Retaliation should be removed.

[Syrus.2174]

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@Syrus.2174 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@Syrus.2174 said:

I just think a zerg should actually have to fight back to kill someone, instead of people inavoidably taking damage and dying through their own attacks because of a single boon on their target(s). There's no way for me to remove that boon from the enemy, the only option for not dying would be to not attack.Even keeping healing on cooldown was not keeping me alive, I went down three or four times there, getting killed the last time.

So what am I supposed to do in such situation? Sit back and watch the enemy zerg take the objective without fighting back? It's already bad enough to fight a well organized zerg, but this way there is nothing some classes can do against them. Playing carefully is one thing, but it's not possible when you take damage from simply attacking at all.

It’s a passive. Just like the passive evades and passive blocks that are out there. This has no more reason to be tossed than they do.

You can say that the difference is it deals damage, but I would say the other is worse. In most scenarios, if you are dropping to retal, more than likely the others are dropping as well.

You clipped out how much retal: I wonder how Much damage you did to get that much?

The opening video shows the player getting downed by retal: but then rallies...,,, which means he did so much damage to likely down several, and they were finished by others.

Not a single person died from what I did - they had too many healers - or at least I did not get revived from any kills, if there were any. The damage I did is in the picture, 1.35 mio at 4.4k dps. A lot, of course. But that's what I mean, why should I get punished for doing what my class is meant to do - staying out of the line of fire and playing "safe"?

Also the thing I already pointed out in earlier posts is also how it hits those harder, who hit by many smaller attacks or damage ticks. Lava Font was recently nerfed in such a way that it does less damage but has "more uptime", so to speak - another downside for Ele is regards to retaliation for example. Of course the main damage an Ele can lay down is from Meteor Shower, but here again, the amount of damage just comes from the large amount of targets this hits. And every damage tick gives around 285 retaliation damage. So a single meteor hit does ~855 damage. With 24 meteor coming down in a Meteor Shower, I could potentially take 24

3

285 = 20'520 retaliation damage. I run with around 18k health, using Marauder. Doesn't look good for the Ele, if you ask me. That doesn't even take into account any other AE fields put down, you do want to maximize the damage you put on the enemy zerg - a bomb is a bomb, it requires you to throw out all you got.

I don't agree with it being similar to evades or blocks. Both need to be timed and aren't really "passive", they have to be activated by the enemy, don't just stick around as a boon that can be kept up constantly. They are also damage mitigation, saving ("rewarding") the user instead of punishing the attacker. As the attacker you can stop your attacks, or if you had AEs down, you will not be bothered by it. With retaliation, an enemy zerg could kill you by just popping up retaliation and sitting in your AE - nothing you can do about it, since you can't cancel it. There is no counter against it.

I mentioned passives. Not evades or blocks. Passives, to me, are trait items that proc when certain conditions are met.

And btw: I view retal as a problem. I am not a fan of it either. But few classes are affected by it. If we are going to remove it, I think the other passives need to go as well.

Oh, those. I didn't think of those when you wrote that.Still, they are not that big of a problem, in my opinion. Sure, it is annoying that they proc without the enemy having to interact for them, but they are (usually?) self-target only and not of long duration (or kept up all the time). I don't necessarily see them as prevalent enough to be anywhere close as troubling as retaliation. Of course they have more impact in roaming or PvP.

[sephiroth.4217]

@"Luranni.9470" said:Translation: My ranged aoe spam isn't quite as mindless as I need it to be. Pls fix. :D :D

trap with the spinny blades and a Gs2 whirling wrath :lol:

[Emberheart.8426]

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@"Luranni.9470" said:Translation: My ranged aoe spam isn't quite as mindless as I need it to be. Pls fix. :D :D

trap with the spinny blades and a Gs2 whirling wrath :lol:

Wow, 2 skills? So much AoE spam!!!

[sephiroth.4217]

@Ganathar.4956 said:

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@"Luranni.9470" said:Translation: My ranged aoe spam isn't quite as mindless as I need it to be. Pls fix. :D :D

trap with the spinny blades and a Gs2 whirling wrath :lol:

Wow, 2 skills? So much AoE spam!!!

it was in PvP and I managed to hit the whole team on mid node ?

[avey.4201]

Wait, you playing Rev, the class who gets healed for not dodging/face tanking damage, and you playing Ele with unblock-able 1 shot capability/and stacking max boons capability, and we're here talking about someones few stacks retaliation?

[hugeboss.5432]

There is a perfect counter for the WvW Retaliation mechanics already in the game, its called "Get A Larger Healthpool".

