Official Feedback Thread for Templars

ZOS_GinaBruno

This is the official feedback thread for the Templar. Please let us know how you feel about the changes we made to this class, if you ran into any bugs, and any other feedback you'd like to give.

Morathras

Skills are still not good
BoL nerf was not needed.

Soris

Im gonna post this in here too then. You can also check the topic if you like. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/245171/sun-shield-radial-sweep-radiant-aura-channeled-focus-healing-ritual

• Radiant Ward(morph of sun shield) that 1 percent buff on shield strength for each hit is ludicrous. It is not even the actual shield strength but per hit you take. There has to be bigger buff to actual shield strength for both morphs! Or battle spirit should not include health based shields. Currently what you get from 50k health and 100 points in bastion is only 9k shield in Cyrodiil. That's even lower from maxed out sorc shield. It does not synergise with magicka healing/dps builds due to its health based nature and thus It has to be doubled or added a secondary effect like miss/dodge chance or knockback when explode, whatever but something. Currently it does not fit the role of templar "stand and fight". It is too weak for that.

• Radial Sweep 1 meter increase, total of 6 meter range is still so little for an ultimate. Certain melee skills have 6 to 9 meter range. This skill should have minimum 9 meter range. Additionally, Empowering Sweep morph should grant major protection to caster (30% mitigation) instead of 15% base and 4% per target it hits. With this way, it will be much more useful in pvp.

• Radiant Aura Again, you did the same mistake, this skill's active effect is rendered by potions. Make it a flat percentage instead of major/minor so it may have an actual use finally. This is no brainer at this point, just make it real.

• Channeled Focus This has to be mobile buff or vastly increase its radius. The radius is so small to stand inside for whole duration. Either make it share the same radius with cleansing ritual or make it a true mobile buff!

• Healing Ritual Even with reduced cast time, a hard casted healing spell in this game means death. This skill should be changed into a hot like mutagen/vigor or maybe a buff that grants dmg reduction or immovability or regen or dodge chance, whatever. Until you do that, it will have NO use in any content in this fast paced action game and you know that. If you are going to keep the current design, then make it un-interruptable and increase its radius.

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Also putting these quotes here for more visibility. Full credit to authors.

Cinbri wrote: »

Taken from http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/248012/templar-post-2-3-2-suggestions

Post 2.3.2 suggestions:

Post as thread too to make sure that ZOS will see it.
First of all. Sweep ultimate finally became viable especially Crescent Sweep(funny but it contradict new trial crescent-moon theme). 2sec for Empowering Sweep is much needed but i still think that change mitigation mechanic to Major Protection buff will be better. And now we must get fixed Rite of Passage, coz with all penalties it apply, ultimate is pale.
This is mostly all feedback with argumentation and theorycrafting i can provide for now:
1.Animations and visual improvements.
2.Small buffs and Improvements.
3.Skills Overhaul.
Rest of feedback depends only on what Wrobel will say on friday eso live. Hope 26 pages will result in some notacible and positive buffs. I really hope.
Suggestions:
Not a single viusal effect for templars was improved and i don't understand why. We got revamped Empower animation, dk molten armaments improved, sorc got new animation for revamped skill.
1. Yellow glwoing round hands for either Focused Healing passive or Focus buffs. It is impossible to see if those bonuses are still on you without addons that showing buffs duration. Focus now grants buff duration for 8 sec and still apply glowing yellow effect on body, but as i said before body effect is easily can be overwriten by other same boddy effects, so it is impossible to determine if buff still on you; nor the FH passive giving you hints if healing buff still on you.
Since Empower no longer trigger red glowing on hands, it is even more easy to dtermine such buffs - templar must get iconic "sun"-color buff that can't be overwritten

2. Honor the Dead mana return is also impossible to determine without addons.
3. Spear Shards animation must be fixed and i gave suggestion how it could be fixed.

