Retaliation

[Timewired]

Please leave retaliation off of the GCD. That is all.

[Taksun]

/signed

[Vaidinah]

Agreed.

[Marb]

They also removed the rage cost of it completely for immortal, so they should make it cost rage again if they took it back off the gcd, otherwise it would be a completely brain dead ability with no consequence. Edited November 21, 2014 by Marb

[FearTheGoat]

Retaliation on the GCD would have to do sick damage to be worth a spot on the rotation. If like the live version, where you get a window of opportunity to use it, it might be ok, because you would not want to delay other abilities for it. With the window of opportunity, you could at least fit it in as a filler when higher priority abilities are on CD.

[mynameisbugged]

i agree. I find guardian/jugg more fun when i get to press off-gcd skills

[SamTheHexagon]

Retaliation on the GCD would have to do sick damage to be worth a spot on the rotation. If like the live version, where you get a window of opportunity to use it, it might be ok, because you would not want to delay other abilities for it. With the window of opportunity, you could at least fit it in as a filler when higher priority abilities are on CD.

 

Immortals still need it for Blade Barrier. Hopefully they buff that to 100% proc rate.

[Timewired]

The only point I ever saw in the skill is that it's off the GCD. I know they are altering it to be on the GCD, but that seems like fixing something that's not broken.

[HelinCarnate]

From the class highlights........so it now consumes less rage and deals more damage than Vicious Slash

 

Would rather see how much damage it does first before asking for the changes to be reversed.

[Elyx]

From the class highlights........so it now consumes less rage and deals more damage than Vicious Slash

 

Would rather see how much damage it does first before asking for the changes to be reversed.

 

Right. Again, off the cuff reactions w/o knowing the full story. I wasn't too happy with the idea either, but we'll have to see how it turns out in damage. if the damage is beneficial enough, it could be the filler were looking for, especially now that it changes based on whether your doing DPS or tanking, which means overall more proc rates for non-tanks.

 

I was actually more disappointed to not really see much new for vengeance. so many other classes got full new abilities (including our reiteration of the Rage tree), and vengeance gets to spread our DoT's out to multiple targets. Nice addition, but i feel like were getting the raw side of the deal. I'm sure there's other classes that didn't get "new" abilities, but i dunno, it feels a bit empty. not much reason to gain 5 more levels other then to get our damage back.

[Timewired]

Yeah, your'e both right.

I'll just be sad to see it change. One of my favorite skills for PVP.

[Whitelightr]

Im on the fence about this change, but here is what I'd rather have:

 

Put it back on the GCD, keep it at 2 rage cost

But also reduce the cooldown for tanks - use the talent for Force Choke/Stasis and change it to:

 

Force Choke no longer needs channeled and generates extra threat. Also reduces the cooldown of Retaliation by X seconds (2 or 2.5 seems fine for now).

 

Since they are wanting to remove ability bloat, that would let us almost completely replace slash wih Retaliation when tanking; ties into a pretty bland talent in our tree. And the addition to Force Choke is needed, when tanking its kinda lackluster, just some free resource when you have a open GCD. No reason we cant get a nice little threat bump to Choke, its a 1 minute cooldown ability after all.

[wadecounty]

So for the new Retaliation to be worth it in terms of damage/threat compared to the old one, they would have had to at the LEAST make it do old retaliates damage + basic attack damage (as worst case scenario was retaliate on the same GCD as a basic attack), they did not do this.

 

HOWEVER, if you watched the stream, they MASSIVELY buffed Crushing Blow/Backhand damage by making the talent that buffs them do so by 40%. Crushing Blow now hits harder than any melee ability Juggernauts can use (including Vicious Throw/Impale/Furious Strike), and Backhand will hit as hard as Force Scream, and both abilities have high threat modifiers attached to them. What this means is humongous spike threat capability at the start of the fight, when you also factor in the 65% damage boost to Smash.

 

So, overall it seems like this will be a buff, although no more Retaliation mixed in with attacks which I'll miss, and instead it just replaces Vicious Slash whenever its available. They did also say they felt tank Juggs have too much resource at the moment and will tone that down in some way, so we'll see how they handle that.

 

As for how its changing for DPS specs, I don't like it, but they wanted to make it a rotational ability for Rage spec so meh, in that case I see why it was done. But yeah in general you'll barely ever get to use it now as a DPS, only situation I can really see outside of Rage spec is fighting someone who pops an evasion based DCD and you proc it, you may as well use it for free damage that can't miss.

