Honest Templar Assessment & Ideas Moving Forward

Edgar_Baerland

Bit of a doozy for an inaugural post, heh. This post is largely regarding PVP only.

I spend plenty of time combing these threads. I think often everyone is very much too reactionary and ready to start up the complainsaw at a moment's notice. I think what gets lost in all that is an honest assessment of each class. The goal of this post is purely to constructively analyze the state of the Templar, good and bad.

I would comment on the other three classes, but seeing as how I have a VR14 Templar I've been playing since launch and my next closest alt is lvl 33, I see myself as not at all qualified to comment on other classes as a player--only as opponents. In the spirit of constructive content, If anyone else wants to do an "honest assessment" of other classes I think that'd be great.

It would appear that in PVP terms, Templars largely lack efficacy aside from the top tier of very good Templar players-- honestly, I attribute this not necessarily to being "underpowered" but to three specific things:
1. Few ability combinations and inter-tree synergy due to:
2. huge amount of abilities with long animations and channel time, and
3. mechanical issues with the abilities themselves.

In the interest of fairness, lets talk about the good things Templars have going for them, as well as the in-between abilities and the troubling abilites.

Strengths:

1.Radiant Destruction is a fantastic ability. It has to be used responsibly as it leaves you vulnerable, but lets face it, It's a fantastic part of the arsenal. It activates instantly, and can do great damage to med-low health targets. Even stam temps can throw it on an alt bar for ranged finishing.

2. Purifying Ritual and Channeled Focus are both fantastic utility abilities. Each with buff/heal/debuff capacities that represent incredible value for the resource cost.

3. Dark Flare is absolutely outstanding, though it is a little complex to use given the channel time and mortar-shot animation. But I mean, Defile+Empower+sizeable damage blast. This is just money. Given how strong it is, I think this is just about where it should be.

4. Speaking generally, The restoring light tree offers a dedicated capacity to truly heal and support in a variety of ways, and offers extremely useful abilities even on alt-bar or secondary heals without that much dedicated to it.

5. Toppling charge, though it may have the global cooldown issue occasionally, is a strong charge, and looking objectively its great to have a class mana-based charge that allows some diversity of melee magicka setups.

6. The following passives are very strong/class defining: Restoring Spirit, Balanced Warrior, Burning Light, Piercing Spear, Focused Healing

In-Between:

1. Eclipse and its morphs, in truth, is an incredible ability. By all rights this should be up with the category above as a "strength." The bottom line is, its an easily casted spell that can throw your opponent on the defensive IMMEDIATELY if he depends on offensive spells at all. The problem is, its CC-breakable, which is something that is somewhat tolerable except for the fact that its uncastable on a CC immune player AND many other temp abilities like Jabs, Javelin, Charge and Spear shards all give CC immunity (jabs being the worst offender, gives it away like candy for nothing) My propsal: Reduce duration by 2sec and remove CC break. It would be on par with the strength of abilities like NB fear or DK petrify or to some degree Sorc Teleport.

2. Jabs/Sweeps. Again, this should be in the "strength" category. Does great damage, very useful, big cone of attack. Everyone knows what I'm going to say here: having it give away CC immunity for next to nothing makes it worthless in conjuction with other temp abilities. My proposal: make the knockback stronger or remove it and the cc immunity entirely. If removed, replace it with a short/mild snare.

3. Backlash and its morphs are significantly better now after 1.6. The removal of cast time and ability to stack was absolutely a godsend. currently though, the wording implies it stores damage and releases after duration for 133% of the damage done but instead seems to be doing 33% of damage done. I think 133% would make it crazily OP; somewhere in between the two numbers would be nice. like 45-65% or so. It's 6sec long so players have plenty of time to purify it tbh.

4. Blazing spear has some usefulness as a AOE ability, does good dot damage and can stun a few peeps. It's pretty solid, but it follows the trend of many Templar abilities that take forever to travel to destination from cast point. basically all temps will say you have to cast Bspear not anywhere near where your target is, but try to get him where he's going to be. frankly, it misses a lot and represents not so great value except for against groups.

5. Restoring Aura-- its not so much that this ability isn't good, as it just isn't good enough to warrant a spot on the bar most of the time. It's great for regen boosts, and repentance represents awesome value especially in group PVP (free resources for dead bodies) but its pretty close to a dead spot on your bar, giving you 4 slots to work with, 1 of which will probably be a self heal and another a shield. Basically, its a great buff ability but given the other heal/buff abilities Templars need to run, you just run out of bar space eventually. My proposal: Make the activation of Radiant Aura cost significantly more magicka but offer a moderate self heal, like a very watered-down Green dragon blood.

Troubling Abilities:

1. Piercing Javelin and morphs. I want to love this ability. I try so so hard to work it into builds. The bottom line is, its most useful for magicka builds as a single-target cc and at that point, you'd be an idiot to use it instead of flame clench. As is, it costs WAY too much, has a crazily short range, and does very, very little damage relative to its cost. Frankly, I'd rather this be removed and see blinding flashes brought back (as an aside, losing blinding flashes was a HUGE blow to templar's CC/control/survivability game.) But leaving it as is, my proposal is to reduce mana cost by 1/3 and increase range by 4-6 meters. Then we can talk about it possibly being worth a bar slot.

