After learning about the updated grim tools today I’ve been tinkering about with builds for the expansion, and one I’ve had my eyes on was a Aegis retaliate focused build. With it’s 40-ish% conversion it seemed like a good target for this experimentation.
Now, I’ve put together just some experimental preliminary stuff and I’m seeing damage numbers that make no sense. Like, they make sense in the way that once reduced to 40% on a 2,5 sec CD attack it makes sense, but then I realized I’m also just doing this damage as retaliate damage.
Why even bother with the attacks that do a fraction of the damage when I can just stack retaliate and do 100% damage every time a mob strikes me ? I mean, just with a good set of lvl 60ish gear it puts me at a base of 50k retaliation damage and up to 100k with all temporary buffs. Even if you make it more reasonable with a balanced build to optimize defenses this is just ridiculous damage. Although as said, it makes sense when attacks scale it down to 15-20%, but not as just straight up retaliation damage.
Shouldn’t it be the other way around ? Base retaliation damage is fairly minor, but then you have skills that multiply it many times over to make it worthwhile as a base damage source.
Normal retaliation doesn’t work against ranged attacks, or ground effects. If you’ve played a pure retal build before, then you’ll know that no matter how you build it you won’t kill theodin. Retaliation damage added to attack is a solution for that. Now you can be more proactive as a retal build.
Btw, it’s not ridiculous. If you have 100k retal, you’ll deal 40k on one throw. If you crit around 1.6x for example then its 64k. Still low compared to autoattackers who deal 100k+ per hit and they attack 4x.
This is sorta my point though, it’s not ridiculous when you ignore the fact that you’re also doing 100k every time an enemy strikes you. And that’s with level 60 gear. Just slapping together a top level set I’m looking at over twice the damage.
All monster’s base attack speed is 1.0 (in other words, 100%), so the retaliation DPS varies only by the min/max value. Average retaliation is always the same (this is, if you don’t count resists). Unlike normal sources of damage (not retaliation), you can’t increase your DPS from 100k to even 250k by simply critting or increasing your attack speed (or both).
So, 300k retaliation damage is sometimes like having 100k DPS, although, sometimes the 100k DPS a normal character has is way higher.
imo, if you want to play retaliation build, play classes that has reflect skills… like arcanist, necromancer, and nightblade. they can reflect ranged attacks too.
and even then, reflection are not their primary method of attacks. they’re secondary source of damage that is dealt when you’re assuming defensive stance. players also need to use gears and devotions with on-being-damaged-procs to get acceptable dps.
melee retaliation builds are only useful for specific farming against melee heavy mobs and bosses. they are gimmicky builds that provides some niche way to play the game.
in conclusion, reflect & defensive procs are better candidates for retaliation builds for this playstyle.
Reflect will be enemy monster exclusive in the next update. Also, reflect reflects like 10% of the damage if you have 100% reflect because of your and enemy resist.
then i guess we should just play aura of censure builds if we want retaliation builds.
or just play pet builds.
retaliation builds is another name for lazy farming anyway. you step into a room, then people/not-people die as soon as they attempt social interactions with you.
I always think retaliation builds or “thorn” builds are just like AT-field of EVA units or angels, we socially reject others becuz we’re afraid to get hurt. Come on, a hot dance with croney could be fun!!:p:p:p
This seems a bit subjective. Every build needs defensive layers, why not make those defenses your offense as well. I don’t understand the point you’re attempting to make.
With retardiation, I mean retaliation builds you just stay in place most of the time. I kinda agree with the message you quoted. Other builds require skill, pet builds need you to know how to press buttons on your keyboard and so do aura builds (not all, though). Retaliation builds is just opening your character and grabbing your mouse. If you build them correctly, you don’t even need buffs and the two buttons that mouse provide you is enough and sometimes even too much.
has less than 30% HP Oh! No! I am dying! 10 seconds later <presses healing potion> 2 hours later Oh, did I already kill the Ravager? I kinda fell asleep.
