Templar Tanks - Lack of AoE CC

Eternalain

Hello, I'm Eternalain and I play an Imperial Templar Tank. This post is to raise awareness of a severe oversight and glaring weakness of the Templar class, specifically affecting melee dps and tanks. This is a topic that I do not see being discussed nearly as much as it should be, and I hope for a response or at least acknowledgement from ZOS that they will look into the issue, as well as to start more discussion among the community.

This post has three parts - What the problem is, Why it needs to be fixed, and Suggestions for implementation.

1. What is the problem? The Templar class has an absolute lack of any class skill that provides Area of Effect Crowd Control (AoE CC). In order to be able to perform any sort of AoE CC, Templars are forced to use the Mage's Guild ability Volcanic Rune. The other three classes all have at least one CLASS skill that can be used for multi-target CC. Whether those skills are viable in of themselves, or are better or worse than Volcanic Rune, is not the issue. What matters is that those class skills EXIST, whereas no such skill exists for the Templar class.

Dragonknights, easily the best tanks in the game, have an absolutely killer class skill for AoE CC. Dark Talons is an immobilize affecting all nearby targets (6m radius, 4s duration, not discussing AoE target caps), deals damage, and has a synergy to deal more damage. Its morphs either add even more damage or reduce damage dealt by affected targets. The first is fantastic for melee dps, the second fantastic for tanks.

Sorcerers have the ability Encase. This skill is admittedly harder to aim than a PBAoE such as Dark Talons, but through practice or line-of-sight pulling can be used to great effect. It immobilizes all targets in a straight line (15m range, 4.5s duration). Morphs either deal extra damage or snare all targets when the immobilize ends, both great options for dps/tanking.

Nightblades have the ability Aspect of Terror and its morph, Manifestation of Terror, which creates a trap on the ground that fears nearby enemies when triggered (6m range, 4s duration). While this may or may not be a reliable or good ability, it does still exist as a form of AoE CC available through class skills.

Why it needs to be fixed. Tanks in ESO are not expected to "Tank", or take direct damage from, all enemies in every trash pull. To attempt this is to invite certain death. Instead, ESO Tanks are expected to directly tank the hardest hitter, and perform as much crowd control as they can (immobilize, stun, snare) on the majority of each pack while the dps characters burn them down. Even dps characters are expected to be able to perform their own CC in groups, and need to do so in solo play and PVP. Templars have nothing at all that provides any of these effects through class skills. The closest thing we have is Spear Shards, which only CC's a single target, or Blinding Light, which makes enemies "miss" 50% of the time, but only when attacking the Templar and more importantly, standing near the Templar.

So, we are forced to resort to Volcanic Rune. This skill has a smaller range (3m radius) than the three class skills I mentioned above for DK Sorc and NB, and also a shorter duration (3s) than any of those class skills. This makes Volcanic Rune inferior in two very important aspects. Also, those other classes have the benefit of having this all-important tool FEEL awesome because it is part of their class theme. Grasping talons that deal fire damage or obscure with smoke, crystals that bind and imprison, or inducing paralyzing fear in enemies are all wonderfully fitted into the theme of each class. But as a Templar, instead of using holy magic of the Aedra, or the power of the Sun, I'm forced to use a fire rune that I learned from a neutral guild of scholars and arcane spellcasters? C'mon man.

Suggestions for Implementation: By far the best suggestion I've come up with involves a change to the morphs of Spear Shards. First, leave Luminous Shards intact the way it is. For support dps and healers, this morph is fantastic. Allows group members, especially tanks, to regain a hefty chunk of resources while dealing moderate AoE damage. You can even completely remove the single target CC portion from this morph, since that is not what this morph is used for anyway. Second, Blazing Spear as it is now is completely underwhelming. Deals a little extra damage over time and still only CC's one target. My suggestion: change Blazing Spear (rename might be appropriate) to immobilize or stun all targets in the area of effect on top of dealing its usual on-hit damage. If you have to remove the DoT or the synergy component to make this balanced, so be it, that's fine. Though I remind you, DK's Dark Talons not only does on-hit damage, immobilizes, and has a synergy for extra damage, it also has morphs that either deal extra DoT or reduces enemy damage. This change to Blazing Spear would make it a great skill for tanks and melee DPS to finally have an AoE CC, and leaves Luminous Shards mostly intact for those that love the support/healer role.

