Guild Wars 2

I hope we’ve all cooled down a bit by now. I figure it’s time we start discussing the matter ourselves before the next unwanted and unwarranted change to a Skill rolls along in the name of bringing Retaliation in line. Through the many threads, alternate fixes for the perceived problem with Symbol of Wrath as the apparent poster child have been named. Some of them were pretty good, others problematic. Following this likely long-winded leadup I’d like to list them and invite people to discuss the merits or lack thereof or make their own suggestions.

The only problem we have with this potential discussion is that we’re operating in a vacuum. It’s hard to take the reasons given in the patch notes at face value because the change to Symbol of Wrath affected AOE damage potential much more than it affected potential to keep up Retaliation. We can either assume that the Devs consider Retaliation too powerful or easy to maintain in good faith, or we can assume that the real reason for this change was to lower Greatsword’s AOE damage output and Symbol builds.

But that’s just a level of uncertainty we have to live with for now. Hopefully someone comes in and clarifies this.

TL;DR: The current fix to Symbol of Wrath is not in line with the reasons given in the patch notes and hampers various playstyles not revolving around Retaliation. As the people who know the Guardian class best, we should take it upon ourselves to suggest a better fix to the issue.

What then can be done?

1) Change the effect on Symbol of Wrath from Retaliation to another Boon

If Retaliation in Symbol of Wrath is the problem, replacing it with a less complicated (for the Devs to balance that is) Boon might allow for it to be returned to its old cooldown. AOE potential takes a small hit due to missing out on Retaliation damage but Symbol builds are unaffected, possibly even improved.

• Might has been suggested as an alternate Boon.

One stack of Might in five 1s pulses doesn’t seem overpowered, and it’s in line with Greatsword’s auto-attack already giving out Might. Might is universally useful but one stack only comes down to about 30 additional Power at level 80.

• Fury has been suggested as well.

I’d love this, but I realize that Fury is an insanely powerful Boon. With the right Traits, a Guardian could give an entire party constant Fury. While I’d love to see it, it stands to reason that the Symbol’s duration would need to be lowered to even out the flat 20% Crit chance boost. Some builds could massively profit from this, GS Symbol builds might lose out.

• Vigor has also been suggested.

I feel that Vigor is a defensive Boon and doesn’t fit the style of Greatsword. That said, a Symbol that granted Vigor could be extremely useful in certain situations which require a lot of dodging.

2) Change the way Retalation works

Since the problem obviously roots deeper than one power, if we take the Dev statement at face value, it might be sensible to rework Retaliation from the ground up, and not change individual Skills or Traits.

• The main suggestion I’ve seen here was to make Retaliation a single lasting stack that will be expended by the first hit the bearer takes, like Aegis. In this scenario, the damage dealt by Retaliation would be ramped up, but it would now not be possible to simply have it up all the time but would require timing and active gameplay to keep it up.

I personally feel this would be highly workable in PVP but suck in PVE where most enemies have smaller health pools unless the Retaliation damage was delivered in a PBAOE when it happened. Otherwise, when fighting several enemies it might be utterly wasted by being triggered by chaff, or an enemy that is almost dead anyway.

Not sure how this would interact with Symbol of Wrath since it could still be rendered persistent.

• My personal take would be to make Retaliation damage scale with the damage taken. So big massive hits would trigger massive Retaliation while small scrapes only triggered small Retaliation damage. This is a PVE-centric consideration based on the belief that the Symbol of Wrath nerf was actually intended to reduce Greatsword AOE potential. The idea is to keep Retaliation feasible for boss fights but reduce its efficiency as a farming tool.

All apologies to anyone whose ideas I lifted from all the other threads. I really couldn’t be kittened to go back through, sift the grain from the chaff and give proper attribution. But to make it clear: Only the last idea is mine; all the other ones were had by the excellent people around here.

What’s feasible, what’s not? What are your ideas on how to fix this mess? Did I misrepresent anyone’s ideas?

“Retaliation damage scale with the damage taken” would be best i think

I agree that this patch to us guardians seemed more about Symbols then actually about Retaliation. I have never tried a Symbols Build but i used a GS. Switching the locations of skills doesnt even bother me that much.

But if the problem is with Retaliation, why reduce the dps and not actually adjust the Retaliation. Unless this patch is precursor to a future update for retaliation.

Too many “If’s” for my liking. I’d rather get my info from the source and would love a Developers input to set the rumors, speculation, and uncertainty with in our class community to rest.