More info:

• Retaliation was heavily changed & its effectiveness nerfed way back in the beginning, Usually doesnt scale its dmg, but does per strike based.
• Using slow weapons will help you gauge your healthbar better, and limit the amount of incoming dps retaliation deals (meteor shower is abit tricky with this tho).
• Dont use the meta builds many sites provide, they usually fail at taking retaliation into consideration in larger scale fights & get wrecked.
• Low HP classes are more sensitive to retalition damage (HP may vary 11k-19k just on class), so you gotta compensate and balance your HP & build with # targets you intend to deal damage to.
• There are WvW raid grps that focus solely on retaliation dmg as their way of dealing dmg. They are too tanky and specced into healing/survival to actually cause any dmg from hitting anything. They will deliberately stand in places where you can bomb them, then they just stand & heal and you die a little more & will rush the new people/PUGs that go low on HP & kill them. Just dont think that dropping a meteor shower on them is a good idea with a PvE build 11k staff Elementalist (full zerk ele will down/kill himself easily & always funny to see tho lol).
• Retaliation is not a major threat for WvW veterans, they dont die from retaliation.. its almost only PUGs & new players using PvE builds & bad Meta builds that keep doing that.

[Adamsdjr.1350]

I agree. I don't think it's a balance issue, in fact I would say that it's probably one of the most balanced boons in the game. The problem I have with it, is that when you're fighting in groups, your group is pretty much going to have retal, meaning there's damage you are totally unable to avoid. If you're AoEing and a group has retail you're pretty much going to kill yourself if you don't get support. This leads to a situation where healing/aegis needs to be abundant and easy to access and that naturally leads to over-tuned specs that do too much (firebrand for example). However, some of the proposed changes hint at a condi meta coming back which would make the retal problem non existent for the most part.

[Syrus.2174]

@avey.4201 said:Wait, you playing Rev, the class who gets healed for not dodging/face tanking damage, and you playing Ele with unblock-able 1 shot capability/and stacking max boons capability, and we're here talking about someones few stacks retaliation?

This is about the boon, whether some specs of some classes are unbalanced is another issue. Red herrings do not help discussions, stop distracting, if you have no argument for why retaliation is fine or not fine.

@"hugeboss.5432" said:There is a perfect counter for the WvW Retaliation mechanics already in the game, its called "Get A Larger Healthpool".

More info:

• Retaliation was heavily changed & its effectiveness nerfed way back in the beginning, Usually doesnt scale its dmg, but does per strike based.
• Using slow weapons will help you gauge your healthbar better, and limit the amount of incoming dps retaliation deals (meteor shower is abit tricky with this tho).
• Dont use the meta builds many sites provide, they usually fail at taking retaliation into consideration in larger scale fights & get wrecked.
• Low HP classes are more sensitive to retalition damage (HP may vary 11k-19k just on class), so you gotta compensate and balance your HP & build with # targets you intend to deal damage to.
• There are WvW raid grps that focus solely on retaliation dmg as their way of dealing dmg. They are too tanky and specced into healing/survival to actually cause any dmg from hitting anything. They will deliberately stand in places where you can bomb them, then they just stand & heal and you die a little more & will rush the new people/PUGs that go low on HP & kill them. Just dont think that dropping a meteor shower on them is a good idea with a PvE build 11k staff Elementalist (full zerk ele will down/kill himself easily & always funny to see tho lol).
• Retaliation is not a major threat for WvW veterans, they dont die from retaliation.. its almost only PUGs & new players using PvE builds & bad Meta builds that keep doing that.

"Larger Healthpool" is funny, have you tried playing Ele before? Even with full Marauder the health pool is laughable, maybe adding some toughness might help, but either way you are still about as durable as wet tissue paper. The way to play the class best is to not get hit by being careful, positioning is key. But then, along comes retaliation! Does it require skill to apply retaliation? It requires skill to stay alive by avoiding getting hit though.

"Slow weapons", how many weapon choices does an Ele have, if they want to go do what they are alledgedly supposed to do best? Scepter has lower range, it'd often be pure suicide to run it, besides it's not as effective for zerg fights. I do wish I had a good build for scepter, always wanted to try it out, but I don't. I wouldn't call Staff a fast weapon anyway, it's just very AE heavy, exactly what's needed when fighting zergs, if you ask me.

Not using meta builds, sure. But meta builds are usually meta for a reason. I don't even use the suggested meta build, but that's all besides the point. The point here isn't just about Ele anyway, it's about how un-interactive and lazy this single boon is, it's about how unequally it punishes enemies - how unavoidable it is for the attacker and how it brings up the question of whether it is worth attacking anyway: if the enemy seems stronger, and if attacking means you die either way, is it not better to just let the enemy take the objective for example and come back later to flip it, instead of trying your best? This unavoidable nature of the boon makes it a mechanic that requires no skill, it's hurtful to gameplay, in my opinion.

Limiting number of enemies hit with AE is simply not a feasible counter, the goal is to hit the enemy, and you can't control whether the enemy runs into your AE or not. You shouldn't be passively punished for doing what you are supposed to do, the enemy should have to punish you actively.

