Guild Wars 2

Here’s the problem: Anyone can make a huge tank guardian with retaliation that simply beats everybody because nobody has enough hp to kill the guardian without dying themselves. This is especially a problem with very low hp professions like thief and ele. It’s impossible to do enough damage to them without dying. Totally, utterly impossible.

Second note: Mesmer retaliation is part of the same problem. They have higher HP than thief/ele and heavy on retaliation/confusion. Playing thief is fun, but it’s just not possible to beat either confusion/retaliation mesmers or retaliation guardians.

IMO all professions should have SOME chance against all other professions. This shouldn’t be rock paper scissors…except it is, because of some skills like that.

My request is that you reduce retaliation damage by 25-50% in order to make it possible to actually beat these professions with thief (and ele too). Otherwise…it’s just broken and overpowered. Retaliation is simply too powerful vs low hp professions that have NO way to negate or avoid that damage at all.

But only reduce the effectiveness in PVP/WVW, not PVE.

If you actually look at how retaliation damage is determined, you would see that the damage is determined is based on the power a character has.
Therefore someone with a super bunker build with little or no power would also in turn do low amount of retaliation damage.

I’m not sure I think it is a problem. Retal is in place exactly to prevent huge burst classes from running amok. It serves an important purpose. By running a bursty, low hp build, you are accepting that shortcoming. Condi builds, for example, will eat these guardians alive, so it’s not like they are invincible to everything, just what you have experience with, unfortunately. Part of the game is picking your fights, and that just isn’t one you should pick, alone. That doesn’t mean you are useless against, them, however…you just need help…and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

If they play their class correct AND you play yours correctly, they should win, and that, I’ll assume, is how it’s going down. If they screw up and don’t put up retal…they will die…but if you screw up and burst into a full retal, you are going to die, and you should.

Mash Hog.5672:

If you actually look at how retaliation damage is determined, you would see that the damage is determined is based on the power a character has.
Therefore someone with a super bunker build with little or no power would also in turn do low amount of retaliation damage.

it still is a cheese mechanic, just like phantasm mesmers and every spec that relies on the ai to win

ahuba.6430:

Mash Hog.5672:

If you actually look at how retaliation damage is determined, you would see that the damage is determined is based on the power a character has.
Therefore someone with a super bunker build with little or no power would also in turn do low amount of retaliation damage.

it still is a cheese mechanic, just like phantasm mesmers and every spec that relies on the ai to win

by that definition, any passive or effect you apply to yourself is cheese…are you serious?

You realize all effects have a base amount. Therefore there is a base retal damage and the power adds to it, so they could low base for example.

Retal formula is 198.45+(0.075*power) per the wiki. For base 916 power without spending any traits, that is 267.15 damage. Base regen is like 130 + (0.125*healing power).

Point is base retal damage is strong. With cleric’s amulet bunker u get +569 power from the amulet which makes your retal 309 damage per hit.

No actually they negate/remove conditions very easily and outlive them with their 90% life recovery per heal. Conditions kill way too slowly.

TheBeedon.6031:

Condi builds, for example, will eat these guardians alive, so it’s not like they are invincible to everything, just what you have experience with, unfortunately.

I disagree that it’s as it should be. Retaliation is still a broken tool that makes certain classes physically incapable of beating others (thief vs mesmer for instance). If it is impossible to beat a specific mesmer build with ANY build from another profession, then that build is broken.

They need a new boon that heals you when your hit.

Meridian.8730:

IMO all professions should have SOME chance against all other professions.

Fair enough. But not all builds should have a chance against all other builds.

Retaliation Damage has already been reduced by 33% in PvP.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Is-retaliation-damage-reduced-by-1-3-in-sPvP/first#post1633021
The above formula is wrong due to this.

To deal with retaliation damage you have to learn when you can and can’t attack through it. I’ve never had a problem with retaliation unless I’ve made some form of judgement mistake.
That’s the problem with any build though.

