Some Templar thoughs

JLB

Radiant Aura:
Horrible. Just a horrible skill now. I can't think of a single reason on why to slot it.
10% regens for having it slotted could be ok but 20% regen, down from 80%, on activation is just a bad, bad joke. The little resource regain advantage the class had at least with Stamina has been officially destroyed if this goes live.

*As a reference, Green Dragon Blood (DK) get's that 20% regen buff just as a secondary effect of an already crazy good skill. And for about twice as long (20 seconds).

Get that 80% buff back please. Get it back ASAP at least for the caster.
It was the one and only reason this skill wasn't total garbage and the only decent resource sustain of the class, even if small. You nerfed it when you should have done exactly the opposite.

Blazing Shield
Cost increased. Really? Have you devs read anything Templars have been complaining about in the past months?
The player base have been telling you (ZOS) that class costs' are too expensive, because we have the worst resource management of all (and you seem to want Templars to have it even worse, doing things like what you just did to Radiant Aura).

Rune Focus
Restoring Focus: +% healing is nerfed, from 15% to 8%.
15% was already a so-so buff before. 8%... I fail to see the logic. Is it a trend now to turn half useful morphs into totally useless ones?
Revert it to 15% heal. Or even better, make it a 20%. Or even better, get rid of it and make the Templar get 5% less damage while inside the area.

*As a reference, Spiked Armor (DK) lasts for 20 seconds with full mobility, and now boosts also Spell Resistance (it only boosted Armor in 1.5).

Based on the parses I've been able to see from friends and guildies, Templars are still the worse dps class out there, despite the "dps" boosts.

So summing up devs:
The exchange of some small dps boosts (that ironically still leaves the class as the worst dps class, just like 1.5) are your justification for these nerfs, or...?
Now Templars are less efficient tanks (remember, they were never the best and now probably NBs can do a much better job just because of resource sustain), still the worst dpsers... but yeah, back again to be doomed into 1 and only 1 role.

Going back to the same mistakes all over again is not exactly what I expected for Templars in 1.6, @ZOS.

Darkintellect

Increasing Templar damage roles and decreasing healing a bit while pushing other classes to be in league with Templars in healing.

They also have dungeons and content adjusted with regard to the changes.

Nightblades now do as much healing as Templar to include that now health funnel can tick for almost the same amount as BoL.

We just need to see Sorcerers and Dragonknights get a role beef in the healing department so we can give this vital role some flavor so we aren't dealing with every min maxxer pushing a cookie cutter Templar build.

timidobserver

I can live with the Blazing Shield and Rune Focus changes. Being able to move with Rune Focus is a game changer.

However, what they did to Radiant Aura is definitely a shame. It has to be one of the biggest nerfs that a single skill has ever taken at one time. It only makes it worse that, at least in 1.6, the caster does not get the 20% from using the skill. The caster only gets the minor bonus from slotting it. I haven't tested that in 1.6.1 though.

manny254

Most of the complaints I see are about the changes to the buff system. Templar is not the only class who had buffs that became weaker of the buff consolidation.

Panda244

Why do people complain about having the worst resource management as a certain class. DKs have GDB, buffs stam regen. Templars have Radiant Aura, buffs stam regen. NBs have a passive that gives you +30% to stam regen. Dunno what sorcs have.

Any other regen comes from the armor you wear, so that's your own fault. On my DK I manage 140 magicka recovery, 110 stamina recovery and 68 HP recovery, and that's without GDB active.

On my NB, I average 180 magicka recovery and 100 stam recovery, due to the NB passives, WW, and one piece of medium armor. HP recovery is like 50, but that doesn't matter cause I have HoT out the ass.

Resource management is easy in this game as long as you don't spam skills 24/7, only time I run out of a certain resource is PvE, when I spam until the mob or boss is dead. In PvP I usually die with resources left, sometimes I die with no stamina cause they've ran me out of it by having to CC break, dodge, and block. But I always die with 50-100% magicka on every class I play in PvP, and in PvE I only ever die cause....... Bosses be like. "BOOM HEADSHOT!"

timidobserver

@Panda244‌
I was going to respond in more length, but then I read your signature. I guess that comparing the 1.6 Restoring Aura to Green Dragon Blood and not mentioning Siphoning Attacks(infinite resources) when talking about NB resource management is just a joke or sarcasm or something per your signature.

xaade

Panda244 wrote: »

Why do people complain about having the worst resource management as a certain class. DKs have GDB, buffs stam regen. Templars have Radiant Aura, buffs stam regen. NBs have a passive that gives you +30% to stam regen. Dunno what sorcs have.

