Elden Ring Runes, like most Souls games, often rewards players for figuring out the most effective way to defeat the difficult bosses, either through overpowered build or cheap, cheap strategies. But when those same tactics turn on the other players, things could be sour fast.
Carian Retaliation, a Ash of War skill that, when applied to small and medium shields, allows you to parry enemies' spells and get three floating daggers of your own. They then automatically target your opponent after a brief time. This is how it's supposed to work.
In reality, skilled Elden Ring players are using the skill to negate their own spells either conjured normally or via consumables such as Glintstone Scraps. This allows them to easily blastable attack that grows with the shield's level of upgrade to deal scary damage to regular mobs, bosses and fellow Tarnished alike.
Even more frightening is the fact that Carian Retaliation seems to be affected by online gaming. While players can see opponents use the skill and the daggers it produces The attack it follows is invisible, making it difficult to dodge even if you know what you can be expecting.
A quick search of the Elden Ring subreddit shows a community that's in turmoil, with many players calling for Carian Retaliation to be fixed and/or nerfed by the developers. As FromSoftware removed a similar auto-activation method in the game's latest 1.03 patch, it's not far-fetched to think that these calls will be heard in the near future.
In any case, Carian Retaliation is something everyone will need to deal with for now. If you're online and see an invading elden ring items buy online player running toward you with a trio of magical knives suspended above their heads you might consider disguise yourself by claiming to be an NPC till the player gets bored and leave.