My other, less effective suggestion would be to make Blinding Light an AoE disorient/stun, or to make Rune Focus an AoE immobilize/disorient/stun.

I know this was long, but thanks for reading and a ZOS reply or aknowledgement hat it was read would be fantastic. Thank you!


TL;DR : Every class has AoE CC class skills except Templar. Add please.

ThatHappyCat

Blazing Spear may seem weak on paper, but every tick of its DoT is capable of proccing Burning Light. I'm pretty happy with it as it is.

I think Blinding Light could do with a buff, While it's not a bad skill, it's rather expensive for its duration and the fact that it's not particularly reliable. Sun Shield is generally a better defensive skill.

What Rune Focus really needs is a bigger area. I wouldn't mind paying more magicka for it if I could do more than standing still.

TRIP233

Templar, Dawn's Wrath, second ability Solar Flare. Morph it - Solar Barrage. Templar Crowd Control. It will hit everything around the Character and make your follow up attack stronger. Though the attack its self is weak and it could use a buff. But Templar Crowd Control exists.

http://www.esohead.com/skills/22095-solar-barrage

Edited for more clarity on the attack.

Eternalain

TRIP233 wrote: »

Templar, Dawn's Wrath, second ability Solar Flare. Morph it - Solar Barrage. Templar Crowd Control. It will hit everything around the Character and make your follow up attack stronger. Though the attack its self is weak and it could use a buff. But Templar Crowd Control exists.

http://www.esohead.com/skills/22095-solar-barrage

Edited for more clarity on the attack.

Crowd Control is a very old MMO term that refers to stuns, slows, and immobilizes. Solar Barrage is not a crowd control, it is simply an area of effect damage spell. All it does it deal damage, and make your next attack deal more damage. It does not slow, stun, or immobilize, so it is not AoE CC.

ThatHappyCat

TRIP233 wrote: »

Templar, Dawn's Wrath, second ability Solar Flare. Morph it - Solar Barrage. Templar Crowd Control. It will hit everything around the Character and make your follow up attack stronger.

http://www.esohead.com/skills/22095-solar-barrage

Crowd Control refers to effects that prevent enemies from acting, such as stun, disorient, and root. Solar Barrage is a pbAoE damage skill like Impulse, it has no CC component.

TRIP233

[quote="ThatHappyCat;1220539"

Solar Barrage is a pbAoE damage skill like Impulse, it has no CC component.
[/quote]

Well I stand corrected. I've been up all night and could use some sleep. But the blazing spear would be the CC then. And only stunning one in a crowd is a weak CC and needs a buff. Or Solar Barrage needs a knock back.

Pmarsico9

I also tank. In fact, I leveled as one.

I can't say I agree with this approach, because I think that if Templars are going to be artificially hampered in 2 of the 3 roles compared to the other two classes, PVE tanking is a stupid place to do it. I know why Templar DPS is kept suppressed (can toss out heals without weapon swaps) but I can't for the life of me understand why Templars are such bad tanks compared to Sorcs and DK's.........Or why tanks aren't really needed...... But I don't think lathering more AoE CC onto a class is the way to do it.

I want to go out on a limb here and say that Templars should be a testing ground to being actual tanks.

Rather than AoE CC, Templars should have snap AoE aggro generation that absolutely makes things hate them without taunt spam.

Additionally, Templars should get some interesting method of maintaining DR greater than the current 50% maximum cap. Empowering Sweep is a good idea, but perhaps the morph should lower the damage and cost of the ability further to make it a sustainable high-uptime ability.

It should also be additive on the base (aka, 50% DR hard cap with Emp Sweep up = 65% not 58% or w/e it is now.)

