I spent a week and a half talking to various GMs about running trials on my Templar

Pmarsico9

First off, the community in this game is great. The GM's were nice, cordial, and many have friended me at this point.

I have spoken with roughly 20 guilds over the past 9 days, all of whom were openly broadcasting in Craglorn on the NA server looking to build their trials teams.

Of the 20:

1 had a tank slot (my preferred role) but said my method of tanking wasn't really conducive to what they needed. I wear 5 light, 2 heavy, use Radiant Aura to feed back Stam, keep immovable and Channeled Focus up, and try to keep up Blazing Shield as much as possible. They wanted a tank that had standing armor near cap without buffs as they said my methodology had too much room for error. Couldn't really understand their concerns, since I'm hardcapped with both SR and Armor with the buffs up and have a solid shield, I didn't see why they didn't agree with me.

1 other guild had a tank slot but would only take a Dragon Knight or Sorc.

3 of them had a healer slot available and one of them even offered me gold to join, but I don't really have interest in that.

Another had a healer slot but said I had to sustain 650 DPS while healing. So that was immediately out.

I then had 14 that were recruiting for DPS.

Five told me flat out that they don't bring Templars to DPS, only the other three classes, one even apologized vehemently and offered me an opportunity if I re-rolled to Dragon Knight or Nightblade.

3 of the remaining 9 told me I would have to level medium armor, bows, and two hander to do the damage they would require (750+)

2 of the remaining 6 indicated that my DPS was too low as the caster Templar my DPS spec was setup as (650) and that I would have to buy healer rings and necks before they would consider.

The last 4 offered me a slot provided I spent time with them to maximize my build and master animation cancelling to their satisfaction. Part of their recommendations did include, however (and this is all of them), re-speccing my attributes to primarily be in Magicka.


One person friended me and said that the reason things are the way they are is because Rushed Ceremony should have been a Resto-staff ability. I thought about that and made sense. He was saying he encountered the same issues that I did when trying to get a healing slot on his Sorc for Trials (he has since relented and is now resigned himself to try to DPS.) We talked about it at length on TS.

The most logical move would be to swap Rushed Ceremony and Blessing of Protection. It would go miles towards then making other healers more complete and get rid of the excuse to suppress Templar DPS: They can heal without a Resto staff equipped. And Blessing of Protection goes a long way towards being true support, much more than Rushed Ceremony is.

The Mending passive in Restoring Light and perhaps a selfish Ritual-of-Rebirth type of "Heals you for an additional 30%" to make up for some of the deficiency that exists between Combat Prayer and Rushed Ceremony as a class defensive ability for PVP, tanking, and soloing would take care of that.

Then maybe, just maybe, the prejudice that exists in the community as a whole could start to be chipped away at and ZOS would not cause an explosion of whining on here if Templars weren't thought of absolute trash by the majority of community as a DPS class and could actually compete for the most plentiful slots that are available.

Either way, "play as you want," doesn't exist in this game's end game PVE. At least not in my experience.

digitalprowlerb14_ESO

this...is the least of the game's problems lol. tons of skills need balancing, armor is unbalanced, regen and ways to regen resource pools needs a revamp. the trials need a complete overhaul of the encounter mechanics. It's like the devs forgot what kind of combat was in their game lol. if the encounters worked more like DSA and/or the vet dungeons in the game...

for instance lets just use elden hollow last boss for example....if some "end game" encounters had like 3 of those drop down and the area be large enough to accommodate the mechanics of those mobs and utilized 3 "dungeon" group frames as in 3 tanks, 3 healers, 6 dps to make up a group of 12 it would be far more interesting....but they seem to enjoy the "you can't really play like you want" min/maxing and turtle up mechanics in most situations. I'm a long time raider in all mmos i've played since 99' and after being in the trials a few times I could care less if I ever enter one again. They are not fun, not really a challenge, best completed with all classes and builds exploiting the current skill imbalances within the game

I can't even grasp why you would even begin to design encounters in an action combat game that involved such garbage. Raid content should be mechanics that are contained within the Vet dungeons just scaled up and changed to work with 3 groups of 4. I've ran out of patience waiting for them to fix this atrocious combat that has more glitches than Gary Busey...

best thing to do is just have a couple of toons running the cookies if want to run trials and then have fun with the rest of them lol

yodased

Not really sure why having spoken to a GM and have them friend you shows any sort of relevance to you knowing/playing your class any better, but I digress.

