Templar Update

Ghostnight013

I completely agree with others that restoring spirit needs a boost from 2/4 to as much as 4/8...

Rune focus needs to be at least 50% larger, I should still be able to stay in it if an NPC drops their smallest aoe in the middle by moving to an edge...and not be driven out by every single fire/oil/volley attack...


I think the most interedting thing todo for active regen would be to change light weaver so it would restore a small amount of magicka and stam(maybe 1% of base stat) each time one of our templar heals crit. Then healing becomes our resource management skill and our healing tree starts to synergize with our other trees, same as other classes rather than being "the red headed stepchild" of the skill trees.

If not that, then give the Templar a small amount of restore based on damage taken, to encourage front line Templar fighting, as a Knight should rather than the Templar hiding in the back healing...

JLB

Ghostnight013 wrote: »

Rune focus needs to be at least 50% larger, I should still be able to stay in it if an NPC drops their smallest aoe in the middle by moving to an edge...and not be driven out by every single fire/oil/volley attack...


I think the most interedting thing todo for active regen would be to change light weaver so it would restore a small amount of magicka and stam(maybe 1% of base stat) each time one of our templar heals crit. Then healing becomes our resource management skill and our healing tree starts to synergize with our other trees, same as other classes rather than being "the red headed stepchild" of the skill trees.

If not that, then give the Templar a small amount of restore based on damage taken, to encourage front line Templar fighting, as a Knight should rather than the Templar hiding in the back healing...

A bigger area on Rune Focus would be a great improvement. Circle of Protection from Fighters Guild is 5m radius and seems like a perfect size to move around a bit without being too big.
But anyways I believe the buff area should follow the caster for the duration and make it a real defensive class buff, like Spiked Armour (DKs) or Bound Armor (Sorcerer).

Resource restore on damage taken is a great idea.
Once the Resource Management gets fixed, I really wouldnt mind having lower DPS than others, as long as the class gets more Survival. Fixing Rune Focus is the key imo.

spliffmaster2b16_ESO

My VR12 Templar is my main, former emperor and all trials completed as DPS/Tank.

The state of Templars before 1.2 was that they were good healers, bottom-tier DPS for single target as well as for AoE, lackluster tanks due to no %based damage mitigation and mid tier for solo play. All roles were very much effected by poor sustain and bad ultimates (except for Remembrance for PvE). My tank build and all of my PvP builds were usually only using 1 or 2 Templar skills including the ultimate while almost everyone else is running 4 to 5 class skills in PvP. That really goes to show the state of Templars before 1.2.

Here is what I think of the current Templar skills with regards to the announces changes:


Empowering Sweep: The change to make it %damage mitigation instead of Armor is an amazing improvement to Templar tanking, now possibly the best tank for many encounters. It's also a improvement to solo-leveling in veteran content and to melee based PvP Templars.

Crescent Sweep: This ability is only useful for PvE AoE clearing and even than it's questionable. I think it's missing an added utility side effect like increasing the chance for Burning Light procs for 8seconds by 15% or something to that effect (crit, movement speed, etc.).

Biting Jabs & Puncturing Sweep: I'm shocked that the Piercing Spear passive wasn't improving weapon critical strike for this ability. With that out of the way and the damage increase Biting Jabs is very powerful, maybe too powerful. The best Templar DPS rotation should definitely not evolve around simply using one single ability over and over. The perfect spot for this ability would be that it deals slightly less DPS out of execute range than other DPS options. Puncturing Sweep after the change is a powerful morph for solo play and PvP, again, maybe even too powerful.

Aurora Javelin & Binding Javelin: An obvious example of a PvE and a PvP morph. Binding Javelin is in a good spot, it's powerful but easy to block/dodge and very high mana cost. Aurora Javelin on the other hand doesn't deal enough damage for it's mana cost and it has no synergy with Burning Light since there is only one damage tick per activation. It really feels out of place in the Aedric Spear tree. I would change it so that it reads "Inreased damage and chance to proc Burning Light when the player is a greater distance from the target, by up to 40%".

