Guild Wars 2

Retaliation says it reflects incoming damage back to its source, so does that work for both range and melee damage? I’ve never understood retaliation

What the buff claims it does and what it actually does are two seperate things.

1) Despite what the tool tip implies, it doesn’t actually prevent any of the incoming damage. You’ll still take full incoming damage while under the Retaliation boon. (However ArenaNet has publically mentioned that they’re looking to change how this boon works. While it’s currently just a pseudo-offensive buff, the devs do want to turn it into some kind of damage reducing / preventing buff in the future.)

2) Retaliation causes a specific amount of damage to anyone who hits you with a melee or ranged attack. The base damage scales up with your character level, then it is increased by a fraction of your Power ability score. This boon inflicts damage every time that you are hit, which means that a rapid fire move which hits you x5 times will also hit your attacker x5 times. As a result, this buff is best used against enemies who hit you will lots of smaller damage hits and is notably weak against enemies who only hit you a few times with some mega damage hits.

For more information on the damage scaling, see the GW2 Wiki.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Retaliation