I've never used a ward, but have played plenty of mages. They rarely ever used a ward. Now they ever seem to rarely use flesh spells too, because they already wear some form of armor and robes.

I have a lot of fun with wards when I make a character for them. There's a bit of timing to master, and the Magicka conservation to deal with, so it feels like a more active, involved playstyle than some others, which is engaging for me. If you can keep your Restoration in pace with the spells enemy mages are casting, your wards can be very handy. They also allow you to attack or cast spells (or use a staff) while they're protecting you, unlike a shield would. Additionally, wards block spider and chaurus venom.

Oh, since Acadian mentioned the mystic archer thing, I also enjoy having a Bound Bow-wielding character fight mages who use wards. The Bound Bow seems to consistently break enemy wards, which is a great way to keep those enemy mages staggered & vulnerable.

At the price of squishiness?

I do love wards,, they are so much fun against dragons if you can maintain them long enough,, Dual casting the ward and holding your ground while standing face to face to a dragon in just your clothing looks f***ing epic !
It has awesome visuals as well.. Now in my latest modded playthrough, They added some new variation of wards to make them more viable against melee which is pretty neat, for example "Repulsive Ward", forcefully slams the attacker to the ground, it's costly though, or perks that add "timed ward blocking" that would stagger the enemy (similar to how timed shield bash would work for regular blocking).
Anyway OP, never underestimate or toy with a wizard !

Forgive me for laughing off my chair. I've had very high level chars one hit killed by that Deathlord archer in Volunruud and the Deathlord at Arcwind one hit killed me with an ebony waraxe. Not a power strike either, just a swipe as I turned to run. I put all my level ups into health. I have to avoid their hits by necessity. As a DiD player I can't afford to take deadly confrontations lightly. I have many good strategies, but nothing is guaranteed.

So what then is the 'Right' way to play?

Of course nothing is guaranteed, but the "right" way is playing smart, not always rushing in, even as a warrior (barbarian may get away with it because of speed>magic). facing a powerhouse, you need mobility, even as a warrior, and armor rating is important as well.

Something most people don't know about wards is they also add to your armor stat the amount of magic they disperse. For Lesser Ward, it has 40 magic damage and adds 40 pts to your armor, which isn't great but is comparable to a shield so is nice. Add that to mod I use that lowers cost and they become very viable. I am currently trying out a mage and am hoping to increase my use of Wards against other mages and the like.

I did use it mostly successfully against a bandit mage letting him waste most of his mana on my ward and my fire antronoch damage him until he was out of mana and trying to stab me with an iron dagger.....I still had mana so he didn't last long after that.

The bonus armor is rather minimal compared to the ebonyflesh spell, maybe early on, but the best way to use a ward is simply to use it to block magic, and use a summon/follower to deal with the physical stuff.

The ingame description of "unrelenting force" shout is unreliable in the first place, a quick look at UESP wiki indicates certain NPCs have immunity to this shout.

Dead things don't fight back. Well sometimes they do, but they go down all the same anyways.

once i read Vazgen's "a comprehensive treatise on wards" and began to understand what their real nature was and how they could be utilized i realized how underrated, unappreciated and misunderstood wards are.

now, wards are a basic staple on my characters that are allowed to use the spell.

in short, they block a wide range of attacks and whether or not they are destroyed and i'm staggered doesn't matter, since, i wasn't hit.

I dunno, I'm just discussing tactics. I only play on Legendary, so for those who use it, wards are a pretty big deal. Not everyone will use conjured weapons either.

I find wards pretty useless. Unless I am running a mage solo, and never use flesh spells, I find no real reason to rely on wards for a purely defensive reason. Only reason to use it is to recharge mana or for one shot power spells.

Either a ward takes up too much mana, or it breaks and staggers you. They are the most defensively weak of the defensive things in the game.

i play on master primarily (very occasionally play expert, but, with many rules/restrictions) and so, imo, NOTHING as far as tactics is needed at those lower levels. however, on higher difficulties wards are very helpful tactically.

i don't consider taking zero damage on high level spells/shouts/dragon breath (or 2 SUCCESSIVE) trivial.

nor being able to run block AND swing without lowering the ward.

turning lesser ward into a greater ward is obviously beneficial.

poison spits can be blocked.

as well as, a host of other tips/tricks/exploits and uses.

again, this is not from my research and testing.

however, to discount their use, to me, means you either play on lower difficulties (where nothing matters) or don't understand their nature or, legitimately, don't use them on a particular character.

for me, the number of concrete, non-exploitative combat tactics is limited in tes games and therefore, when i see one i note it and add it when appropriate.

A casted ward does increase armor rating, so it's not quite as stupid as it may seem.

And wards blocking those [censored] disarm shouts is awesome