2. Sun fire and morphs, should be in the "strength" bracket. It's great damage, incredible DOT, snares and grants crit rating. Once again, it faces the same problem as most of Templar's good abilities--It takes absolutely forever to get to target, and its a big ball of light that's pretty hard not to see coming. The amount of time enemy players have to rolldodge/scales/port away/invis makes this ability close to useless if they see it coming. My proposal: nerf the buffs or the dmg or both if you have to, but HIGHLY increase travel time.

3. Blazing Shield probably needed to be scaled back, but at this point its become so cost-ineffective to represent negative resource value, especially in comparison to other shields. The real problem though, is the fact that the cast animation takes FOREVER. I can cast Evasion and Annulment in the time it takes to cast Bshield. Often, it's put on bars simply to gain the Aedric Spear passives. My proposal: sharply reduce animation time of cast, and give it a very modest buff in terms of shield strength. The mana cost can stay high as long as it feels like it represents moderate-good value for the caster.

4. Templars have a passives problem. Now, to be fair, I only have a moderate knowledge of other classes' passives. But in what little time I've spent fooling around on PTS and on alts, I can tell you that Templar's passives pale in comparison. Spear wall, illuminate, light weaver, master ritualist, and even enduring rays and prism leave much to be desired. It's not that these are "bad", or that they all need to be changed. It's just that en masse, these abilities represent half of all templar passives and pack very little punch in terms of truly making templars stronger/more defined. Most every other class offers direct damage buffs, cost reductions or overall increased durability, along with big resource gains/regens from their passives. Magicka flood increases max mana by 8% for each siphoning ability. Power stone decreases ult cost by 15% global, you don't even need a daedric summoning ability slotted. Warmth gives a 30% snare for 4 secs when damaging a player with any ardent flame ability. These are significant, powerful, character-defining passives. Quite frankly, they might not even be the best or second best passives for each class. Each one of them is better than the best Templar passive, which in my mind is restoring spirit. And there's a sharp drop-off from there. My proposal... well, I wouldn't go so far as to try and change ZOS' vision for the Templar. I simply think that objectively looking at all 12 passives of each class, the Templars' could stand some strengthening.

6. All three ults pale in comparison to other classes ults in terms of true strength. I think most temps will tell you they use Dawnbreaker or Meteor for their ults if they're trying to do damage. Rite of passage is an awesome heal, but it is only useful in a group for a dedicated healer. radial sweep I very much like, but in order for it to be better in needs a very, very large range increase. Nova is very strong but super easy to get away from, and the incredibly high ult cost basically makes it just a poor man's meteor. My proposal: let templars move 2/3 speed while casting rite of passage, greatly increase radial sweep range, and give a morph of nova that allows caster to move it like Shifting Standard.


Thank you to those who took the time to read this. Again, my goal is simply to address the Templar on the whole and talk about what is holding it back as well as what makes it great. I'd obviously love for the ZOS people to give this a look-see, I understand they have plenty on their plate, but I believe this is a fair and honest assessment.

Conclusion: Templars are a fun, unique class with some extremely powerful qualities. They are great healers and off-healers which gives them survivability; They have some incredibly strong ranged spells, and a strong bread and butter melee damage ability in Jabs. They strongly lack mobility, but they are designed to be a stand your ground/hold the line class. Even if big changes don't happen soon, reasonable changes to things like passives, animation/channel time and travel rate of projectiles would go a long way to allowing a greater diversity of skill usage and build possibilities.

See you in Cyrodiil,
Edgar Baerland

kkravaritieb17_ESO

Dark flare is outstanding? Havent laughed in a while ....

Saft

Toppling charge Always has global cooldown but yeah if that removed it would be good, but you can not have a self stun skill listed as good?

Radiant destruction as finisher for stamina builds, i guess if moving in a big raid, but solo or small scale pvp, its kinda wasted slot, and would as stamina user be better with executioner in it.
It is however great in magica builds indeed. Dangerous to use because of attention, and easy for enemies to dodge/block/purge. But it hit hard in magica builds indeed.

Dark flare Sorry, is good as you mentioned as magica build , tho it is easy countered by crushing shock, venom arrow bash or hard CC. It also snare you when casting, so its very hard to get off in combat. Does work ok when used with imovable tho.

Otherwise agree with you on Strengths sides, the rest your wrote seems to be good or in line.

Troubling Abilities:
I think best passives are Piercing spear and Burning light, where burning light actually is really good. What we could use perhaps is some ability to incrase our magica based dmg, templar magica pve magica builds and pvp builds are fiarly weak, where we atleast in PVE do good in stamina builds. Something that boost our magica dps. Otherwise agree on all.

6. All three ults pale...

I think our ulties are balanced if you look at other classes, tho they are all for PVE none of them are good in PVP. But thats the deal for most classes. Our ulties are almost all bound to be at once location, making them weak and easy to avoid in PVP. In PVE they are good i think.

Kas

dark flare is terrible. it's so easy to dodge / reflect, interrupting it isn't even necessary. i'd take vampire's bane over it for the exact reason you hate it (slow travel speed), because dark flare is even worse and if dodged / reflected means you didn't only waste an insta cast but one with a cast time.

