Guild Wars 2

Barrage isn’t an autoattack, though.
Flame jet is – thus the attack we would be supposed to use a lot as we’ve got just a single other damaging attack in the kit (especially since we were supposed to stay in the kit when using the juggernaut trait – that gave a stability-like effect with reduced movement speed as a downside first, but was later changed to 200 toughness while in the kit and might every 3s).
And finding yourself unable to use the autoattack cause it hurts yourself more than the damage you deal to the enemy can be quite annoying. Especially since both sigils and foods have got internal cooldowns, so only traits remain (not that powerful to begin with, anyway).

It’s hilarious if you try to dodge out of FT #1. You move but the flame remains.

Chaba.5410:

It’s hilarious if you try to dodge out of FT #1. You move but the flame remains.

You can also weapon swap out of a FT1 and it will continue to cast the auto attack.

It’s funny how Guardians are defending their Retaliation. Engis are already not wanted AT ALL for zergs, just like rangers and now people want to make it a little better for them and that’s not allowed?

God some of you are just the biggest kitten heads I have ever encountered. When you encounter a zerg, do I really have to check every guy in the blob to see if he has retal. Is it fair that an engi or ranger can’t use its powerful moves while a guardian and warrior smashes away? You already bring much more support with stuns and heals and now you deny others to bring what they do, damage?

It’s the same desperate cries I hear in the Pvp-setting:
Healing signet is not OP
Hammer is not OP
PU isn’t OP

Keep clinging to your cheap stuff, noobs

I normally don’t bother to discuss these kind of threads, but I see a lot of people voting to nerf retaliation. Being guardian from day one, I can say that retaliation is one of the few points we have in our advantage.

Warrior can have lot’s of burst damage and great survivability, ele, necro, engi, etc have their range as an advantage, thieves can burst someone down in less then 2 seconds.

Guardians have their defensive strengths and one of those is retaliation. In my guild we duel frequently, and I can tank and outheal almost 90% of my opponents. But I can’t kill them because of my lack of damage. Going full damage isn’t an option for guardian, certainly not with all the AoE that is going on…

Yes, there are disadvantages to retal. But can you imagine what happens when you take it out, of nerf it? AoE gets even more overpowered. Did any engineer or other class except of Guardian/Warrior in here ever stood at a T3 gate, while 30+ people aoe down on you?
100% of the guardians runs staff (only one ranged attack every 8 or 9 sec), 90% runs GS or Hammer (no ranged attacks). The only way to make them stop attacking is retaliation, otherwise they can fire down freely.

I read posts that say, if we can’t play our way, we don’t want to play. Well, with guardian is has been like this since the beginning. The only decent weaponset in WvW is GS or Hammer/Staff. No sword/shield/scepter/focus combo. we could complain about that 2.

WvW is what it is. WvW isn’t fair. Is it fair we face a server that can bring in 10 times more people on the battlefield? From my view people complain because they have a difficult time. This is pvp times 100. You do have people who think, it’s not fricking PvE where you randomly press buttons.

Players use what they have to their advantage. Retaliation is one of those things. Try to find a way around it, and beat them on their own territory. Then you’ll have the last laugh, not discussing this on this forum because it won’t change a thing.

To all here saying Ret is a problem with guards. It isn’t. It is a Problem in big scale battles. It’s no problem for a organised zerg(guild) to gain permaret for nearly everyone in the group.
And to all here saying that you simply switch to a nonglasscanon build… you will than maybe get less damage but its still often as many as the damage you deal to your enemies, and just stopping to deal damage is no solution, because the enemy (not only some professions but every enemy as i said above) has nearly permaret. the only solution would be to change your profession or to stop fighting entirely.

I’m really haveing trouble against retallation damage. In WvW heavy fights, i almost lost my hp from retallation for being staff elementalist. One meteor bum you are almost gone.

vinceftw.5086:

It’s funny how Guardians are defending their Retaliation. Engis are already not wanted AT ALL for zergs, just like rangers and now people want to make it a little better for them and that’s not allowed?

God some of you are just the biggest kitten heads I have ever encountered. When you encounter a zerg, do I really have to check every guy in the blob to see if he has retal. Is it fair that an engi or ranger can’t use its powerful moves while a guardian and warrior smashes away? You already bring much more support with stuns and heals and now you deny others to bring what they do, damage?

It’s the same desperate cries I hear in the Pvp-setting:
Healing signet is not OP
Hammer is not OP
PU isn’t OP

Keep clinging to your cheap stuff, noobs

Wouldn’t you defend it if the majority of your time was spent hiding in a zerg spamming staff 1. Kids want easy mode.

