Hardened Ward heal making it to live is a mistake and needs to be changed

Rhaegar75 · August 13

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Rhaegar75 wrote: »

ZOS can you please add a shield to coagulating blood or BoL? sorcs are not OP so why can't we all have the same kit

Not a bad idea. Sorcs claim they deserve the same healing as DKs and Plars, so clearly those classes deserve to be able to shield up like a Sorc. DK and Plar should also get their own Streak clones and ranged nuke skills.

it seems very fair

StaticWave wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

That said, Hardened Ward is on par with other classes heals now, no changes needed. It brought my sorc almost to the performance level of my NB. Ward + Contingent Heal is almost as good as Block Casting Healthy Offering or other classes' burst heals. There are a lot of S and A tier classes now, that is balance.

No, just no

indeed.....totally not on par with other heals....not at all

Bushido2513 · August 13

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Jsmalls wrote: »

But a 13k Ward with a 4k non crit heal is far from "Broken"

If so, then the same needs to be done for Annulment, Bone Wall, and the Scribing shields, that way everyone has fair access. Impervious Runeward should have a fully spammable heal, and not shrink after one gcd. Sun Shield and Igneous Shield need to be given healing components, as well as an aggressive magicka pool scaling option. This should fix the meta.

Why should everyone have the same things, that's boring. Everyone needs the save ability to have counterplay, that's it.

If ZOS actually did some of the things you've suggested the game would crater due to boredom of all having the same options.

Bushido2513 · August 13

StaticWave wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

That said, Hardened Ward is on par with other classes heals now, no changes needed. It brought my sorc almost to the performance level of my NB. Ward + Contingent Heal is almost as good as Block Casting Healthy Offering or other classes' burst heals. There are a lot of S and A tier classes now, that is balance.

No, just no

This person may be using a less than optimized build where ward can seem ok to use. It's definitely cracked when you use it at full potential.

Max mag builds should certainly be viable for sorc but not having such a high return on maximum investment

Bushido2513 · August 13

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Ward in Cyrodiil at 46k max mag:

Healing Soul on back bar at 6k weapon damage and 30k stam:

Ward gives 12.2k shield + a 7.1k healing tooltip (which is about 3.5k non crit in PvP). Healing Soul gives a 12.6k healing tooltip, which is about 6.5k in PvP.

So a 12.2k shield + 3.5k non crit heal vs a 6.5k non crit heal that can potentially crit for 11k. Yea I think everyone here knows the answer for which is stronger lol.

As I've said before Ward needs attention at the higher end I'll agree but how are we comparing the healing strength of two skills directly when they have different function aspects?

A heal that can target other players, returns resources, and grants a further healing buff would have a lower tooltip than a heal/defensive skills that can only be applied to yourself.

Turn that around and say if ward had a total tooltip including the heal that matched in total healing soul but healing soul did the other t two things and could target a friendly would that make sense?

But isn’t that what ward defenders have been doing? They have been comparing Ward to other class burst heals and arguing that it’s fair to have a 15k Ward with a 5k crit heal because other classes can crit their burst heal for 17-18k, while completely ignoring the rng aspect of burst heals. I’m simply using their argument against them.

Well a crit is a maybe so I can give you that argument. The differences in what two skills do different is just a known factor. It's like saying monster truck and sports car. They both get on the road, they both have wheels but the application can vary by a lot so if you compare them at all it has to be a specific comparison to be accurately looked at.

Bushido2513 · August 13

divnyi wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

I’m at 46k HP with 30k resists and 4k crit resist. I also have Vigor, Surge, and Blood Craze

Yes, but I mean, it's not hard to build tanky.
You can take Warden and make the tankiest tank ever, that would also delete newbies.

But I can put 64 into max magica and I don't feel squishy at all.
Because 25k HP + 10k shield in no-CP at armor cap is not squishy.

