Return of Reckoning

Good morning,

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.

Some comments on specific abilities

• 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.

Feedback from my warband teammates during the tests

• 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.

Suggestions to make the class playable again in all content

• 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.”

Closing
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.

No melee heal should be undefendable but they should be unhealdebuffable again!. Remove sigmars will and Bring 25% More melee heal tactic + Divine Strike hit 2 targets(With shield AND 2h) and back to spirit dmg and healing 100% of the dmg dealt. All melee channels should work like in AoR so they have no dont interrupt based on any movement except if you jump.

Also all casted abilities even if melee channel or 3s fireball had 25ft extra range before they break cast. So Divine assault/Rend Soul would break if target is 31ft away. Only way to make melee channels truely work in this game, same for casted abilities. 100ft would break if target is 126ft away.

Adding ability Sacrifice with movement was the best Melee Healer Decision that RoR has made, because it did damage to yourself, and did like 1500+ heal on all party members within 100ft. So another healer in party would have to keep Wp alive while wp keeps others in alive running back in range to continue normal melee healing. Return this skill.

Same for old 13pts 10s channel with 300 absorb for all ranged dmg that refreshs every 1 second. That also gave Dodge Disrupt and maybe block. Bring this back.

Sinisterror wrote: Sun Mar 01, 2026 12:20 pm No melee heal should be undefendable but they should be unhealdebuffable again!. Remove sigmars will and Bring 25% More melee heal tactic + Divine Strike hit 2 targets(With shield AND 2h) and back to spirit dmg and healing 100% of the dmg dealt. All melee channels should work like in AoR so they have no dont interrupt based on any movement except if you jump.

Also all casted abilities even if melee channel or 3s fireball had 25ft extra range before they break cast. So Divine assault/Rend Soul would break if target is 31ft away. Only way to make melee channels truely work in this game, same for casted abilities. 100ft would break if target is 126ft away.

Adding ability Sacrifice with movement was the best Melee Healer Decision that RoR has made, because it did damage to yourself, and did like 1500+ heal on all party members within 100ft. So another healer in party would have to keep Wp alive while wp keeps others in alive running back in range to continue normal melee healing. Return this skill.

Same for old 13pts 10s channel with 300 absorb for all ranged dmg that refreshs every 1 second. That also gave Dodge Disrupt and maybe block. Bring this back.

Obviously, what you’re suggesting would be the optimal solution. But I don’t think the GMs will take a step back and revert something to how it was before a patch (I don’t recall them ever doing that, and I say this with affection and respect). That’s why I’ve posted these suggestions—to fine-tune what they implemented.

By the way, DoKs have a tactic that makes their equivalents of Sigmar’s Radiance and Divine Strike undefendable, ...

Shield Dok is in same sort of space. I would suggest putting +2 or 3 SE/RF on the shields. Bring back the AoE or Group heal portion of the CE/DS from the target. Reduce SE/FR Cost of the KF/ SW. Ditto on the critical hit rate change.

EDIT: Could also make the SE/RF regen skill work while moving. Stationary healer regening is a death sentence in mele range.

Another problem Id say is what to do while you can't hit where you are practically useless... I'd propose a way of activating those buffes even if you don't hit anyone obviusly all these effects can only be triggered while using a shield. For example:
Sigmar's Vision, could buff parry / block without hitting.
Sigmar's Fist, could be an str buff without hitting anyone.
Benediction, pops a bubble wihtout hitting,
Same for the healing part...we could heal more by dealing damage but also heal something by not hitting them and hitting your own shield (a nice animation) to invigorate your mates around you!

kpihuss wrote: Sun Mar 01, 2026 11:52 am Good morning,

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.

Some comments on specific abilities

• 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.

Feedback from my warband teammates during the tests

• 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.

Suggestions to make the class playable again in all content

• 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.”

Closing
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.

I never played grace in rvr all that much because IMO its not supposed to be a blob vs blob spec but a small scale spec . IDK how they would ever make a grace viable in blob vs blob besides just having a pocket guard just for you 24/7 or turning grace into some kind of off tank support spec. Salvation does everything you want from a healer and Wrath also feels very good right now that I've been playing recently over grace. If Grace gets changed back to how it was before then some changes id suggest to make its dps more balanced would simply be to reduce the overall dmg values or even making it so divine fury tactic is weaker when using a shield maybe just a 10% dmg increase instead of 25? If the healing is to strong then to balanced I would suggest reducing the lifetap scaling values and IIRC old grace of sigmar was just a lifetap % increase maybe tune that aswell. It really doesnt need to be overcomplicated just tuned so that its more in line with the other healers outputs while still feeling rewarding but not overpowered for playing the IMO harder of the two healing specs WP has to offer. If Grace continues as it is now then I agree that changes are needed. Id also suggest like kpihuss Sigmar’s Will cost reduced either to 50-60 to get 1-2 extra casts but also change it back to a group heal and instead move the blob heal portion back to divine strike. IDK how OP it would be considering there is a base heal component on all the lifetaps thats undefendable but making Sigmar’s Radiance and Sigmar’s Will undefendable maybe add that feature when using grace of sigmar tactic im sure would feel great . I really don't get the point of benediction since all the lifetaps scale with dps stats how are you supposed to incorporate casting heals tbh maybe just swap that out for sacrifice and bring back with a base heal component that can be heal debuffed since that seems to be the path the devs have decided on and I really feel grace needed at least 1 long range group heal. OR how about just bring back 2h grace spec bring back gap closer on WP usable with 2h this would give Wrath a bump up as well as Grace. Give Grace of sigmar effect if using 2h you get stronger lifetaps like old grace of sigmar but if using shield you get the benefit of using shield only abilities and effects maybe like some abilities are undefendable and bring back sacrifice as a shield only ability in place of benediction. 2h grace would go CRAAAAAAZYYYY im sure all these changes could be mirrored on dok aswell so alls good or maybe now it would make the classes way to OP

Give WP undefendable lifetaps like DOK and it will be more playable