Templar tanking is ok as it is. Honestly you dont really need a real tank in dungeons up until CoH (VR ofc) just a 1h&s with rune focus is enough to tank. For trash its much better to just spam aoe with the dps.
Do not touch blazing spear. Its awsome enough already, if it cc'd more than 1 person the dmg would be much lower and we dont need our DPS to get any lower.
Blinding flashes however i feel need a small duration or cost buff. It feels a bit too little for the cost and duration.
Caltrops is one of the best skills to have. It cc pulls aggro making it easier to taunt high priority enemies and since you are stamina spec'd it will do decent damage.
You can also use volcanic rune.
The only other cc skill which is good is dark talons. Nbs aspect of fear is stupid to use as is the sorc skill ( fear is bad when u want enemies to focus on you and the cost for encase is insanly high ).
The problem with tanking in this game is the relative lack of needing it. Just for trial bosses and for SOME upper craglorn ones.
Im gonna be frank and this may come of as a bit rude but if you complain about templars which are the best heals in the game a very solid survivability tank either because of lack of dps or lack of more CC i instantly assume you are a noob, dont know how to play and wants an easy mode.
Templars are fine at this point just need some fine-tunning
Forgive my rant but this subject annoys me alot, ive had a templar main from prelaunch and didnt encounter ANYTHING that would make me regret my class choice, more so i found alot of situations where if i didnt have a templar i would be really more annoyed.

Khivas_Carrick wrote: »

For a good while I regretted making a Templar my main due to the lack of damage it could do, or how support dps was largely useless since most content was a zergfest.

Thankfully thanks to DSA, a melee templar that can run a clerical build is viable, and I really hope all future content runs the same.

I can't get a group for DSA, but with that said, it doesn't change the fact that the class needs the same DPS potential as the other 3.

I don't think that will happen until the Champion System and Spellcrafting come to pass, however.

I've got a very large Word Document I've been putting together to compare Templar with other classes, with respect to tanking. The more I look at it, the more I think DK and Sorceror actually make better tanks. Both of these classes have more reliable self heals, and far more Shields and Buffs to armor and magicka than Templar will ever have. I think in spirit Templar was meant to go tank or healer, but the way things are designed I think they are far better in the healer role. This is not to say you can not tank with a Templar. I do it all the time and it is still my favorite character to play, but between the passives and actives, and how they can stack with weapon, armor, ultimates and other abilities I just don't see how a Templar is the equal of DK or Sorceror as tank.

I'd like to note that I believe our trait for resuscitation Master Ritualist is broken in the sense that I don't recall ever receiving a soul gem back, and I'm not sure I know anyone else who has mentioned seeing it either.

All this being said, I also think Blazing Shield needs some tweaking. Its a great ability but it has some glitch results. I don't think its intended for people to be doing 3k+ damage with it by spamming it enough times so that it builds up a long list of 'hit targets'. If you compare it to something like Spike armor or Hardened Ward it is also woefully brief in duration. Considering their magicka costs are the same, I think those are two areas in which just that skill needs to be looked at.

I also dislike power durations that thanks to percentages cut off at .2 or .6 such that you do not get the final pulse of an ability. Blinding Flashes falls prey to this by hitting 7.2 seconds instead of 8. There is no benefit to having that 1.2 seconds over 6 since you don't get the pulse at 8. Its wasted benefit. 3 pulses at a 5 meter radius really isn't that good, particularly in a world where someone can bolt escape, Immovable, and harness magicka on you all at the same time. (I'm not singling sorcerer out here, I can make similar cases for other people escaping this ability). This CC is also weak because by comparison someone can spam other CC's with greater effect (Encase/Talons) to the point that the Stamina user can't break free of those abilities but they can fairly easily get away from Fear/Flashes from the NB and Templar respectively.

There is a lot more I could say and I've been taking my time to compile my thoughts on the game balance, since I am genuinely trying to think about how to make the balance fair. Its just hard, which is why I have respect for the difficulty of what ZOS has to do to balance things.

Backlash and Eclipse are also two abilities that really underperform for what they should do. One ability's worth is practically nullified by its channel time, and the other one is so easy to break out of that its mostly just a waste of magicka. I think Backlash might be more worthwhile if it also applied a magic DoT or if they did away with the channel time altogether. I think Eclipse would be more interesting if every boss in the game were not immune to it, and every player couldn't just easily break free of it.

From a NB tank, the only thing I got from this post.... What the eff are you guys doing using mass hysteria as a cc? Use your path of darkness, morph to twisting... flash in with veil of blades which will slow them all down, then fire off twisting path to keep em mad at ya.