Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Reduce Guard's retaliation up time


Eugchriss.2046

Recommended Posts

@"Shiyo.3578" said:Retal should work like superspeed(boon duration doesn't work on it and it won't stack duration) but be MUCH more potent while also having MUCH lower uptime.Retal skills should basically be "Oh, I need to stop attacking for 2s or I kill myself"

The current implementation of retal is passive, non-interactive, and bad gameplay.Anet did lower the damage of retaliation multiple times for a reason. Making it even stronger while reducing the duration would increase the problems and not solve them.

What you suggest is what empathy did in guild wars 1 and this was a hex (a debuff on the target and not a buff on the caster). Such a thing exists as a condition and it is called confusion (also nerfed multiple times because broken). If you add such an effect you create a huge broken mess as this is practically not different to blocking or evading and attacking at the same time. There would be no counter. Way too strong, even gamebreaking.

Imagine hitting with an aoe skill into a team fight and just one of the 5 players you hit has retaliation that works like you suggest. Now imagine how meta team comps would look like. One player with retal protects his whole team in a team fight only with his presence.

And now imagine wvw...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 60
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

When you look at tank archetypes in PvP games, it's easy for them to fall into the pitfall known as "All my friends are dead syndrome".

You have a target with high durability that does little damage and a target with high durability which does lots of damage. Which do you target first?

Your ideal response is the squishier target. A tank's job is to find some way of being disruptive to the enemy team despite their low damage threat--put you in a situation where it is desirable to focus them first.

Unfortunately, even if the tank succeeds at being disruptive, their lack of threat can lead to them feeling like sacks of meat. One common way around this is to introduce a "thorns" mechanic. "If you hit the tank you take a small amount of damage". Narually, this effect scales with the durability of the user.

More durability = More hits to kill = More chances for thorns to proc.

This puts foes in a double-bind. Do you focus the tank? If so you will get rid of the annoying man CC'ing you, but you will suffer damage in the process. Do you ignore the tank? You'll have to find ways to deal with their disruption.

It's an elegant solution that allows you to give a tank presence without overturning their damage, turning them into bruisers.

Retaliation's problem is twofold.

  1. It scales with power
  2. It finds itself on offensive weapons and offensive traitlines.

Instead of acting as a mechanism to allow tanks to create threat which scales off of their durability, it turns glass canons into untouchable death machienes. Attempt to hit them (especially with a move with many small hits) and you end up killing yourself. It turns an attrition-based tanking mechanic into something cheesy and non-interactive.

Instread of weighing the benefits of taking small amounts of managable damage over time as you deal with a tanky threat, you're forced to simply halt all pressure until the boon wears off depending on the class/build you're using.

I believe that retal's problem isn't it's passivity, it's how Anet chose to implement it. Instead of giving retal to greatsword, it would find a better home on mace, a weapon built around blocks, heals, and counterattacks.

What I believe Anet should do:

  1. Remove the retaliation from the radiance line. Replace it with might synergy of some kind.
  2. Remove retaliation from greatsword. Grant it to mace instead. Have GS symbol grant might.
  3. Remove power coefficient from Retaliation. Allow some classes to increase its effectiveness through traits. (Ex. -10% damage while under its effects)

My goal is to remove retal from offensive builds, remove the coefficient so that the only way to increase its value is by increasing your tankiness/sustain, and add more retaliation synergy with tank builds via traits.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Kuma.1503" said:When you look at tank archetypes in PvP games, it's easy for them to fall into the pitfall known as "All my friends are dead syndrome".

You have a target with high durability that does little damage and a target with high durability which does lots of damage. Which do you target first?

Your ideal response is the squishier target. A tank's job is to find some way of being disruptive to the enemy team despite their low damage threat--put you in a situation where it is desirable to focus them first.

Unfortunately, even if the tank succeeds at being disruptive, their lack of threat can lead to them feeling like sacks of meat. One common way around this is to introduce a "thorns" mechanic. "If you hit the tank you take a small amount of damage". Narually, this effect scales with the durability of the user.

More durability = More hits to kill = More chances for thorns to proc.

This puts foes in a double-bind. Do you focus the tank? If so you will get rid of the annoying man CC'ing you, but you will suffer damage in the process. Do you ignore the tank? You'll have to find ways to deal with their disruption.

It's an elegant solution that allows you to give a tank presence without overturning their damage, turning them into bruisers.

