Best choice for 2nd Weapon for Healing Templar?

tintin_milou

Hi everyone!

I plan to level a templar healer so one of my weapon will be a restoration staff which I guess is a range weapon, right?

Since I hear many people say that templar has better class melee attacks than range attacks, I should pick up a melee weapon to go along with those melee attacks. Which one would you recommend? Is 2H good?

Thanks for your help!

Khivas_Carrick

Erm, if you plan on healing, play to your strengths, which is you already having high Magicka, so toss on a destruction staff

likewow777

If you like being up close and personal, 2H is very fun to play, especially with a Templar. One of my favorite rotations has been:

Blazing Spear (the mob) -> Critical Rush (to whomever isn't stunned) -> Puncturing Sweep (repeat if needed) -> Reverse Slice (til all are dead)

The problem you might have is stamina with 2H, so like @Khivas_Carrick‌ says, a destro staff is a good weapon if you're gonna have decent magicka reserves. But, I stand for 2H as an option because personally, I've had some of the most fun in the game using it.

tintin_milou

OK thanks very much for your advice Khivas and likeWOW!

One reason for choosing a melee weapon instead of another staff is that I hear Templar has resource regeneration problem so I am thinking of avoiding using only magicka skills (which a staff uses right?). On the other hand, does 1.6 change staff from using magicka to stamina? If so, I will have reconsider.

likewow777

No, 1.6 doesn't change staff skills to use stamina. However, there are a few Templar class skill morphs that do. Biting Jabs (morph of Puncturing Strikes) and Binding Javelin (morph of Piercing Javelin) both use stamina and scale off of stamina and weapon damage. The Backlash morph Power of the Light also works the same way, and has an instant cast time now, making it really useful for your DPS. The alternate morph, in all three cases, uses magicka instead, so you do have options.

As for resource management, Restoring Aura, and it's morphs, all include a passive increase to magicka regeneration as long as the skill is slotted, along with the usual health and stamina regen. Plus, Channeled Focus (morph of Rune Focus) costs MUCH less, and the magicka it gives back to you is significantly more than the cost. In practice, for me at least, it acts like a boost to my magicka regen when I cast it.

There are a lot of changes to the way your character works in 1.6, including your stats and the damage that enemies do, plus the Champion system adds extra stats to boost your character. So it's tough to say how what you do now will affect your character in 1.6. There are definitely some enhancements to the Templar's ability to manage resources, but it may or may not be what you need. In general, I try and divide my skills between magicka and stamina based, giving me two pools to work off of. My main is a Templar tank, so by default I tend to pay attention to and manage both pools as needed.

I'd say, try both, destro staff and 2H. See which works best and is the most fun. I can see the argument for either, so it's up to you.

AlexDougherty

One hand and shield is good for a templar, you can block and slash while your magicka regenerates, the hit them with your spear attack, also remeber to use that fire ball against mobs with health regen, it stops it, allowing you to whittle them down.

eliisra

Doesn't matter what weapons you use when levelling a templar. All you need is Puncturing Sweep on your skill bar, it's AoE, single target dps, self-heal and cc, all in one skill lol.

For sorc or NB levelling, weapon choice matters more since they lack AoE or heals at lower levels. They aren't in such a favourable spot, where they can depend on class skills only.

My advice is making sure to level up all the weapons skills lines you're planning on using in the future on your 2nd bar. That's what I would do (because leveling skills, armor and weapons at cap is a pain, after all the exp nerfs).

However, if you're goal is to be an effective healer, your choices are limited. Bow, DW and 2-Hander is fun, but requires medium armor and soft capped stamina to be effective dps. Healers are currently required to use light armor and soft cap magicka. That means you would need 2 builds, 2 armour sets, maybe even respeccing some attributes now and again. Only weapon skill line dps that actually integrates nicely in a healing build is Destruction staff, since it scales of the right attributes.

Also look at One Hand and Shield, the skill line for tanking. It's great to level up for survivability in PvP and if you feel like tanking/of-tanking in PvE (something templar is really good at).

tintin_milou

Wow thanks so much for all your detailed advice! I am a noob templar obviously so your advice will definitely help me level up.

Ch3pewar

Thanks for the advise, just what I was looking for.

jkmllr

This is an old thread but I'm also going through the same predicament as a magicka based templar healer. 1st bar is resto

Second bar options:
2h - offers brawler (which in groups of mobs is great for a shield)
1h/shield - great block passives
Destruction staff - nice damage and magicka regen, skills are mostly overshadowed by class skills
Bow - I want it to be viable, any advice?

kupacmac

As a Templar healer, you don't really *need* a resto staff as your primary weapon. I keep one as my secondary weapon just for refreshing Rapid Regeneration. The other 99% of the time I'm using a destro staff with Extended Ritual and Breath of Life on the bar. You don't really need any other heals except those 3 to keep everyone alive. To help with magicka starvation, just alternate a heavy attack in between your healing/damage spells and pop a magicka potion if needed.

Lord Xanhorn

The Buzzsaw is my hybrid ranged/melee full magicka build for Templars. Its insane fun and very effective in chewing through single target bosses and large quantity of mobs like you would find in a public dungeon. The intro to the build is below and I am working on a part 2 (level 18ish) of the build tonight. Should be able to post the video soon(TM).

https://youtube.com/watch?v=VysMFNJbhjE