Really? I Have a Ranger and rarely is this an issue with my Rapid Fire. I didn’t think retaliation does that much damage.

Retaliation damage is very low, learn to not spam rapid attacks. Learn to burst.

If you have issue with retaliation what happen with confusion? that is op, if you cant clear the insane amount of stack some mesmer and engi put on you (and reapply them every time) you are pretty dead, every cast you lose almost 4 or 5k damage. That need a tweak, not 200/300 retaliation damage.

EFWinters.5421:

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

Retal can hit for very close to 450 damage.

450 is 67% of ~680.

198.45 + (0.075 * Power) = 680

Power = 6426

Does this seem reasonable to you?

If your math was correct I would say no, but you’re wrong. So let me help you.

I currently have 2245 power with 1 map bloodlust stack and 100 power trait line and 25 power from my runes.
I have no additional minor or major traits that add power.
Add 74 from stones for toughness
Add 58 from stones for vitality
Add 875 from 25 stacks of might
Add 100 from food
Add 250 from sigil of bloodlust
= 3502 Total Power

Retaliation formula: 198.45 + (0.075 * Power)

198.45 + (0.075 * 3353) = 468.6 Retaliation Damage Per Strike

Ooh, look how close that is to 450. All my damage number estimates were between 200 and 450 per strike. 200 being very close to the base damage, and 450 being very close to the highest damage obtainable damage.

Oh yeah and I didn’t factor ascended armor into this, you can do that if you like. And add another +200 for full power line if you really want to see maximum damage. Some of my gear isn’t even main stat power.

Just for fun I wanted to see how much maximum possible damage I could get via ret with a guardian. Maybe someone else can squeeze out a little bit more power somewhow.
Build – http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJAsOlUgCCXFCQUCp6BAAAe4liESiA-j0BBofBkgAI1sIas1WFRjVZDT9iIq2erIa1SBExYA-w (you will have to add in the stacks for might and bloodlust

Add in + 40 more power from infusions in weapons and armor (You can get power in every slot, it’s just expensive). Add 60 more for icy fish snack damage while under 50%. Add 50 power for 1 stack map bloodlust. = 4240 power

198.45 + (0.075 * 4240) = 516.45 retaliation damage per strike. Ouch!

If you use Tome of Wrath it goes above 5778 power (5928 power? Not sure how it scales off base or after-increase stats, could be more) and that would be….

198.45 + (0.075 * 5928) = 643.05 retaliation damage per strike

1 Flamethrower auto attack vs this guardian = 6430 damage to self lol

EDIT: Factored in bloodlust map buff. I forgot about Defense Against Guards and Guard Killer though =(

That’s assuming you land all 10 hits on the guy. Like I said, turn off the auto-attack feature and use the camera to aim the flame. I’m not saying this to deny that retaliation procs poorly on that skill, only to point out mitigation that works for me.

urieldhynne.2743:

Retaliation damage is very low, learn to not spam rapid attacks. Learn to burst.

If you have issue with retaliation what happen with confusion? that is op, if you cant clear the insane amount of stack some mesmer and engi put on you (and reapply them every time) you are pretty dead, every cast you lose almost 4 or 5k damage. That need a tweak, not 200/300 retaliation damage.

Ret damage isn’t low. Even base 200 to self adds up very quickly. Many burst attacks are often multi hit, so that throws your solution out the window.

Confusion is similar to retaliation in that it punishes you for doing something, but other than that they are very different. How you ask? I’ll tell you!

- Confusion can be cleansed using 1 skill, 1 proc of confusion on yourself.
- Confusion procs on rapid skill use, not rapid attacks, this is VERY different.
- Retaliation increases the more people you hit, confusion doesn’t do this.
- You can see when confusion is on you, therefore you can know when to avoid damaging yourself.
- It’s almost impossible to know which enemies in that zerg are going to have ret up.
- People can spec easily to have perma retaliation.
- You can wait out the duration of confusion to avoid damage

Also perplexity got nerfed, so it takes more skill and proper timing to reapply confusion, as you believe it possible.

If you have an issue with confusion, that is for another thread. In this thread it has nothing to do with the topic under discussion.

Chaba.5410:

That’s assuming you land all 10 hits on the guy. Like I said, turn off the auto-attack feature and use the camera to aim the flame. I’m not saying this to deny that retaliation procs poorly on that skill, only to point out mitigation that works for me.

Yes, it’s assuming a LOT of things, it was just a fun practice to see how much ret damage could be obtained. When I played flamethrower a lot, I did exactly as you suggested. I play everything with auto target off, and I would also have no targets selected. Which brings up another issue. If the best way to use Flamethrower auto attack is to have no-one targeted, how can you see when they have ret

Elder Sang.2058:

I normally don’t bother to discuss these kind of threads, but I see a lot of people voting to nerf retaliation. Being guardian from day one, I can say that retaliation is one of the few points we have in our advantage.