Any other regen comes from the armor you wear, so that's your own fault. On my DK I manage 140 magicka recovery, 110 stamina recovery and 68 HP recovery, and that's without GDB active.

On my NB, I average 180 magicka recovery and 100 stam recovery, due to the NB passives, WW, and one piece of medium armor. HP recovery is like 50, but that doesn't matter cause I have HoT out the ass.

Resource management is easy in this game as long as you don't spam skills 24/7, only time I run out of a certain resource is PvE, when I spam until the mob or boss is dead. In PvP I usually die with resources left, sometimes I die with no stamina cause they've ran me out of it by having to CC break, dodge, and block. But I always die with 50-100% magicka on every class I play in PvP, and in PvE I only ever die cause....... Bosses be like. "BOOM HEADSHOT!"

NBs and Sorcs get a lot of what the other classes get, but they get it for free.

NB gets stamina, and Sorcs get cost reduction and magicka.

Templars get a fraction of both of those, and to compete have to slot an aura, that used to provide benefits to the whole team, but now only do so when activated and got nerfed down to 20%.

But then a DK can just spam a single healing ability and get the benefits of our aura tied to a heal.

And that's not considering that Sorcs get a tailored to fit instant I win button for resources, and Nightblades get a sustain ability that can be toggled on for infinite resource recovery. DKs are just cheap as hell.

I mean, have you seen Pinning Spear? If you're carrying a destruction staff, it's completely pointless. There's no reason not to take D.Reach over P.Spear. Especially with the added dot.

Class abilities have been unique and superior to weapon abilities, but not as much anymore.

Most of the Templar resource management, ends up going to your teammates, and you don't even get it yourself.

But as you say, other things got hit hard.
I was stacking blood altar, ring of protection (regen morph), and aura to get over 150% Regen on activation, and it made for some great tanking setup.
Now, stacking that is pointless.

That's why we have a problem with stacking shields now. Not because you couldn't before, but because it's the only defensive thing that stacks at all.

The generic buff system is a good idea on a table, but it turns out it's just lazy. It makes it harder for players to figure out a build, and makes a lot of things very frustrating.

Have an ability that gives you the 20% buff that aura provides, yours becomes meaningless when a Templar casts aura. Oops.

Now there's no reason to get the Regen morph on the Blood alter. The max health heal is always a better choice. If you have a half-attentive team, you can cast it and let the synergy heal your team better than a Templar can.

All that, and you might think to look to end-game gear to give you some option to regain stacking benefits. Nope. That option got shot down, because the gear got nerfed to crap.

Instead of letting the champion system be a bonus, they took it out of the current strength and put it as a carrot in front of you, as if earning it back is supposed to be some reason to keep playing.

This will be a good thing for incoming new players, but terrible for existing players.

And that's what I've gotten frustrated about.

ZOS seems keen on rewarding new players at the cost of existing players.

Panda244

timidobserver wrote: »

@Panda244‌
I was going to respond in more length, but then I read your signature. I guess that comparing the 1.6 Restoring Aura to Green Dragon Blood and not mentioning Siphoning Attacks(infinite resources) when talking about NB resource management is just a joke or sarcasm or something per your signature.

Essentially joking, never played a Templar, but I have a V14 DK and NB, and never have problems with resources. Ever.

From playing with a few Templar friends they hardly ever run out of resources either, but they've mastered the ability to Spell Sym for endless BoL spam.

likewow777

I'll just echo a couple things others have said, in the hopes someone at ZOS actually reads these things.

The point of the special healing tree Templars have is to help everyone. Reducing Radiant Aura's boost from 80% to 20% hurts the entire group, end of story. I'm usually a tank, so it's easy for me to be selfish with my Radiant buff, but the better argument is that everyone suffers. I think Zeni would probably say that there is no 80% boost in the new standardized buff/debuff system which they've debuted, so they can't give Templars something special other classes don't have. To that, I'd say to then give the caster a percentage extra. This isn't even a new concept, since several other skills work this way.

