Guild Wars 2

So there’s one thing that weirds me out.

Exactly what’s in the title: confusion and retaliation.

Not because it’s defensive and offensive at the same time, not because you don’t need to do anything to make damage but what I don’t understand is following…

Every other condition tics once every second. But these two badboys… can tick way too often. If ANet would change both so the damage only occurs once every second (like the healing part of the omnomberry ghost for example) it That would have following effect: better balance for confusion in WvW/PvP (perplexity runes cough cough) and the retaliation change would actually make one class also viable in zergs which never was: ranger. A ranger can actually kill himself in 1 rapid fire with the piercing arrows trait. Simple math: 1 retaliation proc can deal 400 damage if some might is floating around in the enemy zerg. That means: rapid fire: 10 hits x 5 = 50 hits x 400 = 20.000 damage if everything hits. And then there’s also barrage and warhorn 4. If retaliation would work the way I suggested we would look at another number: 10 hits on 5 people within 2.5 seconds = 5 × 3 × 400 = 6.000 damage. that would be not op nor up and totally acceptable imo. It would also help many other classes.

What do you think?

Did you play GW1?

Whoa, who’s doling out 400 retal in WvW? That’s a LOT of power.

Uhhhh if i did my math right, that would require 5440 power. That’s calculated with the 33% dmg loss from WvW.

ManLove.2457:

Uhhhh if i did my math right, that would require 5440 power. That’s calculated with the 33% dmg loss from WvW.

i guess OP died thinking his zerker could AOE bag farm with 1 skill, nowadays this seams obvious by gw2 standards.

ManLove.2457:

Uhhhh if i did my math right, that would require 5440 power. That’s calculated with the 33% dmg loss from WvW.

Yeah, exactly. That calculation would look more realistic with 260-300 retal per hit. 400? No way.

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

ManLove.2457:

Uhhhh if i did my math right, that would require 5440 power. That’s calculated with the 33% dmg loss from WvW.

Yeah, exactly. That calculation would look more realistic with 260-300 retal per hit. 400? No way.

If the OP was in EotM, where retaliation is bugged. then the required 2700 power is reasonable to reach 400 dmg.

TBH it’s been nearly 2 years since I thought retaliation hurt or witnessed a few stacks of confusion drop a whole zerg of auto attackers at a tower gate hahaha

ManLove.2457:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

ManLove.2457:

Uhhhh if i did my math right, that would require 5440 power. That’s calculated with the 33% dmg loss from WvW.

Yeah, exactly. That calculation would look more realistic with 260-300 retal per hit. 400? No way.

If the OP was in EotM, where retaliation is bugged. then the required 2700 power is reasonable to reach 400 dmg.

What’s an EotM?

Rapid fire in combination with the piercing trait kills you? Hm… what about… well… not using rapid fire then? You hit many targets, potentially laying down much dmg… if your team doesn’t boon strip well… then… well… that’s bad luck then. I don’t see why this needs changing. What would an elementalist say? Don’t they hit like a million targets all the time?

as long as its killing rangers, I think everyone is fine with it…

There is a trade-off to it. Other conditions that do DoT do so regardless if you attack or not. Confusion and Retaliation on the other hand, can do no damage at all if you don’t attack while active.

My most developed character is my ranger. Probably have more hours on him than any of my others. I use S/Wh + LB. Wh #5 then #4 on a target with Ret, switch + Pop QZ and use LB #5 then #2 w/ piercing at that same target who is in the middle of a zerg. Start with full hp (24k) and walk away with about 10k remaining.

Maybe make your ranger less squishy.

Retal / Confusion is a necessity in many builds, against builds.

Confusion is fine, as you can see it on yourself and can cleanse it (or have it cleansed), or wait for it to drop, so it’s not really much of an issue in wvw.

Retaliation, on the other hand, is a stupid buff that is hard to spot in zerg fights, and if you’re piercing then you would have to check all the possible targets before firing to avoid the damage (so basically, don’t fire). Waiting for it to end isn’t possible, as it tends to be up 99% of the time on a decent team.

Retal isn’t noticed by the blob (read heal sig warriors, guards regen,) because their passives are outhealing any damage they are taking from it (plus blasts on fields, etc) and so they don’t even think it exists.

The simple solution as has been mentioned many times is to have a cap on the number of times it can proc per second (once per second at 340 a pop is a very nice aoe DoT), but as it’s not really much of an issue in spvp nothing will be done about it.

Shirk.6421:

But these two badboys… can tick way too often.

Or they can tick not at all? Not my fault if you’re spamming skills with confusion on you, or that you are DPS’ing down that retal guardian.. :p

Only times I died from retaliation was with my Power Ranger: Barrage on a group, mass retalation, down I went

If a ranger get the advantage to snipe me at 1500 range for 10k, I think it is fair that I can pop up retaliation and see his HP bar goes down almost at the same rate as mine.

They are predictable. Go to some part with elevation then channels for rapid fire, I use stand your ground for retal, I purposely take all every single hit from the skill. I start to walk into their direction, ranger panic and try to knock me back, which I can negate with still stability, dodge or aegis. When get near the ranger, somewhere around 600 range or so, predictable again, they go for entangle to try for the advantage again, which can be dodged if didn’t wasted on the way to the ranger, but it is too late.

