Interesting. Well I might still give it a shot, or try the alternate, Bowplar.

I've been leveling an alt, Redguard Templar with full heavy, I've only reached v3 but I haven't had much problems with any pve content and can solo pretty much anything around my level. I primarily use short ranged magic skills but I always have 1 stamina skill on my bar to take advantage on my Redguard passives. I'm set up with 2 handed as primary, resto staff on 2nd bar, bow for situational use and I will invest in 1h/shield, once I get the spare skill points.

I'm only focusing on getting to vr14 right now, but intend on using my Templar as a healer for pvp and group pve. I haven't really dabbled in healing on this character yet but I know it will take more magica oriented gear than I have right now to sustain heals.

In retrospect though, I probably would have gone Bretton for the magica. Once I reach vr14 and make a more permanent set of gear, I'll probably try 5 heavy / 2 light but ultimately end up going 5 light / 2 heavy because I'll need the extra magica stats. For solo leveling full heavy seems to get the job done fairly well.

I haven't played a DK but my Templar is pretty much invincible (within reason) in pve content. It has a lot to do with my build, which has lots of shielding, self healing and CC. You'll probably have to have a different build for group play, than you do for solo playing.

hello op! Great thread, allow me to share some ideas.
. so the templar is in my opinion the absolute best tank for four man content, dragon knight may be better for trials but only by a small margain. HERES WHY! the templar has some of the best utility skills in the game, most of them are magic, so in order for you to take advantage of this you should go into magic instead of stamina.

here's my build, I call him a TRUE palidan from games like EQ1/2, WoW and others, he is a character that can actually be considered a healtank. I am a nord, great passives for tanking, I'm wearing 5 heavy/ 2 light. My sets are 5 piece seducers in Heavy chest/ heavy boots/ heavy legs/ sword/ shield, and 5 piece healers in jewelry and light gloves/ light belt. All enchants are health, with shield play on my jewelry. Mundus stone is atronach. Ah and 2 piece bloodspawn undaunted set. I use magicka/ stamina recovery drinks, mainly a magicka potion. For skills I use so many in different fights that my skill bar is never looking the same in two boss fights but some important ones are: Breath of life/ ritual of rebirth/ channeled focus/ toppling charge/ puncture/ inner beast/ blazing shield/ structured entropy/ absorb magic/ repentence. So those are the really important ones, sometimes have puncturing sweep on for a little AOE for trash. Oh and lastly my attributes are all health, and my stats are: 13500 magicka/ 25600 health/ 8500 stamina. Recoveries are VERY IMPROTANT: 2500 magicka recovery (fully buffed, includes magicka from channeled focus (480/2 seconds))/ 1300 stamina/ and 500 health...

So ill briefly talk about this build and what it can do. Last night I was fighting valkyn skoria easy mode, and we just didn't have the dps, we wiped at the second to last pedestool except for me, I alone, ran to the next pedestool and kept myself alive untill after he destroyed the last pedestool and the lava was just too much incoming damage per second, It had to of been about 30 seconds or so, and I took a whopping 6000 damage per second from all the mobs...I believe that I may have been able to sustain that as well!

This second example of the power of this build has happened at least ten times to me since 1.6 dropped. In any boss fight, with or without adds, while not only throwing up emergency heals while everyone's alive, if everyone wipes except you, which is the most likely situation, I have been able to, while tanking, pick all three players up, heals in between, and finish the fight. It happened to me on Elden Hollow, City of ash, crypt of hearts, and many others. I remember one time a group of bud I normally run with got mad at me because I was tanking, and dosing him down SO SLOW while they were dead, that after four minutes they were just saying common bacon just wipe! But I didn't, rezzed them up and executed boss.

Bottom line is that the templar is far from broken, they have the best survivability in the game if build right, and building right mean getting as high of magicka recovery as possible. Mines at 2500 magicka every two seconds fully buffed...I my Breath of life cost 3100 magicka, do the math, you never run out of magicka, which is the reason you are alivejust an awesome build I hope you guys try it out, I didn't end for reply to be so long!sorry op!

Interesting points guys. Are you guys still putting all your points into health for survival and just using enchants on gear to get the magicka and using sets to get the boost for resource recovery?

I'm partial to Imperials but I am not so sure that a Breton wouldn't do better as a Templar for resource management. I would think the Imperial should do just as well as the Nord.

As a side note, in ESO I prefer Imperials overall as a race, but in the single player TES games, nine times out of 10 I run Breton.

Let me start off by stating I am not the highest vet rank nor am I a pvp player and nor do I care about my damage/numbers. I play the game for fun and play the way I have the most fun.

I am playing a Breton Templar running all heavy armor and 2H weapons. All of my attributes are into magicka. My armor is crafted with 5 pieces of the seducer and 2 from magnus gift (will be three once I can craft the weapon). Some of the armor is enchanted with reduced magicka cost or max magicka. I can solo just about anything so far I've faced, with the exception of group dungeons. I hardly ever group up with people since I just like to do my own thing and can handle it on my own anyway.

The reason I chose to magicka for my attribute is because I can self heal with it, my abilities are mainly magicka based with the exception of 2 stam based for my 2h weapon and I can replenish my health/stam for free after each kill so I don't mind if those pools are not high to begin with.

