So essentially, I want to build a character with a focus on retaliation that does OK in the actual hitting department. With endgame gear that I’ve looked at, it seems to be limited to a few damage options: Physical, bleeding, poison/acid, lightning, and depending on some things piercing and internal trauma might be options too.
So, primarily for convenience, I think a bleed damage focus could work out well. Between Devouring Swarm -bleed resist, devotion points changed a bit to accommodate Huntress, which has Rend giving additional -bleed resist, and other sources possibly giving more(the ability on Vileblood Mantle for instance).
Of course, that’s only with a Warder. I’m interested on hearing the community’s thoughts on a viable hybrid build. Retaliation will still be this character’s main source of damage, with actual damage dealt to supplement it on ranged mobs and bosses. So ideally, some form of AOE should also be included, though a Cadence Blitzer might not be entirely out of the question.
Nightblade has limited options for damage. Phantasmal Blades has little synergy, but the main thing is: this char needs a shield. Nightblades are made for dual-wielding. As far as I know, undead aren’t immune to any damage type.
I’ve been working on this and actually leveled a bleed+retal up to 80 before giving up. The problem with retaliation is that there are things that are immune to it. The problem with retaliation plus bleed is that there are still things that are immune to it. Fewer, but still some. Even stacking Rend, CoF, and a Plaguebringer’s Master’s Spellblade with Mark of Dreeg, I couldn’t get decent DPS on bleed-immune ranged names like Rovena Kur and Bolvar.
I’ve converted that build to poison. I no longer have to worry about immunes so my clear speed no longer hits sudden walls, but I’ve lost a lot of survivability with the change- 100% block rate dropped to 88% which is actually a huge difference in play experience, and some other changes which made me a lot frailer. Still trying to work the kinks out.
Here’s my retaliation hybrid Commando that I’ve been playing with for awhile, now. Pic below is with 6 auras active. Menhir’s Wall, Field Command, Vindictive Flame, Flame Touched, Azragorian Tactics, and Vengeance of Cairn.
I started it out as a full retaliation build, but I became bored with that pretty quickly. He’s gone through a bunch of trial and error, but I think it’s a solid build now.
I don’t actually stack a lot of retaliation damage. Most of it comes from Azragor chest and Avenger of Cairn auras. The other retaliation damage comes from procs, like Avenger relic and Light of Empyrion. I also use Targo’s Hammer. Main attack is Cadence, and I also stack resistance reduction to assist with single target. Deadly Momentum synergizes well with the “when hit” retaliation procs, because it buffs their damage.
It’s certainly not a build that will take down bosses in under 30 seconds, but it can handle Ultimate with ease, aside from Mad Queen and Mogdrogen (obviously :p). I’ve mostly been using him to farm Challenger. I was able to get my Gladiator achievement with him, but it was a struggle, so I’d admit this isn’t an optimal build for that.
I plan on putting a guide together this weekend with more detail, and some gameplay vids (although the quality will probably be low).
I’d use cadence + deadly momentum, phys AOE from Counterstrike and Avenger Relic (especially for mobs, reckoning relic for high dps targets like Fabius). The rest i said in Squibb’s thread:p
The DawnGUARD Set seems to be made for this. The stats on the Graceful Dusk are wrong. Here are the screenshots of the set pieces i have. i have not tried this but if you spec into Lightning damage a little bit i think you could get this pretty high. No one talks about this set but i really like it versus the Perdition set. With dawnbreaker using Lightning retaliation already this works well together.
I converted my retaliation Warder into a hybrid one, after the nerf of 2-pieces bonus of Absolution set. I used 3-pieces Dawnguard set + 3-piece Dawnbreaker set, and got around 750% Lightning damage bonus and 900% retaliation damage bonus.
Here’s the SS of page 1 of my Warder, with toggle auras without procs.
I have a lot Lightning based procs, and it clears ranged bosses faster, but summoner bosses still take forever to kill even with resist deduction from WD + Essence of Ch’thon.
The problems are:
Obviously low OA;
Inconsistent damage output from Lightning;
Slow AS (partially offset by inter-casting Savagery and Lightning Nova, but with no Energy regen, that only works for few secs).
I wish retaliation works like Mad Queen’s retaliation spike barrage or have a small AoE, so it will affect summoner and ranged bosses if you stay close. Right now, I just stop playing retaliation builds all together.