Cinbri wrote: »

[*]Spear Shards: right now animation of this skill is too slow it may looks like it has cast time. At the time when templar start casting second Spear, first one didn't land yet. It is nice to have ranged AoE but with current animation speed it is impossible to target high/medium mobile targets. Regarding removing ability to target zone for this skill: it may improve speed of this skill but i remember how terrible it was whan you was unable to target zone for tactical play, adding such option was great improvement and should not be removed. DKs Eruption on other hand is landing at same second same as revamped Daedric Tomb.
Currently when templar choose target are of attack it starting 2nd phase of animation: currently templar throwing spear into air, after it animation end it proc next animation - of falling from sky spear.The way to fix it should be similar as new Daedric Tomb working - when templar throwing spear into air, in middle of this 1st animation, 2nd animation of spear falling from sky already should starting to proc.
Also you can notice that on last phase of 2nd animation, 3rd animation proccing - splitting shards, that decreasing animation even more. Improving this 3rd animation may result of increasing speed of cast for miliseconds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEgXtanFhT4

And from this slow-mo you can see that target should be affected but still not affected by spear till 3rd animation played to an end:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPdZ31IEULc

4. Solar Barrage cast animation still apply short stuck.

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1. Templar Charge - now "fixed", but is still often auto-cancelling upon cast. Wrobel said that it related to path finding mechanic and lags making things even worse. Why than not to revamp skill and make it like NB ambush - it won't requare for skill to track path and lags won't negatively affect this skill. Also you can take animation from Vosh Rakh skill with cutting half of it and apply for templar Charge. My editing skills are bad but thats how it could looks like, similar to ambush but we would not travel through shadows but through light

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wql81mo8hk

2. Puncturing Sweep - this skill still loosing its effectiveness vs shields. It must be fixed to allow healing upon hitting damage shields.
3. Focus - since now both morphs working for 8 sec, Restoring Focus became equal to another morph and maybe looking like Chocking Talons of dk. Change of mana return - at least it is "fixed", alos now after CF expired 8 sec buff of mana return still proccing = 1920 more mana return from this morph.
4. Light Weaver/Balanced Warrior/Restoring Spirit - still suggesting to do this

Cinbri wrote: »

5. Restoring Spirit - there is no secret that magplars/stamplars have worst sustain, such small buff as increasing this passive's numbers to 8% all reduction will help a lot.
6. Light Weaver - very weak passive that almost don't have synnergy. I suggest to revamp ult giving component and make it return ultimates only to caster(not to allies as they are more sustainable) upon casting Healing Ritual and Rushed Ceremony abilities so those healings won't be only 100% defensive mechanic.
7. Balanced Warrior - templar now is only class without major sorcery buff. So in addition to weapon damage it should grant spelldamage and probably same number of physical resistance.

5. Rite of Passage - must get Sweep treatment, i.e. fixed to become usefull in PvP.
6. Eclipse - change to Total Dark will make ability even less viable than before, I will talk about it below(no matter what, 1 target cap must be removed of increased to 3 targets). Unstable Core - another useless change: in PvE dd won't spam it on several targets and wait 6 sec for it to explode, heal will still heal and tank won't waste huge amount of mana for it. But looks on Sun-Eaters from new trial: they cast ground aoe dot Eclipse, templar could get either same or revamped to work as Rune Prison of npc menders - stun through block(tempalr version of Fissilize).
7. Backlash - obviously PvE skill, but to give it at least some usability in PvP you can make it work as Mark - enemies won't be able to hide. That is just that easy.

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Templar sustain:
It is still no secret that templar sustain worse possible . Now Wrobel confirmed that templar like dk is "hold-your-ground" class, but unlike dk its sustain worse then nb or sorc in light armor...And myth about templar super tankiness is just a myth coz templar forced to stack defense to maximum coz lack of sustain and thus sacrifice all his damage outpoot.
Also Wrobel pointed some pain points:
a. Cyro Spirit and how it affects skill, so here: Blazing Shield=Dragonblodd and both not fixed coz it requare to take into account percentage improve and shieldstacking problem.
b. Inhale buffed to make dk more viable for self-healing, so here: Honor the Dead=Inhale and thats fine.
And now lets see on sustain passives:
Restoring Spirit = Battle Roar
Remembrance = Helping Hands
^^As we can see templar abilities can't directly restore stamina, especially if there is no corpses. Even NBs have direct stamina restore abilities. Thats why templar tank is worst from those 3 classes after block nerf that stoped regen stamina while blocking and thus making PvP for templar impossible to play "hold-your-ground" style. If he tanking Boss in PvE there is no way for him to restore stamina to sustain. ZOS hope watched HODOR runs through Maw of Lorkhaj and see fact that DK tank is most viable coz self-sustain.
Another tanking class - DK - must be taken as example of what is tanking class is, coz even in PvE Templar can't sustain even nearly as good as DK, for example this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S15Wh-hgv3w