Explosive Charge & Toppling Charge: Toppling Charge is in a good place. Explosive Charge doesn't really fill it's purpose very well though. If it had a 5m radius knockback around the impact point or a temporary offensive buff to the Templar for 4seconds or something it would be much more interesting. Either way both of these are bugging out way too much even on pretty open terrain.
Explosive Charge is also missing it's radius in the tooltip.

Luminous Shards & Blazing Spear: Both of these abilities would be amazing if it wasn't for the horrible animation. Not visually but practically it's almost unusable. It needs to be sped up or changed completely. Otherwise this is a great ability with two interesting morphs. The only problem is that the pulses of Blazing Spear are generating 0 ultimate when they don't crit. Templars options to generate ultimate are already lacking as it is.
The tooltip is missing the radius.

Radiant Ward & Blazing Shield: This looks good at first but there is rarely much reason to use it. No mitigation applies to damage shields and you can get an instant heal for a similar amount that in the end is much cheaper on your magicka since you are missing out on ~90 magicka per second with this shield up. Blazing Shield does have it's uses for stamina builds and builds that use it in combination with Harness Magicka and a group setup with many damage shields. For Radiant Ward the damage is laughable, the tooltip is unclear and doesn't state the radius. The numbers need to be tweaked on this or better yet it gets completely reworked.

Aedric Spear passive abilities: All of these are well tuned.

Aedric Spear summery: This skill tree is one of the best in the game. The passive abilities provide synergies with some of the skills which is great but could be improved on some occasions. Some of the morphs are not very interesting but overall the holy warrior style is cool and memorable.


Solar Prison & Solar Disturbance: This ability might be in a good spot with the upcoming changes. Previously the ultimate cost was too high for what it provided but I'm glad that instead of downwashing the classes and making all the similar ultimates 200/250 Templars are getting a ultimate that's extra expensive and hopefully with these changes also extra powerful.
However it won't ever matter what the numbers on this ultimate are until the following glaring issues get fixed!!!
1. You have to click multiple times to get the Nova to spawn. When playing solo you might get Nova to spawn with the first click if you're in luck but if the screen is cluttered with other players I have to spam my left click up to 6 times before the cast will finally follow through. The unresponsiveness of the Nova cast is an absolute NIGHTMARE.
2. If you somehow manage to get Nova out and it's lagging too much don't be surprised to find that all your ultimate is gone but Nova never even spawned!! There can be multiple causes for this. If you get CCed with a bad timing it can happen, but also many times when there is nothing even close to you but it's simply lagging too much. It doesn't help that with too many ability effects on the screen the animation for Nova isn't showing so you won't even know if it never spawned or simply isn't showing.
Both of these issues have traumatized me and held me back from ever running Nova as my main ultimate in PvP.
Also, the tooltip is missing the radius.

Vampires Bane & Reflective Light: This ability has been slightly too low on it's damage per activation before but now it should be in the perfect spot. The tooltip is not very well worded/unclear. It would be better to state the damage per tick instead of the overall damage. Because if you increase the duration of the ability with Enduring Rays it leads you to think that the overall damage stays the same and the damage per tick actually goes down.

Dark Flare & Solar Barrage: Dark Flare has also been slightly under-performing and should be in a great spot after the changes. Solar Barrage has a problem with it's internal cooldown or animation. When you are spamming this ability there are sometimes very noticeable delays between casts that are much longer than usual.
Both of these abilities have weird interactions with some types of abilities. For example AoE effects like Blazing Spear are getting no bonus from this ability and Puncturing Strikes only gets increased damage for the first of the 4 consecutive hits. Overall it's quite inconsistent and performs worse than expected with many ability combinations.

Purifying Light & Power of the Light: This ability is a mess. While it's overall a great ability the inner workings of it are overly complicated.
1. Damage cap. It's not mentioned in the tooltip. It seems to scale with Spell Power. It seems to be able to crit but not higher than the cap. The problem is also with increased duration from Enduring Rays. If it only increases the duration but not the cap than it would lead to a damage per second decrease. Unless there is a damage cap per second?
2. Unintentional stacking. Not going to go into this as it's super weird anyway.
Purifying Light is a bit weak and would make more sense to heal based on the damage stored. It's also missing the radius in the tooltip.