"Raid grps that focus solely on retaliation dmg" - Ah yes, I noticed that we went from pirate ships, via scourge+fb steam trains to stacking healing power and retaliation and just standing there. I don't know how it sounds to you, but that sounds utterly broken in so many ways to me, it starts to arise the question as to why I'm even trying to play WvW anymore. I've seen this kind of over-tanky zergs, you can't harm them. Stacking retaliation on top of that, you can't harm them AND you kill yourself trying to harm them. So all you are left with is being able to sit on the side line and watch as they flip your stuff and hope that at some point they become bored and move on. How does this improve WvW's fight quality, I wonder though? People were already complaining about pirate ship meta, but there you had to at least coordinate the movement a bit. The "just run over everything"-scourge meta (which is still going strong btw) made this not much better. Now you just tank the damage with the unending healing power of Scrappers, Tempests and Firebrands, while the enemy kill themselves on you. ... I don't know, even repeating this line, it does not make it sound any better. It sounds like a non-zerg defense gets utterly sidelined, more and more unable to fight back at all, as long as there's no well setup zerg to fight back.

Retaliation is not a problem to some classes, because it punishes unequally, because even though they throw out equally as much damage, the are way less squishy. Retaliation is not a major threat when you have a well build zerg, because just a few classes and specs have become so powerful in what they do, combining them makes you unstoppable. Overall I feel like zergs with "the right classes" are getting too strong lately. A different issue though.

[avey.4201]

Guard has same health pool as Ele, I play zerk, unless ping forces me marauder, guard isn't inherently tougher than ele as that very much depends on build."The main problem is, the enemy should not be rewarded for allowing themselves to be hit, just as you should not be punished, without counter and without the enemy having to react, for attacking. This boon works very unfairly against some classes, while being of little consequence against others."~Syrus.2174I have a few seconds of retal on a trait or skill, but I shouldn't mention Rev heal cause reasons.I spam aoe's, and never has retal been an issue, or cause of death.

[cobbah.3102]

Give me more retal please ,if it is annoying I want it .

[Syrus.2174]

I really hope it will get fixed with the rebalance patch/update.Because this is not fun, it is simply pointless to play against, when you die from nothing but retaliation.There is no avoiding the damage, no dodging it, no cleansing it from yourself (and as an Ele there is no way to remove it from an enemy either).There is just no skill involved in popping one boon and causing the enemy to die to their own attacks.

The damage done might seem impressive compared to the damage taken, but keep in mind it is damage taken by one player vs damage done to a full zerg via area effects. Even if one would assume the lower numbers, like assuming the AE only ever hit five players, disregarding that the main attack, Meteor Shower, hits many more, it would be 52.2k on one vs (952.8k / 5) ~ 190.6k on five. A highly flawed calculation though, more enemies were hit for even less damage per player, making the retaliation impact compared to the damage dealt to the enemy zerg even more significant...

[Skorpion.4850]

I'm proud to announce you that the only skill on Elementarists that gave retaliation is gone.

The nerf hammer on the the ele was hard. I like retaliation instead

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Make retaliation only damage once, but raise the coefficient on it to compensate.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

@"Lan Deathrider.5910" said:Make retaliation only damage once, but raise the coefficient on it to compensate.

If they made Retaliation only damage once that would only make multi hit skills that much stronger, and likely ideal to use, in situations where Retaliation is active on their target. For Retaliation to still be a deterrent for multi hit skills like Rapid Fire, Hundred Blades, Unload, etc then the amount that they would need to raise the coefficient for damage on it would need to be significant and that would only create another problem rather than fix the current "problem".

I can see the problem it raises in regards to large scale or dropping a lot of AoE onto a group of players but you'd be attempting to balance how an entire boon works based on zerg play, regardless of its importance in WvW, when zerg play within itself is just a flat out mess when it comes to this game and doing anything to Retaliation isn't going to change that.

[supreme.3602]

Remove retaliation. I can't do a Meteor Shower without going to 35% HP :)

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@KryTiKaL.3125 said:

@"Lan Deathrider.5910" said:Make retaliation only damage once, but raise the coefficient on it to compensate.

If they made Retaliation only damage once that would only make multi hit skills that much stronger, and likely ideal to use, in situations where Retaliation is active on their target. For Retaliation to still be a deterrent for multi hit skills like Rapid Fire, Hundred Blades, Unload, etc then the amount that they would need to raise the coefficient for damage on it would need to be significant and that would only create another problem rather than fix the current "problem".

I can see the problem it raises in regards to large scale or dropping a lot of AoE onto a group of players but you'd be attempting to balance how an entire boon works based on

zerg

play, regardless of its importance in WvW, when zerg play within itself is just a flat out mess when it comes to this game and doing anything to Retaliation isn't going to change that.