Templar just can't fill role Wrobel invisioned for it, and this is problem related to Blinding Flashes:
a.Blinding Flashed effects:1.dodge-like buff. 2.AoE melee CC. Literally, it was melee version of Scales+CC, so removal of BF is equal to removal of Scales+root of Talons. Remove those from DK and you will see what will happen, same happened with templars. (While DK got set-off balance type of skill after it was removed from templars. "Shattering Rocks")
So, we got finisher in the coast of most effective defensive skill.
b.Next our mitigation skill Blazing Shield became broken, so we got 1 less viable defense for melee.
c. Now Total Dark nerf - not possible to reflect hard-hitting melee abilities and 1 cap target.
d. Now fixed, Cleansing Ritual was symbol how good for sustain such absorb-reflect skills, this bug made templars feel like true "hold-your-ground" class.
^^^With those nerfs we lost all defensive skills and left only with healing that is not mitigating damage but only serve to recover from harm that was done to us. No skills to help sustain or tank.
To fix it we should get back Flashes-like skill or revamp current templar skills to become viable to sustain:
1. The most easiest way to do it:
a. Revamp Total Dark and make it work as DK Scales.
b. Revamp Radiant Ward to apply some sort of CC upon cast with little damage shield.
As result to it: In PvP - templar will become as Wrobel wanted - enemies will be forced to come to melee to kill templar and in melee templar will be able to slowing them by CC. In PvE - tanking will still be not as viable as DK, but it will contradict with fact that templar better healer at least. Change of Radiant Ward will completely remove such problems as percentage skills in PvP and shieldstacking problem for this morph. Also it will cover another Eclipse problem - only hard hitting range stamina ability is Snipe, but Snipe has much longer range and Eclipse won't be able to reach it, aslo stamina build have high stamina regen and break free will be almost unnoticable for them while mana cost for Eclipse is high.
2. Another way to fix it:
a. Make Spear Shards to have unique synnergy that can be activated by its own caster.
b. Make Total Dark to reflect all types of abilities and increase cap to 3 targets.
As result those 2 changes will fix problem of self-sustainable templar tanks both in PvP and PvE and will negate fact that templar as tanking class without active stamina returns.
3. And last way to fix it: (some unique)
a. to remove such problems as percentage skills in PvP and shieldstacking problem, revamp Radiant Ward to work like: self-buff for 20 seconds that will grant Major Evasion buff(20%) and will have additional effect to help with sustain:

• every dodge grants returns 1000 stamina to caster.

It should help sustain in both PvE and PvP and will negate fact that templar as tanking class without active stamina returns. Also in compare with Blinding Flashes - it 50% miss chance but only for melee 5m, while Evasion grants 20% to both melee and range. For magicka templars stamina based Evasion is stamina-drainer cos high cost, and stamplars are worst stamina-based class coz lack of sustain and also have only couple magicka skills to waste mana on.
To further comparison we can compare it with old Black Rose that had 20% of 900 stamina return upon block:
unbuffed block cost 1730 stamina, and to restore 900 stamina you must waste at least 6920 block stamina, same with dodge effect - it won't make you to dadge instantly vs 1 target and make you unkillable but each 1 more enemy will slightly increase chances to survive, also unlike Blinding Flashes, dodge not proccing on AoE dd skills. So for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU9Ng9NOd2E

As you can see vs 8 targets 20 sec dodge-buff gave only 9 dodges: 9k stamina in 20 seconds vs 8 enemies, it equal to 900 stamina regen for 20 sec only while being already heavily outnumbered. To compare to dk Helping Hands passive with ~15k stamina = 750 stamina returns, in addition to Battle Roar passive effectiveness you can see on video i linked above from WGT.
This change will allow to invest more resources into offense, not just stuck as much defense as possible and have 0 damage outpoot.
b. Make Total Dark to reflect abilities as it is now on pts but remove cap completely. As many times already said why.

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Joy_Division wrote: »

Taken from page 45 http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/245184/official-feedback-thread-for-templars/p45


What I believe are still the major problems with Templars. @Wrobel @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_KNowak @ZOS_RichLambert @ZoS anyone.

The purpose of this post is to identify the major problems with templars, not to fix them. Put the spotlight on them and hopefully provide and impetus for ZoS to do their thing and make the class a versatile, compelling, interesting, distinctive, and fun play. I am historian, not a game designer so I am not going to pretend I have the training and experience to go beyond that and do something competently that's not my job. I am pretty good at analyzing, comparing stuff, and considering perspectives that are not my own. So, I'll just point out the stuff that isn't quite working and just a general idea where I think it needs to go.

