Carian Retaliation has taken over Elden Ring's PvP scene, and it's for all the wrong reasons, with an instakill exploit that allows players to do huge damage in a sudden strike. The Ash of War designed for shields has not one or two but three fundamental issues with it that make a simple swing of the shield an instant kill against fellow Tarnished (never mind how easy it makes boss battles). And considering how frustrating the PvP meta currently is with the post-version-1.03 bleed builds, adding a nearly unstoppable Ash of War on top of it all can make online play feel frustrating.
The three issues that make the Carian Retaliation glitch so effective are self-parrying, damage scaling, and invisibility. The Ash of War allows Elden Ring players to parry their own spells despite this not being the intended effect, as its description specifies it enables one to deflect incoming magic - not outgoing magic. The result is that the damage of the spells used scale up because of the parry, although even the damage scaling appears to be off because players deal thousands of HP damage with one parry. Finally, the mistake that allowed players to parry their own spells appears to have caused a desync that makes the projectiles invisible. This mixture of glitches with Carian Retaliation have made it a nearly unstoppable force.
Because of how popular using Carian Retaliation has become, it's likely to get patched soon; however, because of how ubiquitous it is, players who are able to use it for now will more than likely keep on doing so, until FromSoftware pushes an update to Elden Ring to address it. Tarnished who wish to play fair will thus need to find ways around the glitch. Luckily, there are a few methods one could employ to do this.
How To Avoid Carian Retaliation Exploit In Elden Ring
Among the best options the Tarnished have against the Carian Retaliation glitch are the Jar Cannon and arrows. The Jar Cannon, bows, and great bows all have better range than spells, which forces the hands of exploit users to be more conventionally aggressive and close the distance. Perhaps the most clever way to utilize this response is to use either Rot Arrows or St. Trina's Arrows. Building up Scarlet Rot with Rot Arrows will either result in constant and significant damage or in cheaters using the spell Flame Cleanse Me, which has a long animation that can be taken advantage of even by fair players. Alternatively, St. Trina's Arrows - associated with Elden Ring's Miquella - cause sleep build-up, which will stagger opponents for a few seconds. Players can use this time to close the distance, and with St. Trina's Blade, can continue causing sleep build-up. This method is slightly more frustrating for the cheater and is thus all the more satisfying to use.
Since arrows primarily benefit Dexterity builds, other options players have are using daggers with Bloodhound Step or Raptor of the Mist in conjunction with their regular weapons. Both of these make the Tarnished briefly intangible and thus unhittable, and the former allows for closing up distances safely while the latter allows for a heavy strike on opponents. Thus, even when certain parts of the game are broken, the sheer number of options players have in Elden Ring creates a way around such issues.