Idea for Retaliation

Idea for Retaliation

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Necrotize.2974

Necrotize.2974

Just know going in, this change would be meant for WvW and is based off experiences there in a zerg specifically.

Intro-Actual suggestion is second paragraph if you don’t feel like reading my whole reasoning.

Retaliation is a mechanic that really varies in power. Sometimes it basically just acts like another condition, other times it can pressure back line fighters to disengage from a fight and stop supporting their zerg. The main professions I see hurt by this are elementalists, engineers, rangers(at least long bow Rangers with that Barrage), potentially SB thieves and probably something else I’m forgetting. Since multi hit skills really open you up to retaliation damage, this pretty much cements the form of a zerg. It needs to be a power based blob that uses primarily melee weapons to push(as these tend to deal more damage per hit) . Since it is fairly passive play(have guard apply retal en masse as soon as you see enemy zerg then forget, no one stacks retal to my knowledge with blasts or whatever) I think a change would be helpful.

Perhaps just making individual skills have caps on the number of times they can proc retaliation hits on you. This would not harm melee zergs as even with a cap of say 5 per skill, cleaves and AoEs would still proc the full amount of times. But, it would stop say flamethrower engineers from downing themselves in seconds. Since AoEs are stronger in the sense that they can and will hit many people in a zerg compared to non-AoEs, it would make sense to have the retal cap be higher for them, but not unlimited. It would probably have to vary from skill to skill, but perhaps basing the retal cap for AoEs off of their radius would be fair. Higher radius skills have higher cap, going up to maybe 10-15 procs.

Keep in mind, I’m by no means an expert in WvW or a pro-player or whatever, I just see a lot of complaints about retaliation being so much stronger against non-frontline classes.

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Posted by: Tim.6450

Tim.6450

I don’t see how this is a problem multi hit skills proc multiple times, both positive and negative effects. I consider that balanced.

The only thing I would consider is upping the priority of retaliation for well of corruption. Right now it is at place 4 after protection, swiftness and regeneration. I think moving it to place 1 or 2 would be better.

EverythingOP

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Posted by: NinjaEd.3946

NinjaEd.3946

No reason to change retaliation imo. Multi hit skills often have the benefit of hitting really hard but then you have retaliation to fight back with, it’s fine that way.

I’d only suggest making retaliation shorter but deal a little more damage so it feels more like “retaliation” and not “take this DoT that can only works in numbers or rapid hits”. On thief or necromancer or engineer or even warrior I don’t even feel it except in blobs or pve super retaliation :/

“I’m waiting for the staff to get off their lunch
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”

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Posted by: Arantheal.7396

Arantheal.7396

Welp, retal could work on various, different modes and still be worthwhile.
Option one:
retal ticks aoe dmg on up to 5 targets within a 360 range each second for the same base-damage as 2 stacks of bleed would with same stats / modifiers. The pulse can be dodged
effect:
-retal stays viable in zergs (multiple, overlaying auras, but with a target-cap)
-running into a retal-buffed blobb becomes an even worse idea
-retal does not punish attacks anymore, but staying in vincinity to the buffed opponent.
-this boon operates on a more “believable” mechanic now (“oh, I threw a grenade 2 seconds ago… how did this magic recognize me as the source… yea, right… magic…”)

Option two:
hitting a target with retal gives you a “new” condition. this condition can not excel the duration of 1 second. Each time you hit your target, the condition gets reseted to 1 second. It’s duration can not be altered by +/- condi-duration modifiers. As long as you have it on you, you receive as much damage as burning would deal each second.
effects:
- retal still affects everyone who hits you on any range
- all attacks get punished equally
- workload on the server gets reduced a lot (only hit detection, no more damage-calculations for each hit)

option three:
retal only deals xx% of the received damage (set the percentage to somethng you deem as “balanced”)
effects:
-channeled attacks get punished equally to one-hit-high-damage attacks
-tanky / condi – setups will tend to be less punished by retal
-glasscannon / power – setups will tend to be heavier punished by retal
- hitting tanky targets is less punished than bursting squishy ones.

Engineer is love, Engineer is life.

(edited by Arantheal.7396)

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Posted by: yolo swaggins.2570

yolo swaggins.2570

Having it activate EVERY TIME the player gets hit can get excessive since a good chunk of skills in this game don’t provide enough damage to exceed the damage retaliation provides given both parties are wearing the same type of gear. I would think giving retal a a half second (filter*) CD per tick would keep Retal effective while removing it’s potency vs. multihit attacks.