Needs Immediate Attention

This tier represents those skills that templars are actually less effective for using and potentially damages their chances of winning.

Healing Ritual - the split second reduction in cast time does not reconcile the fundamental problem Eric Wrobel identified with this skill on ESO Live: "Cause in general the burst damage happens really quickly, like you die really fast, right? ... I hit the ability and I'm like waiting, and I'm waiting, and then they die before it goes off." This on top of the lack of mobility, the potential for interruption, and the short range.
Fix: NO time between casting and healing. Period. End of Story. Make it a HoT. Make it a channel. I don't care. Do NOT have me wait for that heal.

Radiant Aura - No spell in the game should duplicate the common and widely used tri-stat potion. I will never use one of my ten slots and my magicka to provide a redundant buff the people who need stamina are going to have in any case. Note: The Repentance morph is just fine.
Fix: Make it like function like the original spell pre 1.6, i.e, what we get is independent the already present mundane buffs we will have active. Tweak the numbers. Thematically templars providing stamina for their group is very useful function that helps distinguish us.

Sun Shield - It is totally unfair for ZoS to scale our primarily defensive ability of an attribute that its lead combat designer has admitted everyone tries to run as low as possible. This indicates ZoS is aware of the fundamental problem but is content to do nothing to address it. That it is designed to be cast in combat is also a huge disadvantage compared to other shields. It has got to be good. It's not. Unacceptable. Here are some pictures what I have to deal with when trying to defend my "house"


That's my shield. 3204.

And what exactly is that 3204 shield going to do when I have to deal with damage like this?

[

I blocked that! The shield is a woeful. And, take a look at my alleged OP breath of life. Keep telling me Templars are spamming too much healing while ignoring the damage flying around Cyrodiil.

Here's what happens when I don't block



This is a single global cooldown:



Fix: - Do not ask me to run a high health builds because the PvE content ZoS's dungeon team designed thinks I run a high magicka build. Scale the shield to magicka and increase the damage until the whole health is undesirable thing is fixed.

Bad, but not game-breakingly terrible

This tier represents those skills that are lacking with respect to other stuff in the game, but won't actually impede your chances of success.

Radial Sweep - If you are a level 45 max CP expert PvPer terrorizing Backwater Blade, this skill can serve as an excellent means of damage mitigation. Now can we please get an ultimate that has a bit more applicability? This has a range of 6 meters while lava whip and wrecking blow have 7 meters. This often misses targets in its radius (perhaps an elevation issue).
Fix: More range, reliably hitting targets. One of these morphs should do physical damage. The "tank" empowering morph should also put some sort of 8 second debuff enemies. The "damage" crescent morph looks like it may have been addressed (I'll still have to test) but it still should grant some sort of 8 second offensive buff. I will still use Dawnbreaker over the ability because the Fighter's Guild ultimate has comparable damage even to non daedra-undead.

Balanced Warrior (passive). A misnomer if there has ever been one. 1.6 made this passive obsolete. Spell damage please.

Sun Fire - The Vampire Bane morph is a good DPS skill. Everything about this ability needs work. Reflective Light did not get same duration increase. The major prophecy buff is way too short to be practical alternative to mage light.
Fix: - Please Major Prophecy to standard buff duration (20 seconds). Increase Reflective Light's duration.

Enduring Rays (passive). It still the only passive in the game that makes class abilities worse (in this case the Unstable Core morph for Eclipse). Just include the passive's benefits into the standard duration the Dawn's Wrath abilities we want to last longer and replace this with something we need: passive resource management. Because templars need to endure. Every time you cast a dawn's wrath ability, templars get X magicka and stamina. Sound familiar? It should. It was an old passive that never needed to be removed and would really help the heavy armor paladin archetype that so many who rolled this class would like to play ...

Rite of Passage . I know there are people out there that will argue with me and claim this is good or useful ultimate. All I will say is that there was once a time I was near the top of the Trials leaderboards and all my raid leaders rejected the premise that this skill was a viable alternative to healing springs + some other more useful ultimate. Also when the group I run with in PvP loses a fight, it is not because our opponents were using this skill to mitigate our damage. Until I see Hodor run both morphs of this ultimate, I will maintain my position that this is a suboptimal choice for any player looking to maximize their chance of winning.
Fix:. Again we can't move. Fine. Increase the range a bit. Roll the Remembrance morph into the base spell so the immobile Templar is actually doing something constructive for those people not getting heals (i.e. HALF a PVE raid and even more in PvP). The Practiced Incarnation morph extending the duration for this effect would be fine. Make the other morph cleanse negative effects. I also dislike the new animation as it does not as clearly define the beneficial range and effects of this ultimate. Without these changes, I will always spam healing springs when a large amount of stationary healing is required and slot Nova instead.

