Guild Wars 2

Bananasmile.4126:

First of all, if you’re getting Retaliation damage, rest assured you are dealing much more damage to the Guardian

Total raw damage doesn’t really matter. If I did 30,000 damage but it was split evenly among 50 players, a few ticks of Regeneration nullifies this. However, if I even take 1/3rd of that damage, the average health of a player is cut in half. This forces you to burn your self-heal and back off, whereas the players you dealt “more damage” to did not even notice it.

Because there is a 5-target AoE cap, it spreads out the damage among the zerg, but all of the damage of Retaliation is focused on one player. Engineer Grenade Kit, Grenade Barrage, Flamethrower, Elementalist Meteor Shower, and Feedback are a few examples of multiple potential units of damage spread out over an area.

Very simply put: Until Retaliation gets an ICD, it will never be balanced.

Popular argument against ICD: “Use your brain, don’t attack someone with Retaliation.” Against a blob, should you always assume they have Retaliation? Are you supposed to target every single player before you AoE? The players benefiting from Retaliation don’t need to “use their brain” but the players attacking do?

The definition of “overpowered” is something that is easy to do but highly effective. Sounds like Retaliation to me.

Nokaru.7831:

Bananasmile.4126:

First of all, if you’re getting Retaliation damage, rest assured you are dealing much more damage to the Guardian

Total raw damage doesn’t really matter. If I did 30,000 damage but it was split evenly among 50 players, a few ticks of Regeneration nullifies this. However, if I even take 1/3rd of that damage, the average health of a player is cut in half. This forces you to burn your self-heal and back off, whereas the players you dealt “more damage” to did not even notice it.

Because there is a 5-target AoE cap, it spreads out the damage among the zerg, but all of the damage of Retaliation is focused on one player. Engineer Grenade Kit, Grenade Barrage, Flamethrower, Elementalist Meteor Shower, and Feedback are a few examples of multiple potential units of damage spread out over an area.

Very simply put: Until Retaliation gets an ICD, it will never be balanced.

I think you’re confused.

Retaliation has fixed damage whether it be spread between 30 or 1 player, it will generate the same damage individually. What you’re doing is you’re using the damage dealt spread across multiple enemies and applying it to less people which mathematically automatically increases the individual damage, that’s not how it works.

It doesn’t mean that you’re only hitting 1/3 of the number of players previous that your Retaliation magically shoots up in damage by 2/3 now with lesser numbers, no sir it doesn’t. It’s simply 300, period. You must have been misinformed.

Fact remain is, for someone to significantly to receive damage from Retaliation alone, one has to hit the Guardian so many times. In my example, 18k HP, you will have to hit the Guardian 100 times to down you provided you do not heal. I have no idea how anyone will find this OP at all, I’ll have to be AFK to die to this. It’s a defensive and pressure skill, not a killer ability. You are being fooled by your eyes and mathematical prowess if you think you’re being killed by Retaliation.

ICD on Retaliation will destroy the mechanic because of natural regeneration. You claim balance, how about the fact that Guardians don’t have any burst damage, and ranged weapons, and can be kited to death by Rangers, Engineers, Thieves, etc. if not for Retaliation? Because of Retaliation, Rangers are forced to mix it up with Greatsword to access more burst skills in their arsenal and this gives Guardians a fighting chance. Remove Retaliation, everyone will simply kite Guardians because there will be no consequence and because it can be easily done. Care to explain how that could be a balanced mechanic from the perspective of a Guardian?

PS: …and how is using an AOE any more brainy than using Retaliation? I have 3 toons that’s all AOE based (Ele, Necro, and Engineer), and they don’t take more skill than my Guardian as far as Zerging is concerned…the only difference is, I can pro-actively target grounds with AOE but that doesn’t consume any more brain cells than me making sure my rotation in my Guardian is perfect to maintain my Retal.

The definition of Overpowered is something overpowered plain and simple. Mastering D/D Ele is not easy, but it’s still OP to many, correct? I remember prior to Excala’s D/D guide, everyone loathed D/D Ele due to high learning curve, today, it’s OP, the difference? Knowledge. Easy, not necessarily, but OP, arguable. Something easy and effective is not OP, it’s called playing smart. 90% of the things I do in GW2 I find easy except maybe for Engineers, yet effective, that doesn’t my builds are OP? I’m just being smart about it, why would I take the hard and ineffective route, that doesn’t even make sense.

What’s OP is possessing something that cannot be countered or defeated or at least having insane high requirement in order to do so no matter what your opponent does. Retaliation can be countered by burst and can be almost totally ignored with with medium to high VIT builds, those two things doesn’t take a genius to pull off. Not to mention, Necromancers/Mesmers can easily remove that boon and during that duration when Guardian’s Retal is down, they can burst with no consequence, not all Guardians have cat-like reflexes to know their Retal has been stripped.

Nokaru.7831:

Bananasmile.4126:

First of all, if you’re getting Retaliation damage, rest assured you are dealing much more damage to the Guardian

Total raw damage doesn’t really matter. If I did 30,000 damage but it was split evenly among 50 players, a few ticks of Regeneration nullifies this. However, if I even take 1/3rd of that damage, the average health of a player is cut in half. This forces you to burn your self-heal and back off, whereas the players you dealt “more damage” to did not even notice it.

Because there is a 5-target AoE cap, it spreads out the damage among the zerg, but all of the damage of Retaliation is focused on one player. Engineer Grenade Kit, Grenade Barrage, Flamethrower, Elementalist Meteor Shower, and Feedback are a few examples of multiple potential units of damage spread out over an area.

Very simply put: Until Retaliation gets an ICD, it will never be balanced.

Popular argument against ICD: “Use your brain, don’t attack someone with Retaliation.” Against a blob, should you always assume they have Retaliation? Are you supposed to target every single player before you AoE? The players benefiting from Retaliation don’t need to “use their brain” but the players attacking do?

The definition of “overpowered” is something that is easy to do but highly effective. Sounds like Retaliation to me.

