Ward as a concept is fine. I’m not against Ward existing. I’m not against Ward being good.
Im just pointing out the ways Ward is inherently flawed and why it has resulted in Ward overperforming at several times the level that it reasonably should.
Never mind what classes are popular. I’m not talking about popularity. I’m talking about Wards sheer power level. Caster classes are always popular, that’s not an issue or part of my point whatsoever.
When I say Ward fiesta, I’m only describing the high corruption metagame, not class popularity. The fact that pushing corruption in this game is simply a matter of managing your eHP bottleneck and Ward generation is leaps and bounds the eHP king.
Yeah, I know you don’t understand. That’s why I’m telling you about it.
Ward’s sheer power level doesn’t come from the absence of a cap. It comes from SPECIFIC INTERACTIONS of SPECIFIC CLASS SKILLS.
Those interactions exist both in low corruption and in high corruption, corruption isn’t a factor. You fix those class skill interactions, and suddenly Ward is in line with Health. Even without a cap.
Mage and Acolyte have those powerful interactions. Only one of those interactions has been nerfed.
The reason you see Ward’s sheer power level, is because more than 50% of ALL PLAYERS is playing builds WITH those powerful interactions.
Ward is overtuned because of its inherent features.
This statement would be true if 1% of players played a ward build. It would be true if 99% of players played a ward build.
It is a statement of truth because of math, not perception, not popularity.
Unless you can show me how a non-ward build gets to 50k+ eHP. I’m all ears.
Also, consider that Sentinel isnt one of your traditional Ward classes, and the strongest versions of it all employ Healing Hands for sheer ward generation. Rogues are also abusing the crap out of Ward because they can, it’s effective and easy.
And yet they are both 11.1% incremental benefit in terms of DR (35 / 31.5 = 1.111 recurring, same for 50 / 45
Ok, 30% less effective, I couldn’t remember but I knew there was a 7 involved somewhere).
And do you know what the incremental benwfit for both instances is? 4.48%, for both (49 / 46.9 = 70 / 67 = 1.0448). Because the game is just applying a 70% multiplier to the DR you get versus non-physical damage.
I’m on my phone & can’t do the mayhs, but I’d be surprised if the incremental eHP gained was always the same for both phys & non-phys.
Yeah, personally I’d fix those outliers then have a look at ward in general so you don’t fuck over the majority of the ward builds that can’t generate 50 trillion ward (which, unsurprisingly, is quite good a protecting from the inevitable one shots at high corruption, so those builds can push further, get more favour/gear/etc more easily).
IMO, the outliers are far too extreme to bring into line with a general ward adjustment that likely would thoroughly bork most other ward builds.
It never should, nor should ward. And ward never reaches those values except by some overtuned skill/class interactions. Which was his whole point. If you remove/nerf those interactions to fall into line, then you’re back to the regular 10k-15k ward is supposed to have. Still strong, but not out of control strong as it is now.
Of course it’s the same 11.1% because I just multiplied both figures by 70%. Hello??
My point Increasing DR by X% does not mean you’re increasing eHP by that amount.
% increase eHP is a truer representation of the stats value so the comparisons should be made with respect to % eHP gains.
If you don’t at least understand this part, I’m sorry but my entire argument hinges on you understanding at least the basics of the relevant math and how it works.
As much as I enjoy debating, I don’t enjoy arguing math when I have to simultaneously give a math lesson while explaining my point to someone who wants to resist understanding the point so I will bow out from here. No offense meant, the math is complicated.
Just read the reddit thread if you want to understand the doubly-diminishing nature of Armor and how it affects eHP.
And my point is that, the very fact that there are several different and independent ways to generate absurd amounts of ward indicate that the root of the problem is how ward functions and not with individual interactions.
If you fix those ward-breaking methods but not the nature of ward generation/decay itself, you leave the door open for ward to get broken again and again.
I totally understand that people don’t want to see fair implementations of Ward to take splash damage from nerfing unfair implementations, so that’s why they want only the worst offenders nerfed.
This is a poor solution because it is a bandaid fix and the problem will not be truly fixed. It will rear its ugly head again because the problem lies with the way Ward functions in the first place.
It needs to be integrated into the formula. Ward decay needs to accelerate even more aggressively than it does now as your ward gains get higher and higher.
