Seems the new Retaliation Skills were only a Pipe Dream after all...

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Pashid wrote:

new archetype

I wouldn't consider it a new archetype. To me, they are part of the melee archetype. IMO it cannot even be considered a new playstyle, either. At least, not when you break things down. They do nothing you cannot do already. Feel free to counterargue, but I just don't see what you could say that wouldn't be anything but moving the goal posts, no offense. And I'm not trying to be stubborn here, I'm just having a hard time seeing what you are apparently seeing, because I just don't.

I'm not exactly upset about GGG removing them, it just doesn't make sense to me. All they did was make a functionality change. At their core, they practically serve the same purpose, yet all of their actual benefits were removed.

To put it simply, which do you think is better - and please try to view it from an objective angle:

Skill A -> Melee attack that triggers on Block and has a short cooldown. No animation speed. Requires no specific investment on the tree.

Skill B -> Melee attack that triggers on Block and has a short cooldown. Has a timer for how long it is usable. Requires several passives to extend this duration window. Requires several passives to speed up the animation. Still costs Mana.

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From a melee player perspective, when you are already busy trying to DPS, every extra button press is an animation time that you have to account for where you are not dealing damage.

When your regular skill hits every 0.05 seconds (Flicker Strike in my case), how do you justify using a skill that has an animation time of 0.25 seconds on the same build? Granted, this is without any extra passives specifically for Retaliation builds.

And that doesn't even factor in every other thing you have to account for. Sure, you could argue they have their place on slower builds, but then previous commenters already referred to them as "glorified slam skills", to put it bluntly.

I just can't see what you see. Really, I just can't.

Edit: Just want to add to that: If the passive playstyle is so bad, why does GGG keep RF relevant? It has been in the game since patch 0.9.9, or to put a time to it: since May 2012.

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BaumisMagicalWorld wrote:

Here's the thing, though....

...But they were also automatic, so they are gone.

Sure, you could slap on a CA skill and gain a few buffs that are VERY easy to get elsewhere, miniscule amount of leech instances and other trifles. Fun for some, ignored by most.

Now we have skills you actually have to build around, crate, think and theory craft a little bit. A build path. A build choice. A new playstyle. Sure, they are still fun for some, ignored by most. But at least now I feel like they have a real place in the game... They are... "Something", at least.

But hey, we disagree. That's allowed. I don't think we have to debate it any further.

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Phrazz wrote:

Now we have skills you actually have to build around, crate, think and theory craft a little bit. A build path. A build choice. A new playstyle.

That was the case before. Vengeance was my go-to, but others have created builds around Counterattack skills, using the same cheese method you'd use now: Vaal Breach.

Here, let me repost the image from page 1:



That was my "Candle Runner" build back in Harvest League. Chieftain with Eye of Innocence and Martyr of Innocence for 7-link Vengeance, scaling Ignite.

And when I said "4 sockets and some passives", I may have given a false impression. You always had the option to just "slap them on", but if you actually wanted to use them for utility, you had to plan around them. Well, aside from the very basic stuff, ok.

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Phrazz wrote:

But hey, we disagree. That's allowed. I don't think we have to debate it any further.

I mean, you don't have to throw in the towel already. I'm happy to hear your side. I'm just trying to show you the way I see it, in practical terms. It's a new thing, and like any new thing, people will play around with it first. Breaking things down helps in looking at something more objectively.

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BaumisMagicalWorld wrote:

´

I wouldn't consider it a new archetype. To me, they are part of the melee archetype. IMO it cannot even be considered a new playstyle, either. At least, not when you break things down.

A Mana stacker with archmage is also it's own archetype that plays and builds different to your average stack gem level and call it a day caster, or life stack caster.
Retaliation is different to all the existent melee archetypes as it plays and builds different to all the existing types, slam builds, strike skills and all the other various melee specific types.
You couldn't just swap out your 6l slam setup with a Retaliation skill as this would ultimately not working at all.