Sorry but that is not how it works at all .You are really confused or disinformed.Retal hits for 300 per hit per target for a maximum of 5 targets.Lets say you have 30 k hp .If you can hit anyone 100 times in very few seconds to kill yourself than it is something really wrong with your class.

Bananasmile.4126:

First of all, if you’re getting Retaliation damage, rest assured you are dealing much more damage to the Guardian…

Not at all.
Let’s take flamethrower. Let’s just say, I flamethrower through a gate with a tanky engi to try and damage a ram.
I hit 3 players per tick, dealing ~250 damage per tick and player and taking 300-400 damage per tick and player for 10 ticks over 2 seconds. A total of 2500 damage per player, 7500 total.
Let’s take an even spread for retal, one player deals 300, one 350, one 400. That’s 10500 retal damage right there.
“The Guardian” took 2500 damage, he’s probably gonna grab his staff and use his #4 to heal his group back up. The engi took 10500 damage, he’s gonna have to pop a heal right there.
That’s still assuming, he’s standing behind a gate. In an open field scenario, he’s probably gonna have to pop elixir s and run like hell.

Another scenario: a blob of 20 players is spamming projectile attacks on a gate. A mesmer sees it and casts a feedback bubble on them. he will then take approx. 15-25 retal ticks per second, depending on the opponents attack rate just from the projectiles which were reflected back. If some of them are engi pistol shots or something of the like, it can easily go up to 40 retal ticks per second from casting that one feedback bubble. We have established before that 30 retal ticks equal to 10500 damage. Let’s say 9000, because not everyone in the group is gonna have maxed out power, which frontliners typically do.
The opponents will simply proceed to hit themselves with their own attacks while standing nicely stacked up in water fields to out-regen the damage. The mesmer takes about 30k to 40k retal damage, if they simply continue to shoot the feedback bubble.

Next scenario: You run up to a zerg with a nade engi and go like “wooh, they are nicely stacked up. Many people on one point -> AoE.”
nade barrage, auto, auto.
That’s as much as you manage. Then you see the first retal numbers pop up and stop immediately.
24 ticks from barrage
15 ticks from auto
15 ticks from auto
—————————————-
54 ticks from one burst, which is about 18k damage.

As your nades are meant to be spammed, your spike itself will deal about 60k damage, equally distributed amongst ~10-15 targets, so 4k-6k damage per target.
3 blasts into a water field or some other minimal AoEheal will be enough to outheal this.

It’s just ridiculous, how people can defend this broken mechanic.

Now you probably say “it’s normal. You deal loads of damage, you tae loads of damage.”
Warrior fires arcing arrow into a zerg, deals 8k damage to 5 targets, for a total of 40k damage, takes 5 retal ticks for 1500 damage.
Warrior fires kill shot, piercing through a zerg for 100k damage total, takes 1500 damage.

Definitely sounds right.

As many already said .Problem does not stand in retaliation ,but in 100 ticks per second skill.

_I wouldn’t mind making it a net 50% damage returned to the player though ,but that will just make everyone QQ. Hoewver adding an ICD transforming normal cases(not flamethrower and barage) 1500 damage from 5 targets returned to 300 per second even if u hit 5 targets will be a 5x times less damage and pretty unbelievable .Not even confusiont took a 80% nerf in dps ,that is just crazy to ask for and i hope some of you will wake up and realize it.

graverr.6473:

As many already said .Problem does not stand in retaliation ,but in 100 ticks per second skill.

_I wouldn’t mind making it a net 50% damage returned to the player though ,but that will just make everyone QQ. Hoewver adding an ICD transforming normal cases(not flamethrower and barage) 1500 damage from 5 targets returned to 300 per second even if u hit 5 targets will be a 5x times less damage and pretty unbelievable .Not even confusiont took a 80% nerf in dps ,that is just crazy to ask for and i hope some of you will wake up and realize it.

why is the problem with the 100 tick skill?
Let’s remove all sources of sustained damage, heck, let’s remove all skills from the game and give everyone a kill shot, a block and a stun.
If you remove the multihit abilities, stuff like blind fields, arcane shield, aegis spam etc will be buffed significantly. You can not simply remove all the sustained damage and turn everything into a burster.

Arpheus.6918:

Or did I just meet a condition guardian or engi when getting hit for the 220?

Retaliation damage depends on the buffer’s power, not on condition damage.

Simple 2 step solution for your problem:
1. Ask yourself why you’re using a ranger in WvW.
2. Make yourself a class to use in WvW that is actually viable.

As for retaliation, I really like how it ticks in brown plated numbers now, because at least I know how much it procs and also how much I suffer from it in return. I really loved the fact that I could own ANY glasscannon ranger in WvW with standing in symbol of wrath and then running over to him when he’s dead. It makes you play smart. Get a necro or a mesmer(or both) in your team and get them to remove boons or even turn them into condtitions. Without retaliation I don’t think guardians would stand much of a chance in WvW as I already noticed how my duels went from terribly one-sided to pretty much even, me being a really experienced guardian player and the opponents usually ‘testing builds out’.

tl;dr: People who QQ every time they get killed should be banned from forums.

naphack.9346:

Bananasmile.4126:

First of all, if you’re getting Retaliation damage, rest assured you are dealing much more damage to the Guardian…

Not at all.
Let’s take flamethrower. Let’s just say, I flamethrower through a gate with a tanky engi to try and damage a ram.
I hit 3 players per tick, dealing ~250 damage per tick and player and taking 300-400 damage per tick and player for 10 ticks over 2 seconds. A total of 2500 damage per player, 7500 total.
Let’s take an even spread for retal, one player deals 300, one 350, one 400. That’s 10500 retal damage right there.
“The Guardian” took 2500 damage, he’s probably gonna grab his staff and use his #4 to heal his group back up. The engi took 10500 damage, he’s gonna have to pop a heal right there.
That’s still assuming, he’s standing behind a gate. In an open field scenario, he’s probably gonna have to pop elixir s and run like hell.

