Guild Wars 2

I must say, I am quite disappointed with the nerfing these poor creatures took. Removing the Retaliation boon and replacing it with Swiftness pretty much ripped out the teeth of these things.

I would like to see it returned. It was a good mechanic that made players think and actually give cause for running boon removal in PvE. It shook up PvE gameplay, and in a good way!

Could it have been too strong? It’s possible, sure. I don’t think it was, but since they were the first regular mobs to use the boon, I guess you can hold the player’s hands that can’t figure out that just burning mobs down when they have Retaliation isn’t a good idea.

So if you really feel the need to tone it down, how about instead adjusting the Wolves Power stat and attack scaling? Reducing the stat and increasing their Power coefficients to compensate will allow the Retaliation boon to deal less damage while leaving their damage output untouched. This works because mob stats are known values. Mordrem Wolves also cannot, currently, gain Might, as no Mordrem grant the boon. Thus, increasing the Power coefficients will leave the normal attack damage output untouched.

I know I will get a lot of hate for calling for Retaliation to return to these mobs, but I don’t care. It was a mechanic that made people think and work around it instead of mindlessly spamming attacks.

Please, think of the plant puppies.

Sorry…. but I completely disagree.

On many professions, your attack speed is way too high to even think about fighting these things.

I remember when I had to fight the veteran one (that splits into several smaller versions) for progression in the LS… and my necromancer would kill himself on retaliation alone…. without ever being struck by the boss itself, in 3 seconds flat.

I could only use death shroud to kill it, since it packed a harder hit with much slower attack speed.

If there was some downtime to the retaliation….. sure…… but having it up 100% of the time is not cool.

There is no added skill, or mechanic to learn….. it just prolongs the fight to absurd lengths. You must attack for a few seconds…… then wait around to regen or heal the massive hit your hp took due to retal…… and repeat….

Not fun or interesting.

Boring and Annoying.

Mordrem Vile Trasher got nerfed too. They used to be immune to damage when rotating. Now they’re just defenseless from behind.

They’re still sufficiently dangerous even without the retal, especially in groups where you can get surrounded. That back-crit is no laughing matter, and their leap still seems to score back-crits even from the front occasionally.

It still requires tactics (keep from getting surrounded and keep them in front of you), the tactics just don’t include “stop attacking for 10 seconds”.

I started a thread on this a week ago along the same lines https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/s2/Mordrem-Wolves-change-not-in-patch-notes/first#post4542993

I haven’t seen many people clamoring for the return of Retaliation in the forums at least. (Kitten limited search feature). You would be the first. The issue with Retaliation and the wolves was that it was given not just to wolves but they buffed their allies too. Not only that, multiple wolves with the howl on different cooldowns could maintain it much more easily than any class could strip it. If you look at how many people go down during a mordrem zerg right now, imagine what throwing Retaliation into the mix would do. On a related note, people largely avoided the Skeletal Lich in the Mad King’s labyrinth because they didn’t know how to dodge the skeleton summon, couldn’t see the tell for the skill, and had cooldowns on aoe boon stripping that couldn’t outpace the Retaliation uptime/sources. With mordrem wolves in large numbers and close proximity to other mordrem, the same is likely to occur. It’s a strong offensive boon and the wolves already are a pretty big threat damage wise without it. I don’t think they need it back personally.

On the Might comment you made, the Mordrem Menders grant might. But I haven’t been paying close enough attention to see if it’s only might to themselves or to other Mordrem. They heal other Mordrem but I don’t remember seeing others getting might around them. It might be relevant since Mordrem wolves and friends may currently get might in addition to swiftness now.

Haishao.6851:

Mordrem Vile Trasher got nerfed too. They used to be immune to damage when rotating. Now they’re just defenseless from behind.

i don’t go for this sort of thing, but this was high-lair-ee-us

Eh…on one hand, the Retaliation did make one switch up tactics and try to play smarter, not spam harder. On the other hand…it could get painful to deal with, especially with enough of them to make it last nearly indefinitely.

And don’t get me started on the event Mordrem wolves in Iron Marches that had perma retaliation, and could then buff themselves with regular retaliation on top of that…that was just cheap.

The other big issue is that not all professions have equal access to boon stripping/corruption.

