Does the ward mechanic feel fun for you?

[Bakau]

Current ward is garbage needs to be reverted.

[T_Hawk]

tl;dr - Ward needs to stay, but it needs a real overhaul. Make it genuinely different than “just a different coloured health bar”.

@nayR

Firstly using ward makes you feel like you have to always rush to maintain it, if you stop to loot or take your time between monster packs you lose EHP every second adding to the constant feel of rush.

I agree completely. Not that I personally think some form of rush/decay mechanic needs to be in place, because I think it does. However, I think it should be in the form of movement speed. ie the faster you move, the quicker it depletes. This way if you are standing still picking up loot, you don’t lose any ward. A scaling factor based on movespeed would be a simple way to keep the decaying mechanic without punishing people that take a second to pick up loot or scratch their ass.

@nayR

Second as a HC player I don’t like the “swingyness” feel of EHP, One second I can feel like a god with 10k EHP and 5-6 seconds later I am in one shot range. Swinging between an absolute tank and a glass cannon all the time does not feel good.

I think the “swinging” feel is actually good. Although I do feel it’s a bit too “swingy”. It simply swings too fast.

The important thing to me is that ward needs to be distinguishable to health. Why pick ward over health? If they add a mechanic like this, it really needs to be different to the alternative and not just feel like a blue health bar. If I choose to go ward over health, then it should come with a distinct risk reward mechanic. Something like immunity to crits, or 100% glancing blow when opting for low life ward build would make more sense.

I think ward should stay. I also think it isn’t in a good place. Give a REAL reason to choose that mechanic, and make it genuinely different then its health counterpart. Currently it just feels like a different coloured health bar that really doesn’t change the way I play the game. And the lack of visual clarity for how much ward I have (or don’t have) makes it feel worse.

[nayR]

@Heavy

Agreed, while it is kinda a unique mechanic never been done before in any similar game and it might be hard to balance and probalby not perfect, it is refreshing.

And as you said even with it’s flaws, i like the foundation.

I do NOT want an “Extension of Health”, that is kinda boring.
While similar systems for example Energy Shield from PoE have it’s place i never felt it was “cool”, just another Name for Health with slighty different basic mechanics.

Ward in LE feels really unique

I agree, I think if they just reduced the cryptic nature of ward that would be good start.

I feel like reducing ward generation whilst increasing ward retention would be a good start.

Hypothetically (not exact maths just concept) swinging between 3-5k ward rather than 1-9k I believe would feel much better.

[Heavy]

I see where you going there, a “more constant/consistent” smaller ward pool.

I guess this whole ward thing can be pretty easily balanced with some number/formula changes.
I think the most important thing is that it’s not getting out of hand like pre-patch where you could basically sustain 10k+ ward almost permanently

[grimlock9999]

@nayR

Firstly using ward makes you feel like you have to always rush to maintain it, if you stop to loot or take your time between monster packs you lose EHP every second adding to the constant feel of rush.

Why I will never use this mechanic.

[Desjardinii]

I view the ward mechanic as another mitigation tool at our disposal. But it is only one part of it. Pre patch, people were able to generate such crazy amounts of ward that there was not any need for any other resistances at all. I am running ward on my Lich build primarily. So for refrence, she is lvl 75 running a low life build with Exanguinous. I have my ward retention at 382%, and in addition to that I run GB at 100%, and I started using the set elemental protection which gave me a total of about 800 resists each, which is about 65% mitigation. I just wanted to put that out there as a reference. Just sitting still, I sit at a steady 1K ward. That is double what my current HP pool is.

Now using my skills to generate ward while I run monoliths or arena I can get up to 2K but a lot depends on the types of mobs that are there. So tie that into my other resists and mitigation that’s a comfortable place to sit (for me at least).

But look at the mechanics in a different light. Say I drop below my 1K ward level, it will regen pretty fast. How much HP regen would I need to get it back to that level? I would need to double my HP pool and my HP regen as well. So its just a different way to play. Overall I am comfortable with where ward is. I wish it would not scale down so fast, but yy the formula, the farther you are from your base HP, the faster it drops, so I get it. I worry a lot less about what my “max” ward is, but more so what I can sustain using ward retention and +ward per sec items. Everything above my 1K is just a buffer for me. I am actually running a lot better now than I was prepatch since I started focusing on resists a bit more, and balancing out my mitigation.