ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Items with wards are rather annoying to use, making it granting a sustain would solve that and make warded staffs of wizardry into a rather interesting item

that seems rather overpowered even if it is only for certain elements

I ignore wards altogether because they just seem like such a pain to use. Is there any way we could modify them so that they would be less annoying without being too powerful?

I'm in favor of getting rid of wards entirely.

This game has far too many elements and I think it's better if the focus is on improving the core elements instead of having an increasingly diverse collection of minor things which don't function terribly well.

Gotta admit I don't even bother with wards cause they're so awkward to use. Maybe we should start calling them Awk-Wards.
Making them instant use or giving a longer duration might help things a bit.

Maybe not a sustain, but to have a ward regeneration (1 new ward every 3 or 4 turns for instance) would be a good boost.
Maybe with a regeneration rate depending on the level.
But yes, presently wards are rather useless.

I don't know if it's that they're useless.

It's more a case of requiring so much effort to use (well) that practically anything works better. Which... is bad?

Okay - is good point. First answer seems "get rid of wards, they're basically useless". All it'll mean is that certain magical items wont' seem cooler than they are by having a "benefit" that basically means nothing. Easy answer with clear benefit.

With that as the baseline, is there anything we'd *like* to do with wards that would be an improvement on "no wards"? What's the point of wards, anyway? As far as I can tell, they're not meeting it now, whatever it is, but what was it supposed to be?

The purpose seems to be survivability against burst damage... so maybe offer a critical damage reduction or shrug off % against the applicable damage types? Would the game's code even support that?

Could make them a semi permanent buff.
eg. You activate Ward and select an element. This give you the Ward effect for unlimited duration for the maximum number of wards allowed. Instead of having the effect end when all the wards are used up, it would remain and slowly recharge back to your maximum allowed wards for that element.
Should you loose the ability to use Ward, or your maximum allowed wards for the current element becomes zero, the effect is removed.

Make it like the Deflection talent for Doomed, but applying to all damage from a single attack of a single element? That sounds far more useful!

Bone shield is *strong*. Element-specific Bone Shield (which is pretty much what this sounds like) can also be awfully strong. What if instead of soaking all of the damage of the attack, it soaks some percentage? +50% resist for a few hits (regenerating naturally) could still be pretty handy.

Sirrocco wrote:Bone shield is *strong*. Element-specific Bone Shield (which is pretty much what this sounds like) can also be awfully strong. What if instead of soaking all of the damage of the attack, it soaks some percentage? +50% resist for a few hits (regenerating naturally) could still be pretty handy.

It wouldn't just be strong, it'd be overpowered.

The first thing is that a it would knock out an enemies most powerful attack, which is something often cast first. If they didn't cast their most powerful thing first, they'd have wasted a turn on a weaker attack which would leave them vulnerable to a crippling hit.

It effectively eliminates the advantage of a lot of builds. I think making it like bone-shield creates a lot of balance problems.

The 50% resist idea is okay but again, to reiterate my earlier point, I just think it's overly-complicated. Why not just make resist gear more readily available? This seems to be a byproduct of "losing focus" on the game's core gameplay.

Delmuir wrote:I don't use wards, therefore nobody else uses wards.

Wards are pretty much the core of my dark crypt survival strategies on nightmare (blight absorption) and they're mandatory for Temporal Wardens (smeared damage absorption). A staff of warding is an important part of my toolkit and I find myself switching damage types fairly often via command staff, when taking on dangerous enemies.

Light wards for luminous horrors to absorb the initial searing light volley.
Arcane wards for oozing horrors to negate mana clash damage.
Lightning wards for Urkis.
And so on.

But, while we're on the topic of wards, it would be a huge help if the ward skill did not reset its cooldown every time you switch weapon sets.

Getting your max allowed wards to be the same as Bone Shield would require a good staff and charm.
Also, Ward only blocks one damage type, not all like Bone Shield.
Any enhancement to Ward is not likely to match Bone Shield in power.