This is a thread for all those if you who enjoy using wards, or have anything to say on the matter really.I don't see them being very popular on these forums, however they add a good amount if strategy and epic to any mage, or dragon battle. I wish there were restoration perks to reduce the charge up time etc.. as they have no specific perks really. Finally, if anyone has Any tips or tricks they use with their wards, please post.

I've not found wards that useful. They svck up a lot of magic points very quickly, and I find myself suddenly lacking both healing and damage-dealing capability (as a mage-character who doesn't use weapons).

I don't doubt there is something I'm missing, but I'd love to hear how wards are useful to you. How do you employ them so much more effectively than I do?

They're handy but they just burn up magicka quickly so I avoid them.

When I was using the lesser ward, I found I could constant cast it, however since moving up I've started enjoying wards more, if my rival mage has a ward you start to get a rhythm going, the trick is short bursts really, each of you trying to smash each others ward, much like sword and shield combat. I have to say that the fact it hinders dual casting is bad though.

Also you should get to know the ward's charge time well, so you can judge the timing perfectly.

love em, blocking a dragons breath with one is so satisfying and cool

I have to agree, the way fire forks around is epic

Ive yet to play a full blown mage. Only a Battlemage, and the few times I have tried wards my magica just got [censored]!!! Tho I hadn't taken more than novice restoration....

I'm not that big on using spells, but Spellbreaker's ward effect has saved my butt more then a few times. That plus the Elemental Protection gives breathing room when fighting dragons.

Would be cool if they were castable, and they stayed for X ammount of time, so they didnt take up one hand and so much magicka.

They add armour against melee attacks?

Those are like, iron Skin, wards are the ones that you cast and it stops magic, but you have to keep casting it to keep it up.

Hh okay, well stead fast ward says 60 armour so I wasn't sure. No good against arrows then I would suspect? I tried using the first one but I guess I was using it wrong.

I agree, that would be good, except it would just be like those _____flesh spells in alterations, only against magic. When I first heard there would be 'wards' in the game (pre-release) I imagined it like in Christopher Paolini's inheritance books, where you cast it once, either on yourself it someone else and it protects then from harm until it breaks.

No good against arrows, but slightly off-topic- with slow time at max, you can catch arrows midflight

I love the concept of wards. Its implementation though, not so much...

In my opinion, wards shouldn't have a set-up time. They should be fully effective as soon as you cast them. By doing that, you could time-block spells and wards would become true magical shields.

Also, I don't like the cost structure at all. Merely casting a ward should not consume magicka. Only blocking a spell should, and the cost ought to be proportional to the damage of the blocked spell. Also, why imposing this arbitrary limits on ward's protection? (it protects up to 40-60-80 points of damage). Wards should protect against everything as long as you have magicka to sustan them.

Finally, Bethesda missed the opportunity to make wards not only block spells but to bounce them back at the original caster. That would be epic; a NPC throws a fireball at you and, with your ward, you can send it back to him!

Fortunately though, with enough scripting all those changes must be possible.

You deserve a raise.

Just for clarification - Wards do temporarily raise your Armor Rating as while they are being cast, just like the Alteration -skin spells. The only thing is the increase isn't affected by Mage Armor and is pretty negligible, so I wouldn't recommend using them in close quarter situations vs melee warriors... they aren't worth giving up dual cast impact

"Restoration is a perfectly good school of magic. And don't you let anyone tell you otherwise."

So, you are saying oakskin and ward do not stack? Yeah, it looks like wards kind of svck in most instances. I tried using it with staves and it didn't seem to be too bad.

You can block dragon flames with wards???

*scrapping character*

They do, but Wards provide only a minor bonus to Armor Rating. Greater Ward gives 80AR, which is only 9.6% damage resistance. The main strength of Wards is spell blocking; physical damage blocking should be left to Alteration protection spells.



All shouts, actually. The wards are in fact so effective that you can block an Ancient Dragon's breath attack with a Lesser Ward.

Yes Restoration is a perfectly good school of magic alway cames in handy,I don't use wards to much but I do use Restoration magic lot mostly for healing.

With the "Ward Absorb" perk in Restoration, blocking a spell with Spellbreaker's Ward will actually replenish your Magicka, at no cost.
Between Spellbreaker's Ward, Elemental Protection, 40% Resist Magic, 80% Frost Resist and 30% Fire/Shock Resist, hostile magic is an absolute joke to my Nord Warrior, even an Ancient Dragon's Firebreath on Master. The only magic that i've seen reliably break Spellbreaker's Ward, is Shock spells.

My One Handed Spellsword uses them quite a bit against Spells, but for my "pure" Mages they are just a Magicka sink.