This just depends on who you're fighting though. I'm not squishy at all but I always take note of the players that have damage and or skill to put good pressure on and or kill me.i had to raise my health a while back because I discovered at that low threshold certain templars at the very least can put you down, sometimes even if you're trying to disengage.

Likewise with worse opponents you can almost defend yourself with one button

Solariken · August 13

I'm not even sure why this game even has classes, other than to give ESO a sense of artificial replayability.

In a proper class system, classes should have glaring strengths and weaknesses to exploit. But for some reason ESO devs think everything should be gridded to a spreadsheet and exactly the same.

Unpopular opinion, but in an ideal world Sorcs and NB's should not have burst heals at all. Both have strong damage avoidance mechanics and should heal situationally, such as weak HoTs and based on damage output.

But with scribing and skill styles it's clear they want everyone to just be the same except for animation color.

I'd argue for a Hardened Ward nerf but that would just mean all Sorcs slot Healing Ward and Contingency anyway which further homogenizes everything.

Bushido2513 · August 13

Solariken wrote: »

I'm not even sure why this game even has classes, other than to give ESO a sense of artificial replayability.

In a proper class system, classes should have glaring strengths and weaknesses to exploit. But for some reason ESO devs think everything should be gridded to a spreadsheet and exactly the same.

Unpopular opinion, but in an ideal world Sorcs and NB's should not have burst heals at all. Both have strong damage avoidance mechanics and should heal situationally, such as weak HoTs and based on damage output.

But with scribing and skill styles it's clear they want everyone to just be the same except for animation color.

I'd argue for a Hardened Ward nerf but that would just mean all Sorcs slot Healing Ward and Contingency anyway which further homogenizes everything.

It's clear at least to me that it's just easier to manage when there's less differences to account for. We're so far away from rock paper scissors at this point. I'm just glad we have certain things that are iconic and make playing a particular class feel at least a little special.

Streak, overlord, curse, frag, hurricane, pets, negate

Leap, fossilize, talons, whip,

Beam, crescent, ritual, bubble, sadly not jabs

Cloak, incap, bow, shade

Polar, bear, storm, slab, shalks

The list goes on but to some degree at least some of these things really are different then what other classes can do at there's that at least.

StaticWave · August 14

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Ward in Cyrodiil at 46k max mag:

Healing Soul on back bar at 6k weapon damage and 30k stam:

Ward gives 12.2k shield + a 7.1k healing tooltip (which is about 3.5k non crit in PvP). Healing Soul gives a 12.6k healing tooltip, which is about 6.5k in PvP.

So a 12.2k shield + 3.5k non crit heal vs a 6.5k non crit heal that can potentially crit for 11k. Yea I think everyone here knows the answer for which is stronger lol.

As I've said before Ward needs attention at the higher end I'll agree but how are we comparing the healing strength of two skills directly when they have different function aspects?

A heal that can target other players, returns resources, and grants a further healing buff would have a lower tooltip than a heal/defensive skills that can only be applied to yourself.

Turn that around and say if ward had a total tooltip including the heal that matched in total healing soul but healing soul did the other t two things and could target a friendly would that make sense?

But isn’t that what ward defenders have been doing? They have been comparing Ward to other class burst heals and arguing that it’s fair to have a 15k Ward with a 5k crit heal because other classes can crit their burst heal for 17-18k, while completely ignoring the rng aspect of burst heals. I’m simply using their argument against them.

Well a crit is a maybe so I can give you that argument. The differences in what two skills do different is just a known factor. It's like saying monster truck and sports car. They both get on the road, they both have wheels but the application can vary by a lot so if you compare them at all it has to be a specific comparison to be accurately looked at.

I understand your argument and I agree, both of them have different functions. I was just pointing out how Ward defenders were using heal values that are largely affected by RNG to claim Ward should be the same. Not many classes can reach 40-45% crit rate to reliably crit their burst heals. At that crit rate, you could get lucky and crit 3 burst heals in a row for 17k each, or not get lucky at all and only heal for 8k per cast. Compare that to a 15k Ward and a 3k non crit/5k crit heal, Ward looks more reliable and less RNG based.