Well, if that retaliation did 500 + 0.15*Power as damage it would still be a deterrent.

[Kovu.7560]

Put a 2k range limit on the effects of retaliation, change retaliation so that it can be blocked or evaded, allow failure to line of sight to block retaliation damage and work diminishing returns onto it so the professions that deliver the same amount of damage in more hits aren't as screwed over by it. That would nerf it in larger fights but (theoretically) maintain its contribution to smaller fights.

I can't say I'm too fond of effects that don't actually require you to interact with the target to hurt them in some way, but most of them are fairly weak.

~ Kovu

edit- Oh wow, ancient thread is ancient.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@KryTiKaL.3125 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:Make retaliation only damage once, but raise the coefficient on it to compensate.

If they made Retaliation only damage once that would only make multi hit skills that much stronger, and likely ideal to use, in situations where Retaliation is active on their target. For Retaliation to still be a deterrent for multi hit skills like Rapid Fire, Hundred Blades, Unload, etc then the amount that they would need to raise the coefficient for damage on it would need to be significant and that would only create another problem rather than fix the current "problem".

I can see the problem it raises in regards to large scale or dropping a lot of AoE onto a group of players but you'd be attempting to balance how an entire boon works based on

zerg

play, regardless of its importance in WvW, when zerg play within itself is just a flat out mess when it comes to this game and doing anything to Retaliation isn't going to change that.

Well, if that retaliation did 500 + 0.15*Power as damage it would still be a deterrent.

I mean for those calculations lets assume 2700 power is being used.

Current:(0.050 * 2700) + 133 = 268 (per hit)

Proposed:(0.15 * 2700) + 500 = 905 (single hit)

So it is a significant increase in damage but it only procs once which means any Rapid Fire, Hundred Blades, Unload, etc would continue on with no repercussions so long as they know they can survive 900 or so damage. Thats really not much of a deterrent. I'd eat 900~ damage if it meant the rest of my multi hit skill wasn't going to continuously proc Retaliation damage, or just continue attacking with other skills.

Like I said, I'm aware that in a zerg it can be viewed as problematic because if multiple people have Retaliation then it means it is going to proc multiple times off of any AoE hit. While Retaliation might last too long right now, especially with any boon duration, you still can't balance an entire boon around the fact that its potentially problematic in a scenario (zerg fights) that is, again, a flat out mess to begin with.

Also even in the case of increasing the coefficient as you say there is still a problem, if Retaliation procs multiple times due to multiple players under its effects that get hit with an AoE. Lets say 5 players have Retaliation, all 5 players get hit by the AoE and it procs once per player...with that proposed change that would be near 5000~ damage off a single tick of AoE with the potential for much more should targets within the radius of said AoE change (i.e new players enter its radius and some of the others leave). So the problem still persists...in fact that idea just kind of makes it worse.

[Svarty.8019]

Retal instagibbs Dragon Banner users. I think it's annoying, but it's the geas for using the banner. I've taken to avoiding the #5 skill and running Rune of Rebirth.

[Dralor.3701]

Retaliation is fine, get gud? ?

[lodjur.1284]

Retaliation is dumb because it punishes something you have to do to win a fight, attacking.

It feels dumb seeing 20-30% of the dmg you take in like a 3v10 to be just retaliation.

It does very little except punishing hitting multiple enemies at the same time, which should be rewarded.

In 1v1 it does nothingIn 5v5 nothingIn 3v10 it gives a stupid amount of free dmg to the bigger groupIn 50v50 it contributes to lag (essentially doubling how many packets of damage are sent) and nothing else.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@KryTiKaL.3125 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@KryTiKaL.3125 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:Make retaliation only damage once, but raise the coefficient on it to compensate.

If they made Retaliation only damage once that would only make multi hit skills that much stronger, and likely ideal to use, in situations where Retaliation is active on their target. For Retaliation to still be a deterrent for multi hit skills like Rapid Fire, Hundred Blades, Unload, etc then the amount that they would need to raise the coefficient for damage on it would need to be significant and that would only create another problem rather than fix the current "problem".

I can see the problem it raises in regards to large scale or dropping a lot of AoE onto a group of players but you'd be attempting to balance how an entire boon works based on

zerg

play, regardless of its importance in WvW, when zerg play within itself is just a flat out mess when it comes to this game and doing anything to Retaliation isn't going to change that.

Well, if that retaliation did 500 + 0.15*Power as damage it would still be a deterrent.

I mean for those calculations lets assume 2700 power is being used.

Current

:(0.050 * 2700) + 133 = 268 (per hit)

Proposed

:(0.15 * 2700) + 500 = 905 (single hit)

So it is a significant increase in damage but it only procs once which means any Rapid Fire, Hundred Blades, Unload, etc would continue on with no repercussions so long as they know they can survive 900 or so damage. Thats really not much of a deterrent. I'd eat 900~ damage if it meant the rest of my multi hit skill wasn't going to continuously proc Retaliation damage, or just continue attacking with other skills.

