If the Haze nerf couldn't wait, a Ward strength increase can't wait. It's simple and practical.

[Triyton]

<DIV> <DIV>We all know Ward strength per power spent needs to be much higher than the healing per power spent of HoTs or Reactive heals because of the lack of armor mitigation, but instead it is less.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Now we have to wait one more update for combat to be fixed, and another update after that for wards to be fixed and priests to be balanced.  And NOW they have nerfred the Haze line of debuffs on top of that, making Mystics go from bad to worse.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>if they couldn't wait to nerf Haze, they absolutely cannot wait to improve the strength of wards.  Even if the eventually fix(es) of wards are totally different, there must be some sort of measure taken first.  Normally one would not make an interim fix but:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>1):  Wards and thus Mystics have been broken from the beginning and the fixes keep getting pushed back.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>2):  A large part of the problem in the current state of things can be traced to this <U>specific</U> item.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>3):  If something isn't done quickly even more Mystics may quit, delete their characters, or at a minimum stop playing them.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I would suggest a 35% increase in ward strength per point of power used.  I seriously doubt that is too much considering the extremeness of the current problem.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This would provide a simple, practical fix for Wards/Mystics to bridge the (6 weeks?) until a final fix occurs.</DIV></DIV>

[Ot]

<DIV>35% means jack really</DIV> <DIV>Raid buffed tank can get over 70% mitigation. PLus with current code (not absolutely sure) damage that goes thru last chunk of ward has mitigation of ward. So if you get a nasty hit of let say 5k (those are common) first you get screwed on 35% ward efficieny then you need to heal the remaining part that got past ward and that part is bigger damage than it would be without ward. IF anything i would rather have them fix wards to work. Temprorary fixes have usually unexpetedly long lifespan</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Homj]

Even if wards will work after armor mitigation, we still far behind druids and clerics against casters. And wards dont work against special attak. <div></div>

[Arfiniel]

<P>I still say they should take the HP amount of the ward and add it directly to the target's HPs.  Then AC gets factored in as the ward is whittled away.   <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>Of course that wouldn't work quite right with the group ward /sigh.</P>

[Triyton]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Arfiniel wrote:<BR> <P>I still say they should take the HP amount of the ward and add it directly to the target's HPs.  Then AC gets factored in as the ward is whittled away.   <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>Of course that wouldn't work quite right with the group ward /sigh.</P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>These things , except for the one above, don't say whether I have a good basic idea or not.  They just point out other problems with wards.  The whole point is that something must be done <U>now</U>, we can no longer wait for the permanent fix.  if it had turned out to be one component of a permanent fix who would be surprised, it was already part of the problem.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The above is an interesting idea, for the long-term solution.  They could no longer be called wards at all, and they would be even less like reactives than making wards post-mitigation.  Group heals come from a group power-pool right?  It should work, or if for some reason it doesn't I'm sure something could be worked out.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Spag]

<DIV>What needs to be done is add mitigation to the wards.  Increasing the overall HP of a ward is not the answer, and possible considered overpowering.  Our wards would be just as effective on a tank as they would be a mage, or ourselves.  Remember we dont want to be better than the other classes, we want to be equal.  Currently the other classes have mitigation taken into context with the damage they are healing.  We should simply have the same, anything else and its playing with fire. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Once mitigation is in place, things should be closer to equal.  I am ok with the wards being of lower HP value than the same quality/level regen or reactive, because a ward scales exactly to the damage of the mob, where as the reactive only scales to the # of attacks the mob is putting out without regards to damage although it does scale in this relation, and Regens dont scale at all.  Fixed HP over fixed amount of time.  Once the ward has its mitigation it will be the best class specialty "heal" in the game, so it needs to be offset with a lower HP.</DIV>

[Spag]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Triyton wrote:<BR> <BR> <DIV>Group heals come from a group power-pool right?</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>This is something else that potentially needs to be looked at.  Both the group reactive and group ward are pool of HP which can be fully utilized by one player, and can scale out to multiple players.  This effectively makes them a bigger HP reactive or ward.  However the group regen does not work this way.  It is a set amount of HP per player over a set amount of time.  This is a serious imbalance between the classes.  Since wards do not take mitigation into effect and the group ward only lasts about 20 seconds, its not a big deal, but the Cleric group reactive is.  Of course once mitigation is added (or if) the group ward will be better than the reactive, as it scales, and the druid group regen will still be as useless of a spell as ever.  Right now its really only used to heal all party members once out of combat, if more than one player is damaged.</DIV>

[Kalam]

<P>I've never thought the game developers ever intended group heals and group wards to work the way they do now.  The Druid group regens back up my thoughts to a certain extent.  I was honestly suprised when I found out group heals and wards were pooled.  It just didn't make sense to me.  I'd bet that this is but another oversight by spell developers that wasn't (and still hasn't been) caught.  I might be wrong and they're working as intended, but I really don't think so.</P> <P> </P>

[Banditman]

Actually I think they know how group Wards and Reactives work, they simply can't come up with a reasonable way to balance it. Not that we've actually seen a lot of balancing wizardry to this point, but you know what I mean. <div></div>

[Triyton]

<P>You want a group heal to come from a central power pool.  Think of a regular heal.  One person has a lot of damage, two others have moderate, and three have little to none.  You don't want half the healing to go to the three that have little to no damage.</P> <P>it is the same for a group ward.  What good is it for 1/6th of the power to be devoted exclusively to protecting  party members that aren't being attacked?  Since it comes from a group power-pool, the protection can go to whomever needs it.</P>

[Spag]

<DIV><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Triyton wrote:<BR> <P>You want a group heal to come from a central power pool. </P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Of course thats what we want, its the most usefull way of having a group ward/heal.  I am simply saying that wards and reactives work this way, where as regens do not.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> <HR> Triyton wrote:<BR> <P> What good is it for 1/6th of the power to be devoted exclusively to protecting  party members that aren't being attacked? </P> <HR> </DIV> <P>Exactly my point on regens.</P>

[Banditman]

An interesting coding idea for regens would be: Total regen = (Z x number of party members) per tick, number of ticks is set by the spell. Each INJURED member of the party gets (Total Regen / # of Injured) players per tick. In this way, an uninjured player actually allows his regen to be divided among remaining injured players. It'd be a tough coding job, but that would be nice. <div></div>

[Spag]

<DIV>That is about the only way it would be on par with the other group heals.  </DIV>