OnGodiDoDis wrote: »

This thread will focus on the areas I believe are holding back Templars from being an outstanding class.

1) Mobility: They lack a class source of Major Expedition. Hasty Prayer provides Minor Expedition only. Nobody is going to slot two sources of speed. Nobody is wasting cooldowns and resources on two speed skills. We only go for Major Expedition.
2) Pressure: Jabs is easy to evade mainly due to its reliance on snaring its targets. The broad availability of snare removal/immunity in PvP zones makes this effect utterly useless. It's easy to run circles around someone using Jabs even with the camera sensitivity set to max. This is because skills like the Warden wings and Race Against Time provide both snare immunity and Major Expedition.
3) Buffs: Some skills have some odd buffs. Jabs has Minor Protection attached to it when it should be attached to a defensive skill. We can't use Jabs when we're on the backbar healing, hence we miss out on the Minor Protection. That's why most people just backbar Temporal Guard which takes up a slot for a healing ulti. Perhaps an offensive buff or effect would be better on Jabs? We also don't have a class source for Major Sorcery/Brutality. DKs have Major and Minor Brutality, why can't we have Major and Minor Sorcery?
4) Ultimates: We only have one viable class ultimate: Sweep. Nova doesn't even do anything if we're running solo. Atrocious. It's hard to time even in groups due to all the synergies. If we're solo we best hope that our allies synergize it.

In the patch notes, the devs mentioned that they wanted to purposefully give Templars some weakness in PvP. I don't see any weaknesses in NBs or DKs. Those two classes have excellent single-target and AoE potential. Wardens just pull up with 40k HP and still one-piece people. I don't understand the logic behind intentionally debilitating an already underperfoming class.
Discuss.

Vaqual wrote: »

Don't get me wrong, I am not playing enough templar to be an expert and I believe some tweaks might be in order, but I disagree with some of the things you said. Trying to homogenize class kits by providing identical buffs in an equally convenient manner to all classes will just narrow down the diversity of (effective) builds further.

The unequal availability of buffs/debuffs only becomes an issue if everyone is trying to play the same build/kit on different classes. There will always be a meta or overperforming sets/CPs and some classes will naturally make more of those than others. Just providing all buffs to everyone wouldn't make the game any more interesting. I get that it can feel unfair and I genuinely think that some classes have more overloaded abilities compared to others when comparing them to the solo dueling/1vX meta, but that is because certain attributes are weighted more heavily in specific scenarios.

There are enough sets to capitalize on the strengths of each class. Templar has good tools to stand his ground, he isn't inherently balanced around high speed. You have gear options to increase your speed, where other classes might have to sacrifice room for healing/purge gear. Sorry for the trivial example, but I hope it is clear what I mean.

Regarding the Ultimates: A lot of ultimates are not viable for every scenario. Of course a ground dot with synergy is much less useful in a solo PvP scenario than e.g. a burst ultimate. There are non-class ultimates to fill the gaps.

If skills offer too little benefit per cast/for their cost, considering their passive benefits, then I think a buff is in order. This can be realized by adding effects or tweaking the numbers. But I do not think, that class skills should be adjusted to cover all buffs/debuffs.

El_Borracho wrote: »

OnGodiDoDis wrote: »

This thread will focus on the areas I believe are holding back Templars from being an outstanding class.

4) Ultimates: We only have one viable class ultimate: Sweep. Nova doesn't even do anything if we're running solo. Atrocious. It's hard to time even in groups due to all the synergies. If we're solo we best hope that our allies synergize it.

You bring up some decent points, but this one I have an issue with. Templars' ultimate has always been outshined by the one skill you omitted: Radiant Oppression/Radiant Glory. Do you really need an ultimate on the level with Corrosive Armor to go with Radiant? It kicks out 480-500% more damage at 50% health, is ranged, and doesn't really cost that much, especially compared to something like Fossilize, and puts out way more damage than Impale for almost the same cost.

Galeriano wrote: »

OnGodiDoDis wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

Don't get me wrong, I am not playing enough templar to be an expert and I believe some tweaks might be in order, but I disagree with some of the things you said. Trying to homogenize class kits by providing identical buffs in an equally convenient manner to all classes will just narrow down the diversity of (effective) builds further.

