Blog post justifying Confusion changes: " In some combat situations, this is far too effective, such as against a very rapidly attacking character. In other cases, it performs very poorly, such as on a slowly attacking boss."
The EXACT same wording could be used to describe Retaliation. Is Retaliation going to remain exactly the same, where you can do 250 damage to guy hitting you with a hammer and 2,500 damage to the guy shooting a flame-thrower at you?
Confusion changes: “When confusion is placed on an enemy, it will not just slowly drain their life over time but also damage them when they attack. This allows for a more consistent result, as some foes attack quickly but others only once every few seconds, wasting potential damage. We believe we’ve found a happy middle ground where confusion retains its original design intent but will be useful in more areas of the game.”
Even when you are a slower attacking player on a single target, having 25 stacks of confusion can kill you. Retaliation is only dangerous when you are doing a rapid AoE attack like whirling wrath.
Confusion and Retaliation do not work the same way. Confusion is applied to a foe and they’ll take damage now, regardless of what they do. Retaliation is applied to yourself (or allies). How do you apply this to ret? Passive AoE damage? Seems pretty overpowered in groups unless the damage is worthless.
They may suffer from some similar faults, but because they mechanically work different, comparing their faults to say “both need a fix” may not make sense.
I’d rather retaliation deal a percentage of the attacker’s damage back to them.
Note that I say that as an Engineer main who is quite sick of knocking off half my own health from attacks like grenade barrage, fumigate and the flamethrower, so I may be biased a bit. (Deal 1000 damage to target 2-3x that to self. OUCH. Hit a group with retaliation and you can spike yourself thousands of damage)
On the other hand, it’s completely trivial for classes that can deal heavy single hits ,and as such, also makes it a worthless boon against many bosses and enemies. I think it’d be much more fair if retaliation was just as punishing to single heavy hits as to weak multi-hit attacks.
I could see changing retaliation to being based on a percentage of damage dealt per attack. Right now it scales off of the power of the one the boon is on, so 100 1-damage strikes will kill the attacker dead while 1 15000-damage hit will do almost nothing to the attacker.
Maybe that’s just it though. Most super bursty combos rely on a lot of hits coming in all at once, and retaliation is a sure way to counter that. Nobody has a 15k damage single-hit attack though.
Hm, I’m seeing a lot of condition damage improvements, but now we’re left to wonder if boons will get the same treatment?
Will Regen begin to stack to compensate for more bursty condition damage stacks?
Will Retaliation stack to be tremendously punishing in short bursts? ( I imagine a WvW scenario with a small, coordinated team doing a quick Retal stack and making the ele/ranger AoE bombers vaporize )
Stability already has definitive amounts over time, so now I’m wondering if other buffs will be looked at similarly.
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My proposed change would be % of damage reflected, increased by the person’s power who has the boon, such that if you hit someone with base power, it’s 40% reflect, and say, 1900-2200 would be 80%. That’d be interesting, at least.
Imagine if Protection prevented exactly 250 damage on every incoming hit.
The thief’s 10k backstab would still do 9,750. “Protection is absolutely worthless”
The soldier engi’s 3k flamethrower spurt would only do 500. “Protection is way too OP.”
Retaliation may return less than 2.5% damage (backstab) or more than 83.3% damage (soldier flamethrower). The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Award goes to…
My proposed change would be % of damage reflected, increased by the person’s power who has the boon, such that if you hit someone with base power, it’s 40% reflect, and say, 1900-2200 would be 80%. That’d be interesting, at least.
I’d like to see something like that as well, but with an addendum. You see, that makes AoE dealers kill themselves very, very fast – not always a bad thing, but it does require a counter or some builds will be unusable. So, my suggestion:
Retaliation deals a percentage of damage received back to the source, based on Power.
Protection and Aegis prevent damage from Retaliation.
As a balance change, retaliation should have it’s damage output halved while the user suffers a short duration dot which deals the other half of retaliation’s damage!
Tomorrow or in an upcoming week, we are likely to get a blog post describing various Boon changes. It was revealed during a Ready Up that Quickness is becoming a boon, but I don’t think it was ever officially announced. The changes to condi’s could very well motivate changes to Might and Regen, and maybe they will tweak the Stability changes. So they may already have Retal changes in the works.
Using Retal on a flamethrower user just feels cruel =(
I could see changing retaliation to being based on a percentage of damage dealt per attack. Right now it scales off of the power of the one the boon is on, so 100 1-damage strikes will kill the attacker dead while 1 15000-damage hit will do almost nothing to the attacker.
Maybe that’s just it though. Most super bursty combos rely on a lot of hits coming in all at once, and retaliation is a sure way to counter that. Nobody has a 15k damage single-hit attack though.
War, thief, guard, and ele do, or at least very close to it.
Blog post justifying Confusion changes: " In some combat situations, this is far too effective, such as against a very rapidly attacking character. In other cases, it performs very poorly, such as on a slowly attacking boss."
