Guild Wars 2

Basically what the title says. Unlike Confusion there isn’t a separate damage value for PvE and PvP for Retaliation. In PvE opponents tend to attack much slower than human players. Is it worth to build for maintainable Retaliation in PvE? Of course not as the only damage dealer, but it’s easy to maintain it without sacrificing much of your build. Will it make any difference?

For the bulk majority of the time, attacks like confusion or retaliation are not as effective in PvE as they are in PvP. I will say though, I have found a few fights here and there where I could take off huge chunks of the MOBs life by timing a retal at the correct time.

One example I can think of is one of the veteran fish in frostgorge sound. It does a breath attack that hits fairly low, but when I do retal it takes off chunks of it’s life. (I think it was the fish, something in the water near the watchful fjord).

So I guess the answer is “situational”, don’t build to maintain it. Having it available for cooldowns is nice though.

It depends on how micro- you can get with understanding PvE mob behaviour.

Retaliation IS useful. Just not something you should rely on.
I’ve gone down the Virtues traitline, and I wield a hammer, so I get retaliation for over 40% of my combat time, but I never rely on it. It’s just sewn into my play-style.

It is only worth it if you tank 5 or more mobs at a time (which you should be anyway, your a Guardian

Ret+Symbol+Burning = Very high sustained damage per tick. This is nt even including your normal attacks. Sure our burst damage isn’t that high, but considering we can do high damage to every single mob around us, it makes us unstoppable in PvE.

I run a tanky build 0/0/30/30/10 and havent spec for ret at all. by the time ret finishes the 10 mobs around me are dead. You don’t have to spec for ret. Just use it as standard and its fine. If you do, the you should be gathering agro from mobs to kill them at the same time. Works wonders

not worth it

i do not understadn the concept anyway. a guardian is crazy good at avoiding hits. retal only works when you get hit. against single mobs its so easy to facetank and not even get hit once. fighting ultiples is not much harder since you take some damage at teh beginningbut when the trash mos start dieing you can spam VoJ for perma pbae blind (crazy ability actually … OP some might say)

ifyou do not go high in virtues i also find that retaliation on most mobs does not even trigger because of the slow swingspeed.

never felt the need to trait for it since that would require me to take hits.. which i dont

Its not something you build around for PvE, its more like a bonus if you happen to have it.

Asmodal.6489:

not worth it

i do not understadn the concept anyway. a guardian is crazy good at avoiding hits. retal only works when you get hit. against single mobs its so easy to facetank and not even get hit once. fighting ultiples is not much harder since you take some damage at teh beginningbut when the trash mos start dieing you can spam VoJ for perma pbae blind (crazy ability actually … OP some might say)

ifyou do not go high in virtues i also find that retaliation on most mobs does not even trigger because of the slow swingspeed.

never felt the need to trait for it since that would require me to take hits.. which i dont

Thats if you spec for VoJ to be refreshed after each kill.

KensaiZen.3740:

Asmodal.6489:

not worth it

i do not understadn the concept anyway. a guardian is crazy good at avoiding hits. retal only works when you get hit. against single mobs its so easy to facetank and not even get hit once. fighting ultiples is not much harder since you take some damage at teh beginningbut when the trash mos start dieing you can spam VoJ for perma pbae blind (crazy ability actually … OP some might say)

ifyou do not go high in virtues i also find that retaliation on most mobs does not even trigger because of the slow swingspeed.

never felt the need to trait for it since that would require me to take hits.. which i dont

Thats if you spec for VoJ to be refreshed after each kill.

… and it would be crazy not to.

Does ret hit even if the target is blinded and misses the attack? Wiki says it works if you’re blocking, but what about if the target is blind?

Ret does not work if the target misses. It only works when you take damage or block. So if your a Bunker that does lots of AOE damage like me. Getting VoJ to constantly blind mobs is pointless as it means you kill a lot slower.

Like I said, the damage combined from Ret+Burning+Symbol+Mighty blow/Whirling Wrath is insane.

I can mitigate and soak up the damage from 10 mobs and kill them all within the matter of seconds. But then it is all up to the players play style. Take damage and kill fast or take no damage and kill slower. Either way it still works

Usually where it matters (Dungeon bosses), the attacks hit hard,so you want to avoid getting hit. Also the damage is too small to even matter for PvE.

Retaliation is good for bunker builds in PvP but other than that it’s not something you should look out for.

Ret is great for PvE and the hammer gives you all the Retaliation you need for you and your group.
for example next time you do AC, stand inside the Spider Queens poison field with retaliation up and watch the retaliation damage pile up.
also works extremely well in CoF on the flamethrower enemies.

Worth it on higher difficulty Old Tom in the Uncategorized Fractal. I promise that a guardian that keeps up perma retaliation is by far the fastest way to kill him before the crystals run out. Also helps jellyfish go by a bit faster if you pop SYG and just get in there when it starts doing the stun/electrocution spin.

kaffaljidhma.1496:

Worth it on higher difficulty Old Tom in the Uncategorized Fractal. I promise that a guardian that keeps up perma retaliation is by far the fastest way to kill him before the crystals run out. Also helps jellyfish go by a bit faster if you pop SYG and just get in there when it starts doing the stun/electrocution spin.

I have never run into trouble making the “soft enrage” timer on Old Tom. I just tell my team to stack up directly underneath Old Tom to avoid the poison bolts and heal through the room poison damage with mace/focus (easily heal through since the damage is only 300 a tick per second). And I’ll advise against getting hit by poison bolts for the retaliation damage if you don’t want to lay flat on the ground.