Turtle_Bot · August 14

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Ward in Cyrodiil at 46k max mag:

Healing Soul on back bar at 6k weapon damage and 30k stam:

Ward gives 12.2k shield + a 7.1k healing tooltip (which is about 3.5k non crit in PvP). Healing Soul gives a 12.6k healing tooltip, which is about 6.5k in PvP.

So a 12.2k shield + 3.5k non crit heal vs a 6.5k non crit heal that can potentially crit for 11k. Yea I think everyone here knows the answer for which is stronger lol.

As I've said before Ward needs attention at the higher end I'll agree but how are we comparing the healing strength of two skills directly when they have different function aspects?

A heal that can target other players, returns resources, and grants a further healing buff would have a lower tooltip than a heal/defensive skills that can only be applied to yourself.

Turn that around and say if ward had a total tooltip including the heal that matched in total healing soul but healing soul did the other t two things and could target a friendly would that make sense?

But isn’t that what ward defenders have been doing? They have been comparing Ward to other class burst heals and arguing that it’s fair to have a 15k Ward with a 5k crit heal because other classes can crit their burst heal for 17-18k, while completely ignoring the rng aspect of burst heals. I’m simply using their argument against them.

Well a crit is a maybe so I can give you that argument. The differences in what two skills do different is just a known factor. It's like saying monster truck and sports car. They both get on the road, they both have wheels but the application can vary by a lot so if you compare them at all it has to be a specific comparison to be accurately looked at.

I understand your argument and I agree, both of them have different functions. I was just pointing out how Ward defenders were using heal values that are largely affected by RNG to claim Ward should be the same. Not many classes can reach 40-45% crit rate to reliably crit their burst heals. At that crit rate, you could get lucky and crit 3 burst heals in a row for 17k each, or not get lucky at all and only heal for 8k per cast. Compare that to a 15k Ward and a 3k non crit/5k crit heal, Ward looks more reliable and less RNG based.

I'm actually kinda curious now if that may be how ZOS reached their value for ward (which is roughly where non max-mag wards currently sit).

Wards cannot crit, so I'm curious if ZOS used calculated the median value of a burst heal when accounting for crit healing then upped wards shield value to match that value (with the upside of not needing to crit, but the downside of not having the peak that a crit heal can reach that exceeds that median), but they didn't factor in the max mag builds players were able to come up with that completely skews ward.

It was a former dev for another game that was on a podcast I was listening to recently, who said probably the most relevant thing regarding trying to balance a game:
"It doesn't matter how much in-house testing they do, the player-base will spend infinitely more time on just the first day alone upon release and will inevitably find things that there's just not enough time to find via in-house testing."

This isn't to excuse ZOS, (this is why listening to feedback, constantly communicating with the player base and acting on that feedback in a timely manner is very important), but it does help understand why so many things seem to "slip through".

Rhaegar75 · August 14

I'm the living proof that Hardened ward is not balanced - I'm a mediocre PvPer at best and on a Magsorc with max mag I simply can't die. I may not kill millions but they can't kill me.

I'm in trouble?...ward up...still in trouble..streak away with Jo the plar and Jimbo the DK miles away behind me. Is this balance?

divnyi · August 14

Bushido2513 wrote: »

divnyi wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

I’m at 46k HP with 30k resists and 4k crit resist. I also have Vigor, Surge, and Blood Craze

Yes, but I mean, it's not hard to build tanky.
You can take Warden and make the tankiest tank ever, that would also delete newbies.

But I can put 64 into max magica and I don't feel squishy at all.
Because 25k HP + 10k shield in no-CP at armor cap is not squishy.

This just depends on who you're fighting though. I'm not squishy at all but I always take note of the players that have damage and or skill to put good pressure on and or kill me.i had to raise my health a while back because I discovered at that low threshold certain templars at the very least can put you down, sometimes even if you're trying to disengage.

