Maybe the easiest way is too make ward decay more faster depending on the quantity
for example if char have 1500 ward the decay is 50/sec
than 5000 is 150/sec
than 10.000 is 1500 sec
this system will not gave huge (100k+) ward for a long time
and give sorc or lich good minimal ward
can be good idea
That’s what we have at the moment, though they could up the decay rate acceleration.
maybe need make ward decay more huge after some values
much much more than now
and than char have 100k+ ward he will lost 20k (or 50k if need) per second untill reach 10k
Problem with that, is it effects every level. My level 65 mage is struggling for ward as it is. And he’s built with ward retention in mind, almost 350%! So god knows how bad it is at the lower levels.
I’m not a big fan of this, but I do feel they should have gone for diminishing returns. That way the lower levels aren’t punished so much, while at the same time limiting the extreme upper limits of ward at level 100.
Yeah, that’s what I meant. Instead of a static % of ward decay per second, have an increasing percentage per second the more ward you have. Though I’d need to run some numbers to see how much that would be different to what we have at the moment.
The main problem was how much ward you could stack with ward on hit, not the Flame Ward skill. They could have nerfed the ward on hit by 50% and the Mind Flame of spellblade by 50% and further fine tune from there…
With the current itteration of how ward mechanics work for sorcerer, it is better to fully go on traditional defences rather than ward.
What the heck? All my toons have about 900-1.2k HP without stacking HP heaviely. Even with 90% protections and GB the numbers you throw arround are ridiculus against HP. Ward on hit builds generated more ward then some builds were able to leech. Ward offers a ton more eHP still. Sure now you need to take care but you are still able to get a ton of Ward if you go for Ward heavy builds.
The problem with ward is ward gain/leech. Since ward just keeps growing with no cap it is just too much. Ward Retention wasn’t the problem. Ward gain/leech is also still a problem. It doesn’t matter if there are diminishing returns because the ward gain/leech also acts as an almost instant heal. If you can get to 50k ward from gain/leech, you can get hit for 10k and it won’t matter because your next hit/spell will just put you right back to 50k.
Maybe Ward needs a top end cap that is more reasonable. Maybe there needs to be a damage type that bypasses ward. Dunno.
I think a lot of you are missing the bigger picture here, and are focusing only on level 100 characters. Who have perfect gear!
For low level characters, these adjustments are debilitating. And this is where the problem really is! Some of you will say “just add protections to compensate!” Where I ask you? once you have specced into Intel, glancing blow, CSA, Dodge etc there’s no where else to put stuff. Now you’ll say “Just get the new gear for your class” how is a low level character going to get into a level 67 item?
Diminishing returns and a cap for each level would have been better. The diminishing returns would, be less dramatic at lower levels. But to hit the cap at higher levels you would have had to work to get to it.
Or they need to add a new affix for all protections. Though I don’t see that happening seeing as [Increased armour and protection] got nerfed…the one item that could have compensated 
I hope once they have more data, they will make adjustments as needed. And I don’t mean data as in the top leader on the ladder, but more general data from everyone!
I can understand the general Statement that the nerf was from 0 to 100, a little bit harsh. But i leveled 2 chars now with the new patch, one acolyte and one mage.
Especially the mage still felt great with ward, could have 100-200 ward almost permanently and with all Idols slots unlocked and last skill spec slot i now can have 400-500 permanently(+500 Health) at lvl 50, just a few rare items crafted, but nothing fancy.
Let’s see how the devs see this Topic, but i think we may should try to play a few days before hudging to hard
Sorcerer main stat is intelligence, which scales with damage and ward retention.
So choosing ward for EHP is natural choice for any sorcerer. Other classes have other means of upping EHP.
And making ward decay dynamic seems for me right solution, so players that have less then 10k ward for example will see no difference.
Alot of people talk About this and “diminishing return”, but i am not sure if all people know how the ward mechanic work(the formula is even available ingame).
Ward already has some kind diminishing return in it’s amount(decay/sec get larger the more you have)
But further changes and tweaks to the Formula or numbers are surely the Right way to go, as i think the foundational mechanic is good
Maybe the problem is that you keep assuming super high ward is only gotten at max level and gear. You are wrong. I could easily get to 10k ward on a level 50 character with utter garbage gear. Ward gained on hit/leech are way overpowered. Not only is it 10x more eHP than a character actually going HP, the amount you gain back on the next skill use is far more than a non-ward character.
Maybe you should dump Dodge. It is a pretty crap defensive stat anyway. You get CSA purposely to avoid the spiky damage. Then you get dodge over protections, making damage more spiky. Doesn’t really make much sense.
WoW! No idea how you got 10K. As my level 65 Lich, following latest build (Arena 990 build) could only get 4k-5k with Mark of Death and Soul Feast! And all the gear was following guide, with T4 affixs!
Spellblades are still pretty OP when it comes to Ward gains ^^. So far it even looks like they are the main offenders right now.
But we arent TALKING about ward on hit. We’re talking about Sorcerers without WoH mechanics, who used 2k MAYBE 3k rolling Ward as a barrier between them and instant death.
And yes, Ward on hit is STILL too strong. WoH at higher end scaling with the right combos were the problem, not Ward in general.
WoH is even in lower stages totaly OP. At ~300HP I have ~50 WoH without even having the Spellblade mastery. I’m pretty sure I can up this even further. and I’m not even level 20 ^^.
1k hp is less than my Acolyte has, I think maybe the other classes are doing something wrong then?
It’s been a while since I’ve sunk as much time into a RPG, but up to this point it’s been fantastic. I have a lvl 78 mage initially speccing fire/ward, now switched to trying out the new cold & volcanic orb nodes for fun, but my ward is completely useless.
I get that if you’re reaching wave 200+ in arena and having crazy high ward with the impossibility of dying needed balancing, but being struck down on lvl 1 run of monolith is just too much to deal. I’ve found it’s completely unplayable without the constant need and rush of trying to maintain, while the gear won’t make a significant difference either even after a few days of trying (a lot) to rework.
Please find a middle ground - this is very upsetting. And if anyone has ideas on new builds for 0.7.8 on sorcerer that brings enjoyment and some survivability back please share.