Rotating Blazing Shield, with Low Blow's Morphs, Reverb Bash, and Inner Rage as a taunt when needed should make things really pissed at you without having to keep taunt's debuff up all the time.

Another good spot to do this at would be Explosive Charge proccing a snap AoE hate-maker or AoE taunt for pulls. Increase the range of the explosion, too.

Dagoth_Rac

Not really Templar specific, but "Trapping Webs" from the Undaunted line needs to be made into an AoE CC instead of a single target CC. The Undaunted skill line is specifically for dungeon groups. It should not have a single target CC. CC does not work on bosses so this skill is obviously meant for trash pulls. Snaring/fearing one mob out of a dozen in a trash pull is not particularly useful.

eliisra

Eternalain wrote: »

Sorcerers have the ability Encase. This skill is admittedly harder to aim than a PBAoE such as Dark Talons, but through practice or line-of-sight pulling can be used to great effect. It immobilizes all targets in a straight line (15m range, 4.5s duration). Morphs either deal extra damage or snare all targets when the immobilize ends, both great options for dps/tanking.

Encase and Daedric Tomb can both be used as AoE CC if aimed correctly. But the magicka cost is extreme, so nothing they can use frequently. Sorcerer CC is pretty lacklustre outside of Negate Magic ulti (and Streak for PvP). They also lost the taunt from Storm Atronachs ulti recently. They do have other great skills for tanking, like Thundering Presence. But no spam skill (like talons) to control multiple enemies.

I agree about the topic though. Undaunted or Sword and Board should really come with something like that. We need more non-class skills for specific roles like tanking.

guybrushtb16_ESO

Eternalain wrote: »

The other three classes all have at least one CLASS skill that can be used for multi-target CC. Whether those skills are viable in of themselves, or are better or worse than Volcanic Rune, is not the issue. What matters is that those class skills EXIST, whereas no such skill exists for the Templar class.

How is that not an issue? You seem to agree that those skills practically don't work but still their existance is reason enough for templars to get one too? The "fair" trade for that would most likely be templars get one too, and it's just as bad as the others.

Baphomet

Just raise the CC cap on spear shards so that it can disorient/stun up to 6 players.

Anazasi

In Dawns wraith line if you morph to the opposite of Vampires bane where it hits 3 targets you have a ranged CC that snares 3 targets. That along with spear shards that stuns one target or biting jabs that hits 4 targets and knock backs 1 is a lot of CC ability. I should also point out that Solar Disturbance ULTy is a huge damage and CC ability if players will just activate the synergy. I don't think Templars need an insta cast AOE class CC like the other classes there are abilities in other world lines that work for what is needed I believe.

jesterstear

Anazasi wrote: »

In Dawns wraith line if you morph to the opposite of Vampires bane where it hits 3 targets you have a ranged CC that snares 3 targets.

The morph you are referring to is called Reflective light and I suppose you could slot it for tanking. It is an instant cast, ranged snare and DoT which is fairly long lasting, and hits 3 targets. This could help DPSers who intend to kite, provided that

1) you manage to hit melee and not ranged mobs with the skill
2) the melee mobs you hit are actually being targeted by your DPS

In practice there doesn't seem to be much use for skills that restrict enemy movement, because in my experience of dungeon runs is that the DPS simply run headlong into the middle of the thickest knot of enemies they can find and start spamming Impulse (that fifth destruction staff skill that pulses waves of fire out from the caster, AOE killing everything in a few seconds). The cautious ones might actually use Volcanic rune to knock them all down before charging in.

Regarding our overall lack of crowd control, to an extent this is balanced by our ability to heal while tanking. Being able to zap people with Honour the Dead every few seconds and cast Repentance every time an opponent falls helps with the healing a bit. You can even use your big heal, remembrance, provided people actually realise the yellow circle is actually a healing one and NOT to run out of it.

Finally we have puncturing sweep, which will hold agro on mobs that are not being hit hard by someone else in melee range, and which will, in conjuction with rune focus, give you a pretty decent heal to boot and help you survive the onslaught without too much help from the healer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5qRm9P7jI4#t=335



I've linked a gameplay vid I did recently, taking on 6 on-level melee types, you can see the effect of reflective light, and particularly the effectiveness of puncturing sweep at self healing when faced with melee groups.

