The devs probably be clicking No any sec now.

single target DPS is ok, but we lack AOE damage and magicka.

its only biased if you DONT play a templar... play the class to VR 12 and we can talk... as the the term PLZ most peeps dont want to read 3 words let alone a long post ... so if your not voting yes GTFO... enough said

Wanted to answer one of the two as increased dps would mean the abilities are now more efficient, and increased mana management would mean dps can be sustained easier.

My opinion as a templar (who rerolled from a nightblade):

Single Target Burst Damage isnt all that bad when backlash is used. However, backlash has a hidden softcap on the amount of damage it can return, which prevents it from scaling well at higher vet ranks and causes the ability to slowly become useless in pve. That said, it's very powerful in pvp still.
Dark flare is one of the best single target spells in the game, so we have that going for us right now - though I do think it's slightly on the pricey side (however, that's somewhat countered by it's bonus to the next spellcast).
Biting jabs is great both single target as well as AoE.
Overall assessment of single target burst damage: Good, but could use minor improvements (listed below)

Single target sustained damage is a bit lacking, primarily because dark flare is a little too expensive and because we have no class spells which can be sustained indefinitely. Other classes have spell synergies that let them keep their mana up while they continue casting, but we run out of magicka pretty easily over the course of a long fight.
Overall assessment of single target sustained damage: Needs some help.

AoE Damage is where we're really lacking. Solar barrage gives us that nice damage boost, and synergizes well with weapon-based aoe attacks (cleave, whirlwind, impulse, etc.), but is very expensive for the effective damage it does. Dark flare applies the same damage bonus and does more single target damage, but does no real aoe damage and the cast time makes it impractical to use in aoe situations.
Reflective light can hit a max of 3 targets, but it does not apply the Damage over time to anything except the first target, and does significantly reduced damage to the additional targets as well.
Spear shards does terrible damage as an AoE, with no real utility gained in exchange. The fact that it only disorients/stuns one target also seems really off.
Radial sweep is good if you use a 2h carve build. Nova is ok, but overly expensive for the damage it does, compared to dragonknight standard it's terrible.
Overall assessment of aoe damage: Severely lacking, definitely needs help.

Mana regen is also one of those areas we're lacking. We seem to have a lot of ways to restore stamina, but given the fact that nobody really uses stamina builds at the moment due to them being extremely ineffective compared to magicka builds that seems like a fairly useless class feature. It'd be better if these skills restored magicka.
In general our abilities are too expensive for too little damage output or healing output, and we're plagued by more cast-time abilities than any other class which reduces mobility and survivability.
Overall assessment of mana regen: Poor



Now, on to the suggested fixes:

Aedric Spear Line:

Spear Shards
-Needs a massive damage increase to be competetive as an AoE DPS skill.
-Should snare or immobilize all enemies in the area, instead of disorienting one enemy.

Dawn's Wrath Line:

Sun Fire - Reflective Light
-Remove the 3 target limit, and allow the skill to deal the higher amount of damage to the target you aim at, plus the lower amount to all enemies in a radius around that target. This would help turn the skill into a true aoe skill instead of a half-way skill that cant decide what it's supposed to be good for.
-Make the skill apply the damage over time effect to all enemies damaged by the blast, rather than just the initial target.
-If necessary, remove the snare in favor of this additional AoE damage factor.

Backlash
-Remove the cast time, this ability does no damage up front and in fact does nothing for a full 7.2 seconds (when passives are taken into account), and then only does something if the target actually takes damage and doesnt die beforehand.
-Currently backlash has a hidden damage cap, preventing it from dealing more than a set amount of damage regardless of how much damage the target takes before the time limit is up. This limit is necessary, of course, to prevent exploits that could make it too easy to quickly kill enemies in pve - however, it also interferes with the ability's scaling at higher levels. To remedy this, allow backlash to 'detonate' before the 7.2 second duration if the damage limit is reached before then.

Backlash - Power of the Light
-The weapon damage bonus for this morph doesnt really do enough to be worth taking over the healing morph. My suggestion would be to change power of the light to increase the amount of damage backlash returns after it's duration, and to increase the hidden damage cap.

Backlash - Purifying Light
-Instead of creating a healing pool after backlash detonates, change this morph to heal allies who attack the target afflicted by the ability. This way the heal still remains useful even if the target dies before backlash detonates.

Blinding Light
-Remove this ability. The concept is nice, but miss chance effects are already known to not work properly against bosses, and blinding light offers nothing to synergize with the rest of the skill tree.
-Replace blinding light with something that has an AoE immobilizing effect, perhaps something 'gravity' related to go along with the somewhat celestial theme the rest of the tree has. An aoe immobilize with a damage component would go a long way towards improving our AoE dps viability (and tanking ability as well) - thinking something similar to draconic talons or encase here.