Like I said, I'm aware that in a zerg it can be viewed as problematic because if multiple people have Retaliation then it means it is going to proc multiple times off of any AoE hit. While Retaliation might last too long right now, especially with any boon duration, you still can't balance an entire boon around the fact that its potentially problematic in a scenario (zerg fights) that is, again, a flat out mess to begin with.

Also even in the case of increasing the coefficient as you say there is still a problem, if Retaliation procs multiple times due to multiple players under its effects that get hit with an AoE. Lets say 5 players have Retaliation, all 5 players get hit by the AoE and it procs once per player...with that proposed change that would be near 5000~ damage off a single tick of AoE with the potential for much more should targets within the radius of said AoE change (i.e new players enter its radius and some of the others leave). So the problem still persists...in fact that idea just kind of makes it worse.

Retaliation even in its current form won't deter someone from using Rapid Fire, Hundred Blades, or Unload. Its always been an issue within the Zerg with the carpet AoE there. In small scale no one is standing in a red circle to get a Retaliation proc.

[RedShark.9548]

@Syrus.2174 said:

@avey.4201 said:Wait, you playing Rev, the class who gets healed for not dodging/face tanking damage, and you playing Ele with unblock-able 1 shot capability/and stacking max boons capability, and we're here talking about someones few stacks retaliation?

This is about the boon, whether some specs of some classes are unbalanced is another issue. Red herrings do not help discussions, stop distracting, if you have no argument for why retaliation is fine or not fine.

@"hugeboss.5432" said:There is a perfect counter for the WvW Retaliation mechanics already in the game, its called "Get A Larger Healthpool".

More info:

• Retaliation was heavily changed & its effectiveness nerfed way back in the beginning, Usually doesnt scale its dmg, but does per strike based.
• Using slow weapons will help you gauge your healthbar better, and limit the amount of incoming dps retaliation deals (meteor shower is abit tricky with this tho).
• Dont use the meta builds many sites provide, they usually fail at taking retaliation into consideration in larger scale fights & get wrecked.
• Low HP classes are more sensitive to retalition damage (HP may vary 11k-19k just on class), so you gotta compensate and balance your HP & build with # targets you intend to deal damage to.
• There are WvW raid grps that focus solely on retaliation dmg as their way of dealing dmg. They are too tanky and specced into healing/survival to actually cause any dmg from hitting anything. They will deliberately stand in places where you can bomb them, then they just stand & heal and you die a little more & will rush the new people/PUGs that go low on HP & kill them. Just dont think that dropping a meteor shower on them is a good idea with a PvE build 11k staff Elementalist (full zerk ele will down/kill himself easily & always funny to see tho lol).
• Retaliation is not a major threat for WvW veterans, they dont die from retaliation.. its almost only PUGs & new players using PvE builds & bad Meta builds that keep doing that.

"Larger Healthpool" is funny, have you tried playing Ele before? Even with full Marauder the health pool is laughable, maybe adding some toughness might help, but either way you are still about as durable as wet tissue paper. The way to play the class best is to not get hit by being careful, positioning is key. But then, along comes retaliation! Does it require skill to apply retaliation? It requires skill to stay alive by avoiding getting hit though.

"Slow weapons", how many weapon choices does an Ele have, if they want to go do what they are alledgedly supposed to do best? Scepter has lower range, it'd often be pure suicide to run it, besides it's not as effective for zerg fights. I do wish I had a good build for scepter, always wanted to try it out, but I don't. I wouldn't call Staff a fast weapon anyway, it's just very AE heavy, exactly what's needed when fighting zergs, if you ask me.

Not using meta builds, sure. But meta builds are usually meta for a reason. I don't even use the suggested meta build, but that's all besides the point. The point here isn't just about Ele anyway, it's about how un-interactive and lazy this single boon is, it's about how unequally it punishes enemies - how unavoidable it is for the attacker and how it brings up the question of whether it is worth attacking anyway: if the enemy seems stronger, and if attacking means you die either way, is it not better to just let the enemy take the objective for example and come back later to flip it, instead of trying your best? This unavoidable nature of the boon makes it a mechanic that requires no skill, it's hurtful to gameplay, in my opinion.

Limiting number of enemies hit with AE is simply not a feasible counter, the goal is to hit the enemy, and you can't control whether the enemy runs into your AE or not. You shouldn't be passively punished for doing what you are supposed to do, the enemy should have to punish you actively.