Edit - that was supposed to be a bookmark . skip to

www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5qRm9P7jI4#t=335

5.35 to get into the heavy fighting..

Lumber

Hi there,

I play templar tank since i'm veteran and I don't really agree with the "lack of AoE CC". At least I don't think this "lack" is so detrimental to tank as a templar.

Actually I've done all the PvE content as a tank, AA and Hel'ra, all vet dungeons in hard mode, I even have the achievement in crypt of hearts without dying.

For trash mobs tanking I recently favorite Caltrops instead of the Volcanic rune. This skill is a great aggro and ultimate builder, it snare mobs in a large area, and let you the time to taunt the most dangerous mobs.
If you play with the line of sight, mobs who are insensible to the snare or others CC, go directly rush on your face, while others less dangerous mobs like healer and caster will kindly go packed together behind the most dangerous.

Here you can use Blinding Lights / Blazing Spear / Puncturing Sweep, run around the mobs while swaying interrupt and others CC, use Repentance or whatever support skill you want. The time for your damage dealers to finish cleaning the mobs.

Each his method, but there are many options as a Templar to crowd control without need a skill as dark talons. Just find your...

Sorry for my bad english, I do my best to be understandable.

Regards

Pmarsico9

What is Caltrops and Repentance?

Lumber

http://esohead.com/skills/33376-caltrops

http://esohead.com/skills/26821-repentance

The other morph of Repentance (Radiant Aura) is also good, even better in most of cases, but as Redguard i haven't any issue with satmina regen, so, in dungeon particularly, i prefer Repentance.

Pmarsico9

Lumber wrote: »

http://esohead.com/skills/33376-caltrops

http://esohead.com/skills/26821-repentance

The other morph of Repentance (Radiant Aura) is also good, even better in most of cases, but as Redguard i haven't any issue with satmina regen, so, in dungeon particularly, i prefer Repentance.

Repentance is the morph of Restoring Aura. OK. Caltrops is interesting. I don't see many tanks using that. I may try that.

Draxuul

I haven`t read the entire thread but i just wanna say i completly disagree with what i have read.

Templars don`t need AoE CC. You just want your templar to have AoE CC thats different. There is a huge difference between the game needing something and a player just wanting something .

Templars have the strongest heals in the game. So saying that they need AoE CC just because all 3 of the others classes have it simply proves my point that this is just a player wanting something rather than a ballance issue.

All 3 other classes need to carry a resto staff if they want good heals, except for dragon knight who has the dragon blood self heal which costs alot to cast from what i`ve heard.

I play Templar , and i say that the fact that i have strong heals , more than makes up for the lack of AoE CC.

It really annoys me when people come to forums to rant that their character isn`t powerful enough for their taste. Everytime, it feels like people don`t want the challenge, they just want to feel powerful , but without really putting any efforts into it .

It`s like most people don`t want to experience with different builds and they don`t want to have to actually fight those mobs, they just want to press a key every once in a while and see something die.

I WANT the challenge, I want to feel like there is a chance to fail, i want to feel like i deserved each and every victories , i want to feel sattisfaction every time i win a battle and i want to be able to say that i win because i`m better than my opponent.I want the game to require skill in order to progress, not just good gear and powerful abilities that makes it impossible to fail.

I sure hope i`m not the only one who chooses player skill over gear and god like abilities. Because if this game changes and becomes all gear and no player skill, i will most certainly quit and this game will have it`s own little cozy spot right next to world of warcraft which i never intend to even look at ever again.

Draxuul

Brizz

Great post, I agree with you. I think that every class should have access to at least one skill that can counter the huge healing blobs out there - and all of them should go through block and give the effected enemy cc immunity after it breaks (currenly only available to nightblades using Mass Hysteria). A few class skills would need to be changed to be on par with what you suggest.

