Wards, how the F do they work? (In groups)

In a group ward situation during an AE can anyone tell me how the damage gets distributed until the ward is used.

Its clear from logs that when an AE hits if there is 6K worth of "Available" warding on, not everyone just gets 1k of defense. Yet its not like one person eats all 6k and everyone else gets nothing either.

Any insight to this?

So for example there is a 10k group ward up. 20K AE hits (each person takes 20k), then what happens?

As far as the case of an AOE hitting everyone in the group at once... It's based on what order a person joins a group as far as I can tell. The person who starts invites will eat damage from a group ward first, followed by whoever is invited next, etc. I was testing that out back in TSO and it held true. You are knocked to the end of the priority list if you leave (or are moved out of) the group and then moved back in.
I'm not really sure if the same can be said about cleric group reactives, but at least group wards do operate in that way.

have to bear in mind range from the mob, mitigation, resists, existing single target and other wards etc.

i don't believe the damage works its way through group members from position 1-6 though. that just wouldn't make any sense.

joeygopher wrote:

What little investigation I've done indicates it does in fact go by position when they are simultaneously hit by the same effect.

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Very interesting. So if the ward runs out by the time it gets to the last member in group position and that member may get killed or damaged, that doesn't make sense from a play point of view. Better start putting cloth members in the beginning of the group.

joeygopher wrote:

well, if you think about it, nothing else really makes much more sense from a coding perspective (in terms of easy to implement, low CPU and DB cost, and maintaining 100% utilization of wards).

This is the way Group Wards have always worked, and is one of the primary reasons that Shaman are the least effective healers of an entire group.
I'm not saying Shaman are bad, or incapable of doing so, merely that they are the weakest overall when talking about an entire group of players needing heals.

So do group reactives work the same way?

Rick777 wrote:

Yes, however generally there are enough ticks available for everyone to tick once on the same aoe hit.
But if there are say only 4 ticks available, it will tick on the first 4 in group.

Rick777 wrote:

More than likely, yes. It would seem that damage from an AE that hits mutliple players simultaneously, is applied and logged by the server in order (seemingly the order in which they joined the group), it would make sense that both are used up in the same order.

joeygopher wrote:

It doesn't make sense, but that's the way that wards operate when an AOE hits everyone in the group at once. Range from the NPC has no bearing except when an AOE is rangeable. Mitigation and resists only have a bearing in helping reduce the amount that is drained from the ward before the next person applies their damage. Existing wards go in the order they are applied. So if single target ward is on a person in the group before the group ward and they were the person who created the group, the single target ward will absorb an AOE first. Any remaining damage leftover (if any) gets absorbed from the group ward and then what's remaining of the group ward is passed on to the next person in the list to apply their damage to.

Koinoo@Crushbone wrote:

It takes me one log to completely disprove this as true. Group or raid order is not determining the order in which people get hit by AE's. If you think about it, how on earth would the server even decide what order ungrouped people get hit when a blue AE hit (of a nonlocked mob). The server has an order in which people get hit, and it's the same on every AE (disregarding ae immunes or people out of range). And it's the order people get damaged that affects the order in which the group wards get used up.
Now I haven't tested this in depth lately, but the order AE's hit people use to be determined by the order they entered the zone. Meaning the first person in the zone gets hit first on every AE (if not AE immune), and the order goes from there. Pets use to be either just ahead of just behind priority of their owners. Relogging or going LD would put you last on that list. I am not sure but reviving to a revive spot may also affect it, as might using call of tinkerer's or other porting items within the zone.
I will say that group and raid order has some bearing on the order you zone when you zone in at the same time. This was really apparent a few months ago when you sometimes had 10-15 minute zone times at prime time. Group 1 and 2 would always be sitting in zone well before 3 and 4. And group 4 would end up zoning last. So it is possible that group order would affect AE damage priority in that instance if the server is zoning us based on the order. Doesn't mean that everyone loads up in the zone in that order (as that varies on computers and connection), but the server would still have the order people logged into the zone server.
I'm not saying that I'm 100% certain it still is affected by zone order, but I know that's how it use to work and I also know that group order is certainly not affecting who gets hit with what AE's on my raids.