Another scenario: a blob of 20 players is spamming projectile attacks on a gate. A mesmer sees it and casts a feedback bubble on them. he will then take approx. 15-25 retal ticks per second, depending on the opponents attack rate just from the projectiles which were reflected back. If some of them are engi pistol shots or something of the like, it can easily go up to 40 retal ticks per second from casting that one feedback bubble. We have established before that 30 retal ticks equal to 10500 damage. Let’s say 9000, because not everyone in the group is gonna have maxed out power, which frontliners typically do.
The opponents will simply proceed to hit themselves with their own attacks while standing nicely stacked up in water fields to out-regen the damage. The mesmer takes about 30k to 40k retal damage, if they simply continue to shoot the feedback bubble.

Next scenario: You run up to a zerg with a nade engi and go like “wooh, they are nicely stacked up. Many people on one point -> AoE.”
nade barrage, auto, auto.
That’s as much as you manage. Then you see the first retal numbers pop up and stop immediately.
24 ticks from barrage
15 ticks from auto
15 ticks from auto
—————————————-
54 ticks from one burst, which is about 18k damage.

As your nades are meant to be spammed, your spike itself will deal about 60k damage, equally distributed amongst ~10-15 targets, so 4k-6k damage per target.
3 blasts into a water field or some other minimal AoEheal will be enough to outheal this.

It’s just ridiculous, how people can defend this broken mechanic.

Now you probably say “it’s normal. You deal loads of damage, you tae loads of damage.”
Warrior fires arcing arrow into a zerg, deals 8k damage to 5 targets, for a total of 40k damage, takes 5 retal ticks for 1500 damage.
Warrior fires kill shot, piercing through a zerg for 100k damage total, takes 1500 damage.

Definitely sounds right.

Those two classic issues are really proc mechanic issues more than the damage coming from Retaliation. (We are discussing damage)

1. For the Flamethrower/Nades
- I agree with you on this, it really does proc Retal at an insane rate together with Nades. The issue here is more on the mechanic of proc’ing of Retal than its damage. Since you bring this up, I agree that procs in retal using Flamethrowers and Nades, should be changed. No damage reduction will fix this as it will still hurt even if damage of Retal was reduced to 100, and such a reduction will render the entire Retal mechanic useless in terms of how its relationship with other skills that are not proc’ing irregularly. Maybe a reduction on Retal on Nades is in order? Nevertheless, it’s an isolated issue, not to be mistaken as the entire mechanic.

2. Mesmer
- Again, I agree with this. I was just discussing this with a buddy earlier that Mesmers should not proc Retal on Feedback. Again, there’s an issue on the proc mechanic itself and even if the damage was nerfed, it wouldn’t change the fact that it will hit a mesmer like a truck especially in a huge zerg battles.

What you cited are specific skills that interact with Retal that I think should be looked at as well, what needs to be done is to balance the proc rate to those skills. Otherwise, Retal’s damage is justified, provided no irregularity like you mentioned is involved.

graverr.6473:

Sorry but that is not how it works at all .You are really confused or disinformed.Retal hits for 300 per hit per target for a maximum of 5 targets.Lets say you have 30 k hp .If you can hit anyone 100 times in very few seconds to kill yourself than it is something really wrong with your class.

Le Sigh. You are so confused.

Let’s say you cast Feedback on a zerg in WvW. This should be a good thing, right?

Uh oh! They have Retaliation! So what happens?

Let’s pretend that zerg has an Engineer which throw their Grenades, because Grenades are awesome. Now, each Grenade toss throws 3 Grenades, each which hit 5 targets each. That’s one players casting 1 spell, and causing a backlash of up to 15 units of damage. But wait a second – Feedback makes those Grenades belong to the Mesmer now… So all of that Retaliation damage goes to the Mesmer – instantly!

Woah! Now Imagine if there were three Engineers who did that in that Feedback. Uh oh! Now that’s 45 units of damage! Oh my gooses, if Retaliation did 300 damage a hit, that’s a potential 13,000 damage! But wait, what if there are other random projectiles bouncing back, like from Thieves, or Rangers, or – I don’t know – Anything!? Wow! It seems like that one spell just caused a lot of Retaliation damage instantly!

Feedback isn’t the only issue. Grenade Barrage throws 6 grenades, each which can hit up to 5 targets each. Meteor Shower also has the same issues.

I hope this clears things up for you finally.

Nokaru.7831:

graverr.6473:

Sorry but that is not how it works at all .You are really confused or disinformed.Retal hits for 300 per hit per target for a maximum of 5 targets.Lets say you have 30 k hp .If you can hit anyone 100 times in very few seconds to kill yourself than it is something really wrong with your class.

Le Sigh. You are so confused.

Let’s say you cast Feedback on a zerg in WvW. This should be a good thing, right?

Uh oh! They have Retaliation! So what happens?

Let’s pretend that zerg has an Engineer which throw their Grenades, because Grenades are awesome. Now, each Grenade toss throws 3 Grenades, each which hit 5 targets each. That’s one players casting 1 spell, and causing a backlash of up to 15 units of damage. But wait a second – Feedback makes those Grenades belong to the Mesmer now… So all of that Retaliation damage goes to the Mesmer – instantly!

Woah! Now Imagine if there were three Engineers who did that in that Feedback. Uh oh! Now that’s 45 units of damage! Oh my gooses, if Retaliation did 300 damage a hit, that’s a potential 13,000 damage! But wait, what if there are other random projectiles bouncing back, like from Thieves, or Rangers, or – I don’t know – Anything!? Wow! It seems like that one spell just caused a lot of Retaliation damage instantly!

Feedback isn’t the only issue. Grenade Barrage throws 6 grenades, each which can hit up to 5 targets each. Meteor Shower also has the same issues.

I hope this clears things up for you finally.

Look at my post above. I agree with this but those are isolated issues. Otherwise, Retal is fine. Now I understand you better, thanks for re-explaining.

Why do you guys all bring up the proc mechanic? There is confusion already to punish players for spammy attacks. And best of all, confusion doesn’t care whether the attack is AoE or single target. Sure, daggerstorming thieves will cry when you hit them with 10 stacks of confusion.
Why can’t retal be based on the damage, you actually do? I know, it sounds ridiculous, a warrior hitting himself for 10k with a single kill shot, cause he pierced 5 guys for a total of 100k damage. But why not?
Might actually make retal worth using against the slow attacks in PvE.

