduced duration/source would fix that easily.

It would actually be noticeable especially since a thief who can backstab for that amount would have to be really low on health and armour. The only reason why I think retaliation is like this is because of the duration, if it was shorter in duration, then they probably could make it more powerful.

Edited by Dirame, 07 May 2012 - 06:23 PM.

[Dolkar]

Or it could stack in intensity instead of duration. 10+ stacks of this would be a significant problem for the attackers.