Is the Templar truely as versatile as people claim? (TANK QUESTIONS)

Morshire · January 2015

I have been playing an Imperial Templar since I started the game. I have gotten to VR6 spec'd to tank. (Meaning all heavy armor, fighter's guild, undaunted taunts, 1h & sh., Aedric skill line) Recently, I even redistributed my points and ran 54 points into health. My armor has always been at cap, and currently almost 3k health. I always had my eye on being able to heal, and have unlocked most of resto staff skills and restoring light on my second bar. So I have not been slacking at all.
One of my guild mates told me that the VR14 Templar we have has been a tank in light armor, and is a "phenomenal" tank/heal at end game. So of course I thought to give this a try.....huge disaster for me. Now I have not given it a lot of my time and effort, but I do not see this as viable. Obviously I am wrong, because it is being done, but I am not seeing it.

This thread I have two questions I would like to get opinions on:
1) With update 1.6, is it worth while to just focus on managing my magicka through skills and glyphs for heals and not get away from the heavy armor?
2) If it makes more sense to go with light and medium armor and do tanking, are there any suggestions for skill set ups to make it viable long term? (Meaning after the updates)

I realize some of this calls for speculation, since we don't have patch notes, so I will take the answers from what you have now, and what you are planning for your tank builds after updates. (Not trying to argue what 1.6 and 1.7 will or won't bring to the game)
And so we do not have to speculate more, I have most of the skills morphed and maxed (174 skill points on redistribution I can use). Undaunted is only the taunt skill and Mage's guild only for Mage Light. Light and Medium armor no points yet spent. I have read through skills, but I am not seeing what makes the light armor tank work (probably because that has not been my play style, and no points spent in that area either.) I am just hoping that I can get some help with it, and see if I can still be effective with 1200 less armor. (I have willow's path and twilight's embrace for light armor) I want to be at the front lines (which to me means heavy and shield) while still being able to heal the group when the time comes (so not having to change all my gear). If anyone has run LOTRO, then you will know the Captain class. To me, that is what I thought the Templar was like, but it doesn't feel that way. Perhaps I am just running the wrong class and I need to focus on other characters?
Thanks in advance for stopping in and sharing some advice.

EDIT: I plan to run end game and also enjoy PVP. Whatever builds need to be able to work in all game aspects for me. Thanks again.

OrphanHelgen · January 2015

Im sorry I don't answer your question, but while you still doing the cadwells, just level up whatever you can to level 50, and everything to the morph, and you can chose when late game arrives. You will get a free skill respect in update 6 anyway.

Curragraigue · January 2015

I can't comment on changes because it isn't even on the PTS atm but currently the reason why you may have had trouble tanking in light is because you didn't have enough points in magicka. Temps currently have magicka regeneration issues so people go light to get the better regeneration. You then rely less on heavy armour health regeneration and more on class skills like blazing shield and breath of life for a burst heal. You can still currently get your armour to soft cap with light armour.

Just different builds. If you are comfortable with heavy stick with it and see what additional buffs ZOS has for you with 1.6.

wookiefriseur · January 2015

Maybe this will help you to think about something:

http://youtu.be/o4YxPFuzoYM

The shield is the key. Though I myself use heavy only. My build is a bit different, but I can keep up the bubble all the time in PvE and no dying, no magicka problems. And as for the 1h+Shield reflect skill: better take the stun morph, not the absorb one.

Think about something that might suit your gameplay. But don't invest too much in new gear, better wait for 1.6.

Morshire · January 2015

Thanks for all the feedback. I admit that part of the problem is that I have relied on my heavy armor and my play style has developed as such. It just doesn't seem, to me, that light works for me as a tank. I have not had a huge magicka problem in heavy, as I use Blazing shields and Puncturing sweep mainly (shield and health regen), then I use puncture or low slash (for the debuff / taunt) I use Inner beast (for the taunt) and Immovable on the first bar with ultimate is Empowering Sweep (extra armor). I do sometimes change one skill on bar#1 for Silver Bolts if the area is heavy in Daedra/undead. The second bar is all the heals from either Restoring Light or Restro Staff lines. I keep BoL on there for the OH S*** button, but mainly I use it for leveling skills I might need. With heavy armor, I so rarely have to hit the second bar. Potions or food would usually level out the playing field in that instance.
I realize that with 1.6 we are "hopefully" getting a buff to heavy, but then my question would have to be, "Can I be an effective healer in heavy armor?" I do follow the advice from these threads, and try to be better based off what I read. I do not want to be relegated to "just a healer", but I also want to be an asset to whatever group I run with.