PS: i find it funny you don't even mention the ritual heal aka half an hour cast time for the biggest overheal you have ever seen. with some boost (equip c-system, etc) and inside purifying ritual, this heals for about as much HP as an emperor has... wow, someone 80% HP and missing about 4k health? better start with long as cast and hope he doen't tkae too muc damage. maybe you're lucky and get to him when he's at 30%. His 15k missing HP will be very glad to be healed by 30k....

Sublime

Edgar_Baerland wrote: »

In the spirit of constructive content, If anyone else wants to do an "honest assessment" of other classes I think that'd be great.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/168847/pvp-class-balance-analysis-as-of-2-0-7/p1
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/169418/stamina-pvp-class-balance-analysis-as-of-2-0-7/p1

Something like that?

OT: Basically I agree that Templars need quite a bit of love but I don't think their passives are as bad. The suggested changes to active abilities sound quite good however. Apart from that and with the way PvP is currently played the Templars healing isn't strong enough to heal squishies, meaning I'd buff the numbers of BOL or give them a way to shield allies.

And I think you forgot Healing Ritual, in my eyes it's the most useless (apart from taunt) PvP skill atm, because it's channeled, which means it can easily be interrupted, and the healing AOE is very small. PvE templars might really like it but the current skill just doesn't fit into the PvP meta. As a fix I'd suggest to either remove the snare or increase the radius, while slightly reducing the healing value

Edgar_Baerland

Ah, good call on the healing ritual. Honestly It's a skill i haven't used since launch so it just eluded me. I agree it doesn't quite fill a good role atm

Edgar_Baerland

And yes @Sublime I read that post, thoroughly enjoyed it. That's the kind of analysis we need more of

Francescolg

Edgar_Baerland wrote: »

Strengths:

1.Radiant Destruction is a fantastic ability. It has to be used responsibly as it leaves you vulnerable, but lets face it, It's a fantastic part of the arsenal. It activates instantly, and can do great damage to med-low health targets. Even stam temps can throw it on an alt bar for ranged finishing.

Nope, you apparantly have never seen (or played at VR14) other classes "finishers" as the DK's molten weapons (up to 25k weapon attacks). I'll not dig deeper but Radiant Destruction is not F A N T A S T I C and outstanding, as the light in which you see it. (medium health targets do not get high damage if you don't have assistance.., again: test Molten Weapons on a VR 14 DK spec'd for Weapon Attacks). See other statements on RD in the forums.

2. Purifying Ritual and Channeled Focus are both fantastic utility abilities. Each with buff/heal/debuff capacities that represent incredible value for the resource cost.

I prefer using Immovabe, and Immovabe is pretty much important for healers (vs. negate magic, fear, etc., etc.) What do I need the ritual, when I get CC'd every 0,5 seconds. I'll need immov potions + Immovable (as healer). In PvP we have purge as an instant cast which helps faster...
Channeled Focus is nice but has a very short duration (making it much less attractive) and too many (!) skills share the same armor buff..
Not much of I N C R E D I B L E with those skills.

3. Dark Flare is absolutely outstanding, though it is a little complex to use given the channel time and mortar-shot animation. But I mean, Defile+Empower+sizeable damage blast. This is just money. Given how strong it is, I think this is just about where it should be.

O U T S T A N D I N G means sth. which is unique and worth spec'ing. I am sorry, again, but all classes have great (casted) abilities which come together with O U T S T A N D I N G utility (mostly CCs/dmg buffs). Crystal Frags, just one example, will stun your enemy. While you can get the (omg SO outstanding) '20% more dmg buff' in really many ways, or by mages guild abilities. Dark Flare is nothing unique!

What remains is the 30% healing debuff which you can get by doing disease damage with you weapon attacks (proc chance). So every class has access to healing debuffs that, combined with weapon attacks, can result in up to 45% heal debuff (x2).

BUT, most players use absorb shields, or 40%+ dodge chance. A heal debuff is nice, but won't help if you face multiple Barriers, absorb shields, etc.

4. Speaking generally, The restoring light tree offers a dedicated capacity to truly heal and support in a variety of ways, and offers extremely useful abilities even on alt-bar or secondary heals without that much dedicated to it.

Every class in this game in being given a more-or-less acceptable way to heal itself.
Have you ever tried Momentum from 2h spec? Have you tried Vigor? This are just the latest goodies to heal up for everybody. Healing Ward alone can absorb up to 25k, if you cast it when your mate is under 30/25%.. No other shield/heal will rescue such a target from an inc 'finisher' for 25k dmg.

5. Toppling charge, though it may have the global cooldown issue occasionally, is a strong charge, and looking objectively its great to have a class mana-based charge that allows some diversity of melee magicka setups.

Nice, yes, but not at all outstanding, as it is the 'most bugged skill' ever. Playing around with it is like playing Russian Roulette in PvP. It's often left out because of this
...
......
Wait, we have many Russian Players on EU! Pardon! :-)

6. The following passives are very strong/class defining: Restoring Spirit, Balanced Warrior, Burning Light, Piercing Spear, Focused Healing

Burning light is very specific and not aways applicable.
Focused healing has been bugged (similar to our spear charge) since release, or just worked in the un-morphed skill, or it just worked for the caster, etc. etc. THIS bugged skills have a "negative OMEN" for templars, even if they work now..

