Templars: Jack of No Trades, Master of None?

NordJitsu

Blackwidow wrote: »

NordJitsu wrote: »

Ah Templars, the red headed stepchild of the Elder Scrolls Online.

What do you think?

I do apologize, but I did not read your post

Thank you.

And so I may as well have stopped reading yours here. If you don't read the OP, stay out of the thread maybe?

Calgrissom

Phantax wrote: »

I have to say I hope you're wrong on some of this, having pretty much given up on my Sorc I chose to go Templar. Only reaching VR2 with this class but up till now had no issues, in fact found it even easier than Sorc.
(Haven't played since patch tho as still downloading so yet to see if it is this bad !)

A rotation of-

Dark Flare - Reflective Light - Explosive Charge - Biting Jabs

One rotation pretty much killed everything in solo or pairs (3's took a bit longer)

Armor - 7 piece Light (all with health glyph and reinforced trait)
Points - (41 points magicka / rest health)

Trinkets - Warlock set (for the magicka boost)

Passives- (for magicka)

Restoring Spirit (Templar)
Evocation (Light Armor)
Recovery (Light Armor)


Like I said not online yet (hopefully within the hour) so will let you know how I get on

Hi please go tank a vet dungon boss with you current build. Not all of us are light armor wearers with broken jewelry thats probably on the nerf chopping block.

Blackwidow

NordJitsu wrote: »

Blackwidow wrote: »

NordJitsu wrote: »

Ah Templars, the red headed stepchild of the Elder Scrolls Online.

What do you think?

I do apologize, but I did not read your post

Thank you.

And so I may as well have stopped reading yours here. If you don't read the OP, stay out of the thread maybe?

To be fair, I went back and read it.

I disagree with you, but I hope you get what you want. I could always use more power.

NordJitsu

@Blackwidow‌

Which part do you disagree with?

Its not like I'm asking for them to buff all the damage. I just think the high amount of cast times, channels, and slow projectiles, on top of the poor resource management of the class, make it less powerful than it was and should be.

I do admit the problem is more severe in PvP though, especially the cast times and slow projectiles.

dbennett707cub18_ESO

As a guy who has a VR Templar, DK, and Sorc and now working on a NB, the biggest issue with the templar is their resource management, having played all of these classes I can say templar is by far the most resource hungry of the classes I've played as a caster. My templar is in light like the previous post said, but unlike Dk/sorc, templars are pretty squishy in light since the only way to increase armor is to stand in a rune on the ground.

In my opinion, if you want to start making templar more enjoyable to play, the first step would be to give them better tools to manage their resources and then go from there. As of writing this though I'm not sure if Honor the Dead is still broken or was fixxed in 1.1.2.

TheJudgeHoldenn

Sadly I'm going to have to stop playing until templar issues is resolved. I have no interest in having to make another character vr9 just so that I can start having fun again.
As mentioned, templar is nothing more than a healer for groups, and even our healing isn't the greatest. On our own we lack any DPS to deal with bosses, or more than 1 mob.

adiwantinova

I'd like to see a free cast proc added for Dark Flare when casting a Dawn's Wrath ability (as a passive). Map it up to what sorcs get with crystal shard, as it's our caster nuke.

The damage buff limit would still be in effect for a back to back DF cast (eg it doesn't buff spell power for itself on the next cast), but this would shorten the overall rotation time & increase the range DPS parses that are kinda "meh" right now.

I don't see why there isn't something like this in place already. It seems like a simple fix to increase the class' damage output.

RangerChad

I often see people say "use destruction staff" WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO USE ONE SINGLE WEAPON TO BE EFFECTIVE, I run a resto / sword and shield build. I optimized it well for the game pre-patch I could take on 3 mobs, now 2 is enough to end my life. My roommate is a DK and even AFTER the patch can solo pull 12-15 mobs without gear on (like armor) and kill them just as fast as I can kill 1 mob. Where is the logic in that? Before patch he could do 20-30. (public dungeon grinding)

Shaun98ca2

People mention the Templar needing better Magicka Management but I look at it this way.

Look at the Templar WITHOUT resources free casting period. Well Templar could set up some VERY competitive DPS and out heal all other classes in the game.

IF Templar had even slightly good Magicka Management you can rock a bow with 4 Stamina abilities + Breath of Life. Now you have competitive DPS and best healer in the game. What use does ANY other class become at that point?

Templars can even Tank...3 Stamina Abilities, Sun Shield, Breath of Life.