I think retaliation is bad design too

This should have range 900 and do not work where is no LOS

Sure is good think to fight vs zerg but same time is promoting zergs as AOE classes geting hurt way to much witchout any chance to to defend it. Even with good bild for WvW rotation of elementalist eat at least half of his HP by retaliation.

900 ft range will be perfect and then even higher retaliation dmg cap would be fine

Syktek.7912:

Get smart, stop being a baddy, things will change. Stop requesting nerfs.

This is such an ignorant statement.

Who here is actually balling up with a lot of people and standing in the middle of AoE? Ow wait, thats right, YOU. But, who is getting punished? The guy that does the aoe…

Thats the whole thing backwards. You should be punished for not moving out of aoe, and the crutch that is Retal should be nerfed to stop punishing the people who should be punishing you for stacking up.
Not a damage nerf, that is senseless, but a nerf in how many times a single attack can actually proc it. If my aoe hits 5 ppl, in 1 attack, then i should get only 1 hit of Retaliation.

Especially since Retal is the most mindlessly simple and spammy boon ingame. Guardians poop lightfields all over the place, and everyone else and their incidental blastfinishers(guardians included) do the rest. No strategy or tactic involved, mass stacks of retaliation just for facerubbing a gate.

Retaliation done right:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Retribution

That this skill should be percentage based is a given, with a maximum as well, just like Retribution in GW1.

This skill in it’s current state is able to deal more damage back to the source than the incoming damage.

It’s the crappiest designed “skill” in the game by far.

Nokaru.7831:

graverr.6473:

Sorry but that is not how it works at all .You are really confused or disinformed.Retal hits for 300 per hit per target for a maximum of 5 targets.Lets say you have 30 k hp .If you can hit anyone 100 times in very few seconds to kill yourself than it is something really wrong with your class.

Le Sigh. You are so confused.

Let’s say you cast Feedback on a zerg in WvW. This should be a good thing, right?

Uh oh! They have Retaliation! So what happens?

Let’s pretend that zerg has an Engineer which throw their Grenades, because Grenades are awesome. Now, each Grenade toss throws 3 Grenades, each which hit 5 targets each. That’s one players casting 1 spell, and causing a backlash of up to 15 units of damage. But wait a second – Feedback makes those Grenades belong to the Mesmer now… So all of that Retaliation damage goes to the Mesmer – instantly!

Woah! Now Imagine if there were three Engineers who did that in that Feedback. Uh oh! Now that’s 45 units of damage! Oh my gooses, if Retaliation did 300 damage a hit, that’s a potential 13,000 damage! But wait, what if there are other random projectiles bouncing back, like from Thieves, or Rangers, or – I don’t know – Anything!? Wow! It seems like that one spell just caused a lot of Retaliation damage instantly!

Feedback isn’t the only issue. Grenade Barrage throws 6 grenades, each which can hit up to 5 targets each. Meteor Shower also has the same issues.

I hope this clears things up for you finally.

So basically, you want to be able to mindlessly throw AOEs and not care at all? That sounds incredibly boring and stupid. No thanks.

wish.1027:

So basically, you want to be able to mindlessly throw AOEs and not care at all? That sounds incredibly boring and stupid. No thanks.

If I’m able to get in a good position where a zerg doesn’t see me, such as when they are mindlessly PvDooring, I should have a great opportunity to do damage. But I don’t, because when I attempt to hurt them I get a huge backlash of Retaliation. Pretty amazing design when they are able to damage you yet are completely oblivious to your existence.

I always see defenders of Retaliation say, “You want to mindlessly AoE!” The most mindless thing in this whole argument is the free damage gained from simply having that Boon up. I’m glad that they added a graphic for Retaliation so that general awareness is raised about how poorly designed this skill is.

wish.1027:

Nokaru.7831:

graverr.6473:

Sorry but that is not how it works at all .You are really confused or disinformed.Retal hits for 300 per hit per target for a maximum of 5 targets.Lets say you have 30 k hp .If you can hit anyone 100 times in very few seconds to kill yourself than it is something really wrong with your class.

Le Sigh. You are so confused.

Let’s say you cast Feedback on a zerg in WvW. This should be a good thing, right?

Uh oh! They have Retaliation! So what happens?

Let’s pretend that zerg has an Engineer which throw their Grenades, because Grenades are awesome. Now, each Grenade toss throws 3 Grenades, each which hit 5 targets each. That’s one players casting 1 spell, and causing a backlash of up to 15 units of damage. But wait a second – Feedback makes those Grenades belong to the Mesmer now… So all of that Retaliation damage goes to the Mesmer – instantly!

Woah! Now Imagine if there were three Engineers who did that in that Feedback. Uh oh! Now that’s 45 units of damage! Oh my gooses, if Retaliation did 300 damage a hit, that’s a potential 13,000 damage! But wait, what if there are other random projectiles bouncing back, like from Thieves, or Rangers, or – I don’t know – Anything!? Wow! It seems like that one spell just caused a lot of Retaliation damage instantly!

Feedback isn’t the only issue. Grenade Barrage throws 6 grenades, each which can hit up to 5 targets each. Meteor Shower also has the same issues.

I hope this clears things up for you finally.

So basically, you want to be able to mindlessly throw AOEs and not care at all? That sounds incredibly boring and stupid. No thanks.

Well, Warriors can mindlessly throw their arcing arrows into the fights, eles can mindlessly throw their eruption into fights, but rangers are not allowed to mindlessly throw their barrage into fights because of one kitten boon?

OK let’s sum up some points we found out during the discussion:

1) Retal in it’s current state doesn’t hurt classes with skills that proc only one activation like one AoE on 5 targets (Example 5x 3k damage). Thats like 1500 damage returned for dishing out 15k damage.
If we implemented an ICD here and the 5 targets are hit at the exact same time which it usually does that would mean because of the ICD they get hit only for one tick —> 300 damage.
That is not fine.