But that's the thing, the higher mag you have, the more pressure you can sustain because your healing & ward button is gonna be bigger. It's also really hard to out-sustain sorc because you can start using energy overfrow.

StaticWave · August 14

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

I'm actually kinda curious now if that may be how ZOS reached their value for ward (which is roughly where non max-mag wards currently sit).

Wards cannot crit, so I'm curious if ZOS used calculated the median value of a burst heal when accounting for crit healing then upped wards shield value to match that value (with the upside of not needing to crit, but the downside of not having the peak that a crit heal can reach that exceeds that median), but they didn't factor in the max mag builds players were able to come up with that completely skews ward.

It was a former dev for another game that was on a podcast I was listening to recently, who said probably the most relevant thing regarding trying to balance a game:
"It doesn't matter how much in-house testing they do, the player-base will spend infinitely more time on just the first day alone upon release and will inevitably find things that there's just not enough time to find via in-house testing."

This isn't to excuse ZOS, (this is why listening to feedback, constantly communicating with the player base and acting on that feedback in a timely manner is very important), but it does help understand why so many things seem to "slip through".

I'm also curious to know how they came up with Ward scaling. It would be nice to have an official statement from ZOS devs explaining how they determine the scaling coefficients for heal and shield abilities.

In-house testing simply cannot cover everything. The player base outnumbers ZOS devs and most of the combat balance issues we have right now are a result of that. ZOS really should place more emphasis on taking advantage of the player base's testing in conjunction with their own to effectively make balance changes that don't cause lopsided metas.

MEBengalsFan2001 · August 14

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

It was a former dev for another game that was on a podcast I was listening to recently, who said probably the most relevant thing regarding trying to balance a game:
"It doesn't matter how much in-house testing they do, the player-base will spend infinitely more time on just the first day alone upon release and will inevitably find things that there's just not enough time to find via in-house testing."

This isn't to excuse ZOS, (this is why listening to feedback, constantly communicating with the player base and acting on that feedback in a timely manner is very important), but it does help understand why so many things seem to "slip through".

Actually players were telling the devs prior to releasing the update that ward was too strong to be released. Devs didn’t pay attention.

This game dev team is behaving similarly to the dev team of DCUO and Neverwinter. Both games ended up being fully revamped after both companies reorganized their dev team. Basically new people came on board and spent a year focusing on updating the underlying mechanics of the classes, skills etc. Both games played completely different afterwards and they both were no longer enjoyable.

Right now eso isn’t enjoyable because there really isn’t balance. Devs don’t listen to feedback and the end result is imbalance classes and those classes end up becoming the most played classes. Saw it with Templar, DK, Warden, NB, Sorc, Arcanist, etc..

Another experience in eso that is frustrating is the true lack of immunity. Use immovable pot doesn’t truly prevent being pulled, stun, knocked back, etc… it’s just reduced the chances of that happening but they can still occur. The game needs an overhaul for it cc effects and immunity.

The final issue is desync and lag. Skills hitting a player should not cause them to desync, that is really bad game design and players using such skill in abundance causes lag. The biggest offenders are the ball groups.

ESO has a lot going for it in PVE, but PVP is just players abusing broken classes, gear sets, and finding joy in causing others frustration by desync and lag. I try to play fair and remove skills that would desync someone and I don’t like using broken / overpowered gear sets along with I don’t play the current broken meta class and if I do I try to play it another way that isn’t broken. It’s one reason my sorc isn’t being used in pvp.

Bushido2513 · August 14

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Ward in Cyrodiil at 46k max mag:

Healing Soul on back bar at 6k weapon damage and 30k stam:

Ward gives 12.2k shield + a 7.1k healing tooltip (which is about 3.5k non crit in PvP). Healing Soul gives a 12.6k healing tooltip, which is about 6.5k in PvP.

So a 12.2k shield + 3.5k non crit heal vs a 6.5k non crit heal that can potentially crit for 11k. Yea I think everyone here knows the answer for which is stronger lol.

