I’ve seen some conflicting/confusing answers so I’ll ask here. 
How exactly do specific retaliation types work?
For example, physical damage retaliation — does it only occur on physical melee attacks, retaliating with physical damage? Or all melee attacks, with physical damage?
Thanks in advance!
The tooltip seems to indicate that it applies to all melee attacks but I want to make sure before stacking Spined Carapaces.
retaliation dmg types is irrelevant to the trigger/attack made on you, it just means what resist it has to go throgh/dmg scaling, exactly like regular player dmg.
All (regular) retaliation is triggered when enemies hit you with melee attacks specifically (so high DA “bad” because not getting hit), regular retal requires no player OA to “hit” an enemy just that you get hit by melees.
Rata is based on your attacks regardless of enemy type/attacks, thus is based on your OA vs enemy DA now
*keep in mind there is a difference on regular retal vs what might seem like “retalitory” effects such as vindictive flame/ulzuin’s wrath and counter strike, these are regular skills/their own skills thus have their own trigger requirements
Okay, thanks Gnomish!