That being said, I find that the “deadly when flanking” ability they have is far worse now, since if they’re close enough, their lunges will still hit behind you despite you facing them. If the Retaliation were to come back, I wouldn’t mind too much..but that deadly flanking damage ability would have to go.

retal is so ridiculous in pve.
i rejoiced the day it was nerfed in wvw to match the pvp balance.

IF it actually made people think it might have been good but did it?
More importantly did it increase the value of boon removal? That might seem like a silly question but I remember fighting a veteran karka on my thief with S/D. “Hey! It has retaliation, I should remove it. removes it Hey! It already reapplied the retaliation on itself so wtf was the point of removing it?”. Unless there is an improvement over that then it just becomes a binary situation. Either you can power through it or you can’t, nothing interesting about that and not much thinking involved after the first encounter.

Khisanth.2948:

IF it actually made people think it might have been good but did it?
More importantly did it increase the value of boon removal? That might seem like a silly question but I remember fighting a veteran karka on my thief with S/D. “Hey! It has retaliation, I should remove it. removes it Hey! It already reapplied the retaliation on itself so wtf was the point of removing it?”. Unless there is an improvement over that then it just becomes a binary situation. Either you can power through it or you can’t, nothing interesting about that and not much thinking involved after the first encounter.

I guess this raises the question of when/where they will create an effective use of retaliation? It is a pretty strong boon to throw at the pve experience especially when most of the boons mobs have used thus far, Dredge mostly, are defensive and not offensive. I imagine the removal of retaliation in this instance means they are reconsidering what to do with it in future encounters since what they thought was good balance initially turned out to be less than stellar. At least, we can assume this was the reason.

No, I don’t think so. Keep it gone. The major issue I had with it was many classes have what can be best described as “inadequate” or “minimal” boon stripping ability (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Boon). Only the Necromancer and Mesmer stand out for boon stripping. On some classes I would interrupt the skill but that was still a tactic that had pretty limited impact when they were in groups. Khisanth pretty much summed it up – either you could power through the retal or you ran or died.

I never noticed it, ele stomps without discrimination

Haishao.6851:

Mordrem Vile Trasher got nerfed too. They used to be immune to damage when rotating. Now they’re just defenseless from behind.

WHAAAHAHAHA Mordred Daisy Wolf ?

I was also kind of disappointed to see retaliation removed from wolves: it gave a point to bring my more and more useless main mesmer to the new zones (even though fighting hordes of small mobs on a mesmer is terribly frustrating). Now I’m again bringing my guardian, because it provides better damage with enough utility and is more comfortable (and rewarding) to play. Again, the best classes are best, and the other classes are rendered useless; wolves were actually punishing the mindless faceroll warriors and pew-pew rangers, filling the missing PvE niches and fixing the zerker meta. These are group events – there’s no problem in making them require multiple classes!

I think that removing retaliation was a wrong way to solve the problem. I would’ve suggested instead:

• Lowering base stats on wolves to lower retaliation damage.
• Permanently remove the unremovable retaliation.
• Make the howl a single channeled skill which provides a single long-lasting removable retaliation boon that can be interrupted (for no retaliation at all).
• Probably remove the AoE effect of the howl.

I get that some classes don’t have good boon stripping, but there’s no more “Oh sweet mercy! I’m surrounded by a merciless-evil-vile-horrific-fear-inducing-dragon-spawns-of-vegetables!!”

Maybe the retal could be nerfed a teeny bit? What’s so scary about swiftness?

Arikyali.5804:

I get that some classes don’t have good boon stripping, but there’s no more “Oh sweet mercy! I’m surrounded by a merciless-evil-vile-horrific-fear-inducing-dragon-spawns-of-vegetables!!”

Maybe the retal could be nerfed a teeny bit? What’s so scary about swiftness?

Swiftness combined with their cripples can mean that you can’t escape without teleports if you’re in a rough spot or being chased. It’s not something you’re going to remove, sure, but that is because they reapply it so easily in groups. I have, on occasion, converted that swiftness once it finished channeling so that I could more easily maneuver around it.

