Better Wards

Better Wards

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Changes

Makes the following changes to Skyrim's vanilla wards (lesser/steadfast/greater):

-Decreases the base cost for each spell and makes them follow a linear progression, 34/58/86 -> 20/30/40

-Increases the base strength of all wards by 25%, 40/60/80 -> 50/75/100

-Cuts charge time in half

-(Optional) Brief chance-based stagger against melee attackers. The chance to stagger a melee attacker scales with restoration. It is 70% at 20 restoration and 100% at 100. You must have the attacker relatively close to your crosshair (or center of the screen) for the stagger. Only the player can do this.

-(Optional) Additionally the Ward Absorb perk has been renamed Ward Master and has the following effect:

Wards cost 20% less and recharge your magicka when hit with spells.

The ward magicka absorb ratio has also been increased from 25% to 70% as well.

Reasoning

Everybody knows by now that vanilla wards were too costly. The cost reduction was aimed at making them usable, but not free. Also the vanilla spells got less efficient as you progressed to the next one. They now follow a linear progression, maintaining the same magnitude:cost ratio across the board. Credit to Macavity's mod Reduce Ward Cost for these numbers.

Increasing the base strength was to put them more in line with the destruction spells they were meant to block. In case you didn't know, wards operate as a shield that gets damaged when hit and recharges back to its full strength after a brief delay. That means even if you have a 40 magnitude ward up you cannot take two 25 damage spells in quick succession. If you do your ward will break and you will be staggered. Skyrim puts you in many situations where you have to face multiple enemy mages at the same time. Increasing the strength by 25% enables it to withstand hits quicker in succession (though still not too quick) without breaking because of the increased buffer.

I also increased the charge speed of all wards by 100%. I found a variable that, when increased, sped up the charging process. As Tolfdir said in-game, you can't just cast a ward with a fireball already coming at you or it will break because it hasn't fully charged yet. This change was intended to make this very thing possible. After increasing the charge time by this much I found I was able to "catch" a fireball from mid range if I cast my ward sometime during its flight. Casting one just before it hits will still result in your ward being broken as normal. Because wards negate your magicka regen while active I wanted to