Dragon Knight:

• Choking Talons -Immobilizes nearby enemies for 4 seconds and deals 13 Physical Damage. Affected enemies' damage is reduced by 15%. An ally can activate the Impale Synergy, damaging enemies held within the talons. This ability is not effected by target cap.

Sorcerer:

• Streak - Teleports player forward and deals 13 shock damage to enemies moved through, disorienting them for 2 4 seconds. Out of combat magicka recovery is halved 4 seconds. After casting, the next Streak cast within 4 seconds costs 50% more.

NightBlade:

• Mass Hysteria - Induces fear in 2 all nearby enemies for 4 seconds, then reduces affected enemies' Weapon Damage by 27% and snares them 50% for 3 seconds.

Templar:

• Blazing Spear - Deals 14 Magic Damage to enemies within target area and stuns them for 2 seconds. Stuns 1 target for 2 seconds. Ally may pick up spear, granting them 25% stamina and an additional 0 stamina over 10 seconds. Enemies near the spear take 0 magic damage every 1 second.

forthewinn2

Aspect of terror is great in pvp but calling it an aoe CC is a bit of a stretch, I mean it hits 2 targets.

*uses Aspect of terror in pve*
*fears 2 mages, because RNG is evil*
*mages run in opposite directions*
*starts fighting remaining trash mobs*
*mages recover and wreck you, because they're too far away too be hit and are still in completely opposite directions*

Aspect of terror isn't really a crowd control ability, more like a crowd dispersion ability.There is absolutely no control anywhere when using Aspect of terror.

Brasseurfb16_ESO

I was wondering, why do nobody speak about Blinding Flashes (morph of Blinding Light). It is basicaly a buff that increases your spell resistance by 500 for 6sec with Illuminate passive and blinds your target 2sec every 2sec for the duration. Allowing 50% of ennemies attacks to miss the templar and staggering them each time they miss a hit.

booksmcread

I haven't tanked a whole lot, just a handful of the VR dungeons, but I have found both morphs of Blinding Light to be very useful for trash mobs in the very situation you are talking about, OP.

Also, you will not touch the DOT from Blazing Spear or I will break you! Due to Burning Light procs, it's usually my second best dps skill. And it's loads of fun in PVP.

jesterstear

At this stage it is worth pointing out that while running the level 44 instances on my Templar tank, I unlocked the achievement for healing 1 million points of health in dungeons. When I looked at the achievement for blocking damage, I was still a tad below the 400,000 mark. That was also before honor the dead got fixed, the magika caps got raised and the magika regen passive added to heavy armour.

Your Templar tank may lack CC but will spam a lot of heals out to the group..

Pmarsico9

The CC isn't for damage reduction..........The CC is to lock mobs down and allow people to AoE/Beat on them without much fear of reprisal.

It's not about protecting the templar. It's about having control over things in a game where there's no aggro table.

Targets eventually go immune to Taunt and they eventually will run and (usually) attack your healer. Having the ability to lock them down (Talons), fear them (Mass Hysteria), or Encase, Daedric Tomb, or Streak is vastly more beneficial than having a soak who tosses out heals keeping himself alive.

A soak who can't maintain being the focus of every target for controllable amounts of time ISN'T REALLY A SOAK, NOW ARE THEY?

Either give Templars CC on par with other classes, or give Templar's the ability to make everything hate them the most in a controllable fashion.

Which would be fine, imo, considering Templar DPS sucks horribly and isn't getting fixed. At least Templars would then be the best tank and the best healer.......

JLB

There are 2 classes in the race for the best tank, and it doesn't seem Templars are going to be in the race any time soon - at least not in 1.4.
OP has a point, in a game without AoE aggro, you rely on AoE CC to be a good tank. And Templar sucks on AoE CC.

That being said, it's very easy to solve this:

-Improve one of the morphs of Blinding Lights to be a better AoE CC for PvE. Yes, I know it got slightly boosted, but not enough imo.

-Blazing Spear has a slightly bigger radius and stuns all enemies inside the circle. AoE caps would mean 6 enemies, but throwing it 2 or 3 times would do the job.