[Timewired]

You both make good points. I hadn't thought too hard on the tank side because i don't really play tank but it does make a lot more sense from that angle.

I guess a slightly stronger vs for 2 rage is a decent use of a GCD if it's still undefendable.

[wadecounty]

You both make good points. I hadn't thought too hard on the tank side because i don't really play tank but it does make a lot more sense from that angle.

I guess a slightly stronger vs for 2 rage is a decent use of a GCD if it's still undefendable.

Actually for tanks it will be free anyways, so a stronger VS that is also free. Still less damage than Retaliation on live combined with any other attack, but more damage overall with the Crushing Blow, Smash, and Backhand damage buffs.

 

For DPS its in the Rage/Fury rotation, as for Vengeance, I'm not sure if they'd ever want to use it. Actually no, they would... example, operative pops evasion and Shatter/Scream are both on cooldown, miss 1 attack, use Retaliation on the next.

Edited November 22, 2014 by wadecounty

[wadecounty]

Well, having played with the new Retaliation and rotation in general.. DO NOT LIKE IT.

 

First, you have more Rage than you know what to do with. That sounds like a good problem to have, but in truth you end up just spamming Vicious Slash a lot more, which is rather boring.

 

Second, Retaliation really has no solid place in the rotation. You want Scream on cooldown for its buff, you always want Crushing Blow over it for damage (assuming you have the Retaliation buff still active), even Ravage does better damage, so you have weird windows where you have to fit it in.

 

Third, it hampers your ability to quickly swap targets. Assassins and Powertechs have the advantage of lots of 10 meter attacks and/or 30 meter spammables like Rapid Shots, we do not, however one thing we had up our sleeve was the ability to attack 2 targets at once with Riposte even while using single target attacks, and that is now gone.

 

Honestly, the changes they made to it were completely unnecessary, classic case of fixing something that wasn't broken. I sincerely hope they'll revert it back to what it was, and even bump its Rage cost back up to 1 to actually make Rage management a consideration again.

 

EDIT: Here's my fix. Keep Retaliation on the GCD baseline caues its in the new Rage rotation and we don't want to mess with that. Remove the channel animation from Choke/Stasis since it serves no purpose (the attack goes off regardless of whether the channel is broken). Change tank talent that removes channel, to a talent that takes Retaliation off the GCD. Change the tank talent that makes Retaliation free, to reducing its Rage cost by 1.

 

Boom, now tanks are losing an extra 1 Rage every 5-6 seconds (will help to make Rage management matter more) and its back off the GCD again, everyone's happy.

Edited December 4, 2014 by wadecounty

[Whitelightr]

Yeah after playing it, the changes made tanking feel clunky. Its not horrible, but the change just does't feel right. And maybe its just me, but they claimed it would do so much more damage now, the gain doesn't appear to justify what we lost in my opinion. Overall there are 3 changes I'd like to see:

 

If they absolutely have to keep it on the GCD, just let it replace slash for tanking. Drop the cooldown to 1.5-2.0 seconds, bring the cost back up to 2-3 focus/rage, bump the damage up a little more. Right now it just doesn't fit well into tanking. Its something you have to use for a buff, but it doesn't do much else for us still.

 

Warding Strike - Currently the focus/rage gain hurts this ability. I find myself no using it because I would end up wasting resources, and my damage reduction falls off. Increasing the cost of Retaliation like above would help, but you still have a (basically) DCD tied to a ability that isn't always being used. So-

 

Guardian Strike - if the above change to Retaliation went through, the proc from GS wouldn't be needed. And the ability itself seems like a great fit to move our 3% damage reduction proc to. Also change the AoE mechanic to proc off of unsteady targets, not having Warding Strike active. This current setup means you would have to leap, sweep, Warding, GS, cyclone spam for trash pulls. If you use Combat Focus pre-pull WS is wasted, and WS itself is a low threat move. Changing it to proc from Unsteady would let us get back to Combat>Leap>Sweep>GS>Cyclone for AoE pulling.