Total Dark & Unstable Core: Not a big fan of this ability. To some people it has no effect and to others it counters out their complete build. It can be CC broken but most people don't know about it and it doesn't make sense either to be honest. Also, both morphs don't really add much to the ability.

Searing Light & Blinding Flashes: Searing Light suffers from the same issue as other morphs of abilities that only add some damage to it (Radiant Ward, Unstable Core): The damage is laughable. It seems similar to DKs that have a damage over time morph for every other ability except that it's not similar at all. DKs have long-duration damage over time AoE abilities. They generate a ton of ultimate, are resource efficient and have great damage per execute time. For the Templar it's just an awkward small damage bonus that doesn't really help with anything. Blinding Flashes is alright now with the upcoming changes but in the end both of these morphs really need an increased radius.

Dawn's Wrath passive abilities: As I already pointed out it's not clear if Enduring Rays is really a positive thing in combination with Sun Fire and Backlash. Illuminate is an interesting passive that has great synergy with all abilities in this tree. Sadly soft-caps render this great-on-paper passive quite useless. Prism should be 2/4 and Restoring Spirit 4/8. Nuff said.

Dawn's Wrath summery: This tree provides some good DPS and utility options. Sun Fire and Dark Flare are in a good place, there are some unclear mechanics and responsiveness problems but the most glaring issue is that Restoring Spirit is not strong enough to fix our sustain.


Restoring Light: This tree is great, maybe even too good, so I won't spend the time to write about every morph separately and just mention the few problems that still remain.
1. Practiced Incantation needs to be buffed or reworked.
2. Honor the Dead is still bugged as far as I know. This is a big problem.
3. The internal coefficient for Healing Ritual is too low. Rushed Ceremony simply outperforms this ability at high Magicka & Spell Damage.
4. Channeled Focus Magicka recovery needs to be buffed or reworked. Rune Focus and morphs are missing the radius in the tooltip.
5. Light Weaver should give at least 2/4 ultimate.
6. Mending & Focused Healing might be too powerful. Although I would prefer a buff to other classes healing capabilities instead of a nerf to these passives.



Thank you for your attention towards Templars and please remember that class design is not simply about a class being too strong or weak but about synergy, interesting choices and a fun playstyle.

CaptainSilverbrow

Please look into Honor The Dead, it isn't returning magicka (nor has it ever) as intended; it's effectively a wasted talent, it does nothing.

CaptainSilverbrow

On another note, Templar's resource management is what really needs tuning; at the barest minimum, increase Restoring Spirit to 4%/8% or 5%/10%. Blazing Shield is also not receiving its enemy proximity bonus, so a fix for that and Honor the Dead would be superb.

chaosme

CaptainSilverbrow wrote: »

Please look into Honor The Dead, it isn't returning magicka (nor has it ever) as intended; it's effectively a wasted talent, it does nothing.

Honor the Dead does not work as what the tooltip describes. Currently the tooltip states:
"Restores X% of Spell Cost every 2 seconds for 6 seconds when healing a target below 50% Health."

My interpretation of this description is that if I were to use Honor the Dead and it healed a target that is currently at <50% of their max health, I would get the magicka return. However, how it currently works in the game is that you would only get the magicka return if and only if your target is at <50% of their max health after you heal them. Add in restoring light passives like Mending and Focused Healing and it would be almost impossible to satisfy the condition and get the magicka return. Not to mention that letting the target you intend to heal get that low in health is risky.

This pretty much makes this morph almost useless. It is literally honoring the dead, since your target might as well be dead before you can benefit from the magicka return that this morph is supposed to provide.

david.haypreub18_ESO

I would just like to echo what pretty much everyone else seems to be saying:

--Templars need better resource management. They shouldn't be at Sorceror level, but they need a boost in this direction. Their skills are in general too cost inefficient, certainly when compared to Sorcerors and Dragonknights.

madangrypally

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom‌

Will it be possible to include a entire free respec during this upcoming patch. With the shear amount of changes that are occurring many Templars and Nightblades will be forced to change their builds (for the better), but the cost are prohibited of that.

