Are Ward abilities useless?

[Elamys]

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