Health-based Hardened Ward for stamsorcs

StaticWave

I personally would be in favor of a spell/weapon damage scaling Hardened Ward, but this new change might be for stamsorcs. It's still not going to be a boost to our damage, but given how Blood Magic also scales off max HP, this could solve our survivability issue.

I used to run a 40k HP build half a year ago with Asylum SnB + Absorbed Missile and Hardened Ward for giggles and it honestly was pretty decent against ranged players. The total shield value was around 16k in CP (9k Absorbed Missile and 7k Hardened Ward), which put the build at 56k effective HP. I didn't use Bone Shield because Asylum SnB was just god tier magicka sustain and I could alternate between Absorbed Missile and Hardened Ward for days. I didn't really need to use Vigor that often because I would constantly get 4k+ Blood Magic heals from casting Crytal Weapon, and the Absorbed Missile was just perfect against ranged players, especially if you were below 50% HP as the burst heal would bring your health back up.

If the new Hardened Ward HP scaling is as well as magicka scaling, then you can expect a 12-13k Hardened Ward on top of a 9k Absorbed Missile AND another 4-5k heal from the secondary effect. That would give you over 20k of shield value and bump your effective HP to over 60k. With that much HP, I think stamsorc's survivability will be decent.

With that said, we can't ignore the draw backs of this new change. We're still going to lack damage from sacrificing max offensive resources for max HP. The new buff to Wrecking Blow and Mistform might give us back our damage, but we'd have to wait for the final PTS notes. Furthermore, shield builds that scale with max HP are, unfortunately, quite reliant on Asylum SnB or stacking 2k+ regen for both resources. This means you're probably going to lack bar space for the abilities you want. You might have to drop Vigor or Streak but that shouldn't be a problem if you can sustain the new Hardened Ward.

A step in the right direction, but could be improved.

Turtle_Bot

the shield scaling is an either/or scale, not both, but yes it is an improvement for the class. Just wish they hadn't given out a budget streak option to every other class in the same patch..

StaticWave

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

the shield scaling is an either/or scale, not both, but yes it is an improvement for the class. Just wish they hadn't given out a budget streak option to every other class in the same patch..

Yea, it's either HP or Magicka. Not gonna benefit magsorc, but stamsorcs will definitely benefit since they can run 40k+ HP and stack weapon damage.

Thecompton73

I still find it confusing that people are looking at the classes through mag and stam lenses anymore. Building all into one or the other is just gimping yourself the way things work now. The most effective sorcs running around currently are using staffs and curse with crystal weapon and bound armaments while running around 34K health, so is that a stamsorc or a magsorc?

StaticWave

Thecompton73 wrote: »

I still find it confusing that people are looking at the classes through mag and stam lenses anymore. Building all into one or the other is just gimping yourself the way things work now. The most effective sorcs running around currently are using staffs and curse with crystal weapon and bound armaments while running around 34K health, so is that a stamsorc or a magsorc?

Hybrid, a class of its own lol.