Example is my Templar will be required to spend 27k for a respec.

Hymzir

Yeah - what others have said. The changes are a start, resource management tool is #1 priority and please fix Honor the Dead as #2 thing on the list.

And a free respec to class skills would be much appreciated since this is means we need to rethink our builds and the cost is pretty steep (I'm looking at 25k)

p_tsakirisb16_ESO

Guys, no matter what they do with the Templars, if they do not fix some fundamental issues the class has, it will still be pants.

First we have no AoE CC. SC & DK do have and a big amount of them.
We are not many around to spam Ritual in Cyrodiil, cleaning the enemy CC either. If we do so, we run out of mana quickly and we are sitting ducks.

Second. Because of the above, we SHOULD have at least something to counter them, other than Ritual. Something that will affect the enemies.

Maybe make Eclipse not only affect direct damage (as is now), but AoE and Ultimates. (anything magicka related by all four classes).
Consider only by that ability alone, how valuable any Templar going to be anywhere.

To be honest, I do not care about resource management if they give us this. Let everything be as is today also. It will make melee builds also viable, in a single stroke.

AngryNord

The way you show the Templar class on the character creation preview (heavy armour + two-handed axe), and many of the skills offered in the three character skill lines (such as Vampires Bane), suggest you from the outset saw the Templar as a sort of Vampire Hunter/Paladin-type class, with some ability to both DPS, Tank and Heal. Such a Templar build is not very viable in-game as it is now.. Will you rectify this, or, alternatively, give the Templar a new look on the character creation (e.g. Robes + healing staff, or medium armour instead of heavy) and offer a free respec to those having created "Paladin"-type Templars?

p_tsakirisb16_ESO

That build you describe was OK in Cyrodiil during beta and the first couple of weeks. (because everyone was low level)

So is still today between 1-50 on PvE

However after that, the power creep of Destro staff and the far better DK abilities, leaves no chance to mount a defence of hit back as a Templar.

Poxxerom

Rune Focus: Make this a self-buff instead of a ground target ( I mean an on-off switch like the sorcerer's version of Rune Focus).
Give Templars 12% less spell cost passive, or reduce cost of spells by that amount.
Honor the dead: It has been broken since the start of the game.
Vampire's Bane: Increase damage or reduce cost, this skill isn't worth casting over other, more potent skills. It's about 3 times more expensive than the Mage guild dot Entropy. The slow effect is useless in raids or dungeons or against packs of mobs
Biting Jabs: Remove the interrupt/push effect because it pushes mobs inside walls and bugs encounters, decrease mana cost because it's way too expensive for the damage it does.
Resurrect passive: This skill is useless right now, make it useful by providing 50% faster resurrects.
Increase healing passives to +12%.

Basically just give raid leaders a reason to want to invite Templars (and NBs) and not just Sorcs and DKs. Ask yourself : What can I (as a developer) give the templar that will make them uniquely wanted in raids ?

To give you some ideas:
Negate Magic : A "win button" for raids.
Magma Armor: A "win button" for raids
etc you get the idea.

Raids are all about DPS, nothing else matters, not healing, not tanking, nothing. All that matters in raids (and PVE dungeons) is DPS. So either remove the DPS checks in all raids and all PVE content or fix all classes so they all output the SAME DPS. In other words, give Templars DPS similar to the Sorc and DK. Until this happens, Templars will be useless in endgame.

Sure Templars can heal but why take a Templar when you can take a sorc who can DPS while healing while also having endless mana that doesn't depend on a self-killing skill in the mage guild tree. (Equilibrium)

psufan5

Templars are already nearly impossible to kill in PVP. This is going to start some whining They will be the next DKs lol.

p_tsakirisb16_ESO

Not the melee Templars, but the same setup that is being used by DKs also.