Retaliation is good for pve.
However, in order for it to be effective and not overwhelming for players and make some classes more useful is simply thus;

1. Don’t allow minor trash mobs to buff others with Retaliation. These tend to come in large numbers and henceforth not only allow it to be spammed alot, but also cause the most havoc with how many there are overall in combination. Self application is more acceptable given one simply needs to pay attention to the single mob they are fighting.

2. Instead of low cooldown spam of the Retaliation buff, make it last longer instead. This allows boon stripping classes to be more effective.

3. Support mobs or special mobs should be the only ones capable of group retaliation. This creates smarter play for choosing priority targets and can lead to some challenge if decided otherwise with mobs granted such buffs. This also prevents the issue with spamming via multiple mobs.

The issue I think is not the buff, but how it’s been introduced a few cases. The main issue seems to be frequency and numbers more so than the buff itself.

I kinda miss the retaliation. It made the mordrem wolf a bit more tactical to deal with. It also allowed me to use boon removal, opening new options for several classes (mesmer and necro’s were an obvious choice but the engi’s, thiefs and guardians also have the option to remove boon(s)). Classes that had no boon removal still could deal with the retaliation since the move has an obvious cast time (that and sigil of nullification).

The fact that they need to nerf it, dissapoints me a lot. Since it gives me the impression that Anet doesn’t want a smart pve which is a shame.

I hope that whenever Anet makes a dungeon with mordrem inside, the wolves will get their retaliation back.

These mobs had me consider using spinal shivers in PvE. Too bad they got nerfed to the ground.

Good riddens, honestly. It is very annoying to be fighting an enemy, and suddenly find yourself lying on the floor for no clear reason. Plus their up-time on that buff was absurd. They took forever to kill.

Nilkemia.8507:

And don’t get me started on the event Mordrem wolves in Iron Marches that had perma retaliation, and could then buff themselves with regular retaliation on top of that…that was just cheap.

Or that godkitten golem in Fallen Hopes that has perma-retaliation and causes you to take 300+ damage every time you attack it.

Retaliation is just horribly broken when used by monsters in general, since we attack so fast compared to them (simultaneously making it worthless to use ourselves). And boon removal is inadequate or downright nonexistent depending on profession And what does exist is balanced for esports like all defensive abilities (and thus has a cooldown at least twice as long as it should have to be useful in PVE).

The current problem of mordrem wolves is not the lack of retaliation. The problem is the feature they have: more damage when they flank.

So, basically, if you are in the middle of a million visual effects, you can not see when this happens. Not to mention if the event has scaled…

Good riddance on the retaliation. 300 dmg per attack with 100% uptime. My poor ele only has 11k health. That is 30 attacks and i’m dead. 30 attacks is like 10 seconds and does ~20% of the wolfs health.

It took me almost an hour to beat the vet wolf for that achievement in the instance. I never got past 70% legit, I ended up standing on some boxes where he could hit me and then lowered myself to 20% health, heal, wait for heal CD, heal again, attack for 10 seconds… repeat.

Khisanth.2948:

IF it actually made people think it might have been good but did it?
More importantly did it increase the value of boon removal? That might seem like a silly question but I remember fighting a veteran karka on my thief with S/D. “Hey! It has retaliation, I should remove it. removes it Hey! It already reapplied the retaliation on itself so wtf was the point of removing it?”. Unless there is an improvement over that then it just becomes a binary situation. Either you can power through it or you can’t, nothing interesting about that and not much thinking involved after the first encounter.

I read the underlined bit in Colin Johanson’s voice.

But I agree, unless removing the retaliation was a viable option, this change is for the better. Fighting that veteran mordrem wolf that was part of the LS was a nightmare (not to mention he should have been labeled as a champion as he was way tougher than a veteran).

I have no problem with ret being taken away. I main a Guardian though, so that might be part of it.

I don’t really see the point in certain monsters being weak to specific classes (boon strippers) and strong to others. Most people play solo. It isn’t like a Warrior can come up to a wolf and say “oh dang, this mob uses lots of retaliation, let me go and swap to my boon stripping build real quick”. For some people you pretty much had to avoid them in any substantial numbers because you don’t necessarily have the tools to counter the retaliation.

I can only assume that’s the reason ret was taken away.

Draknar.5748:

Most people play solo.

Your data?

“Most people who play solo” play single-player games. When you come to a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, you play with other players, want it or not.

