Guild Wars 2

Retaliation since the very beginning has never been fun and I don’t know anyone that has cared about it. Its a very cool idea but the only time i’ve ever seen it work is when a small person is trying to take out a zerg in which the whole zerg has to have retaliation to make a dent. There are two different ways i can see this going either by upping the power of retaliation or by giving retaliation stacks. Honestly is there any time you see a person with retaliation boon and your hesitant to go up against them? Another proposal i’d like to throw out is the damage of retaliation being based on toughness rather than power seeing as it feels like its suppose to be more of a defensive boon.

300 damage, low duration, stacking 1-5 stacks per ability / trait etc.

Ticks from each damaging condition stack too.

It’s already pretty powerful, especially against zerker, and condi builds.

As a guardian, there’s a way to be const retaliation.

Damage scale from user’s power, so the more power you have, the more damage you reflect.

I check for retaliation when doing multi-hit attacks like Whirling Wrath or Flame Jet (flamethrower auto). But in general, no.

Giving Retaliation stacks is interesting, but it’s still too easy to spam and already does significant damage against certain professions like thief. In order to buff retaliation, the sources of the boon would need to be adjusted.

Why not make Retal last significantly shorter but reflect the actual damage received? Like…1/2 second or something so skillful use of it is rewarding? Would require an overhaul of traits and such

Kehlian.4380:

It’s already pretty powerful, especially against zerker, and condi builds.

As a guardian, there’s a way to be const retaliation.

Damage scale from user’s power, so the more power you have, the more damage you reflect.

It used to be pretty powerful but they reduced the reflect damage by 33% in spvp and wvw, so now retaliation gets relegated to “an okay boon have but you won’t miss it or really want it.” Now if they replaced most instances of skills granting retaliation with light aura, it might be worth taking.

I find Retaliation quite a hard boon to balance for fast attacks, slow big hitters, 1v1 & 1vX as it’s currently designed. What it comes down to is your concept & how you’ll apply it.

GW2 Retaliation
Causes damage to foes for each successful direct hit (condition ticks don’t count) dependent on the player who is hit stat’s. This is independent to the foe, type of attack used & damage caused.

Strengths: Punishes fast attacks that cause multiply hits in a small time frame.
Weaknesses: Little effect for slow big damaging attacks having very few hits in the same time frame.
Problems with this design:

• AoE attacks hitting multiply foes with retaliation can result in returned retaliation damage far exceeding damage causes to foes. Large problem balance wise for encounters with large number of targets, WvW & PvE.
• Fast multiply hitting skills which are very difficult to stop, this then become unavoidable damage & again can far exceed the source damage causes to the foe.

And it’s these two points I feel cause all the issues. Retaliation as it is doesn’t fit GW2 combat design across the whole game.

Some other design options for retaliation damage:

Percentage of Source Damage
Retaliation here would only return a percentage of the damage applied. This means foes would have an idea of what damage they would receive for a given applied damage & that it would not exceed the source damage.

Strengths: Great against big damaging skills be they single massive hits or very fast multiply hits.
Weaknesses: More complex calculation as it’s dependent on source damage. Requiring greater server resources, other then this not to sure.

I feel this could be a easier replacement to the existing retaliation which would work better with GW2 designed combat & feel overall better for all players to fight with & against.

Skill Damage Enhancer
This will change to whole gameplay around retaliation & would require a lot of work redesigning of all retaliation applications.

• Retaliation* – Increases the damage of your next skill for a value of damage received while retaliation was active up to a maximum value.

Strength: Player controlled, both foe & player under retaliation. Changes from passive damage to active damage.
Weaknesses: Changes from passive damage to active damage. More complex calculation requiring greater server resources.

The largest idea behind this concept is changing retaliation into a more defensive build boon. To do this I would look at using Toughness (thanks Mech) as a component. The idea is as defensive builds are designed to “take the hits” but usually have little to no power this boon would provide the means for large hitting skills.

I really like the Skill Damage Enhancer option as it increases defensive stat interact with active gameplay which is one area I would love see improved in GW2. Having defensive stats also improve the active defensive skills, conditions & boons.