What you mean besides one of the best AoE stability classes in the game? Besides being one of the AoE condition cleansing classes in the game? Despite having the best survivability in the game?

To the couple of people that are complaining that Ret is the counter to AoE, that is a mechanic that should be removed anyway, particularly if you want to discourage blobbing (as many people including Anet want to do).

Nobody defending the current ret has said why multi-hit attacks need a counter despite not having higher dps than any other form of attack.

Jorjeis.2169:

Elder Sang.2058:

I normally don’t bother to discuss these kind of threads, but I see a lot of people voting to nerf retaliation. Being guardian from day one, I can say that retaliation is one of the few points we have in our advantage.

What you mean besides one of the best AoE stability classes in the game? Besides being one of the AoE condition cleansing classes in the game? Despite having the best survivability in the game?

To the couple of people that are complaining that Ret is the counter to AoE, that is a mechanic that should be removed anyway, particularly if you want to discourage blobbing (as many people including Anet want to do).

I’m pretty sure he was just making a troll post Joreis. If he has been playing guard since day 1 then he obviously knows about the massive utility that guardian offers outside of just retaliation. DPS guard is also pretty fantastic.

A good point, that ret promotes blobbing. Thanks for bringing it up!

Sure, nerf it. It’s not like it’s useful anyway. I will say this, though, as a guardian, I think it’s a bit weak that people want to nerf the only buff we can reliably spam.

Svarty.8019:

Sure, nerf it. It’s not like it’s useful anyway. I will say this, though, as a guardian, I think it’s a bit weak that people want to nerf the only buff we can reliably spam.

You think any class should be able to reliably spam buffs? I don’t. I’d much prefer that people use their buffs a times when they are needed, as opposed to 100% uptime. It increases the skill level.

Svarty.8019:

Sure, nerf it. It’s not like it’s useful anyway. I will say this, though, as a guardian, I think it’s a bit weak that people want to nerf the only buff we can reliably spam.

I lol’d. You can give EVERY BUFF IN THE GAME to the party, yet you’re complaining that we want the 1 changed so it’s not so powerful against multi-hit skills? Thinking on it, Retal does way too much damage to anybody who can hit multiple times really fast, which is mostly a specific armor tier…medium armor tier. If you look at Thieves, Rangers, and Engis, we have 1 thing in common…we’re masters of throwing out fast multi-hit attacks, which retal completely destroys us with. It forces us into zerker builds if we decide to do anything against a zerg, because hey, if you’re going to die, you might as well make it so you kill the people with retal before it kills you, right? This also points out the one major flaw in retal, which is why you don’t see it outside of this mode much…it’s worthless against burst attacks or anything that hits hard.

Due to this, I personally think they should just change retaliation to 33% of the damage taken is knocked back. Weaker multi-hits that do 300 per hit will give back to the user 100 damage per hit, meaning it’ll still punish players using multi-hitting moves, albeit not so hard. And it’d also cover the uselessness of the skill against burst damage, since a hit of say 6K will shoot 2K of it back at the user.

This would actually be a simultaneous buff and nerf of the buff at the same time. Heavy hitting players will find themselves hurting (which will help ward off some of the annoying zerker and power builds), while the weaker builds that strive to survive won’t be so heavily punished by using any multi-hitting move.

Well, retaliation is supposed to be the counter to weak multi-hit attacks while aegis is the counter to a single-hit high dps hit. Aegis doesn’t kill the person who initiated the high dps hit though.

A boon that punishes someone for playing their class is lame. That is all.

How about retaliation returning 5% of damage done when buff wearer has minimal power, scaling to 10% with top power.

Honestly, this should be about adjusting the ft1 skill, not retal.

The gain retal on virtue trait could honestly go…… Symbol of wrath or symbol of swiftness + some blasts is plenty retal for any organized group anyways…. move it up to virtue 25, make it an optional master trait or even move it out to an offensive line, as a support guardian, you pretty much don’t really need that trait anyways.

We all know and deal with retal everyday, not a single smart move should put you death because you attacked people with retal, does it need adjusting? Maybe… but flamethrower sucks anyways, so maybe that needs to be looked at?

We don’t die zerg busting because we spammed some dumb aoe on a group, (like whirling wrath on the first push?? luls. Firestorming a guild group??? lulzzzz)
bad positioning and poor cd management should get you killed before retal.