"Raid grps that focus solely on retaliation dmg" - Ah yes, I noticed that we went from pirate ships, via scourge+fb steam trains to stacking healing power and retaliation and just standing there. I don't know how it sounds to you, but that sounds utterly broken in so many ways to me, it starts to arise the question as to why I'm even trying to play WvW anymore. I've seen this kind of over-tanky zergs, you can't harm them. Stacking retaliation on top of that, you can't harm them AND you kill yourself trying to harm them. So all you are left with is being able to sit on the side line and watch as they flip your stuff and hope that at some point they become bored and move on. How does this improve WvW's fight quality, I wonder though? People were already complaining about pirate ship meta, but there you had to at least coordinate the movement a bit. The "just run over everything"-scourge meta (which is still going strong btw) made this not much better. Now you just tank the damage with the unending healing power of Scrappers, Tempests and Firebrands, while the enemy kill themselves on you. ... I don't know, even repeating this line, it does not make it sound any better. It sounds like a non-zerg defense gets utterly sidelined, more and more unable to fight back at all, as long as there's no well setup zerg to fight back.

Retaliation is not a problem to some classes, because it punishes unequally, because even though they throw out equally as much damage, the are way less squishy. Retaliation is not a major threat when you have a well build zerg, because just a few classes and specs have become so powerful in what they do, combining them makes you unstoppable. Overall I feel like zergs with "the right classes" are getting too strong lately. A different issue though.

Dude, just eat food that lifesteals on crit, you can also ask your necro to take vampiric presence for more liefsteal, fixes most problems with reta. There are counters to reta, you could also cast on ppl that got their boons stripped, how about that? Those big shiny warrior bubbles arent there for laughs and giggles.

Reta really isnt a big problem.

"enemies shouldnt be rewarded for staying in dmg" well, sometimes you just cant avoid it, have you ever played a melee class? Sure is fun to just be a punching bag for all those 1200 range casters who you cant reach.

Id love for reta to do % dmg based on incoming dmg, that would not punish low hitting skills with a multitude of hits more than slow big hits. There problem fixed for you. Aaah i forgot, meteor does both...well unfortunate for you, guess you have to pay a price for casting such a strong aoe skill.

10% would be perfect. 3k dmg aoes would hurt you for 300dmg, thats lower than reta usually does, but those kitten 10k hits would drain 1k hp, ahh that would be fun.

[Notsoperky.4291]

@RedShark.9548 said:

@Syrus.2174 said:

@avey.4201 said:Wait, you playing Rev, the class who gets healed for not dodging/face tanking damage, and you playing Ele with unblock-able 1 shot capability/and stacking max boons capability, and we're here talking about someones few stacks retaliation?

This is about the boon, whether some specs of some classes are unbalanced is another issue. Red herrings do not help discussions, stop distracting, if you have no argument for why retaliation is fine or not fine.

@"hugeboss.5432" said:There is a perfect counter for the WvW Retaliation mechanics already in the game, its called "Get A Larger Healthpool".

More info:

• Retaliation was heavily changed & its effectiveness nerfed way back in the beginning, Usually doesnt scale its dmg, but does per strike based.
• Using slow weapons will help you gauge your healthbar better, and limit the amount of incoming dps retaliation deals (meteor shower is abit tricky with this tho).
• Dont use the meta builds many sites provide, they usually fail at taking retaliation into consideration in larger scale fights & get wrecked.
• Low HP classes are more sensitive to retalition damage (HP may vary 11k-19k just on class), so you gotta compensate and balance your HP & build with # targets you intend to deal damage to.
• There are WvW raid grps that focus solely on retaliation dmg as their way of dealing dmg. They are too tanky and specced into healing/survival to actually cause any dmg from hitting anything. They will deliberately stand in places where you can bomb them, then they just stand & heal and you die a little more & will rush the new people/PUGs that go low on HP & kill them. Just dont think that dropping a meteor shower on them is a good idea with a PvE build 11k staff Elementalist (full zerk ele will down/kill himself easily & always funny to see tho lol).
• Retaliation is not a major threat for WvW veterans, they dont die from retaliation.. its almost only PUGs & new players using PvE builds & bad Meta builds that keep doing that.

"Larger Healthpool" is funny, have you tried playing Ele before? Even with full Marauder the health pool is laughable, maybe adding some toughness might help, but either way you are still about as durable as wet tissue paper. The way to play the class best is to not get hit by being careful, positioning is key. But then, along comes retaliation! Does it require skill to apply retaliation? It requires skill to stay alive by avoiding getting hit though.

"Slow weapons", how many weapon choices does an Ele have, if they want to go do what they are alledgedly supposed to do best? Scepter has lower range, it'd often be pure suicide to run it, besides it's not as effective for zerg fights. I do wish I had a good build for scepter, always wanted to try it out, but I don't. I wouldn't call Staff a fast weapon anyway, it's just very AE heavy, exactly what's needed when fighting zergs, if you ask me.