Resto/Destro + Cloth armour with 2 Templar abilities.
+(on contrary the DKs & SCs are using more of their own skill line abilities and still are more OP)

Or else I would love to know that unkillable Melee Templar build.

Drake81

Well, im happy that the devs try to make us better, but i honestly think some of the changes are... not totaly the one id do as a player how owns a high level templar.

Decreasing cast time from 1.5 to 1.3? O_o

Instead of a 13% cast time reducement, id prefere it if you increase the damage amount up to 13% - realy!

But i think youll do the right thing and dont stop here, youll work further on this to improve my templar till he is even with the other classes, so ill wait patiently.

Also i still have a v2 sorc when things go out of controle and i need to blow of some steam.

So, but to show im taking this all with humor and the patience of age, let me add this funny picture out of an old webtoon.



With this, thx and looking forward to the next anouncement youll do to imprive my prefered char.


Drake

Rev Rielle

This is looking quite good. A nice start.

I was hoping that there would be something relating to Honor the Dead being fixed, but nothing. Though to be fair these seem to be balance changes listed and not bug fixes. So fingers crossed Honor the Dead will be fixed to work as intended, one day.

Mumyo

Hillarious joke. u give as 10% more dmg on a skill that does no damage at all.
screw you with that notes pls! this is a whole mess!
Nerfing it to the ground. than buff it a little bit to make us satisfied and ok with the nerf.

THE ONLY DAMAGE ABILITY the Templar trees actually offer and it sucks pretty infinitehardcore.

so if we want damageabilities we need to go for the weapontrees where every close combat sucks alot more except bow or destrostaff.

This is not a star. this is a joke.

in pvp templars are supposed to be healers only. if i had known this i would never have created one. thx for wasting my time with ur promisses

jquestb16_ESO2

Hey I'm just glad they're working on them, any love is good love

Mortosk

Drake81 wrote: »

Well, im happy that the devs try to make us better, but i honestly think some of the changes are... not totaly the one id do as a player how owns a high level templar.

Decreasing cast time from 1.5 to 1.3? O_o

Instead of a 13% cast time reducement, id prefere it if you increase the damage amount up to 13% - realy!

But i think youll do the right thing and dont stop here, youll work further on this to improve my templar till he is even with the other classes, so ill wait patiently.

Also i still have a v2 sorc when things go out of controle and i need to blow of some steam.

So, but to show im taking this all with humor and the patience of age, let me add this funny picture out of an old webtoon.



With this, thx and looking forward to the next anouncement youll do to imprive my prefered char.


Drake

Actually, the earth will be consumed by the sun when it becomes a red giant at the end of it's life.

Also, the galaxies will continue expanding at an accelerating rate until eventually we will be in complete darkness, because the other stars will be too far away for the light to reach us, and then all the stars will die and all matter will decay, and all that will be left will be black holes. Eventually even the black holes will evaporate and there will be nothing but empty space, except for Paladins of course.

Syndy

@temjiu

Sorry for the confusion, in one of my previous posts in this thread I did say my opinion was coming from a strictly PvP view. I couldn't care less about PvE.

SwampRaider

Give us tempalrs more magicka sustain

Mortosk

Aside from the #1 problem with Templars, i.e., no Magicka Regen/Reduction skills and therefore no sustainability to our DPS, there are some other issues with the durations of some of our skills that should be addressed as well.

Several of our skills have extremely short durations making them situational at best and of limited usefulness, and they could use a good review by ZOS.

Some of them could also use a much lower magicka cost and a damage increase as well to make them more attractive. And they all could use better tooltips.

Aedric Spear Abilities:

Sun Shield (323 Magicka) - Creates damage shield 27% of max health. Lasts 6 seconds. Deals 106 damage to nearby enemies on ACTIVATION. Each successful hit increases shield strength by 4%. You will not regeneration magicka while the shield is active.

