I’ve recently put in about 200 hours of hardcore play into LE and have cleared a few empowered monoliths. I have played mostly rogue, druid, and acolyte but I also have a level 68 sorc and 64 paladin. A big take away for me is that strength and dexterity are so much better than int and attunement. This is especially true in early game. My two acolyte characters - a necro and lich both around level 80, whose primary stat is INT, don’t even use ward and I’d say they are in the early end game and mid end game. At which point should ward be accessible for an acolyte? Level 80 seems too high. Even my mage is doing monoliths and his only ward comes from flame ward and teleport. Overall, it just feel like ward is really week early-mid game and even into the late game. It should probably be rebalanced in a way that makes it accessible at an earlier point in the game without making it too powerful in the late end game. If it is being balanced around end game builds requiring specific uniques then it is being balanced around a few outliers and that isn’t a good idea. If one or two outliers items are the reason ward is so weak in early game then those items should be addressed so people can use ward outside of late game monoliths. In terms of power levels for int and attunement, their bonus should maybe be combined into one stat (int) and attunement should provide other benefits. Or int should add less retention while giving some ward per second (2% retention and 1 ward per second per int for example). If attunement gives mana it should also give mana regen or 1% all resist per 4 or 5 points. Just something to make it comparable to str and dex.
There are plenty of builds that can use ward & would benefit from high Int. If you made a necro & lich that didn’t use ward that’s absolutely fine, but there are several that would use ward.
https://forum.lastepoch.com/search?q=%23acolyte%20low%20life%20order%3Alatest
Or a Zombie build that uses them to generate ward, Spellblades can generate a lot of ward as well.
INT builds tend to use an exanguinous, which is NOT target farmable fast enough to get on every build starting out.
Most sources of ward are build specific. The non-build specific are mostly class specific(mage Mana Spent Gained as Ward mage Ward Per Second)
The Exanquinous either needs to be a mono specific/story boss specific/quest item(as while it is drop only it will only get rarer as more uniques are added to the game) or (more importantly) we need decent non-unique non-build specific generation.
note, when ward works it makes the TANKIEST builds in the game
Last Epoch is deliberately optimized for softcore.
Lol it’s not. It’s aimed at fair hardcore without bullshit one-shot mechanics like in PoE.
When did this comment section become about hardcore/softcore? Get back on the topic of how Ward lacks generic generation means and attunement only gives mana.
I have seen tanky ward builds using exsangious. But outside of that one single item, i haven’t seen anything special. For overall game balance it would make more sense to nerf this outlier and make ward overall stronger and earlier accessible.
Most ward generation is build specific, as in the high numbers require you to use very specific setups.
Shatter strike generates 8k ward easy.
There is a zombie setup that has zombies split into a lesser minion and that split into a lesser minion, so that a lot of on minion on death effects occur and you get like 80k ward.
But as these are build specific, they are exceptions to the general rule of how ward is bad even on most int builds.
Also they wouldn’t need to nerf this outlier if the weaker version were a early quest reward( Shroud of Obscurity)
On the topic of buffing generic ward gen
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Mages Flame ward should passively generate ward when off cooldown, with a big burst of ward when used. The nodes that buff the burst of ward should increase the passive ward per second.
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Acolytes rip blood should have its ward generation node moved to the start of the tree instead of requiring 3 wasted points to get to it. This should make it more obvious as an option. Also give one of their starting tree passives a miniature version of the exsanguinous effect
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The other three classes do not use int, but they should probably still be given a reliable ward generation option
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Make ward per second and mana cost gained as ward affixes work for ANY class instead of being mage specific
The Sentinel & Rogue do already have ways to generate ward both via skills & some passives (for the Rogue at least) as well as from items. Not every class needs to be able to use every single defensive option.
But that’s part of what makes a Mage a Mage, that they have easier access to ward generation than most other classes, much like the Sentinel has easier access to block chance & block-related effects than most other classes. IMO that kind of class-flavour should stay as it is, I wouldn’t want every class to be able to utilise every defensive mechanic equally well.
Except acolye is Int based - and thus should have equally viable ward options. If a class stacks int it should have ward as a primary defence.
As I said in post #2 yesterday, Acolytes have ward builds as well (& non-ward builds). You can generate a godaweful amount of ward as an Acolyte (as you went into in more detail than I did, now I’m confused).
But they do. Just like the Str stacking Sentinel has armour as a primary defence. You said yourself that the Acolyte can generate loads of ward. Did you not read your post while you were typing it?
Did I misunderstand this? Do you have multiple personalities like @Heavy/@XLVI_carpo/@TriKster?
Acolyte ward builds require BUILD SPECIFIC skills, which doesn’t help non-minion builds that stack Int(and int stackers should have a means of ward generation). Just because there are builds that have ward doesn’t mean that the class is good for ward in general, it stacks int but doesn’t benefit from int unless it is a specific build - which I find silly.
It is like you are deliberatly missing my point about giving int stackers GENERIC ways to generate ward. BUILD SPECIFIC ways are NOT GENERIC ways.
The acolytes best means for generating ward for a caster build is rip blood, which generates only 15 ward when fully specced AND requires the acolyte to stop using their damage skill.
I want someone to understand that.
EDIT:
Got it. He separates the individual master classes again.
Try to think holistically in terms of a class archetype (just like EHG wants it). 
The zombie setup is a necromancer build that is minion focused and requires mutiple different skills so be specced into - including points on necromancer tree to gain ward on minion death.
Rip blood is obtained at level one
Rip blood can be used on all builds, minion on death only works on minion builds
I wasn’t deliberately missing your point but I was certainly missing it, yes.
I do now understand though I also kinda disagree. 
Apart from the Mage idols that give either mana spent as ward or mana per sec (apparently there’s also a Mage ward on melee hit idol suffix, who knew!) all of their ward generation is what I would class as build specific, it either comes from skills (Flame Ward) or passives (the Spellblade’s mana spent as ward or mana on hit) or class-specific prefixes that do the same kind of thing. IMO the Spellblade has more ways to generate ward on demand, as they should, being a melee archetype, though I’d accept it if you said the Sorc was a bit stuffed in the ward generation stakes.
The Acolyte also has ward generation it’s “just” more themed around the minions (Wisp Weaver) & minions dieing (Reclamation of Souls & Mania of Mortality which also gives ward on enemy death) while the Lich gets a ward on crit node (Darkguard) & ward when you drop below 1/2 hp (does anyone ever take this?). IMO, the Acolyte could do with getting some more non-minion methods of ward generation which could be applied equally to minion & non-minion builds.
Ward from Zombies only “needs” Zombie spec’d, though you do kinda need to pump the minion hp so it’s not really going to be good for a Lich, certainly.
I do not class Flame ward as “build specific” as it can fit into any build due to instant cast properties and being a base class skill.
I Consider the class specific ward prefixes to be class specific rather than build specific - as in any mage that cares about ward will run those affixes. Though I suppose I am partly wrong here as some builds have way cooler affixes for that slot, but even then you would still run ward generation if you cannot get the other prefix you want.
I don’t think that increases to ward generation would prevent no-ward builds from being a thing either, the mage has sources of elemental life leech, The acolyte has leech AND has reaper form(reaper form being a thing that would make any build that runs it forget about ward, so Lich would need to choose between the two if they had decent ward options)
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