Draknar.5748:

I don’t really see the point in certain monsters being weak to specific classes (boon strippers) and strong to others. Most people play solo. It isn’t like a Warrior can come up to a wolf and say “oh dang, this mob uses lots of retaliation, let me go and swap to my boon stripping build real quick”.

Welcome to the mesmer world, where your 60% of damage in form of a phantasm just vapoured after the target trash mob died, and the other 10 mobs are glad to kill you while you’re hitting them with a wet noodle. So what did you say about a warrior vs. retal again?

Lishtenbird.2814:

Draknar.5748:

I don’t really see the point in certain monsters being weak to specific classes (boon strippers) and strong to others. Most people play solo. It isn’t like a Warrior can come up to a wolf and say “oh dang, this mob uses lots of retaliation, let me go and swap to my boon stripping build real quick”.

Welcome to the mesmer world, where your 60% of damage in form of a phantasm just vapoured after the target trash mob died, and the other 10 mobs are glad to kill you while you’re hitting them with a wet noodle. So what did you say about a warrior vs. retal again?

I’d much rather see our phantasm gain the ability to switch targets upon target death than just accept them semi-uselessly going poof because everyone else got shafted with a new unfair mechanic, if it’s all the same to you

They want harder content and they complain when its hard

now is another mindless mob to the pile

That Wolf in the LS when you need to use a golem was a big challenge for me , and it was the first in all the game i have seen

Retaliation is troublesome from a design point-of-view. There are several gameplay flaws with it.

Saying “just don’t spam skills”, “bring boon stripping” or “play tactically” sounds intelligent, but things aren’t that simple. Some professions are designed around “skill spam”, where they have more skills to use, but they are individually weaker. (The elementalist). Several professions do not have boon stripping. And retaliation procs on every hit, heavily punishing any build with multi-hit attacks.

The best way to play a guardian against a foe that spams retaliation is auto-attacking. Symbols and all other multi-hit attacks lead to suicide. How fun is that? Is that tactical for you? Is that “learning to play better” for you?

I like the idea that boons and conditions can be a significant, impactful obstacle in pve encounters. But only when they lead to interesting, smart gameplay, which is not always the case. In this situation, retaliation only promotes interesting gameplay decisions/ options for some builds/ professions, and even then that’s argueable, due to how often it reapplied.

What’s the point of interrupting the dogs retal cast when it only goes to a 3 second cooldown and then just casts it again and again until you run out of CC.

Retaliation is a bad boon that rewards for playing badly.

I agree that permanent, unstrippable Retaliation needs to go. Badly. Actually, permanent, unstrippable boons should go away entirely (Stability, Might, and Fury as well). There aren’t tactics involving those.

But as for stripping the Retaliation, I’ve never seen it come up again from a single wolf quickly. Unless I had let the boon sit on them for a while before stripping it. Even without stripping, a lone wolf had downtime on the boon.

Yes, in large groups, they are problematic, but why not bring a group of your own in that case? You are allowed to ask other players for help, after all.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I agree that permanent, unstrippable Retaliation needs to go. Badly. Actually, permanent, unstrippable boons should go away entirely (Stability, Might, and Fury as well). There aren’t tactics involving those.

I am in total agreement. I think worst offenders are boons such as Indomitable, that completely negate just about everything except DPS, and can’t be removed. Ugh!

Retaliation should be redesigned. If I were to redesign it, I would make it a boon that is instantly removed when you are not receiving damage, and lasts very short by default. That way you actually have to time it against heavy-hitting attacks. It should also have far clearer tells when it is hitting you.

The classification of RETALIATION as a BOON is questionable to begin with.

It should be like AEGIS or BLIND (lasts for one attack). ONE large bundle of return damage and it ends. Would require some tactics to avoid, but would not be overly punishing if you make a mistake or miss seeing it go up.

Just my 2 coppers.

Arrow.4619:

No, I don’t think so. Keep it gone. The major issue I had with it was many classes have what can be best described as “inadequate” or “minimal” boon stripping ability (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Boon). Only the Necromancer and Mesmer stand out for boon stripping.

Let me introduce you to thief sword/dagger.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Larcenous_Strike

Look ma, spammable boon stripping on a class that actually deals solid dps.