33% dmg return…. sounds great tbh…. had some backline eles hit me for like 5-6k+ firestorms… could you imagine the qq over taking 1-2k retal bombs from every single firestorm hit? Or warriors who’s aggressiveness would probably nullify the effects of healing signet?
On a side note to that…. for the longest time i thought retal was 25%-35% dmg return based off the guardians power, until I started playing one.

And would that be direct damage and/or condi damage too?? Because I don’t feel it’s fair a necro who could pop little 300-500 hits (100ish retal pops) and stack 1k bleeds + other condis and not suffer consequence?

I hate to sound condescending guys, but for a noob to mmo’s like me, confusion and retal haven’t ever really been the problem. Being punished for doing something, should be changing your strategy and stuff like that… idk.. maybe not.

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

Also perplexity got nerfed, so it takes more skill and proper timing to reapply confusion, as you believe it possible.

If you have an issue with confusion, that is for another thread. In this thread it has nothing to do with the topic under discussion.

Sorry dude, but i cant believe you, an engineer complain about guardian damage? lol… So funny, hope they nerf retaliation and give us that insane amount of conditions what engi has.

Learn to burst, learn to not spam autoattack, learn to use conditions, learn to NOT spamming fast autoattacks, if your flamethrower is a problem vs guardians because retaliation, DONT USE IT vs guardians, dont ask for a nerf for a already weak buff.

Retaliation is not just ok, is weak. More in this meta with insane burst and condispammers, there is no meta of low damage fast autoattack right now. Stop autoattacking with your flamethrower (or any similar effect) and you will be happy.

urieldhynne.2743:

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

Also perplexity got nerfed, so it takes more skill and proper timing to reapply confusion, as you believe it possible.

If you have an issue with confusion, that is for another thread. In this thread it has nothing to do with the topic under discussion.

Sorry dude, but i cant believe you, an engineer complain about guardian damage? lol… So funny, hope they nerf retaliation and give us that insane amount of conditions what engi has.

Learn to burst, learn to not spam autoattack, learn to use conditions, learn to NOT spamming fast autoattacks, if your flamethrower is a problem vs guardians because retaliation, DONT USE IT vs guardians, dont ask for a nerf for a already weak buff.

Retaliation is not just ok, is weak. More in this meta with insane burst and condispammers, there is no meta of low damage fast autoattack right now. Stop autoattacking with your flamethrower (or any similar effect) and you will be happy.

I laughed. Everything an engineer has that can give conditions hits multiple times, is AoE, or hits fast. Meaning THERE IS NOTHING AN ENGINEER CAN DO SHORT OF STOP ATTACKING COMPLETELY. Ranger has this same problem too with most of our weapons. Retal absolutely wrecks both classes completely.

urieldhynne.2743:

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

Also perplexity got nerfed, so it takes more skill and proper timing to reapply confusion, as you believe it possible.

If you have an issue with confusion, that is for another thread. In this thread it has nothing to do with the topic under discussion.

Sorry dude, but i cant believe you, an engineer complain about guardian damage? lol… So funny, hope they nerf retaliation and give us that insane amount of conditions what engi has.

Learn to burst, learn to not spam autoattack, learn to use conditions, learn to NOT spamming fast autoattacks, if your flamethrower is a problem vs guardians because retaliation, DONT USE IT vs guardians, dont ask for a nerf for a already weak buff.

Retaliation is not just ok, is weak. More in this meta with insane burst and condispammers, there is no meta of low damage fast autoattack right now. Stop autoattacking with your flamethrower (or any similar effect) and you will be happy.

I wouldn’t classify myself as an engineer, and why would you label me as one? Simply because I would like to see ret re-structured doesn’t mean I’m an engineer. It also doesn’t mean I want guardians nerfed, I play guardian, 2 of them. It means I like a game with balance. I enjoy playing a healthy dose of every class. If anything, you should call me a warrior, since I have the most 80 warriors, most hours logged, highest WvW rank, and a legendary on that profession.

I will say again, many bursting skills ARE multi hit. So…. “Learn to burst”…. Learn to burst so I can do more ret damage to myself?

If you think ret is weak, then you really don’t know what you’re talking about. Or you might possibly be playing on a server, or vs other servers, that just don’t have the population for this knowledge to be apparent to you.

I did stop using flamethrower auto attack, I stopped using the weapon completely almost a year ago, because it’s useless vs any kind of semi-organized group in WvW.

urieldhynne.2743:

Learn to burst, learn to not spam autoattack, learn to use conditions, learn to NOT spamming fast autoattacks, if your flamethrower is a problem vs guardians because retaliation, DONT USE IT vs guardians, dont ask for a nerf for a already weak buff.