Light Weaver Perhaps the worst passive in the game. It does nothing to our good abilities and gives marginal increases to only our terrible ones. I don't even spend my skill points here.
Fix: Increase the Templar's armor and spell resistance while within any of her runes or auras. Let's start building that house, huh?

Uninspiring and Mediocre, but occasionally useful

Nothing about the performance of effect of these abilities gets me excited to log into Elder Scrolls and play a Templar even if they perform their function adequately.

Piercing Javelin -Appreciate the range increase, but it's just a generic CC that opponents will simply break. Fix: Debuff enemy somehow.

Spear Wall (passive) Increases block Vs. melee attacks. Historically spear walls were used as a defense against missile attacks. Just saying.

Restoring Spirit (passive) - No templar has ever forgotten the nerf to what was the class's only means of passive resource regeneration. ZoS removed what was an interesting and different means of sustain and gave templars a boring cost reduction that is inadequate compared to the other classes. So now we have not means to defend our house and no passive resource management. Buff please.

Solar Barrage (specific morph) - It's a little better than Impulse ... maybe ... but Impulse has been nerfed so it is also uninspiringly insipid. I will take Dark Flare morph every time.
Fix: Skill needs to do more than just damage.

Cleansing Ritual - Used to be a great ability that gave templars the very distinctiveness Zos seeks. Then ZoS "fixed" this. Thanks ZoS always fixes the beneficial "bugs" to our class (without compensating the loss in effectiveness) but has trouble with the ones the undermine it. I know I have to use it because of a passive, but the skill's actual functionality is now the same as the generic Alliance War Purge skill. Yawn. Boring. Meh.
Fix: It wasn't cool to just take away the defensive capability of this spell without replacing it with something else.

Has potential but is undermined

Toppling Charge - What more can I say that hasn't been said? The most annoying bug associated with this ability is when it starts and you hear the sound effect of the spell but then cancels. I believe this is a NEW bug that did not happen when our main complaints were limited to the cooldown and getting stuck in the charge animation. For what it's worth, I dont get stuck in charges much anymore (thank you very much, I will acknowledge the improvement here), but this happens every single night I play.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_a9gKVP3UE

Spear Shards - Does not do enough damage considering the long aim and travel time. We still remember the double nerf to this ability during the IC incremental patches. An AoE that places only 1 debuff is a puzzling mechanic ... especially when 3 seems to be the common number out there (cf. talons, fear).
Fix: Slow speed needs to be strong damage. Make CC component to 3 targets for consistency.

Dark Flare - I don't mind and accept the long travel time because I think it is now the hardest hitting spell in the game. I know that first cast is longer than the 1.1 second tooltip time and that will get a templar killed in PvP. We are mad because stuff like this never gets fixed but when dodge-roller complains about getting hit by toppling charge, that just has to get priority. Fix: 1.1 second cast time.

Backlash - This skill is good in theory but does not scale with spell damage (only max magicka), which turns it into a DPS loss for players who get a lot of spellpower bonuses (such as from spell power cure, major sorcery, Molag Kena, etc). Also the recent changes to the patch makes it noticeably more difficult for a single player to reach the damage cap, particularly in Cyrodiil where there is already a 50% reduction.
Fix: Either the secondary utility function (heal, armor debuff) needs to be more potent or this needs to scale with spell damage.

Rune Focus - A net nerf. On Live, if I put this down and leave, I get the resistance buffs for 8 seconds and the magicka regen for like 20. What ZoS wants to do is make it so both of these last 8 seconds after I leave. Here is the other problem with the skill. ZoS is against homogenization right? OK...why is it that the templar's buff is the same as the sorcerer and NB buff when the templar's is so much more restrictive? This ability does not create a "house" that is somehow sturdier, more resilient, or more advantageous than the sorcerer's "house" (which can move) or the NB's house (which they get while doing damage).
Fix: No idea. ESO requires mobility and ZoS wants templars to stand in one spot. For a start, I would NOT penalize a templar for leaving the Rune. All classes keep their buffs no matter where they go and the same should be for Templars. Instead, incentivize us to stay in that Rune by offering more than generic bonuses and maybe debuff the enemies trying to break in and enter it?

