Guild Wars 2

I’ve been toying with a build idea which, among other things, gives 100% uptime on retaliation. But from what I’ve read I cant tell if retaliation is worth even bothering with? Can anyone give me a decent breakdown of why it is or is not useful? Im mostly PVE and Dungeons, but would also appreciate a perspective of its usefulness in WvW.

Thanks!

In pvp yes, it’s definitely worth it since you get hit a lot.
In pve not so much since you should avoid getting hit.

It’s a zerg buff in WvW… it hurts AOE classes quite a bit when they drop an AOE on 5 people with retaliation…

other than that.. no

I find it hilarious in cof. Those flamethrower kittens tick it like crazy.

like others have said, definitely viable in WvW/PvP. in PvE? not so much, ie not always useful to have. but like Hicci mentioned, if you know some mobs that hit fast and multiple times? it’s neat to have.

Also, don’t go overboard with it. It’s good in PvP/WvW, but when you go out of your way for it, you’ll hurt yourself too much in other areas.

You don’t really have to try to get a lot of retal if you are running SYG and have invested trait points into virtues it’s just a nice side bonus.

40-60% of the damage a bunker does in a 1 vs 1 in tpvp is retaliation. Yes its worth it in tpvp if you bunker.

30-50% of the damage done in wvw in a 1 vs 1 (bunker) is retal, so yes its worth it.

As long as you go for aoe retal, SY, signet of judgement, triggering combofields andhave larger symbols on GS its worth it. If we could see the numbers retal makes on all the players that we give it to we would realize that we are probably the best dps profession in the game.

Is retal worth it with a dps build in 1 vs 1, not so much but we get it for free. So make use of it.

In dungeons its definitely not worth it but in open world its a nice bonus.

In short, if you bunker up its your main source of dps and first and foremost it requires no skill at all to have an impact. Infact the less you dodge and avoid incoming damage the more it contributes with.