- Tzenjin

Agreed. Why I fired off a PM asking for an official clarification first thing this morning. But by the time a Dev dares to take a look at this kittenstorm I’d rather have some ideas for them to mull over. I’m as prone to raging against the dying of the light as anybody, but at the end of the day I’d rather at least try and be proactive.

I’m in full exotics and the DPS wasn’t even that high in comparison to a 100b Warrior or a Dagger Thief. There was no need to increase the cooldown at all.

The only thing that should have done, was either made retaliation scale with incoming damage or just change the buff that SoW gives to something suggest such as Might or Quickness (<— Because there is a lack of it).

It seems to me that this hindrance had nothing to do with the Retaliation buff itself (since it can be applied SOOO many other ways just as effectively WITHOUT the use of SoW) but to some sort of hate that Guardians are choosing to deal damage instead of being purely support, which is a broken and gimmicky mechanic.

I’m probably going to take a hit or two on this one but I would personally like to see the Hammer ability, Banish, get removed and replaced with a Retaliation boon granting ability. That way, Retaliation building Guardians can use the more defensive two-hander since it requires being hit to proc anyway. I find that Banish has very few practical purposes (other than knocking a person off a node), but if there is another ability on the Hammer that is better suited to grant Retaliation, I’m fine with that, too.

I propose this because if you move Retaliation to the Hammer, it opens up the options of the Greatsword and puts the two two-handers more in line with one another. If you want to be defensive and take some hits, roll with the Hammer; if you want to be offensive and highly mobile, take the Greatsword. The Symbol can be reverted to its old recharge rate since it doesn’t grant Retaliation anymore, and instead should grant might, or perhaps even inflict cripple/fumble on enemies.

I mentioned in a previous thread that this may be a preemptive precaution for future Dueling and 1v1s because of Retalition duration and dmg in the 1v1 setting is pretty ridiculous

(i would take friends on empty sPvP servers to test builds and duel so i know 1v1 pretty well as guardian, we are not weak. Technical, yes. And i believe we are the class that takes the most “Aiming” to get a hit as well with Warriors. Melee can be tough stuff bro)

But a nerf to SoW, targeted at retaliation. That doesnt affect retaliation (as far as im still concerned about the duration issue) is just over all confusing to me. Im not ENRAGED or about to start flaming. Im honestly left questioning what they could of been thinking?

Just revert the cooldown changes on SoW and replace the boon that it gives with either might or fury. Heck I don’t even care what the boon is as long as they revert the cooldown on it. I just used the symbol for damage.

If I want retaliation I would rather use something that doesn’t tie me to one spot. It’s not like bunker guardians are using greatsword anyway.

Would having Leap+Light Field giving a different boon help the issue as well?
Retaliation reflecting the damage done, would be more intuitive than it works currently. Also, give Retaliation a clear visual indicator, so good players don’t just use their OMG-DIE ability while it’s up.

Any change to the root of the problem (namely: retaliation) would make much more sense and be much more valid than just cranking up the cooldown on the symbol (which gets multiple benefits from traits and is the backbone of a whole build!)

Animus.6073:

I’m probably going to take a hit or two on this one but I would personally like to see the Hammer ability, Banish, get removed and replaced with a Retaliation boon granting ability. That way, Retaliation building Guardians can use the more defensive two-hander since it requires being hit to proc anyway. I find that Banish has very few practical purposes (other than knocking a person off a node), but if there is another ability on the Hammer that is better suited to grant Retaliation, I’m fine with that, too.

I propose this because if you move Retaliation to the Hammer, it opens up the options of the Greatsword and puts the two two-handers more in line with one another. If you want to be defensive and take some hits, roll with the Hammer; if you want to be offensive and highly mobile, take the Greatsword. The Symbol can be reverted to its old recharge rate since it doesn’t grant Retaliation anymore, and instead should grant might, or perhaps even inflict cripple/fumble on enemies.

You can already easily get retaliation with the hammer from its blast finisher. Just auto-attack until you put down the symbol, then use the number two skill and you give retaliation to everyone around you.

There are a lot of uses for Banish. It can be used as a knockdown against a wall or within Ring of Warding, for a quick escape used in conjunction with Zealot’s Embrace. You can also use it with Judge’s Intervention to negate the distance. I think the cast time makes Banish difficult to use a lot of the time though.