Healing Ward / Ward Ally need a serious change

Koensol

Both these morphs need a serious change to become useful again, because in no cp the max you will get out of it at 1% is like 5k health on most builds. It serves no real purpose at all anymore, compared to dampen/harness, whereas it used to be a way to recover from burst and get out of execute range while hots are rolling.

Current healing ward actually has good healing, but it is literally only worth using if you can cast it right before entering LoS while having no dots on you, or when activating cloak right after. It literally vanishes in 1 gcd otherwise. Ward ally used to be nice to have in a group with brp resto (even though brp resto is overtuned), but when someone enters execute range you simply cannot ward them through the dmg of a player spamming execute. Heck, even 1 single jabs spammer can outdamage your ward even if you spam it. It is just utter garbage right now.

Some classes like magblade (builds with dark cloak) and also magden relied on this ward to help them get out of execute range after being burst. Every mag class now has access to a powerful hot with rapid regen, but not every class has access to a burst heal/strong shield to recover from burst. This for example causes magblades to heavily migrate to the cloak spam playstyle. Magdens also heavily suffer from the recent nerfs to heal ward/ward ally.

So what else do you have? Dampen magicka? Even with close to 40k mag (which is quite a bit in no cp) you still only have like a ~8k shield which is very expensive and simply weak compared to the effort you have to put in to reach that value. Imagine the value of it on builds not focussing on max mag sets. And I didn't even speak of harness magicka yet, which is just infinitely more trash.

Again, I don't know how it translates to cp pvp, but in no cp it definately needs a boost. I'm not saying straight up revert the changes, but it needs something. The current version isn't cutting it and it is hurting build diversity. By all means nerf the *** out of blackrose resto. The ability shouldn't have to suffer because of some broken arena weapon.

WillhelmBlack

All I can do is agree because you've explained it perfectly. Hopefully when people stop buying Turdmire the combat team will consider giving it a small but necessary buff.

Waffennacht

In NO CP shields aren't worth much at all as you've pointed out.

They're curving to stats lower than heals and no longer have any advantage over a heal/HoT

In No CP the investment to get a mediocre shield is high, too high imo.

I agree with the above comments

Maulkin

It's a tricky subject. I agree, the skill alone is currently rubbish. But that was their way of balancing not only the BRP resto effect, but also the Sorc triple shield stack. If they are to significantly buff the skill, something else will have to change and I don't think there's much willingness to experiment there from ZOS' part.

Imo they should revert the shield size increase to up to 300% in low health, while considerably nerfing the heal to 11% of the shield strength per sec. With the BRP resto reducing the skill’s cost and buffing the heal to 22%. But not granting blanket Major Vitality that makes all the heals you take from all sources start to tick redonkulously high.

Additionally, they should finally introduce a total shield cap at 100% of HP to avoid the triple or quadruple shield stacking (along with Iceheart or Psijic Passive etc.). You put on a new shield that brings your total shield size higher than 100% HP? It should chip away from your oldest shield to keep the total on par with your HP. That would rarely affect other classes than triple-stacking magSorcs, keeping them in line.

Though like I said, I'm not sure they want to nerf BRP weapons yet or start messing again with shield caps. I have little faith in them having the will to do that.

Rianai

Even on cloak (shadowy disguise) spamming builds healing ward is very underwhelming currently, because it often disappears within a single gcd between casting the ward and cloak and before the healing actually starts ticking, so it is better to just cast rr followed by cloak - saves bar space and magicka and is a lot more reliable - as long there aren't other players nearby ...

brandonv516

Better defensively to cast Dampen Magic and follow up with Rapid Regen than use Healing Ward anymore.

Jaxaxo

Except that 40k magicka dampen is actually ~8k i totally agree with everything

Koensol

Jaxaxo wrote: »

Except that 40k magicka dampen is actually ~8k i totally agree with everything

RIP, massive brainfart on my part there. Edited OP.

Jaxaxo

It's weird, cuz the bonus from light armor isnt shown in skill tooltip, even after using skill (which have place with mag return from harness, after casting it shows actual magicka return)

OG_Kaveman

You all know healing ward/ward Ally also scales with spell damage right? So I am not really sure what no cp has to do with it.

Maulkin

OG_Kaveman wrote: »

You all know healing ward/ward Ally also scales with spell damage right? So I am not really sure what no cp has to do with it.

Bastion?