Rune Focus has always been pretty pointless. There are reasons to have it, but I've always found Circle of Protection/Ring of Preservation from the Fighter's Guild line to be far more useful. Of course, in 1.6, the cost of Circle is kind of crazy. Hopefully they fix that. I would say that Channeled Focus is an actual, usable, magicka restoration skill now. My magicka regen is about 2.5 times more than the cost of Channeled, and the amount of magicka I get back is more than the cost of Blazing Shield.

That brings me neatly to Blazing Shield itself. I just don't get the cost increase. I have to assume the point was to make it less useful in PvP, which I don't do, so for PvE players it's kind of out of left field. Especially because I still don't find it prohibitively expensive to use. It's slightly more expensive, which is annoying, but I'm still gonna use it like I did before. So, I ask, why? Why increase the cost?

asteldian

Is the radiant aura activation actually 20% or is the tooltip wrong? It states giving the major buffs which are actually 30% aren't they?
If it is 30% then as the game treats you as an ally then you would get that in addition to your 10%. Which would be a 40% regen - which is in reality what you get on live as everyone has capped their stam regen if stam based.
if that is the case then the nerf is not terrible especially as the passive of it now gives magicka regen.
Course, if it is 20% then it sucks.

JLB

Panda244 wrote: »

never played a Templar, but I have a V14 DK and NB, and never have problems with resources. Ever.

That's exactly the point.
A Templar 7/7 LA and all the cost reduction gear possible + Spell Symmetry will handle its magicka.
Any other class doesn't need that cost reduction gear to achieve the same sustain results.

In 1.6 is even better, since the ONLY sustain boost Templars had - Radiant Aura - has been nerfed to the ground which affects directly to things like how long you can block and how long can you sustain your dps as a Stamina Templar, we didn't get any other extra resource sustain help from devs at all as has been asked since launch, and to top it off some skills like Rune Focus aren't unique anymore, just because they boosted other classes similar skills when it should have been the opposite to give Templars a little edge on that area.

Then you have things like the hilarious radius of Radial Sweep being unchanged, or the eccentric cost of Nova or Rite of Passage self-root that makes it only viable if you are a healer (and most of the times spamming Healing Springs does basically the same job) when it could be a great tanking Ultimate if they allowed movement.

There are good things in 1.6, but most of it is skills that needed a rework since launch. The only thing I'm happy about is Blazing Spear being an AoE stun now. That's about it.
And worry not, Radiant Oppression fans, that skill is going to be nerfed badly before it goes live too. And I hope it does, because that's not the answer to Templar flaws.

Why the class is always at the low end of the buffs and at the high end of the nerfs, I'd really like to know.
At this point, I seriously doubt the people behind this have played a Templar long enough to see how inconsistent it is except in the healing area.

david.haypreub18_ESO

Radiant Aura has to be changed. The one universal complaint of Templars before 1.6 was the lack of resource management. So what does ZoS do? Nerf the best Templar resource management into the ground.

Seriously guys, did you not get the memo? What was the whole Developer Discussion thread on Templars for?

likewow777

asteldian wrote: »

Is the radiant aura activation actually 20% or is the tooltip wrong? It states giving the major buffs which are actually 30% aren't they?
If it is 30% then as the game treats you as an ally then you would get that in addition to your 10%. Which would be a 40% regen - which is in reality what you get on live as everyone has capped their stam regen if stam based.
if that is the case then the nerf is not terrible especially as the passive of it now gives magicka regen.
Course, if it is 20% then it sucks.

I tested this recently with a VR14 template (since our characters have disappeared with the latest patch), and the 20% extra seems correct. Basically, the passive 10% works as you'd expect. Slot the skill, get the boost to all regen. Activating the skill changes the numbers so that health and stamina are now 30% higher than what your stats would be if you didn't slot the skill at all. It sounds like you're getting more, but it is in fact in-line with the tooltip, which states your health and stamina regen have an additional 20% added. Base is 10%, add is 20%, so total regen boost is 30% for the duration. I haven't tested this with any other players, though, to see if they get 20% or 30%. According to the buff system, and like you mention, everyone should get 30%.