Being CONSTANTLY Magicka Starved brings us WAY into line with the rest of the classes. Want to be a Main Healer equip a Restro Staff. Everything else learn to use Magicka + Stamina abilities + Light/Heavy Attacks.

Nickdorlandb16_ESO

NordJitsu wrote: »

Ah Templars, the red headed stepchild of the Elder Scrolls Online.

The class that seems to get nerfed each patch, despite already being relatively weak.

There are plenty of complains about Night Blades, but their issues are mostly bug related. The class itself is extremely powerful when its working.

Templars on the other hand have several mechanical issues that make the class under powered when things are working "as intended".

They have good healing skills and the only healing abilities that don't require a resto staff. You'd think that'd give them the ability to be unique off healers and support. Well, it would, if they had any magicka regen. Their best passive, Restoring Spirit, was nerfed late in the Beta process. It may have been OP in its past state, but the change almost certainly went to far.

Another problem is that so many of their abilities are easy to avoid due to long cast times and slow animations making them subpar damage dealers and support in PvP.

They also have poor stamina regen making them inferior choices to tank (in addition to the cast times on the heals.)

Basically, I think Templars could use some love. Here are my ideas for improvements and some feedback on existing skills.

Restoring Spirit

Templars are a magicka intensive class. Their spells are expensive. In order to be effective, they need to heal a lot and try to wear people down. They simply can't match the burst of a NB, Sorc, or DK.

Restoring Spirit was an awesome passive before. It used to return 4% of your maximum magicka each time you activated a skill. Now granted, that was kinda OP. It gave Templars better magicka regen than every other class without requiring them to even slot a skill for it. In high magicka builds with 2,000+ magicka it was pretty crazy. Especially since it returned magicka on all abilities. People would spam Flying Blade for a Stamina dump and get 80 magicka back each time they cast it. So you could alternate between Stam and Magicka like no other class.

That said, there were plenty of reasonable options to bring this skill into balance besides making it a 4% flat cost reduction, which is fairly insignificant. You could have made the 4% return only work on Dawn's Wrath abilities. You could have made it work only with class abilities. You could have made it work only with magicka. You could have made it work only with Stamina (preserving the magicka battery option but making it less OP overall.) There were lots of options. The chosen one was the worst and needs to be reverted.

If you want to learn more about this particular ability I suggest you read this Reddit thread by a really dedicated tester/player who quit ESO in part in response to this change:

http://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/1zwa6u/an_in_depth_look_at_the_restoring_spirit_nerf/

Suggested Solution Change restoring spirit so that it returns 2-4% of magicka either when activating a Dawn's Wrath ability or when activating an ability that costs Stamina.

The first solution would bring this skill in line with the DKs crazy Stamina regen passive Helping Hands, which returns 5% of Stamina when activating an Earthen Heart ability. The second solution would preserve the "Balanced Warrior" thing that seems to be a theme of the Templar class. Both would help a lot with fixing a major problem with Templars.

Backlash

Back Lash is an amazing ability. I'm not gonna say it isn't. Its the best call target ability in the game, bar none. This makes Templar's a uniquely good support/utility class in group situations. And it should be.

However, it is also plagued by a recurring problem with Templars: long cast times.

This ability's 1.5 sec cast time makes it easy to interrupt in PvP. If you're in an organized group situation, with two good groups fighting each other, its quite easy for a Bow user to stop your Templar with Venom Arrow or a D-staff use to pop them with Force Shock. Even a ranged CC will do.

This is bad. Most other mark type abilities in the game are Instant or have a morph option to make them instant. I'm talking about things like Mark Target, Weakness to Elements, and Quick Siphon (Force Siphon and Siphon Spirit are not) which can be used to indicate to your group who you want them to attack.

My problem is, Back Lash doesn't do damage on its own. It shouldn't be so easy to counter. The counter in group play should be that you run away, block, hide, use your heals or armor buffs, ect. while you wait for Back Lash to wear off.

Suggested Solution Either remove or reduce the cast time of this ability so it isn't quite so easy to interrupt in group PvP.

Eclipse

This is a great ability. At first glance it might look like a poor man's reflective scales, since its single target. When you realize it reflects all spell damage, not just projectiles, it starts to look better. The morphs that debuff the enemy or deal damage make it really good skill.

So really I don't think it needs any buffs on its own.

However, there is currently a crippling problem with this skill. I desperately hope its a bug or not working as intended because it basically makes the skill trash.

I'm not going to go into detail, because I'm hoping its considered an exploit and is changed, but myself and others have reported ZOS about it in game.