Literally me playing my first ever retaliation build and trying it on Ravager. But I fell asleep when he had ~20% HP and had about 3.5k DA, 4 - 7k armor with ~23% physical resist.
Retaliation will probably be a lot different in FG,but agree with both of you that until now is fully retarded.Basically the player is not involved in gameplay at all.
Imo, it’ll be the same. Why? We only get some damage to our skills based on our retaliation values. Melee enemies will still be taken as now (pre FG), while ranged units will be, rather often, left clicked if it’s a boss. It also depends on if you can deal retaliation per hit or every x seconds, but in general often one button will be pressed on a ranged boss, because Righteous Fervor usually deals a decent amount of Retal >> attack. Trash ranged monsters will most likely still be ignored.
The most gameplay a retaliation build will have if they have several skills that deal retaliation damage (on attack) and the unit is ranged. Other than that nothing changes.
I mean, if you play a dual wield character focused purely on damage, and you only know how to press buttons, you’re dead. But yeah, it applies to almost all builds.
Still seems to be a matter of preference with an edge of an elitist attitude. Why force players out of a play style you don’t agree with? Unless there is an objective set of information supporting the idea that retaliation builds do not belong in this game, are unbalanced, or in some other way do not work properly, I just see individuals looking down on a certain play style they find to only be used by “certain” people.
I like that there are different options for gameplay. Retal builds have their pros and cons. I would not play such myself I think but they add to the diversity.
Retal builds are not gonna be fast farmers anyway so I think it is fair that they exists.
In my opinion, ARPGs should not have a mechanic like “hit me and I will damage you”. It basically takes away all the, maybe not fun, but interaction from this game. The “A” in ARPG stays for “Action”, where’s the action in retaliation builds? I am not saying retaliation should be removed, it was introduced so it should stay, but it would need to be more interactive. Everyone can turn off their brain and just move their mouse all the time, killing everything, and this is how retaliation builds are and will be even in FG.
Right now, even when I don’t like retaliation, I rather say it needs changes than rework or being removed. There should be skills that retaliate, not gear, because having a skill that retaliates damage is having some gameplay, not much, as it’d be the same as pet builds then, but horribly comparable. It’s not hard to make a “one button retaliation damage of doom” character. My physical retaliation build has only two skills that are helpful, a mobility skill and auto attack replacer.
Those are the skills my Warlord will use, or rather has, because I’ll use only two of those, LMB and 1. As you can see, there’s plenty of gameplay, right? Hold LMB and that’s it, no other skill will be actually mandatory there, maybe even perma buffs won’t be.
Retaliation damage added to attack is just another way of enabling playing retaliation builds, again not granting any gameplay, because you don’t even have to press buttons. The thing I would change in retaliation builds is the new mechanic, which doesn’t open the path with gameplay. I’d rather have all skills that do retaliation >> attack to be in casting skills, like Blitz, Forcewave, not auto attack replacers and WPS, because then you just hold one button and win. What I think should be done, items that grant +10 seconds to a skill and add 100% retaliation to attack, not too many of them. What would this change? Retaliation builds would require way more skill than ever, that’s one way of making them more fun to play. Another would be removing all or most retaliation from gear and add it to active skills like Overguard or Menhir’s will, because those require you to press a button. However, this would not solve too much, rather would not do anything, so there should be, as I call them, “either, either” options, skills that give you huge retaliation bonuses, but also reduce your defense. This would make your characters squishier and opening a new path of making the game more fun, because you’d actually need to pay attention to what is going on in the game.
I am a fan of tanky builds, I will always admit that, but I also prefer having some damage. I would play retaliation builds even now, pre-FG, but the fun of those builds just stays there for a few seconds, eventually minutes. Squishy characters are way more fun to play because you have interaction between the player and the game. Tanky characters in general are super boring because whenever you don’t take damage you just try to get as much interaction as possible, but later it just disappears and you hold one button just to punch through the enemy. Retaliation builds don’t even serve that, and this is why I made one and only one character based on retaliation, which was alive for about 3 days before I’ve remade it.
But yeah, it applies to almost all builds.