Guild Wars 2

Sunflowers.1729:

Travlane.5948:

Sunflowers.1729:

Travlane.5948:

. it should do a % of incoming dmg

I would actually kind of agree to this, mostly because it would help fix Grenade Engis and LB Rangers.

Then sit back and watch as you complain that Backstab is useless because it damages yourself too much…

% with a cap of 400 dmg? that sound better? i mean theres always an answer

Right now retaliation is used as a counter to multi-hit attacks. With a change to the mechanic, it would be a counter to all sorts of damage which (I think) is a stupid way to fix it.

At least now you can go “oh I will not use x and y attack”. With this change it would be “he’s going to damage me no matter what I do, and there is nothing I can do against it”.

well thats like saying “it doesnt affect me so F it” lol. some builds only have X and Y attack. tell me what P/P or p/d should do? mmm? ahh thats right theres no choice. its a hard counter.

the logic you say…“itll be a counter to all sorts of dmg” is only if u are willing to accept they will half A** the fix. see i think if they fix it they will do it right so we dont have to wrry about that. but if you think they are going to F it up anyway why bother commenting. why not just say fix it right or propose a solution. bottom line is that anet really does read this stuff and take it into consideration as we have all seen so many times!

RETALIATION: Does x% dmg of each attack back to the source but cannot exceed a total of 300 damage.

there now that still does dmg to small sources and large.

for instance:

1 attack hits for 1k damage and retal hits him for 200.(200 each hit)
10 attack hits you for 1k dmg and retal hit him for 200. (20 each hit)

1 attack hits you for 2k damage and retal hits him back 300(instead of 400 bc of cap)
10 attk hits you for 2k damage and retal hits him back for 300.(30 each hit)

1 attack hits you for 1400 and retal hits him back for 280.(280 each hit)
10 attacks hits you for 1400 and retal hits him back for 280.( 28 each hit)

some instances retal hits for 300 or 200 or 280 or as low as 28 20 or 30. why is this so bad?

caltrops would own you otherwise.

Archon.6481:

You should not be allowed to spec full bunker and still be able to kill people. Retaliation allows people who spec completely defensively to kill things when they obviously shouldn’t be able to.

You play D/P thief. In WvW this is the exact complaint that people have against D/P thief. They say it’s not fair for a build to have both excellent damage output and excellent survivability. I personally don’t see an issue here. I’m happy to let thieves run away when they’re losing and move on. I personally play thief builds that rely more on mobility and less on stealth – but I’m not complaining…The problem as I see it is that you can’t tolerate the idea of a build that you can’t kill. Seems kind of hypocritical.

It’s not overpowered, because it’s not unkillable. In fact many thief builds can deal with a bunker/retal guardian just fine. But the standard, cookie cutter dps or permastealth builds have trouble. And you’re upset because your build can’t kill a bunker guardian unless they let you. That’s fine, each build has their weaknesses. Appreciate and revel in all your strengths; Like the fact that that same guardian can’t kill you, unless you let him.

-And I am not trying to justify this as some sort of rock-paper-scissors style balancing. It’s not. ANet gave thieves the tools to deal with this build. It’s your choice whether to use any of them. If you choose to min-max in such a way that you have none of those tools available in your build, then your build will have a hard counter. And again, that is totally fine…just hope that the counter doesn’t become the meta, or your build will need to change.

bobross.5034:

Archon.6481:

You should not be allowed to spec full bunker and still be able to kill people. Retaliation allows people who spec completely defensively to kill things when they obviously shouldn’t be able to.

You play D/P thief. In WvW this is the exact complaint that people have against D/P thief. They say it’s not fair for a build to have both excellent damage output and excellent survivability. I personally don’t see an issue here. I’m happy to let thieves run away when they’re losing and move on. I personally play thief builds that rely more on mobility and less on stealth – but I’m not complaining…The problem as I see it is that you can’t tolerate the idea of a build that you can’t kill. Seems kind of hypocritical.

It’s not overpowered, because it’s not unkillable. In fact many thief builds can deal with a bunker/retal guardian just fine. But the standard, cookie cutter dps or permastealth builds have trouble. And you’re upset because your build can’t kill a bunker guardian unless they let you. That’s fine, each build has their weaknesses. Appreciate and revel in all your strengths; Like the fact that that same guardian can’t kill you, unless you let him.

-And I am not trying to justify this as some sort of rock-paper-scissors style balancing. It’s not. ANet gave thieves the tools to deal with this build. It’s your choice whether to use any of them. If you choose to min-max in such a way that you have none of those tools available in your build, then your build will have a hard counter. And again, that is totally fine…just hope that the counter doesn’t become the meta, or your build will need to change.

Lol. Your post is so full of baseless assumptions.

I do not have trouble with bunker guards. Your 3k armor and 15k health will not save you when my backstabs still hit for 7k. I will always kill a bunker guard in a 1v1 but retal extends the fight since i have to back off sometimes and heal. Bunker guard damage is just pitiful. It’s so bad that I take more damage from retal than their actual attacks.

Do you see the problem there? I take more damage from something in which he has to put 0 extra effort in order to accomplish? You should not be able to do damage with something that requires no extra effort or skill on your part. Clones/illusions, retal, confusion, etc are all poorly designed mechanics that reward the player who uses them and requires 0 effort or input from the player besides activating the skill. It’s the definition of “fire and forget”.

There is no build in the game that I cant kill except for staff + scepter/torch mesmers but even then it’s a stalemate. I can stand the fact of there being builds that I can’t kill, but I can’t stand people like you trying to justify your 0 skill and effort damage you deal from retaliation. You should not be punished simply for attacking your opponent.

Please do not say that perma stealth thieves cannot kill a bunker guard, that is not true. I’ve killed many bunker guards. They can’t put any pressure on me whatsoever except from retal. My damage is just vastly superior and I do not have to reset combat since i run a sustain build. Glass is overrated do not assume every thief runs one.

Archon.6481:

bobross.5034:

Archon.6481:

You should not be allowed to spec full bunker and still be able to kill people. Retaliation allows people who spec completely defensively to kill things when they obviously shouldn’t be able to.

You play D/P thief. In WvW this is the exact complaint that people have against D/P thief. They say it’s not fair for a build to have both excellent damage output and excellent survivability. I personally don’t see an issue here. I’m happy to let thieves run away when they’re losing and move on. I personally play thief builds that rely more on mobility and less on stealth – but I’m not complaining…The problem as I see it is that you can’t tolerate the idea of a build that you can’t kill. Seems kind of hypocritical.

It’s not overpowered, because it’s not unkillable. In fact many thief builds can deal with a bunker/retal guardian just fine. But the standard, cookie cutter dps or permastealth builds have trouble. And you’re upset because your build can’t kill a bunker guardian unless they let you. That’s fine, each build has their weaknesses. Appreciate and revel in all your strengths; Like the fact that that same guardian can’t kill you, unless you let him.

