This change targets Retaliation builds that spam Aegis of Menhir as their main attack. One of those builds has been around for ~1,5 years now. It is known for exceptional tankiness, but never for exceptional damage.
For some reason (I am guessing @Zantai watched @RektbyProtoss’ stream where he was testing our top20 builds but I might be wrong) Crate decided that now is the time nerfhammer those builds’ damage from being mid into being hardly competitive at all, despite those builds being around for quite some time and not really breaking any speed records. For example, the aforementioned Lightning Aegis Archon kills Ravager in 1 minute 28 seconds, which is hardly a speed record (faster Ravager killers kill him in ~40 seconds), and a lot of that damage comes from direct retaliation and not aegis throw. SR 75-76 timer is around five and a half minutes and again it comes from the ability to group up bosses which is enabled by this build’s tankiness. If you play it safe and group up bosses in couples it would be much slower.
Now you may ask, but what about Sentinel of the Three Aegis Spammer, it has 9.4 average aoe damage rating (but only 6.6 single target damage rating). Well, the answer is Fevered Rage Bloody Pox. It’s a risky playstyle that makes monsters run at you at light’s speed and suicide themselves against your direct retaliation damage. Sure, Aegis throw does more damage than on Lightning version, but if you remove Fevered Rage damage modifier build becomes very mid in terms of speed.
Moreover, this conduit is really the only gateway for retaliation builds into being competitive in terms of clear speeds. Retaliation Vines fell off after the previous patch’s nerfs and retaliation sets design is in a semi-abandoned state where hardly anyone plays them as they were meant to be played.
And any RtA Aegis player knows that those builds can still take ages against mages like Aleks or Zantai or Aetherial Heroes or Snake Heroes or Slathzar (and the list goes on).
TL;DR RtA Aegis spam damage was already very mid and competitive clear times were possible due risky plays like grouping up bosses or using Fevered Rage to increase your direct retaliation damage output. The nerf is unwarranted and effectively kills the competitiveness of the only viable retal builds.
EDIT:
Another argument for reverting the nerf fully is that with the new direction that games takes in the current test patch (forcing the player to respect Sunders in boss fights) is that four boss pulls might be a thing of the past. And without them even with pre-nerfed Conduit those RtA Aegis spammers are going to slow down quite a bit.
I tried sentinel in SR in PT, and it’s sloggish, not really interesting to play. Imo the nerf has to be rolled back to -50% tdm at least, if not fully. At the same time Of the Three set can get a slight reduction in 3-piece flat retal and Ravna claw can get reduction of rta value to ~12%.
Retal was never meant to be competitive in speed. But as the time moves on, it really lost its niche of being tanky playstyle as well. Pets are now relevant and allow for player to avoid dmg completely, full kiters are also now relevant with modern layers of defence and big regen. A lot of hardcore players think Ludrigan is stronger for HC than any retal build.
I was expecting new RtA buffs in the next PT to bring back the playstyle from oblivion, not nerfs to the only viable builds left.
This nerf makes the disparity between Damage vs Melee and Damage vs Ranged even higher because Aegis damage is a much higher % of the damage vs Ranged.
Retal builds are facing some seveve tankiness issue, bucause of phys res loss and enhanced sunder. 4-pull is very hard or you have to kite bosses from here to there, which both slow it down.
I can’t imagine Zantai would take your advice because IMO Zantai probably has some hateful personal emotion on retal builds, BASED ON his continuing scandalous actions on RtA Aegis and other unreasonable actions on retal builds. I’ll be praying as long as these rediculous nerfs disappear.
However, TBH, there are indeed some RtA that needs buffs. Here are my opinions:
RtA Blitz. Cold type, and physical type, especailly cold type. Besides, fire type is totally killed, which is of no reason.
Stoneguard. Total RtA modifier on SS should at least be reverted to 32%. However, it can be divided into two part, of which one is on the mace and the other is on 3-piece bouns.
RtA Sigil of Consumption. Now it can only perform as an ADctH tool for retal BWC builds. Its RtA can be buffed with corresponding LS nerf. Just keep the RtA x ADctH untouched.
RtA EoR. ADctH is bad now.
RtA Grasping Vines. Damage is probably acceptable but tankiness drops too much, because of 14.3% damage loss ( 1-(5+13)/(8+13)=14.3% ) and general ADctH nerf. If its damage are not going to be reverted, at least the ADctH modifier should be buffed.
RtA Callidor. With no doubt it is trash at present. It needs both RtA buffs and some other functionality addition. RR for example.
RtA BWC. Its damage is pretty good but the only way to bring its superiority into full play is taking RtA Sigil of Consumption for ADctH. However, directly adding ADctH modifier to it may cause unexpected abuse, so just leave it alone.
Eye of Sethris. Don’t you think 3% is too low at present?
Addition: cancel some strange and unreasonable changes. Retal part on Chains of Anguish, for example.
Z already told you that’s not a good argument, so if we want to have any chance of getting retal nerf reverted make a good case for it… - otherwise you’re just confirming the nerfs are doing their job as intended…
Nope, you lose the aegis spam ability with it which is everything. It’s not even remotely competitive. Besides there was some issue with leeching on RTA DEE iirc not sure if it was fixed.
I wish you would stop playing devil’s advocate here and just read my post again. Four bosses pull is not something Retal builds do to show off their tankiness. It’s because their single target damage is so mediocre that fighting bosses one on one will make your runs last forever. Besides you need something to bounce Aegis from to fully capitalize on its damage.
i’m not, i’m pointing out what Z already said earlier, so we can stop using it as a poor argument, and focus on the good ones
and may i remind you i’ve played this aegis build myself, so i’m quite aware of the ST speed - and retal ST clear timers in general
and i’m reminding you, to help get the build buffs
using arguments Z has specifically said “doesn’t help”, doesn’t help us… so maybe revise the strategy so it can benefit…
Priendly addition: need more block to trigger Targo’s Hammer and more hit to trigger Counter Strike and so on. Because most damage of a retal build is dealt passively.
Do you know what will happen if Retal builds are buffed to have mid single target damage? It will clear shards with light speed, and make retaliation the most broken thing again. That will be very hard to balance.
No matter how you support Zantai’s “no 4-pull is allowed” idea, retaliation should be an expectation in this matter. Understand?
says who ? - you are not the arbiter of build archetype balancing/goals
like, it’s amazing you don’t understand this; when the dev’s express desire is for you to not pull 4 bosses and tank all their sunder at the same, when you can still do this, or that it’s “hard” to do this; is not measure against the change… heck it might at best confirm the nerf is good, worst case scenario that it needs increasing…
you don’t have to communicate with me; you just have to express the proper data to Z; but still in a way where the world doesn’t only exist in 2 far apart opposites exclusively…
“it’s not just black and white” - you need the grey spectrum to make a good suggestion… because otherwise we only get the black end of it/the nerfs stays…
Can confirm that -60% is way overnerfed, the lightning and acid retal build are both basically #deadbuilds to rava/calla now since they can’t sustain properly anymore and damage is pretty bad once you start kiting. Will test -50% once it’s out.
(I’d also assume that the toxic top 20 versions of those builds are probably simply a bit too squishy for the new 1.2.1 balance)
