General Discussion - Ward-DoA or useful? - Forum - Path of Exile (2024)

Looks like Expedition is introducing a new gear based defense mechanism, ward. I'm surprised that I don't see any discussion about that yet, but I'm curious to see what people think about it.

I'm expecting that it'll see some very limited use, perhaps on one or two pieces of gear where you could reasonably sacrifice evasion or ES for it. Because it'll no doubt have to be paired with maxed evasion, or very rarely with combination of high block and meat shield.

But it might be DoA. The probable lack of scaling, as the only thing that will scale will probably be some new local modifiers and rare "increased global defenses" mod, and base ranges seem even lower than ES so far.

It depends on the amount and scaling.

I think Ward may be very powerful as a layer in addition to block, and even more powerful as an additional layer to dodge, Kintsugi and Wind Dancer - especially as a Raider, with additional chance to dodge and MORE multipliers to evade as well as reduction in enemies accuracy.

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Saevan wrote:

I'd say DoA for one reason. Any hit you take disables it for 5 seconds, so even if you get a minor hit for a fraction of the ward amount, it's gone. 5 seconds is forever in PoE. If they want it to be useful it needs to be active until the ward amount is used up, then it can regenerate.

You'll still have Fortify and Guard skills, with a duration similar to those 5 seconds. Ward will be a nice addition to CWDT+guard skill setups.

It's another layer designed for avoidance builds (block, EV, dodge). It all depends on the scaling and the amount needed.

it works either of 2 ways, one is that it is a sort of leech esk, dealing damage fills your ward and it absorbs all the damage (last epoch stile) or it works like the bastion of elements ascendancy and absorbs xdmg but wont recharge while you have it up (i think it recharges but takes significant longer than when it would have been depleted) in the end i assume it will be a broken mechanic because for all its worth what they have showed sofar, if you play life builds it effectifly increases your hp like ES but without the downside of penetrading your ES and you still can have ES meaning its 3 hp pools, should be easy for templars to have hybrid but we will see in the end

as a quick edit: i would say it works like in last epoch as already quite a few things are straight up stolen of diablo 2 , not that it is a bad thing. but if you already take good stuff of other games, why not also the ward system of last epoch as it is also a pretty good system there

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pr13st wrote:

With the new ailment situation its pretty dead or superniche, like focus.

We don't really know what the "new ailment situation is" yet, and comparing a passive base defense like ward to and active multi-purpose skill like focus does rattle my goat balls a little bit, but I'll let it pass since it's you.

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Phrazz wrote:

It depends on the amount and scaling.

I think Ward may be very powerful as a layer in addition to block, and even more powerful as an additional layer to dodge, Kintsugi and Wind Dancer - especially as a Raider, with additional chance to dodge and MORE multipliers to evade as well as reduction in enemies accuracy.

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Saevan wrote:

I'd say DoA for one reason. Any hit you take disables it for 5 seconds, so even if you get a minor hit for a fraction of the ward amount, it's gone. 5 seconds is forever in PoE. If they want it to be useful it needs to be active until the ward amount is used up, then it can regenerate.

You'll still have Fortify and Guard skills, with a duration similar to those 5 seconds. Ward will be a nice addition to CWDT+guard skill setups.

It's another layer designed for avoidance builds (block, EV, dodge). It all depends on the scaling and the amount needed.

I might be missing something, but if you scale up ward to 1000 hp for example, and taking a hit of 10 disables it, what is the point? It might be good for single boss fights, where all hits tend to be relatively hard, but I can't see neglecting evasion, armour or ES for it. If that boss has minions, then we are back to it being pretty pointless, imo.

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Saevan wrote:

I might be missing something, but if you scale up ward to 1000 hp for example, and taking a hit of 10 disables it, what is the point? It might be good for single boss fights, where all hits tend to be relatively hard, but I can't see neglecting evasion, armour or ES for it. If that boss has minions, then we are back to it being pretty pointless, imo.

In a high EV+dodge build, it isn't useless in conbination with guard skills and fortify. Is it niche? Sure. But don't view Ward as an alternative to other defenses. If you do that, it's useless. But a high EV+dodge character doesn't get hit that often, and you'll still have your other layers.

The problem here will be finding the sweetspot.

And yes, again; it IS niche, but I don't think it's DoA.

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Phrazz wrote:

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Saevan wrote:

I might be missing something, but if you scale up ward to 1000 hp for example, and taking a hit of 10 disables it, what is the point? It might be good for single boss fights, where all hits tend to be relatively hard, but I can't see neglecting evasion, armour or ES for it. If that boss has minions, then we are back to it being pretty pointless, imo.

In a high EV+dodge build, it isn't useless in conbination with guard skills and fortify. Is it niche? Sure. But don't view Ward as an alternative to other defenses. If you do that, it's useless. But a high EV+dodge character doesn't get hit that often, and you'll still have your other layers.

The problem here will be finding the sweetspot.

And yes, again; it IS niche, but I don't think it's DoA.

I suppose that Raider might be only class that will be effectively able to use ward without hundred ex or mirror tier investments, because with the evasion chance bonuses she gets from Onslaught ascendancy line, she can cap evasion for 90%+ time using Kintsugi, Wind Dancer and Stibnite flask while still leaving some gear slots for ward.