Must find new formula to clean up argument

ahuba.6430:

Mash Hog.5672:

If you actually look at how retaliation damage is determined, you would see that the damage is determined is based on the power a character has.
Therefore someone with a super bunker build with little or no power would also in turn do low amount of retaliation damage.

it still is a cheese mechanic, just like phantasm mesmers and every spec that relies on the ai to win

Like thieves that use thieves guild in their OH CRAP moments…. Or engineers with turrets that can hold a point nearly as well as a bunker guard (yes I know HGH is FOTM but there are some dang good turret guys out there) Minionmancers are still running around as well… Thing is nearly every class has AI that they can pool from… Mesmers and rangers just so happened to be forced into it…. And retaliation is a punishment for hitting someone…. Something funny when thieves get called OP the response is “Get some toughness” So when we go the opposite end of the spectrum and you can’t kill us it is OP? Do you not see how there is a problem with the logic in arguments like these… And an ele’s low health pool means nothing they still have amazing healing (guardians also have a low HP) OP forgot to mention that one :P

bhagwad.4281:

Meridian.8730:

IMO all professions should have SOME chance against all other professions.

Fair enough. But not all builds should have a chance against all other builds.

I HIGHLY disagree.

This isn’t rock, paper, scissors I’m playing here.

Meridian.8730:

No actually they negate/remove conditions very easily and outlive them with their 90% life recovery per heal. Conditions kill way too slowly.

TheBeedon.6031:

Condi builds, for example, will eat these guardians alive, so it’s not like they are invincible to everything, just what you have experience with, unfortunately.

I disagree that it’s as it should be. Retaliation is still a broken tool that makes certain classes physically incapable of beating others (thief vs mesmer for instance). If it is impossible to beat a specific mesmer build with ANY build from another profession, then that build is broken.

The Mesmer build you are talking about is still very weak to conditions in sPvP unless we have one on our bar we aren’t losing your conditions as fast as you can lay them on.

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

Must find new formula to clean up argument

It’s just reducing it by 33% is all, I just didn’t want people going all crazy about Bunker Guards getting 300 retal damage when they don’t.
Amusing as the thread that claimed Guardians did 1.3k burning damage per tick was, it unfortunately misleads people.

Kurow.6973:

bhagwad.4281:

Meridian.8730:

IMO all professions should have SOME chance against all other professions.

Fair enough. But not all builds should have a chance against all other builds.

I HIGHLY disagree.

This isn’t rock, paper, scissors I’m playing here.

Well if you run a build that has obvious glaring weaknesses, what do you expect? If you run a build susceptible to conditions for example you have no business crying when a conditionmancer rips you up!

bhagwad.4281:

Kurow.6973:

bhagwad.4281:

Meridian.8730:

IMO all professions should have SOME chance against all other professions.

Fair enough. But not all builds should have a chance against all other builds.

I HIGHLY disagree.

This isn’t rock, paper, scissors I’m playing here.

Well if you run a build that has obvious glaring weaknesses, what do you expect? If you run a build susceptible to conditions for example you have no business crying when a conditionmancer rips you up!

Conditions and condition builds themselves are too eccentric. There is rarely a build that can bring enough cleanses for all the conditions necros/engis/rangers can inundate a player with: that’s paper/rock/rock.

Yeah, you should have to make a good build, but builds shouldn’t also be indomitable and cheesy. Again, too eccentric.

On retal: just throw it out. It’s the same as protection but some of that damage just magically goes back on the attacker. What a lazy idea. How are you supposed to counter that, just stop attacking? Time is too important and keeping a constant eye on all your opponents numerous buffs just isn’t fun. We can’t all bring one of the few boon stripping moves, and ‘boon hate’… I’m sorry but that sounds like a very lame bandaid.

Master Charles.7093:

bhagwad.4281:

Kurow.6973:

bhagwad.4281:

Meridian.8730:

IMO all professions should have SOME chance against all other professions.

Fair enough. But not all builds should have a chance against all other builds.

I HIGHLY disagree.

This isn’t rock, paper, scissors I’m playing here.

Well if you run a build that has obvious glaring weaknesses, what do you expect? If you run a build susceptible to conditions for example you have no business crying when a conditionmancer rips you up!