Liaison for [Teef]
“Please stop complaining about stuff you don’t even know about.” ~Nocta

(edited by yolo swaggins.2570)

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Posted by: Arantheal.7396

Arantheal.7396

I would think giving retal kitten CD per tick would keep Retal effective while removing it’s potency vs. multihit attacks.

sadly it would break retaliation.
its base-design is simply not suited for gw2’s combat system, especially for the hit detection.

lets say you give it an internal cd of 1 sec, while it still deals the same amount of damage
[198 + [0.075 * Power]]*0.67 (the -33% are applied for wvw and pvp only)
that means that once per second, some player, somewhere around you will be dealt a insignificant amount of damage to, retal goes on internal cd, and all the other attacks from people around you, affect you unpunished.

just giving it 1 second internal cd flat will break retal all together.

another common argument is “welp, just deal retal once per skill”
this does not work as well, for the following reasons.
-> retal is a boon, therefore acting on a player itself.
-> to recognize a single skill as part of a chain it would need to perform a check
IF it is a chained skill (therefore needs access to a database, and search it for each hit received)
IF it already dealt damage against this skill (therefore needs a internal flag-system and “memory”)
IF it already dealt damage against this skill, originated from the same player (therefore needs to check the player ID, needs a further internal flag and further memory)

considering that the servers are already crushing under the heavy load of the weird hit-detection ad damage-calculation of gw2, this alone could cause a MASSIVE lag-fest even in spvp small-scale scenarios.

the problem we have currently is that the mechanic to apply retal-dmg is so simple, that it exploits itself with the weird hit-detection of channeled skills.

>player deals a “hit” (direct damage) against a opponent
>opponent checks if he has retal
>IF yes
>> opponent runs this formula: [198 + [0.075 * Opponent Power]]*0.67 == “x” (in wvw/pvp)
>>opponent deals “x” damage to the source of the hit
>IF no
>nothing happens

tl;dr:
- 1sec internal cd does not solve the problem because retal becomes worthless
- skill-differentiation breaks the server
wat do?

Engineer is love, Engineer is life.

(edited by Arantheal.7396)

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Posted by: RyuDragnier.9476

RyuDragnier.9476

Welp, retal could work on various, different modes and still be worthwhile.
Option one:
retal ticks aoe dmg on up to 5 targets within a 360 range each second for the same base-damage as 2 stacks of bleed would with same stats / modifiers. The pulse can be dodged
effect:
-retal stays viable in zergs (multiple, overlaying auras, but with a target-cap)
-running into a retal-buffed blobb becomes an even worse idea
-retal does not punish attacks anymore, but staying in vincinity to the buffed opponent.
-this boon operates on a more “believable” mechanic now (“oh, I threw a grenade 2 seconds ago… how did this magic recognize me as the source… yea, right… magic…”)

Option two:
hitting a target with retal gives you a “new” condition. this condition can not excel the duration of 1 second. Each time you hit your target, the condition gets reseted to 1 second. It’s duration can not be altered by +/- condi-duration modifiers. As long as you have it on you, you receive as much damage as burning would deal each second.
effects:
- retal still affects everyone who hits you on any range
- all attacks get punished equally
- workload on the server gets reduced a lot (only hit detection, no more damage-calculations for each hit)

option three:
retal only deals xx% of the received damage (set the percentage to somethng you deem as “balanced”)
effects:
-channeled attacks get punished equally to one-hit-high-damage attacks
-tanky / condi – setups will tend to be less punished by retal
-glasscannon / power – setups will tend to be heavier punished by retal
- hitting tanky targets is less punished than bursting squishy ones.

I keep asking for option 3, but Anet has yet to oblige me with it, it’s the most balanced setup for the debuff.

[hS]
PvE Main – Zar Poisonclaw – Daredevil
WvW Main – Ghost Mistcaller – Herald

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Posted by: Arantheal.7396

Arantheal.7396

I personally prefer option 2, but yea, all 3 would be a way more satisfying replacement to the current retaliation-system.

Engineer is love, Engineer is life.

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Posted by: STRanger.5120

STRanger.5120

Actually, the option #3 is the way how similar mechanics/conditions/debuffs usually work, and it seems the most logical to me.
When you take skills like flamethrower AA or even mesmer GS AA versus for example Backstab, it feels right.

#ELEtism 4ever

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Posted by: Creld.8702

Creld.8702

Retal is currently very useful for tanky power classes, as it scales off power. It gives a way to punish physical attackers, but not in a very intuitive way. The strongest damage dealers tend to be spikes, a few big hits which don’t take much damage from retal. What retal currently punishes is multi hit attacks on opponents with low to medium vitality. If one attack hits one opponent with retal ten times, you take 10x(198+.075*opponent’s power). On a typical guardian with soldier’s in spvp, it’s about 348 damage hit, meaning you take nearly 3.5k damage from attacking your opponent with those attacks.

On the other hand, retal based on opponent’s damage might be worse. It you’re a zerker based ranger, and you deal about 9.5k damage over the course of a barrage, depending on the threshold of returned damage (likely amounts would be 25, 33, or 50%), you would take anywhere from 2.3k to 4.7k on a single target, and up to 11.5 to 23.5k if you hit 5 retal opponents for the full duration. Actually… At 33%, it would be doing about the same amount as it currently does on that many opponents, so huh.

Asura Engineer- Aelara Fole