-And I am not trying to justify this as some sort of rock-paper-scissors style balancing. It’s not. ANet gave thieves the tools to deal with this build. It’s your choice whether to use any of them. If you choose to min-max in such a way that you have none of those tools available in your build, then your build will have a hard counter. And again, that is totally fine…just hope that the counter doesn’t become the meta, or your build will need to change.

Lol. Your post is so full of baseless assumptions.

I do not have trouble with bunker guards. Your 3k armor and 15k health will not save you when my backstabs still hit for 7k. I will always kill a bunker guard in a 1v1 but retal extends the fight since i have to back off sometimes and heal. Bunker guard damage is just pitiful. It’s so bad that I take more damage from retal than their actual attacks.

Do you see the problem there? I take more damage from something in which he has to put 0 extra effort in order to accomplish? You should not be able to do damage with something that requires no extra effort or skill on your part. Clones/illusions, retal, confusion, etc are all poorly designed mechanics that reward the player who uses them and requires 0 effort or input from the player besides activating the skill. It’s the definition of “fire and forget”.

There is no build in the game that I cant kill except for staff + scepter/torch mesmers but even then it’s a stalemate. I can stand the fact of there being builds that I can’t kill, but I can’t stand people like you trying to justify your 0 skill and effort damage you deal from retaliation. You should not be punished simply for attacking your opponent.

Please do not say that perma stealth thieves cannot kill a bunker guard, that is not true. I’ve killed many bunker guards. They can’t put any pressure on me whatsoever except from retal. My damage is just vastly superior and I do not have to reset combat since i run a sustain build. Glass is overrated do not assume every thief runs one.

notice that archon says he “can” beat. not that he does everytime. we arent looking for a nerf on retal to cripple guards. just to keep it realistic. if a thief goes fullapothecary armor and then expects to attack a guard with backsta\b and HS and win…..well thats not gonna happen. but a guardian can do it with retal. that is a problem. retal and clones do all the work and the user 0. literally 0 other than clickign a button and watching….check my video. guy did 25k dmg without moving before i could get him down with spamming unload! 25k! yes 25k! theres no reason for an afk’er to do 25k dmg after doing nothing but retal. stupid idea. clones are similar. in a fight they do about 70% or 75% of the dmg…and the real mesmer about 25% sometimes more soimetimes less….i think it should be like 65 35 in favor fo the real mesmer. make it take a lil skill :P.

Wait.. this just occurred to me. Aren’t thieves the apex class for stealing boons? I know not everyone runs sword/dagger, but on my condition build I use Bountiful Theft. If retaliation is such a big problem and you can’t slow down your offense, stealth it out, carry on regardless by doing more damage than retaliation does back, then isn’t there always the option to running S/D on swap with P/D, or using Bountiful Theft in the trait line that gives condition damage and a shorter recharge on steal with which to use bountiful theft? Or is AoE boon granting + stealing + long duration vigor too bad a trait to use?

I just don’t see the case for retaliation being overpowered against thieves. Maybe it is because all of that above, plus I run a carrion build on my condi thief (no good procs anyway), so I have around 70% more HP than a rabid build. There, retaliation is just the occasional plink against my health pool, if I haven’t hijacked it for myself.

Also, bunkers should totally be able to kill people.

Travln cant play normal build, cause hi is bad, so he choose p/d bunker build, that don’t produce damage. And he want to kill super bunker guardian with another bunker build – this is ridiculous. I cant kill full bunker guardian too, but that type of guardian cant kill me, so i think it is fair. But travln want to own everything in line of sight just by using auto-attack, so sad) L2p dear. And travln you are talking about guards retal and mesmer clones, that no skill needed to play by that professions, but what skill are you using – c&d off pet, clone, npc, siege, ambient creature and press one button to do your pew pew and wait till opponent bleed to death? So much skill needed to do this, lol. You continue to entertain us by your posts.

I agree that retaliation is a little crazy but we do have boon stealing capabilities. I mean, what better way to screw up a guard’s retal spamming capabilities by simply taking it? If they hit you it’ll only hurt them.

I do like the cooldown idea but I believe 1 second is a bit too long. Gotta give them at least SOMETHING.

A passive buff dealing as much damage as it does for being applied so easily is OP. The boon need some balancing. One buff which can be easily kept on permanently shouldn’t counter entire weapon sets. Thieves don’t have it nearly as bad as eng does though… 2-3 piercing pistol shots into a WvW group and I gotta go heal or die… from a passive buff… that’s wrong imo. There is no good counter play to it other than just don’t hit them since it’s re-applied on a whim.

Aberrant.6749:

A passive buff dealing as much damage as it does for being applied so easily is OP. The boon need some balancing. One buff which can be easily kept on permanently shouldn’t counter entire weapon sets. Thieves don’t have it nearly as bad as eng does though… 2-3 piercing pistol shots into a WvW group and I gotta go heal or die… from a passive buff… that’s wrong imo. There is no good counter play to it other than just don’t hit them since it’s re-applied on a whim.

Maybe you right, cause i don’t participate big fights, for me it is not a problem, but for engi retal can be painful.

DrYamak.9364:

Aberrant.6749:

A passive buff dealing as much damage as it does for being applied so easily is OP. The boon need some balancing. One buff which can be easily kept on permanently shouldn’t counter entire weapon sets. Thieves don’t have it nearly as bad as eng does though… 2-3 piercing pistol shots into a WvW group and I gotta go heal or die… from a passive buff… that’s wrong imo. There is no good counter play to it other than just don’t hit them since it’s re-applied on a whim.

Maybe you right, cause i don’t participate big fights, for me it is not a problem, but for engi retal can be painful.

Yea in smaller groups it’s not as big of a deal. It’s when you get larger groups that it starts dealing massive damage. Light fields are easy to come by as are blast finisher. It’s a very common tactic while trying to take something to force the other side to just stop attacking with anything meaningful other than siege.

The buff as a whole just doesn’t give itself to good play/counter play. The “OP” WvW pre-nerf confusion/glam stuffs had far more play/counter play to it then retal does.

I’ll try to simplify this.

This retaliatory bunker we’re describing is specced ENTIRELY for defense and support. It is meant to survive 1v1 to everything at the expense of doing no damage. Retaliation is still a defensive mechanism because it persuades you to stop attacking. If you attack and get killed, it’s entirely your fault and you should be neglected as a skilled person.

It’s as if there was a player invlunerable to fire damage and went for a swim on lava. Then you go chase him and afterwards there’s a post here styled “Nerf lava plz”. See the issue? It’s the same you have with retaliation.
That bunker isn’t able to kill you since he can’t deal damage. You can’t kill that bunker because if you deal damage, you die. It looks like perfectly balanced to me. Just as balanced as specific builds being able to take me out.

Pleurodesed.7625:

I’ll try to simplify this.

