Guild Wars 2

I did a search on the entire forum and only found a real conversation about retaliation in the Ranger forum. So I’ll post my suggestion from there here (keeping in mind that while I main a ranger I currently have a retal-based guardian and feel that the change has to be made or at least considered).

Basically, I suggest a modified version of the formula used for GW1s Pain Inverter .

Have Retaliation deal a percentage of the damage done to the person back to the attacker, not a flat number. The percentage could still be tied to the caster’s Power, but would be somewhere between 50 – 110% of the damage being “reflected” back to the attacker (maybe just topping out at 90-100%, I’ll leave the actual numbers open for discussion [could also be different in dungeons so bosses aren’t one-shotting themselves, ect.]).

That way, if you see a player with retaliation you have to make a decision weather you want to hit them hard or not. At the moment it makes more sense to devastate a player with retaliation with your largest attack, because the damage reflected is paltry compared to the damage dealt. On the other hand, if a ranger barrages a zerg without knowing there’s a guardian specced for retaliation they get to watch themselves implode with 400-500 damage being done to them compared to the 250(ish) damage being dealt per hit.

There needs to be some middle ground between “I’ll only take 400 damage for this one giant hit” and “If I use a skill that damages everybody down there, I’ll die instantly.” (despite how fun it is to watch people do this to themselves)

I don’t know weather this would be considered a nerf or a huge (possibly broken) implementation of the boon. but right now, it’s not in a happy place (neither is confusion, but that’s a different conversation).