Edgar_Baerland wrote: »

Conclusion: Templars are a fun, unique class with some extremely powerful qualities. They are great healers and off-healers which gives them survivability; They have some incredibly strong ranged spells, and a strong bread and butter melee damage ability in Jabs. They strongly lack mobility, but they are designed to be a stand your ground/hold the line class. Even if big changes don't happen soon, reasonable changes to things like passives, animation/channel time and travel rate of projectiles would go a long way to allowing a greater diversity of skill usage and build possibilities.

You choose way more "shiny words" then necessary: [fun, unique, extremely powerful, great, survivable, incredible, strong, bread and butter], to describe the situation of Templars in PvP.
Less 'strong' words would have made your thread much more credible for me, beside that it simply is too long, as is my answer. We already have so many threads about Templars which fit in one of whose categories:
a) Templars are fine
b) Templars are subpar

---

Beautification is at the wrong place, just my opinion, cause it trivializes the situation of the Templar. Most players I know are either twinking or they try to find out how to survive in PvP. ;-)
The biggest part only plays in groups, so they don't even spend time discussing

timidobserver

Stopped reading at Darkflare is absolutely outstanding. At least somebody likes it.

david.haypreub18_ESO

He's right about Templar's poor passives and poor ultimates though.

Edgar_Baerland

For those of you who think dark flare sucks, trying using it immediately after stunning your opponent, then following it with a high damage attack like Dawnbreaker, meteor, Radiant oppression or even a fully charged heavy attack. Yes its a combo that takes a little bit of preparation, but you will hit them like a truck and if they survive they are completely on the defensive/recovery mode.

For those of you who don't like my adjectives, well, this post isn't for you.

jrkhan

Fact check: Magika flood does not increase max magika by 8% for each siphoning ability slotted. That would be crazy. It increases by 8% if at least one siphoning ability is slotted.

technohic

Edgar_Baerland wrote: »

Strengths:



3. Dark Flare is absolutely outstanding, though it is a little complex to use given the channel time and mortar-shot animation. But I mean, Defile+Empower+sizeable damage blast. This is just money. Given how strong it is, I think this is just about where it should be.

Yeah, you will get flack from this but I agree. it is really the hard hitter for Templar but mainly in groups where you might not be targeted by an interrupt or where you are safe from interrupts. The problem these days is with all the burst flying around, being stunned could mean instant death.

Solar Barrage morph is what really needs a change. I've kind of thought it could use to be a melee helping ability like it seeems to be intended for but should have a faster animation and have a blinding flashes sort of effect to it rather than a damage boost. Or spear line leads me to believe that there is meant to be magicka melee and again; some of the best DPS templars you'll see in PvP are magicka melee, so why not give them a tool to combat the nerf of light armor to still be melee?

Edgar_Baerland wrote: »

Troubling Abilities:

1. Piercing Javelin and morphs. I want to love this ability. I try so so hard to work it into builds. The bottom line is, its most useful for magicka builds as a single-target cc and at that point, you'd be an idiot to use it instead of flame clench. As is, it costs WAY too much, has a crazily short range, and does very, very little damage relative to its cost. Frankly, I'd rather this be removed and see blinding flashes brought back (as an aside, losing blinding flashes was a HUGE blow to templar's CC/control/survivability game.) But leaving it as is, my proposal is to reduce mana cost by 1/3 and increase range by 4-6 meters. Then we can talk about it possibly being worth a bar slot.

The good javelin where you get the 3 second KD went to the stamina morph and is useful there. Just watch some of the successful stamina Templars like Ebonheart. It has its usses. Unfortunately for magicka templars, might have been our most reliable to hit, longer than half a second CC, now gone. The magicka version is just a KB that also give free CC immunity for a split second of CC. I think they should actually combine both morphs to where they both have both abilities, just one stam, the other magicka.

Edgar_Baerland wrote: »

2. Sun fire and morphs, should be in the "strength" bracket. It's great damage, incredible DOT, snares and grants crit rating. Once again, it faces the same problem as most of Templar's good abilities--It takes absolutely forever to get to target, and its a big ball of light that's pretty hard not to see coming. The amount of time enemy players have to rolldodge/scales/port away/invis makes this ability close to useless if they see it coming. My proposal: nerf the buffs or the dmg or both if you have to, but HIGHLY increase travel time.


See you in Cyrodiil,
Edgar Baerland

Speeding up sunfire will not help it and here is where it is definitely worse than Dark Flare. Most of its damage in either morph is in the DOT. Even if you land it, it will not do much to a shielded target and it is easily cleansed or purged. Kind of a problem with any DOT but, just saying there isn't much that can be done about that. At least dark flare has raw, up front damage and also works to keep a NB from stealthing away as well.



Otherwise; good post and I mostly agree.

technohic

Anyone that doesn't see the advantage in channeled focus from immovable is doing it wrong, BTW. You're probably going to want imovable pots anyway and magicka regen is too good to ignore.