This retaliatory bunker we’re describing is specced ENTIRELY for defense and support. It is meant to survive 1v1 to everything at the expense of doing no damage. Retaliation is still a defensive mechanism because it persuades you to stop attacking. If you attack and get killed, it’s entirely your fault and you should be neglected as a skilled person.

It’s as if there was a player invlunerable to fire damage and went for a swim on lava. Then you go chase him and afterwards there’s a post here styled “Nerf lava plz”. See the issue? It’s the same you have with retaliation.
That bunker isn’t able to kill you since he can’t deal damage. You can’t kill that bunker because if you deal damage, you die. It looks like perfectly balanced to me. Just as balanced as specific builds being able to take me out.

This doesn’t really challenge any of the points other people have already presented.

Retaliation does too much damage for a passive boon. You use the skill then forget about it and watch enemies take damage while there is 0 input from your part. You should not be punished for merely attacking an enemy.

The issue with you bunkers is that you think you should be able to spec completely defensively and still be able to kill something. That’s not how it works, if you want to kill someone, drop the clerics for some knights or zerker.

Beastmaster ranger can do the same thing. They could spec full bunker while their bird would still crit you for 7k. And you know what happened? they fot nerfed. The correspondence between these 2 classes/builds is that they think they should be able to do damage from something that requires 0 skill or effort on their part via pets/retal. It’s a bad mechanic that rewards too much for the effort involved.

DrYamak.9364:

Travln cant play normal build, cause hi is bad, so he choose p/d bunker build, that don’t produce damage. And he want to kill super bunker guardian with another bunker build – this is ridiculous. I cant kill full bunker guardian too, but that type of guardian cant kill me, so i think it is fair. But travln want to own everything in line of sight just by using auto-attack, so sad) L2p dear. And travln you are talking about guards retal and mesmer clones, that no skill needed to play by that professions, but what skill are you using – c&d off pet, clone, npc, siege, ambient creature and press one button to do your pew pew and wait till opponent bleed to death? So much skill needed to do this, lol. You continue to entertain us by your posts.

idk what ur talking about as i have played every build. EVERY build. well i havent mastered p/p but every other build i have. so idk where you get off with this nonsense.
to be honest my p/d build tears apart guardians….i dont lose to guardians…ever with p/d. so its not really a problem for my current wvw build. HOWEVER there are some builds that retal should just not be doing 90% of the work against the opponent. now i DO expect from you that you would want 1 button to do 25k dmg in a fight without you having to move….or attack..or defend….but then again thats you. most players would not want players to do that much without trying.

OK some of you dont get this.
PLZ REFER TO MY FIRST VIDEO ON THIS THREAD. it shows thief vs guardian. they both heal and the thief uses unload while the guardian stands still. the guardians deals 25k dmg roughly without moving or attacking and the thief only unloads.

is there any players here who can defend that?

are there any players that think you should be able to do 25k dmg while basically going afk? or 100k dmg if its retal thats spread? if you do then you are probably a bad / lazy player :P

Travlane.5948:

OK some of you dont get this.
PLZ REFER TO MY FIRST VIDEO ON THIS THREAD. it shows thief vs guardian. they both heal and the thief uses unload while the guardian stands still. the guardians deals 25k dmg roughly without moving or attacking and the thief only unloads.

is there any players here who can defend that?

are there any players that think you should be able to do 25k dmg while basically going afk? or 100k dmg if its retal thats spread? if you do then you are probably a bad / lazy player :P

Uh, you had condition stats yet you were using p/p and unload as your primary source of damage. Your bleeds were ticking for 101/102 and had some condition duration on them, so vital shot was doing about 800~1200? damage per shot while unload was doing 300~500 damage per shot. Had this been properly specced (cond p/d or power p/p) or you just used auto attack and still nearly dead from retal, then you might have had a point. But otherwise that video screams of setting things up to your favor to getting retaliation nerfed.

Yukabacera.2307:

Travlane.5948:

OK some of you dont get this.
PLZ REFER TO MY FIRST VIDEO ON THIS THREAD. it shows thief vs guardian. they both heal and the thief uses unload while the guardian stands still. the guardians deals 25k dmg roughly without moving or attacking and the thief only unloads.

is there any players here who can defend that?

are there any players that think you should be able to do 25k dmg while basically going afk? or 100k dmg if its retal thats spread? if you do then you are probably a bad / lazy player :P

Uh, you had condition stats yet you were using p/p and unload as your primary source of damage. Your bleeds were ticking for 101/102 and had some condition duration on them, so vital shot was doing about 800~1200? damage per shot while unload was doing 300~500 damage per shot. Had this been properly specced (cond p/d or power p/p) or you just used auto attack and still nearly dead from retal, then you might have had a point. But otherwise that video screams of setting things up to your favor to getting retaliation nerfed.

true but i was doing this as a “control” …. if i had spec’d for power he would have dodged/blocked etc and condis he would have cleared. its hard to get a sense of dmg from retal in a fight where there are so many variables….experience….build….utilities….quantity of heals….quantity of dodges…blocks… environment. so what i did was i took out those variables and high spike dmg and super high condi dmg….. i made basically a mix of them so it would hav a lil bit of both and atleast show a general understanding of retal dmg in a fight. if it were a good fight of 2 pro players i think the p/p thief may have gotten off 7 unloads? so even so at 350 dmg per hit thats 20k dmg for those 7 unloads. now a zerk thief has about 14k hp usually and a 5.3k hp heal. thats a total of 19.3k. so with retal alone (if all unloads hit) the guardian doesnt even have to attack. just heal. now add in the attacks and its just a joke of a massacre. the point isnt to say that p/p cant win or the guardian didnt move or how much each has toughness/hp or attack. the point is how much retal can do ALONE…without doing anything. and as you saw that fight it could do 24k. …..

so i understand what ur saying but i think you missed the point. retal is a beast …just by itself. now if it had been a real fight they all wouldn t have hit…dodges etc etc etc… then retal would prolly have done 10-12k dmg! even that is too much. ther is no buff or condi in the game that can do that much . confusion used to be close but was nerfed now it is reasonable.

idk how many people graduated highschool here but any experiment is generally following the scientific method.