The EXACT same wording could be used to describe Retaliation. Is Retaliation going to remain exactly the same, where you can do 250 damage to guy hitting you with a hammer and 2,500 damage to the guy shooting a flame-thrower at you?
Confusion changes: “When confusion is placed on an enemy, it will not just slowly drain their life over time but also damage them when they attack. This allows for a more consistent result, as some foes attack quickly but others only once every few seconds, wasting potential damage. We believe we’ve found a happy middle ground where confusion retains its original design intent but will be useful in more areas of the game.”
The difference is confusion forces the player to make a choice. Keep attacking and take lots of damage or run away and try to escape / wait out the duration / cleanse. Confusion STACKS making it extremely punishing when used correctly. To counter retaliation simply stop attacking your target and you will not take any damage, you don’t need to waste a skill to cleanse it either. Retaliation also doesn’t stack and can be boon ripped. Pretty easy to see why it’s totally fine as it is.
In wvw perma retaliation guards are overpowered against profesisons like engineer. Any buff, even small one, would devastate this already ovepowered state of guardians over engies.
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The Blog Post said the changes to Confusion were to find a middle ground which wasn’t “far too effective” in some combat situations and wouldn’t “perform very poorly” in others, and allowing “for a more consistent result.”
That doesn’t sound like a bad goal. It isn’t bad that Poison makes you rethink when to use your heal. It isn’t bad that Confusion makes you rethink spamming 1. It isn’t bad that Torment makes you reconsider running away. Is it bad that Retaliation makes you reconsider using a Flamethrower?
Retalation doing 250 on EVERY attack on the target. (do not stack)
Confusion can stack and 5x confusions doing 1500 dmg on EVERY attack.
See the difference?
All classes have cleanse, but not all classes have boon removal.
Confusion nerf is justified, but retaliation is equally as broken too and requires changes.
The middle ground will be halfed the retaliation damage and gives -5% direct damge and condition damage as added bonus. It is too effective against certain profession (Engi, ranger), yet almost useless in many other encounters (ALL PVE CONTENTS).
Finding the middle ground is a much better alternative.
Retaliation works as a counter to many small hits, while Aegis works as a counter to single big hits. The problem is that there just aren’t enough sources of aegis.
If changing retaliation is a bad idea, I wish the devs would at least take another look at some skills that take massive punishment from retal for no real reason. The aforementioned flamethrower auto attack is a good example, as is Hunter’s Call which with 16(!) strikes basically makes you take the same amount of damage you deal, or more. It’s not like these skills are inherently overpowered and require such hard counters.
The difference is confusion forces the player to make a choice. Keep attacking and take lots of damage or run away and try to escape / wait out the duration / cleanse. Confusion STACKS making it extremely punishing when used correctly. To counter retaliation simply stop attacking your target and you will not take any damage, you don’t need to waste a skill to cleanse it either. Retaliation also doesn’t stack and can be boon ripped. Pretty easy to see why it’s totally fine as it is.
Confusion isn’t nearly as spammable as retaliation is, though (also, while confusion is per skill, retaliation is per single hit, and there is quite a difference between those).
You’re basically saying that people should never use multi-hit attacks, cause that’s how easily spammable retaliation is. Especially when groups of people are involved – since many of those applications are aoe-based.
It’s especially absurd if we consider that many multihit skills – like flamethrower’s flame jet – are balanced over being able to hit multiple targets…and yet can never do that, since encountering more enemies also increases the chances one of them will be able to put retaliation on the whole group.
I should also add that multi-hit skills already got a large hit when devs decided to put internal cooldowns on on-crit procs (since multi-hit skills worked pretty well with those). So, assuming they won’t change retaliation to be based on a percentage of the damage, or made far less spammable, what about putting an internal cooldown on that too? Like, a person can receive only one hit per second per every single retaliation-target. It won’t change almost anything in normal situations, and it won’t completely shut down multi-hit skills as it does now, while still dealing some damage back (and we avoid the absurdity of multi-hit skills dealing more damage to the user than to the enemy).
Retalation doing 250 on EVERY attack on the target. (do not stack)
Confusion can stack and 5x confusions doing 1500 dmg on EVERY attack.
See the difference?
All classes have cleanse, but not all classes have boon removal.
Confusion nerf is justified, but retaliation is equally as broken too and requires changes.
The middle ground will be halfed the retaliation damage and gives -5% direct damge and condition damage as added bonus. It is too effective against certain profession (Engi, ranger), yet almost useless in many other encounters (ALL PVE CONTENTS).
Finding the middle ground is a much better alternative.
So you suggest something that will nerf guardians? With all those stacking inc (burn, poison) I think retalation should stack too. Retalation is fine.
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My solution would be to make this change to confusion PvE only or better yet don’t just half kitten it, make it the torment for attacking, that way skill use speed is irrelevant. I don’t like torment as a condition, yet I think the play with confusion is great (even if triggering on dodge and heal feels weird), torment just feels like a bleed stack with false choices, confusion’ll just be a bleed stack that kills on cleanse or kills if left, no extra effort on the user required. The confusion change just feels bad
As for retaliation, returning a percentage of damage dealt would serve the same purpose of punishing burst damage, whether it be in the form of big hits or lots of small ones. The trick is, calculate it based on damage dealt, before damage reduction, this would make it perfect for all the nomad’s Guardians out there and my beloved Mad King entangle wouldn’t instakill me because a guardian screwed up an Ele’s might blasts.