Edgar_Baerland

Thank you for the correction @jrkhan !


I appreciate the insight @technohic , and I completely agree about Solar Barrage. I should've gone into detail about that morph-- it has potential, but the animation and lack of benefit for cost makes it troubling for melee temps. I think it would be great to see a buff or change to it.
I like the idea about Javelin as well, merging the morphs and making one stam the other magicka. I'm glad at least some people are making use of the stam morph.

Hmm, good point on sunfire. Perhaps speeding it up and making more of the dmg upfront and less as a dot would be ideal.

technohic

Edgar_Baerland wrote: »

Thank you for the correction @jrkhan !


I appreciate the insight @technohic , and I completely agree about Solar Barrage. I should've gone into detail about that morph-- it has potential, but the animation and lack of benefit for cost makes it troubling for melee temps. I think it would be great to see a buff or change to it.
I like the idea about Javelin as well, merging the morphs and making one stam the other magicka. I'm glad at least some people are making use of the stam morph.

Hmm, good point on sunfire. Perhaps speeding it up and making more of the dmg upfront and less as a dot would be ideal.

For sunfire; I think all you could do is speed up the animation. The DOT problem on it probably has more to do with the current meta in PvP right now than it does the actual strength of the ability. it still has its uses as the buffs and the snare, its just not ideal for damage in a game that has become so heavily about burst. PvP in every game has high burst being on top, but this one takes it to a new level.

Cinbri

Honest Templar Assessment, huh? Ok, let's talk for hardcore pvp templar meta-game:
1.Radiant Destruction - it was great skill back on pts when it was bugged like hell. Now it is just easily interruptable, purgable, not usable in duel. Ofc if you like to hiding behind zergs and press one button - this skill is definetly for you. Anyway was fun to hear during 1.6 release all qq about it. People were so confused that "pocket healers" could do some damage, even if skill was bugged.
2.Restoring Focus - i personally used it in 1.5 in same way as DKs their obsidian shield - be under 20% hp, cast RF, press healing button once=be with 100% hp. Now this morph "double" nerfed: you recieving pathetic 8% healing and only while standing inside rune, despite skill's tooltip. It making Channeled Focus only as only one viable morph. Maybe zos should change RF to major healing buff (30%) or, to negate what they did with Aura and make stamina templars viable, just give to RF stamina restoring buff just like CH restoring magicka.
3.Dark Flare - another skill that you can use without problems only while hiding behind zergs, i.e. not viable skill. Since healing depression reduced to 30% and not cumulative anymore, this skill became much more less usefull. With it slow projectile speed and giant cast time (especially during lag time), enemy by 1 dodge can evade 3(!) Dark Flare projectiles. Also it is useless vs zergs now, as those can spam 3-4 purges while you only casting 1 Flare. 20% insta cast won't help at all, better give it insta cast by default, may be it will alow templars to blockcasting it and really using it, since most of templars in small scale groups avoiding spell with casting time, and those who hiding behind zerg prefers RD for stealing kills.
And 20% Empower won't allow you to hit "like a track", as someone said, with class skills coz: 1)templar don't have viable single-hit ability (except Flare) 2)buff not applying on channeled skills (you won't hit harder with jabs, RD, i.e. skills that can really do some damage)
4.Restoring Aura - nuff said, as Focus, have only 1 viable morph - Repentance, that again usefull only in zerg fight, when bunch of dead people can restore unbelievable numbers of resources. ZOS said we will recieve mana managment update = 10% mana regen in exchange of nerfed Aura.
5.Jabs - nuff said, pts 170% without cc immunity, double nerfed to 140% with cc immunity for free. Since most of fights are zergs, this skill is no use as you will be immediatelly CCed while channeling it, and even in small scale battles, personally i always trying to be hit by jabs if someone using it, coz cc immunity for free in exchange for miserable damage recieved is worth it. Best example for skill that working against its caster.
6.Rushed Ceremony - nerfed by change passive and removal of combo with resto-staff = double nerf (again). In addition has only 1 viable morph that making templars a "pocket healers". Honor the Dead - still, despite requests, not stacking magicka return, i.e if your templar in group bigger than 2 this morph becoming less usefull than Breath of Life.
6. Sweep - ult that reducing damage - as tooltip claim you have damage resistance for several seconds after dealing damage by skill, however it counts only initial hit, i.e. dot damage do nothing except miserable damage, so only 6 sec damage resistance (at least it mitigating damage shields).
7. Blazing Shield - or simply BS, that now means "BullSh*t", recieved 10% incresing cost nerf. Nerf that did to force you to think about another useless morph of it - Radiant Ward that only can be used in dueling (watch Divine Cross vids). For templars with many cp points invested into Elfborne, Blessed, Quick Recovery, 1 cast of Breath of Life is 4 times more effective than BS (also i didn't test yet how Lady passives working with damage shields).
In addition to this templars have absolutelly useless or bugged skills: Sun Fire, Backlash, Healing Ritual, Javelin, Charge.

---

In summary, i see why Templars numbers decreasing as not anyone wanna be "pocket healer", or running with zergs to feels themselves viable class. If 1.6 was our "place under the sun", i afraid how our sunset will looks like.

