Anything new for magicka Templars (healing/dps in PvP)

tinythinker

If someone, say, had a Templar that hadn't been played for 2, maybe 3 updates, how far behind the curve would that character be in terms of new mechanics, gear, etc? Has that much changed or would it more or less be the same as before?

To give an idea of what I'm currently working with, I just gave her some hand-me downs from my DK, which include such gems as:

• 5 pieces of light Seducer (green with white glyphs)
• 4-5 pieces of heavy Seducer (blue/purple with green glyphs)
• 5 pieces of blue Warlock

Those are VR12 (as is she atm), and I went with 5 Warlock/4 Seducer using 5 light pieces and two heavy. Her previous gear was level 6-10 pieces from sets like Lords and Soulshine along with generic PvP reward bag items.

Abilities include basic Templar staples such as Breath of Life, Blazing Spear, Binding Javelin, Blazing Shield, Dark Flare, etc.

derpsticks

Improvement mats are very very cheap. You can upgrade your armor for next to nothing but get to vr14 then make fresh gear. Save the warlocks. You could try a stamina build if you want. Head over to the class skills subforum for more details.

tinythinker

Yeah, that gear can be upgraded, I just haven't been following the magicka/healing based changes to Templars, item sets, game mechanics, and such for a good while as I was tinkering with a stamina DK.

Just curious if it was still worth going with the old Warlock/Seducer combination and upgrading that as necessary/possible. My biggest concern is sustainability and survivability while still being effective with generating ultimate/keeping up the healing/damage, so if that means something closer to the 140s in Magicka Recovery instead of 150-160+, that's OK. I'm at 153/158 (depending on weapon swap) at the moment, which is fine, with Spell Damage at 103 and Spell Crit at 36% using Inner Light.

Fafnisbane

There hasn't been a whole lot of change, honestly. You still want light armor (and those are still excellent sets) and spell power, and to use mostly magicka-based class skills. Breath of Life and Blazing Spear are the best. Dark Flare is much less important now that there's a heal-debuff skill in the 1h/s line.

tinythinker

Fafnisbane wrote: »

There hasn't been a whole lot of change, honestly. You still want light armor (and those are still excellent sets) and spell power, and to use mostly magicka-based class skills. Breath of Life and Blazing Spear are the best. Dark Flare is much less important now that there's a heal-debuff skill in the 1h/s line.

I've still been having fun with Sun Fire (morphs). You have to watch for signs that a shield user or DK is reflecting, but otherwise it is a nice thing to have along with the other abilities you mentioned.

Schno

tinythinker wrote: »

Spell Crit at 36% using Inner Light.

Spellcrit in PvP isnt worth in my opinion, its good vs players who dont wear inpenetrable but the most good PvP players will wear sets with these traits and then you're not going to hit them critical.
Please correct me if I´m wrong.

I prefer Entropy instead of Inner Light also I recommend to try Blinding Flashes (morph) a bit.

ThatHappyCat

Schno wrote: »

tinythinker wrote: »

Spell Crit at 36% using Inner Light.

Spellcrit in PvP isnt worth in my opinion, its good vs players who dont wear inpenetrable but the most good PvP players will wear sets with these traits and then you're not going to hit them critical.
Please correct me if I´m wrong.

I prefer Entropy instead of Inner Light also I recommend to try Blinding Flashes (morph) a bit.

Spell crit is still useful for PvP healing. IMO Blazing Shield is usually superior to Blinding Flashes, which costs more magicka and is not 100% reliable (and doesn't work from range). There's not much point using both either.

Schno

Ah ok thats right the heal crits.

Blinding Flashes is fun to play.
I know that this ability is more expensive but with this u are able to blind whole zergs.

ThatHappyCat

Blinding Flashes is certainly effective, though if you jump into the middle of a zerg (and you'd have to, as Blinding Flashes has a very short range) you'll probably need Sun Shield to stay alive. And using both can drain your magicka pretty rapidly.

PenguinInACan

I have had pretty decent success running with around 2500 magicka/145 -150 spell damage. Of course that leaves me with pretty poor magicka regen (120-130) but with pots/resto heavy attack I balance out pretty well.

Because of that magicka pool/spell damage my BoL hits uncrit for 820 and my Blazing Spears hit for 320. Couple that with 7/7 light for the reduced magicka cost and my resource management is pretty good. (Not seducer/warlock w/reduced spell cost enchant good, but good nonetheless)

Baphomet

Only way to play a magicka-templar is with 5 seducer + 5 warlock. And amittedly, the magicka management is quite good for a templar with that combo...but it's just about the only viable combo.

If you're running destro staff, too, I would suggest speccing into spell penetration and use crushing shock as your main dps. Hit your target with reflective light / vamire's bane to put a dot on him, and then weave crushing shock with light attacks. Alternately, open up with dark flare, cast reflective and then start weaving crushing and light attacks. This is actually quite decent burst damage (for your ranged loadout) and can get the better of an unsuspecting target quite often.

Another good burst combo, and you need these more than any other class as a templar, is dark flare + toppling charge + biting jabs.

And of course, you need breath of life and blazing shield somewhere on your loadouts, too.

Still, templars are the clunkiest class to play and it still don't have the smooth flow of gameplay like the other classes do, but they are still fun to play because they are more diverse and can be good in both melee and ranged.

One word of warning though is that the current lethal arrow healing debuff hits templars harder than any class at the moment. Their "oh *** button", breath of life, is their "escape mechanism", together with blazing shield, but it doesn't work when debuffed. The other classes still have their escape mechanisms intact, so you have to try to circumvent this until Zenimax eventually get the bug fixed...which could be done in a few hours with a hot fix, but I am speculating Marts.

ThatHappyCat

Baphomet wrote: »

One word of warning though is that the current lethal arrow healing debuff hits templars harder than any class at the moment. Their "oh *** button", breath of life, is their "escape mechanism", together with blazing shield, but it doesn't work when debuffed. The other classes still have their escape mechanisms intact, so you have to try to circumvent this until Zenimax eventually get the bug fixed...which could be done in a few hours with a hot fix, but I am speculating Marts.

On the other hand, Templars have the best personal cleanse in Purifying Ritual. Cheap, effective and creates a large area HoT that increases the effectiveness of your Breath of Life.