@Patros - So you say to use Radiant Ward over Blazing Shield on the morph of Sun Shield? Maybe not what you are saying.

Again I appreciate all the feedback. I am just looking for other builds that may be better to try. And I have been leveling all the skills I can. I just recently got to a place where I thought about refunding "unused" skill points. Unlocking skills and the morphs has not been an issue, it is finding good combinations for those skills that has been more of the challenge.

CMG138 · January 2015

Templars are OP in my opinion. It's pretty rare that I can go against some one above lvl 50 and win with my VR11 Night Blade. After seeing a VR 10 Temp kill my VR 11 NB and a VR 12 DK after I had the first sneak attack, I cancelled my subscription again, and will not renew until they nerf them, especially because the Temp barely had a scratch on them. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong.

Morshire · January 2015

HAHAHA - not laughing at you, but with you here. I go into PVP and get stomped more than I stomp people. I am usually lower than a lot of the people, but it happens. I see things completely opposite of you. It is funny that, no? I won't be cancelling my sub, but finding the different skill combos that make that happen would be nice. (For the record, DK's dominate PVP now) Not 100%, but enough that the call is "DK's are OP". I am not calling for any "NERF's" here, so please no flaming. I just want to get some pointers about different armor types for tanks - directly related to the Templar.

danno8 · January 2015

CMG138 wrote: »

Templars are OP in my opinion. It's pretty rare that I can go against some one above lvl 50 and win with my VR11 Night Blade. After seeing a VR 10 Temp kill my VR 11 NB and a VR 12 DK after I had the first sneak attack, I cancelled my subscription again, and will not renew until they nerf them, especially because the Temp barely had a scratch on them. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong.

Nightblades do fine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGWreKerwHg

Asgari · January 2015

CMG138 wrote: »

Templars are OP in my opinion. It's pretty rare that I can go against some one above lvl 50 and win with my VR11 Night Blade. After seeing a VR 10 Temp kill my VR 11 NB and a VR 12 DK after I had the first sneak attack, I cancelled my subscription again, and will not renew until they nerf them, especially because the Temp barely had a scratch on them. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong.

You are doing it wrong. 1v1 NB is going to win 90% of the time.

likewow777 · January 2015

This comes in a little late (had to get a forum account first), but I truly love the Templar, so I wanted to add what I've experienced. My favorite character is a tank/healer, VR14, and I find it to be extremely versatile.

Bar 1 - Tank
- Pierce Armor
- Structured Entropy (This boosts my health just by slotting it and gives me a trickle heal. It's also really cheap. 72 magicka for me.)
- Blazing Shield
- Absorb Magic or Breath of Life (Absorb is a good stamina heal, but in tough situations I need all my stamina for blocking. BoL allows me to heal while tanking.)
- Radiant Aura (Health and stamina regen is increased by 80%!)
- Ultimate: Empowering Sweep (Does meh damage, but huge damage mitigation in large mobs.)

Bar 2 - Healer (This bar changes A LOT, but I'll put down what's there now.)
- Blazing Spear (nice AoE damage and stun)
- Siphon Spirit
- Blazing Shield (If I'm in trouble, I pop this up and keep healing

)
- Illustrious Healing
- Breath of Life
- Ultimate: Nova, obviously

I run 5/2 heavy/light, with 5 piece Seducer and 4 piece Death's Wind. I have 4 items of Death's Wind on when I'm on my tank (shield gives an extra piece of armor) and use it mainly to get my health levels up. Seducer gives magicka regen, plus I wear a necklace with a regen enchantment, all of which gets me pretty close to the soft cap. With food running, I'm easily overcharged.