You need to find a guild that is not too interested in posting top leaderboard times and will run with anyone for fun and not profit. If you are AD NA I happen to run such a guild.

The issue is there are so many preconceived notions about templars and to a lesser extent nightblades that you guys are going to need a serious PR campaign to remove the stigma

Shunravi

Well man, I wish I could have had you in some of the (pug) groups I have been runing with. A few weeks ago I even got a respectable time in AA with a group of (no joke) 7 Templars; 2 heals 1 tank and the rest dps. Our dps was pretty solid, we had Valariel down before the third wave and everything. Now, I'm not sure if this run was a fluke, or if it was populated with the alts of the NA servers most 133t just having fun...

But my experience is also not congruent to yours because I see a good number of templar dps and tanks. But as you are a templar actively trying to get runs vs me just seeing Templars in runs, your experience is far more telling than mine.

But the #1 thing that needs to change is bias. (And yes, I fully understand the math in comparing class dps.) I have completed AA and Hel-Ra with sorc heals and templar dps, with stamina builds and strange setups. A pug group will have as much chance to succeed as fail, no matter the setup imo. I find it kinda funny that they exclude certain things because of these biases.

The meta changes. It always does. Whether that's by rebalancing or by a shift in perspective, I hope things will be better.

Pmarsico9

Well as anecdotal as my little study is, I get a lot of people disputing me that the preconceived notions are tied only to elitists. They aren't. These weren't people telling me GTFO noob. It was the prevailing sentiment even from some of the nicest and most helpful people I have spoken to in game.

It's just than an issue consistently appeared when the conversation turned to my class.

Shunravi

Pmarsico9 wrote: »

Well as anecdotal as my little study is, I get a lot of people disputing me that the preconceived notions are tied only to elitists. They aren't. These weren't people telling me GTFO noob. It was the prevailing sentiment even from some of the nicest and most helpful people I have spoken to in game.

It's just than an issue consistently appeared when the conversation turned to my class.

Yes, I know. And I do agree.

The problem is, those who actually know what a templar is capable of will most likely be the 133t who will only take certain builds and rotations because they are the best. And they want the best. Everyone else will just hear from these guys that Templars can't do comparable dps, and will base their bias off that. If I remember correctly, the minimum dps for AA is 450.

Pmarsico9

Shunravi wrote: »

Pmarsico9 wrote: »

Well as anecdotal as my little study is, I get a lot of people disputing me that the preconceived notions are tied only to elitists. They aren't. These weren't people telling me GTFO noob. It was the prevailing sentiment even from some of the nicest and most helpful people I have spoken to in game.

It's just than an issue consistently appeared when the conversation turned to my class.

Yes, I know. And I do agree.

The problem is, those who actually know what a templar is capable of will most likely be the 133t who will only take certain builds and rotations because they are the best. And they want the best. Everyone else will just hear from these guys that Templars can't do comparable dps, and will base their bias off that. If I remember correctly, the minimum dps for AA is 450.

It was almost unanimously 700-750 across everybody I spoke to.

Shunravi

Pmarsico9 wrote: »

Shunravi wrote: »

Pmarsico9 wrote: »

Well as anecdotal as my little study is, I get a lot of people disputing me that the preconceived notions are tied only to elitists. They aren't. These weren't people telling me GTFO noob. It was the prevailing sentiment even from some of the nicest and most helpful people I have spoken to in game.

It's just than an issue consistently appeared when the conversation turned to my class.

Yes, I know. And I do agree.

The problem is, those who actually know what a templar is capable of will most likely be the 133t who will only take certain builds and rotations because they are the best. And they want the best. Everyone else will just hear from these guys that Templars can't do comparable dps, and will base their bias off that. If I remember correctly, the minimum dps for AA is 450.

It was almost unanimously 700-750 across everybody I spoke to.

I honestly just heard it in idle chatter during a speed run. I have not run the math, nor have I experienced such a run, but that's what I heard.

yodased

There is only 1 static DPS check in AA and that is Varlariel and she has 650k HP. She gets 6 adds at 3:30 seconds so you have 3:55 to burn her down.

That means you have to do 650k HP in 235 seconds or 2,766 collective DPS

2,765/12 = 230.3 DPS per person all things being equal.

Now, lets remember that there are adds to kill as well and you will need to kill 3 then 4 then 5 and each one has about 27,000k hp and they need to be burned down before the next set is called so you have about 45 seconds to peel off 75khp, which reduces your overall DPS on the boss.