Major focus on physical damage, minor focus on internal trauma (mainly due to unexpected synergy with devotions).
This build is going to be quite a bit more gear dependent than the passive retaliator simply because you’re going to need a lot of good gear to augment the physical damage you’ll be doing with Cadence. However it offers quite a few extra damage options through devotions as well quite a lot of +physical damage. Oleron specifically is an extremely efficient source of physical damage increase. Which is somewhat offset by the fact that we need to get the very, very boring Empty Throne constellation. It might be better to grab a bunch of lesser constellations to get the same bonuses, especially if you don’t end up using Blind Fury.
Also note that this build is going to be substantially more squishy than the passive version. And I mean a LOT more squishy. Mainly because we don’t get Targo, Ulo, Scales or Shieldmaiden, but it may have just enough physical damage to compliment the retaliation that it may yet do well.
Although to be honest, if you’re going to go this far into actively doing damage, you probably may as well just create a build specifically designed to do just that and drop the retaliation entirely…
Yes, for pure retaliation Dawnguard goes great with Dawnbreaker. To get high OA requires sacrifice in the retaliatin department. especially in devotions. My OA is 2500-2600 for my procs to hit hard with Stormcaller. But retalliation is ~40K max in character screen instead of 90K. I does do more damage though due to resist reduction with Widoew and/or manticore/elemental storm which alo enhance the procs. All in all I find it to be a balanced build that is more versatile than the pure retaliation which functions best with high dps melee targets like Fabius.
Here I am thinking if you’re going to start moving towards doing active damage, wouldn’t it be better to optimize your build for that purpose? The more I think about it, the more I feel like trying to make a hybrid retaliator just doesn’t make sense.
To that end, I’ve been experimenting with MRGA and while I made a point about not wanting to use it before, so far I would say with MRGA, the pure retaliation build feels right. It feels powerful, and like something that can compete with other high end builds. It’ll never reach clear speeds of the fully optimized active builds due to relying on enemies to hit you, but it feels really great to play.
The active damage comes from Very powerful AOE procs in this case (the dawonbraker build) not auto attacks. Avenger relic with lightinng conversion is a beast, the two ligtning novae, Counter strike 26/26 aided by over 50% lightinng convert. All of these make up for the loss of retaliation but grant you versatility vs ranged mobs, bosses, heroes.
You will find it quite difficult to make a pure retaliator work in crucible if you own it. How are you going to kill those Aetherial terraformers or Anasteria?..without the Make retaliation great again mod that is. Of course the mod feels powerful. It takes a powerful damage type that was never intended to work like that and wecks everything. You no longer have think about warkarounds with equipment and gear. If you can accept that then you are good. I find it overpowered. That is why people try to find workarounds. The Masochism finds a workaround by focusing on reflect damage+ heavy debuffs and retaliaton on secondary, also adds AOE from avenger.
My build hoes heavy on the AOE instead of reflect. Threre is nothing wrong with focusing on pure retaliation as long as you can accept that there will be things you just can’t do. I wanted a retaliator that can handle everything.
The commando retaliator is a different beast but i’ve yet to level him.
Is it really overpowered? I’m not so sure. Maybe I haven’t reached a level of gear yet to notice that but I cleared Challenger Crucible to level 110 without any really serious issues (issues mostly stemmed from taking too much damage, that’s why I stopped at 110…).
What’s really funny is that even without the MRGA mod, you can destroy the VAST majority of mobs, even in Crucible. And as long as you can face tank ranged mobs indefinitely, you can eventually kill them too provided they don’t regen health.
Maybe at some point it’ll feel way too OP but right now it feels “just right”.
If it feels right for you then that’s the way you should play. That’s why mods are out there. It’s just my obsession let’s say, to beat the game in it’s original form as efficiently as possible with the tools it provides.
Like I said in the above post. It fells right because it lets you focus on retaliation alone, a damage type that was designed to be a secondary means of getting damage accross, one that aids you especially in certain situations (like Fabius who will murder himself against pure retaliation in no time) but not a main damage type.
A lot of people requested long ago what MRGA does. If the devs would ever implement that, probably not ever, I bet they would also decrease the overall Flat retaliation bonuses from Items and devotions.
