Avoiding Oneshots: Looking at 3.15's Ward Mechanic - Path of Exile Expedition POE
158#POE #Ward #3.15
Ward: Superficially like ES but not the same
- Where ES protects against all non-chaos hits until depleted, Ward protects against one hit. Hopefully, the big one. It’s then turned off for “a few seconds”.
- No interaction with damage over time. This is a good thing given Ward’s other mechanics except against the rare monster skill that functions like Essence Drain (a small hit to ruin your Ward, then a big DOT).
- No (known) interaction with chaos damage. ES is bypassed by chaos. Ward is not known to.
- Numbers seem higher than comparable ES bases. Level 28 required Runic Greaves have 21 base Ward, there are no ilvl 28 ES boots, but they’d be close to 19 ES based upon the progression. At higher level, Hubris Circlets give 76 ES at level 69, while the level 68 Runic Crown base gives 137 Ward.
Where is it poor?
In content like blighted maps where you take lots and lots of tiny hits, or on builds that do small amounts of self-damage. Here, the small hits will ‘waste’ your Ward and it won’t be up when you need it.
Where is it great?
Against bosses that hit seldom but hit hard; on builds that are vulnerable to being oneshot but have a lot of dodge/evasion/block style probabilistic defences, and especially on builds that might like an ES buffer as extra EHP but that use mechanics like Acrobatics, Immortal Ambition or Blood Rage’s self damage that don’t work well with ES.
Thought experiment: How good is a trillion Ward? Compared to the same amount of armour, evasion or ES?
How do you scale it?
- Presumably the mod “100% Increased Global Defenses” found on Grasping Mails and Skin of the Loyal/Lords will work on Ward (this is not confirmed)
- The unique helm Faithguard causes increases and reductions to max ES to instead apply to Ward. I believe (not confirmed) that this applies both to %ES on the passive tree, and local ES like the implicit mod on a Crystal Belt.
- There will without a doubt be a lot of new items not yet revealed that will help with this too.
- What will be essential is local +flat Ward modifiers.
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