The problem with making retaliation a straight damage return is that it makes it too powerful for defensive builds. If you wanted to go that route, you would need to make it return (base + power * modifier) percent of damage received. Requiring power means you can’t be defensive and kill attackers as easily.

But that still doesn’t address the issue of how retaliation can be somewhat spammable on a guardian. With high up-time and percent damage return, there is no counter other than waiting it out. You would still need to address access to the retaliation boon.

I think retaliation fails to be balanced, because of its inconsistency. There is a best case scenario, when fast hits are involved, and a worst case scenario, when slow hits are involved. Arenanet has to balance the boon around the best case, in order for it not to be broken.

In my opinion the easiest change would be to give retaliation a 1 second internal cooldown per individual target and increase retaliation damage to be somewhat impactful, which would be the case at around 600-700 damage, I feel.

Right now retaliation can have a high uptime on some classes like Guardian, but it feels almost negligible. I think it would feel better with lower uptime, that needs to be specifically timed, but high impact, which would encourage actively timed usage instead of passive retaliation spamming.

Should be % of damage depending of attacker damage.

but…

Players want to keep spamming w/o thinking much and dont want to be pusnished if they need to look for a opening on that group, that take to much effort and players end complying that they get some damage when they use aoe spells w/o looking at target boons.

Sadly not so long time ago, i still noticed players dying to my 240 retaliation on 1vs1…. sometimes i love macroers, a good value on retaliation is a way to fight them.

Retaliation is the antithesis of aegis. Both are boons. One is designed to counter many small hits while the other is designed to prevent one large hit. Likewise, Confusion and Blind are the condition analogues. Confusion designed to punish multiple and quick skill use, and Blind designed to punish single, threatening attacks. Retaliation really didn’t need much of a change, it already serves it’s purpose well.

Confusion is more powerful than Retaliation because of stacking, and it works at 60% damage when your target isn’t even doing anything…

Only recently. The base design of confusion is still there, to punish multiple skill use. On the boon side of things, retaliation does the same. Defend against the player receiving multiple strikes (defending by punishment).

Ghotistyx.6942:

Retaliation is the antithesis of aegis. Both are boons. One is designed to counter many small hits while the other is designed to prevent one large hit. Likewise, Confusion and Blind are the condition analogues. Confusion designed to punish multiple and quick skill use, and Blind designed to punish single, threatening attacks. Retaliation really didn’t need much of a change, it already serves it’s purpose well.

Some good points Ghotistyx.

Ageis < – > Blind: Defensive & offensive themed options to stop One attack. Both function very similar to the other, one blocks an attack the other makes the attack miss.
Retaliation < – > Confusion: Defensive & offensive themed options to stop Multiply attacks. Similarly themed but functionally different. One causes damage when Hit, the other causes damage when skills Activated. And this has a very large difference to the damage one will receive from channelled & multi-hitting skills.

• Confusion causes one tick of damage for skill activation no matter the number of hits in a skill but
• Retaliation’s damage depends on the number of hits.

Now fast multiply hitting skills add Retaliation & add intercontinental internet latencies and this becomes unavoidable damage that you can’t respond to all due to one skill press.

I can see were Arenanet was going for these defensive conditions & boons designs (big slow attacks, multiply hits / skill spamming) and believe this design would work great in low latency environments. But for me I just believe it’s not the best design choice if intercontinental latencies are part of the equation.

Options when considering intercontinental latencies I believe fits better that fills a similar role instead are:

• Ageis < – > Blind: Burst Defence (a small time frame). This provides a window of protection. The window would provide some fudge factor for the defence instead of stopping a single attack which can be hard to time right with higher latencies.
• Retaliation: Focus deterrent (no change in concept but needs a functionally change). Please refer to Percentage of Source Damage or Skill Damage Enhancer above.

Percentage is about giving the attacker more control over the received damage in the way that is a percentage of the out going damage. Which I feel is easier to estimate from the skill facts then calculating (dmg = retal dmg * # of hits) in fast pace environments.

Skill Enhancer is about handing the control of the Retaliation damage application back to the player. Which also provides greater counter play then just stop attacking but does lessen the focus deterrent as you don’t just receive the damage.