[KarathAnno]

Yeah after playing it, the changes made tanking feel clunky. Its not horrible, but the change just does't feel right. And maybe its just me, but they claimed it would do so much more damage now, the gain doesn't appear to justify what we lost in my opinion. Overall there are 3 changes I'd like to see:

 

If they absolutely have to keep it on the GCD, just let it replace slash for tanking. Drop the cooldown to 1.5-2.0 seconds, bring the cost back up to 2-3 focus/rage, bump the damage up a little more. Right now it just doesn't fit well into tanking. Its something you have to use for a buff, but it doesn't do much else for us still.

 

Warding Strike - Currently the focus/rage gain hurts this ability. I find myself no using it because I would end up wasting resources, and my damage reduction falls off. Increasing the cost of Retaliation like above would help, but you still have a (basically) DCD tied to a ability that isn't always being used. So-

 

Guardian Strike - if the above change to Retaliation went through, the proc from GS wouldn't be needed. And the ability itself seems like a great fit to move our 3% damage reduction proc to. Also change the AoE mechanic to proc off of unsteady targets, not having Warding Strike active. This current setup means you would have to leap, sweep, Warding, GS, cyclone spam for trash pulls. If you use Combat Focus pre-pull WS is wasted, and WS itself is a low threat move. Changing it to proc from Unsteady would let us get back to Combat>Leap>Sweep>GS>Cyclone for AoE pulling.

 

I agree 100%.

 

Jugg tanking in 3.0 is not awful but it feels slow and awkward compared to what it was.

 

We have more rage then we know what to do with but there is never a good time to use retaliation and not being able to go into Crushing Blow immediately after Smash at the start of a fight makes it much harder to get group threat then it used to be.

 

So while my favorite character is still playable it is not nearly as much fun as it was in 2.x.

 

Another possible fix would be to add the 3% damage reduction buff to our leap as well as Aegis Assault. That way the mechanics would stay largely the same but we could start the fight with it up and quickly throw out our AoEs.

Edited December 4, 2014 by KarathAnno

[Silverspar]

Sorry but going to disagree with sentiments, if you find your combat slower as a juggernaut because retaliation is on the GCD, you must be doing something horribly wrong. Maybe at low levels this might be the case, if you are relying on vicious slash as filler, but my immortal juggernaut now feels more powerful and damaging than before 3.0 dropped. Especially since retaliation does more damage in the approximately 1 GCD usage I would have even bothered using a vicious slash.

 

My friend who is a vengeance spec uses retaliation and I know he hasn't slowed down any and says he feels OP now. The only thing that I feel is slowed down, for me at least, is the execute power (aka Vicious Throw) that cooldown feels longer to me now, but other than that, I feel stronger, even on the side of OP now with my juggernaut, and my friend claims the same with their's.

[Whitelightr]

Sorry but going to disagree with sentiments, if you find your combat slower as a juggernaut because retaliation is on the GCD, you must be doing something horribly wrong. Maybe at low levels this might be the case, if you are relying on vicious slash as filler, but my immortal juggernaut now feels more powerful and damaging than before 3.0 dropped. Especially since retaliation does more damage in the approximately 1 GCD usage I would have even bothered using a vicious slash.

 

My friend who is a vengeance spec uses retaliation and I know he hasn't slowed down any and says he feels OP now. The only thing that I feel is slowed down, for me at least, is the execute power (aka Vicious Throw) that cooldown feels longer to me now, but other than that, I feel stronger, even on the side of OP now with my juggernaut, and my friend claims the same with their's.

 

I think you misunderstood what I said, assuming you are replying to my post above. I don't think the combat is slower, just feels clunky. The opener I've started using is the only time I feel my tank has a smothness to it. After that the abilities just don't seem to flow together like most other classes and specs do.

Not counting the opening abilities, we have 5 abilities now we are forced to use (Warding, Guardian, Sweep, Blade, Riposte), plus Hilt Strike on cooldown for threat & slash to burn excess resource which makes 7, combat focus/stasis/throw as required/needed. Out of the main 7, to me it seems only GS, Blade Storm, Sweep have any kind of sync to them; the rest feel like you just throw them in as you can.

 

With dps specs the abilities tend to transition and maintain almost a infinite flow of GCDs, our do not have that nice little QoL feature. That's what I want to change, make our abilities fit together better. I don't want EZ-mode rotations, or to be able to hold threat without any fear of losing it; I just want the spec to play a little more fluidly.