2) Retal hurts classes by far too much which have skills that hit alot of times like engineer grenades/flamethrower or ranger barrage (60 hits) or that mesmer skill that reflects projectiles. They sometimes get hurt for 15k damage in just 3-5 seconds without even being attacked by anyone. Passive retaliated damage.
This is not fine at all since it basically makes these classes useless in zerg vs zerg.

3) Guardians complain that they will not be viable any more if there was an ICD. I think this would not be that much of a problem, since even an 0.5 sec ICD would make a fast attacking class like ranger hit themselves with almost every single hit. 0.5 sec attack speed would still return 300-400 damage for every shortbow attack which on my bunker ranger does average 350 damage^^. So I get back 100% of my damage which is also not fine.
But anyways the ICD solution is not perfect neither.

4) People who AoE a Zerg should be punished. Well this is only half the truth. Some classes are punished extremely (almost instant death) by AoEing the zerg while others who deal more AoE damage are almost not punished at all.
That is the main problem and bad design in my opinion. The goal of WvW fights is to bring the enemies down. If you are not allowed to deal damage then you cannot fulfill that goal and are therefore a useless class/character in WvW zerg fights.
Now some players say: well, then play another class, it’s easy as that.
Is that the answer? You are not able to play your class if you want to be useful? I guess we all agree that every class should be useful in every aspect of the game. Exactly those classes who are considered rather useless in Zerg vs Zerg are the ones hit extremely hard by retaliation. Amongst other things they cannot fulfill their role because of retaliation.

So my conclusion:
ICD would solve some matters (lots of hits in short amount of time) but make retal not hurt those who have huge damage AoE that hits 5 targets at the same time because it woult return damage only once.

So the only possibility that I see is throw back a percentage of the outgoing damage. That would be fair to everyone. Let’s say 10% of all damage is returned. You then know that if you are a glasscannon you will be punished for dealing HUGE numbers like 100k in one Killshot (10k damage returned) or that you will be hit for about 6k with a Barrage that overall deals 60k damage.
On the other hand when a ranger is bunkerish and his Barrage only deals overall 20k damage he will only get 2k damage returned.
I guess that would be the very most fair solution as it would punish those who deal the most damage to the zerg (the pure glasscannons) and people would have the choice: Do I want to go high reward and high risk (huge damage) and also eat lots of damage for that or do I want to be more bunkerish and get less punished.
The only possible issue with this solution is that condition classes would not be punished by retal but I guess that is an intended thing as they are not punished much now neither.

In sPvP/tPvP you might want to put the percentage of retaliated damage to 20% instead of 10%.
You could also think about a solution to make retaliation only last for very short durations (like 1-2 seconds) but return like 40% of the incoming damage. This would be a great tactical solution against burst attacks. What would then be important is that it cannot be stacked for long durations in zergs.

Ah… About these complaints about getting killed from retal by AoE’ing a zerg… Are people trying to 1vZerg or something? Or have your zergs stopped using mesmers and necros?

Seriously though, if none of the mesmers/necros on your side have spec’d for boon rips/steal/corrupts or uses them badly, then I’m sorry, but it is what it is.

LordKael.7260:

Ah… About these complaints about getting killed from retal by AoE’ing a zerg… Are people trying to 1vZerg or something? Or have your zergs stopped using mesmers and necros?

Seriously though, if none of the mesmers/necros on your side have spec’d for boon rips/steal/corrupts or uses them badly, then I’m sorry, but it is what it is.

And you don’t see a problem that there are classes, which are needed because of retal and classes which are utterly useless unless another class strips the retal for them?
If all of that stems from the fact, retal is so utterly powerfull, how about fixing retal instead?
And you know, null field and necro wells etc got relatively huge cooldowns while not lasting long and only affecting 5 targets. retal is everywhere and can be reapplied pretty much passively, cause guardians will spam out light fields left and right, cause retal with almost every skill, they use etc.
But yes, the problem is surely, that our zerg doesn’t consist of 50% necros/mesmers, so our engineers/rangers got some small time windows where they can actually use their skills without having to fear instant death.

Arpheus.6918:

4) People who AoE a Zerg should be punished

Why?

Anyway I think retal should at least do what the description says it does, reflecting damage, preferably as a percentage thats capped. Example: 15% of incoming damage is negated and is instead reflected to the attacker, capped at [198.45 + (0.075 * Power)]*.33

Midnightjade.3520:

Honestly, retal and confuse were not hard to deal with before the patch and are very easy to handle now, but DPS are still complaining? Wow.

People probably used to spam skills on pve, and they dont understand they need to observe what the enemy is doing.

Its the same, when 2 or 3 guys try to KD my guardian while i have stability, they will not complain that i had stability so they coulndt KD,its just playing clever.

Aeolus.3615:

Midnightjade.3520:

Honestly, retal and confuse were not hard to deal with before the patch and are very easy to handle now, but DPS are still complaining? Wow.

People probably used to spam skills on pve, and they dont understand they need to observe what the enemy is doing.

Its the same, when 2 or 3 guys try to KD my guardian while i have stability, they will not complain that i had stability so they coulndt KD,its just playing clever.

So I observe the enemy running into my zerg. now I:
-attack and die or
-do nothing and get killed
Observing doesn’t kill stuff. How are you supposed to observe, if the average zerg clash is decided within 10 seconds?

The only thing that’s clever is: You see enemy zerg approaching with retal up.
-f10 → character select
-delete that engineer and that ranger and the ele, too, for good measure
-new character
-mesmer or necromancer

That’s what 90% of the guys in here are saying, isn’t it?

naphack.9346:

LordKael.7260:

Ah… About these complaints about getting killed from retal by AoE’ing a zerg… Are people trying to 1vZerg or something? Or have your zergs stopped using mesmers and necros?

Seriously though, if none of the mesmers/necros on your side have spec’d for boon rips/steal/corrupts or uses them badly, then I’m sorry, but it is what it is.