Kreton wrote:

From my testing, it has always pointed back to the order in which the group was formed. I played around with this theory near the end of TSO when someone brought up the idea on another board, but haven't bothered to do much testing of it since Sentinel's Fate. I'm sure there's other factors involved as well. Only a developer could state for a fact what exactly affects the order of a group ward being absorbed. Anything else is pure speculation, but I'm going from what I've experienced.
If I can remember to I'll try and test this next raid and examine logs again. The order stands out on larger AOE's that completely absorb a group ward from 1-2 people taking damage. In a case where a heavy AOE takes out the group ward in 2 shots, it has always been the person who created the group and the 2nd person who joined the group who absorb the ward's entire amount for me. Also in those cases the people who absorbed the damage weren't necessarily the ones that showed up first in the logs as having taken damage--I've had cases like the above example where the 3rd and 4th person who joined the group will show up in the log files as taking damage before the 1st and 2nd person's are shown as absorbing from the ward. If you're dealing with relatively small AOE's that don't completely knock out the group ward from only a couple of people taking the damage, then you won't see the pattern. I really don't know what determines the order someone shows up in the logs as having taken damage--that could very well be zone wide or otherwise. It did not seem to correlate in any way to how a shaman's group ward absorbed the damage, though.
I'll test it again and come back with the results when I've had a chance to. This is one of those discussions where it'd be nice if a developer piped in, because I'm genuinely interested in exactly how it does work without speculation.

Koinoo@Crushbone wrote:

Except it's not quite that way, and I'm really curious how the game is choosing the proportion of group ward to assign to #1 and #2. It appears a group ward is split into two parts even if an AE does far more than the ward amount to person #1.
Example A (and this is the situation that started the thread): Waansu.
Group is:
#1 Mystic
#2 Troub
#3 Ranger
#4 Illusionist
#5 Warlock
#6 Inquisitor
Mystic has 16k Umbral Warding up, and group has variety of Runic Deflection, Absorbtion, Ancient Invig, etc procs up. Single ward is on Troub and Illy (newer raiders, lower hp)
Icy Winds hits
Mystic for 21k - 12k Umbral Warding used
Troub for 24k - 4k Umbral Warding used
Ranger through Inquis, no umbral applied. This repeats on vast majority of the AE's incoming to group.
Mystic still took damage above all wards (group reactive, kindred restoration, cure by inquis fills). Why did the full Umbral not apply to the mystic? How is the game choosing how much to distribute to #2 or others?
Example B - Maalus Imbued
#1 Illusionist
#2 Templar
#3 Troubador
#4 Mystic
Evil Incantation or Dooming Mist hits. ~12k ward on Templar, ~4k ward on Troubador, every round where both were close.
In this fight, Umbral Warding always used up majority on Templar, then remainder on Troubador, in similar ratios to those above on Waansu. Illusionist was first in group, yet didn't get the lions share as before. Why different than on Waansu?

Aralys wrote:

Did the troub take damage above all wards? If the mystic took HP damage on top of ward damage, that means the troub probably had a ST ward on him that absorbed most of the hit, causing him to take only 4k of the ward because he only needed 4k fo the ward.
For example:
AE hits Troub for 24k
Troub's ST ward takes 13k
Troub's AI takes 1k
Troub's other procs/self wards took 6k
Troub's Umbral warding took 4k
Now there is 0 damage left to be done to the troub.

Next character in line to take damage is the mystic.
There is 16k-4k = 12k left on the umbral ward, so the rest is applied to the mystic since his procs weren't enough to stop the AE

That is possible Hene, but then that means the first person in group, first invited, is NOT getting first consideration - but rather the Troub, because they had the higher "need" for warding.
In most cases it does seem that the ward goes in order of group / raid invite, but if that was the only consideration, the Mystic should be getting 100% of the ward, then none for the next. Why the split, when the mystic still lost plenty of health?