Retaliation is not just ok, is weak. More in this meta with insane burst and condispammers, there is no meta of low damage fast autoattack right now. Stop autoattacking with your flamethrower (or any similar effect) and you will be happy.

This guy is right. Rangers should stop using longbow and engies should stop using flamethrowers and granades in WvW. And to balance it out ANet should remove staff and greatsword from guardians or give both weapon sets 5k selfdamage on each skill use, so guardians would learn NOT to spam fast autoattacks.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Svarty.8019:

Sure, nerf it. It’s not like it’s useful anyway. I will say this, though, as a guardian, I think it’s a bit weak that people want to nerf the only buff we can reliably spam.

I lol’d. You can give EVERY BUFF IN THE GAME to the party, yet you’re complaining that we want the 1 changed so it’s not so powerful against multi-hit skills?

Okay, I get you. Retaliation is way too strong… let’s have a think though, before doing anything rash…

It’s not like Guardians are anywhere near the top of the food chain at the moment, so I would like to see Guardians compensated in some way.

Freeelancer.2860:

urieldhynne.2743:

Learn to burst, learn to not spam autoattack, learn to use conditions, learn to NOT spamming fast autoattacks, if your flamethrower is a problem vs guardians because retaliation, DONT USE IT vs guardians, dont ask for a nerf for a already weak buff.

Retaliation is not just ok, is weak. More in this meta with insane burst and condispammers, there is no meta of low damage fast autoattack right now. Stop autoattacking with your flamethrower (or any similar effect) and you will be happy.

This guy is right. Rangers should stop using longbow and engies should stop using flamethrowers and granades in WvW. And to balance it out ANet should remove staff and greatsword from guardians or give both weapon sets 5k selfdamage on each skill use, so guardians would learn NOT to spam fast autoattacks.

Longbow shouldn’t really loose to a guard(in my personal ranger exp) at least average or lower guardian srsly, lb, sword dagger, wolf /lynx or another cat or bird is decent in the right hands…. grenades do about 3x or more dmg including condi per retal stack, and as an engi, your vit should be similar, poison spam also helps, allowing for a kite to win strat, staff also receives the same amount of retal in 2 attacks as one engi ft1 attack right? 10 per engi attack, 5 per staff spam?… i hope your guards aren’t spamming one staff cuz lol baddy.

Svarty.8019:

It’s not like Guardians are anywhere near the top of the food chain at the moment, so I would like to see Guardians compensated in some way.

Um… what?

EDIT: I’ve been trolled. Haha good one. Got me!

omg dont u understand still… this game`s mechanic made for tPvP.. (which only is just offical competitive mode… others for fun[play how u like to play])
doesnt anet say it? or i understand wrong? (anymore offical competitive mode? GvG still unoffical and it comes from who liked to play game as competitive in group orientations it was needs of endgame and gvg already ignored from devs , anet staffs.. yeah some stuff getting better as obsidan arena..

• there should be skill adaptations for small scaled fights and large scale fights

probably they should understand/accept the differences/needs of game modes

wvw large scaled groups (organized goups example.. as guilds compositions) they can do perma retal..

as a mesmer..
2 major archetypes as Phantasm speced or Shatter Spec..
which these mechanics making mesmer differ from other classes, example

• High Burst damage which as minor area effect kittenters
• Dps as Phantasms

BUT both are not working as it should be in wvw large scaled organized groups fights that mesmer can not be desirable via Burst damage or dps.. then for veil nothing more..
for other roles as well.. why not other classes which most of their efficient increase in large scale fights.. I gave example of BF cuz its one thing how shatters become less effective..

so Risk Reward Factor?
BF vs Retal http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yecRyBzCbW0
BF vs Binding Blade http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjoiI_32ywY

yeah maybe to not burst aeo as front line.. so why not thief? while getting 1 mesmer with veil and maybe more necro for boon rips.. reflection bah..

So Why 8x hit BF get nerfed to evade ? with longer CD?

BF(8x) x Players(1 to 3 players (Cleaves attack) )+(on hit effects auras chaos armors runes Binding Blade etc..) = Risk/Reward?

urieldhynne.2743:

Retaliation is not just ok, is weak. More in this meta with insane burst and condispammers, there is no meta of low damage fast autoattack right now. Stop autoattacking with your flamethrower (or any similar effect) and you will be happy.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. Are you upset that the meta is currently insane burst and condispammers instead of low damage fast auto-attack right now? You do realize that it is because retaliation is over-the-top punishing to low damage fast auto-attacks like FT#1, yes?