1)Formulate a question. (is retaliation OP?)
2)Hypothesis. (I believe Retaliation does too much dmg by itself for mult hit builds)
3)Prediction. (retal will do 10s of thousands of damage against p/p builds in a control)
4)Testing. (test a control and then test variables x y z to compare)
5)Analysis. (if fighting against retal its not advisable to fight with mult hit builds as you have a very slight chance of winning)

Travlane.5948:

true but i was doing this as a “control” …. if i had spec’d for power he would have dodged/blocked etc and condis he would have cleared. its hard to get a sense of dmg from retal in a fight where there are so many variables….experience….build….utilities….quantity of heals….quantity of dodges…blocks… environment. so what i did was i took out those variables and high spike dmg and super high condi dmg….. i made basically a mix of them so it would hav a lil bit of both and atleast show a general understanding of retal dmg in a fight. if it were a good fight of 2 pro players i think the p/p thief may have gotten off 7 unloads? so even so at 350 dmg per hit thats 20k dmg for those 7 unloads. now a zerk thief has about 14k hp usually and a 5.3k hp heal. thats a total of 19.3k. so with retal alone (if all unloads hit) the guardian doesnt even have to attack. just heal. now add in the attacks and its just a joke of a massacre. the point isnt to say that p/p cant win or the guardian didnt move or how much each has toughness/hp or attack. the point is how much retal can do ALONE…without doing anything. and as you saw that fight it could do 24k. …..

so i understand what ur saying but i think you missed the point. retal is a beast …just by itself. now if it had been a real fight they all wouldn t have hit…dodges etc etc etc… then retal would prolly have done 10-12k dmg! even that is too much. ther is no buff or condi in the game that can do that much . confusion used to be close but was nerfed now it is reasonable.

But your “control” is completely flawed in that you threw out actual builds that actual people use, thus throwing out accurate simulation on how much damage retaliation does to a p/p thief or p/d thief or whatever thief in killing a guardian with retaliation. Also why isn’t the guardian specced for retaliation either? Shouldn’t he be specced right too to prove your point that retaliation is a beast when specced?

And if this is not even about p/p in particular, why use that set as an example when its a set that very vulnerable to retaliation and isn’t even strong on its own? Most weapon sets don’t have the high hit volume of p/p and won’t take 10~12k damage (unless its through aoes on multiple people with retaliation) while outpacing p/p damage, why should retaliation be nerfed in this case?

Retaliation along with confusion is meant to punish burst attacks, just like blind and aegis cut spikes.

You keep on painting this like “he puts retaliation on and KILLS me with it” when it’s more like “He puts retaliation on and I decide to kill myself against it with what it’s supposed to hardcounter. Why can’t I defeat a bunker with my kittenty berserker build with no health and using burst?”.

I’ll reiterate myself once again, a cleric just can’t kill you.

Seeing posts like these make me consider making my own thread saying “Poison and torment are so overpowered. I put so much on toughness and healing and power for retaliation but as a bunker I get killed? Why doesn’t someone with low health die when I hit him for 250 with my hammer swing? IMBA IMBA”

Pleurodesed.7625:

Retaliation along with confusion is meant to punish burst attacks, just like blind and aegis cut spikes.

3 targets pw 9×3=27 hits
270*27=7290 retaliation damage for just 1 pistol whip

So what’s the problem with that, Marduh? It’s a burst hit and it suffers from retaliation.

Archon.6481:

Lol. Your post is so full of baseless assumptions.

I do not have trouble with bunker guards. Your 3k armor and 15k health will not save you when my backstabs still hit for 7k. I will always kill a bunker guard in a 1v1 but retal extends the fight since i have to back off sometimes and heal. Bunker guard damage is just pitiful. It’s so bad that I take more damage from retal than their actual attacks.

Do you see the problem there? I take more damage from something in which he has to put 0 extra effort in order to accomplish? You should not be able to do damage with something that requires no extra effort or skill on your part. Clones/illusions, retal, confusion, etc are all poorly designed mechanics that reward the player who uses them and requires 0 effort or input from the player besides activating the skill. It’s the definition of “fire and forget”.

There is no build in the game that I cant kill except for staff + scepter/torch mesmers but even then it’s a stalemate. I can stand the fact of there being builds that I can’t kill, but I can’t stand people like you trying to justify your 0 skill and effort damage you deal from retaliation. You should not be punished simply for attacking your opponent.

Please do not say that perma stealth thieves cannot kill a bunker guard, that is not true. I’ve killed many bunker guards. They can’t put any pressure on me whatsoever except from retal. My damage is just vastly superior and I do not have to reset combat since i run a sustain build. Glass is overrated do not assume every thief runs one.

I assumed you play D/P thief because it’s in your signature. Also you assumed that I play guardian – which is not true at all (I believe I have a lvl 4 guardian, that I have never used in PvP). In fact I very rarely get any benefit from retal in any of my builds (maybe occasionally on my mesmer). I just don’t see why every build should get nerfed because a few people are too inflexible to deal with it.

And no, I don’t see the problem. If a stupid thief spams unload on a retal guardian – that’s a L2P issue, not a balance one. As I mentioned, thieves have several tools to handle retaliation, whether through boon-stripping, outhealing or single powerful attacks.

Arguing that retal is OP’d because the guardian can win a fight by just standing there is also silly. Thieves can win fights by spamming 2. That doesn’t mean heartseeker is OP, it just means people need to learn to deal with it. Same goes for retaliation. If you deal with it appropriately, the guardian will have to work for a victory.

Also you point out that your build can kill all builds except for one mesmer build, and that the worst outcome you get is a stalemate, so why are you complaining? It seems like the most evidence that you’ve presented is that your own build is overpowered – not the guardian’s.

Pleurodesed.7625:

Retaliation along with confusion is meant to punish burst attacks, just like blind and aegis cut spikes.

You keep on painting this like “he puts retaliation on and KILLS me with it” when it’s more like “He puts retaliation on and I decide to kill myself against it with what it’s supposed to hardcounter. Why can’t I defeat a bunker with my kittenty berserker build with no health and using burst?”.

I’ll reiterate myself once again, a cleric just can’t kill you.

Seeing posts like these make me consider making my own thread saying “Poison and torment are so overpowered. I put so much on toughness and healing and power for retaliation but as a bunker I get killed? Why doesn’t someone with low health die when I hit him for 250 with my hammer swing? IMBA IMBA”

There is a large difference between retal and confusion. You can avoid the attacks that cause confusion. You can remove confusion faster than it can be applied.

Retal… I can not stop the application of retal. Retal can be applied to a group far faster than it can be removed (light field + blast).

Again… just to re-state. I have no problem with an individual having retal. It’s when groups get it that there is a major problem. Anyone attacking the group with multi-hitting aoe/piercing attacks can easily take damage higher than what they would take by attacking once with 25 stacks of confusion. That’s why it needs adjustment (in WvW).

bobross.5034:

Archon.6481:

Lol. Your post is so full of baseless assumptions.

I do not have trouble with bunker guards. Your 3k armor and 15k health will not save you when my backstabs still hit for 7k. I will always kill a bunker guard in a 1v1 but retal extends the fight since i have to back off sometimes and heal. Bunker guard damage is just pitiful. It’s so bad that I take more damage from retal than their actual attacks.

Do you see the problem there? I take more damage from something in which he has to put 0 extra effort in order to accomplish? You should not be able to do damage with something that requires no extra effort or skill on your part. Clones/illusions, retal, confusion, etc are all poorly designed mechanics that reward the player who uses them and requires 0 effort or input from the player besides activating the skill. It’s the definition of “fire and forget”.