Nova
I love this ability, especially it's visual effect, but let's compare it to the most similar spell in the game, dragonknight standard. Nova costs 100 more ultimate, only lasts 8 seconds compared to 15, provides 30% enemy damage reduction rather than 35%, and does not increase the player's damage by 35% like standard of might does. The morphs are also incredibly uninspired.
-Reduce the ultimate cost of Nova to 200, from 300
-Increase the duration of nova to a max of 15 seconds at rank 4 morphed

Nova - Solar Prison
-Instead of having a "more powerful synergy", make this morph immobilize enemies in the area of effect, more true to it's name.

Nova - Solar Disturbance
-Change this morph to cause the templar to deal 35% more damage with dawn's wrath abilities against targets within nova's radius. Again, more true to the name, and more on par with standard of might (though obviously still weaker, as it only effects dawn's wrath abilities).

Restoring Light:

Rushed Ceremony - Breath of Life
-Increase the heal on the second and third targets to be equal to the first target healed. This is already an incredibly expensive and inefficient heal, but it's usefulness for emergency burst healing would be better served if the amount werent split on each target. Sometimes the target that needs the bigger heal seems to not get it, while the targets next to you that are at 98% health waste the effect.

Healing Ritual
-Reduce the base cast time of this heal to 1.5 seconds, instead of 2. The amount healed does not justify the long cast time, especially in endgame pve situations where standing still for 2 seconds will almost certainly get you (and by association your group) killed.

Healing Ritual - Ritual of Rebirth
-Change this morph to make the spellcast instant, but remove the bonus self healing in exchange.

Healing Ritual - Lingering Ritual
-Change this morph to heal effected allies for an additional X every 0.5 seconds for 8 seconds, rather than having a burst heal after 8 seconds. A heal over time effect is much more reliable.

Restoring Aura / Restoring Aura - Radiant Aura
-Change restoring Aura to grant a 15% increase to stamina and magicka regeneration, instead of stamina and health regeneration. When it comes to returning health, we have heals, this should be a utility spell instead.
-Change the activated effect so that it no longer has its benefit reduced by the regeneration softcap and allies receive the full 80% boost to regeneration for the duration.

Restoring Aura - Repentance
-Change this ability so that it restores magicka and stamina per nearby corpse, rather than health and stamina. Same reasoning above.

(Note: I use repentance as a free heal, which I dont think the devs really intended. It's incredibly powerful right now as a heal that can be practically spammed for no cost in any aoe situation or boss encounter that includes adds. I think it would be better off as a way to regenerate magicka for templars, helping to alleviate our magicka issues, but I'll definitely be sad to see my free heal go

Lynx7386 wrote: »

My opinion as a templar (who rerolled from a nightblade):

Single Target Burst Damage isnt all that bad when backlash is used. However, backlash has a hidden softcap on the amount of damage it can return, which prevents it from scaling well at higher vet ranks and causes the ability to slowly become useless in pve. That said, it's very powerful in pvp still.
Dark flare is one of the best single target spells in the game, so we have that going for us right now - though I do think it's slightly on the pricey side (however, that's somewhat countered by it's bonus to the next spellcast).
Biting jabs is great both single target as well as AoE.
Overall assessment of single target burst damage: Good, but could use minor improvements (listed below)

Single target sustained damage is a bit lacking, primarily because dark flare is a little too expensive and because we have no class spells which can be sustained indefinitely. Other classes have spell synergies that let them keep their mana up while they continue casting, but we run out of magicka pretty easily over the course of a long fight.
Overall assessment of single target sustained damage: Needs some help.

AoE Damage is where we're really lacking. Solar barrage gives us that nice damage boost, and synergizes well with weapon-based aoe attacks (cleave, whirlwind, impulse, etc.), but is very expensive for the effective damage it does. Dark flare applies the same damage bonus and does more single target damage, but does no real aoe damage and the cast time makes it impractical to use in aoe situations.
Reflective light can hit a max of 3 targets, but it does not apply the Damage over time to anything except the first target, and does significantly reduced damage to the additional targets as well.
Spear shards does terrible damage as an AoE, with no real utility gained in exchange. The fact that it only disorients/stuns one target also seems really off.
Radial sweep is good if you use a 2h carve build. Nova is ok, but overly expensive for the damage it does, compared to dragonknight standard it's terrible.
Overall assessment of aoe damage: Severely lacking, definitely needs help.

Mana regen is also one of those areas we're lacking. We seem to have a lot of ways to restore stamina, but given the fact that nobody really uses stamina builds at the moment due to them being extremely ineffective compared to magicka builds that seems like a fairly useless class feature. It'd be better if these skills restored magicka.
In general our abilities are too expensive for too little damage output or healing output, and we're plagued by more cast-time abilities than any other class which reduces mobility and survivability.
Overall assessment of mana regen: Poor



Now, on to the suggested fixes:

Aedric Spear Line:

Spear Shards
-Needs a massive damage increase to be competetive as an AoE DPS skill.
-Should snare or immobilize all enemies in the area, instead of disorienting one enemy.

