Lulz sounds like we simply need a lot of tiney mobs that do little dmg are CC immune and tanky as hell to not get oneshot to put Ward in line :D. Okay that’s an attempt as well ^^.
Which seems like they are already in the game and the OP said he was scared to meet in the arena (the ones that throw axes)… which he overcome not by ward being to powerful (in fact he had to kite them!!!) but with abusing movement speed. To be honest to me after reading his post carefully seems like it was only because of his insane move speed that he managed to successfully refill his insane ward pool and reach such high arena score.
Sure idols are bugged (and they will get fixed) and with fixing them probably no one will be able to get 200% move speed with the bee sword (due to not being able to stack so much high wards)… so… the problem isn’t only that the idols stacking is bugged? Maybe we should fix one thing at time, and see after the idol stack fix how things goes.
Ive had 5k each orotection and massove healing. Didnt push to wave 600 little mobs killed me
But have you read OP post? He had to do a lot of kiting and you also said in your very own video that you have to kite using that build? 
Nowhere in the OP post he said that he jumped in the middle of thousands mobs and survived, instead he carefully had to plan each action.
So that isn’t that a problem of:
- ranged survivability (or mid range) vs melee
- the lack of a “oh shit button” for melee classes (the only close skill is Rebuke but it has limitations)
- the lack of a mobility skill for melee to get out of such a situation
rather than ward being to powerful?
I doubt 70k ward would have saved him if he tried to go melee in the same scenario you just died with 5k protections. NO WAY. And if you think about it you would realize that 70k ward wouldn’t have saved you neither. So the problem is not ward being too OP here.
This argument has changed course to many times for me to keep track. I never said ward is OP. I simply was pointing out to someone who had disagreed with 70k ward being better than armour amd protections that in the case of spellblade ward stacking IS better and its been proven in the arena. I’m not trying to argue with anyways just wanted to say that armour amd protections is very useful amd typically better I have a video stating this, but thats not always the case
Yes I agree that the discussion on this topic has touched several other arguments, but in my opinion they were still relevant on the topic which is if ward stacking needs a nerf since it is way superior to armor and protection.
While being able to top a ladder is indeed one of the thing to consider, I think that using the ladder position as ultimate way of defining which system is better (or more importantly if the two systems are not balanced), or if wards needs a nerf or not is taking some other important aspects out of the analysis, like:
- player skills
- the rng in waves generation
- if such build has used unintended mechanics or just discovered a synergy that the developers didn’t want to implement and is then going to be changed soon.
- if one of the play styles associated with the system (wards are usually for casters and protections for melee) is outperforming due to lack of synergy with other skills in the tool set or the lack of other side defense-offense mechanism.
And i think this is the reason while this thread derailed a lot… it is because we can’t just take ladder as the only deciding factor and we have to take in consideration a bigger scenario rather than the single performance of @marc7694
Just to wrap it up my thoughts as well:
- is multipicative idol stacking intended or not? If not maybe this is the only issue we are having here
- how much movement speed was relevant in that performance? If we fix problem 1, probably it won’t be possible to abuse the Bee sword anymore so we can fix this as well without the need to change how the unique works
- is it also that ranged characters have an easier life than melee? if this is one of the factors fixing idols will just solve part of the problem… but then there will be the need to fix melee tool set as well.
- EHP numbers are only useful as an indication of single instance of damage and they can’t be taken as only indicator to define the validity of one defense system in comparison to the other.
I also think I will temporarily end it here, since it was not my intention to discuss neither. I simply wanted to point out some things that for me are important to be taken in consideration. And thanks for the time you spent replying me.
The idol is most suppose to give an additional percentage not a multiple % cant possibly have been intended but cant confirm.
As for move speed @foe pushed the ladder to 665 not using the humming bee so speed ismt necessary as teleport can be used instead
This entire thread is pointless as soon as they fix the idol as the idol ward is the only reason for this happening. Also earlier someone mention kiting. Whem I took my werebear to 486 i had to kite mobs to. Even with 95% resistance I could not face smash if 4 spawn points of blood chimeras or poison spiders came in. There was alot of charging around.
Also, to be pedantic, ward is for int casters not all casters. The sentinel’s spells use attunement which gives elemental protections, and I think the primalist’s spells use attunement as well.
Well you are telling me that just because a character main attribute is not intelligence he can’t stack int and ward retention on idols and go full ward? Just because INT it is not it’s first stat doesn’t mean you can’t build around wards anyway (assuming you have access to them).
Devs confirmed “Shrewd” idols being multiplicative is fixed in 0.7.7 - it’s 100% unintended
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Thank you for the heads up!
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No, but all other things being equal, an int caster will get a lot more out of it than an attunement caster. The former gets damage and defence from a single stat while the latter would be forced to choose between damage (attunement) and defence (int) if going ward.
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Additionally there will be no intelligence on the tree for attunement casters. Sorc/Spellblade have ~20 int on the tree, lich has like 70+ - that’s all damage and ward gen that’s easily accessible.
While they have an advantage this doesn’t mean you can’t make a viable build regardless. Paladins are an incredible example on how yo can make ward useful for an attunement character going with a mixed defense between protection, wards and block. I would like to add more but I think we are really going off topic here.
This was exceptional Marc. You’re raising the value of the property around here! Good job.
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Thank you so much, for the kind words <3. I think we really got a good dicussion going here, with a lot of different viewpoints. I must say, that i am really looking forward to the next patch, to see what get changed. The developers (no doubt), have more information that we do - so since the community is still quite small, there may be some hidden things, that is still not discovered :)!
marc, what’s ur trick to doing a lot of damage with spellblade???
i tried out all the skills, i’m basicly doing the same thing u r doing attack speed, triple cast… the usual, and i can stack more ward…
i’m smart enough to walk/teleport around and not get hit by a lot of axemen, what i cannot do is get my spellblade to do a ton of damage… and no one i know has got this figured out… do u have a solution?
fyi, i did more damage after i equipped plaguebearer… 
I Will be honest, i dindt do a whole Lot to scale my damage. My Damage in the build was very low. I only relied on enchant wep, shatter strikes recast and attack speed in the passive points. Besides that, i just scaled All the attack speed and int i could get om gear.
omg… i just save scummed a whole lot more to figure out a way to do some more damage… no luck at all!!! it’s… it’s… so low~~~~~ what do i do… do u think manastrike with that lightning node and/or that static thing can do some decent damage???