Conditions and condition builds themselves are too eccentric. There is rarely a build that can bring enough cleanses for all the conditions necros/engis/rangers can inundate a player with: that’s paper/rock/rock.

Yeah, you should have to make a good build, but builds shouldn’t also be indomitable and cheesy. Again, too eccentric.

On retal: just throw it out. It’s the same as protection but some of that damage just magically goes back on the attacker. What a lazy idea. How are you supposed to counter that, just stop attacking? Time is too important and keeping a constant eye on all your opponents numerous buffs just isn’t fun. We can’t all bring one of the few boon stripping moves, and ‘boon hate’… I’m sorry but that sounds like a very lame bandaid.

There are some very good strategies for retal mesmers and guardians. I know because I used to run a retal mesmer and used to get creamed by:

1. Necros and sometimes irritating caltrops thieves (conditions basically)
2. Boon strippers
3. Anyone with large single hits. Phantasm memsers, shatter mesmers, well played d/d thieves
4. Anyone that uses pets/minions/AI to do damage instead of doing it themselves

There are definitely counters to retal. Sure any build will not have all of these techniques available to them. But a good build should surely have at least one. If a build has none of the above, then…well…I guess they just found a hard counter to their particular set up!

Boonhate not necessary. Most classes have some method to deal with boons and the classes that deal with boons from foes are specifically designed as such (mesmers, Thieves, Necros) Engi’s can remove a boon as well… Thieves can steal boons and give them to allies with a trait… Once again there is no need for boon hate… I don’t know why they mucked this up… Boons are the counter to direct damage GC’s and there is very little if any direct counter to condition spammers because currently no class has the cleanses to keep up with the ability that some classes have to spam conditions… Retaliation is only really painful if you do nothing but spam AOES if it is a direct damage thing then chances are it won’t be up long enough for you to really kill yourself… Learn to deal have a class that can handle boons on your team and everything will be fine.

The problem with retaliation is that it is not like bleeding/poison/etc. that can be self-removed. It has to be stripped from the enemy, which is actually incredibly hard and often impossible for some professions like thief…and even if you can debuff, the debuff skill takes much longer to refresh than the retaliation, which is back on again killing you easily.

It’s not like I want there to always be a great easy counter for every build from every profession…I just want there to be some build for each profession that has the ability to be on relatively even playing ground with the other person’s build in a different profession.

Right now, thief simply has NO build that effectively counters the best mesmer builds, or even gives them a level playing field. Thief vs mesmer is massively imbalanced in favor of mesmer.

Theif sword/dagger three strips a boon and they have bounitful theft which strips another couple boons…. And currently retal is the best counter to the extremely over the top HGH build.

I would have thought boon removal would be best hgh counter since it stacks boons?

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

I would have thought boon removal would be best hgh counter since it stacks boons?

Apparently necro/engi/thief/mesmer aren’t enough classes with boon removal… So there we have it…

jportell.2197:

Theif sword/dagger three strips a boon and they have bounitful theft which strips another couple boons…. And currently retal is the best counter to the extremely over the top HGH build.

Neither of which is guaranteed to remove retaliation, and s/d 3 is a fairly crappy skill that puts you in harm’s way and requires very close range with limited damage potential. Steal-based things have the cooldown of steal, which is a long time. No, these aren’t actually good options.

Meridian.8730:

jportell.2197:

Theif sword/dagger three strips a boon and they have bounitful theft which strips another couple boons…. And currently retal is the best counter to the extremely over the top HGH build.

Neither of which is guaranteed to remove retaliation, and s/d 3 is a fairly crappy skill that puts you in harm’s way and requires very close range with limited damage potential. Steal-based things have the cooldown of steal, which is a long time. No, these aren’t actually good options.

And necro well of corruption? Corrupt Boon? Mesmer arcane thievery shattered concentration null field… And once again AOE retal is currently the best method for dealing with the AOE spamming HGH engineers…

Since release skills and traits that grant retaliation have had their durations reduced by 50-70%.