With over 3.3k of health, Blazing Shield can take a lot of hits before it pops, and generally my magicka regen is high enough so by the time it does pop, I've regenerated almost all of what it cost to cast. Plus, the ulti Empowering Sweep costs so little that a single pop of the shield in a Craglorn-size mob generally gets me back the entire cost. Best case, I can cast it as often as I cast Shield.

I haven't done as much end game stuff as others here, I'll admit, but I will say when we ran the Spindleclutch pledge a few days ago, our DK tank died during the boss fight and I took over as tank and we beat it

.

This build works for me, but obviously there might be better options.

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO · January 2015

well if you use all light, immovable, and blazing shield you are very tanky and can do that using a 100% healer build and focus on healing support... your a tanky healer not a classic tank that is healing. will never compare at healing in all heavy with no healing spec because you will throw out half the heals value at twice the cost. but the combo i stated is very survivable in pvp heals.
as for speculating on changes with no patch notes, no thanks. lets just wait and see. this is for pvp, you should have different builds for pve and pvp endgame.

Francescolg · January 2015

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO wrote: »

will never compare at healing in all heavy with no healing spec because you will throw out half the heals value at twice the cost. but the combo i stated is very survivable in pvp heals.

Hello, I wouldn't say that. The basic breath of life at "medium" Magicka is 800/400/400 heal. Light armor helps you saving magicka but the main point for it is the 10% crit. Healing staff (beside magicka reggen) also just offers a slight bonus for healing.

I'd nether say that a templar with 1h+shield is SO MUCH worse than a templar with staff as a Healer.. You should compare it on your own and test it! The numbers aren't that different and, despite that, healing in PvP is highly affected by anti-heal-mechanics (heal debuff), therefore the total heal value is not always relevant cause you help people more by shields/group shields, spammable group heals and debuffs (ritual, etc.). Therefore resto staff is not needed that much if you gain magicka back by other ways.., depends on strategy.
Even going heavy/medium can make sense for a templar, because even some class skill's (radius under 8m) crit works with melee crit (blazing shield, puncturing strikes+morphs, Dawn's line AE, etc.) I AM talking about the damage after the "first strike", not the magic effects that come after = skill line passives). Blazing shield will stay 30% no matter how much magicka you have. Even passive skills like burning light are "steady values".

So a pure "bubble-build", HP on Cap, more stamina, or surivivability-oriented, may work good with medium armor and melee weapons for 50%+ melee crit. You can sustain your bubble+immovable also with less Magicka and heal, while using Balance/Spell Symetry to regenerate magicka and for the 20% more spell dmg (mages guild)..! Magic crit isn't the only possible way to spec for a Templar if you use skills which have fix values and do not scale with magicka so much! That may be a stamina build, thanks to our great stamina-buff

We just have no comparative analysis for the different spec's cause most of the intelligent gamers left ESO and with them the "deeper class analysists". What is left are just some Richie Richs that don't mind paying and the hobby-grinders that wooow about forum threads where you have to show your armor or to write 3 words in some entertaining minigame. This crowd surely will not fill out any excel spreadsheets and tell you which setup is better (sad but true).

There is still a huge gap in information on what is better and most players prefer to go full light armor and "low cost" builds while never testing melee-crit setups with their Templar!

Francescolg · January 2015

sorry

AlexDougherty · January 2015

CMG138 wrote: »

Templars are OP in my opinion. It's pretty rare that I can go against some one above lvl 50 and win with my VR11 Night Blade. After seeing a VR 10 Temp kill my VR 11 NB and a VR 12 DK after I had the first sneak attack, I cancelled my subscription again, and will not renew until they nerf them, especially because the Temp barely had a scratch on them. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong.

Templars do not need nerfing, Nightblades need fixing and buffing, but leave my Templar alone.

Also leave my DK alone too.

But please feel free to buff my Sorc and My Nightblade ZOS.

Khivas_Carrick · January 2015

CMG138 wrote: »

Templars are OP in my opinion. It's pretty rare that I can go against some one above lvl 50 and win with my VR11 Night Blade. After seeing a VR 10 Temp kill my VR 11 NB and a VR 12 DK after I had the first sneak attack, I cancelled my subscription again, and will not renew until they nerf them, especially because the Temp barely had a scratch on them. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong.

Extremely wrong.