This means that you actually have 75k (3) + 100k (4) + 125k (5) + 650k(boss) to burn down before death, so thats

950,000 HP Total / 12 NPCs to kill.

So that would be 950,000HP in 235 seconds or 4,042 collective DPS or 337 DPS per person if all things were equal.

Now remove the fact that you have 1 tank and two healers so lets remove ALL DPS from them (Not really, but ok) and we then have 450 DPS per 9 DPS in the raid to kill the hard DPS check boss in AA.

So for the people that say "700-750" DPS is "minimum" its because thats the 'minimum" they have run with that makes the boss pretty easy and you can get a speed run on the boards with that DPS.

Plus with that DPS you are animation cancelling and you are most likely a "better" player than someone posting sub 600 numbers.

But math doesn't lie friends. People do.

Pmarsico9

yodased wrote: »

There is only 1 static DPS check in AA and that is Varlariel and she has 650k HP. She gets 6 adds at 3:30 seconds so you have 3:55 to burn her down.

That means you have to do 650k HP in 235 seconds or 2,766 collective DPS

2,765/12 = 230.3 DPS per person all things being equal.

Now, lets remember that there are adds to kill as well and you will need to kill 3 then 4 then 5 and each one has about 27,000k hp and they need to be burned down before the next set is called so you have about 45 seconds to peel off 75khp, which reduces your overall DPS on the boss.

This means that you actually have 75k (3) + 100k (4) + 125k (5) + 650k(boss) to burn down before death, so thats

950,000 HP Total / 12 NPCs to kill.

So that would be 950,000HP in 235 seconds or 4,042 collective DPS or 337 DPS per person if all things were equal.

Now remove the fact that you have 1 tank and two healers so lets remove ALL DPS from them (Not really, but ok) and we then have 450 DPS per 9 DPS in the raid to kill the hard DPS check boss in AA.

So for the people that say "700-750" DPS is "minimum" its because thats the 'minimum" they have run with that makes the boss pretty easy and you can get a speed run on the boards with that DPS.

Plus with that DPS you are animation cancelling and you are most likely a "better" player than someone posting sub 600 numbers.

But math doesn't lie friends. People do.

Agreed. But these didn't strike me as elitists or anything. Most were willing to work with me so at least I'd be maximizing my own personal potential via animation cancelling.

That's just what most of them felt was what a properly played VR14 DPS should be doing...........

yodased

I get that, was just trying to show HOW FAR off people are for what 'common' DPS is.

Joy_Division

They may not strike you as elitists, but they are close-minded individuals way too comfortable with their preconceptions. These types of people are generally unhealthy to the gaming community and the world as a whole I might add.

itsBishop

You're right that the math doesn't lie, but 450 dps would make for an excruciatingly frustrating run and such a group would be unlikely to survive the Mage's burn phase due to strain on healers. Hence the often quoted ~750+ number as a minimum for an effective run.

I'm curious to hear from those in these second- and third-wave PvE guilds focused on completing Hel Ra/AA at the moment about what numbers their members are doing. Asking for 750+ DPS out of players doesn't seem elitist in my mind; hell Templars can do that with a crushing shock build.

To address the OP: I have no qualms with templar tanks and have had no issues healing them in the past provided they know what they're doing (and it sounds like you have a handle on your class). I do, however, understand most concerns about recruiting templar DPS for budding PVE guilds. There's just not a lot of room for growth if you fill your guild with a class that doesn't have the same scaling potential as DKs or NBs as players improve in personal skill. That's not to say that templars should never be brought on runs as DPS, but it certainly restricts the number of slots that a dedicated DPS templar can expect to find himself filling.

Shunravi

Imo, one of the biggest problems is that everyone views trials as competative, even for a simple completion. I don't blame them, they are set up that way. But at the same time, that means everyone is following the speed run tactics. Stack up, spread out. You can certainly run them in a more... organic fashion, but you won't make the leaderboards. (And you may need more tanks and healers, or at least dps with offbars.) It will probably be much harder that way honestly. Everything will take longer and healers and tanks could become overly stressed over time. Mechanics easily managed by stack-and-burn will be more troublesome. But it should be doable.

Imo trials (specifically AA) are a great look at intended design vs practice. In AA it feels as if they expected the 3 portal groups to function that way throughout the whole run. 3 coordinated healers for the mages burn. The wide open space at the Foundation of Stone. Heck, even the way Valarial's adds split up.