• Confusion: Skill Spamming deterrent (no change). Works quite well as is when considering intercontinental latencies.

You have to take into account the multi-hit abilities in the game to balance retaliation, its a killer for Rangers, but maybe not so much for everyone else. Ranger can literally suicide in 2s by barraging a zerg or even piercing arrows RF into a commander with all the retaliation in those surrounding him.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

You have to take into account the multi-hit abilities in the game to balance retaliation, its a killer for Rangers, but maybe not so much for everyone else. Ranger can literally suicide in 2s by barraging a zerg or even piercing arrows RF into a commander with all the retaliation in those surrounding him.

And this is one of the largest problems with the current design, 1vX or 1v1. Typically a single skill won’t kill you but under retaliation multi-hitting AoE could / can one shot. Balance for this group play Retaliation feels useless in lower target environments, balance for the lower environments & Retaliation becomes overpowered in higher target environments.

And this is the current Retaliation’s constraint to determine the focus deterrent effectiveness of retaliation – Number of Targets.

I like the proposal of retaliation having lower uptime duration but doing damage as a precentage of the damage recieved, adjusted by power. So you will still need to gear for power but now the damage is scaled by damage recieved.

lower uptime should help prevent perma retaliation on guardians.

The scaled power will make it fairer by not punishing Engies with their flame throwers while at the same time kill shot warriors will need to think about sniping a guard with retal up.

Spartacus.3192:

I like the proposal of retaliation having lower uptime duration but doing damage as a precentage of the damage recieved, adjusted by power. So you will still need to gear for power but now the damage is scaled by damage recieved.

lower uptime should help prevent perma retaliation on guardians.

The scaled power will make it fairer by not punishing Engies with their flame throwers while at the same time kill shot warriors will need to think about sniping a guard with retal up.

It would be a good idea but for how long it would work?

That means that players will still need to look up the target boons, retal got nerfed because player don’t want to pay attention and want to press buttons, even if retal was just a small duration boon…

I got pretty low esteem for the gw2 game community in terms of quality atm (i might be having a very wrong idea but it is what i see now), what ic is that players want the build to reward what/how they think they should be rewarded, so as example a killshot or a ranger (has any other class) don’t want to be punished if they dont pay attention, they just want to make a very good damage being at solo target or hitting the larger group w/o that punishment, players here feel very rewarded if their build does that.
If it was a just a matter of reduce boon time, Anet already had done it.

Players already should be paying attention to the boons that their target has. A prime example of being punished for not paying attention that already exists is Aegis. Stability is another one.

Now, I’m all for adding more counterplay in the form of things like boon removal, but trying to balance around the lowest common denominator has already proven to be problematic. If someone wants to succeed, they should have to work for it. Players aren’t entitled to do well just because they pressed 2 on their keyboard.

Don’t forget, on the Retaliation and Confusion comparison, that even they serve different functions from one another. Retaliation is a boon, which means it can only “affect” an ally. Confusion is a condition so it only affects enemies. Retaliation has to make it dangerous for the ally to be attacked, regardless of damage sources. Confusion has to make it dangerous for the enemy to act, regardless of if they were attacks or not.

I believe both confusion and retaliation need to have the same damage in pvp and pve settings, and have content balanced around those equal values.

I really liked the idea of retaliation scaling on toughness.

First some points about retaltion . Retaliation by definition punishes the enemy for hitting you with a specific amount. It could be a 100 damage or a 99999999 damage, the amount of retal damage they will recieve is the same. Further more, retaltion does NOT negate any of the damage your receive. Therefore any builds that rely on high retaliation uptime will still need to address the survivablity issue. If you build around punishing enemies that hit you, by definition you’re building to receive hits and therefore need some way of dealing with it.

I think retaliation by definition should come hand in hand with Protection since they compensate each other. Retal does the damage and protection negates some of the damage buying the retal time to do its damage.