DeeSystm.1256:

snip

Hi. Use barage against a group of 12+ random people. Then use Grenade Barrage. While you are at it you should continue using any of the grenade skills and count how many you are able to chug before you die.
Then come back and share your results.

We’re not talking here about roamers or sPvP.

They should have nerfed it when they nerfed the on crit heals to have a cooldown.

Posting here as a mesmer using both mainhand Sword and GS in the same build. Against a perma-retaliation guard (and everyone near him) both GS auto attack and Blurred Frenzy are entirely useless since i’m hurting myself more than the other guy.

/edit: Also nothing more hillarious than setting Feedback in a zerg and instantly killing (not downing) myself with it…

//edit: I’m actually quite okay with the last one since it obviously counts as AoE, which is exactly what should be countered by retaliation. But having 2 attacks (GS #1 and Sword #2) being useless in a 1v1 against a guardian is pretty frustrating.

rivx.3267:

They should have nerfed it when they nerfed the on crit heals to have a cooldown.

I agree to an extent, but I don’t like the word “Nerf”. I think Ret just needs to be changed in its functionality. I wouldn’t mind it doing more damage if it has mechanics in place to keep it from rendering certain skills useless in the full duration of a fight (because of perma-ret)

Iavra.8510:

Posting here as a mesmer using both mainhand Sword and GS in the same build. Against a perma-retaliation guard (and everyone near him) both GS auto attack and Blurred Frenzy are entirely useless since i’m hurting myself more than the other guy.

/edit: Also nothing more hillarious than setting Feedback in a zerg and instantly killing (not downing) myself with it…

//edit: I’m actually quite okay with the last one since it obviously counts as AoE, which is exactly what should be countered by retaliation. But having 2 attacks (GS #1 and Sword #2) being useless in a 1v1 against a guardian is pretty frustrating.

Try something as this ? blurred Cat :P https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/some-BUILDS/3412079

As I have a level 2 engineer, I feel as qualified to answer to this thread as all the stalwart defenders of retaliation.

Let’s simply analyze the answers, we got so far, which stated, retal is fine, as it is:

1) “Don’t run full glass canon.”
Now, if they don’t run gc anymore, the disparity in damage will only increase. Then, retaliation will not only deal a bit more damage than they dish out with their attacks, it will deal significantly more damage.
The difference will be that they will still proceed to kill themselves, while they at the same time pose far less of a threat.

2) “Don’t attack when the have retal”, might as well say “accept your fate and die.”
Guild Wars 2 is no highly strategic game. The one who keeps dishing out damage while reducing the damage he himself receives in the most efficient way, will ultimately win the fight. It’s not like there are any ways to turn the table, and if there are, they usually don’t benefit from you just sitting there and taking hits without fighting back beforehand.

3) “Choose another kit, then.”, might as well say “play another class then.”
Let’s look at the possible weaponry, engineer can bring to a zerg fight:
-Flamethrower: Auto attack toasts yourself, big nuke not really spamable.
-Grenades: Retal kills you before you can react
-Pistol: Retal fodder w/ coated bullets, not really useful without
-Rifle: Auto Attack pierces, rest of the skills seem to be built towards dueling
-Tool Kit: Smack, Whack, Thwack, Smack, Whack, Thwack, …
-Elixir Gun: Doesn’t offer much in a zerg fight besides throwing yet another light field over those useful water fields. Got some useful skills, but it’s definitely no main damage source.
-Bomb Kit: It’s an awkward melee weapon, but it’s the only thing remotely usable besides sitting there with a rifle, autoattacking. It has its own limitations in mobile zerg environments, mainly, that you don’t have any frontloaded damage or cc, the moment, the zergs collide.

Maybe the answer is to nerf retal. Maybe not.
Maybe there simply need to be more ways to strip boons in an AoE.
At the very least, everyone should realize, that a mechanic, which locks an entire profession(or at the very least 90% of the potential of that profession, leaving one and a half builds) out of a game mode is far from being a balanced mechanic.

People still complaining about not being able to mindlessy attack people? Yes, let’s remove strategy from the game. Heck, just remove WvW, that’ll be easier.

Hey I play a WvW Guardian and an engie for sPvP, I would be ok if retaliation was tweaked. If a person hits someone with retaliation give them a 1 second cooldown before retaliation can affect them again. This would have to double or triple retaliation damage so in a 1 vs 1 damage is the same. But I agree with OP the current retal mechanics are currently able to single handed wipe the right enemy.

Why the internal cooldown should be dependent on the attacker instead of the booned player. The current problem is 1 person who attacks gets wiped by 5 enemies with boons. The cooldown for retaliation being on a booned player is bad since it would allow greater numbers to have a direct advantage.