Healing Ritual

Here we have another good ability that is plagued by the cast time. 2 seconds is simply too long. A sword and shield user has enough time to get up, go to the bath room, make a sandwich, come back and eat that sandwich, shield charge, and then interrupt the Templar.

The buff to Lingering Ritual was nice an much needed. This heal is now close to on par with Green Dragon's Blood as a self heal, when you are actually able to use it.

Ritual of Rebirth is still a joke. A 0.3 sec reduction in cast time is a joke. Like really, that's just stupid.

Suggested Solution Lower the cast time on the base ability to 1.5 secs and have Ritual of Rebirth lower that to 1 sec.

Biting Jabs

This was a really solid ability. The nerf/delay on 1.1.2 was bad. Jessica Folsom said in another thread that she's investigating it though, so I'll hold off on giving feedback there for now.

Conclusion

I think the Templar could be a really great and fun class. I think there are already some decent builds out there, but there's also no doubt in my mind that the class overall is under powered compared to DKs, Sorcs, and properly working NBs.

I think the changes I suggested above are moderate enough that they won't make Templars OP and just strong enough to bring them on par with what they should be.

What do you think?

I have already made some topics about templars, and i fully agree with you..
I really dont get it also why biting jabs needed a nerf ( i heared somthing about botters ? So their solution to it is nerfing an entire class ??

I fully 100% Agree with you, why nerf this class while its broken as hell already

Koensol

Wow.. seriously they are going to increase the cost for biting jabs some more? Well that is just awsome. There goes our best ability for AoE tanking, and use for st in PvP. VR will be so much more fun with this upcoming change.

I'm really starting to dread the way ZOS handles their nerfs. In multiple accountd they just keep increasing the cost of abilities. Templars specifically just cannot have that. Why does it keep getting nerfed... Besides this makes heavy armor increasingly less usefull and will make more and more people flock to cooky cutter light armor builds.

Endocet

My Templar is only 42 but I have very much enjoyed healing groups in the 4 person unique instances with this class.

In addition, soloing with a resto staff has pretty much made me invincible.

I read posts about how much harder the content gets at the end and I look forward to adjusting my build at that time.

gurluasb16_ESO

The magicka issue is definitely one of the reasons I die so much. I run out of magicka and my pot is usually on cooldown so I can't heal while the Vet rank mobs mow me down.

Templar magicka costs a lot. Even the Warlock set only gives 1-2 additional spells.

KiwiKutKu

I like my Templar I just need to get my build right... I'm going to be broke again.

I just need to learn to carry more potions on me I should probably buy some from a vendor and use my provisioner to create food that gives me buffs. That should solve any magicka problems.

dcincali

KiwiKutKu wrote: »

I like my Templar I just need to get my build right... I'm going to be broke again.

I just need to learn to carry more potions on me I should probably buy some from a vendor and use my provisioner to create food that gives me buffs. That should solve any magicka problems.

You shouldn't have to do all of this to FIX a character to be able to play it at a normal pace. FFS, I can imagine when real raid content comes out (not this speed run crag 12 min ***) No one will want a temp in group. Were just the handicap holding everyone back for a magicka break.

Phantax

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Thank you all for your patience as we tracked this one down. We have an answer for you.

In patch 1.1.2, we increased the internal cooldown of Biting Jabs from 0.5 seconds to 1.2 seconds. Unfortunately, this change was not documented in the patch notes. This was not intended, and we do apologize.

This change was made to balance the ability's high single target damage. However we have been reading your feedback, and agree that the ability feels too unresponsive now. We will be reverting this change for the next patch (as soon as possible), and instead will slightly increase the ability's resource cost.

So you're going to put even more resource drain on a class that already struggles with resource??? (great idea)
If as developers you thought that Biting Jabs should be 1.2 seconds instead of 0.5 BUT this turned out to be too long. Wouldn't the far more sensible approach to be make it say 0.8 seconds (a happy medium of both) and therefor not put any more strain on magicka management ! ! !
Isn't that the whole point to balancing? That with time you find the right 'balance' and not just ditch one idea in favour of another that may be completely wrong?

jesterstear

With my Templar I tried to create a tank/offhealer, largely ignoring the DPS line, so I have little experience of the skills the OP focuses on. But the resource issue is never far from my mind, especially since my solo playstyle relies on outlasting opponents. My offhealing ability is so limited that I worry it does not make up for the weakness of Templar vs Dragonknight tanking. Solo, my dream of a hard-to-beat, if slow-killing character may not have been fully realised.