And you don’t see a problem that there are classes, which are needed because of retal and classes which are utterly useless unless another class strips the retal for them?
If all of that stems from the fact, retal is so utterly powerfull, how about fixing retal instead?

No, I don’t see a problem. The difference for me here I guess, is that I think every class is necessary in big fights (yes, even thieves). It’s not just about retal. Mesmers/necros strip boons in general, so that retal is removed anyway. If no one’s stripping boons, then it’s just going to be a bad time in the first place. Unless you like letting your opponents walk around with every boon activated that is. And in that case, you take what you get.

Some people are also putting up theoretical maxes of how much damage retal can give. In a real pvp situation though, considering a mesmer/necro is doing their job flipping boons on people, at least half those people on average won’t have retal anymore. So cut that max retal damage figure in half and that’s how much it approximately does in a practical situation. Retal isn’t really that strong. It only hits hard if people let it do so.

naphack.9346:

Aeolus.3615:

Midnightjade.3520:

Honestly, retal and confuse were not hard to deal with before the patch and are very easy to handle now, but DPS are still complaining? Wow.

People probably used to spam skills on pve, and they dont understand they need to observe what the enemy is doing.

Its the same, when 2 or 3 guys try to KD my guardian while i have stability, they will not complain that i had stability so they coulndt KD,its just playing clever.

So I observe the enemy running into my zerg. now I:
-attack and die or
-do nothing and get killed
Observing doesn’t kill stuff. How are you supposed to observe, if the average zerg clash is decided within 10 seconds?

The only thing that’s clever is: You see enemy zerg approaching with retal up.
-f10 -> character select
-delete that engineer and that ranger and the ele, too, for good measure
-new character
-mesmer or necromancer

That’s what 90% of the guys in here are saying, isn’t it?

1st, you need to take action in those 10seconds before your skills get locked in combat, change utilities if needed.

2nd try to lock in a key target (if possible), traps anything that stuns criple,for sure you have some necro boon hating nearby see where he is using the marks/wells.

3rd, if you dont know the movements of the other groups well you will have a bad time, gain advantage in choke points build siege to spike area etc etc….

you just cant stay there just spamming skills :/

Ive seen some great archers on wvw, shooting from cliif’s doing 3k-6k on my character, and almost downning with 1 shot light armor users, and this is also what i think it is the role of the archer in wvw.

P.S i dont know if bows damage is the same as in GW1, if it is damage is increased from high and distance on longbows (i think it works like this but not sure).

naphack.9346:

So I observe the enemy running into my zerg. now I:
-attack and die or
-do nothing and get killed
Observing doesn’t kill stuff. How are you supposed to observe, if the average zerg clash is decided within 10 seconds?

The only thing that’s clever is: You see enemy zerg approaching with retal up.
-f10 -> character select
-delete that engineer and that ranger and the ele, too, for good measure
-new character
-mesmer or necromancer

That’s what 90% of the guys in here are saying, isn’t it?

A zerg clash decided in 10 seconds? One side of that zerg is either vastly larger or far more skilled than the other, in which case, you have a bigger problem than retal. Or someone just got caught with their pants down.

And why doesn’t your zerg have retaliation? Observing definitely kills stuff if your opponent is doing the same thing you say you’re doing. Let them kill themselves with retaliation and just laugh while you mop up the fight. Besides what stopping you from doing single-target dps instead of aoe? You’re still attacking but getting much less retal in return. This is assuming retal is up 24/7 and is never removed.

The opponent won’t die because he doesn’t play the “wrong” class.

So what you all are saying is, sit back and watch your team get slaughtered because of one boon preventing your attack and that’s considered smart play?

Kubb.9764:

So what you all are saying is, sit back and watch your team get slaughtered because of one boon preventing your attack and that’s considered smart play?

You know after several constructive posts, you see posts like this that totally disregard the detailed explanation of some posters prior is why I think forums is just filled with people with below average gameplay IQ’s. There’s an attempt to explain both sides, yet someone out of the blue pulls something from his behind without any form of data and retort to exaggerated and misguided statements that’s clearly not helping. So I’m out of here before I get infected, and I’ll simply adapt to the game whatever nerf/buff it throws. Anyway, should Retaliation get nerfed/removed, there’s numerous build available not to mention 7 other professions that I can adjust to. See, I’ve no idea why I even chimed in the first place, my bad.

Bananasmile.4126:

Kubb.9764:

So what you all are saying is, sit back and watch your team get slaughtered because of one boon preventing your attack and that’s considered smart play?

You know after several constructive posts, you see posts like this that totally disregard the detailed explanation of some posters prior is why I think forums is just filled with people with below average gameplay IQ’s. There’s an attempt to make ends meet, yet someone out of the blue pulls something from his behind without any form of data and retort to exaggerated and misguided statements. So I’m out of here before I get infected, and I’ll simply adapt to the game whatever nerf/buff it throws.

It was in the words of the simple minded people of the forums. Yes we all know how to avoid retaliation and honestly never had a problem with it. Never tried fighting a zerg with my ranger in many months. I am saying that not attacking with your zerg is counter productive. Moving as a force is what gets things done. I see people posting saying there is nothing wrong with it, as it only does minimal damage on high burst skills. The problem has been posted many times, different ways. It’s the certain skills like Barrage and the engie’s flamethrower. Not everyone will use the weapons, yes we get that.

I have read this topic as it was the only interesting one this morning. You do not have the facts to accuse me of having low IQ.

Waffler.1257:

Syktek.7912:

Get smart, stop being a baddy, things will change. Stop requesting nerfs.

This. AoE doesn’t mean you get to beat 5 people by yourself for free. Retaliation is a boon, smart players will do the following.

- Wait for it to run out before using AoE.
- Have a necro use Corrupt Boon/Spinal Shivers/Well of Corruption
- Have a mesmer use Mind Stab/Null Field/Arcane Thievery
- Equip a Nullification weapon

The rangers one shotting themselves on retaliation are the glass cannon I just want to hit everything for big numbers without thinking builds, and frankly they deserve to die.