As I've said before Ward needs attention at the higher end I'll agree but how are we comparing the healing strength of two skills directly when they have different function aspects?

A heal that can target other players, returns resources, and grants a further healing buff would have a lower tooltip than a heal/defensive skills that can only be applied to yourself.

Turn that around and say if ward had a total tooltip including the heal that matched in total healing soul but healing soul did the other t two things and could target a friendly would that make sense?

But isn’t that what ward defenders have been doing? They have been comparing Ward to other class burst heals and arguing that it’s fair to have a 15k Ward with a 5k crit heal because other classes can crit their burst heal for 17-18k, while completely ignoring the rng aspect of burst heals. I’m simply using their argument against them.

Well a crit is a maybe so I can give you that argument. The differences in what two skills do different is just a known factor. It's like saying monster truck and sports car. They both get on the road, they both have wheels but the application can vary by a lot so if you compare them at all it has to be a specific comparison to be accurately looked at.

I understand your argument and I agree, both of them have different functions. I was just pointing out how Ward defenders were using heal values that are largely affected by RNG to claim Ward should be the same. Not many classes can reach 40-45% crit rate to reliably crit their burst heals. At that crit rate, you could get lucky and crit 3 burst heals in a row for 17k each, or not get lucky at all and only heal for 8k per cast. Compare that to a 15k Ward and a 3k non crit/5k crit heal, Ward looks more reliable and less RNG based.

Gotcha and I totally agree that using crit values would be a skewed way to look at things especially when crit is notorious for being low in pvp on the average build and that's with CP. It gets lower as you go into no CP areas like bgs.

There's really no justification for ward at the high end when you look at the value of other heals. I can appreciate ward as it is but mine is merely 10kish in CP so it works but I'm nowhere near unkillable.

Bushido2513 · August 14

divnyi wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

divnyi wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

I’m at 46k HP with 30k resists and 4k crit resist. I also have Vigor, Surge, and Blood Craze

Yes, but I mean, it's not hard to build tanky.
You can take Warden and make the tankiest tank ever, that would also delete newbies.

But I can put 64 into max magica and I don't feel squishy at all.
Because 25k HP + 10k shield in no-CP at armor cap is not squishy.

This just depends on who you're fighting though. I'm not squishy at all but I always take note of the players that have damage and or skill to put good pressure on and or kill me.i had to raise my health a while back because I discovered at that low threshold certain templars at the very least can put you down, sometimes even if you're trying to disengage.

But that's the thing, the higher mag you have, the more pressure you can sustain because your healing & ward button is gonna be bigger. It's also really hard to out-sustain sorc because you can start using energy overfrow.

Very true! So in the case I was talking about this templar had a specific burst combo with potl and just loading me up with damage faster than my shield could eat it and finishing with a javelin with a damage proc that stopped me from healing before the radiant. This is in no cp to be fair but I noticed they could reliably do you combo.

I say all that to give an example that with low health some players can have combos and timing that can play into execute mechanics while cutting ward spam at just the right time. It's not easy but if someone were to master timing it becomes easier on lower health targets.

Oh and granted it's got to be done correctly to where even if you're thinking of streaking away it's already to late. Otherwise the plar has to stand in heals block / dodge attacks and purge curses till the window opens up again.

I will also admit though that I'm good with ward but I don't live by it so I can see where someone might just be better at 100 percent uptime than me.

Vulkunne · August 14

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Jsmalls wrote: »

But a 13k Ward with a 4k non crit heal is far from "Broken"

If so, then the same needs to be done for Annulment, Bone Wall, and the Scribing shields, that way everyone has fair access. Impervious Runeward should have a fully spammable heal, and not shrink after one gcd. Sun Shield and Igneous Shield need to be given healing components, as well as an aggressive magicka pool scaling option. This should fix the meta.

