Guild Wars 2

Considering the tease of Vampiric Aura, and how there’s a possibility that leaps and blasts through Dark Fields will provide it I’ve been thinking. Vampiric effects currently do a set amount of bonus damage+healing, then scale with Power and Healing Power affecting either side of the equation separately.

So, why not have Guardians continue their duality with Necromancers? Have Retaliation be reworked to block a certain amount of damage and then reflect that back onto your foe. The damage reflected can be amplified by power and the damage blocked can be increased by your Toughness.

This helps Guardians (a new mitigation skill that makes Retaliation more useful than an extra bit of damage if you fail to block an attack with your low base health pool), Warriors (Spiked Armor in the Toughness line would actually be something that ties really well with both the trait line and everything Warrior), and Necromancers (With the new Spite grandmaster trait and couple of other Retaliation modifiers, it would tie into that “hit me” style Necromancers have that doesn’t actually work right now).
Retaliation is a pretty lackluster boon right now, especially since it needed to be nerfed shortly after launch. This turns it into a new mitigation boon that makes sense for classes with low/no access to Protection, while tying strongly into Guardians, Light Fields, and Light Auras.

(We don’t have to increase Retaliation damage for this. Just keep it at the same it’s at right now, or possibly even lower it since it will be doing double duty).

Light fields are available to 4 professions (Guardian, Necromancer, Mesmer, Engineer). That makes Retaliation one of the most easiest boons for players to get a hold of.

Adding this mechanic would make Retaliation way to powerful, even more than it is already.

Retaliation is used heavily in some WvW groups as an anti-Ranged approach. This allows groups in WvW to deal damage to the back-line while they focus on front-line players. This is added to the additional damage dealt to enemies that cleave at the front-line. Cleaving melee attacks and piercing/bouncing projectile users down themselves when attacking a group of 10-ish players with Retaliation.

Retaliation’s real power comes from the fact that its damage that isn’t effected by armor/toughness of their targets and can’t be blocked, dodged or mitigated. Its the perfect weapon for smaller skillful groups to use against much larger groups.

Retaliation is like confusion, torment and crowd control skills. Way too overpowered in PvP/WvW. And way too under powered in PvE. But that’s what makes it balanced.

The only way I can really see them adding this mechanic to Retaliation is if they made Retaliation into a stacking boon, like they did for stability.

Every time you gain Retaliation from a light field or from another player, its only 1 stack of Retaliation. That way, Retaliation only mitigates and reflects the damage of one attack.

That’s an interesting way to approach it.

Wait, so you think buffing Retaliation will lower its advantage for small groups and raise its advantage to large groups? It’s because it can be used to counteract ranged/AoE pressure that I figured the extra damage mitigation would help.

I’d disagree with your idea for stacking it, however. Having each stack block one attack would make it too similar to Aegis, at which point I’d rather scrap my idea or plain combine Retaliation with Aegis and have the damage reflected/mitigated be percentage based rather than a pure function of your own stats.

Edit: How’s this, why don’t we make the mitigation an extra quality of Light Aura. Currently Light Aura gives you Retaliation and also gives foes Vulnerability. Remove the Vulnerability, and have it mitigate damage instead. Keep Light Aura only available through Leaps and it’s much more cordoned off.

Proven.2854:

That’s an interesting way to approach it.

Wait, so you think buffing Retaliation will lower its advantage for small groups and raise its advantage to large groups? It’s because it can be used to counteract ranged/AoE pressure that I figured the extra damage mitigation would help.

I’d disagree with your idea for stacking it, however. Having each stack block one attack would make it too similar to Aegis, at which point I’d rather scrap my idea or plain combine Retaliation with Aegis and have the damage reflected/mitigated be percentage based rather than a pure function of your own stats.

Edit: How’s this, why don’t we make the mitigation an extra quality of Light Aura. Currently Light Aura gives you Retaliation and also gives foes Vulnerability. Remove the Vulnerability, and have it mitigate damage instead. Keep Light Aura only available through Leaps and it’s much more cordoned off.

That might make it too similar to Frost Aura, then, since Frost Aura lowers incoming damage by 10%.

I do like the idea of improving some of the auras though. Maybe have it improve incoming or outgoing healing (if you want the aura to be defensive) or increase damage per boon on you (if more offensive).