Retaliation's problem is twofold.

  1. It scales with power
  2. It finds itself on offensive weapons and offensive traitlines.

Instead of acting as a mechanism to allow tanks to create threat which scales off of their durability, it turns glass canons into untouchable death machienes. Attempt to hit them (especially with a move with many small hits) and you end up killing yourself. It turns an attrition-based tanking mechanic into something cheesy and non-interactive.

Instread of weighing the benefits of taking small amounts of managable damage over time as you deal with a tanky threat, you're forced to simply halt all pressure until the boon wears off depending on the class/build you're using.

I believe that retal's problem isn't it's passivity, it's how Anet chose to implement it. Instead of giving retal to greatsword, it would find a better home on mace, a weapon built around blocks, heals, and counterattacks.

What I believe Anet should do:

  1. Remove the retaliation from the radiance line. Replace it with might synergy of some kind.
  2. Remove retaliation from greatsword. Grant it to mace instead. Have GS symbol grant might.
  3. Remove power coefficient from Retaliation. Allow some classes to increase its effectiveness through traits. (Ex. -10% damage while under its effects)

My goal is to remove retal from offensive builds, remove the coefficient so that the only way to increase its value is by increasing your tankiness/sustain, and add more retaliation synergy with tank builds via traits.

Your changes would buff the current retal build btw, it doesnt run radiance or greatsword but instead mace

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Eugchriss.2046 said:It's all in the title. Being able to deal ~10k+ free damage with a passive boon is too much. And beyond that, since aegis and retaliation are complementary, guard is the only class that shouldn't have access to this boon at all since the have the monopole of aegis.This class retaliation uptime needs to be shaved really hard.

Chaos mesmer with staff, and holo both has more access to aegis than guard.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@otto.5684 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Give Retal intensity stacks like Stab so it only works vs. so many strikes.

Boom problem solved.

Or just remove it entirely cuz it is a terrible design?

Eh I think retal is fine tbh.

The only time it gets out of control is when a supposed 2s to 4s retal has 4+ players laying a bunch of stuff like symbols and wells under it. In that case, the retal is doing a lot more work than it should be. Retal needs intensity stacks like stab to limit the amount of potential damage it can deal, or some kind of a cleave limit in the same way every other attack in the game has. Right now Retal has absolutely no limit on the damage it can deal outside of if the player dies to end the Retal effect. There are situations where that can get broken. Especially in wvw.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Give Retal intensity stacks like Stab so it only works vs. so many strikes.

Boom problem solved.

Or just remove it entirely cuz it is a terrible design?

Eh I think retal is fine tbh.

The only time it gets out of control is when a supposed 2s to 4s retal has 4+ players laying a bunch of stuff like symbols and wells under it. In that case, the retal is doing a lot more work than it should be. Retal needs intensity stacks like stab to limit the amount of potential damage it can deal, or some kind of a cleave limit in the same way every other attack in the game has. Right now Retal has absolutely no limit on the damage it can deal outside of if the player dies to end the Retal effect. There are situations where that can get broken. Especially in wvw.

There is an issue with doing stacks or cutting duration. Guardian, rev and warrior all have modifiers that rely on retaliation uptime. Guardian have builds that only work if you have 100% retaliation uptime. Cutting duration is going to create other problems and does not effectively solve the current one.

If Anet is too lazy to remove retaliation, and the modifiers tied to it moved to something else, easiest solution is to cut the damage in half in PvP. IMO that would be a compromise that we all can live with. The duration cutting (Stacks or not) is going to cause other issues.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll be honest, I don't see a problem with retaliation.Guards have some problems: they are unkillable damage sponges, the boon spam is so insane that any form of boon removal is useless and they can play the game just by spamming the same two symbols on point.Retal itself is honestly the only one thing I have never thought about, not even once. There was no situation ever where I thought "oh man if only this guard didn't have such an insane retal spam I'd have won".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Terrorhuz.4695" said:I'll be honest, I don't see a problem with retaliation.Guards have some problems: they are unkillable damage sponges, the boon spam is so insane that any form of boon removal is useless and they can play the game just by spamming the same two symbols on point.Retal itself is honestly the only one thing I have never thought about, not even once. There was no situation ever where I thought "oh man if only this guard didn't have such an insane retal spam I'd have won".

Yeah, the damage symbol trait and AOE symbol trait both need to be nerfed by 50% in PvP.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...