Question: Superior rune of the pack's 4th set effect

Hello guys!

I wanted to ask if the 4th set effect of "Superior Rune of the Pack" is activated when I receive retaliation damage.

Rune set effect reads as follow: 25% chance when struck to grant nearby allies might, fury, and swiftness for 10s. (Cooldown: 30s)

Does retaliation damage count as getting 'struck'?

Thanks in advance!

That's a good question actually. We already know condition ticks won't count as struck, but this is a boon and it delivers a damage packet. The wiki suggests it ignores armor and other dmg modifiers, and we know it has infinite range - this indicates it behaves like a condition.

The easiest way to test this, would be to use a guardian (with your runes), turn off autoattack, find a low level mob, give yourself retaliation (stand your ground, minor trait in virtues line, retal on heal trait in radiance line, f2, f3, concentration gear, water runes, traits that give concentration etc), and let it hit you.

If you let it hit about 20 times, you will have a very conclusive result whether it counts as struck or not. If not sure test more, it only needs to proc once for definitive proof.

Will give it a go tomorrow if you don't beat me to it :)

Wait, why does a mob has to hit you? My question was whether the set effect would activate if you hit an enemy with retaliation on, you receive retaliation damage and might get the rune effect activated. So why test it with you having retaliation on yourself and a monster hitting you?

@rng.1024 said:

If you let it hit about 20 times, you will have a very conclusive result whether it counts as struck or not. If not sure test more, it only needs to proc once for definitive proof.

Will give it a go tomorrow if you don't beat me to it :)

That's backwards. You, wearing the the rune, has to hit someone with retaliation without them attacking backback, so that the only damage you take is from their Retal.

1v1 sPvP is prob the most realistic to try it.

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@rng.1024 said:

If you let it hit about 20 times, you will have a very conclusive result whether it counts as struck or not. If not sure test more, it only needs to proc once for definitive proof.

Will give it a go tomorrow if you don't beat me to it :)

Haha ye just tested and made me wonder what i was thinking yesterday - still goin to look for an answer.

Okay, since I don't have the ability to test this with a friend all I have is the few stolen opportunities from fighting radiant guardians in PvP without getting hit - and it seems very likely retaliation in itself won't proc "on struck" rune bonuses.

To add, guardians used to have a trait that made it scale off of condition damage instead of power, which made it behave 100% as a condi for all purposes. That coupled with infinite range, seemingly ignoring armor and in general functioning in a similar manner to confusion, makes it highly unlikely to proc anything condis normally can't. It not being able to crit further supports this hypothesis.

I have one more test to do tomorrow, and that is to use sigil of frailty with retaliation and just let a mob hit me - it's supposed to activate on hit, and it doesn't activate on condis so it should function the exact same on a mechanical level. If vulnerability isn't applied, then I see absolutely no possibility of the rune's 4th bonus being able to proc off retaliation damage.

Starting to wonder that "when struck" (because of the nature of condis) means the damage has to go through armor when calculated, but hard to tell just yet.