More Potential Templar Support Utility?

ViggyBoi · September 19

Ok hear me out. Tankplaring is awesome but its also really not cuz you comparatively don't offer up as much to your group compared to other classes. The whole opportunity cost issue. There are just other classes that do your job better. If plars offered more unique utility then they could at least be considered situationally. So what if the devs were to say go the igneous weapons/frost cloak route and change reflective light's (sunfire morph) major savagery and prophecy buff to target you and your group? Seems fair right? Its a widely accessible buff, but its also a mandatory one for any serious group. One person being able to provide it allows everyone else to focus their resources elsewhere or use different skills or potions. It doesnt really seem overpowered at all. Redundant maybe due to scribing, but one reliable support can keep it up consistently for all like how we handle lots of other group buffs. Base skill is a dot + buff, one morph increases the duration/damage per cast and the other morph can keep the shorter duration but spread the buff out to groupies. Thoughts?

YandereGirlfriend · September 20

ViggyBoi wrote: »

Ok hear me out. Tankplaring is awesome but its also really not cuz you comparatively don't offer up as much to your group compared to other classes. The whole opportunity cost issue. There are just other classes that do your job better. If plars offered more unique utility then they could at least be considered situationally. So what if the devs were to say go the igneous weapons/frost cloak route and change reflective light's (sunfire morph) major savagery and prophecy buff to target you and your group? Seems fair right? Its a widely accessible buff, but its also a mandatory one for any serious group. One person being able to provide it allows everyone else to focus their resources elsewhere or use different skills or potions. It doesnt really seem overpowered at all. Redundant maybe due to scribing, but one reliable support can keep it up consistently for all like how we handle lots of other group buffs. Base skill is a dot + buff, one morph increases the duration/damage per cast and the other morph can keep the shorter duration but spread the buff out to groupies. Thoughts?

This would be an awesome change.

The_Isatope8 · October 15

I think that giving allies the completely unique sunsphere buff would fit more in line with Templars general theme. The crit buff should be built into their passives in my opinion. a lot of their passives need changes and I think that getting Major Savagery/ Prophecy from a passive like "Piercing Spear" would be cool. It would work in a similar way to Nightblades' "Shadow Barrier" passive.

BXR_Lonestar · October 18

Honestly, I think people sleep on the templar tank for 4 man vet/hm content. I have a friend and both of us really like tanking on our templars, and we've been able to 1 tank 3 dd many different hardmodes, with many hero moments from the templar tank, all because they have the fastest res/revive times in the game. That, plus the fact that you can carry some decent group HoTs that are built into your kit - all make for some solid utility, even if it you don't bring any great major group buffs/debuffs.

That being said, I would like to see some changes to the templar to make them more group friendly, but I would really like for them to give the templar some unique class mechanics, like auras, instead of proccing buffs/debuffs on ability use. The templar can be super tanky if you "build the house" so to speak and stand in your glyph and your HoTs, but what if we got that same utility, but converted those skills into mobile auras that follow the templar around?

In your case, instead of having to rely on casting an ability to give the increased critical chance, I'd like to see that buff become an aura that applies to any group members standing in the aura.

This doesn't even require a full class rework, they can grant some of this utility via class-specific sets from the archive.

The_Isatope8 · October 19

Templar is stupidly tanky. I have the easiest time surviving dungeons and trials as plar tank because of all the strong healing over time and cleanse effect. Templar feels even more survivable than DK and arcanist if we're disregarding ultimate's. Plar has the ability to buff themselves well and keep themselves in the fight, but the problem is that they don't have good buffs to give to allies and don't have enough debuffs built in to give to enemies.

A lot of people have discussed the issues with Templar tanks (and the class in general) so heres some of my ideas on how to give them a little more to work with without having to rework the class completely:

Binding javelin
Replace the stun on this morph with a pull that taunts for 15 seconds if the target cannot be pulled.
Sun shield
Instead of the shield getting bigger with each enemy hit, you build up stacks by blocking while this skill is slotted on either bar. Each stack increases the size of the damage shield by 15% stacking up to 4 times. You can gain 1 stack up to once every second. When the shield expires, you gain magicka and stamina equal to 10% of the damage absorbed by the shield.
Luminous Shards
The immobilize was moved to this morph instead so that allies can get the stam and mag synergy.
Dark Flare
Give this morph an 0.5 second cast time and instant travel time, inflicts Minor Vulnerability and Minor Cowardice, increasing their damage damage taken by 5% and reducing their weapon and spell damage by 215 for 20 seconds.
Unstable core
Make this morph function similarly to Living Dark in that it restores health when hit, but only 1530 health instead of 2066. The reason for reducing the healing is so that the attacker will be inflicted with Minor Brittle, increasing their critical damage taken by 10% and have their movement speed reduced by 40% 5 seconds. The snare is also 2 seconds longer than the snare on living dark to add more crowd control utility.
Restoring Spirit (Passive)
When you use a Templar ability, you restore 777 Magicka and Stamina. This effect can occur once every 4 seconds.
Nova (ultimate)
Reduce the cost to 220 ultimate, increase the radius to 10 meters and replace the supernova synergy with a synergy called Gravity Well. This new synergy will still do the same damage and stun, but it will feature an enhanced pull when the synergy is activated. The enhanced pull can pull enemies that cannot normally be pulled, such as elites, and ignores CC immunity on enemies that can normally be pulled. Players are unaffected by the CC immunity ignore to prevent shenanigans in PvP.
Breath of Life
This morph is now a health scaling self heal that restores up to 3 ultimate based on your missing health. The scaling for the ultimate generation starts at or below 45% health and you gain an additional 1 ultimate per 15% increment, receiving 3 ultimate when your health reaches 15% or lower.
Restoring Focus
Returns the same amount of stamina and half as much magicka. This morph also grants Minor Resolve, increasing your physical and spell resistance by 2974 for the duration.