My bars look like this basically:

bar #1: 2H sword
1 = reflective light (dawns wraith ability, sunfire upgrade)
2= critical rush (2h weapon ability, critical charge upgrade)
3 = brawler (2h weapon ability, cleave upgrade)
4 = puncturing sweep (aedric spear ability, puncturing strike upgrade)
5 = Total Dark (dawn wraith ability, eclipse upgrade)

bar #2: 2H sword
1= dark flare (dawn's wrath ability, solar flare upgrade)
2 = binding javelin (aedric spear ability, piercing javelin upgrade)
3 = purifying light (dawn wrath ability, backlash upgrade)
4 = repentance (restoring light, restoring aura upgrade)
5 = breath of life (restoring aura, rushed ceremony upgrade)

ult: cresent sweep (aedric spear, Radial sweep upgrade)

Normally what I do during an encounter is this:
Engage targets at max casting distance
Stat off with bar#2 cast dark flare
switch to bar#1 cast reflective light (the abilities seem to hit the target at the same time and you now have agro)
Dive in with Critical Rush (since your maxed distance you get nice damage bonus)
use Brawler for area damage and also a damage shield for each target you hit
Throw in a puncturing sweep (for trash mobs, that pretty much ends the battle...then I use Repentence from bar #2 and gain health/stamina back)

If the fight continues, I usually throw a binding javelin at this time. (Knocks the target back)
back up and use reflective light again (in the case of multiple targets left)
Charge back in with critical rush (you distanced yourself again from the javelin and backing up, so again, you have increased damage)
Use brawler again for damage shield..
Im sure you see how this is going by now..

If there is a particularly hard hitting mob in the group I use total dark (for casters) and purifying light on any to extra damage.
If you noticed I never really said what or when I use my ult because honestly I use it so infrequently I forget I have it.. but when I do, I use crescent sweep.

Keep in mind that a lot of the abilities are healing you while also doing damage. You also have a damage shield from Brawler. Also, when fighting multiple mobs, at any point you kill something if you need health/stam, use Repentence. It is 0 cost ability that restore health/stam. If that isn't enough or you are getting slaughtered, use your breath of life. Im not saying this is the way to go, but I have found that it is the easiest and most fun for how I like to play. I don't craft food/drink or bother paying for it, since I rarely feel the need for a stat buff and I don't use potions either.

Like I said early on my post, it may not be the best damage or method for using a Templar and certainly not best for a dungeon healer (I don't even have any points in resto staff) but I also am not interested in running dungeons all day and healing everyone. I just like exploring and playing through the content and being self reliant. Also is nice to be able to dive in and help out another player that may have pulled too much agro at once without worrying I'll end up dead myself.

For tanking, it's pretty well known that Templars are excellent. In any groups that I've run with, the tank is almost always a Templar or a DK. I think DKs come across as the more "natural" tanks, but both do the job well, if in different styles. With a DK, CC is the biggest strong point, while with Templars, healing is the biggest strong point. Personally, I prefer tanking and off-healing. It suits who I am as a person, and with Repentance, the heals not only cost 0 magicka, but give stamina back as well (something your stam DPS-ers will love you for, and you can use it to recoup block costs).

It's been said above, but for a tanky build, the oddest characteristic of a Templar is this: The more enemies are around, the faster things will die, and the better you will stay alive.

It makes almost no sense, but it's 100% true. You can search on Youtube for Deltia's Gaming and find a recent Templar build, in 1.6, that is centered around this very idea, so I won't bother going into too many details. But suffice to say, if you want to solo and you want to survive, then Blazing Shield + Empowering Sweep + Repentance. You can then tweak it for a full tanking role, as you need.

For healing, I mean, it's a Templar. Any class can heal, and any class can do it well. However, you're really never going to find someone who says, "You're a Templar healer? No, thanks actually. We really need a <insert other class> for this."

For DPS, is where all the above accolades for the class disappear a little. Make no mistake, Templars have better class DPS now, but it's still not up to par with NBs or Sorcs, say. If you want to do serious damage with the class, you might consider using more weapon skills. Case in point, my DK stamina DPS uses 2H for damage, and I literally use only one class ability, Green Dragon Blood. But it's a heal, and you should always slot one. If I could click a button and change the DK to be a Temp, and change GDB to Breath of Life or Repentance, the character would play exactly the same. Might actually be better, since Repentance is a free heal, gives stamina to a stam build, and passively increases all regen by 10% while slotted

You can continue reading below to see my build, but the above summarizes Templars, IMHO.

*****

VR14 Templar Tank/Healer

Tank:

5/2, Heavy/Light armor

Bar 1: 5 Piece Hist Bark, 4 Piece Seducer's, 2 Piece Grace of the Ancients
Bar 2: 4 Piece Hist Bark, 5 Piece Seducer's, 2 Piece Grace of the Ancients

All attributes are all into health
All armor is enchanted with stamina
Tri-stat food is always eaten

Bar 1:
Pierce Armor
Structured Entropy
Blazing Shield
Channeled Focus
Repentance

Ultimate - Empowering Sweep

Bar 2:
Inner Rage (Radiant Destruction is sometimes here)
Structured Entropy
Blazing Shield
Breath of Life
Repentance

Ultimate - Meteor

Healer:

5/2, Light/Heavy armor

5 Piece Seducer's Set, 4 Piece Magnus' Set, 3 Piece Grace of the Ancients

All attributes are into health (still the same, obviously =P)
All armor is enchanted with magicka
Tri-stat regen is always drunk (drank?)

Bar 1:
Force Siphon
Inner Light
Combat Prayer
Healing Springs
Repentance

Ultimate - Meteor

Bar 2:
Extended Ritual
Inner Light
Backlash (cast it on everything, add to damage)
Healing Springs
Breath of Life

Ultimate - Remembrance

It's all still being tweaked, mind you, but I've done almost everything (pledges, trials, DSA, etc) using some version of the above skills and gear. I actually do carry both armor/weapon sets with me, and swap everything depending on role. When I do swap, though, my stats change so much that it is, quite literally, like being two completely different characters rolled into one. It's pretty much totally awesome.