The problem with using 'fairness' in this sense is you're making everything the same when classes should be different with advantages and disadvantages. Like if I'm working on my car, all my screwdrivers are not flat. All my wrenches are not the same size. Different tools for different problems. Different classes for different passions.

If you want to see how the concept of 'fairness' can totally ruin a combat experience checkout New World sometime where everyone is forced to lose with many buffs being hardly worth it and not making much, if any noticeable difference as opposed to not having them. There are many things ESO does well and better, even as of today.

xylena_lazarow · August 14

Vulkunne wrote: »

The problem with using 'fairness' in this sense is you're making everything the same when classes should be different with advantages and disadvantages.

It was a satirical post. Sorc obviously should not be healing and face tanking like this. Sorc apologists keep claiming it's "fair" that they get the same face tank tools as DK, so I made a post applying that logic to every class (the result is silly).

StaticWave · August 15

Very exciting match LOL

Turtle_Bot · August 15

StaticWave wrote: »

Very exciting match LOL

still see a templar in there, must be completely balanced /s

LukosCreyden · August 15

I have been maining a no-pet magsorc recently. I think some mild adjustments to ward would be just fine. I just hope that the devs don't look at this thread and say "WELP! Time to nuke sorc back into the ground!"

StaticWave · August 15

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Very exciting match LOL

still see a templar in there, must be completely balanced /s

Nerf Templar

StaticWave · August 15

LukosCreyden wrote: »

I have been maining a no-pet magsorc recently. I think some mild adjustments to ward would be just fine. I just hope that the devs don't look at this thread and say "WELP! Time to nuke sorc back into the ground!"

As long as they make adjustments similar to Concealed Weapon, it would be fine.

Joy_Division · August 15

Solariken wrote: »

I'm not even sure why this game even has classes, other than to give ESO a sense of artificial replayability.

In a proper class system, classes should have glaring strengths and weaknesses to exploit. But for some reason ESO devs think everything should be gridded to a spreadsheet and exactly the same.

Unpopular opinion, but in an ideal world Sorcs and NB's should not have burst heals at all. Both have strong damage avoidance mechanics and should heal situationally, such as weak HoTs and based on damage output.

But with scribing and skill styles it's clear they want everyone to just be the same except for animation color.

I'd argue for a Hardened Ward nerf but that would just mean all Sorcs slot Healing Ward and Contingency anyway which further homogenizes everything.

I don't think that is an unpopular opinion.

It's a well established precedent for fantasy games and a typical expectation of players.

xylena_lazarow · August 15

Joy_Division wrote: »

I don't think that is an unpopular opinion. It's a well established precedent for fantasy games and a typical expectation of players.

It's not, but many players expecting Skyrim like freedom ended up feeling restricted, while those expecting a more defined class experience like FF14 end up feeling a bit lost. The weird middle ground of ESO is part of what makes it unique and complex, but there have been too many design decisions that nerf class identity while buffing generics.

The Arc Flail nerf is sad for that reason. Then of course, every now and then the pendulum swings too far the other direction. MagSorc had its class identity nerfed into the ground, people asked for it to be buffed, only for Hardened Ward to end up far too powerful for any semblance of class balance.

Navaac223 · August 15

LukosCreyden wrote: »

I have been maining a no-pet magsorc recently. I think some mild adjustments to ward would be just fine. I just hope that the devs don't look at this thread and say "WELP! Time to nuke sorc back into the ground!"

Don't you worry, except for enforcing the rules, no one at zos is reading the forums

Just look at every post about hardened ward/necro/overland difficulty/templar/tarnished gankers/nb in pve and pvp then look at the patch notes for the past 3 years

Bushido2513 · August 15

StaticWave wrote: »

Very exciting match LOL

In that match up though I will say I'm still happier with the sorcs than the nb lol. It's not fun obviously but I still like damage I can see and easily go after vs the out of the blue oops my detect pot ran out and inner light doesn't give me enough area situation.

Vulkunne · August 16

Joy_Division wrote: »

Solariken wrote: »

I'm not even sure why this game even has classes, other than to give ESO a sense of artificial replayability.