Anyway, for me, Torment is more of an issue than confusion can ever be. Take damage standing, take double damage moving.

Aeolus.3615:

i guess OP died thinking his zerker could AOE bag farm with 1 skill, nowadays this seams obvious by gw2 standards.

That isn’t a fair comment to some class/builds that have no choice but to AoE.

For example, I have seen ele’s not even running a piece of zerker gear blow themselves up or be forced to mist form with a single meteor shower or ice bow 4. I’ve also see it happen on a single static field drop with LR when not even trying to dps.

/shrug

cillard.3986:

Aeolus.3615:

i guess OP died thinking his zerker could AOE bag farm with 1 skill, nowadays this seams obvious by gw2 standards.

That isn’t a fair comment to some class/builds that have no choice but to AoE.

For example, I have seen ele’s not even running a piece of zerker gear blow themselves up or be forced to mist form with a single meteor shower or ice bow 4. I’ve also see it happen on a single static field drop with LR when not even trying to dps.

/shrug

So it is avoidable. I think it’s an issue of adapting tactics.

Both of them are hard crowd control that allow you to decide to trade damage for action. Just as torment is a root you can pay a price to ignore.

Its a lot more forgiving than the stuns you’d be taking in most other games, but you need to decide whether flinging your DPS is a better call than just waiting it out…

cillard.3986:

Aeolus.3615:

i guess OP died thinking his zerker could AOE bag farm with 1 skill, nowadays this seams obvious by gw2 standards.

That isn’t a fair comment to some class/builds that have no choice but to AoE.

For example, I have seen ele’s not even running a piece of zerker gear blow themselves up or be forced to mist form with a single meteor shower or ice bow 4. I’ve also see it happen on a single static field drop with LR when not even trying to dps.

/shrug

Retal hasn’t hit that hard in nearly 2 years…

I’m currently playing full zerker 56021 s/d + staff ele and my meteor shower only hits me with enough retal to take away maybe 10% health at most which is completely healed just by switching to water…

sephiroth.4217:

Retal hasn’t hit that hard in nearly 2 years…

I’m currently playing full zerker 56021 s/d + staff ele and my meteor shower only hits me with enough retal to take away maybe 10% health at most which is completely healed just by switching to water…

I didn’t say it hit hard. What I posted is 100% valid and true in today’s game.

We are constantly fighting with a guild group vs. map blobs and I guarantee you if you actually land your meteor/ice bow 5/static w/LR on a map blob blasting for retal you will probably get downed faster than you can mist form in zerker gear.

I am going to assume you aren’t fighting 30 v 80 and are probably on lower tier. Nothing wrong with that, but if you are only losing 10% health (roughly 1400 with stacks or thereabouts) in zerker gear vs. retaliation with a meteor you are getting less than 7 pulses of damage from all your meteors combined on retaled targets.

In my situation, I can drop a pro single static field while running lightning rod ….which causes it to tick retaliation twice (once for the static damage and once for the LR damage) on a map blob on their pin to CC it and take 40+ x 2 ticks of retaliation from it. Assuming 250 per tick of retaliation that would be 20,000 damage.

TyPin.9860:

cillard.3986:

Aeolus.3615:

i guess OP died thinking his zerker could AOE bag farm with 1 skill, nowadays this seams obvious by gw2 standards.

That isn’t a fair comment to some class/builds that have no choice but to AoE.

For example, I have seen ele’s not even running a piece of zerker gear blow themselves up or be forced to mist form with a single meteor shower or ice bow 4. I’ve also see it happen on a single static field drop with LR when not even trying to dps.

/shrug

So it is avoidable. I think it’s an issue of adapting tactics.

So I wasn’t complaining about retaliation to be clear, I was simply pointing out that the statement I quoted was lame and why.

So yes mist form helps you avoid retaliation damage, which is awesome. However, you can’t rightfully say it is a matter of adapting tactics considering the cooldown of mist form is extremely long. Unless of course your idea of ‘adapting tactics’ is only hitting damage spells every minutes and a half or so.

I am almost exclusively playing mesmer on an almost full glass cannon setup (mix of zerker and assains and some toughness trinkets). I frequently pick up ice bow from our eles. It never occurred that I got killed by retaliation (of course my health pool is higher, but it never came down to even 50% HP). You could say I didn’t hit well enough, that they didn’t buff themselves well or they were boon striped. After all my sample is smaller compared to an ele. However, from what I experienced and from what eles told me, it seems a very rare situation. More a text book example, that is theoretically possible, if all conditions are well met. This rarely occurs actually.

Should the game now be changed because of a situation that is very rare? Even if it happened once and you had to pop mist form once to avoid retaliation. It would be extremely unique that the same situation occurs again. So no, you don’t need to nuke in synergy with mist form cool down. If you’re afraid though now, then I think their tactic actually worked to make you uneasy in using your skills. It is a form of soft CC after all, leaving you the choice of taking the consequences or not…

There would be a lot more complaints about it if there were more of the classes left that feel it the most.

Playing as warrior, guardian, necro or ele (switch to water, job done) I can honestly say I have only ever noticed retal on the ele and that was only because I missed a blast on a water field that would cover the damage. As these are in the large majority for wvw (partly due to retal), there won’t be many complaints. That doesn’t mean the problem has gone away.