Note: one-third of our class abilities fall into this category!

Abilities worthy of comparison with other classes

Puncturing strikes - It's good but still flawed. Appreciate the snare change but that's still a nerf; this stopped wrecking blow spammers and it won't do that anymore which can be potentially significant. The snare should be on the first hit since the ability locks us into place, not on the last. @Nifty2g says this still can't crit heal and I trust his testing. I still hate the 5% healing nerf and I am piqued to be told it's not a nerf. Magicka templars who charge follow up with this skill and will be getting healed for less. It's another indication to me that ZoS's combat team does not fully grasp how templars try to compete in a PvP environment. Sorry if that sounds mean, but I don't know how else I could interpret ZoS's response to the healing nerf.
Fix: Heals for 40% of damage done; heal can crit; Snare applied on first hit; ability interrupts casters/channels.

Nova - Our only good ultimate. I still don't know why an ally has to be within 3.5 meters of the center to activate the synergy. If a Nova is not crushed, it's a waste of 250 ultimate. It's too expensive.
Fix: Synergy is given priority and can be activate by an ally standing anywhere in Nova. Reduce cost (and DK standard).

Radiant Destruction - Appreciate the recognition that channels should not be dodged. I still dislike ZoS's practice of making its customers play with broken abilities for 6 months. Fix: Upon entering Cyrodiil for the first time, please force new players to go through a "here is how you counter RD" tutorial that demonstrates how bashing, using interrupt skills, cleansing, cloaking, healing, shielding, harness magickaing, moving out of range/LOS, out DPSing the attacking templar, CCing the templar, and other various means can defeat a templar using RD.

Rushed Ceremony - I'm sorry but this skill is overrated. I get it, other classes hate it. But everything a NB says about Cloak, everything sorcerers say about Hardened Ward/streak, and everything DKs says about Reflective Scales applies to Rushed Ceremony when considering how strong it is. Since their signature skills also got nerfed, I will bite my tongue with regards to the blanket and unnecessary nerf to Breath of Life. And it left a sour taste in my mouth that our signature skill was just nerfed without any other consideration/adjustment to other apsects of the spell such as cost/adding non-healing functionality/etc. I still think is it beholden upon ZoS to provide us with these other viable healing options we are suppose to use in class. This means rethinking the get-your-allies-killed Healing Ritual spell and making Rite of Passage feel like I'm doing something more worthy of an ultimate than giving 6 people a HoT.

That's every Templar ability except one that deserves its own special tier

I know ZoS is trying, but it gets worse with every patch

Eclipse - This ability deserves an entire thread of its own. I'll write something pithy tomorrow after class. The short of it is that this spell is objectively worse now that it was before the IC update, a time when it was already uninspiring since many Templars preferred the sword & shield reflect to their own class skill. Yet it has gotten nerfed and worse. Inexplicable.

**********************

Where do Templars stand in the grand scheme of things?

There are some things that are better. As much as we have critiqued and complained, a templar's DPS is unquestionably better and easier to put on target. The more offensively minded templars in PvP are probably going to prefer the Thieves' Guild update than what's on Live. And I know the mending change will make things better for Stamplars (that's all they getting though). I have talked with some templars that are legitimately excited. This should not be ignored. Some good work here ZoS.

However, it is difficult to feel that Templars are on the whole better or more versatile or more interesting to play in the next update.

I think it's 100% clear the class's ability to sustain/mitigate/defend its "house" is absolutely weaker. ZoS can claim the capacity to purify meteors was a "bugfix," that still does not change the fact that a key defensive aspect templars use on Live is being removed without compensation. ZoS can claim the major mending makes up for the healing nerfs, but as someone who doesn't rely on a resto staff to heal in PvP and who uses puncturing sweeps after charging opponents, this isn't lemonade ZoS is selling, it's a 5% healing reduction lemon. More wasted time and mana laying down Runes just to match what we have on Live right now. Eclipse is still somehow restricted to a single target and the defensive capabilities of it on the PTS is an unquestionably a net loss. As it was, a huge critique of the 1.6 change was that templars could not stand their ground adequately to justify the class's lack of mobility. I know about the minor protection addition to Rune, but most templars opt for the magicka recovery because ZoS gives us no resource management. Don't get me started on the 1% increase to my woeful shield to the morph I don't even use. None of this even considers the breath of life nerf.