In a proper class system, classes should have glaring strengths and weaknesses to exploit. But for some reason ESO devs think everything should be gridded to a spreadsheet and exactly the same.

Unpopular opinion, but in an ideal world Sorcs and NB's should not have burst heals at all. Both have strong damage avoidance mechanics and should heal situationally, such as weak HoTs and based on damage output.

But with scribing and skill styles it's clear they want everyone to just be the same except for animation color.

I'd argue for a Hardened Ward nerf but that would just mean all Sorcs slot Healing Ward and Contingency anyway which further homogenizes everything.

I don't think that is an unpopular opinion.

It's a well established precedent for fantasy games and a typical expectation of players.

I think more than anything else it comes down to vision. There has to be some form of template that tells us how a Wizard is different from like a Knight or something. Otherwise, it gets messy and over time, it sort of feels like the vision isn't lost but has gotten kind of blurry. ESO still a better game than many of them out there but traditionally Elder Scrolls has some themes that are either the same or equivalent to other fantasy games. I've played enough final fantasy, as well as Elder Scrolls titles to know that characters should at least have a base role to play from.

Bushido2513 · August 16

Well it's also telling to look at how many assets are reused for skills. These things are supposed to be individual skills yet they reuse animations, effects, and sounds.

Ward is ward combined with the sound and effect of the bird heal. When something like that is considered ok then you kind of see how we're getting what we get as far as class identity.

Not that classes don't feel different, thankfully for the most part they do but there's also very tempting routes to run the same few skills and sets instead of really feeling like you don't have enough bar space because you have so many good choices for different reasons.

katorga · August 16

Rhaegar75 wrote: »

I'm the living proof that Hardened ward is not balanced - I'm a mediocre PvPer at best and on a Magsorc with max mag I simply can't die. I may not kill millions but they can't kill me.

I'm in trouble?...ward up...still in trouble..streak away with Jo the plar and Jimbo the DK miles away behind me. Is this balance?

There are a lot of builds for all the classes where you "may not kill millions, but they can't kill me". That is absolutely not limited to hardened ward sorcs.

Either way, Ward is good, but there are more effective options now, and they don't force you into a maxmag build to optimize ward. Where I find max mag build really, really good, nocp and BGs. There is only one CP star buffing max mag, so you lose very little compared to other builds in nocp play.

Bushido2513 · August 16

katorga wrote: »

Rhaegar75 wrote: »

I'm the living proof that Hardened ward is not balanced - I'm a mediocre PvPer at best and on a Magsorc with max mag I simply can't die. I may not kill millions but they can't kill me.

I'm in trouble?...ward up...still in trouble..streak away with Jo the plar and Jimbo the DK miles away behind me. Is this balance?

There are a lot of builds for all the classes where you "may not kill millions, but they can't kill me". That is absolutely not limited to hardened ward sorcs.

Either way, Ward is good, but there are more effective options now, and they don't force you into a maxmag build to optimize ward. Where I find max mag build really, really good, nocp and BGs. There is only one CP star buffing max mag, so you lose very little compared to other builds in nocp play.

Actually that's not what we're talking about here. The requirement to stay alive on a max mag build is lower because against players that don't have enough damage or understanding you can just use streak, ward, and resource recovery to do things those other classes can't do.

In previous comments I've said other classes can be just as hard to kill 1v1 but it takes a bit more work and understanding to sustain your defense.

Most other classes have to layer defenses while max mag builds can get away with shield spam to some degree or a mix of shield and streak spam.

Also we say forced into a max mag build but that build still comes with some damage that overshadows equally tanky builds. Granted you won't be able to kill each other but a max mag build has higher potential to kill vs an equally tanky build on another class.

I was talking to a friend and we were saying how my less tanky build wouldn't work on say a templar because they don't have the same burst I do to begin with.

Also keep in mind we're talking about not just the build and class but how easy it is to pick up and play.