Edgar_Baerland

I feel your frustration man. There definitely is far too many skills that are very challenging to use. And we lack one or two dominant powerhouse skills that most other classes have.

That being said, the class still has strengths. My temp is magicka setup, if I can attack a dude out of stealth or unawares: Darkflare->immediately cast curshing shock->immediately cast radiant oppression. It instakills many people. all three attacks get there around the same time, too. It's pretty hard to stop. That's my favorite combo right now.

Cinbri

The simple question that indicates desperate situation and noone can't answer on - why in 1.6 almost every single defensive templar mechnic was nerfed (Rushed Ceremony - nerfed; Aura - nerfed; Restoring Focus - nerfed; Mending - nerfed; Blazing Shield - nerfed; AOE CC[Blinding Light] - nerfed )?

PikkonMG

kkravaritieb17_ESO wrote: »

Dark flare is outstanding? Havent laughed in a while ....

Same lol, and Eclipse and its morphs is total trash. Ya lets cast Eclipse on a target and give them free CC immunity. Only thing Eclipse is good for is talon spamming DK's, cast it on them and watch them fly half way across the map!

Toppling charge is broke as crap and gets stuck in the animation all the time.

Only strengths a templar truly has is it's a dam good healer and group support toon if you play it right.

DanTeales_Inferno

IMO, a huge problem with Templars is stamina management. As a tanky class with no escape, stamina management is crucial to making our magicka management and survivability pay off.

The nerf to restoring aura was absolutely pathetic and anyone using it clearly doesnt know what theyre doing. Repentance is the clear cut victor and is one of the best group skills in the game. We need a passive or active ability that allows for a magicka build to keep their stamina levels up. Restoring Aura increases stam and health (health regen !? or a class that can heal to full health in seconds, gg zos) which is a pathetically low amount considering GDB and Merciless Resolve do the same with added benefits. This ability needs to be buffed considerably, not to 80% this would be too high, but to something above its current level considering its only other effect is that it also effects group members.

Joy_Division

Cinbri wrote: »

The simple question that indicates desperate situation and noone can't answer on - why in 1.6 almost every single defensive templar mechnic was nerfed (Rushed Ceremony - nerfed; Aura - nerfed; Restoring Focus - nerfed; Mending - nerfed; Blazing Shield - nerfed; AOE CC[Blinding Light] - nerfed )?

Because they were OP in 1.5

Edgar_Baerland

Believe me, I want to see the Eclipse CC break changed more than anyone. It doesn't make any sense that it can be CC broken and piles-on to the Templar CC immunity giveaway sweepstakes lol.

But don't fool yourself into thinking Eclipse is at its core a bad ability. It just requires timing.

Meteor a DK, wait 1sec, eclipse. He puts up wings, eclipse reflects it back at him, finish with radiant. If you run Total Dark like I do, you get healed like a *** from it.

Sorc charges up frags or pops overload, throw eclipse on him, darkflare into a crushing shock or heavy attack. Honestly, I kill some sorcs outright with eclipse when I catch them off guard for a second. They frag crit themselves or hit themselves with two overload LA's.

Edgar_Baerland

DanTeales_Inferno wrote: »

IMO, a huge problem with Templars is stamina management. As a tanky class with no escape, stamina management is crucial to making our magicka management and survivability pay off.

The nerf to restoring aura was absolutely pathetic and anyone using it clearly doesnt know what theyre doing. Repentance is the clear cut victor and is one of the best group skills in the game. We need a passive or active ability that allows for a magicka build to keep their stamina levels up. Restoring Aura increases stam and health (health regen !? or a class that can heal to full health in seconds, gg zos) which is a pathetically low amount considering GDB and Merciless Resolve do the same with added benefits. This ability needs to be buffed considerably, not to 80% this would be too high, but to something above its current level considering its only other effect is that it also effects group members.

Yeah, I agree about the stamina management. It's why I don't run a stam temp anymore, even though they can dish out great damage.

The big-picture problem isn't just the stamina, It's the fact that every other class has fantastic escape or defense, and we have..blazing shield/radiant ward? High-cost self heals that are near worthless for stamina setups? There is no real go-to oh-sh*t-button like invis, teleport, scales/gdb. All those abilites are effective regardless of stam/magicka setup. (bolt escape arguably is hard to use in succession for the rare stamina sorc)

The simplest solution would be to buff the *** out of bshield, though it would still pale in comparison to the other classes' primary defenses.

sKorcheD

Remeber burning light before it got nerfed(lots of QQ)? It used to be worth its skill point plus more. They should revert it back maybe buff it slightly, considering the crazy low TTK lately.

Great post though.

Edgar_Baerland

sKorcheD wrote: »

Remeber burning light before it got nerfed(lots of QQ)? It used to be worth its skill point plus more. They should revert it back maybe buff it slightly, considering the crazy low TTK lately.

Great post though.