Look at the way Armor works, the diminishing returns ramp up more and more aggressively as you gain more of it. Ward decay needs function similarly, to accelerate more rapidly at higher levels of ward.
The goal would be to make it harder to attain the absurd, unfair levels of Ward without making it harder to attain reasonable, fair levels of Ward.
What do you mean? You were saying that it’s only a ward fiesta because caster classes are popular when my point is that ward is too powerful.
That is the most absurd argument I’ve ever heard. You guys will say anything to keep ward overpowered.
The fact that you see A break Ward, B break Ward, C break Ward, and D break Ward, and E, and F and G. And STILL say, “The problem lies with ABCDEFG. Ward formula is fine.” is absolutely insane to me.
Ward was fine pre-1.0. And since ward itself didn’t change with 1.0, that means that the problem is with the interactions. You could do minor adjustments, like armor not mitigating ward, but the real problem really is the skills.
Hopefully the devs learned from this and will be more careful in the future. But you don’t need to change ward that much. There are plenty of other things that could get broken if the devs aren’t careful with the new stuff.
This happens in any game, as can be seen in PoE regularly. It doesn’t mean you need to nerf the core mechanics, just that you need to be careful with your implementation and the options you give players.
So if we have a look at the pre-1.0 builds we’ll still see a preponderance of ward builds 'cause nothing’s really functionally changed with ward for a long time right?
If you allow for interactions that can generate that much ward yes. It’s kinda like the grandfather paradox. Sure, if you go back in time & kill your grandfather before your dad was born then you’d create a paradox, but, what if you don’t? Likewise, what if you don’t create interactions that are able to generate redonculous amounts of ward?
But if you fix the most egregious offenders, you can then take a more light touch approach to balancing ward & hp rather than just nuking ward from orbit & then we go back to the health meta.
It does, yes, but that’s not necessarily a “more complex” formula, you could probably get that just by tweaking some of the variables.
Yeah, have less degen at lower levels of ward & more at higher levels (significantly more at much higher levels).
Currently, prior to 1.0 it wasn’t. Also, the most egregious offenders are the newest shiny (HH & Warlock).
They are, it is inevitable, and when the outliers are “dealt with”, people will bitch to a monumental extent & say that they’re no longer playable (like they did with melee in PoE for years).
Not necessarily. I’m saying it’s very easy for Ward to get out of hand in it’s current state, not that it will always be out of hand.
Again, to compare Ward to defensive layers with proper safety valves.
If someone found a way to generate absurd amounts of Armor, it will still always diminish, doubly for Non-physical and you’ll never get more than 75.0%/52.5% from it.
If someone found a way to generate absurd amounts of Endurance and Endurance Threshold, Endurance is capped at 60% and Threshold is only useful up until whoever much HP you have. You will never get more than 60.0% DR from it.
If someone found a way to generate absurd amounts of Ward, the sky is the limit because unlike other layers, the current design allows it, as we currently can see with several different ways to break it.
In LE, Max Health operates only on two axes: Increased (x) and Added (+).
The safety valves is that there are no Max HP scaling interactions period.
But you’re right, if Max HP ever became something that can be dynamically generated the same way Ward is now, they would absolutely need a safety valve for that mechanism.
Ward basically is already that mechanic. It’s literally just dynamically generated Max HP, without proper safety valves. And it is causing problems.
So yeah, in a way I agree with your sarcastic comment.
I think it would require more complexity to make it so that Ward is unaffected (or even improved) at lower levels of ward generation but with a sharper scaling decay when it gets generated beyond a certain point (maybe using Max HP and/or Ward Retention as a variable).
The Armor formula gives a great example. EHP gains are easy to come by at lower levels of Armor, but the Armor to eHP conversion sharply declines as you gain more and more.
Ward needs to work similarly so that, for example, maintaining double or triple your Max HP in Ward is reasonably easy to come by, 5-10x requires major investment, and 20x or more is impossible. Not necessarily these exact figures but you get the idea.
Fixing the bad offenders and leaving the door open to new bad offenders is a short-sighted solution. Nip it in the bud now, make it abuse-proof for once and for all, like Armor and Endurance.
Ward is so much better than health, it makes me wonder if the intent of the devs is that in the end game players eventually move away from health and into ward as just a part of progression.