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The best way to fix retaliation would be to make the damage returned based on a % of the base damage of the skill the enemy player used on you, and that % can increase with power.
So for example, at 1000 power you’d return 15% of the base damage. At 2000 power, you’d return 30% damage. Etc and so forth.
If an enemy uses a skill that does 2000 base damage, and you have 2000 power with retaliation up, the damage returned to the enemy would be 600. Likewise, if a boss in PvE uses a slow but powerful attack on you, then they’d get much more damage returned. At least then the damage would scale relatively well in PvE as well and enemy attack speed will not be as much of an issue as it is now.
The best way to fix retaliation would be to make the damage returned based on a % of the base damage of the skill the enemy player used on you, and that % can increase with power.
So for example, at 1000 power you’d return 15% of the base damage. At 2000 power, you’d return 30% damage. Etc and so forth.
If an enemy uses a skill that does 2000 base damage, and you have 2000 power with retaliation up, the damage returned to the enemy would be 600. Likewise, if a boss in PvE uses a slow but powerful attack on you, then they’d get much more damage returned. At least then the damage would scale relatively well in PvE as well and enemy attack speed will not be as much of an issue as it is now.
I like this idea.
It wouldn’t be less punishing to those with multi-hit spams, but it does have more general utility, especially against slower-attacking monsters.
And the thought of two ’zerkers facing off in PvP, popping Retal and exploding one another is absolutely hilarious.
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As suggestion, they could change realiation to damage a % of the damage recived back.
For exemple, 10%~15% of all damage you recive is reflected back to its source. It can still scales with power (increase the %) and also affects conditions.
This would change to be more reliable in the same way as the confusion change.
In my opinion both skills are meant to deal damage if you deal damage, there are like a “can’t touch this” sigh! They are not as the rest of the conditions and they should’t be. Maybe retaliation needs to scale more with power and effect conditions as well or confusion to deal some extra damage in pve.
But other that that, they are both a form of control and not a typical condition, so stop trying to treat it as such.
Example: A player with confusion on him cannot hit you cause he will take damage and if he is on low health can easy die, so he is not attacking, that means you take no damage from him, this is the basic function of the skill! Now if the attacks that means you get his damage but he gets damage as well, so that is his punishment! In both cases confusion will only benefit the caster, either he takes no damage or he deals damage. Now, doing both… that’s lame and not fun at all.
I’d rather retaliation deal a percentage of the attacker’s damage back to them.
Note that I say that as an Engineer main who is quite sick of knocking off half my own health from attacks like grenade barrage, fumigate and the flamethrower, so I may be biased a bit. (Deal 1000 damage to target 2-3x that to self. OUCH. Hit a group with retaliation and you can spike yourself thousands of damage)
On the other hand, it’s completely trivial for classes that can deal heavy single hits ,and as such, also makes it a worthless boon against many bosses and enemies. I think it’d be much more fair if retaliation was just as punishing to single heavy hits as to weak multi-hit attacks.
Arioso said it first and many posters below seem to agree. I think it is easy to see this would be the best and most reasonable change to Retaliation.
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More damage with an icd is good too. But but but, imagine if they went with a percent of damage reflected back with no icd. Perfect counter for burst attacks of any kind, makes boon removal even more desirable (biased Necro here), and would punish bad players in some funny ways, such as the thief that spams heartseeker.
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I just had another idea,
What if retaliation scaled with toughness?
(In addition to whatever other changes are or aren’t made)
It’d give tankier specs just a little extra “oomph” and it fits since I think of retaliation as a ‘spiked armor’ sort of thing.
It also suits the playstyle in that if you’re zerker, you don’t want to be taking hits to deal the retaliation anyways (But you still can use it to discourage hits) and full tanks will be encouraged to take advantage and LET attackers hit them.
Also, it could scale based on the BASE attack power of the incoming attack and not the attacker’s stats, to balance things between condi and power specs and keep a glass attacker from one-shoting themselves (They’d still be heavily punished due to their lack of defense anyways, so if a glass cannon burst a tank with retaliation, they’d still take a huge hit)
I admit, that’d be really tricky to balance for PvP (Bunker heavies would be a nightmare if it scaled TOO well with toughness) , but I’m actually thinking more about PvE with that potential change to give more perks to more defensive and supportive stats and builds. A full tank could run INTO a boss’s huge hit to spike them back, which might make for an interesting playstlye.
Since “vulnerability will increase both direct damage and condition damage taken by an afflicted foe” will players with Vulnerability take more damage from Retaliation?
I think retaliation being based off a % of damage dealt sounds good and would help multi hit burst damage dealers BUT i would also like the retaliation becoming more like reflect in that the retal damage you do is subtracted from the damage you yourself would receive.
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