ZOS looked at how we handled AA and made the Manticora.

yodased

@itsbishop I hope it didn't appear I was inferring that taking the bare minimum base numbers into the trials and expecting to win would be viable. I was simply trying to present factual basis that 750dps per person isn't the actual 'minimum' to be able to step into trials

The main point is if you have a templar doing say even 600 dps, that its quite probable you will have a NB or a DK doing significantly more to make up the difference. 1k DPS from a nb more than makes up for the 600dps an 'average' templar would do.

If you took that 'average' templar and brought them into trials and taught them the ropes and helped them learn then they would take that DPS to the classes limit which is what 950dps or so?

Pmarsico9

itsBishop wrote: »

You're right that the math doesn't lie, but 450 dps would make for an excruciatingly frustrating run and such a group would be unlikely to survive the Mage's burn phase due to strain on healers. Hence the often quoted ~750+ number as a minimum for an effective run.

I'm curious to hear from those in these second- and third-wave PvE guilds focused on completing Hel Ra/AA at the moment about what numbers their members are doing. Asking for 750+ DPS out of players doesn't seem elitist in my mind; hell Templars can do that with a crushing shock build.

To address the OP: I have no qualms with templar tanks and have had no issues healing them in the past provided they know what they're doing (and it sounds like you have a handle on your class). I do, however, understand most concerns about recruiting templar DPS for budding PVE guilds. There's just not a lot of room for growth if you fill your guild with a class that doesn't have the same scaling potential as DKs or NBs as players improve in personal skill. That's not to say that templars should never be brought on runs as DPS, but it certainly restricts the number of slots that a dedicated DPS templar can expect to find himself filling.

See this nails it:

There are strictly mechanical and mathematical limitations on the class, just as the other three classes can't heal as well. The benefit the other classes have is that there's tons more DPS slots available than Healing slots.

Ideally, the game needs more than one class as the ideal healer and all classes should be within a hair of each regarding DPS potential.

I can't get into tanking balance because the mechanics are so simplistic that stating "Give everybody Talons equivalents" is such a short-term POV that it's almost better not to comment. Because tanking in this game needs major work any way you spin it.

s7732425ub17_ESO

What amazes me is that no one ever runs Hel Ra. It's faster, there is no DPS check, and it has one less boss to kill.

Shunravi

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

What amazes me is that no one ever runs Hel Ra. It's faster, there is no DPS check, and it has one less boss to kill.

That's because the way you fight Hel-Ra actually follows the way the devs designed it. Even then, it looks like we don't. You know those two circles of +dps in the warrior room? Going by the same logic I applied to AA earlier, they wanted each group to be in one, and lessen the threat of the shield-throw and jump. Of course, in the groups I have run with, we don't. Because why would you? Everyone wants to stay in range when he jumps.

JLB

Breathe of Life is the only reason why Templars have 2 spots in a raid. Period.

If they swapped Rushed Ceremony with Blessing of Protection, the only spot you could aim as a Templar would be tank.
And even then, you still be a 2nd option tank.

I think it's better to get @ZOS to fix DPS & Resource Sustain of Templars once and for all, and then start talking about opening things like Breathe of Life to other classes.

timidobserver

I'll explain to you how it usually works in my experience. You learn how to do what people need and you get good at it. They will bring you on because you meet their needs. Once you have joined their community and worked with them to meet their goals and shown that you are a solid player, they will humor you if you want to test out some wacky light armor tanking setup or whatever you want to do.

However, nobody is going to waste their time with an unknown that is using some out of the norm method of tanking. It's about what you can do for them, not what they can do for you.

IMO, learn how to do work works or at least what people perceive to work and then test out stuff once you have proven yourself.

Pmarsico9

timidobserver wrote: »

I'll explain to you how it usually works in my experience. You learn how to do what people need and you get good at it. They will bring you on because you meet their needs. Once you have joined their community and worked with them to meet their goals and shown that you are a solid player, they will humor you if you want to test out some wacky light armor tanking setup or whatever you want to do.

However, nobody is going to waste their time with an unknown that is using some out of the norm method of tanking. It's about what you can do for them, not what they can do for you.

IMO, learn how to do work works or at least what people perceive to work and then test out stuff once you have proven yourself.

