Retaliation builds

Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
1

So I was inspired to start a retaliation build and though I don’t have all of the pieces for it just yet it looks extremely promising. Now I can tank til the cows come home and I absolutely massacre anything that hits me in melee but the single target against campaign bosses and heroes takes forever and I can’t farm with it at the moment because the kill speed is just too slow. For those of you experienced with these kinds of builds, how do you overcome that? I can kill everything in crucible reasonably easy but Zanty runs my clock out every time and takes a very long time to actually bring down. This is the end game build. I think it looks quite strong but this is my first retaliation build and I’m not using a guide.

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/pZrEAK0V

So my question is this, do you think that retaliation needs to be changed? Maybe instead of just affecting melee enemies affecting all damage types in melee range? The retaliation damage looks massive but it never seems to translate to those numbers. Maybe in my inexperience I am missing something or some things that are fundamental to making a build like this work?

2

Yes, it absolutely DOES need changing.

For starters, Reflect is completely broken in this game. Even with 300% you can’t damage ranged and magical enemies for shit. Nevermind, that Retaliation doesn’t work against them… like at all.
Add to this, that many bosses have HUGE resistance against Reflect, and you get the whole picture…

Right now, RET is a very specific builds, made only for the purpose of coop tanking, or tackling Ravager. Outside of this, it’s an incredible slog. Even Hybrid builds have somewhat a difficult time dealing with some enemies in the game. Pure Retaliation is a complete pain in the ass to work.

There are some good things, however. Like, RR reduction for specific types work in conjuction with retaliation. Mostly, it will be pierce and elemental. Unfortunately, it again, works only in melee.