Are Templars shards absolutely essential for PvE?

RAGUNAnoOne

Got into a debate with a friend about this and I wanted to ask the community are they a necessity or a luxury? please fill me in on this as I want to learn the facts

Reverb

RAGUNAnoOne wrote: »

Got into a debate with a friend about this and I wanted to ask the community are they a necessity or a luxury? please fill me in on this as I want to learn the facts

What shards? Spear shards, crystal shards, skyshards?

AfkNinja

Please be more specific with your question....

Volkodav

Yes shards are essential

Sure they are.They give you extra skill points,which is a very good thing.Not to mention the achievements for finding all of them in each region.

Magdalina

No you can go without

You mean templar shards?
They're nice and a lot more important now with stam regen nerf but not 100% necessary. Some people tank without them just fine.

Granted, if you're templar there's no reason not to spam them anyway just because they do damage and look cool

Volkodav

Yes shards are essential

Magdalina wrote: »

You mean templar shards?
They're nice and a lot more important now with stam regen nerf but not 100% necessary. Some people tank without them just fine.

Granted, if you're templar there's no reason not to spam them anyway just because they do damage and look cool

I think the OP may mean Sky shards.

Shardaxx

No you can go without

Sky Shards? I collect them all but honestly I think you could go without if you spend your skill points wisely and don't mind respeccing.

DDemon

Yes shards are essential

You get too many skill points from sky shards to pass up on, definitely a necessity.

NewBlacksmurf

Yes shards are essential

If you're asking about sky shards to gain skill points, yes because on you're main if you do all the quests and gather all shards you'll have enough skills to do most crafting and fighting. Not all but most

RAGUNAnoOne

@NewBlacksmurf @DDemon @Shardaxx @Volkodav I am so sorry I meant the templar shards skill I changed the title to reflect this.

MrDerrikk

No you can go without

As a NB healer, I have to vote no as I'm biased.

Nifty2g

Yes shards are essential

yes, why wouldn't they be? everyone needs stamina

bedlom

It was kinda obvious.

code65536

No you can go without

MrDerrikk wrote: »

As a NB healer, I have to vote no as I'm biased.

Just imagine a group of four magicka NBs. Two dps, one healer, one saptank. Er, I mean, three dps...

Dubhliam

Yes shards are essential

The only templar healer worse than the one that does not slot Shards is the one that has is slotted but does not cast.

LadyNalcarya

No you can go without

If you're a templar, then yeah its a must have skill. It restores stamina (not only stamina with undaunted passive), stuns enemies and does aoe damage... I honestly dont understand templar healers who dont use that skill.
But on the other hand, I do think that shardless non-templar healers are viable, unless the team consists of stamina-based chars.
So its not "absolutely essential" (when I'm tanking, I dont really care if the healer is a templar or not), but still very, very useful.

eliisra

Yes shards are essential

It's a really hard to answer the poll. Because no, you dont need templars/Spear Shards for any existing 4-man dungeon. It's nice, but you can do without unless the tank sucks. Running 4-man content is also kinda 99% of what most PvE'ers do.

But you do need templar shards + Repentance for trials. Than again, all classes tends to be presents in a perfect raid team.

daemonios

No you can go without

Voted no, but if you want a smooth run you'll have them on your bar, unless you're not a templar.

I can throw shards, use Elemental Drain, use Mystic Orb to keep my team's resources up, all while healing and doing 15k+ DPS.

By the way, the shards are not only for the tank, but also for the odd stamina DD in the group. If I don't have any magicka DD in the party, I swap orbs for repentance, though that's only good for trash groups.

Preyfar

No you can go without

Not if you have a good build that has decent regen, no. Shards isn't bad, but it doesn't mesh with my style of play. I focus on heals and if people need Stamina I use Repent. Shards isn't bad, but I don't feel I should everyone's sole source of stamina. As a healer, people treat me like their own personal stamina pool.

When I talk to people, they're like "Yeah, I have 40K stamina!" Awesome. What's your regen?" "900!". N... no. That's... that's bad. Really bad. Why? You're killing your DPS by not having enough sustain to even survive a long fight on your own. Sure, shards will help, but you've almost crippled your own build by neglecting even DECENT regen.

Justice31st

Yes shards are essential

Yes, shards+ repentance+breath of life is too good to pass up on in end game.

mousekime111rwb17_ESO

No you can go without

I don't really see the need outside of trials... Every stamina build has means of maintaining stamina for themselves... Only time I see people who call for shards are when I have a paper tank in my group who has to hold block to survive just light attacks

driosketch

No you can go without

eliisra wrote: »

It's a really hard to answer the poll. Because no, you dont need templars/Spear Shards for any existing 4-man dungeon. It's nice, but you can do without unless the tank sucks. Running 4-man content is also kinda 99% of what most PvE'ers do.

But you do need templar shards + Repentance for trials. Than again, all classes tends to be presents in a perfect raid team.

Honestly, in any of the 4 man dungeons I've run, I've never had anyone ask for them. I do try and run repentance at least.