The unequal availability of buffs/debuffs only becomes an issue if everyone is trying to play the same build/kit on different classes. There will always be a meta or overperforming sets/CPs and some classes will naturally make more of those than others. Just providing all buffs to everyone wouldn't make the game any more interesting. I get that it can feel unfair and I genuinely think that some classes have more overloaded abilities compared to others when comparing them to the solo dueling/1vX meta, but that is because certain attributes are weighted more heavily in specific scenarios.

There are enough sets to capitalize on the strengths of each class. Templar has good tools to stand his ground, he isn't inherently balanced around high speed. You have gear options to increase your speed, where other classes might have to sacrifice room for healing/purge gear. Sorry for the trivial example, but I hope it is clear what I mean.

Regarding the Ultimates: A lot of ultimates are not viable for every scenario. Of course a ground dot with synergy is much less useful in a solo PvP scenario than e.g. a burst ultimate. There are non-class ultimates to fill the gaps.

If skills offer too little benefit per cast/for their cost, considering their passive benefits, then I think a buff is in order. This can be realized by adding effects or tweaking the numbers. But I do not think, that class skills should be adjusted to cover all buffs/debuffs.

I disagree with you. PvP is one of those environments where everyone must have equal ground. It's ok to lack something in PvE because groups are built to provide those buffs to the people that lack them. Those missing buffs are not guaranteed in PvP. Major Breach and Major Expedition, which Templars lack, are pinnacle buffs/debuffs. It wouldn't be as bad if we had Major or Minor Berserk to make up for the lack of penetration. All other classes have access to both. These are essential PvP effects and we don't have them. DKs and NBs have Major Breach, Expedition, AND Berserk. We cannot rely on World/Weapon skills to provide those edsential effects for us. They must be made available in our class toolkit.

No in PvP everyone doesn't need equall ground. Each class have diferent power fantasy behind it and certain features are on place to compensate for lack of something. For example You may complain templar kit lacks some major/minor buffs and debuffs but every other class also lacks execute that could be comparable to the one templar have. And certain setups needs to look for execute outside of class kit or to play without it. Same goes for specific buffs and templar. You will have to look for them outside of class kit. As for nb and DK I wouldn't really call them out for having acces to major berserk. Abilities that provides it are rarely used in PvP and major berserk provided by them is either too short to count or too situational. Pretty much the same goes for DK's acces to major expedition, if anything You will find DK using race against time rather than chains to get that buff. Yes You can rely on skills from outside of class kit to provide some major buffs and debuffs. Literally every class does that.

The only thing that templar lacks right now is a burst potential and it wasn't that long ago when templar had it and was able to completly demolish people with his combo. Next patch templar is getting some damage buffs including buff to his burst and mara's balm will recive heavy nerf so we will see way more setups that will be applying heavy debuffs to enemies like DoT based stamsorcs so templar will get passively stronger in enviroment like that due to having a class purge.

At the end of the day templar right now is pretty much a prisoner of two abilities a radiant destruction and javelin. These two are really strong right now, borderline overperforming and giving templar too much dmg potential with these two abilities untouched is something ZoS is really hesitant to do.

OnGodiDoDis wrote: »

El_Borracho wrote: »

OnGodiDoDis wrote: »

This thread will focus on the areas I believe are holding back Templars from being an outstanding class.

4) Ultimates: We only have one viable class ultimate: Sweep. Nova doesn't even do anything if we're running solo. Atrocious. It's hard to time even in groups due to all the synergies. If we're solo we best hope that our allies synergize it.

You bring up some decent points, but this one I have an issue with. Templars' ultimate has always been outshined by the one skill you omitted: Radiant Oppression/Radiant Glory. Do you really need an ultimate on the level with Corrosive Armor to go with Radiant? It kicks out 480-500% more damage at 50% health, is ranged, and doesn't really cost that much, especially compared to something like Fossilize, and puts out way more damage than Impale for almost the same cost.