Retaliation damage in sPvP is 33% less than in WvW and PvE.

If you play a spec that relies on multiple smaller hits then you need to accept that Retaliation is your natural counter and adjust your method of fighting accordingly.

This isn’t a game where you just make a spec and spam damage buttons against everything you see, you need to know your own spec – it’s advantages and limitations and learn how to play it effectively vs different people.

Retaliation is countered by using few high damage hits.
Condition damage.
Boon removal.
Pets.

You complain about Guardians with Retaliation, yet a Guardian is also the profession that’s most susceptible to Retaliation damage.

Guardian’s rely on sustained damage.
Have a very poor trait to remove boons.
Only have access to burning damage and aren’t able to stack it for significant times or make a viable condition damage spec.
Have terrible ‘pets’ with low hp and long recharge times.

Oh and ~ Whirling Wrath does 14 attacks 2926 damage taken vs Retaliation
From 1 person! Do it in the middle of a group fight or against a number of pets with Retalition and a Guardian kills himself.

I run a thief and this notion is ridiculous. Retal has been recently nerfed already. Nerf it more and you’ll just take out even more build diversity and ruin bunker roles.

ahuba.6430:

Mash Hog.5672:

If you actually look at how retaliation damage is determined, you would see that the damage is determined is based on the power a character has.
Therefore someone with a super bunker build with little or no power would also in turn do low amount of retaliation damage.

it still is a cheese mechanic, just like phantasm mesmers and every spec that relies on the ai to win

Agreed. Mesmers needs to be deleted from this game. What do you think?

Nuka Cola.8520:

ahuba.6430:

Mash Hog.5672:

If you actually look at how retaliation damage is determined, you would see that the damage is determined is based on the power a character has.
Therefore someone with a super bunker build with little or no power would also in turn do low amount of retaliation damage.

it still is a cheese mechanic, just like phantasm mesmers and every spec that relies on the ai to win

Agreed. Mesmers needs to be deleted from this game. What do you think?

Lol.

In all seriousness if someone runs a retal build, guess what. They’re probably point defending! Bring a glass friend and the bunker will melt. the only way retal builds can kill you is if you’re a bad glass/bunker that is trying to face a bunker 1 on 1 while doing many hitting attacks of low dmg even though you know better not to.

Ele can just [/care] about retaliation and shrug off the damage with attuning to water, or even casting two spells. The only way ele would die to retal is if he’s retal®d, determined not to ever use his water attunement.

Thief won’t die to retal either, since retaliation hits you for each hit you do on the enemy, and your whole combo Black powder → HS → Mug → Backstab → HS HS HS HS hits like 8 times max, which is nothing close to killing you. Unless you are running a bleed thief. Never run a bleed thief, it will just give you grief once (if) you start playing tournaments and find out just how useless that build is.

The only profession that has any right to complain about retaliation are engineers, because it counters their primary damage dealing mechanic in the only viable build (grenades), but it’s k cuz engis are crazy OP atm.

Retaliation is there to make you pay attention to your enemy. It counters bad play and button mashing of skills on cooldown. Do I even have to mention that retaliation has already been nerfed and most guardians just use it to relieve some of the pressure during dmg spikes?

Make it scale off either precision or critical damage instead. You should do glass damage if you’re glass, yet a bunker using p/v/t or clerics amulet can do ~250 every time he’s hit because it scales off power and pvt is major power, the same as some total glass cannon is doing and there’s very little that the attacker can do about it.

Writetyper.1985:

Make it scale off either precision or critical damage instead. You should do glass damage if you’re glass, yet a bunker using p/v/t or clerics amulet can do ~250 every time he’s hit because it scales off power and pvt is major power, the same as some total glass cannon is doing and there’s very little that the attacker can do about it.

Off clerics? Wut no? Absolutely not… The only way retal can do that much damage if it is AOE retal against someone spamming AOE damage…

Silferas.3841:

Retaliation is there to make you pay attention to your enemy. It counters bad play and button mashing of skills on cooldown.