These are just some changes that I would like to see for Templars tanking/ utility kit.
I have also written an entire rework concept for the class that you can view here. There's a lot more in that rework than can be written here, but it addresses the reason for multiple changes as well as detailing many more abilities.

I also had an idea for how to rework epentance, but it's really strange and might be too strong. I can't know for sure, but the details are in the spoiler below:

Repentance
Repent before the Aedra, regaining 1800 Magicka and Stamina and inflicting yourself with Minor Vulnerability and Minor Timidity, causing you to take 5% more damage and lose 1 ultimate every 1.5 seconds for 8 seconds.

The ability would have a cast time of 0.6 seconds to make you drop block for a second while it's happening to add a little bit of risk to it.

Remaking this ability is difficult since corpse consumption should remain a Necro exclusive and the skill can't just be a replica of Nightblades' Siphoning Strikes or Sorcs' Dark exchange. The idea behind the debuffs is to represent how the Templar is timid and vulnerable while repenting.

BXR_Lonestar · October 22

@The_Isatope8

I have the same experience when tanking on my templar vs tanking on my DK. When unsupported by a healer, my templar tank does just fine, whereas my DK will more than likely struggle in some encounters without healer support via shards/orbs.

That being said, I like some of your suggestions, but my problem is that some of the buffs and group utility you have suggested are all minor buffs and not major buffs, and therefore, their importance to the group is always going to be downplayed. Furthermore, many (if not all) minor buffs and debuffs are available through scribing abilities, so why run a dedicated class to get those minor buffs when you can get them from a scribing ability?

Personally, I would like them to take a look at two issues for the templar: 1) rethink its group utility, either through a minor class rework or adding a class specific set that will bring some important major buffs to the group, and 2) instead of so much of the Plar's abilities being focused on area of effect, make them aura-based.

A third minor detail that should be updated is that the templar passive granting minor sorcery should be updated to provide minor sorcery AND brutality.

As to specific ideas, they could add a dawns wrath aura ability that grants teammates inside it major prophecy and savagry, or even a unique unnamed critical chance buff; they could add an aura in the restoring light tree that grants major vitality to all group members standing in it, and they could grant the templar a unique spell/weapon damage buff (250-350) for standing in the Aedric tree aura. That would stack with major courage, PA, minor courage, etc. And because these skills are all aura based, the templar does not have to stay rooted to get these benefits.

The_Isatope8 · October 22

The suggestions I made are actually parts of a rework concept I made for Templar which you can view here if you wish to see it.

I am well aware of Templars shortcomings as a support. Playing a Templar healer and a Warden healer is night and day, same thing with playing an Arcanist tank vs a Templar tank. Templar has the highest potential healing per second out of any class, but big numbers a good healer does not make. The only benefits they give to the group is Minor sorcery, Minor recovery buffs and a synergy that restores Magicka and Stamina. Minor Sorcery is fine since every class should have a unique buff they give to the group just by using skills, but the recovery buffs suck. They might be long lasting and free to apply, but other sources of these buffs almost always come with other things attached to them. Arcanists ring gives Minor courage, Wardens mushrooms have a burst heal and Nightblade has a small HOT with Major Expedition, not to mention everything else these classes can provide in terms of debuffs. Playing a Templar is rough knowing that other classes have so much more that they can give despite Templar being designed as the games original support/ healing class.

My rework covers this stuff in much greater detail so I'm not gonna go over every minute gripe I have with this class here.

Theist_VII · October 23

Templar tanks are not the epitome of survivability.

When playing a Templar tank you slot a lot more selfish skills than other classes because they lack in-class group buffs or debuffs.

Get on any other class than a Nightblade and slot the same number of selfish skills and you’ll find it’s not Templar giving you that safety net.

That being said, it’s one long roundabout way of saying you’d be better off running a Warden for survivability over any other class.

ViggyBoi · November 6

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Honestly, I think people sleep on the templar tank for 4 man vet/hm content. I have a friend and both of us really like tanking on our templars, and we've been able to 1 tank 3 dd many different hardmodes, with many hero moments from the templar tank, all because they have the fastest res/revive times in the game. That, plus the fact that you can carry some decent group HoTs that are built into your kit - all make for some solid utility, even if it you don't bring any great major group buffs/debuffs.

That being said, I would like to see some changes to the templar to make them more group friendly, but I would really like for them to give the templar some unique class mechanics, like auras, instead of proccing buffs/debuffs on ability use. The templar can be super tanky if you "build the house" so to speak and stand in your glyph and your HoTs, but what if we got that same utility, but converted those skills into mobile auras that follow the templar around?

In your case, instead of having to rely on casting an ability to give the increased critical chance, I'd like to see that buff become an aura that applies to any group members standing in the aura.

This doesn't even require a full class rework, they can grant some of this utility via class-specific sets from the archive.

honestly i like this idea, my only concern is if the aura is too small you might have issues where group might have to hug the tank constantly which will restrict movement and positioning. Granted this is only a massive issue if the buff provided is critical and the radius is small. Id like for the devs to tweak restoring aura as a skill cuz theres not much it really does besides provide kind of iffy bonuses to you and your party. While the range is good, those buffs can be sourced elsewhere so easily and as a tankplar myself ive never found room nor reason to slot it.