As some of you may know, I’ve been testing Shield WP this week, in addition to earlier scenario tests over the previous weeks. Specifically, I’ve been playing it in Warband to draw more solid conclusions about this WP spec.
The test was around 12 hours of gameplay across all kinds of RvR content: WB vs WB, blob vs blob, small-scale, sieges, forts, and all sorts of skirmishes.
All of these videos are recorded sessions so you can see what I’m describing here. I also want to add: this is not whining—it’s feedback intended to help adjust the class so it becomes playable again.
Click here to watch on YouTube
Click here to watch on YouTube
Click here to watch on YouTube
Click here to watch on YouTube
Click here to watch on YouTube
Gear / stats used for the tests
I used 3 Sov + 3 Warlord + 3 Victorious to maximize survivability and frontline viability: over 10k HP, around 800 Strength, and enough Weapon Skill to pierce some armor. For talismans I tested Strength, Armor, and Toughness. Defensive stats: 20.6% block (+10%), 30.9% parry (+10%), 38% dodge/disrupt. Incoming crit reduction: -5.8%.
Main conclusions
- The only way to produce meaningful healing is Sigmar’s Will. This ability is the core healing source for Shield WP. It can easily heal 1–2k AoE and it’s the only tool that heals enough to keep you alive in the frontline while also supporting teammates. But it has one absolutely massive issue: the 80 RF cost per hit is insanely high, which means you can’t sustain it. To keep using this heal you have to Smite on cooldown to rebuild RF, and even then it’s hard to do cycles like: 3x Sigmar’s Will → 1x Smite → back to 100% RF → repeat. The moment you’re out of RF (not enough enemys to hit, or Smites blocked/defended) and can’t use Sigmar’s Will, you and your party are dead, because you can’t heal enough to stay alive.
- Shield WP has become the only healer that depends on Guard to be able to heal. Even though you can pump huge AoE heals with Sigmar’s Will, to use this ability you need a tank escorting you 90% of the time. This obviously hurts the warband’s DPS, who are forced to play more defensively. If you’re lucky and your party has an RDPS shooting from very far away, the impact is smaller. But the RDPS that usually play true long-range (and therefore focus ST) are not built for warband play.
- Where a normal healer gets engaged and still has tools to disengage and keep healing, Shield WP NEEDS to be in combat to heal. Even so, it still cannot keep itself alive in real fights. It’s not only that the damage is low—staying alive in melee is extremely difficult, and you must be in melee to heal.
- Extremely fragile. Even with defensive builds and a pocket tank, Shield WP is exploding on the frontline. Yes, we have an AoE detaunt, but needing to Smite to rebuild RF—plus the fact that the moment you’re not using Sigmar’s Will you basically die—makes you a free target for enemy melee.
- The damage contribution is negligible. Around 100–200 per hit. It’s damage that practically does nothing and doesn’t help.
- Constant slows. I understand and agree slows are part of the game’s strategy. In fact, slows and KDs have always been how Shield WPs were countered. This should remain the case.
- Ability range is a huge problem. All Shield WP heals have a 5 ft range. Considering enemy AoE ranges are around 25 ft, in many situations you simply can’t heal because you can only hit tanks in the frontline—and those tanks obviously block/parry your attacks. So you’re not only exposed to AoE pressure, you also fail to heal.
- Divine Strike: Since it only heals a single target (around 800 HP total per hit: ~150 + ~650) and generates very little RF (40), it’s basically an ability you don’t even want on your bar.
- Sigmar’s Radiance: Each hit heals roughly 600–700 HP to party members: ~150 from lifetap + ~450 that can be debuffed. It only generates 30 RF per hit, so in practice you use it mainly when you have no RF for Sigmar’s Will and Smite is on cooldown.
- Healing Hand: It’s good that it now scales with Strength. But you need all RF for Sigmar’s Will, so you mainly use it when you have no other way to heal your target. In fact, you usually don’t pre-HoT before combat because you need the RF for Sigmar’s Will.
- Sigmar’s Shield: Very situational. I think I only used it in sieges for mDPS under oils. It costs too much RF for how little it heals.
- Sigmar’s Will: As said above, it’s the only ability that truly heals. Its 80 RF cost is excessively high. It shouldn’t cost more than 50 RF if Shield WP is meant to be playable.
- Divine Assault: This should be the premier ST heal for Shield WP. In combat it heals around ~1k per tick (non-debuffable). Even though it looks good on paper, it has three main issues:
1. the 5 ft range (same problem as above with enemy AoE range),
2. the cone/line-of-sight requirement to channel it fully, which often means you can only land the first tick because you must keep your character aimed at your target while the opponent is moving,
3. for being the “strongest” ST heal, it still heals less than Sigmar’s Will in AoE.
- Benediction: Not a heal, but it boosts casted heals—heals we can’t use in combat because they consume RF needed for Sigmar’s Will. It would be great if that 35% healing boost affected all heals, not only casted ones.
- Tanks commented on the extreme difficulty of playing 2-2-2 with two DPS and a Shield WP. Very often it was impossible for them to manage Guards properly, and they had to let a DPS die in order to keep me alive.
- Healers (including those in other parties) had to pay close attention to keep me alive. In fact, most of them kept at least one HoT on me at all times to help, even when I wasn’t in their party.
- DPS (as repeated many times on the forum) had to play more defensively because they never knew when tanks would need to move Guard around, which directly affects their ability to stay aggressive.
- Reduce Sigmar’s Will cost to 40–50 RF.
- Either increase ability damage, or convert it to spiritual so it ignores armor.
- Make Sigmar’s Radiance and Sigmar’s Will undefendable, and increase the lifetap multiplier based on damage dealt.
- Make all heals unaffected by healing debuffs again, because it’s extremely easy for melee to apply heal debuffs to Shield WP, and you’re an easy target for enemy tanks and enemy RDPS.
- Just like RP converts DPS stats into healing stats (and vice versa), and SW converts ballistic stats into melee stats, WP should be able to convert healing stats (Willpower and healing crit) into damage stats (Strength and melee crit). Alternatively, WP gear could simply have “critical hit rate” instead of “healing critical” or “melee critical.”
That’s all from my side. I know balance is complex and there are different perspectives depending on scale and comp. I’m simply sharing what I observed after ~12 hours of WB-focused testing. Any feedback, alternative setups, or combat logs are welcome—thanks in advance for taking the time to read and discuss.