There is no build in the game that I cant kill except for staff + scepter/torch mesmers but even then it’s a stalemate. I can stand the fact of there being builds that I can’t kill, but I can’t stand people like you trying to justify your 0 skill and effort damage you deal from retaliation. You should not be punished simply for attacking your opponent.

Please do not say that perma stealth thieves cannot kill a bunker guard, that is not true. I’ve killed many bunker guards. They can’t put any pressure on me whatsoever except from retal. My damage is just vastly superior and I do not have to reset combat since i run a sustain build. Glass is overrated do not assume every thief runs one.

I assumed you play D/P thief because it’s in your signature. Also you assumed that I play guardian – which is not true at all (I believe I have a lvl 4 guardian, that I have never used in PvP). In fact I very rarely get any benefit from retal in any of my builds (maybe occasionally on my mesmer). I just don’t see why every build should get nerfed because a few people are too inflexible to deal with it.

And no, I don’t see the problem. If a stupid thief spams unload on a retal guardian – that’s a L2P issue, not a balance one. As I mentioned, thieves have several tools to handle retaliation, whether through boon-stripping, outhealing or single powerful attacks.

Arguing that retal is OP’d because the guardian can win a fight by just standing there is also silly. Thieves can win fights by spamming 2. That doesn’t mean heartseeker is OP, it just means people need to learn to deal with it. Same goes for retaliation. If you deal with it appropriately, the guardian will have to work for a victory.

Also you point out that your build can kill all builds except for one mesmer build, and that the worst outcome you get is a stalemate, so why are you complaining? It seems like the most evidence that you’ve presented is that your own build is overpowered – not the guardian’s.

You see, you can avoid Heartseeker by dodging, blocking, blinding, etc. You cannot stop retal from hitting you unless you stop attacking or boon strip it. And no, you should not be forced to run a boon strip in order to counter retal. And dont compare it to being forced to use condi removal. Almost all builds can effectively use conditions such as chill, immobilize, cripple, poison, etc so condi removal is a must. But very few builds can actually utilize retal to a lethal degree.

You misunderstand what I mean by me saying I can kill all builds. I mean that if properly played, I am capable of beating any build if I outplay them. Except that one Mesmer build.

Why am I complaining? You mean I can’t complain? Lets say there is a new 9th class called superman. Superman’s autoattacks deal 20k damage and has an irremovable -99% damage taken buff. Thieves however only take 200 damage from this new class’s autoattacks and he ignores the -99% damage reduction buff. Does me being a thief give me no right to say that superman is overpowered?

Retaliation completely nullifies the p/p build. If all your damage comes from unload, and you can’t use unload against the guard, how is that fair? How is it fair that the guard can completely hard counter you with a passive boon that requires 0 effort or input on his part?

Archon.6481:

Retaliation completely nullifies the p/p build. If all your damage comes from unload, and you can’t use unload against the guard, how is that fair? How is it fair that the guard can completely hard counter you with a passive boon that requires 0 effort or input on his part?

I totally agree with this. There is no good play/counterplay. You’re just kittened.

Aberrant.6749:

Archon.6481:

Retaliation completely nullifies the p/p build. If all your damage comes from unload, and you can’t use unload against the guard, how is that fair? How is it fair that the guard can completely hard counter you with a passive boon that requires 0 effort or input on his part?

I totally agree with this. There is no good play/counterplay. You’re just kittened.

1. Are you being sarcastic?
2. If yes, then how do you suggest a p/p thief kill a guardian with retaliation?
3. If yes, then why did you concentrate on this one part instead of countering my other points?

Archon.6481:

Aberrant.6749:

Archon.6481:

Retaliation completely nullifies the p/p build. If all your damage comes from unload, and you can’t use unload against the guard, how is that fair? How is it fair that the guard can completely hard counter you with a passive boon that requires 0 effort or input on his part?

I totally agree with this. There is no good play/counterplay. You’re just kittened.

1. Are you being sarcastic?
2. If yes, then how do you suggest a p/p thief kill a guardian with retaliation?
3. If yes, then why did you concentrate on this one part instead of countering my other points?

Non-sarcastic… thought that would have been obvious from my other posts in this thread >.>

Yukabacera.2307:

Travlane.5948:

true but i was doing this as a “control” …. if i had spec’d for power he would have dodged/blocked etc and condis he would have cleared. its hard to get a sense of dmg from retal in a fight where there are so many variables….experience….build….utilities….quantity of heals….quantity of dodges…blocks… environment. so what i did was i took out those variables and high spike dmg and super high condi dmg….. i made basically a mix of them so it would hav a lil bit of both and atleast show a general understanding of retal dmg in a fight. if it were a good fight of 2 pro players i think the p/p thief may have gotten off 7 unloads? so even so at 350 dmg per hit thats 20k dmg for those 7 unloads. now a zerk thief has about 14k hp usually and a 5.3k hp heal. thats a total of 19.3k. so with retal alone (if all unloads hit) the guardian doesnt even have to attack. just heal. now add in the attacks and its just a joke of a massacre. the point isnt to say that p/p cant win or the guardian didnt move or how much each has toughness/hp or attack. the point is how much retal can do ALONE…without doing anything. and as you saw that fight it could do 24k. …..

so i understand what ur saying but i think you missed the point. retal is a beast …just by itself. now if it had been a real fight they all wouldn t have hit…dodges etc etc etc… then retal would prolly have done 10-12k dmg! even that is too much. ther is no buff or condi in the game that can do that much . confusion used to be close but was nerfed now it is reasonable.

But your “control” is completely flawed in that you threw out actual builds that actual people use, thus throwing out accurate simulation on how much damage retaliation does to a p/p thief or p/d thief or whatever thief in killing a guardian with retaliation. Also why isn’t the guardian specced for retaliation either? Shouldn’t he be specced right too to prove your point that retaliation is a beast when specced?

And if this is not even about p/p in particular, why use that set as an example when its a set that very vulnerable to retaliation and isn’t even strong on its own? Most weapon sets don’t have the high hit volume of p/p and won’t take 10~12k damage (unless its through aoes on multiple people with retaliation) while outpacing p/p damage, why should retaliation be nerfed in this case?

ok…the guard in the video didnt even have 30 in to the power line which means that is 300- power less than he could have had. with means prolly another 20% total dmg which brings us to about 30k.

p/p thief, nade engineer, ranger bow specs, etc etc mu\lti hit builds. the control is fine. if i was testing for how \it would play out in battle…thats a different thing. what i was examining is purely the amount of dmg it can deal against multi hit builds without having to do anything except stand there and heal. i decided to go half condi half zerk hence why it wasnt op unloads coming at him bc not all classes can hit as hard as a thief. so if i was dropping all my defense so unload can do 4500 dmg not all classes can do that. then again the guardian can use blocks etc ….reflects etc….aegis…etc…invul etc.
in any good fight ur going to get about as many attacks in as you saw in the video. regardless of them all hitting or not ur looking at 14-30k dmg depending on dodges and blocks etc. thats too much dmg for having to do nothing.