Ty sir. It's weird to me that templars get nerfed often, almost like they're trying to anticipate templars being OP and in doing so constantly hamstring them. From my perspective temps were only strong for like a month during the 1.6 PTS lol. Maybe for a short time after before the Jabs nerf. "time in the sun" my ass lol

technohic

Edgar_Baerland wrote: »

sKorcheD wrote: »

Remeber burning light before it got nerfed(lots of QQ)? It used to be worth its skill point plus more. They should revert it back maybe buff it slightly, considering the crazy low TTK lately.

Great post though.

Ty sir. It's weird to me that templars get nerfed often, almost like they're trying to anticipate templars being OP and in doing so constantly hamstring them. From my perspective temps were only strong for like a month during the 1.6 PTS lol. Maybe for a short time after before the Jabs nerf. "time in the sun" my ass lol

You hit the nail on the head; really. It started in beta when they were concerned about a healing class having to much resource management. They don't want you to have high defense and be the best healer as it would make you invincible in theory. And to hit hard while healing stacks the deck on a DPS race. There is the logical reason that if you want to do something other than heal, you should re-roll a different class as Templar is the healer class. The devs designed it that way, and your allies expect it.

I have really been watching Blabafat and ebonhearts Templars videos and trying to learn while reworking my build and grinding here lately; but rerolling would be easier. At the same time though; it is nice out around here now so I have to admit my interest in video games in general is way down so I might just give up completely. too many other things to do and by the time I am in the mood, I will probably be 100 more champion points in the hole. And I sit here looking at the lag and state of PvP in general and wonder even if I kept grinding away, to what end? Why even bother?

Edgar_Baerland

@technolic haha true words. It's beautiful out and this winter was long and cold.

Good point about the self-heal/resource management issue's relevancy to fears of class strength. Thinking about it further, I'm okay if they won't be the best offensive class given they have a whole branch dedicated to healing, I just think they are pretty meager in terms number of useful/effective abilites.

Honestly, I just like being competitive, I don't care about being the best/rerolling to be stronger. I've found ways to do pretty well with my temp, excelling like crazy in some facets and being vulnerable in others. Truth is, I love playing the class. I just think that objectively, they are pretty far behind the others in many regards. I'll still play him as my main, and I don't care much to grind out levels for my alts.

I usually get bored AF at end-game content/pvp with mmos, and am an alt-junkie. I guess it's a testament to ESO that I have so much damn fun every time I log on my main.

TheElementalPlatypus

You know, Im going to be honest, templars suck. No one wants to say it. I can name two templars, divine cross, and blabafat, who genuinely are amazing templars (magic side). Jack is great stamina, and I'm sure there are others... but lets be real we dont see TEMP fotm class.... ever. Even Divine, he has to be 100% on point with his burst to kill, and is FORCED into using cast time abilities for it.

There are 3 reasons IMO Templars are trash at the moment and are severely underpowered in small scale/solo situations. Any class is good large group so dont use that BS please.

1. Blazing Shield is 100% useless, Blab and Divine use one or either of its morphs... but it got nerfed SOOO HARD. With -40% to health pools and -15% to shields in general, its a WHOPPING 2-3k shield! Unless you're an emp or runnng 30k+ health its not worth it. Heals are negated by those ALSO getting nerfed to a degree with 1.6 changes.

2. Passives. I cry when I look at templar passives, NB = 30A% STAM REGEN, ULTIMATE ON HIT, 8% MAGIC, MORE DAMAGE FROM STEALTH (Many more useful ones). DK = BATTLE ROAR (OP? JK) STAM GAIN ON ABILITY and many more. Sorc = 10% magic REGEN, 15%A REDUC ULT, DISENTEGRATE, % damage for abilities slotted. Templar has.... NOTHING lol... reduce all by 4% PSHHHHHHHHH thats not even that good.

3. Last but not least abilities. I struggle with decisions on my NB because of ALL THE GOOD UTILITIES, sorc is more cookie cutter with only so many VIABLE damage/play options. DK has a bunch of utility with must haves as well. Templar has.... spear? Radiant? Purify? 3 best abilities IMO, dark flare is meh, along with spear shards/javelin.

ZOS WHY NO LOVE FOR TEMPLARS

Some of us want to play a templar, but I feel sooooo gimped playing it. I'm leveling my DK (Last v14 I will need for all classes) and it'll be fun, it is the better templar... all around... NB is fun, sorc is fun/boring IMO because of run and burst playstyle, I play it for lols and such.

Seriously tho, ZOS buff templars, OUR ONLY GOOD MELEE is a spear that with one 40% move speed buff can be negated, along with roots, along with dodge rolling through us... I think its great its a channel melee that hits somewhat nicely... but make the magic one root on impact (Where CC immune disables root, but if rooted without CC immune does NOT give CC immune, would have to be some cooldown so it cant be spammed to root?)

Edgar_Baerland

TheElementalPlatypus wrote: »

You know, Im going to be honest, templars suck. No one wants to say it. I can name two templars, divine cross, and blabafat, who genuinely are amazing templars (magic side). Jack is great stamina, and I'm sure there are others... but lets be real we dont see TEMP fotm class.... ever. Even Divine, he has to be 100% on point with his burst to kill, and is FORCED into using cast time abilities for it.

There are 3 reasons IMO Templars are trash at the moment and are severely underpowered in small scale/solo situations. Any class is good large group so dont use that BS please.