I disagree with your assumption that retaliation only hurts glass cannons. My current ranger build is 2700 armor which isn’t tanky but far from glass cannon. I rarely shoot barrage due to the 10K – 15K retal damage I take from it. I agree that we should be careful as to our timing of barrage but when you are fighting a large group you can almost bet that retal is up almost all the time. This leaves you with a useless skill (most powerful skill on the LB) on an already struggling weapon. I mainly use my barrage in large group fights to aid in finishing downed enemies. Rarely will I use it when people are running around due to retal.

The solution is to reduce the times it proccs on flamethrowers, nades and barrage, not destroy a guardian’s ranged viability completely.

Immolator.5640:

The solution is to reduce the times it proccs on flamethrowers, nades and barrage, not destroy a guardian’s ranged viability completely.

agree 100%

Arpheus.6918:

It was never 650 – at least not the last months. It was not nerfed by 50%. Confusion was nerfed. Retaliation was not nerfed at all. It’s as it was before the patch from 30. April.

The problem is not weak random zergs. It’s guild zergs who know what they do. They will stack might + retal on the zerg.
It is bad design if one single skill kills you by a passive damage retaliation. I cannot stop the skill, dodging won’t work, blocking won’t work. There is absolutely nothing I can do except not using my strongest AoE skill.
There is two ways to stop this: ICD or make barrage instead of 12×5 hits (60 hits for retal) 3×5 huge hits. That way I wouldn’t get myself killed but people would complain by getting hit by huge AoE numbers. On the other hand it would be the same as meteor shower. Few huge hits which don’t get you killed by retal.

Engineer has the same problem with many weak hits.
ICD is the only real solution to this. 0.5 sec CD means you can still get hit by 700 damage per second. That is good damage and should be strong enough for retal.

Frost trap or muddy terrain > barrage (ftfy)

learn 2 play.

You start getting hit with retal you stop attacking; this isnt rocket science.

with 4 different 80’s and countless WvW I never killed myself with retal.

Immolator.5640:

The solution is to reduce the times it proccs on flamethrowers, nades and barrage, not destroy a guardian’s ranged viability completely.

And how do you plan on doing this without screwing up skill balance even more?

Quoting myself from a thread about QQing about confusion (pre-patch).

To summarise, the whole point of retaliation is to be a counter to builds with lots of fast hitting attacks, just as blind/block are the counters to single, slow, high damage attacks.

Ragnar

On the flip-side, I play a hammer warrior, with alot of slow, long-cooldown, hard-hitting attacks. A single blind or a single aegis can completely negate a huge amount of my damage output. Having a Backbreaker or an Earthshaker blocked can be the difference between a flawless victory and a massive defeat. While you pew-pewing away with your shortbow will barely be affected by a single blind. You probably wouldn’t even notice it had happened.
Omgwtf nerf Aegis, isn’t fair to slow attack rate players
Or, accept that all builds and playstyles should have a counter, and things they are strong against. Confusion/retaliation are the counter to your playstyle, while I barely notice them; block/blind/evade are the counter to mine, while they barely affect you. This is what we call balance.
PS. as a melee character I would love the ability to set condi-removal priority. Get that frozen removed instead of pointlessly removing that harmless confusion :P

naphack.9346:

Immolator.5640:

The solution is to reduce the times it proccs on flamethrowers, nades and barrage, not destroy a guardian’s ranged viability completely.

And how do you plan on doing this without screwing up skill balance even more?

Simple; flamethrowers nades and barrage don’t procc as much on Retal… flame counts as 5 hits not 10, grenades 1/2 hits work; etc.

If it’s not that easy, which it should be, make it a multi-projectile, I.e. 20% chance to procc for those particular things…

Immolator.5640:

naphack.9346:

Immolator.5640:

The solution is to reduce the times it proccs on flamethrowers, nades and barrage, not destroy a guardian’s ranged viability completely.

And how do you plan on doing this without screwing up skill balance even more?

Simple; flamethrowers nades and barrage don’t procc as much on Retal… flame counts as 5 hits not 10, grenades 1/2 hits work; etc.

If it’s not that easy, which it should be, make it a multi-projectile, I.e. 20% chance to procc for those particular things…

This would be a simple fix. Certain skills with lots of hits —> 20% chance to proc retaliation. That way you get hit for 2-3k instead of 10-15k. That would be fine.
AreaNet can play with the %-numers here but that would be the easiest way to fix it for sure.

Cake.4920:

Arpheus.6918:

4) People who AoE a Zerg should be punished

Why?

These are not my words. I just summarised what many here seem to think

@Chopps
Frost trap and Muddy terrain are great as support but you won’t get any badges from it. Ranger should also be able to kill and get badges.
Barrage is the perfect zerg skill. Good damage and AoE-cripple. Not being able to use it is a waste.

Immolator’s idea or a certain percentage of damage returned would both be good solutions.

Kubb.9764:

So what you all are saying is, sit back and watch your team get slaughtered because of one boon preventing your attack and that’s considered smart play?

If that one boon is preventing you from attacking, then maybe you should play smarter and put that boon up too, or, move 15 seconds away from them when theyre stacked and buffing, kite them for 10 seconds before you engage, drop null fields in front of them when theyre running towards you, fast build ballistas when you see them charging, or any of the other easily applicable solutions aside from stand there like a fool and get killed.

L2P and it’s not an issue.

Ragnar.4257:

On the flip-side, I play a hammer warrior, with alot of slow, long-cooldown, hard-hitting attacks. A single blind or a single aegis can completely negate a huge amount of my damage output. Having a Backbreaker or an Earthshaker blocked can be the difference between a flawless victory and a massive defeat. While you pew-pewing away with your shortbow will barely be affected by a single blind. You probably wouldn’t even notice it had happened.
Omgwtf nerf Aegis, isn’t fair to slow attack rate players
Or, accept that all builds and playstyles should have a counter, and things they are strong against. Confusion/retaliation are the counter to your playstyle, while I barely notice them; block/blind/evade are the counter to mine, while they barely affect you. This is what we call balance.
PS. as a melee character I would love the ability to set condi-removal priority. Get that frozen removed instead of pointlessly removing that harmless confusion :P

QFT

Arpheus.6918:

Immolator’s idea or a certain percentage of damage returned would both be good solutions.