I don’t mind the removal of retail on the wolves. My biggest issues with it previously were:

1) I main an ele, not a whole lot of boon stripping options (like 0)
2) Wolves rarely travel alone, and could stack the retail time
3) Low cool down on retail made stripping seem pointless as boon was quickly reapplied while strips have a much longer cool down

Not to mention the back-crits, which they seem to be able to repeatedly hit while you are facing them, in addition to the retail, just made for lots of frustration.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

3) Low cool down on retail made stripping seem pointless as boon was quickly reapplied while strips have a much longer cool down.

I observed the cooldown of the retaliation to be ~20-25 seconds. Quite a few boon stripping options that match or are lower than that, including Sigil of Nullification. Basically, the only removals not shorter than that are Corrupt Boon, Well of Corruption, Null Field, and Arcane Thievery.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

3) Low cool down on retail made stripping seem pointless as boon was quickly reapplied while strips have a much longer cool down.

I observed the cooldown of the retaliation to be ~20-25 seconds. Quite a few boon stripping options that match or are lower than that, including Sigil of Nullification. Basically, the only removals not shorter than that are Corrupt Boon, Well of Corruption, Null Field, and Arcane Thievery.

Hm perhaps it was just reapplied faster because there were several of them? Don’t know, but it always seemed to be up on the darn things.

Sure, the sigil is always an option. Just hope you crit and it procs.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Retaliation should be redesigned. If I were to redesign it, I would make it a boon that is instantly removed when you are not receiving damage, and lasts very short by default. That way you actually have to time it against heavy-hitting attacks. It should also have far clearer tells when it is hitting you.

Since the introduction of Light Aura, there’s no real need of redesigning Retaliation, not at least in PvE.
If Mordrem wolves would apply lets say 4 seconds of AoE Light Aura (maybe 4s to themselves and 2s to allies to prevent a pack from keeping it up for too long) and would be granted with a 100% boon duration increase, we would have a lot more options of counterplay.
We could interrupt the scream to negate the aura, we could stop attacking for a few seconds and let the aura go away without stacking retaliation or we could keep fighting and strip the retal once the aura fades off.

Vargamonth.2047:

If Mordrem wolves would apply lets say 4 seconds of AoE Light Aura (maybe 4s to themselves and 2s to allies to prevent a pack from keeping it up for too long) and would be granted with a 100% boon duration increase, we would have a lot more options of counterplay.
We could interrupt the scream to negate the aura, we could stop attacking for a few seconds and let the aura go away without stacking retaliation or we could keep fighting and strip the retal once the aura fades off.

I am against of any non-removable buffs.

Taku.6352:

What’s the point of interrupting the dogs retal cast when it only goes to a 3 second cooldown and then just casts it again and again until you run out of CC.

Retaliation is a bad boon that rewards for playing badly.

Biggest problem with interrupts in general in PvE (looking at you Kohler and the TA champ vine).

—

As a guard, I could manage retaliation spam by retraiting to have Searing Flames, and remembering to not activate my virtue so that I have an every kitten boon strip on one mob. It was still annoying to do so, for just a few fights in the game (old Mordrem wolves, Skeletal Lich, dredge), and it’s not available to all professions like interrupts are.

I dunno that swiftness can still be an issue if you are trying to avoid fights with them. Plus they cripple. And they still do more damage to you if they attack your sides and behind.

Considering that four of the game’s classes have absolutely no boon removal and one more has only one such skill, these units having retaliation wasn’t a case of encouraging people to adapt their build but discouraging them from playing at all.

Conncept.7638:

Considering that five of the games classes have absolutely no boon removal, these units having retaliation wasn’t a case of encouraging people to adapt their build but discouraging them from playing at all.

5 classes out of 8 have boon removal. The other 3 (warrior, ranger, elementalist) can suck damage in, tank it with pet or heal out. All 8 classes have access to boon removing sigils.

Your other argument makes just as much sense as saying “since 4 classes out of 8 have no +25% speed signets, creating a map with a single waypoint is just discouraging them from playing at all.”

maybe they wanted us to use conditions????….. nahhhh

Conncept.7638:

Considering that four of the game’s classes have absolutely no boon removal and one has only one such skill, these units having retaliation wasn’t a case of encouraging people to adapt their build but discouraging them from playing at all.

