This week's battle challenge focuses on the Retaliate ability:

When hit with a Melee attack, Monsters with Retaliate have a chance (50%) of attacking their attacker.

Ability Overview

This is a bit of a treat, the second week in a row where the weekly battle challenge focuses on a monster ability. This time, it's the Retaliate ability whereby monsters with Retaliate have a chance (50%) of attacking their attacker when monsters are hit with a melee attack. Thanks to the Splintercards site, there are currently 15 monsters with the Retaliate ability. There are many chunky bois in this pack, with my favourite being The Kraken and Lord of Darkness. Whenever I encounter the Up Close & Personal ruleset, my default strategy is for monsters with Retaliate ability. For those not aware, Up Close & Personal ruleset only allows melee monsters in the battle. Therefore having melee monsters with Retaliate becomes an excellent strategy to have a 50% chance to attack the enemy melee monsters. Doing some high-level theory crafting, assume a battle lasts 4 Rounds - a monster with Retaliate ability has a chance to proc its ability 1-3 times. That's huge, thinking they can survive!

Battle - Full Battle Replay

Battle Details

• Mana cap: 42
• Rulesets(s): Equalizer, Up Close & Personal

Lineup Details

• Malric Inferno (Summoner): +1 melee damage to all friendly monsters
• Exploding Dwarf: DPS tank
• Molten Ogre: support tank + hex ability to reduce enemy melee attack
• Raging Impaler: support tank + buff ability to increase its damage and speed
• Enchanted Defender: support tank + thorns ability to counter melee attacks
• Sand Worm + Parasitic Growth: sneak and opportunity abilities to attack enemy's backline

Did your strategy work? What will you try differently next time?

A tale of overconfidence. I went into this battle confident that I had enough damage and a well thought out strategy. Come on, an Exploding Dwarf with Retaliate ability and 13 health!!! Who could blame me for not being over-confident? Well, my opponent had other ideas. His Cerberus (who also has Retaliate ability) stole the show by not only proccing its Retaliate ability but, more importantly, healing itself after every round. This was so OP. I generally don't play Exploding Dwarf, but whenever I play Equalizer ruleset battle, I play it hoping that my opposition will play a high-level monster. Exploding Dwarf did well, and you could see how vital Retaliate ability is. However, it couldn't do enough damage to outpace the Cerberus's healing. This was a good battle, and I learnt a lot from it.

Do you like the Retaliate ability? Why or why not?

It's almost cliche saying this, but Retaliate with the right rulesets can secure you the victory before the battle has even begun. The one downside with the Retaliate ability is that it's locked behind a paywall. Some monsters only unlock Retaliate ability at max level. Unless you have no issues dishing out $1k to get some of the monsters mentioned above, you will be relegated to using the Retaliate ability with monsters that have it unlocked at lower levels. Some of these monsters may not be that useful, but luckily for me, I have Cerberus levelled up to level 5 and will be looking to use it more in future, especially after it humbled me in battle!

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