Natjur

As a templar who tanks vet dugn, or healers (and sometimes both on the lower level ones)

The best AoE CC I have is Razor Caltrops.

timidobserver

The best trials tank I've ever encountered was a Templar given that trash mobs don't really need to be controlled. IMO, Templar wins in the survival area and stamina management area, and that is mostly all that matters in trials.

However, I concur that I hate healing Templar tanks in dungeons. Dungeons are much easier to heal when the tank is capable of holding mobs exactly where he wants them at.

Pmarsico9

timidobserver wrote: »

The best trials tank I've ever encountered was a Templar given that trash mobs don't really need to be controlled. IMO, Templar wins in the survival area and stamina management area, and that is mostly all that matters in trials.

However, I concur that I hate healing Templar tanks in dungeons. Dungeons are much easier to heal when the tank is capable of holding mobs exactly where he wants them at.

There's no question that when you are running blobs for Trials zergs, the control aspect is way less important considering your group is completely clumped to promote AoE, in those cases, you don't need a tank at all, really. Because all they should be doing is trying to taunt as much as possible.......but generally it doesn't matter.

On bosses, Temp's have a very easy time hitting both armor and spell resistance caps due to passives. They also can have a ton of pure stamina regeneration without gearing for it.

I don't view this as a Templar-specific problem. It is a game-wide true-tank-viability issue, in that tanking is far too specific. It is not needed far too often. Which is ultimately a game design problem.

Raiborn

This is a great thread - I enjoyed reading the whole thing.
1. I like the idea of 'aoe snap taunts' by Pmarsico9. I don't care about cc - I just want them to attack ME!!!! Why? because:
2. Templar tanks have epic survivability as mentioned by Pmarsico9 again (we should be friends). I CAN take on tons of things beating on me. Why? because:
3. SUNFIRE SHIELD + PUNCTURING SWEEPS + RADIANT AURA
(+ BLOCKING + HEALS)

I have been using Volcanic Rune myself. My strat is to drop it before the fight starts and I tell my healer/caster to stand on it ^.^ It's their best friend.
I do want to try Caltrops. Sounds like a win.
Adding an AoE cc to Blazing Spear would be sick! Otherwise it is kinda meh for tanking - it's basically a magic version of Volley except it's level lock is much higher (Ok, and yes stamina return and single target cc). I would LOVE to be able to use a class skill ie. Blazing Spear instead of Volcanic Rune (or both).

But no, an AoE taunt would be amazing. I can generate some decent aggro with Puncturing Sweeps, but with multiple big targets/when adds spawn I need all their attentions NOW. Adding it to one of Focused Charge's morphs would be nice because I never use it otherwise - Invasion is just better.

I'm talking from my own experience of course. Without AoE cc (which is quite temporary anyway) or an AoE taunt, I currently run around and Puncture Armor every threatening target. Yes, the debuff on everything is fantastic combined with AoE, but if I'm losing stamina blocking, re-applying even on key targets can be tough.

An AoE force taunt would be legit - where the number of targets ranked up when leveling the morph. We'd have to be more careful when using it as well - there are times when taunting it all can be a terrible idea XD. It would make the Templar more of a 'true tank' by typical MMO play. Keep us unique!

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO

TRIP233 wrote: »

Templar, Dawn's Wrath, second ability Solar Flare. Morph it - Solar Barrage. Templar Crowd Control. It will hit everything around the Character and make your follow up attack stronger. Though the attack its self is weak and it could use a buff. But Templar Crowd Control exists.

http://www.esohead.com/skills/22095-solar-barrage

Edited for more clarity on the attack.

I don't think you understand cc. Solar barrage is aoe DPs. The only effect is damage . cc refers to stuns, snares and disabling effects... Your comment is totally off base.

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO

I don't approve of changing blazing spear. Its really annoying when people think its fine to change any morph they don't use. Blazing spear is good with the procs and still supports tank, I use it Pve and PvP. I don't approve of a change. A mulitarget cc would be great but you gant just go around needing good skills to get it.