Guild Wars 2

In early December 2014, I discovered a bug. The new Guardian Grandmaster Trait Radiant Retaliation was 100% non-functional. Equipping it did absolutely nothing.

• I immediately reported this bug in-game, and posted it in the bug forum.
• I added this bug to the “Known Issues” thread in the Guardian forum.
• Later, I created a thread in the Guardian forum to discuss this bug.
• The bug was subsequently verified by others and a note was added to the wiki describing the trait as completely non-functional.
• Other forum members have pointed out this bug several times in various discussions, this bug is now known to exist.
• I waited and checked everytime a patch came around to see if this bug was secretly fixed.
• As of 3-16-2015 this expensive (3g, 20 skill point) grandmaster trait is still 100% non-functional: your Retaliation damage scales off of Power whether this trait is equipped or not.

I imagine that if Read the Wind completely stopped working one day there would be such a furor and uproar from the pew-pew crowd that it would not take more than four months for it to be fixed. But here we are discussing a Condition Damage trait for a Guardian (an unpopular combination), so most of the community has little interest in this trait (but I used it in a build to good effect).

So what should I have done to get this issue more attention and hopefully more immediate action?

Illusionary Elasticity says hi.

Ramiel.4931:

Illusionary Elasticity says hi.

Bad example there.

Illusionary elasticity actually adds one extra hit to Winds of Chaos on your skill and when staff clones use it. (I actually run this trait myself.) Illusionary elasticity is not 100% non-functional.

misterdevious.6482:

Ramiel.4931:

Illusionary Elasticity says hi.

Bad example there.

Illusionary elasticity actually adds one extra hit to Winds of Chaos on your skill and when staff clones use it. (I actually run this trait myself.) Illusionary elasticity is not 100% non-functional.

Well yeah but it illustrates the point that ANet don’t actually care at all.

Im with you fellow broGuardian

I try to be polite. So perhaps I failed to garner attention because I didn’t shamelessly bump my threads.

My original Bug forum thread got zero responses: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Radiant-Retaliation-completely-broken/first#post4639252

At the time I was fairly confident in my testing, but put a question mark in the title, hoping that someone else would verify. But the thread quickly disappeared.

My Guardian forum thread got 18 responses and lasted about a week on the first page: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Radiant-Retaliation-still-100-broken/4737861

It’s always disheartening when you feel that you have a valid question which should easily get a response. Even if that response is “we acknowledge the issue but have no information at this time.” I tried for a while to get a response about the old magic find skins that are now only account bound, such as the staff Delusion. I felt like it wouldn’t be too much work to get a yes/no/maybe about whether they would consider lifting the accound bound on acquisition restriction, and make them tradeable.

I don’t know what you can do to make someone at Anet notice. They sure couldn’t be bothered with a simple inquiry from me, but a broken trait is a much more major issue. Maybe you could find the forum specialist and send them a PM requesting for them to report the issue. Or submit a support ticket and see where that goes.

They know of the broken trait and I’m certain that they read your other attempts to draw attention to it. Unfortunately the trait was never placed on the short list of problems that they believe need to be fixed above others. Understand that there are still errors in this game that have been around since launch. It took them until just yesterday to fix the falling damage issue when running down a steep incline, for example.

Please don’t think of this as a shortcoming on your part. It isn’t.
They WILL eventually get to this… but waiting for it is not advisable.

Azhure.1857:

Please don’t think of this as a shortcoming on your part. It isn’t.
They WILL eventually get to this… but waiting for it is not advisable.

I kinda feel like I’m the only one pushing for this to be fixed, you see… this is no ordinary trait we’re dealing with.

• 99% of posts about this trait are negative.
• This trait is only useful to full condi guardians (which is unpopular).
• You need extremely high condition damage to see higher damage compared to the same investment in power.
• This trait is in an unpopular traitline.
• Very few builds can really benefit from this trait. It presumes that you are tanky enough to get hit, full condition, and and also have ways to generate high uptime retaliation for you and your allies, which can require very specific traits and skills.

At least I’m not the only one…

Powerfat posted 3 separate threads:
October 25, 2014: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Radiant-Retaliation-not-working/first#post4514317

October 30, 2014: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Guardian-s-trait-Radiant-Retaliation/first

November 9, 2014: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Broken-Trait-Radiant-Retaliation/first#post4554469

Alexis posted:
January 31, 2015: https://forum-fr.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Repr-sailles-rayonnantes

Saiyan posted:
March 11, 2015: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Guardian-Radiant-Retaliation-Not-Working/first#post4878532

I would like to see it fixed however I never felt I had anything to add. It is busted, shouldn’t be difficult to fix, dunno why it didn’t work to begin with let alone up till now. Please fix it. I would like to use it.

Edit: I also appreciate you advocating for it getting fixed. I simply can’t fathom why it takes this much effort and time to fix a grandmaster trait.

I want this trait to be fixed. I also want it replaced with a grandmaster trait that’s on the same level as Amplified Wrath or Monk’s Focus… you know, something useful.

People still claim this trait is useless. It isn’t, but it is extremely limited. The fact is that this trait is only useful to full condition guardians who have lots of retaliation.

Base damage for Retaliation in PvP/WvW is about 180.

To Increase Retaliation Damage to 270 (150%) requires:
Adding 1839 Power. (2765 Power)
Adding 1382 Condition Damage with Radiant Retaliation. (1382 Condition Damage)

To Increase Retaliation Damage to 360 (200%) requires:
Adding 3641 Power (4567 Power)
Adding 2283 Condition Damage with Radiant Retaliation (2283 Condition Damage)

To Increase Retaliation Damage to 450 (250%) requires:
Adding 5443 Power (6369 Power)
Adding 3184 Condition Damage with Radiant Retaliation (3184 Condition Damage).

With Sigil of Corruption, Undead Runes, Condi Damage Food/Crystals, Signet of Wrath, Guard Stacks, Bloodlust, and Might… Condition Damage can get pretty high. Every point of Condition Damage is the equivalent of adding 2 points of Power.

I test the trait after every patch… still broken.

179 Retaliation damage feels pathetically weak when you know it could be doing 360.

• We are only 7 days away from the 1 year anniversary of this trait being added (April 15, 2014).
• We are also 17 days away from the 6 month anniversary of the first bug forum thread announcing this trait had stopped working. (Oct. 25, 2014).

Here’s what I think happened:

Radiant Retaliation was introduced 1 year ago on April 15, 2014. On September 11th and 12, threads were posted on Reddit and the Bug Forum pointing out that Retaliation was not being correctly reduced by 33% in WvW and PvP. This new bug was likely introduced with a September 9th patch. The only mention of Retaliation in that patch was the introduction of Light Auras (Retaliation when struck) and a change to Elite Focus. There was no mention in September or October of the PvP and WvW Retaliation scaling ever getting fixed (though it was). On Oct 25, Radiant Retaliation was discovered to be completely non-functional .

Did the September 9th patch introduce the WvW Retaliation scaling bug?
Did the September 30th or October 21st patches stealth fix the WvW Retaliation scaling bug while simultaneously introducing the Radiant Retaliation doesn’t do anything anymore bug?

I really don’t like this Radiant Retaliation doesn’t do anything anymore bug. And I also am not overly fond of the Anet has never said anything at all regarding this issue bug.