There are better executes: Whirling Blades and Executioner. They cannot be interrupted and the damage is instant, not a DoT. Some builds don't even need an execute (NBs, Wardens, Necros, DKs).

Galeriano wrote: »

OnGodiDoDis wrote: »

Galeriano wrote: »

OnGodiDoDis wrote: »

El_Borracho wrote: »

OnGodiDoDis wrote: »

This thread will focus on the areas I believe are holding back Templars from being an outstanding class.

4) Ultimates: We only have one viable class ultimate: Sweep. Nova doesn't even do anything if we're running solo. Atrocious. It's hard to time even in groups due to all the synergies. If we're solo we best hope that our allies synergize it.

You bring up some decent points, but this one I have an issue with. Templars' ultimate has always been outshined by the one skill you omitted: Radiant Oppression/Radiant Glory. Do you really need an ultimate on the level with Corrosive Armor to go with Radiant? It kicks out 480-500% more damage at 50% health, is ranged, and doesn't really cost that much, especially compared to something like Fossilize, and puts out way more damage than Impale for almost the same cost.

There are better executes: Whirling Blades and Executioner. They cannot be interrupted and the damage is instant, not a DoT. Some builds don't even need an execute (NBs, Wardens, Necros, DKs).

What? Radiant opression is hands down the best execute in the game leaving every other execute far behind. Being interruptable is the only thing that still keeps it in the mortal realm because without it this ability would be godly overperforming. Seriously saying that there are other better executes really makes Your credibility to drop down drastically.

It's not that other classes don't need an execute it's just that they need to adapt their playstyles to not running with it due to many different reasons. Belive me if skill like radiant destruction would be universally available for every class from some non class skill tree than almost everyone would be running with it.

I refute your statement. Please provide evidence that the beam is the best execute, other than being interruptable. I will tell you why others are better. Mage's Wrath automatically triggers when the target is at 25% HP, letting you focus on finishing off the enemy instead of wasting a global cooldown. Executioner deals more damage in the same amount of time as the beam because the latter has a duration of 1.8 seconds. Executioner can be cast twice (with additional light attacks) in the same time frame, resulting in more damage. Do I even need to talk about Spin? It's an AoE execute. What beats an AoE execute?

Mage's wrath triggers when enemy is at 20% and is dodgable. Many sorcs don't even use it because when enemy is below 20% HP regular spammable will do the same and their burst combo these days is too easy to avoid to make great use of mages wrath delayed component. 4 seconds is also not enough time for sorc to drop someones health under 20% so that delayed burst option this ability was once good at now is pretty much gone. Applying mages wrath early is basically a dead giveaway of what You are planning to do and one dodge roll can counter that. It's also pretty slow ability, it takes more time than beam inbetween activation and aplication.

Executioner is 5 meters range and dodgable. Its damage also do not apply instantly but after a split of second when animation physically hits the target so if enemy is moving there is a chance that You will be starting the animation and it will be interrupted with the message "target out of range". It will happen a lot in real fights due to how small range executioner have. Thankfully improvements to meele range abilities in new patch can make that issue less irritating. Executioner is not dealing more damage than templars execute. If You compare tooltips of both You will notice that beam have around 3 times higher tooltip. It's not a coincidence because beam have 3 ticks so basically every tick of beam hits for similar amount as executioner but executioner max scaling is up to 400% when templars execute depends of morph will reach up to 480-500%. Yes You can use 2x light attack+executioner (if enemy allows You to) within the same time frame as 1x light attack+beam but since beam have 3 ticks each hitting for more than executioner math here is pretty simple and it's templar beam that wins within 2 seconds time fram. And it wins even more withing 1 second time frame because it takes slighlty above 1 second for beam to deal 2 ticks of damage so within the same time frame You will use 1x executioner You will hit enemy withj 2 ticks of beam each hitting for the same or evem more than executioner. First tick of beam damage is also hitting around 0,1 sec earlier than dmg from executioner after pressing the button.

So templars execute is basically undodgable 36 meters range execute that hits like a truck when compared to other execute abilities.