I think what scares the developers is that Templar class skills allow them to DPS and Heal, so they limit our ability to restore Magicka and Stamina and giving our skills a high power cost.

I've only played one other MMORPG (Lord of the Rings Online), but in those cases restrictions were placed on being able to heal and dps at the same time by one or more of the following methods -

1) Needing to slot traits with an NPC in town - either healing or dps to be effective at either role, the more traits slotted in one role, the worse one becomes at the other

2) Having to swap stances

3) Having to build "attunement" by repeatedly using either healing or dps skills in combat

The problem is that as a tank, with 5 pieces of heavy armour and a low Magicka pool, I feel penalised in both. * My class heals exchange Magicka for Health on about a 1:1 basis, the direct damage skills appear to offer an even worse ratio from the tooltip hence I haven't purchased any class dps skills with the exception of Vampire's Bane.

*I have one piece of jewellery with regen in Magika, one with regen in Health, one with regen in Stamina equipped. Obviously this leaves no room for cost reduction pieces.

How about a passive that reduces healing power cost when no Dawn's Wrath or Aedric spear abilities are slotted?

In addition I'd like them to take a look at Honour the Dead. It costs about 300 Magika and instantly heals about the same amount of health on a single target. The tooltip also states that it returns 18% of the skill cost every 2 seconds for 8 seconds when used on a target below 50% health.

Clearly this would be OP - a 72% power rebate is huge. But that is not how the skill works. The power return only kicks in if the target is still below 50% health after being healed.

For a few levels , I tried to make this work as a solo self heal, but letting myself get that low, even with 5 heavy armour and health just below the softcap, lead to lots of avoidable deaths... oneshotted by power attacks, lag spikes, or the random number generator screwing you over by having a pair of mobs take turns chain stunning you for a few seconds.

Reduce the size of the Magicka rebate perhaps, but allow it to kick in at a higher post-heal health level perhaps?

Mortosk

They also haven't acknowledged they changed the 0.5 second ICD to a GCD and added 0.7 more seconds for good measure. Now we have a longer GCD than WoW, and we are pushing FFXIV:ARR GCD levels here. It's a GCD of epic proportions.

Would be so nice if they just simply acknowledged this mistake.

10 gold says that when they finally do get around to reverting it, after they fix more important stuff like vibrating ponies and unintended hair cuts, it will still be a 0.5 second GCD instead of an ICD.

Mortosk

Phantax wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Thank you all for your patience as we tracked this one down. We have an answer for you.

In patch 1.1.2, we increased the internal cooldown of Biting Jabs from 0.5 seconds to 1.2 seconds. Unfortunately, this change was not documented in the patch notes. This was not intended, and we do apologize.

This change was made to balance the ability's high single target damage. However we have been reading your feedback, and agree that the ability feels too unresponsive now. We will be reverting this change for the next patch (as soon as possible), and instead will slightly increase the ability's resource cost.

So you're going to put even more resource drain on a class that already struggles with resource??? (great idea)
If as developers you thought that Biting Jabs should be 1.2 seconds instead of 0.5 BUT this turned out to be too long. Wouldn't the far more sensible approach to be make it say 0.8 seconds (a happy medium of both) and therefor not put any more strain on magicka management ! ! !
Isn't that the whole point to balancing? That with time you find the right 'balance' and not just ditch one idea in favour of another that may be completely wrong?

As long as it's an 0.8 second ICD and not a GCD.

That was their biggest mistake. Making it lock our entire skill bar for 1.2 seconds by changing the ICD to a GCD.

This isn't even what they said they did in the patch notes addendum. I honestly don't know if they even know they did this yet, because no one has addressed this question which has been asked now over a dozen times on the forums.

NordJitsu

I also think Templar projectiles, especially Sun Fire and its morphs, need to move faster.

Vannor

In its current state I'm pretty much done with my VR1 Templar. I'll continue to level up the 3 tradeskills but that's it. Respecced a few times but the difference in sheer killing power and speed between the Templar and the Sorc I'm also levelling up is ridiculous.

Playing the Sorc is fun, the Templar feels like a job.

terence.caroneb17_ESO

So basically, almost all templars agree with have a magicka ressource management problem, and the next change to templars is increase the magicka cost of Biting Jabs.

See why I stopped playing since monday ...

Shaun98ca2

Wait till the Sorcerers get the Nerf Wrecking Ball along with the DKs.

The tears will drown the world.

Lovely

Blackwidow wrote: »

I disagree with you

NordJitsu wrote: »

@Blackwidow‌
Which part do you disagree with?