My Thoughts: A 6 second damage shield? Really? The short duration makes this skill very situational at best. I don't even know what to say about the each hit makes it 4% stronger part. Who cares? It only lasts 6 seconds. Furthermore, for that 6 seconds, we can't even regenerate magicka? Seriously? Templars already practically have 0 magicka regen to begin with, why not make it actually 0 for 6 seconds if they use this skill! Good idea! Lastly, it does a whopping 106 damage when you first activate the shield, better than nothing (like blinding light) I suppose, but I'm not really impressed with the skill.

Dawn's Wrath Abilities:

Blinding Light (404 Magicka) - Nearby enemies have a 50% chance to miss and be set off balance for 3.5 seconds.

My Thoughts: 50% chance to miss you for 3.5 seconds eh? 50%? You could have at least made it 100% considering the duration is only 3.5 seconds and it costs roughly 20-25% of our entire magicka pool. The magicka cost is completely insane for this skill, it does ZERO damage. Seriously? Does this ability even have a use in PVE? I could maybe see someone using it in PVP, but I can't see that many uses at all in PVE due to the extremely short duration and the fact that it only has a 50% chance to work.

Eclipse (457 Magicka) - Reflects negative single target spells back at themselves for 4 seconds.

My Thoughts: Again with the extremely short durations... 4 seconds. This means to use this ability, you have to time it precisely before the spell goes off with very little margin for error. It does have a limited use against spell casters in PVE and PVP. But the 457 magicka cost is about as insane as the duration is short, like so many of our skills unfortunately.

Backlash (??? Magicka) - 1.5 second cast time. Target enemy stores up damage taken for 6 seconds. When effect ends they receive an additional 33% of damage inflicted.

My Thoughts: I was intrigued by this skill, and tried it out, but the 1.5 second cast time ruins this skill for me. This skill should be instant. I've also read that the maximum amount that can be stored up is capped at like 1000 or so damage. This kind of information should be in the tooltip, not hidden. This skill is really quirky, because it doesn't seem to do as much damage as it should. I don't know if it's because some things aren't stored up properly or what, but I've not had very good results with it. This skill would feel a lot better in combat if it were instant as well. I still have trouble figuring out when I'm done casting so I can start storing up damage. The 6 seconds is a very brief amount of time. If you are going to cap the damage, you could at least give us 8 or 10 seconds to dish it out. Overall the skill is rather disappointing, but I like the concept.

My Suggestion: Perhaps you could make the skill deal AOE damage equal to 18% of the damage stored up over 8 seconds, and have it trigger if the mob dies. That would make it do decent AOE damage, something the Templar class lacks, and also make the skill useful on both trash mobs and boss mobs. Currently, it only has a situational use for boss mobs or mobs with enough health to be alive after 6 seconds, and it makes you vulnerable for 1.5 seconds which kinda sucks.

Edit: The base cost is apparently 189 for Backlash I. I never bothered to level it up to IV, since I was disappointed with the results and couldn't deal with the 1.5 second cast time. Not sure what the cost is at skill level IV.

ARtChi

Mortosk wrote: »

...

Sun Shield (323 Magicka)
Blinding Light (404 Magicka)
Eclipse (457 Magicka)
...

All those skills are really strong in PvP. I wouldn't touch them

But i agree that backlash domage cap is too low

Mortosk

ARtChi wrote: »

Mortosk wrote: »

...

Sun Shield (323 Magicka)
Blinding Light (404 Magicka)
Eclipse (457 Magicka)
...

All those skills are really strong in PvP. I wouldn't touch them

But i agree that backlash domage cap is too low

Blinding light might be useful on a large group in PVP to mitigate 50% of incoming damage for 3.5 seconds. But that's a really small duration for PVE, and it really has very limited uses. I can't see anyone wasting a slot on it outside of PVP.

Eclipse is the only one that really worth a darn of those 3 for PVE, and it's only good for caster mobs. It's the kind of spell you might temporarily slot if you are fighting a bunch of caster mobs. Not a full time skill though.

I can see how Sun Shield might be useful in PVP, but can't really think of any good uses in PVE for it. Don't think it would be worth a full time slot, just situational again.

Shaggygaming

Good luck all but I am making my 25+ days played Templar VR12 AR18 into a crafting bot.