Let’s use this idea against an example from an attacking point of view, one that has been popping up a lot, the Flame Thrower auto attack on engie. In a Zerg fight 3 people are hit 10 times wich means 30 retaliation damage, this would kill the engie in exactly 3 auto attacks even if he was full tank. With the new method instead the engie would be hit 3 times with retaliation because his Attack lasts 2.5 seconds and the internal cooldown on retaliation would be 1 second, this is very little damage (under 800) which is why the raw damage would also have to increase (I suggest double or triple) I feel we could all handle 1.5 k damage per 2-3 seconds.

Now let’s look at in from a defenender point of view using an example. You are being hit by a class that isn’t affected horribly by retaliation in 1vs1 such as the common Zerg warior. They have 1-2 attacks per second and Regen about 400 health a second, their healing shouts also give 2.5k every 12 seconds with 2 shouts. So that in total is 7000 health every 12 seconds, no way in small scale will retaliation hurt them much. Now let’s say your retaliation damage in increased to 500 damage per proc every second. In 12 seconds 6000 damage of retaliation is dealt to the warior giving him 1000 healing in total, if you can’t deal more than 1000 damage in 12 seconds you’re doing it wrong.

This would be the same for 1 vs 1 as it would in Zerg fights making retaliation an easy type of damage to be tweaked by the developers.

Tldr: give retaliation cooldown to the attacker not the one with the boon.

Aeonblade.8709:

People still complaining about not being able to mindlessy attack people? Yes, let’s remove strategy from the game. Heck, just remove WvW, that’ll be easier.

So using an auto-attack that you still have to position and aim is mindless while throwing on a passive boost that kills your enemy for you with no input isn’t?

Ret is the spammiest, least skilful thing in the entire game and the difference between what it’s merely annoying against compared to ‘you can’t win, you can’t break even’ is arbitrary. You can’t use it to defend against burst even though that’s what it was arguably made for and yet certain weapons on certain classes are rendered useless by it.

You can call out ’don’t attack hard counters’ all you want but something has to deserve a hard counter. There is no reason for one auto-attack to be a suicide button when it’s functionally no different to any other auto-attack.

Retaliation needs an internal cooldown just like all the other on hit/on crit attacks in the game. In order for things to be fair either the ICD on other things need removed or Retaliation needs one placed on it or Retaliation needs to be made harder to get/keep up. There is of course a reason that skills have an ICD and that is because fast hitting would have a large advantage in applying debuffs or buffs. Currently there is no real advantage to fast hitting attacks but retaliation is certainly a large con and if you use a fast auto-attack confusion can put a hurting on you before you stop it. The ICD would at least bring it into balance with what other skills are currently balanced on.

Aeonblade.8709:

People still complaining about not being able to mindlessy attack people? Yes, let’s remove strategy from the game. Heck, just remove WvW, that’ll be easier.

It’s almost like they just attack through confusion stacks as well.

Honestly, though, sometimes the correct answer is just to back out and heal. Every class will run into those moments where they need to pop their emergency cooldowns and get out of the heat (this is when the commander regroups the melee train and people start blasting water) and it’s not a unique problem to classes that proc a lot of retaliation ticks. It’s not a hard concept.

But I’d like to say that earlier in the thread, the person that suggested that spreading out was the proper counter to mass aoe is a moron. AoE hurts a kitten lot and unless you’re using tightly packed groups to spread that 5 man aoe limit around the melee train is going to get dropped extremely quickly. Anyone that’s unlucky enough to get caught by a massive amount of AoE focused on him is going to have to pop an emergency cooldown or their going to become a rally tag for the other team.

Idk if this was already suggested, but what if a player could only receive retaliation damage from one source (the most powerful one) at any time? No ICD.

As someone who spends a majority of my time on Guardian using the Healway build, the main reason I use retal is for small fights. I personally don’t care about Retaliation in a large group setting. I was always focused more on Protection, Stability, Regen, and cleansing conditions via Pure of Voice. Heck, half the reason I zerg is to gain Bloodlust Stacks so I have a bit more power for roaming.

Restricting retal to one (and again, the most powerful) source as opposed to installing an ICD would not hurt me in a small group setting where I am already at a disadvantage to Engineers. I like fighting Engineers as they are a great challenge, but retal is one of the few sources of damage I have. It allows me to chip away at my opponent while I consolidate what few boosts to damage I possess (Fury from SY, Might, etc.).

That’s my perspective on this retal debate. Go ahead and reign in its viability in zergfests, but I would like to keep it useful in small group encounters.

