Guild Wars 2

They probably only want us to use it as a counter to Pistol Whip, LDB, 100b etc. (short-time high-frequency hits) in PvP. Still, downgrading this in PvE made the boon even more useless there than it already was.

I think the problem is that retaliation seems to do a lot less damage than your regular GS attacks in both PvE and PvP. I’ll admit that when I fight 3+ mobs at a time I can see a little bit of the retaliation, but since I’ve put 15 into radiance most of my enemies will be blinded or blocked by my chains anyway. The 200 damage they deal “themselves” with an interval of approx. 2-5 seconds is small compared to the auto attack, and redundant when compared with the full GS potential.

Before the update my retaliation stacked to about 15 seconds while combat lasted about 10s in lower level Pve. Now both last 10s. Not really an issue. In higher level PvE you’re probably not going to stick to only the GS because of the lengthened cd’s with this update.

A better idea would have been to boost retaliation a little bit and make the separate durations shorter.

@Barghaest for artificing you only need about 30 of ~3 different fine mats to get up to the next tier, since you can do all discoveries for scepter/focus and only masterwork for staff, after which you mix a bunch of potions in your discovery panel.

Yeah, it’s tricky to get all the materials you need but crafting takes a little bit of dedication, farming or downright cash in any game. I find that in this game the costs are actually pretty low to get to 375 (near-max).