Ya, a % of the damage should be sent back, and armor can be taken into account for the reflected damage. How about we go with like 30-40% of the damage you do is sent back, that way the ranger can down then kill himself from his 200k damage instead of almost doing it. I’m totally in favor of that, afterwards since we’re buffing this skill, we can make it proc on condition damage ticks too. I’d love to kill mesmers because they put confusion on me, that sounds fun.

Suggestions like kiting people, or removing boons, not AEing, or running away are completely incompatible with a large-scale combat game…. for very obvious reasons. You have goals that go beyond whether you personally live or die in the fight…that’s the whole point of WvW. If you want a 5v5 or 3v3 or 1v1 that’s the other way….

It’s amazing when people can tell other people to “learn to play” but they don’t even understand the simplest concepts….

Also, how is preventing people from attacking and forcing them to calculate whether an attack will do more harm than good actually fun….that’s kind of a mystery to me. Frankly I’d rather a fight be about positioning, executing the proper moves, knowing when to stay and go….. not about staring at buff bars or looking for spell effects in the current spell-effect-soup and trying to do quick math….

The easiest solution would be for any one toon to only receive 1 lot of retaliation per half second. That’s still 800 or so damage in retaliation per second, but not unreasonable.

And wish, the main problems occur for me when we’re defending keeps, ballys and supplies are dead and there isn’t any other option- attack or just sit back and watch them break the doors down…it’s NOT a l2 kitten ue with ranger, it’s more a question of being able to use the one decent skill without completely killing yourself.

Victory, you’re right. It isn’t an l2p problem. Never was and never will be. It’s a design issue. Game designers don’t put stuff like channeling skills into a game with the intent to discourage their use.

Victory.2879:

And wish, the main problems occur for me when we’re defending keeps, ballys and supplies are dead and there isn’t any other option- attack or just sit back and watch them break the doors down…it’s NOT a l2 kitten ue with ranger, it’s more a question of being able to use the one decent skill without completely killing yourself.

If theyre doing it, you can do it too, then the tables are balanced and whoever is better or gets the drop on the other will win, provided skill levels are about the same, and numbers close enough to even to not matter. If theyre attacking your gate and you have no siege? Then stack up, drop a veil and run out the door and smash their faces in before they know what hit them, with retaliation and might stacks because youre initiating the fight and you can buff then charge. And if they see you buffing and back off… well you accomplished what you wanted without even fighting, good job. In T1, we regularly do this/have it done to us. It’s amazingly effective. Here’s a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDJ31YLVhM0
If you just watch the first minute of this video you can watch some melees crush a golem rush with less numbers than the attackers and send them fleeing for their lives in under a minute.

wish.1027:

If that one boon is preventing you from attacking, then maybe you should play smarter and put that boon up too, or, move 15 seconds away from them when theyre stacked and buffing, kite them for 10 seconds before you engage, drop null fields in front of them when theyre running towards you, fast build ballistas when you see them charging, or any of the other easily applicable solutions aside from stand there like a fool and get killed.

Zosk.5609:

Suggestions like kiting people, or removing boons, not AEing, or running away are completely incompatible with a large-scale combat game…. for very obvious reasons. You have goals that go beyond whether you personally live or die in the fight…that’s the whole point of WvW.

quoted Zosk for answering some of wish’s response. I agree retaliation shouldn’t be nerfed to the ground there are just unbalances among certain multi hit low damage skills compared to high damage less hits. That is quite literally all there is to it.

Kubb.9764:

quoted for answering some of your respone.

I intentionally ignored him because he’s wrong. Learn to coordinate better (L2P) and moving a zerg around is easy. We do it in T1 with 80+ people, half being PUGs pretty easily, I find it hard to believe smaller groups have problems with this, and if they do… then it’s still L2P.

PROTIP: Use voice chat.

wish.1027:

with retaliation and might stacks because youre initiating the fight and you can buff then charge.

Lemme stack might to buff up the per-hit damage on my 10x hit channel skill and kill myself faster. Maybe it’ll only take half a button press this time.

Nah, I’d rather not use that skill despite Anet putting it there for me. I learned to play well!

wish.1027:

Kubb.9764:

quoted for answering some of your respone.

I intentionally ignored him because he’s wrong. Learn to coordinate better (L2P) and moving a zerg around is easy. We do it in T1 with 80+ people, half being PUGs pretty easily, I find it hard to believe smaller groups have problems with this, and if they do… then it’s still L2P.

PROTIP: Use voice chat.

L2P is not always the problem. We all know HOW to not get insta gibbed by retaliation. The problem is the punishment is too severe.

What’s voice chat?

Chaba.5410:

wish.1027:

with retaliation and might stacks because youre initiating the fight and you can buff then charge.

Lemme stack might to buff up the per-hit damage on my 10x hit channel skill and kill myself faster. Maybe it’ll only take half a button press this time.

Having might on yourself makes your retaliations you inflict on them do more damage and it makes you do more damage, so it skews the curve in your favor. You down them faster and take less from their retaliation because you have to hit them less basically. I know, it’s a hard concept to grasp, but it seriously works very well. You should try it yourselves sometimes instead of just repeatedly dieing to it.

light fields > blast finishers, then fire fields > blast finishes into your stacked group, then charge dropping viels in front of the exit, as shown in the video. Learning tactics and bettering your server to be able to fight is part of learning to play. So is learning to run your zerg around null fields, when to use stabilities, how to kite til their might/retal stacks wear off, etc.

Kubb.9764:

What’s voice chat?

mumble/teamspeak/ventrillo

Kubb.9764:

L2P is not always the problem. We all know HOW to not get insta gibbed by retaliation. The problem is the punishment is too severe.

Its like 300 damage a hit, if you cant take 300 damage a hit and win a fight when they take 400 and you hit for at least 30% more damage than them… then there’s no hope for you, you should just quit the game or jump to a better server.