These changes seem to be pushing templars into a more offensive, glass-cannon approach which is ... puzzling given that probably is not the reason why many players decided to role a templar. I understand that lack of templar DPS has been source of templar agitation (mostly from before 1.6), but I don't think what templars wanted was to be a re-skinned nightblade without mobility or cloak. I mean ZoS took away our best defensive tool in blinding flashes and gave us our best DPS tool in Radiant Destruction. I love RD as it allows me as a healer to better contribute to my dungeon-delving team with some actual and meaningful DPS, but why couldn't this have replaced Sun Fire or Healing Ritual?

There is also a loss of distinctiveness which, again, is puzzling given Eric's recent stated desire to ensure classes were different and has their own identities. People claimed we heal and we had a class tree solely devoted to that. Then some people complained that we healed too much and we rez too fast. Now that got nerfed, sorcerers have pets that heal more than our signature skill and yet somehow we are still stuck we a tree that is devoted to healing even though two of the skills are terrible and its ultimate not used. OK, I guess the anti-healers are happy ... but where does that leave us? What is our place? Why does stuff just get taken away without any recompense? Maybe sorcerers didn't like I could purify their crystal frags. But it was something that made us special and they still were a stronger class than us. Are we now just supposed to be excited for being generic DPS with one less ability tree than the other classes? I still have no mobility, still overly restrictive resource management, still lack the tools to defend my "house," now can't heal as well as I used to. I guess I am supposed to just Jesus Beam all of you.

Most of all, the 40+ pages of disappointment stem from unfulfilled expectations and changes that are just baffling to those of us who play this class everyday. I don't know why I was under the impression this patch was devoted to address balance. I think I heard it on ESO Live at some point. Or maybe because it's been a year since I've been stuck with so many clumsy and inefficient skills and I just assumed it's been long enough. We did our part. We have told ZoS time and time again, with a bizarre and atypical degree of consensus I have never seen in over 30 years of playing RPGs, just how counterproductive many of the templar mechanics are. To see so many of these clear and insightful explanations not heeded or given token adjustments is a huge let down.

What bothers me most about these patch notes is perception of apathy that went behind them. No doubt this is a false impression. But perception trumps reality. Look at the 5% reduction to the healing for puncturing sweeps. It apparently would be inconceivable, inexplicable, incredulous, incredible, implausible, and impossible for Zos to say: "You know what, templars are kind of hurting with their overall tankiness and it's been a common complaint about the class. The change to the major mending passive could potentially increase those sweep heals by a bit under certain conditions. It might make sense to leave that value at 40% to reward templars who are trying to defend their 'house' and besides, we still can't figure out how to get those heals to crit." Just had to put that nerf in there! Or with Healing Ritual. How can I possibly come to a different conclusion that Zos places so little value in our feedback when with a unanimous voice we have said the cast-time kills the spell and yet in the patch notes we see it that the cast time is still there?

I really really really want to believe that Zos's combat team loves templars and that ZoS listens to the templar community and to be perfectly clear I am sure ZoS does, but ... wow we've been stuck with that awful Radiant Aura spell and an inadequate shield for so long, trust me it's not easy. I am tired of seeing our sole remaining only sometimes useful defensive spell eclipse get nerfed every single update. Tired of seeing only beneficial bugs to our class get fixed without the only that plagued it or undermine it not get fixed. Tired of having so many wonky or useless skills diluting our build choices. The constant and persistent nerfs and "fixes" to the little things my class can do that others cannot is driving me nuts. This thread would be just 10 pages long if it were easy for templar players to believe that the other classes were not somehow loved more equally than their own.

I know Zos is trying. I know ZoS cares. I know what is on ZoS's plate and what they would like to do exceeds its manpower/resources. I'm not expecting perfection. I can accept nerfs for the betterment of the game as a whole. But for the love of the Eight Divines, let us help you. Most of this feedback and the stuff we have suggested does have the game's best interest at heart. I know we get hysterical at times, too easily allow our frustrations to overdramatize things we say, and our passions for the class make us overly defensive and sensitive to nerfs and negative adjustments. Besides, you got to admit some of it is rather amusing We wouldn't be templars if we just sat down quietly and meekly said, "OK" when our most defining skill gets nerfed. Trust us when we say we don't use certain skills. Throw us a bone once in a while when you announce on the patch notes that one of our defining features is getting "fixed" or "adjusted." Give us a reason to be excited to do something other than a few more DPS.

