Retaliation skills are confusing and not that great for campaign - Path of Exile (3.25 Settlers)

I was absolutely pounding everything with them. The slam was great and the bleed one was insane. That was before putting supports on them. The retaliation skills are honestly one of the best things they've added to the game and a great thing for melee to have. If it wasn't for one of the new enchants I would have kept it going. Was an absolute blast.

I agree, they're not the most effective skills, but it's still pretty fun trying to make them work. It feels like we usually take usable skills and look for damage, and in this case we have damage and look for usability. The new mark ring is pretty cheap now, though it's still a curse loss. And "No Forgiveness" seems like a must-have.

Second Wind gives you an additional use of all retaliation skills. on top of gladiator's 50% chance to not use CD you can usually spam 3+ of the same skill

They are meant as side-skills. It feels like the devs want to move away from "press 1 skill until the end of time and win" that PoE1 suffers from, so they are bringing in some inspiration from PoE2. I've been using Eviscerate along with Lacerate bleed Glad and it's working amazingly.

I have had 0-link Eviscerate slotted in on my Lacerate bleed Gladiator since I got it at level 16, and I just press the button when the icon pops up for a nice screen clear or chunk of damage. Never considered using these as a main skill, the damage is overkill and you're forcing yourself to deal with unnecessary clunkiness, but as a situational skill they're pretty cool.

Retaliation skills, at least for my understanding, were made to give us additional source of damage, not to give us something that you will build your character around. Ofc, it may be proven wrong by some insane build that focuses on retaliation skills only, but that is my general understanding of those skills

crazy, as if they were designed to be a good supplementary source of damage for tanky characters

I dont understand how they are confusing. You block, they activate, you use them. I've had zero issues leveling with them through the campaign, at least as a Glad, the retaliation node is a must have imo.

Sounds like he focused on the fist and block when he should gotten the glad retaliation passive sooner and used eviscerate

there should be more condition to proc retaliate skill other than block and take savage hit.

There IS another hidden notable called No Forgiveness that gives you 20% more of that Gladiator Retaliation stat. You'll need a Prismatic, Golden and Black oil to annoint it. Also Second Wind gives you an additional use of them. Crushing Fist is BFF with Doryani's Fist, which seems rather appropriate. I knew they'd be like this when I saw those massive damage numbers. They're clearly meant to be secondary skills you use to hit HARD occasionally rather than using them constantly. Doryani's Fist comes with its own spammable skill and in-built damage (both unlike Facebreakers). Another synergy is that Crushing Fist can't be Evaded, while Doryani's Touch ALSO can't be evaded, so you don't need accuracy for either. Both also hit in front of you.

Retaliation skills definitely don't feel like your "main skill" but something to add a bit extra damage when you need it.

5:08 this is incorrect

thank you for all the testing! Look forward to when I get to my second build to cook together something good ^^

good explanation video, waiting for new one with ascendency and all tree allocated -> can u pianino all skils after single block or can u use all of them ONLY 2 sec (+inc duration) after getting hit?

For now i'm in love with eviscerate and crushing fist, two shot bosses in the campain with melee physical damage + cruelty, doing shield charge for clear. Having a lot of fun with this weird playstyle

I used the old counter attacks for mechanics, I prefer they would of stayed and we had options of counterattacks vs retaliations but I guess they think less is more

I went for a dual wield glad retaliate setup and I think its fine, very clunky. the build doesn't really work until 65/65 block with 2 skills. When you get the ascendancy spamming like 4-5 fists and swordstorms feels cool. I think they should clarify how the usability window works with refreshing a different skill. would be stronger If I was a bleed glad, but I am not. Eventually the hit damage will outscale the bleed in the endgame /copium

It works great for me but what I find most annoying is that the crushing fist has a range at all, I would like it to have a little bit more area and then just smash the ground around your character and not around where your mouse cursor is.

You a real one for this Woolfio