 

The spec does feel more powerful in regards to dps. I'll admit that, I've noticed about a 175dps gain already, while minor compared to dps specs, thats a nice gain in tank stance I feel. So I have no complaints there.

[ElevenBfour]

/signed

 

I really dislike it the way it is now. That was probably the main thing about the playstyle that I liked a lot. Not only that it didn't share gcd with everything else, but that the animation was nice and fluid when moving from other abilities. Since the change, I really dont' like playing my beloved Jugg, who's been my main since launch.

[Y-Yorle]

I would indeed say the flow of the build is gone. With the increase in Smash/Sweep's CD, it also doesn't synergize well with Crushing Blow/Guardian Slash anymore. My muscle memory is entirely messed up.

 

A typical rotation I used (sorry for using Jugg jargon, been playing him the last half year):

ST > Charge > CB > (off the GCD) Retaliation + Smash (since by then you'll probably have been hit once, generating a rage) > Backhand. There, maximum threat right done. After that you'd continue into a small rotation starting with Sundering Blow (to get your rage up again), Viscious Slashes, Force Scream and with Retaliations all the time until you could go CB > Retaliation + Smash again. It felt fluid, the animations linked very well into eachother and it was great fun.

 

As a tank I don't care as much about big numbers as when I'd play DPS. As such, I'd happily trade my extra crit chance and some CB damage back if I can get the old Retaliation (and perhaps CD of Smash) back. The discipline feels very... clunky now. It lacks synergy in its' abilities CDs and flow IMHO.

Edited December 6, 2014 by Y-Yorle

[BigKatD]

I would indeed say the flow of the build is gone. With the increase in Smash/Sweep's CD, it also doesn't synergize well with Crushing Blow/Guardian Slash anymore. My muscle memory is entirely messed up.

 

A typical rotation I used (sorry for using Jugg jargon, been playing him the last half year):

ST > Charge > CB > (off the GCD) Retaliation + Smash (since by then you'll probably have been hit once, generating a rage) > Backhand. There, maximum threat right done. After that you'd continue into a small rotation starting with Sundering Blow (to get your rage up again), Viscious Slashes, Force Scream and with Retaliations all the time until you could go CB > Retaliation + Smash again. It felt fluid, the animations linked very well into eachother and it was great fun.

 

As a tank I don't care as much about big numbers as when I'd play DPS. As such, I'd happily trade my extra crit chance and some CB damage back if I can get the old Retaliation (and perhaps CD of Smash) back. The discipline feels very... clunky now. It lacks synergy in its' abilities CDs and flow IMHO.

 

I agree. On Wed while at level 59 some guildies asked me to come tank DP HM. I had been running DPS while leveling so I respecced to Defense while they cleared trash. About 1 minute into the fight with Bestia I said in Mumble, "Wow, this is clunky now, but damn I'm drowning in Focus." WIth Riposte on the GCD and the CD of Force Sweep and Guardian Slash being different it just feels... well, clunky. My rotation used to flow so nice, I had a cycle every time Sweep came off of CD - Sweep>Guardian Slash>Riposte>Sundering Strike>Blade Storm - then other abilities as i saw fit while waiting to repeat my cycle. Looked good, felt good and it worked. Now, only my opener feels "right" to me. Guess I need to go practice on the dummy and look at the logs to see what I can do different to make it feel better and see what the threat and defense buffs are like. At least during that DP run I didn't feel squishy or have threat issues. /shrug

[Greeve]

The rotation definitely does not feel as fluid anymore. Not so much that I don't want to play it however. In anycase, I agree with the poster that mentioned the fact that the damage mitigation debuff should not be applied to the fury generator. I prefer it to be tied to another skill so that I can use the generator as a generator and not a buff provider.

[Zellviren]

As far as PvE is concerned, you can pretty much take Retaliation off your bars now if you're playing Vengeance. It doesn't proc anywhere near enough, and instead feels like a consolation prize for your last attack not landing. Even then, I'm not sure I'd delay much for it, particularly because I'm not stacking alacrity and there are several other higher priorities in the rotation (Force Scream, Impale, Shatter, Vengeful Slam, Sundering Assault, Ravage, Vicious Throw).

 

In PvP it still has its job to an extent, and it's at least functional for Immortal. For Vengeance PvE, however, it's a dead slot and they really need to do something with it.

Edited December 8, 2014 by Zellviren