Are Ward abilities useless?

I've been wondering about this for a while now. These various Ward abilities from BOT and MIN have the effect of "increases shard/crystal/cluster yield by two" for 400GP.

On a normal node (so 4 hits, and assuming no Nymeia's Ward procs or node bonuses):
Ward ability: I would get 12 shards.
Bountiful Harvest/Yield II at yield +3: I would get 16 shards.

Why would I want to use Ward abilities if I can use Bountiful Harvest/Yield II and get more for the same GP. Is there a situation where I want to use these or are they useless?

I suppose you could use Ward + Bountiful II and get 21 shards out of a node, but that requires 700GP. With that you can just use Bountiful II on two nodes and still get more shards. To me it seems like a high GP cost ability for little gain.

They most certainly be merge or condensed into 1 ability.

You answered your own question, don't use them. They make sense pre 50 on some nodes if all you want are crystals. 50+ it makes much more sense to use aetherial reduction for crystals.

They were useful for Shards back in the day. Now? Not so much.

Harvest 2 is 500 GP, No? Wards are 400.

I use them on Clusters. With the passive truth skill at 65 I get 18 clusters from a node in Mor Donuts.

It's better than Yield 2 in that it's 100 GP less, which coincidentally will now let you use Bountiful more. I have 700 GP, so I can use the ward, then bountiful 3 times. Combine that with a proc and it's quite a lot in one swing.

On a 5-hit node with 700 GP (from the perspective of shard gathering or something):

Yield 2 + 2 Bountiful 2s = 23, 700 GP
Ward + 3 Bountiful 2s = 27, 700 GP
5 Bountiful 2s = 20, 500 GP

But with ephemerals being so good for crystals and clusters, it only has a use for shard gathering, and I usually send out retainers for those.

Always use the increases on the +attempt nodes btw