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

I don't get why mages wrath wouldn't be used. It literally steels kills from ROwith ease because if the 1.8 second channel time assuming you are in group play. Yes, RO is strong but it gets outweighed by the ability to preload and supplement the burst and AOE of mages wrath. Now, once templar starts having their delayed burst amount to anything again; it's usefulness goes back up

OnGodiDoDis wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

I don't get why mages wrath wouldn't be used. It literally steels kills from ROwith ease because if the 1.8 second channel time assuming you are in group play. Yes, RO is strong but it gets outweighed by the ability to preload and supplement the burst and AOE of mages wrath. Now, once templar starts having their delayed burst amount to anything again; it's usefulness goes back up

Just want to provide some clarification as to why mages wrath is not used (from a sorc main perspective).

1. Bar space.

- This is the number 1 issue with this skill (and sorc in general). Sorcs just don't have the bar space to slot this ability without giving up something better. This is especially true because the sorcs burst combo requires lining up 4 skills already (frags/curse/overload/crushing shock or bound armaments/overload/crystal weapon/curse) and adding mages wrath is a 5th skill/GCD and if pre-cast before the combo, the 4s debuff wears off before the combo lands meaning it is a waste of resources to use it.

2. It's cleansable.

- Same issue as curse, but curse has many more upsides than wrath, most notably it can do its damage at any % of health instead of only below 20%. With sets like Mara's Balm and classes like Warden being in the meta, it's very hard (if not near impossible) to keep the mages wrath debuff on the target to proc it with how freely available cleanse is currently.

3. Far too many bugs and counters to make it viable.

- There's far too many ways to counter this skill.
- It can be dodged (for some reason, which is strange considering its supposed to be a sticky debuff execute).
- It can be blocked (block mitigation is far too high currently with how cheap and easy it is to sustain it).
- Sometimes it just completely fails to proc for no reason at all.
- The threshold to proc it is far too low, someone at 20% health is basically already dead, mages fury just steals the killing blow from the other player that was already going to get the final hit.

5. It's damage just isn't worth it

- It's damage is less than a frags proc (which like curse can deal its damage at any health %, not just below 20%).
- It's damage doesn't scale at all, so even if it does proc, sometimes it can still fail to get the kill (mostly due to undeath passive).

6. Dodge roll is too cheap

- Sorcs burst combo is very predictable and easy to avoid. When you hear/see curse being cast on you (it has a distinct sound and visual), count to 2 then hit dodge roll, this mitigates the majority of a sorcs combo (frags/overload/crushing shock/bound armaments) outside of curse, so unless you were already close to or below 20% health where casting mages wrath only would have proc'd it, the burst combo to get you into mages wrath proc range won't land and won't proc mages wrath.

You'll see people in large groups using it since the group covers utility/defense/burst/pressure, you'll also see it very commonly in low mmr BGs, since most players there don't know what they're doing, don't heal out of its range, don't dodge to avoid sorcs damage that drops them into that range, don't block to mitigate its damage, generally have much squishier builds, etc, so it becomes a very strong finisher in those situations.
But outside of those situations, it just doesn't do anything that a frags/curse proc doesn't already do better, it also makes the burst combo very clunky to use thanks to its awkward (short) timer that prevents it from being precast like an actual debuff, the current meta (mara's + warden and probably soon plar again too with the temp fix to PotL) is just not conducive for it to be a functional skill and it has too many bugs/issues/counter play that make it not worth the huge investment of a valuable bar slot that sorcerer just does not have available for it.

Hope this helps explain why mages wrath is not being used at the higher levels of play (for PvP at least).

Agreed. It seems like the classes that are struggling the most right now (Sorc, Templar) share similar aspects: they both have purgeable effects. Essential effects that are needed to get a kill, mind you. But that raises the question; why isn't DK struggling? Their offensive toolkit consists of DoTs. The answer is that their spammable is reliable and gets the job done. Sorcs and Templars don't have good spammables. Sorc doesn't even have a class spammable. Templar lost its seat in the top tier classes when Jabs was gutted. They can buff all its other skills as much as they want, but the class will remain trash unless Jabs gets a buff. The top classes right now don't even need an execute.