Solariken

All shields are kinda trash right now in no-CP. An adjustment I'd like to see is allow shield size the "crit" just like heals do.

Sergykid

so in CP is very useful, and in no CP is useless. Why do you think this? because Bastion CP?

if yes, a solution will be to nerf Bastion and buff the base skill. Enough math to keep the same value in CP but have higher value in no CP

Kadoin

If life giver still auto-cast it, I don't know about buffing it...

fred4

As a magblade I agree. I am really struggling to defend, even with Blackrose resto, when Cloak is not working. Templar is IMO ridiculously overtuned vs magblade. It's fine that there should be counters to cloak and it's fine that Sweeps / Jabs should have high damage due to how clunky the skill is. I've played templar and know it is not (as) OP against other classes. Still, I have an issue with a spammable (Sweeps) that has a 12K unbuffed tooltip in any middle of the road build, that is also an AOE, that also heals, that frequently crits me (in CP) for 2K+ per hit and that procs Burning Light on top.

(A cloaking) magblade has not had good defenses for a very long time outside of mobility. What bugs me about this is that Toppling Charge and one to two Sweeps can kill me and it's not an ultimate combo, it's just a gap closer and a spammable. You might say "build tankier", but it's not really an option, if you want to do damage. Magblades, tell me you can get Swallow Soul or Concealed to 12K, like Sweeps, and what it took to get there. If that includes Soul Harvest, let me remind you that templars have an equally cheap ultimate that deals additional damage at the same time as their other skills.

When people were crying about shield-stacking sorcs, magblades were just getting by. A long time ago magblades were the kings of attacking while healing. That was when cloak made everything crit, when Funnel Health could double-crit and so on. Sometimes ZOS consciously balance things. Somtimes they fix bugs, seemingly without a second thought, even though that results in huge balance changes. Those crit changes nerfed magblade healing and they relied on Healing Ward ever since. There is still a healing while attacking theme with Siphoning Attacks. It's just not very strong. Other classes seem to do it better, particularly magden.

OG_Kaveman

Maulkin wrote: »

OG_Kaveman wrote: »

You all know healing ward/ward Ally also scales with spell damage right? So I am not really sure what no cp has to do with it.

Bastion?

Bastion has always been a bad way to lower damage taken, considering that the cp nodes that lower damage, also lower damage on shields, no idea why people use bastion at all. Healing Taken is better in that tree.

Koensol

Sergykid wrote: »

so in CP is very useful, and in no CP is useless. Why do you think this? because Bastion CP?

if yes, a solution will be to nerf Bastion and buff the base skill. Enough math to keep the same value in CP but have higher value in no CP

OG_Kaveman wrote: »

Maulkin wrote: »

OG_Kaveman wrote: »

You all know healing ward/ward Ally also scales with spell damage right? So I am not really sure what no cp has to do with it.

Bastion?

Bastion has always been a bad way to lower damage taken, considering that the cp nodes that lower damage, also lower damage on shields, no idea why people use bastion at all. Healing Taken is better in that tree.

It wasn't my point saying shields are fine in CP or anything, I just said I am speaking from a no cp perspective, as that is what I play most of the time and have most experience in.

Maulkin wrote: »

It's a tricky subject. I agree, the skill alone is currently rubbish. But that was their way of balancing not only the BRP resto effect, but also the Sorc triple shield stack. If they are to significantly buff the skill, something else will have to change and I don't think there's much willingness to experiment there from ZOS' part.

Imo they should revert the shield size increase to up to 300% in low health, while considerably nerfing the heal to 11% of the shield strength per sec. With the BRP resto reducing the skill’s cost and buffing the heal to 22%. But not granting blanket Major Vitality that makes all the heals you take from all sources start to tick redonkulously high.

Additionally, they should finally introduce a total shield cap at 100% of HP to avoid the triple or quadruple shield stacking (along with Iceheart or Psijic Passive etc.). You put on a new shield that brings your total shield size higher than 100% HP? It should chip away from your oldest shield to keep the total on par with your HP. That would rarely affect other classes than triple-stacking magSorcs, keeping them in line.

Though like I said, I'm not sure they want to nerf BRP weapons yet or start messing again with shield caps. I have little faith in them having the will to do that.

I like your suggestion tbh. The exact percentages of that heal could be debated, and maybe they should just make it a flat hot added to the shield for a short duration, that is increased in strength by a certain % when using blackrose resto. This would prevent the healing component to become useless when being under heavy pressure as it is now.