Archon.6481:

Retaliation completely nullifies the p/p build. If all your damage comes from unload, and you can’t use unload against the guard, how is that fair?

I agree with this more or less, except for a few things:
1) it doesn’t mean that retal is OP – I think it actually means that P/P still has some major flaws / holes that need to be addressed by ANet- so for the sake of balancing, why not urge for a buff to P/P, in the form of more utility – maybe some sort of buff to body shot’s utility
2) Everyone has two weapons – so if your P/P isn’t capable of handling that guardian, you should swap weapons – D/D, D/P and S/D can all do well, even P/D can handle it fine because of frequent stealth heals.
3) There are more counters than just boon stripping – I mentioned signet of malice, which makes retal damage negligible.
4) P/P has access to headshot – not sure about guardian skills, but if those retal skills have a cast time, you should be able to interrupt.
5) As a thief, you are able to withdraw from combat enough to swap weapons/skills/traits if needed, this is an advantage that other classes don’t have.

Someone else argued against aoe retal. I still think that’s balanced, since it takes some coordination to pull off (good stacking, blast finishers, etc.). More importantly, there are solid counters to it (not on thieves – so maybe we shouldn’t be running all thief zergs…).

Last Thursday, I watched a guild v guild with an FA guild and a TC guild. The FA guild bunched together to use retal and stack. I was told that vs an uncoordinated group, they would have won – the group would have killed themselves on the retal. In the actual battle that I watched, I saw the TC commander pull back, dropp wells and nullfields, and kill the FA guild with more aoe than they could handle. Their retal strategy required them to stay still, which made them sitting ducks, and since the TC guild was prepared, they turned it to their advantage and won.

That whole play and counterplay is fascinating…and while the stand still with retal strategy seems passive and boring (just like a defensive move in chess), it requires timing and skill to pull off and sets up interesting counterplay, which makes the game more fun for everyone.

bobross.5034:

Archon.6481:

Retaliation completely nullifies the p/p build. If all your damage comes from unload, and you can’t use unload against the guard, how is that fair?

I agree with this more or less, except for a few things:
1) it doesn’t mean that retal is OP – I think it actually means that P/P still has some major flaws / holes that need to be addressed by ANet- so for the sake of balancing, why not urge for a buff to P/P, in the form of more utility – maybe some sort of buff to body shot’s utility
2) Everyone has two weapons – so if your P/P isn’t capable of handling that guardian, you should swap weapons – D/D, D/P and S/D can all do well, even P/D can handle it fine because of frequent stealth heals.
3) There are more counters than just boon stripping – I mentioned signet of malice, which makes retal damage negligible.
4) P/P has access to headshot – not sure about guardian skills, but if those retal skills have a cast time, you should be able to interrupt.
5) As a thief, you are able to withdraw from combat enough to swap weapons/skills/traits if needed, this is an advantage that other classes don’t have

1) That was just one example, the same scenario can be applied to condi engies, bow rangers, or GS mesmers.
2) If your main weapon is p/p you’re probably specced on buffing your pistols instead of you melee.
3) SoM is a terrible heal. You only actually benefit from it you attack often which in this case is bad since the more you attack, the more retal procs.
4) They don’t have cast times, and even if they did it would be a waste of ini since it will be back up in 5 seconds. That ini you spent on that interrupt would be better used on damage, stealth, or interrupting a heal.

bobross.5034:

Archon.6481:

Retaliation completely nullifies the p/p build. If all your damage comes from unload, and you can’t use unload against the guard, how is that fair?

I agree with this more or less, except for a few things:
1) it doesn’t mean that retal is OP – I think it actually means that P/P still has some major flaws / holes that need to be addressed by ANet- so for the sake of balancing, why not urge for a buff to P/P, in the form of more utility – maybe some sort of buff to body shot’s utility
2) Everyone has two weapons – so if your P/P isn’t capable of handling that guardian, you should swap weapons – D/D, D/P and S/D can all do well, even P/D can handle it fine because of frequent stealth heals.
3) There are more counters than just boon stripping – I mentioned signet of malice, which makes retal damage negligible.
4) P/P has access to headshot – not sure about guardian skills, but if those retal skills have a cast time, you should be able to interrupt.
5) As a thief, you are able to withdraw from combat enough to swap weapons/skills/traits if needed, this is an advantage that other classes don’t have.

Someone else argued against aoe retal. I still think that’s balanced, since it takes some coordination to pull off (good stacking, blast finishers, etc.). More importantly, there are solid counters to it (not on thieves – so maybe we shouldn’t be running all thief zergs…).

Last Thursday, I watched a guild v guild with an FA guild and a TC guild. The FA guild bunched together to use retal and stack. I was told that vs an uncoordinated group, they would have won – the group would have killed themselves on the retal. In the actual battle that I watched, I saw the TC commander pull back, dropp wells and nullfields, and kill the FA guild with more aoe than they could handle. Their retal strategy required them to stay still, which made them sitting ducks, and since the TC guild was prepared, they turned it to their advantage and won.

That whole play and counterplay is fascinating…and while the stand still with retal strategy seems passive and boring (just like a defensive move in chess), it requires timing and skill to pull off and sets up interesting counterplay, which makes the game more fun for everyone.

i can agree/understand what ur doing with ur ideas. however they would have to fix many other classes’ builds too. not just p/d or p/p. although these need fixing regardless.

the problem still stands:

Retaltiation can do 10-30k of dmg per fight against multi hit builds ….by doing nothing.

let me try a lil harder to put this in perspective…. can you imagine… a thief with retaliation? if a thief could keep up perma retal….he would then truly be god like….imagine if he had retal AND protection. you would never stand a chance. then you would all be asking for a buff.

imagine a backstab thief or d/p thief or p/d bleed thief with retal. you would just have to run away everytime. think about it.

bobross.5034:

4) P/P has access to headshot – not sure about guardian skills, but if those retal skills have a cast time, you should be able to interrupt.

Someone else argued against aoe retal. I still think that’s balanced, since it takes some coordination to pull off (good stacking, blast finishers, etc.). More importantly, there are solid counters to it (not on thieves – so maybe we shouldn’t be running all thief zergs…).

Last Thursday, I watched a guild v guild with an FA guild and a TC guild. The FA guild bunched together to use retal and stack. I was told that vs an uncoordinated group, they would have won – the group would have killed themselves on the retal. In the actual battle that I watched, I saw the TC commander pull back, dropp wells and nullfields, and kill the FA guild with more aoe than they could handle. Their retal strategy required them to stay still, which made them sitting ducks, and since the TC guild was prepared, they turned it to their advantage and won.