Three. Guardians have it via trait (whenever they burn), Thieves have spammable Flanking-Larcenous Strike and Bountiful Theft, Engineers have Acidic Elixers and Throw Mine, Necros and Mesmers both have quite a few.

That leaves Warriors, Rangers, and Elementalists that lack boon removal.

However, even without boon removal, you aren’t “discouraged from playing them at all.” You were discouraged from mindlessly blowing skills. Lots of ways to deal with it, including:

• use fewer, but harder hitting attacks (Eviscerate, Final Thrust, Fire Grab, Maul)
• Take your time to kill them, mixing in some healing (all three have fantastic health regen options)
• Interrupt the howl (all three have good interrupt ability)
• Get a buddy

But since all of these mean you can’t just spam your normal rotations, people whine and moan about how unfair it is.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Conncept.7638:

Considering that four of the game’s classes have absolutely no boon removal and one has only one such skill, these units having retaliation wasn’t a case of encouraging people to adapt their build but discouraging them from playing at all.

Three. Guardians have it via trait (whenever they burn),

With 10 seconds ICD and on a single target if I’m not mistaken. Couple it with Shield 5 (a 40 seconds base CD skill) being maybe the only reliable AoE interrupt (since wolves usually open with the howl, I’m not sure if it would have been possible to execute the 2 moves of binding blades in time), low HP pool and most damaging skills being multihit.
I can’t imagine how annoying would have been to complete “Not Thanks to Canach” with retal on the wolves (btw, I think this is a good opportunity to thank ANet again for ruining Renewed Justice, among several other things, on every single LS mission :P).

I was very happy to see the retaliation go away. I play a ranger main and the wolves are mostly dangerous due to their positional damage.
Having retaliation on them only leads to long and really boring fights (attack a few times … kite for an eternity … attack a few times …). Also if I hit it while it had retaliation up, I’d generally take more damage than it would. Before anyone mentions, no ranger skills or traits remove boons, and nor can any pet do this.
With swiftness at least they’re slightly harder to kite (though they still suffer from same issues as any pve mob and ranger pets in regard to pathing and keeping up while attacking).
So the way I see, swiftness serves the purpose of increasing the chance that the wolf keeps up with its target. Retaliation served no purpose other than extend fights. Swiftness would be way more efficient if Anet would actually fix mob AI though so mobs would reliably hit while pursuing things.

Vargamonth.2047:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Conncept.7638:

Considering that four of the game’s classes have absolutely no boon removal and one has only one such skill, these units having retaliation wasn’t a case of encouraging people to adapt their build but discouraging them from playing at all.

Three. Guardians have it via trait (whenever they burn),

With 10 seconds ICD and on a single target if I’m not mistaken. Couple it with Shield 5 (a 40 seconds base CD skill) being maybe the only reliable AoE interrupt (since wolves usually open with the howl, I’m not sure if it would have been possible to execute the 2 moves of binding blades in time), low HP pool and most damaging skills being multihit.
I can’t imagine how annoying would have been to complete “Not Thanks to Canach” with retal on the wolves (btw, I think this is a good opportunity to thank ANet again for ruining Renewed Justice, among several other things, on every single LS mission :P).

10 seconds ICD is all you really need, since their howl is on a 20-25 second cooldown. Also, Banish works for interrupt, as does Line of Warding if you drop it right on top of them. Signet of Judgement as well.

Would it be difficult for a Guardian? Sure, but by no means impossible. The profession has answers to it. Just means you may have to change up your strategy some.

“Hurr, don’t u ppl know how to boonstrip….. DUH!”

Idk what you fools are on about…. some of the Mordrem wolves came with innate boons and couldn’t even have their boons stripped.
They were permanent buffs that were always on the foe.

Notice the different icons, with no timer.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Idk what you people are on about…. some of the Mordrem wolves came with innate boons and couldn’t even have their boons stripped.
They were permanent buffs that were always on the foe.

Notice the different icons, with no timer.

Those ones are stupid and need to have it removed. Nobody disputes that. However, they are also aberrations of Mordrem Wolves. Most of them had a specific skill which applied it and it was the normal boon.

“Had” being the operative term…