Is there any use for the Ward potions (Fire, Earth, Water etc)

The potion has a recast time of 5 mins, but for a potion with a duration of 15 secs is simply useless. They might as well lower the elemental resistance but to increase the duration, say, increase resistance by 8% with the duration for 2 mins, which I believe may be worthwhile.

Similar problems with some of the buff and debuff spells, with some of them with long recast timer but such short duration. For long recast timer I can understand as they don't want you spamming the spell, but for such short duration, it renders those spells useless e.g. Virus duration is 10s, how many hits will a mob hit the tank during that time....might as well cast damage spells instead.

It's not just about the physical hits in regard to Virus. Special attacks will hit for less that normally hit for a good chunk and lowering DEX/STR lowers block rate/damage if you're facing an enemy that can do that so it's good to keep up. Especially so with ~2-4 people in party having access to it.

The ward potions are pretty much only good for hard mode primals where their special attack will do 75% or so of your health. Any less stress on the healers after that move is nice.