Not using meta builds, sure. But meta builds are usually meta for a reason. I don't even use the suggested meta build, but that's all besides the point. The point here isn't just about Ele anyway, it's about how un-interactive and lazy this single boon is, it's about how unequally it punishes enemies - how unavoidable it is for the attacker and how it brings up the question of whether it is worth attacking anyway: if the enemy seems stronger, and if attacking means you die either way, is it not better to just let the enemy take the objective for example and come back later to flip it, instead of trying your best? This unavoidable nature of the boon makes it a mechanic that requires no skill, it's hurtful to gameplay, in my opinion.

Limiting number of enemies hit with AE is simply not a feasible counter, the goal is to hit the enemy, and you can't control whether the enemy runs into your AE or not. You shouldn't be passively punished for doing what you are supposed to do, the enemy should have to punish you actively.

"Raid grps that focus solely on retaliation dmg" - Ah yes, I noticed that we went from pirate ships, via scourge+fb steam trains to stacking healing power and retaliation and just standing there. I don't know how it sounds to you, but that sounds utterly broken in so many ways to me, it starts to arise the question as to why I'm even trying to play WvW anymore. I've seen this kind of over-tanky zergs, you can't harm them. Stacking retaliation on top of that, you can't harm them AND you kill yourself trying to harm them. So all you are left with is being able to sit on the side line and watch as they flip your stuff and hope that at some point they become bored and move on. How does this improve WvW's fight quality, I wonder though? People were already complaining about pirate ship meta, but there you had to at least coordinate the movement a bit. The "just run over everything"-scourge meta (which is still going strong btw) made this not much better. Now you just tank the damage with the unending healing power of Scrappers, Tempests and Firebrands, while the enemy kill themselves on you. ... I don't know, even repeating this line, it does not make it sound any better. It sounds like a non-zerg defense gets utterly sidelined, more and more unable to fight back at all, as long as there's no well setup zerg to fight back.

Retaliation is not a problem to some classes, because it punishes unequally, because even though they throw out equally as much damage, the are way less squishy. Retaliation is not a major threat when you have a well build zerg, because just a few classes and specs have become so powerful in what they do, combining them makes you unstoppable. Overall I feel like zergs with "the right classes" are getting too strong lately. A different issue though.

Dude, just eat food that lifesteals on crit, you can also ask your necro to take vampiric presence for more liefsteal, fixes most problems with reta. There are counters to reta, you could also cast on ppl that got their boons stripped, how about that? Those big shiny warrior bubbles arent there for laughs and giggles.

Reta really isnt a big problem.

"enemies shouldnt be rewarded for staying in dmg" well, sometimes you just cant avoid it, have you ever played a melee class? Sure is fun to just be a punching bag for all those 1200 range casters who you cant reach.

Id love for reta to do % dmg based on incoming dmg, that would not punish low hitting skills with a multitude of hits more than slow big hits. There problem fixed for you. Aaah i forgot, meteor does both...well unfortunate for you, guess you have to pay a price for casting such a strong aoe skill.

10% would be perfect. 3k dmg aoes would hurt you for 300dmg, thats lower than reta usually does, but those kitten 10k hits would drain 1k hp, ahh that would be fun.

That would be great- just give all classes the ability to apply it. So that 14k backstab would retal 1400 back to the thief. Hammer rev might just kill themselves:-)

Or more sensibly, just remove retal altogether as it's almost as stupid as being able to be in 'stealth' yet be able to move faster than most.

[RedShark.9548]

@Notsoperky.4291 said:

@RedShark.9548 said:

@Syrus.2174 said:

@avey.4201 said:Wait, you playing Rev, the class who gets healed for not dodging/face tanking damage, and you playing Ele with unblock-able 1 shot capability/and stacking max boons capability, and we're here talking about someones few stacks retaliation?

This is about the boon, whether some specs of some classes are unbalanced is another issue. Red herrings do not help discussions, stop distracting, if you have no argument for why retaliation is fine or not fine.

@"hugeboss.5432" said:There is a perfect counter for the WvW Retaliation mechanics already in the game, its called "Get A Larger Healthpool".

More info:

• Retaliation was heavily changed & its effectiveness nerfed way back in the beginning, Usually doesnt scale its dmg, but does per strike based.
• Using slow weapons will help you gauge your healthbar better, and limit the amount of incoming dps retaliation deals (meteor shower is abit tricky with this tho).
• Dont use the meta builds many sites provide, they usually fail at taking retaliation into consideration in larger scale fights & get wrecked.
• Low HP classes are more sensitive to retalition damage (HP may vary 11k-19k just on class), so you gotta compensate and balance your HP & build with # targets you intend to deal damage to.
• There are WvW raid grps that focus solely on retaliation dmg as their way of dealing dmg. They are too tanky and specced into healing/survival to actually cause any dmg from hitting anything. They will deliberately stand in places where you can bomb them, then they just stand & heal and you die a little more & will rush the new people/PUGs that go low on HP & kill them. Just dont think that dropping a meteor shower on them is a good idea with a PvE build 11k staff Elementalist (full zerk ele will down/kill himself easily & always funny to see tho lol).
• Retaliation is not a major threat for WvW veterans, they dont die from retaliation.. its almost only PUGs & new players using PvE builds & bad Meta builds that keep doing that.