That's not really the point of the post. I appreciate the feedback, but capitulate or else is really just restating the effect of the cause here. And light armor or not, I'm completely and totally hardcapped for both armor and spell resistance with Immovable and Rune Focus on me. And shooting out a taunt from time to time and keeping two buffs up isn't really brain surgery. That was really the only guild I was kind of confused by.

ThatHappyCat

Personal anecdotal experience: never been refused from dungeons or trial groups as a Templar advertising myself as "Healer/DPS". If healer roles are taken all are pretty happy to take me on as DPS, no comments or questions about my class or role. My DPS is at most 600.

The guilds I belong to don't have problems with it either. So I think you're just unlucky in the people you meet. Or perhaps I'm lucky. Or perhaps Australians are more open-minded than United Statians.

Pmarsico9

ThatHappyCat wrote: »

Personal anecdotal experience: never been refused from dungeons or trial groups as a Templar advertising myself as "Healer/DPS". If healer roles are taken all are pretty happy to take me on as DPS, no comments or questions about my class or role. My DPS is at most 600.

The guilds I belong to don't have problems with it either. So I think you're just unlucky in the people you meet. Or perhaps I'm lucky. Or perhaps Australians are more open-minded than United Statians.

There's no doubt that my 9 day survey was anecdotal.

But I did laugh at that.

Jitterbug

digitalprowlerb14_ESO wrote: »

more glitches than Gary Busey...

timidobserver

Pmarsico9 wrote: »

timidobserver wrote: »

I'll explain to you how it usually works in my experience. You learn how to do what people need and you get good at it. They will bring you on because you meet their needs. Once you have joined their community and worked with them to meet their goals and shown that you are a solid player, they will humor you if you want to test out some wacky light armor tanking setup or whatever you want to do.

However, nobody is going to waste their time with an unknown that is using some out of the norm method of tanking. It's about what you can do for them, not what they can do for you.

IMO, learn how to do work works or at least what people perceive to work and then test out stuff once you have proven yourself.

That's not really the point of the post. I appreciate the feedback, but capitulate or else is really just restating the effect of the cause here. And light armor or not, I'm completely and totally hardcapped for both armor and spell resistance with Immovable and Rune Focus on me. And shooting out a taunt from time to time and keeping two buffs up isn't really brain surgery. That was really the only guild I was kind of confused by.

Getting into regular/solid groups is partially about gaining credibility with the group of people you are seeking to run with. Honestly, most guilds are not going to bother with someone that is self centered to the extent that you seem to be. At the end of the day, it is about the group successfully and efficiently completing content not about you getting to run the build you want all the time. You don't have to completely capitulate, but you do need to learn how to be flexible and compromise a little at first at least.

Get yourself some conventional heavy armor tank gear and setup a conventional tank spec. You will now find a guild that will be glad to take you. Run with them for a week or two and be elite successful tank for them. At that point, they will more than likely trust you enough to at least give your light armor setup a try.

A bad dps can be carried. A bad healer can be carried to some extent. A bad tank cannot be carried at all. A bad tank = do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars, go directly to jail. Most people aren't going to take a major risk on someone running some exotic tank build if the person hasn't earned some kind of credibility as a reliable tank.

I know it is absolutely going to kill you, but put in your due for a short while, and then you will get the opportunity to run your setup.

Iduyenn

Well i encountered the same issues here.
But part of it is not the fact, that we should swap spell xy from templar to healingstaff.
Just alter rapid regeneration to a good singletargetheal comparable to the templars burstheal.

And then there is the flaw of design.

How can you design a group instance or a trial, with this kind of slot ***?
I mean technically you need 1 Tank on 12 players.
Even if you have a second specc (wich is most likly healing). You have to play as you need to and not as you would like to.

If they would create trials wich more than one Tank is needed (Speaking about 3+). And more than 2 healer are needed. The whole thing would be better for Tanks.

I play a templar Tank too and i am allowed to tank in Helrah and AA. But that is, because we have exactly 1 DK in our guild...

lolo_01b16_ESO

Do you have any ingame friends with whom you did some dungeons before? If so ask them if one of them has done the trial before and if they can take you with them the next time they do it. Or just create your own random group using the zone chat.

