The trick here is to look at the extra parries as a percentage of total un-parried hits.

Take the axe guy. If his parry goes from 40% to 58% then his rate of taking damage is reduced by 18/60 or 30%. With respect only to melee damage, then, and assuming he's not disarmed, then ward acts like permanent 30% dam redux.

Now take the sword guy. If his parry goes from 80% to 94% then his rate of taking damage is reduced by 14/20 or 70%. The kicker here is that he's taking less melee damage to begin with since he already parries well. So, for him, the percentage of the *overall* damage he's taking that's comprised of melee hits will be smaller than for the axe guy.

What dodge and ward seem nice for is making it harder for someone to just spam lag and outmelee you unless that guy is also doing unblockable damage via progging gear or riposte/concealed/etc.