All I know is that they cannot remain in their current state. It just doesn't make sense when compared to other defensive mechanics. Heal ward, and especially ward ally serve absolutely no purpose at all in their current state. They are simply too weak to act as a 'life saver' on allies. Like, I try hard to make my magblade useful to a small group (as non-healer spec) and bring utility with things like refreshing path, fear and lotus fan, but if I can't stay in the fight or if I can't get out of execute range when pressured without help from a group mate, I wonder why am I even trying?

JinxxND

Unfortunately with the current combat team who is implementing all these new changes I don't believe they understand how many skills/classes or just the game's combat is supposed to work, the original combat teams design on a lot of things while not 100% balanced on many things had a goal that kept many skills/items usable in different builds that's why healing ward/ward ally are extremely bad now outside of BRP resto use, and why master destruction staves are now useless.

NyassaV

Jaxaxo wrote: »

Except that 40k magicka dampen is actually ~8k i totally agree with everything

healing ward's size is also determined by spell damage so just using a max magicka build won't mitigate any issues with healing ward

srnm

"Every mag class now has access to a powerful hot with rapid regen"

yes but RR is
"Share your staff's life-giving energy, healing you or a nearby ally for 2118 Health over 5 seconds."

So unlike both morphs of vigor, you can cast RR and not receive a heal...

Seems the devs think RR is op so they have to add a random factor to it...

Kadoin

srnm wrote: »

"Every mag class now has access to a powerful hot with rapid regen"

yes but RR is
"Share your staff's life-giving energy, healing you or a nearby ally for 2118 Health over 5 seconds."

So unlike both morphs of vigor, you can cast RR and not receive a heal...

Seems the devs think RR is op so they have to add a random factor to it...

In the dev's eyes, all the builds doing 2-3 shot kills in PvP are mag ones

Emma_Overload

I sick of hearing about the BRP Resto!

They should just remove it from the game instead of balancing the whole game around it.

Emma_Overload

Healing Ward was FINE on the PTS, by the way, until a bunch of crybabies got it nerfed.

Anyron

fred4 wrote: »

As a magblade I agree. I am really struggling to defend, even with Blackrose resto, when Cloak is not working. Templar is IMO ridiculously overtuned vs magblade. It's fine that there should be counters to cloak and it's fine that Sweeps / Jabs should have high damage due to how clunky the skill is. I've played templar and know it is not (as) OP against other classes. Still, I have an issue with a spammable (Sweeps) that has a 12K unbuffed tooltip in any middle of the road build, that is also an AOE, that also heals, that frequently crits me (in CP) for 2K+ per hit and that procs Burning Light on top.

(A cloaking) magblade has not had good defenses for a very long time outside of mobility. What bugs me about this is that Toppling Charge and one to two Sweeps can kill me and it's not an ultimate combo, it's just a gap closer and a spammable. You might say "build tankier", but it's not really an option, if you want to do damage. Magblades, tell me you can get Swallow Soul or Concealed to 12K, like Sweeps, and what it took to get there. If that includes Soul Harvest, let me remind you that templars have an equally cheap ultimate that deals additional damage at the same time as their other skills.

When people were crying about shield-stacking sorcs, magblades were just getting by. A long time ago magblades were the kings of attacking while healing. That was when cloak made everything crit, when Funnel Health could double-crit and so on. Sometimes ZOS consciously balance things. Somtimes they fix bugs, seemingly without a second thought, even though that results in huge balance changes. Those crit changes nerfed magblade healing and they relied on Healing Ward ever since. There is still a healing while attacking theme with Siphoning Attacks. It's just not very strong. Other classes seem to do it better, particularly magden.

Well, you can go for dampen magic with cloak. Dampen is just as strong as hardened ward - so you can now be sorc with cloak.

My hardened ward is at 8,3k with 39k magicka in no-cp and dampen at 8,1k (with 5x light. Its bigger than hardened ward if you wear 7x light.)
Sometimes it just vanishes instantly. But if it is used with cloak it can help a lot.

Luckylancer

Resto staff shield is terrible skill. It is equal to other heals when target have %1 hp. There is only 1 use for this useless skill: procing BRP resto. You give your ally the buff and cast 2-3 breath of lights to heal.

I have no idea how can it be fixed without breaking BRP resto.

fred4

Luckylancer wrote: »

Resto staff shield is terrible skill. It is equal to other heals when target have %1 hp.

