Kinetic Ward/Dark Ward: The charge system doesn't work.

[Tiresias]

My main is Tiresias, a level 50 Kinetic Combat Jedi Shadow. I have been playing this spec since beta, and it is by far and away my favorite class in the game.

 

Having said that, my tanking ability leans VERY heavily on Kinetic Ward. Shadows have lower static mitigation and (much) fewer defensive cooldowns as compared to Guardians and Vanguards; where we make this up is in higher shield chance and the ability to self-heal to smooth out incoming damage.

 

However, as soon as I am being attacked by more than one target my Kinetic Ward melts faster than soft-serve ice cream in Hell. I have watched charges melt off before the GCD clears for whatever ability I active it with (usually Force Breach) when I'm tanking "swarmer" type enemies.

 

Not having Kinetic Ward up DRAMATICALLY reduces my tanking ability. Even worse, it fails me at the time that I need it them most: when under heavy fire from multiple enemies. Remember that as a Shadow I have very, very few defense cooldowns (and only one is general-purpose), and having a 15% drop in my shield chance when pressed is quite often fatal.

 

I understand that the ability has charges because you don't want it to be "fire and forget" -- a button that is pushed on-rotation. It is a pretty powerful tanking buff and requiring the player to track its state and maintain it is understandable. As such, I propose the following change:

 

Kinetic Ward and Dark Ward cannot lose charges at a rate faster than one every 1.5 seconds.

 

This means that in a absolute worst-case scenario the Wards would still have a 100% up-time (since 8 charges with one lost every 1.5 seconds is still 12 seconds of coverage).

 

Thank you for your time and consideration.

 

 

Very Respectfully,

Tiresias

Edited January 22, 2012 by Tiresias