btw. for Sanctum you will need 2 Tanks and 3 Healers (or at least that's the setup we use)

eserras7b16_ESO

Tanking

Templars are amazing Tanks and that is a fact. Also, your build is one of the best running Tank builds out there when need to Tank a massive amount of mobs such as on Arena because you add a lot to the DPS aswell. But it is a situational build. A templar with full heavy armour using resoration aura to keep the stamina up, with proper jewelry enchants (the one reducing cost of block) and gear is as good as a Dragon Knight, even for Trials.
Can't blame them, using a light armour Tanking build is always more dangerous and when there's room for error, a good timing run can turn into a wipe. Also, there's 2 skills wich are a must for a tank: Low Slash (15% damage reducing coming from the boss) and Pierce armour (43% Reduction to armour and spell resistance for the boss).
Your build can't support those skills, but it doesn't mean that you can't Tank. This game brings many options, a valid Tanking build for a certain dungeon might not work on the next one, if you want to do Trials you can still Tank as a Templar but you need to change the skills, gear and playstyle accordingly. Be water my friend. (xD)

DPSing

Templar needs to be worked out for the DPS if we want to be competitive (and by competitive I mean fighting for the BEST times on Trials). Then again, if you want to have 15minute run on AA you can do it with many templars on your DPS team. Those guilds were probably going for the best time possible so they choose people really selectively, but this doesn't mean that templars can't output more than 1k DPS if they're really good and with certain builds, and they can surely get 800+ DPS with practically any decent weapon/build. So it's not that we're broken but for the 9minutes times on Trials yeah, we lack 100-200 DPS.
Anyway, Zenimax is already looking at the Templar DPS tree and it's working it out, let's hope to have our DPS rolling by 1.6!!

Pmarsico9

eserras7b16_ESO wrote: »

Tanking

Templars are amazing Tanks and that is a fact. Also, your build is one of the best running Tank builds out there when need to Tank a massive amount of mobs such as on Arena because you add a lot to the DPS aswell. But it is a situational build. A templar with full heavy armour using resoration aura to keep the stamina up, with proper jewelry enchants (the one reducing cost of block) and gear is as good as a Dragon Knight, even for Trials.
Can't blame them, using a light armour Tanking build is always more dangerous and when there's room for error, a good timing run can turn into a wipe. Also, there's 2 skills wich are a must for a tank: Low Slash (15% damage reducing coming from the boss) and Pierce armour (43% Reduction to armour and spell resistance for the boss).
Your build can't support those skills, but it doesn't mean that you can't Tank. This game brings many options, a valid Tanking build for a certain dungeon might not work on the next one, if you want to do Trials you can still Tank as a Templar but you need to change the skills, gear and playstyle accordingly. Be water my friend. (xD)

DPSing

Templar needs to be worked out for the DPS if we want to be competitive (and by competitive I mean fighting for the BEST times on Trials). Then again, if you want to have 15minute run on AA you can do it with many templars on your DPS team. Those guilds were probably going for the best time possible so they choose people really selectively, but this doesn't mean that templars can't output more than 1k DPS if they're really good and with certain builds, and they can surely get 800+ DPS with practically any decent weapon/build. So it's not that we're broken but for the 9minutes times on Trials yeah, we lack 100-200 DPS.
Anyway, Zenimax is already looking at the Templar DPS tree and it's working it out, let's hope to have our DPS rolling by 1.6!!

Thanks!

I actually can in fact use Low Slash and Pierce Armor.

For heavy single target tanking, I go Pierce Armor, Low Slash, Blazing Shield, Immovable, and Channeled Focus.

I just become more reliant on another templars Spear Synergy and other pots.

Of course, using 5 piece Hist Skin helps here, simply because when you are blocking you have a 15% chance to dodge. Which can be huge.

It's worth noting: I almost exclusively use Empowering Sweep for my tanking Ultimate. It's a flat 15% damage reduction that bypasses hardcap. With that up I actually can get some time to regen stam and not re-pop immovable.

I tend to run 2x Sword and Shield. I tried to explain all this. I can make it work. I don't know what the hangup is considering I actually give up DPS, HPS, Magicka Regen, and both Armor and Spell Resistance by putting my full heavy set on.

Cuyler

I sure can relate. I had grand dreams of being a sorcerer healer but after being shot down by multiple pug leaders I eventually went full dps. Now sorcerers even get passed over for NBs and DKs for dps. Just can't win lol

Anyways I can agree that the ones looking for 700+ dps are looking for maxers for speed runs. The groups who are semi-casual/hardcore can take a minimum of 500 dps as that is all that is really required for Hel ra or AA.

Tonturri

Wow, I was under the impression light armor tanking was the norm. I've been going as a LA sorc tank since I started now, and (I think) that Templars have even better tanking tools than sorcs.