One addition i’d like to see on retal, when I as a guardian have retal and manage to actively defend myself through blocking/blinding/evading, the retaliation damage should STILL proc on the enemy. At its current state is does not proc which makes it a a defensive/offensive style that discourages active defense in order to optimally utilize it. I could have retal the whole time but when i block/blind/evade enemy attacks (play active defense the way a guard should), my retal gets severly punished as the uptime on it just got wasted by my CORRECT play. To me that’s flawed logic and therefore needs to be addressed

Summery:
-Intrigued by retaliation damage scaling on Toughness.
- Retal damage should still PROC even when an attack is Blcoked/Blinded/Evaded to not discourge correct active play.

EDIT:
Also i’d love to see Retal damage scaling up with Damage Modifiers .. anything that give you +x% damage does NOT currently affect retal damage unfortunately.

x indigo x.6981:

I really liked the idea of retaliation scaling on toughness.

Keep dreaming. This will NEVER happen. If you scale damage with defense then you make tankier builds deal comparable damage to less tanky ones. Why go less tanky then? It would lead to a huge problem in PvP/WvW.

Exedore.6320:

x indigo x.6981:

I really liked the idea of retaliation scaling on toughness.

Keep dreaming. This will NEVER happen. If you scale damage with defense then you make tankier builds deal comparable damage to less tanky ones. Why go less tanky then? It would lead to a huge problem in PvP/WvW.

hmmmm more tanky and more damage…..not quite the same but DIRE armored condi classes say Hi.

Exedore.6320:

x indigo x.6981:

I really liked the idea of retaliation scaling on toughness.

Keep dreaming. This will NEVER happen. If you scale damage with defense then you make tankier builds deal comparable damage to less tanky ones. Why go less tanky then? It would lead to a huge problem in PvP/WvW.

Or they could do it sorta off of how I believe reflects work for projectile’s and have the damaged based on the attacker’s power. And also i believe retaliation isn’t affected by condi so condi can be a hard counter. I also find it wierd that druid gets a stronger version of retaliation that can crit.

I always liked the way it works when npc use their block skill that throws your damage back at you

Wasn’t sure this thread was still active & just created a topic on reworking Radiant Retaliation, so to quote myself;

Bezagron.7352:

At the moment I’m not sure anyone finds the Grandmaster – Radiant Retaliation useful. I did like the concept of modifying Retaliation for Guardian’s into a unique additional Condition for condition guardian’s to use, but at the moment I feel this comes nowhere close to achieving the required goal.

“Radiant Retaliation: Retaliation damage scales from condition damage instead of power.”

The current problems I find with Radiant Retaliation & the transformation of Retaliation into a type of condition are:

1. Weak trait benefit: small damage increase with no other additional benefits (+10 Retal dmg, 2200 Power = 243 dmg, 1200 Cond Dmg = 253 dmg, Tested in PvP lobby).
2. 100% of the damage depends on your foe hitting you successfully.

+10 damage differences is not even a 5% dmg increase with no other benefit & this is a grandmaster trait! Add that in requires a successful damaging hit from your foe to apply the retal dmg & you start to wonder.

I really like the concept of adding Retaliation as a condition to guardians but feel as a condition the player needs to be able to apply some of the dmg directly to foes & not just through the passive Hit Me of the retaliation Boon. Also a Grandmaster trait needs more Boom for it’s buck:

New Radiant Retaliation
Apply retaliation’s damage to blocked attacks & scales from condition damage instead of power. Create a damaging retaliating aura that pulses every second around you damaging foes while effected by retaliation.

Retaliation Damage: 303.75 (eg. Relat Dmg = 0.25*Condition Damage)
Aura Damage: Uses Retaliation’s Damage (Pulses every second)
Number of Targets: 5
Aura Radius: 120

What I’m looking for is a retaliation damage increase of between 20-33% giving a greater reason to use condition damage instead of power. Giving it at least a grandmasters typical power level effect increase. With the small aura I’m looking at adding a method for players to directly apply retaliation’s condition damage without relying on your foes successfully hitting you.

I see the aura’s damage as a pulsing wave originating from the guardian which can be avoided by dodging, evading, blocking, being invulnerable or effected by resistance.

Could this make Radiant Retaliation useful as a grandmaster or does it need more? What are others ideas?