That whole play and counterplay is fascinating…and while the stand still with retal strategy seems passive and boring (just like a defensive move in chess), it requires timing and skill to pull off and sets up interesting counterplay, which makes the game more fun for everyone.

Unless they changed it (it’s been a while since I’ve been on my guard for PvP/WvW) you can use judgements (which can be traited for retal on use) while dazed/stunned. As some one else pointed out it’s instantly applied by stand your ground as well… which is a stunbreaker and gives stability in addition to retaliation. You’re not going to stop them from being able to apply it.

The coordination is literally asking in voice to stack, put down a light field and then blast. That doesn’t take a whole lot of timing/skill..

Their counter was basically to do nothing that could proc the retal. No direct damage that could deal the damage back to the source. Negating the ability to be able to do that with just one boon… is too strong. They were also unwise for not using the uptime on the retal to move around with it still being on… it stacks in duration after all. Light fields are not the only way to apply aoe retaliation, you use that to stack the duration up for the initial push, and then other means to keep it going for a while after.

Btw… jfyi… Retaliation = the same damage from 3 stacks of confusion… per hit… per target. If confusion did it’s effect per hit and not per skill activation… it would get nerfed even more. I don’t see why it’s ok for retal to do this. It’s far harder to strip boons than it is to avoid/remove the application of confusion as well.

I’ve seen retal from both POV’s… on my guard and against my other classes. It does too much for something that can easily be kept up 100% of the time.

retal on a thief is mediocre – we’re too glassy for it to matter much and our primary defense is avoiding getting hit. I’ve fantasized about using those on-hit runes on my thief at time, but it comes down to the fact that I’d rather not be getting hit…Protection on a thief is amazing.

Let me put it in perspective – just like perma-stealth, the outcome of perma-retal vs a knowledgeable player (running a build that can’t effectively counter it) is a stalemate.

The outcome of perma-retal / perma-stealth vs a knowledgeable player with a build that has a few counters (heavy hits / condition damage / boon strips for retals ; aoe / cc for stealth) is probably a win for that knowledgeable player (except with perma-stealth it may still be a stalemate).

Retal can do 30k damage during a fight, just like thieves can do 20k bursts. But these tactics only consistently win fights vs people who aren’t paying attention. Otherwise the tactics are just a small piece of a build that uses combinations of active offense / defense and passive offense / defense. Furthermore – in their extreme forms, these are mediocre – weak builds.

Thief mains (at least the posters) need to learn one simple thing :You can’t kill everything. Thieves who post here seem to complain about anything which they can’t burst/kill/involves adapting to the situation more than anyone else. I personally don’t waste my time with thieves since they’ll

A: Burst since I mess up and they get the initiation
B: Stealth every chance they get to wear me down
C: fall behind then stealth and just be annoying since neither of us can kill each other
D: they are P/P – X so I just cry and bleed to death though I’ve improved since the last time I met one (can only remove conditions so much)

If retaliation is a problem to your build, simply adapt and try to find an opening or accept your losses and run away since every class has a build / profession its probably better to not fight solo or similar especially if you use Unload against Guardians. Kinda like limiting conditions against Necromancers so they don’t send them back to you. It’ll make you a much better player this way too!

nglcpyro.4906:

Thief mains (at least the posters) need to learn one simple thing :You can’t kill everything. Thieves who post here seem to complain about anything which they can’t burst/kill/involves adapting to the situation more than anyone else. I personally don’t waste my time with thieves since they’ll

A: Burst since I mess up and they get the initiation
B: Stealth every chance they get to wear me down
C: fall behind then stealth and just be annoying since neither of us can kill each other
D: they are P/P – X so I just cry and bleed to death though I’ve improved since the last time I met one (can only remove conditions so much)

If retaliation is a problem to your build, simply adapt and try to find an opening or accept your losses and run away since every class has a build / profession its probably better to not fight solo or similar especially if you use Unload against Guardians. Kinda like limiting conditions against Necromancers so they don’t send them back to you. It’ll make you a much better player this way too!

IMO this doesn’t have to deal with being able to beat everything. A thief won’t win vs. several other classes already for other reasons anyways.

The real question is… should 1 boon which can be easily kept up 100% of the time be able to passively shut down multiple builds/classes just because they involve multi-hitting attacks? I say no.

Oh and don’t get me started on confusion – they nerfed that to complete uselessness (not because of OP’d 1v1s, but because groups running those mesmer glamour builds were putting 25 stacks of confusion on entire zergs). In one move they made confusion half as powerful, and nerfed the glam build into oblivion. The build was overpowered – but the appropriate nerf would have been to limit the number of people that could be affected by a glamour (like other aoe). Instead they nerfed confusion damage and made glamours really awful at applying confusion.

More importantly – they didn’t just nerf one overpowered build – they also nerfed every build that used confusion. And so for a long time, condition mesmers were just awful (until recent buffs), likewise, that weird confusion engineer build completely disappeared. Neither of these builds were overpowered before, the nerf was just so broad that it hit them all.

So the end result is that confusion is now barely stronger than a stack of bleed, but only ticks on skill use – so it winds up being weaker and shorter duration than bleeds. And now on my thief, when I have confusion, I can continue to mindlessly spam my skills with no worry whatsoever (except in PvE, where it wasn’t nefed – there I still manage to deal with it, because I’m not an idiot).

Aberrant.6749:

should 1 boon which can be easily kept up 100% of the time be able to passively shut down multiple builds/classes

You mean stealth?

bobross.5034:

Aberrant.6749:

should 1 boon which can be easily kept up 100% of the time be able to passively shut down multiple builds/classes

You mean stealth?

Stealth is not a boon.

The only instantly applicable stealth is a utility (or on fall damage). The rest can be countered.

So no.

Aberrant.6749:

bobross.5034:

Aberrant.6749:

should 1 boon which can be easily kept up 100% of the time be able to passively shut down multiple builds/classes

You mean stealth?

Stealth is not a boon.

The only instantly applicable stealth is a utility (or on fall damage). The rest can be countered.

So no.

Yup, but once that stealth is up, it can be maintained with trivial effort (and not much skill). And while stealthed, you are untargetable, which completely eliminates counterplay for many builds. For example; how does a P/P thief kill someone who is perma-stealthing? I’m not talking about catching that person when they come out of stealth – I mean, while they are perma-stealthing: It completely shuts down a P/P build, just the same as retal.

bobross.5034:

Aberrant.6749:

bobross.5034:

Aberrant.6749:

should 1 boon which can be easily kept up 100% of the time be able to passively shut down multiple builds/classes

You mean stealth?

Stealth is not a boon.

The only instantly applicable stealth is a utility (or on fall damage). The rest can be countered.

So no.

Yup, but once that stealth is up, it can be maintained with trivial effort (and not much skill). And while stealthed, you are untargetable, which completely eliminates counterplay for many builds. For example; how does a P/P thief kill someone who is perma-stealthing? I’m not talking about catching that person when they come out of stealth – I mean, while they are perma-stealthing: It completely shuts down a P/P build, just the same as retal.