You're wrong! Why? Because I say so! Shh, it's a perfectly valid argument.

MichaelD

I'm VR7 with templar and I have no issues with him, I'm playing him as a mage with 2200 max magicka and 105 m/regen and the magicka never runs out.

I mostly play with healing staff (even on questing)
Blazing Spears (spammable awesome spell)
Volcanic Rune or Binding Spear
Vampires Bane
Some heal (take your pick)
Magicka Harness (from light armor) or any other shield (immovable, bone shield etc)

Ulti from Soul tree or Fighters Guild or Mages Guild

Also I just cannot see how Sorc or NB can heal better than the Templar since they lack one major skill Breath of Life... this is your "Oh *** button" its is the biggest heal in the game (Crits for 1600 heal with 102 spell damage). The other heals are circumstantial I agree especially after the healing ritual nerf.

terence.caroneb17_ESO

Another guy explaining how his staff build works. Thanks, but the angry templars are the ones who want to play melee.
(also, spamming blazing spear is a waste of magicka cause of its ridiculous damage, so I'm not sure you're a good theorycrafter)

Phantorang

Templar are NOT the only class with healing, both Sorcerer and DK (of course they got it) got self heals. Templar does not have self heals, but group heals. So the healing part doesnt make Templar as unique one would think.

Solar Barrage Remove the silly cool down or whatever it is that makes it impossible to do anything for almost a second after a cast, as it is now its useless.

Reflective Lights Fix this to work properly. Only time this really hits multiple targets is when its cast as a First Strike spell, when all targets are close together with little distance between them. If one target is in front of you in melee distance, and 2 others are in ranged distance more than 10m apart, it will only hit 1 target.

It should hit 3 targets, as long as the targets is in view and in range.

Currently there are no reasons to use Templar skills for DPS. As the Templar is now, all Weapon DPS abilities are better than Templars.

Nickdorlandb16_ESO

Master of none

MichaelD wrote: »

I'm VR7 with templar and I have no issues with him, I'm playing him as a mage with 2200 max magicka and 105 m/regen and the magicka never runs out.

I mostly play with healing staff (even on questing)
Blazing Spears (spammable awesome spell)
Volcanic Rune or Binding Spear
Vampires Bane
Some heal (take your pick)
Magicka Harness (from light armor) or any other shield (immovable, bone shield etc)

Ulti from Soul tree or Fighters Guild or Mages Guild

Also I just cannot see how Sorc or NB can heal better than the Templar since they lack one major skill Breath of Life... this is your "Oh *** button" its is the biggest heal in the game (Crits for 1600 heal with 102 spell damage). The other heals are circumstantial I agree especially after the healing ritual nerf.

Blazing spears is hard to spam like impulse, especially in PvP..
Vampires bane sucks balls.. the DOT is srsly stuipid.. the snare is nice, thats it..

THE ONLY skill worth using is Darkflare + autoattack.. for 1vs1 dps..

And or healing, yes breath of life is a good instant heal.. FOR PVP, PvE dungeons you only need sorcerers as they can dps better also next to healing.. Who are the major people gonna pick ? HMM?

anakaki

My biggest concern is that sorc can heal through trials without a sweat AND do triple the dps templars can. Do you see where I'm going with this?

Cheatingdeath23

MichaelD wrote: »

I'm VR7 with templar and I have no issues with him, I'm playing him as a mage with 2200 max magicka and 105 m/regen and the magicka never runs out.

I mostly play with healing staff (even on questing)
Blazing Spears (spammable awesome spell)
Volcanic Rune or Binding Spear
Vampires Bane
Some heal (take your pick)
Magicka Harness (from light armor) or any other shield (immovable, bone shield etc)

Ulti from Soul tree or Fighters Guild or Mages Guild

Also I just cannot see how Sorc or NB can heal better than the Templar since they lack one major skill Breath of Life... this is your "Oh *** button" its is the biggest heal in the game (Crits for 1600 heal with 102 spell damage). The other heals are circumstantial I agree especially after the healing ritual nerf.

I'm trying for the Heavy Armor/Sword and Board melee type Templar class...

I haven't had any issues so far, but I also have nothing to compare it to (not leveling up another character). I feel like I am an asset to a group both in DPS and in healing, I'm sort of an "oh crap" extra heal when things get rough.

Good to know that if I ever give up trying to be melee, I can respec and be a good healer. I'll probably try to level up a DK for melee or a sorc for other things, just can't choose between the two yet.