Dawn's Wrath Line:

Sun Fire - Reflective Light
-Remove the 3 target limit, and allow the skill to deal the higher amount of damage to the target you aim at, plus the lower amount to all enemies in a radius around that target. This would help turn the skill into a true aoe skill instead of a half-way skill that cant decide what it's supposed to be good for.
-Make the skill apply the damage over time effect to all enemies damaged by the blast, rather than just the initial target.
-If necessary, remove the snare in favor of this additional AoE damage factor.

Backlash
-Remove the cast time, this ability does no damage up front and in fact does nothing for a full 7.2 seconds (when passives are taken into account), and then only does something if the target actually takes damage and doesnt die beforehand.
-Currently backlash has a hidden damage cap, preventing it from dealing more than a set amount of damage regardless of how much damage the target takes before the time limit is up. This limit is necessary, of course, to prevent exploits that could make it too easy to quickly kill enemies in pve - however, it also interferes with the ability's scaling at higher levels. To remedy this, allow backlash to 'detonate' before the 7.2 second duration if the damage limit is reached before then.

Backlash - Power of the Light
-The weapon damage bonus for this morph doesnt really do enough to be worth taking over the healing morph. My suggestion would be to change power of the light to increase the amount of damage backlash returns after it's duration, and to increase the hidden damage cap.

Backlash - Purifying Light
-Instead of creating a healing pool after backlash detonates, change this morph to heal allies who attack the target afflicted by the ability. This way the heal still remains useful even if the target dies before backlash detonates.

Blinding Light
-Remove this ability. The concept is nice, but miss chance effects are already known to not work properly against bosses, and blinding light offers nothing to synergize with the rest of the skill tree.
-Replace blinding light with something that has an AoE immobilizing effect, perhaps something 'gravity' related to go along with the somewhat celestial theme the rest of the tree has. An aoe immobilize with a damage component would go a long way towards improving our AoE dps viability (and tanking ability as well) - thinking something similar to draconic talons or encase here.

Nova
I love this ability, especially it's visual effect, but let's compare it to the most similar spell in the game, dragonknight standard. Nova costs 100 more ultimate, only lasts 8 seconds compared to 15, provides 30% enemy damage reduction rather than 35%, and does not increase the player's damage by 35% like standard of might does. The morphs are also incredibly uninspired.
-Reduce the ultimate cost of Nova to 200, from 300
-Increase the duration of nova to a max of 15 seconds at rank 4 morphed

Nova - Solar Prison
-Instead of having a "more powerful synergy", make this morph immobilize enemies in the area of effect, more true to it's name.

Nova - Solar Disturbance
-Change this morph to cause the templar to deal 35% more damage with dawn's wrath abilities against targets within nova's radius. Again, more true to the name, and more on par with standard of might (though obviously still weaker, as it only effects dawn's wrath abilities).

Restoring Light:

Rushed Ceremony - Breath of Life
-Increase the heal on the second and third targets to be equal to the first target healed. This is already an incredibly expensive and inefficient heal, but it's usefulness for emergency burst healing would be better served if the amount werent split on each target. Sometimes the target that needs the bigger heal seems to not get it, while the targets next to you that are at 98% health waste the effect.

Healing Ritual
-Reduce the base cast time of this heal to 1.5 seconds, instead of 2. The amount healed does not justify the long cast time, especially in endgame pve situations where standing still for 2 seconds will almost certainly get you (and by association your group) killed.

Healing Ritual - Ritual of Rebirth
-Change this morph to make the spellcast instant, but remove the bonus self healing in exchange.

Healing Ritual - Lingering Ritual
-Change this morph to heal effected allies for an additional X every 0.5 seconds for 8 seconds, rather than having a burst heal after 8 seconds. A heal over time effect is much more reliable.

Restoring Aura / Restoring Aura - Radiant Aura
-Change restoring Aura to grant a 15% increase to stamina and magicka regeneration, instead of stamina and health regeneration. When it comes to returning health, we have heals, this should be a utility spell instead.
-Change the activated effect so that it no longer has its benefit reduced by the regeneration softcap and allies receive the full 80% boost to regeneration for the duration.

Restoring Aura - Repentance
-Change this ability so that it restores magicka and stamina per nearby corpse, rather than health and stamina. Same reasoning above.

(Note: I use repentance as a free heal, which I dont think the devs really intended. It's incredibly powerful right now as a heal that can be practically spammed for no cost in any aoe situation or boss encounter that includes adds. I think it would be better off as a way to regenerate magicka for templars, helping to alleviate our magicka issues, but I'll definitely be sad to see my free heal go

This post...I'm impressed. If every, EVERY change described here was implemented, it might put Templar on par with DK as of the next patch. Not necessarily OP, but playable. More damage, more aoe cc.