I’ve never seen stealth deal damage…

So… you can almost always prevent stealth (can’t prevent retal) and it doesn’t kill you.

Apples and oranges.

If you feel there needs to be something done about ranged weapons and stealth that’s another issue altogether.

Thieves should have a reflect skill. Dagger storm somewhat fits this description but it only bleeds and cripples, not deflect incoming damage. it – should-

nope, I don’t think stealth is overpowered at all – just using it as an example. I think it is exactly as overpowered as retaliation.

How much damage does retaliation do? As much damage as the attacker wants it to do. That is why it is balanced – vs a smart attacker, the best outcome is a stalemate: just like stealth. Retal’s value in skilled play is as a defense or as a minor addition to dps – because it forces attackers to slow down / change tactics – or they choose to dps through it, and take a bit more damage. It’s effectiveness depends very much on the build that it faces – so it probably is only highly effective in maybe 1/3 of battles. I personally haven’t ever felt like I was being ruined by it – except in PvE – Honor of the waves – signet of malice takes care of that.

How much damage does stealth do? It is a defense that is effective 90+% of the time. So it does as much damage as your next set of attacks (since it saved your life).

bobross.5034:

retal on a thief is mediocre – we’re too glassy for it to matter much and our primary defense is avoiding getting hit. I’ve fantasized about using those on-hit runes on my thief at time, but it comes down to the fact that I’d rather not be getting hit…Protection on a thief is amazing.

Let me put it in perspective – just like perma-stealth, the outcome of perma-retal vs a knowledgeable player (running a build that can’t effectively counter it) is a stalemate.

The outcome of perma-retal / perma-stealth vs a knowledgeable player with a build that has a few counters (heavy hits / condition damage / boon strips for retals ; aoe / cc for stealth) is probably a win for that knowledgeable player (except with perma-stealth it may still be a stalemate).

Retal can do 30k damage during a fight, just like thieves can do 20k bursts. But these tactics only consistently win fights vs people who aren’t paying attention. Otherwise the tactics are just a small piece of a build that uses combinations of active offense / defense and passive offense / defense. Furthermore – in their extreme forms, these are mediocre – weak builds.

mediocre? try amazing. imagine doing your 6500 backstabs. but not everytime you get hit ur doing anotehr 400 damage. yeah no big deal :P you still get hit for 6 -7 hits before you kill somebody. so why not make another 2800 dmg for free? we have so much dmg already …thats why they didnt give it to us. it would be OP. you cant say its not OP when itself can do enough to kill somebody. thieves have backstab and heartseeker…but also do a few thousand extra dmg with retal? oh baby! thats awesome! all those hits you take while invis doing dmg back?! id love it. yes ur right it wont be AS amazing as on a guard but it would be OP to have it up like they do. hence we dont have it. if u disagree with this you are basically saying we dont ahve retaliation bc its an “oversight” on anets part.

by the way we cant do 20k burst. maybe lik 12-13k on a zerker opponent :P CND + BS. and unless im totally forgetting something i thnk you have to actually put work in and be skilled to get off both of those. i dont think you click ONE button and sit still while it does the damage for you…… ???

^Yeah, I’ve never built glassy enough to do a 20k burst myself – but I’ve seen those absurd builds that are all about signet – might stacking, with like no utility/defense and all damage. There is a “how much can you backstab?” thread somewhere in these forums – as well as numerous “QQ – I just got pwnd” threads.
They can get off an amazing burst – but they have like no survivability – hence not really a viable build.

Marduh.4603:

3 targets pw 9×3=27 hits
270*27=7290 retaliation damage for just 1 pistol whip

best troll skill i have encountered so far
try daggerstorm in a mob all with retaliation active ->instant death/suicide

You know that giving so much AoE retaliation is actually really hard to do, right? Seriously, Signet of Judgement is 3 seconds. Stand your Ground, 5 seconds. Symbol of Wrath, only while standing inside the symbol. Those skills are stun breaks that do little else other than short duration stability and weakness. Unless they are timed perfectly, you aren’t cleaving yourself into 1200 points worth of damage with every auto attack with the sword.

Retaliation does well what it was meant to do, but the fact is that it isn’t overpowered at all. When running a grenadier engineer, when I encounter retaliation I just switch to something slower for 3 seconds and then go right back to where I was 3 seconds ago. In order for a guardian to maintain high duration retaliation, they have to invest so much into the skill in lieu of everything else. The only way that you’ll smack yourself silly against retaliation is if you obstinately spam unload and refuse to do anything else.

Giving retaliation an inner cooldown defeats the purpose of retaliation: a means to discourage multi hitting attacks.

Giving AOE retal is easy as a guard, Vengeful+ virtues give retal+stand your group+blast finish on a light field (Hammer5→Hammer 2)= a lot of retal

Vengeful Virtues doesn’t give retaliation in an AoE. Blast finishers in a light field only gives 3 seconds of AoE retaliation.

Travlane.5948:

mediocre? try amazing. imagine doing your 6500 backstabs. but not everytime you get hit ur doing anotehr 400 damage. yeah no big deal :P you still get hit for 6 -7 hits before you kill somebody. so why not make another 2800 dmg for free?

Since when is Anet handing out free retaliation? If they ever added it to thieves, it would be through a utility skill, or traits. So which traits would you give up? What if you had to take a grandmaster trait in shadow-arts (so you have to invest all those points, and you don’t even get shadow’s rejuvination)…would that be worth it for 2.8k extra damage? And they wouldn’t give you perma-retal for that anyway…it’d be like 50% up-time at most…for 100% uptime, you’d probably have to do some really odd spec with like 30 Shadow and 30 Trickery or replace a utility…and so now what have you lost in offence/utility for those 2.8k damage over the course of a fight? So that’s why I said it was mediocre on thieves. Even if it is free (being buffed by someone else)…almost any other boon would serve a thief better; fury, vigor, aegis, protection, regeneration, stability, 5 stacks of might I’d trade retal for any of those on my thief. In fact I’d even take a trait that made it so every time I was buffed with retaliation, it was replaced with poison (on me) + stability.

But while on the topic of what you give up for retaliation…I don’t know the details, but I’m pretty sure, guardians give up a lot for perma-retaliation builds (maybe someone who plays guardian can weigh in on this). You see the issue? They lose damage in one place to get it in a less reliable place (since the attacker gets to decide whether to take retal damage), and they do this in exchange for better defense.

Aberant,retal can be kept up around 100% of time ONLY if you heavily spec for it….and go for boon duration rune combo.
Just to make that straight.

Also,while i agree retal,clones,whatever are not best designed,thieves should literally not complain about almost…anything…whole class is badly designed with worst stealth design ever seen in any MMO so far.

Shocking! I know!