Just like confusion. With a single exception. You can actually, clearly see when you’re taking damage from confusion. The same can’t be said to retaliation, especially in crowded areas or when a lot of aoe, condition damage and multi-hit attacks are involved. And you won’t always have the opportunity to watch the five or six tiny boon icons on the guardian to look for the retal’s fist.

I’d say that without further UI support, retaliation rewards bad play (watch the UI at the sacrifice of what’s happening) and – if I dare to generalize as much as you, it allows abuse from bad players to win the battle with a nearly invisible mechanic.

It won’t become a very tactical boon to fight against as long as it remains mostly sightless from the UI.

jportell.2197:

Writetyper.1985:

Make it scale off either precision or critical damage instead. You should do glass damage if you’re glass, yet a bunker using p/v/t or clerics amulet can do ~250 every time he’s hit because it scales off power and pvt is major power, the same as some total glass cannon is doing and there’s very little that the attacker can do about it.

Off clerics? Wut no? Absolutely not… The only way retal can do that much damage if it is AOE retal against someone spamming AOE damage…

Uh my bad, I could have sworn clerics was major Power. The point still stands, with any amount of power you’re doing a lot of damage every time you’re hit, it allows bunkers to kill people without actually being offensive in any way because their opponents simply don’t have the health to keep up. The amount of base damage it does is not to scoff at too, it’s something like 135 a hit.

Writetyper.1985:

jportell.2197:

Writetyper.1985:

Make it scale off either precision or critical damage instead. You should do glass damage if you’re glass, yet a bunker using p/v/t or clerics amulet can do ~250 every time he’s hit because it scales off power and pvt is major power, the same as some total glass cannon is doing and there’s very little that the attacker can do about it.

Off clerics? Wut no? Absolutely not… The only way retal can do that much damage if it is AOE retal against someone spamming AOE damage…

Uh my bad, I could have sworn clerics was major Power. The point still stands, with any amount of power you’re doing a lot of damage every time you’re hit, it allows bunkers to kill people without actually being offensive in any way because their opponents simply don’t have the health to keep up. The amount of base damage it does is not to scoff at too, it’s something like 135 a hit.

135 damage a hit? That’s a joke right? That is next to nothing…. Even the most GC classes have base health of 10000 HP. And the cleric amulet power is still just next to nothing compared to ANY other amulet Condition classes get their damage from rabid amulet which is quite potent still by increasing their condi damage.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Just like confusion. With a single exception. You can actually, clearly see when you’re taking damage from confusion. The same can’t be said to retaliation, especially in crowded areas or when a lot of aoe, condition damage and multi-hit attacks are involved. And you won’t always have the opportunity to watch the five or six tiny boon icons on the guardian to look for the retal’s fist.

You mean to tell me you are fighting a bunker guardian expecting him not to have retaliation up as much as he possibly can? With a build that does multi-hit attacks and no boon stripping? Or even better, are you telling me you are teamfighting and not aware of presence of a bunker guardian? I wonder, could it even be, that you are suggesting that conditions trigger retaliation?

Silferas.3841:

Or even better, are you telling me you are teamfighting and not aware of presence of a bunker guardian? I wonder, could it even be, that you are suggesting that conditions trigger retaliation?

That’s not what I said. :P I meant that, when the screen gets too crowded with numbers, it’s nearly impossible to know which one (if any) of those comes from retaliation.

Also, guardians aren’t the only profession that can use retaliation, and guardians can spread it on their allies, especially with that overpowered shout.

So yes, it’s good to have more UI support. Retaliation damage should, in my opinion, pop up with its fist drawing, much like critical hits or confusion hits pop up with a different image than normal damage’s.

Retaliation has already taken some big nerfs. I feel like I have time traveled back months ago with this thread and these complaints. I can’t remember the last time anybody I have pvp’d with have complained about retaliation its been a long time.

Seriously, doesn’t anyone read my threads? I’ve already reported that retal has been ninja nerfed. I’ve also provided the exact formula for the damage output. And honestly, nobody that I know runs full retal build anymore. How hard is it for you to stop spamming while the boon is up?