1. Blazing Shield is 100% useless, Blab and Divine use one or either of its morphs... but it got nerfed SOOO HARD. With -40% to health pools and -15% to shields in general, its a WHOPPING 2-3k shield! Unless you're an emp or runnng 30k+ health its not worth it. Heals are negated by those ALSO getting nerfed to a degree with 1.6 changes.

2. Passives. I cry when I look at templar passives, NB = 30A% STAM REGEN, ULTIMATE ON HIT, 8% MAGIC, MORE DAMAGE FROM STEALTH (Many more useful ones). DK = BATTLE ROAR (OP? JK) STAM GAIN ON ABILITY and many more. Sorc = 10% magic REGEN, 15%A REDUC ULT, DISENTEGRATE, % damage for abilities slotted. Templar has.... NOTHING lol... reduce all by 4% PSHHHHHHHHH thats not even that good.

3. Last but not least abilities. I struggle with decisions on my NB because of ALL THE GOOD UTILITIES, sorc is more cookie cutter with only so many VIABLE damage/play options. DK has a bunch of utility with must haves as well. Templar has.... spear? Radiant? Purify? 3 best abilities IMO, dark flare is meh, along with spear shards/javelin.

ZOS WHY NO LOVE FOR TEMPLARS

Some of us want to play a templar, but I feel sooooo gimped playing it. I'm leveling my DK (Last v14 I will need for all classes) and it'll be fun, it is the better templar... all around... NB is fun, sorc is fun/boring IMO because of run and burst playstyle, I play it for lols and such.

Seriously tho, ZOS buff templars, OUR ONLY GOOD MELEE is a spear that with one 40% move speed buff can be negated, along with roots, along with dodge rolling through us... I think its great its a channel melee that hits somewhat nicely... but make the magic one root on impact (Where CC immune disables root, but if rooted without CC immune does NOT give CC immune, would have to be some cooldown so it cant be spammed to root?)

I'm not gonna lie, I enjoyed the *** out of this.
It's in my nature to stay positive and diplomatic. But this was mighty satisfying, especially knowing its coming from you @TheElementalPlatypus

TheElementalPlatypus

Edgar_Baerland wrote: »

TheElementalPlatypus wrote: »

You know, Im going to be honest, templars suck. No one wants to say it. I can name two templars, divine cross, and blabafat, who genuinely are amazing templars (magic side). Jack is great stamina, and I'm sure there are others... but lets be real we dont see TEMP fotm class.... ever. Even Divine, he has to be 100% on point with his burst to kill, and is FORCED into using cast time abilities for it.

There are 3 reasons IMO Templars are trash at the moment and are severely underpowered in small scale/solo situations. Any class is good large group so dont use that BS please.

1. Blazing Shield is 100% useless, Blab and Divine use one or either of its morphs... but it got nerfed SOOO HARD. With -40% to health pools and -15% to shields in general, its a WHOPPING 2-3k shield! Unless you're an emp or runnng 30k+ health its not worth it. Heals are negated by those ALSO getting nerfed to a degree with 1.6 changes.

2. Passives. I cry when I look at templar passives, NB = 30A% STAM REGEN, ULTIMATE ON HIT, 8% MAGIC, MORE DAMAGE FROM STEALTH (Many more useful ones). DK = BATTLE ROAR (OP? JK) STAM GAIN ON ABILITY and many more. Sorc = 10% magic REGEN, 15%A REDUC ULT, DISENTEGRATE, % damage for abilities slotted. Templar has.... NOTHING lol... reduce all by 4% PSHHHHHHHHH thats not even that good.

3. Last but not least abilities. I struggle with decisions on my NB because of ALL THE GOOD UTILITIES, sorc is more cookie cutter with only so many VIABLE damage/play options. DK has a bunch of utility with must haves as well. Templar has.... spear? Radiant? Purify? 3 best abilities IMO, dark flare is meh, along with spear shards/javelin.

ZOS WHY NO LOVE FOR TEMPLARS

Some of us want to play a templar, but I feel sooooo gimped playing it. I'm leveling my DK (Last v14 I will need for all classes) and it'll be fun, it is the better templar... all around... NB is fun, sorc is fun/boring IMO because of run and burst playstyle, I play it for lols and such.

Seriously tho, ZOS buff templars, OUR ONLY GOOD MELEE is a spear that with one 40% move speed buff can be negated, along with roots, along with dodge rolling through us... I think its great its a channel melee that hits somewhat nicely... but make the magic one root on impact (Where CC immune disables root, but if rooted without CC immune does NOT give CC immune, would have to be some cooldown so it cant be spammed to root?)

I'm not gonna lie, I enjoyed the *** out of this.
It's in my nature to stay positive and diplomatic. But this was mighty satisfying, especially knowing its coming from you @TheElementalPlatypus

Templars aren't unplayable, bit definitely the lesser of pvp. It kind of frustrates me yeezus beam is so ridiculous. It's incredibly broken, and wish they would take a look at Templar passives when/if try fix it. It's almost as if ZOS thinks Templars are fine because of this radiant qq when in reality it's only spammed because a lot of other abilities don't compare, and it is broken too, but still.