I actually don't find that to be true. I went into CP Cyro, let some zombies get me to low health and compared Rapid Regen with Healing Ward on live, last patch, before I had a BRP resto. Healing Ward is significantly stronger at low health, certainly when you have some points in Bastion. With BRP resto added one tick has crit healed me for as much 5K on a low-stat build (30K mag, no spell damage to speak of). The problem is, the ward gets consumed if you take damage. That heal value basically only happens when you manage to cloak away.

fred4

Anyron wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

As a magblade I agree. I am really struggling to defend, even with Blackrose resto, when Cloak is not working. Templar is IMO ridiculously overtuned vs magblade. It's fine that there should be counters to cloak and it's fine that Sweeps / Jabs should have high damage due to how clunky the skill is. I've played templar and know it is not (as) OP against other classes. Still, I have an issue with a spammable (Sweeps) that has a 12K unbuffed tooltip in any middle of the road build, that is also an AOE, that also heals, that frequently crits me (in CP) for 2K+ per hit and that procs Burning Light on top.

(A cloaking) magblade has not had good defenses for a very long time outside of mobility. What bugs me about this is that Toppling Charge and one to two Sweeps can kill me and it's not an ultimate combo, it's just a gap closer and a spammable. You might say "build tankier", but it's not really an option, if you want to do damage. Magblades, tell me you can get Swallow Soul or Concealed to 12K, like Sweeps, and what it took to get there. If that includes Soul Harvest, let me remind you that templars have an equally cheap ultimate that deals additional damage at the same time as their other skills.

When people were crying about shield-stacking sorcs, magblades were just getting by. A long time ago magblades were the kings of attacking while healing. That was when cloak made everything crit, when Funnel Health could double-crit and so on. Sometimes ZOS consciously balance things. Somtimes they fix bugs, seemingly without a second thought, even though that results in huge balance changes. Those crit changes nerfed magblade healing and they relied on Healing Ward ever since. There is still a healing while attacking theme with Siphoning Attacks. It's just not very strong. Other classes seem to do it better, particularly magden.

Well, you can go for dampen magic with cloak. Dampen is just as strong as hardened ward - so you can now be sorc with cloak.

My hardened ward is at 8,3k with 39k magicka in no-cp and dampen at 8,1k (with 5x light. Its bigger than hardened ward if you wear 7x light.)
Sometimes it just vanishes instantly. But if it is used with cloak it can help a lot.

I've played pretty much every variation in CP. I used Dampen + Healing Ward together in the past.

Problem number one is that it more or less forces you into one particular type of a build, e.g. a mag-stacking build. No procs, not a lot of spell damage (if you want sustain), no speed. I do this on my magden.

Problem number two is that you underestimate the power of (a) Streak relative to Cloak (b) shield stacking and/or (c) the burst heal from the Twilight. Streak stuns AND repositions in one skill. I've tried magsorc. It's great. A purely cloaking nightblade that gets into melee range has to build heavily into speed to make Cloak work. Magblade has no one skill that combines a stun with the distance Streak creates in a single GCD. Choosing between RAT, Fear and Healing Ward on a melee magblade in a defensive situation is a real struggle. You're frequently doomed whatever you do. Going straight into Cloak under someone's nose, who knows what they're doing, is not an option.

You may point out that NB has the shade. To that I say: You have to plan it, you're on a timer and you have a range limitation. It pales to Streak. Streak is always available and, while the shade can port you through walls, Streak goes through NPCs and creates LoS that way.

I ended up with a low stat proc build on magblade, because I invest heavily into speed and sustain, including stam sustain. I find this ultimately as effective as having better shields, but more fun. However the binary nature of Cloak is stark. It either works, or it doesn't. When someone, a sorc, a templar with a gap closer, another nightblade, uses a detect potion, you cannot outtank them. I've had builds with closer to 40K magicka, before shields could be crit, and even then Dampen + Healing Ward was not good enough against the best, most aggressive stamblades and magsorcs. Perhaps it shouldn't be. If you could outtank everyone just like that (and sustain it) that would be broken. It is however frustrating just how bad Healing Ward is these days, yet how dependent nightblade is on it. Magden, for example, doesn't have this problem. I use Dampen, Living Trellis and Radiating Regen on that class. Never even had a reason to use Healing Ward. Trellis is better.