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BaumisMagicalWorld wrote:

I just can't see what you see. Really, I just can't.

That might be because you likely never played around much or at all with the huge diversity of various build types in the game to realize the differences between each existing archetypes. While yes retaliation skills are basically considered as "melee" they are still their own new archetype as we didn't really had anything similar to this before.

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BaumisMagicalWorld wrote:

I mean, you don't have to throw in the towel already. I'm happy to hear your side. I'm just trying to show you the way I see it, in practical terms. It's a new thing, and like any new thing, people will play around with it first. Breaking things down helps in looking at something more objectively.

You have heard my side and I've heard yours. I and agree, breaking down things is a good and valuable thing. I just think we have broken it down as much as possible by now.

Now it's up to GGG to build around this new playstyle (and yes, I see it as a new playstyle) with new, interesting uniques, buffs and additions - and not just "set and forget" these new skills.

I honestly think a contributing factor to them removing counterattack gems was due to the "fortify on melee hit" notable Tattoo working with them. This is of course legacy, but it was insanely OP as it bypassed the support gem's downside of not working with triggered gems. You could be running SST and reckoning would almost certainly keep your fortify up at 20 stacks while in-battle.

It could be that there's incoming changes that would have made them too OP with how they interact with new content. this for example could blind mobs and get you multiple power and frenzy charges from counterattack gems on a DOT build. Kinda silly. Many melee weapons can be caster weapons so the above need not be gated behind using wands, etc.

I have and will never use a retaliation skill. They provide no benefit to any build I'll ever play, though take gem slots, passives and lower dps output. I have no idea what they were thinking here really.

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Pashid wrote:

While yes retaliation skills are basically considered as "melee" they are still their own new archetype as we didn't really had anything similar to this before.

They literally have the same tags and they literally scale the same. Difference is, attack speed on them is mostly useless. Crushing Fist is classified as a Slam. Divine Retribution is a Spell. Glacial Shield Swipe/Eviscerate is an AoE melee attack, same as Shield Crush. Swordstorm is basically reskinned Bladefall for melee.

Riposte was a melee Strike skill. Reckoning and Vengeance were both AoE melee skills.

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Phrazz wrote:

You have heard my side and I've heard yours.

Fair enough. Then let's settle on agree to disagree. It's ok to sometimes not reach a common consensus. Different people, different tastes, different opinions. Thanks for adding yours.

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hmcg020 wrote:

I honestly think a contributing factor to them removing counterattack gems was due to the "fortify on melee hit" notable Tattoo working with them. This is of course legacy, but it was insanely OP as it bypassed the support gem's downside of not working with triggered gems.

Didn't require a tattoo. "Melee skills Fortify" is/was a thing I think before tattoos, and there's still, to this day, the same notable on Cluster Jewels as on the day it was introduced: Overlord

As far as I'm aware, this notable still exists and it worked with the old skills, too. And this notable has been in the game since patch 3.10 Delirium.

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BaumisMagicalWorld wrote:

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hmcg020 wrote:

I honestly think a contributing factor to them removing counterattack gems was due to the "fortify on melee hit" notable Tattoo working with them. This is of course legacy, but it was insanely OP as it bypassed the support gem's downside of not working with triggered gems.

Didn't require a tattoo. "Melee skills Fortify" is/was a thing I think before tattoos, and there's still, to this day, the same notable on Cluster Jewels as on the day it was introduced: Overlord

As far as I'm aware, this notable still exists and it worked with the old skills, too. And this notable has been in the game since patch 3.10 Delirium.

Yeah there's that too. I've never played mace or sceptre skills so that info wasn't bouncing out of my head when I posted. The mastery works too but that's in an area you're likely going to be melee anyway.

I always remember swapping out my totems setup for all 3 counterattack skills while in simulacrum or farming. The utility and leech was so much better than the paper dps from totems. Now I can't use totems and don't use retaliation skills.