Sorry if what I said has already been stated, and I am also sorry if my perspective is off-base or downright idiotic. Thanks for your time

BigEvs.6971:

Idk if this was already suggested, but what if a player could only receive retaliation damage from one source (the most powerful one) at any time? No ICD.

As someone who spends a majority of my time on Guardian using the Healway build, the main reason I use retal is for small fights. I personally don’t care about Retaliation in a large group setting. I was always focused more on Protection, Stability, Regen, and cleansing conditions via Pure of Voice. Heck, half the reason I zerg is to gain Bloodlust Stacks so I have a bit more power for roaming.

Restricting retal to one (and again, the most powerful) source as opposed to installing an ICD would not hurt me in a small group setting where I am already at a disadvantage to Engineers. I like fighting Engineers as they are a great challenge, but retal is one of the few sources of damage I have. It allows me to chip away at my opponent while I consolidate what few boosts to damage I possess (Fury from SY, Might, etc.).

That’s my perspective on this retal debate. Go ahead and reign in its viability in zergfests, but I would like to keep it useful in small group encounters.

Sorry if what I said has already been stated, and I am also sorry if my perspective is off-base or downright idiotic. Thanks for your time

This is part of the reason why I suggested a 33% flat damage return across the board on this skill. It won’t completely wreck people who are using multihit skills (and who have low power), and will badly damage anybody trying to burst. Both of which are the opposite of what’s going on now, it overly damages people who do a lot of hits fast with little power, while doing nothing to people who burst with a single attack. In other words, I want them to be changing it into a well-balanced boon.

RyuDragnier.9476:

BigEvs.6971:

Idk if this was already suggested, but what if a player could only receive retaliation damage from one source (the most powerful one) at any time? No ICD.

As someone who spends a majority of my time on Guardian using the Healway build, the main reason I use retal is for small fights. I personally don’t care about Retaliation in a large group setting. I was always focused more on Protection, Stability, Regen, and cleansing conditions via Pure of Voice. Heck, half the reason I zerg is to gain Bloodlust Stacks so I have a bit more power for roaming.

Restricting retal to one (and again, the most powerful) source as opposed to installing an ICD would not hurt me in a small group setting where I am already at a disadvantage to Engineers. I like fighting Engineers as they are a great challenge, but retal is one of the few sources of damage I have. It allows me to chip away at my opponent while I consolidate what few boosts to damage I possess (Fury from SY, Might, etc.).

That’s my perspective on this retal debate. Go ahead and reign in its viability in zergfests, but I would like to keep it useful in small group encounters.

Sorry if what I said has already been stated, and I am also sorry if my perspective is off-base or downright idiotic. Thanks for your time

This is part of the reason why I suggested a 33% flat damage return across the board on this skill. It won’t completely wreck people who are using multihit skills (and who have low power), and will badly damage anybody trying to burst. Both of which are the opposite of what’s going on now, it overly damages people who do a lot of hits fast with little power, while doing nothing to people who burst with a single attack. In other words, I want them to be changing it into a well-balanced boon.

I see the merit in this idea, but people who pack their damage into a smaller amount of attacks are already being mitigated by the Guardian’s ability to pump out blinds and blocks indefinitely. I think I might be misunderstanding you

divine faithborn.8365:

Honestly, though, sometimes the correct answer is just to back out and heal.

Is it really so hard to comprehend that what you suggest is impossible to do when the nature of retaliation proccing on certains skills ensures a one-shot suicide? Please post something more constructive, like what RyuDragnier wrote.

Chaba.5410:

Omnitek.3876:

Chaba.5410:

Omnitek.3876:

Flamethrower, stop the attack like everyone else on ever other class does when retal bites back

You clearly have no experience with the Flamethrower.

Swap kits, dodge, use another skill, etc etc.

Yes, you eat tons of rental damage with it, feel free to use any of the mentioned remedies to stop retal damage from killing you. Dont worry, I dont have a geared 80 or every class /rollseyes

As someone said before, you got countered.

Ranger longbow 5 is the only valid complaint skill vs retal. Maybe chaos storm from mes and lavafont from ele.

I got countered? I should try the remedies I offered? Man, learn to read.

Ranger can use the same trick with Barrage, stand in a pulsing healing field like engineer’s Super Elixir.

P.S. There’s no dodge out of grenades or FT.

Although I have no issue with retal in WvW on my ranger, ranger is a little different in that once the cast bar is done there is no stopping the arrows. They will keep falling for a few more secs after the cast with no way to stop them.

I think that might be what the poster was trying to say with the ranger comment.
Again, I do not die to retal in WvW and I play with LB/GS or LB/SB.

Gbok, it is the same, not different. There is no stopping a grenade toss, grenade barrage, or the 10x hits of ft 1.