These were my base regen numbers:

Base Health - 477
Base Stamina - 591

Now I slotted to add the 10%:

Slotted Health - 524
Slotted Stamina - 650

Finally, I activate to get the full buff:

Activated Health - 620
Activated Stamina - 768

If you do the math, which you can do if you really want, the slotted figures do give you 10% boost. Then, upon activation, the original 10% has 20% added to it, giving you 30% total, and then that 30% buff is applied to your base value. I believe this is how the skill has always worked. The tooltip in 1.6 and 1.5 both say that they add a percentage to whatever regen you have at the time. I think the complaint is mainly that the additional used to be 80%, but now it's 20%. And if you want to take it further, even the slotted buff took a hit from 15% in 1.5 to 10% in 1.6. I think people generally let that go because you get a magicka buff passively, plus 15% to 10% isn't as bad as 80% to 20%.

I didn't take screenshots of the above, but I can if people think I'm making numbers up. Also, I guess you could just roll a Templar and test it yourself personally

david.haypreub18_ESO

Great post; thanks for the numbers!

The other rough part about Radiant Aura is that if you want the 30% health and stamina regen, you have to give up the 10% magicka regen.

For comparison, the DK's Green Dragon Blood now gives the same 30% health and stamina regen that Radiant Aura gives. Yet Green Dragon Blood does it for 23 seconds, and gives arguably the best self-heal in the game to boot.

radiostar

Too many players were trying to have fun with Templars, and Z was like "NO!"

timidobserver

likewow777 wrote: »

Especially because I still don't find it prohibitively expensive to use. It's slightly more expensive, which is annoying, but I'm still gonna use it like I did before.

Oh, don't you worry about that. They have this taken care of in 1.6.2, which you will see next week.

JLB

timidobserver wrote: »

I can live with the Blazing Shield and Rune Focus changes. Being able to move with Rune Focus is a game changer.

Then it's a game changer for all classes, @timidobserver.
DKs (Spiked Armor, 20s), NBs (through a passive, 11s) have full mobility with that exact same buff, and for longer than the Templar.
Sorcerers have the same defensive boost through Lightning Form, but are the only ones with an even shorter duration (6s, if I'm not mistaken).

Plus the amount of Armor and Spell Resist you get with Rune Focus is considerably lower than 1.5., almost by half.

Having in consideration the increased cost of Blazing Shield, the nerf to Stam regeneration of Radiant Aura (if that even works on caster, I couldn't get it to work on myself yet), I'd say the tanking role got a big hit while DKs and NBs got actually boosted in that area.

I'm all fine with other classes having access to defensive buffs like Templars, but all these changes are destroying the little unique tools Templars had in that area.

What I think should be done:

-Rune Focus:
Gives a greater defensive boost as it was before. Something on the lines of 8-10k Armor and Spell Resist.
Restoring Focus: +15% healing boost. Or keep +8% healing but give full mobility for the whole duration.

-Sun Shield: 10% cheaper.

-Radiant Aura:
Revert back to 80% increased stamina and health regeneration
OR
make it cost 0, like Repentance.

Khivas_Carrick

Radiant Aura got nerfed due to the fact that we no longer have soft caps on our Regens anymore. 80% of these new numbers would be outrageously high to have and way beyond anything any other class has. That said however, 30% seems iffy, but seeing as I actually never used the skill and had better results simply heavy attack weaving, I can't say I'm too sad by that loss.

As for healing, we're rather fine with that, since our in class utilities and BoL make up for anything once held within Mending, and btw, that bonus to Crit Damage from Aedric Spear counts for our healing too.

Rune Focus still needs a massive time increase, that or perhaps maybe you should leave it alone since while it gives the same buff as Razer Armor, DK's still have no super heals or ultra supports, and we Templars still do, and let's not get into the NBs and Sorcs. That said, I would still make Rune Focus affect the Templar's allies (if it doesn't already) and by default give a bonus to the healing they receive, with the morph being an even greater boost to healing, or perhaps Magicka and Stamina returned to the players healed based on a small percentage of the heal used.

As for Blazing Shield, it had to get a cost increase, because holy *** it was too good man, just too good. And 10% is hardly severe. Trust me when I say it will still be spammed in earnest.

JLB

Khivas_Carrick wrote: »

Radiant Aura got nerfed due to the fact that we no longer have soft caps on our Regens anymore. 80% of these new numbers would be outrageously high to have and way beyond anything any other class has. That said however, 30% seems iffy, but seeing as I actually never used the skill and had better results simply heavy attack weaving, I can't say I'm too sad by that loss.