Francescolg · January 2015

CMG138 wrote: »

Templars are OP in my opinion. It's pretty rare that I can go against some one above lvl 50 and win with my VR11 Night Blade. After seeing a VR 10 Temp kill my VR 11 NB and a VR 12 DK after I had the first sneak attack, I cancelled my subscription again, and will not renew until they nerf them, especially because the Temp barely had a scratch on them. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong.

When a good melee-spec'd nightblade attacks me from stealth/backside, I have no chance to stand up, break free, or whatever. I'll post a screenshot later.
We are just very fortunate, that not many NB have enough skill to correctly use their cc 100%

CMG138 · January 2015

Khivas_Carrick wrote: »

CMG138 wrote: »

Templars are OP in my opinion. It's pretty rare that I can go against some one above lvl 50 and win with my VR11 Night Blade. After seeing a VR 10 Temp kill my VR 11 NB and a VR 12 DK after I had the first sneak attack, I cancelled my subscription again, and will not renew until they nerf them, especially because the Temp barely had a scratch on them. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong.

Extremely wrong.

Well, if you have any pointers, I'm all ears.

Morshire · January 2015

I am dying to hear the "Why Temps are OP" part continued... I have gotten some good XP playing with the light armor and healing (and it is working okay) but I cannot see how being "tank-ish" in LA makes sense. OR, how anyone can say Temps are OP. Yes there are some good skill combos that I have found that make me very valuable in group play, which is what I have been looking for, but for anyone to say that we could should forgo X for a Temp seems way off. Albeit, I have played with the healing and have to say I could see it being the strongest, but not by OP standards.

P.S. - I will be on the PTS tonight and I will be updating this tomorrow. I think it is fair to say that IF you have not run it there....well you get the point, yeah?

EDIT: Thanks to everyone for the continued input. I am "grinding" for VR14 right now, but I am forever trying to be "better". All the comments...even the negative...is a help.

likewow777 · January 2015

I don't understand the Templars are OP argument either. That isn't to say they can't be powerful. I've spent a LOT of time with mine, getting skills just right, respec-ing and levelling alternate morphs, crafting sets, etc. And after all that, I can survive just about anything, even group stuff in Craglorn. That sounds OP, I know, but it didn't just happen overnight, and I'm still constantly changing out skills. I think if you put in the time, any class can look like it's OP, but I think it says more about the player rather than just the class. I'm not bragging, either, because I'll be the first to admit I'm not the best player.

Morshire · January 2015

likewow777 wrote: »

I don't understand the Templars are OP argument either. That isn't to say they can't be powerful. I've spent a LOT of time with mine, getting skills just right, respec-ing and leveling alternate morphs, crafting sets, etc. And after all that, I can survive just about anything, even group stuff in Craglorn. That sounds OP, I know, but it didn't just happen overnight, and I'm still constantly changing out skills. I think if you put in the time, any class can look like it's OP, but I think it says more about the player rather than just the class. I'm not bragging, either, because I'll be the first to admit I'm not the best player.

Yes, I agree. I started this thread when I was VR6 and I dropped all my HA tank skills and changed to LA healing. Since said date, when I was totally lost, I can now run in Crag and stay upright. Doing decent enough that I impress myself. I have been taking this OP talk with a grain of salt. I mean, I have been completely owned in PVP, I mean owned, by one of every class out there. But what has not happened, every time I meet X class, I get owned. Implying that no credit is being given to the keyboard jokey at the other end of the toon that owned me.

But hey, I am now VR9, and climbing, so I am invested. If someone has the end all be all OP Templar build, hurry and share, so I can level any skills I missed.

I have found, and I haven't gone PTS yet, but this works for being "off tank/ off heal":

BAR 1
Puncturing Sweep -
Ransack - Inner beast (Either/Or, sometimes both)
Blazing Shield
Repentance (If a lot of enemies) or BOL

ULTI=Crescent Sweep (Not sure if that is right, at work. It reduces damage taken)

BAR 2
BOL
Healing Spring
Combat Prayer
Luminous Shards
Inner Light

ULTI= Solar Prism or Remembrance (Depending on the moment)

Of course, I have also been combining the two sets of skills onto one bar for stupidities sake.