Mujuro

A lot of this depends on the specific content and group composition, as well as your group's objective (e.g., speed run, various achievements, farming, etc.). That all said, it's not essential for a templar to run shards/repentance, but in many circumstances they will help. As some posters have noted, you really don't *need* shards for most content, including 4-person dungeon instances, although I'd like to say that not having shards in vICP will make it rough for certain group compositions if you're trying to pull a speed run.

daemonios

No you can go without

Preyfar wrote: »

Not if you have a good build that has decent regen, no. Shards isn't bad, but it doesn't mesh with my style of play. I focus on heals and if people need Stamina I use Repent. Shards isn't bad, but I don't feel I should everyone's sole source of stamina. As a healer, people treat me like their own personal stamina pool.

When I talk to people, they're like "Yeah, I have 40K stamina!" Awesome. What's your regen?" "900!". N... no. That's... that's bad. Really bad. Why? You're killing your DPS by not having enough sustain to even survive a long fight on your own. Sure, shards will help, but you've almost crippled your own build by neglecting even DECENT regen.

Thing is, if your DDs stack stamina instead of regen (more stamina = more damage) you'll have shorter fights and need to heal less. Saying you won't use shards (or elemental/orbs in the case of magicka dd) because you focus on healing is kind of short-sighted, IMHO. Also, repentance requires bodies on the ground to work, which doesn't apply in single-target fights or long fights where enemies take some time to die.

Justice31st

Yes shards are essential

There hasn't been one end game group where a tank did not ask for shards, and I have been playing since beta...

Preyfar

No you can go without

daemonios wrote: »

Thing is, if your DDs stack stamina instead of regen (more stamina = more damage) you'll have shorter fights and need to heal less. Saying you won't use shards (or elemental/orbs in the case of magicka dd) because you focus on healing is kind of short-sighted, IMHO. Also, repentance requires bodies on the ground to work, which doesn't apply in single-target fights or long fights where enemies take some time to die.

It's not short-sighted at all. Making builds that are well-rounded is simply a more rational choice will will provide better outcome long term than merely stacking stamina with little to no way to sustain your damage. Yes, you'll have fantastic burst damage, but not long term. If your DPS runs out of stamina constantly in a fight he can't deal damage, and thus isn't much of a DPS at that point.

On my Nightblade, I manage 35K stamina, 3K base damage, yet still have enough regen to carry me through almost any fight without needing shards. And my build's nothing special (3X Robust Endurance, 5X Hunding's Rage, 4X Morkuldin). 20K single target damage is still easy to maintain if you understand the basics of making a build which can hold itself together outside of the reliance of a third party's stamina drops.

Repentance is better for the healer due to the regen boost the Templar gets, and can fire off 8-10K heals per body. Shards isn't a bad skill, but it's a bandaid for builds which are lopsided. Yes, you can do more damage focusing solely on weapon damage and stamina, but in the grand scheme of things, you're just not sustaining that DPS at all unless you've got a Templar in your shadow 24/7. Burst DPS is not impressive. Sustained DPS is. Doing a 60K Wrecking Blow from stealth is not impressive if, 10 seconds into the fight, you're just spamming chat with "Shards, shards, shards".

The only time I can see Shards is solely for a tank, not for the DPS.

tpanisiakb16_ESO

No you can go without

Justice31st wrote: »

There hasn't been one end game group where a tank did not ask for shards, and I have been playing since beta...

S'up. Need a tank who doesn't need to be fed shards? Hit me up @tpanisiak IGN.

The no stam while blocking is still a heavy handed blow (and one I don't agree with) and for new tanks, new groups, and weaker DPS the effects are greatly exaggerated, but as @amberjl_s said below, for people playing the game for a while there's been plenty of time to adjust.

I do not have max champ points either, before someone tackles that point.

NolaArch

No you can go without

tpanisiakb16_ESO wrote: »

Justice31st wrote: »

There hasn't been one end game group where a tank did not ask for shards, and I have been playing since beta...

S'up. Need a tank who doesn't need to be fed shards? Hit me up @tpanisiak IGN.

Can confirm. Play with Vertigo almost every day, and it's not needed. No one in the group *needs* shards. There was some time to adjust after WW regen and block regen was taken away. But there has plenty of time to adjust to this.

NolaArch

No you can go without

amberjl_S wrote: »

tpanisiakb16_ESO wrote: »

Justice31st wrote: »

There hasn't been one end game group where a tank did not ask for shards, and I have been playing since beta...

S'up. Need a tank who doesn't need to be fed shards? Hit me up @tpanisiak IGN.

Can confirm. Play with Vertigo almost every day, and it's not needed. No one in the group *needs* shards. There was some time to adjust after WW regen and block regen was taken away. But there has plenty of time to adjust to this.

ETA:
Has *been* plenty of time.

Shards are nice to have for AoE, and stam just because. But it's nicer to know you can run all of the content without the crutch of *needing* shards.

Justice31st

Yes shards are essential

amberjl_S wrote: »

tpanisiakb16_ESO wrote: »

Justice31st wrote: »

There hasn't been one end game group where a tank did not ask for shards, and I have been playing since beta...

S'up. Need a tank who doesn't need to be fed shards? Hit me up @tpanisiak IGN.

Can confirm. Play with Vertigo almost every day, and it's not needed. No one in the group *needs* shards. There was some time to adjust after WW regen and block regen was taken away. But there has plenty of time to adjust to this.

And

Nifty2g wrote: »

yes, why wouldn't they be? everyone needs stamina

^This.

/end of thread.

Hamrb

No you can go without

No
but in some instances you absolutely need them.
look up people tanking Aetherian archives hard mode, you NEED shards for the tank