Well, it was always a skill that gave a bigger buff than any other class. If they are trying to unify all the buffs any class can get, they might aswell make that skill 0 cost because if it was situational before with 80% buff, I can't see the use of it for a poor 20% buff.
Also, softcaps are gone, but not hardcaps. In 1.5 I can reach hardcap on stam regen with that skill and even if I find it helpful, it's never, ever, been a game changer.
That's exactly why this skill didn't need a nerf on its effect.

Khivas_Carrick wrote: »

As for healing, we're rather fine with that, since our in class utilities and BoL make up for anything once held within Mending, and btw, that bonus to Crit Damage from Aedric Spear counts for our healing too.

Khivas_Carrick wrote: »

Rune Focus still needs a massive time increase, that or perhaps maybe you should leave it alone since while it gives the same buff as Razer Armor, DK's still have no super heals or ultra supports, and we Templars still do

I'd really prefer to see it's Armor and Spell resist values increased.
I don't agree with the healing part. As a tank's perspective BoL is now a ridiculously low heal way too expensive, and less effective (both in healing and costs) than GDB or Funnel Health with the same build.

Khivas_Carrick wrote: »

As for Blazing Shield, it had to get a cost increase, because holy *** it was too good man, just too good. And 10% is hardly severe. Trust me when I say it will still be spammed in earnest.

As good and as spammed as other classes use and spam their best class' skills. Really don't see where the problem is here.
Another solution could be make the useless morph (Radiant Ward) a bit more useful for tanking builds, greatly decreasing the cost or returning part of the cost back so at least tanks in PvE can make good use of it and have at least 1 little edge.

asteldian

At the very least, rune focus should apply the major and minor defensive buffs which would boost it a bit.
Same goes for radiant aura, when activated it should give the major buffs in addition to the minor buffs having it slotted. So allies get 30% and we get 40% and 10% magicka regen.
At 40% while still a nerf, it acts similar to 1.5 where due to softcaps the 80% acted as 40%.

likewow777

asteldian wrote: »

At 40% while still a nerf, it acts similar to 1.5 where due to softcaps the 80% acted as 40%.

I don't really like this argument that much, because it's character dependent. There are almost certainly people who've only seen 40% because their base regen numbers were already so high, I'll agree on that point. However, my build is based around magicka, so I focus on maximizing that. Magicka regen is capped, plus all my enchants reduce magicka cost. To make up for the low health and stamina regen, when I go into a fight, usually tanking, I throw down Ring of Preservation and Radiant Aura. That combo then drives my health and stamina regen beyond soft cap. Doing the math, its true that I don't see the full Aura boost of 80%, but it's still around 75%. Going from that to 30% on PTS, you definitely feel it. Even if they tweak the numbers to make it 40%, which I seriously doubt they'll do, it's still less.

That said, I can generally adapt to most changes. To make my build work with the new numbers, I've morphed Aura to Repentance basically because it costs nothing and still gives the passive buffs. That combined with reenchanting things and using Champion points.

Khivas_Carrick wrote: »

Radiant Aura got nerfed due to the fact that we no longer have soft caps on our Regens anymore. 80% of these new numbers would be outrageously high to have and way beyond anything any other class has. That said however, 30% seems iffy, but seeing as I actually never used the skill and had better results simply heavy attack weaving, I can't say I'm too sad by that loss.

I do agree with the fact that numbers might be too high with 80% for everyone. I don't PvP, but I imagine a group running around with 1000+ health/stam regen with 2-3 Templars taking turns casting Aura constantly to keep it up sounds pretty OP. My solution would be to just boost the caster further, like an extra 30% or something. As it is, it's never been a particularly cheap skill to use, hence why I focus on magicka stats, and when I run as a healer I don't use it at all because it's much more effective to heal directly and give the tank a Spear rather than have it trickle slowly via regen. But when I run as a tank, the slow trickle is great and has been essential.

In the end, I suppose I'm just complaining, since I've adapted my 1.6 character (which I'll have to do again when they recopy the characters, I imagine), and I don't really think the skill will change. ZOS has their buff/debuff system, and to modify Aura would break it from fitting in that system. The only way to change it would be to do a personal/caster extra buff, but that would likely only happen if it were accompanied by a spell cost increase or duration decrease or something else.

TL;DR - ZOS should change Aura cause it's no good as it is, but they probably won't so you might as well adapt. Time will tell, though.