ARtChi

Mortosk wrote: »

ARtChi wrote: »

Mortosk wrote: »

...

Sun Shield (323 Magicka)
Blinding Light (404 Magicka)
Eclipse (457 Magicka)
...

All those skills are really strong in PvP. I wouldn't touch them

But i agree that backlash domage cap is too low

Blinding light might be useful on a large group in PVP to mitigate 50% of incoming damage for 3.5 seconds. But that's a really small duration for PVE, and it really has very limited uses. I can't see anyone wasting a slot on it outside of PVP.

Eclipse is the only one that really worth a darn of those 3 for PVE, and it's only good for caster mobs. It's the kind of spell you might temporarily slot if you are fighting a bunch of caster mobs. Not a full time skill though.

I can see how Sun Shield might be useful in PVP, but can't really think of any good uses in PVE for it. Don't think it would be worth a full time slot, just situational again.

Every skill is situational and there is not any skill in my bar which I don't swap from time to time for a more usefull one in some situation.
My skills are totally different in PvP and PvE, and it's not bothering to have some skills usefull in PvP which will be useless in PVE and reciprocaly.

Blazing shield is one of those skill, you absolutely want to use when going PvP, because the feedback can crit for 1K+ damage. But it's useless for tanking in PvE. On that matter, channeled focus is a lot better and enough to be one of the best PvE tank in ESO.
Eclipse can totally counter sorc and bowman in PvP. It's a fantastic tool for PvE quests against caster as you said.
Blinding light, is strong as a support in a PvP raid (i don't use it personnaly, but some friends do and are happy with it)
Even Backlash, can be strong in duel situation with soul strike ultimate on it, you just land over 3K damage on you opponent...
etc.

I agree, those skill are useless for PvE (except for backlash), but as a healer or as a tank, you have a lot better skills to use. As Damade dealer, well... we don't have the tools yet in PvE, but I'm really impatient to see how this new patch will help us (or not...).

Complaining about all skills that are not usefull from your point of view is a mistake if you don't see the big picture.

Question is more : "Do we have the tools to competitive : as a healer, as a tank, as a magical damage dealer, as a physical damage dealer, in solo PvE, in dungeon, in trial, in solo PvP, in zerg PvP, etc. ?"
If a skill is usefull in one of those situation, than it's fine. And if we are not good enough in one situation, then what are the tools ESO can provide us to be better at it ?

For me there is two issues with templar : Terrible damage dealer and lack of magika sustainability as a healer in PvE. That's our main class concern, the rest is detail at the moment

fromtesonlineb16_ESO

ARtChi wrote: »

Mortosk wrote: »

ARtChi wrote: »

Mortosk wrote: »

...

Sun Shield (323 Magicka)
Blinding Light (404 Magicka)
Eclipse (457 Magicka)
...

All those skills are really strong in PvP. I wouldn't touch them

But i agree that backlash domage cap is too low

Blinding light might be useful on a large group in PVP to mitigate 50% of incoming damage for 3.5 seconds. But that's a really small duration for PVE, and it really has very limited uses. I can't see anyone wasting a slot on it outside of PVP.

Eclipse is the only one that really worth a darn of those 3 for PVE, and it's only good for caster mobs. It's the kind of spell you might temporarily slot if you are fighting a bunch of caster mobs. Not a full time skill though.

I can see how Sun Shield might be useful in PVP, but can't really think of any good uses in PVE for it. Don't think it would be worth a full time slot, just situational again.

Every skill is contextual, there is not any skill in my bar which I don't swap from time to time for a more usefull one in some sitution.

Very true but since the game's UI has no means of easily switching skills, doing so becomes an exercise in tedium dragging/dropping from the skills dialog.

ARtChi

Use Wykkyd outfitter, you can switch your skills with two clics

fromtesonlineb16_ESO

I don't use add-ons, I prefer not to base my play on a tool whose author can and will walk away from some time, abandoning it.

Add-ons for fluff like positioning UI elements are fine if you want to use them, IMO is't insane to base one's entire gameplay on features which can and often have ceased to be usable on someone's whim.