"Larger Healthpool" is funny, have you tried playing Ele before? Even with full Marauder the health pool is laughable, maybe adding some toughness might help, but either way you are still about as durable as wet tissue paper. The way to play the class best is to not get hit by being careful, positioning is key. But then, along comes retaliation! Does it require skill to apply retaliation? It requires skill to stay alive by avoiding getting hit though.

"Slow weapons", how many weapon choices does an Ele have, if they want to go do what they are alledgedly supposed to do best? Scepter has lower range, it'd often be pure suicide to run it, besides it's not as effective for zerg fights. I do wish I had a good build for scepter, always wanted to try it out, but I don't. I wouldn't call Staff a fast weapon anyway, it's just very AE heavy, exactly what's needed when fighting zergs, if you ask me.

Not using meta builds, sure. But meta builds are usually meta for a reason. I don't even use the suggested meta build, but that's all besides the point. The point here isn't just about Ele anyway, it's about how un-interactive and lazy this single boon is, it's about how unequally it punishes enemies - how unavoidable it is for the attacker and how it brings up the question of whether it is worth attacking anyway: if the enemy seems stronger, and if attacking means you die either way, is it not better to just let the enemy take the objective for example and come back later to flip it, instead of trying your best? This unavoidable nature of the boon makes it a mechanic that requires no skill, it's hurtful to gameplay, in my opinion.

Limiting number of enemies hit with AE is simply not a feasible counter, the goal is to hit the enemy, and you can't control whether the enemy runs into your AE or not. You shouldn't be passively punished for doing what you are supposed to do, the enemy should have to punish you actively.

"Raid grps that focus solely on retaliation dmg" - Ah yes, I noticed that we went from pirate ships, via scourge+fb steam trains to stacking healing power and retaliation and just standing there. I don't know how it sounds to you, but that sounds utterly broken in so many ways to me, it starts to arise the question as to why I'm even trying to play WvW anymore. I've seen this kind of over-tanky zergs, you can't harm them. Stacking retaliation on top of that, you can't harm them AND you kill yourself trying to harm them. So all you are left with is being able to sit on the side line and watch as they flip your stuff and hope that at some point they become bored and move on. How does this improve WvW's fight quality, I wonder though? People were already complaining about pirate ship meta, but there you had to at least coordinate the movement a bit. The "just run over everything"-scourge meta (which is still going strong btw) made this not much better. Now you just tank the damage with the unending healing power of Scrappers, Tempests and Firebrands, while the enemy kill themselves on you. ... I don't know, even repeating this line, it does not make it sound any better. It sounds like a non-zerg defense gets utterly sidelined, more and more unable to fight back at all, as long as there's no well setup zerg to fight back.

Retaliation is not a problem to some classes, because it punishes unequally, because even though they throw out equally as much damage, the are way less squishy. Retaliation is not a major threat when you have a well build zerg, because just a few classes and specs have become so powerful in what they do, combining them makes you unstoppable. Overall I feel like zergs with "the right classes" are getting too strong lately. A different issue though.

Dude, just eat food that lifesteals on crit, you can also ask your necro to take vampiric presence for more liefsteal, fixes most problems with reta. There are counters to reta, you could also cast on ppl that got their boons stripped, how about that? Those big shiny warrior bubbles arent there for laughs and giggles.

Reta really isnt a big problem.

"enemies shouldnt be rewarded for staying in dmg" well, sometimes you just cant avoid it, have you ever played a melee class? Sure is fun to just be a punching bag for all those 1200 range casters who you cant reach.

Id love for reta to do % dmg based on incoming dmg, that would not punish low hitting skills with a multitude of hits more than slow big hits. There problem fixed for you. Aaah i forgot, meteor does both...well unfortunate for you, guess you have to pay a price for casting such a strong aoe skill.

10% would be perfect. 3k dmg aoes would hurt you for 300dmg, thats lower than reta usually does, but those kitten 10k hits would drain 1k hp, ahh that would be fun.

That would be great- just give all classes the ability to apply it. So that 14k backstab would retal 1400 back to the thief. Hammer rev might just kill themselves:-)

Or more sensibly, just remove retal altogether as it's almost as stupid as being able to be in 'stealth' yet be able to move faster than most.

comparing retaliation with stealth, great meme buddy.

edit: then we also have to remove stealth, id be ok with that then.