I really think it would be a good idea for ZoS to throw some of its more promising ideas for the changes that are supposed to be coming for the Dark Brotherhood on incremental patches. Let us actually see how ZoS's vision shapes up and let us help guide you to a better product. I know Zos says that approach is not as efficient, but efficiency is a really tough selling point when Healing Ritual, Radiant Aura, Rite of Passage, etc., have been so bad for so long. We're just looking for inspiration here. Something tangible to grasp on and say to ourselves, "Looks like ZoS has a legit plan for templars." If you just threw one change to one of our meh skills that a non DPS glass cannon templar would be genuinely excited to try out, it would go a long way. And if our class is so distinctive with channels and staying "home," a few gear options that recognized that vision would really help us do just that. Heck, there are 5 piece crafted bonuses going to waste because nobody even considers using them (like Ashen Grip, Torug's Pact, etc.).

I think a lot of us just want to be excited and inspired to play a templar and do templar things, ideally in some different and new ways than what we have been doing for the past year. DPS is all well and good, but many templars want to be something more than a damage dealing class.

Nifty2g

Cresent Sweep needs major reworking it should give you major brutality or something similar
Blazing Shield should be bigger but deal less damage
Breath of Life please change it
Balanced Warrior Passive please give Spell Damage

tengri

As per usual: templars *** again.
/end feedback

Ashamray

Healing ritual is useless as always. Let it be instant powerful hot that ticks a long period of time, for example one tick per 3 seconds, duration 9 seconds.
Radial sweep is useless as always. Need bigger radius.
Radiant aura is useless as always. Just delete it.
Channeled Focus morphs should work not only in circle! This game is about moving, sprinting, dodging! If you want make us stand, give real purpose to stand inside small circle!

cote-bmsb16_ESO

BOL nerf was unnecessary. Templar healers will only spam it harder, just so that it does the same amount of work. So I'll spam it harder, waste more magicka, and still do the same amount of work. If they are going to nerf it this hard, they need to reduce the cost of BOL.

Why arent they nerfing healing springs? We can stack and burn the Manticora in SO with only 2 healers running healing springs, using breath of life only to top off the tank's health bar. Healing springs is way stronger when stacking.

Not only that but ZOS devs seem to be listening to the loudest complainer on Twitch, or the mediocre players that just started to play ESO . We've had BOL working this way since BETA, 2 years ago, and now they want to nerf templars? Give us a little dps boost, and then take away the thing that made them a strong healer.

Why aren't they treating sorcs this way for instance? My sorc can pop a conjured ward, and have a 25k damage shield, and then turn on my 1000% over-charged Overload ult, and pull 40k dps with light attacks. But oh no, lets give sorcs even a bigger dps boost.

Stamina templars did not get any love this patch either.

I'm pretty disappointed with the changes put foward for Templar healing skill line.

bikerangelo

Currently, since I haven't had time to test for bugs, I'll go over changes.

Aedric Spear Tree -

• Radial Sweep - a meter increase in range. Serious question: does anyone at Zenimax play the Templar class?
• Puncturing Strikes - no knockback and adds a snare. Great change, thank you for listening to us.
• Javelin - increased range. Again, thank you, the increased range was desperately needed.
• Toppling Charge - fixed... EDIT* No it's not.
• Blazing Spear - aoe red circle for enemies to avoid. Alrighty then
• Sun shield - a percentage increase to 1 of the morphs. This is the start of where things go downhill. After the constant requests for buffs to this ability, you add a percentage increase?
• Balanced Warrior passive - still only gives weapon damage, what gives.

Moving on, Dawn's Wrath -

• Sun Fire - more dot damage. Great.
• Dark Flare - way more damage. Excellent
• Backlash - an increase somewhere and a decrease somewhere else... hold it.
  

Sounds fishy, but I still won't use it anyways.

• Eclipse - reflects all projectiles. Within five seconds of testing this, it only reflected venom arrow's DoT, not its physical damage.
• Unstable Core - Templar's new multi target Velocious Curse. Stop trying to give us more subpar dps abilities, this was your chance to create a solid defensive ability to make up for the Purifying Ritual nerf.
• Radiant Oppression - goes. through. dodge. roll.
  

Restoring Light -

• Breath of Life - now only hits one additional target instead of 2. Remove this, this is not the nerf you're looking for.
• Healing Ritual - takes less time to cast but heals less. Wait.... what?
  

Must be my imagination, continuing on...

• Restoring Aura - something something. All I hear is that it still negates potion effects.
• Purifying Ritual - no longer negates projectiles. Also an absolutely unnecessary nerf.
• Channeled Focus - an articulate tooltip... This is where I'm starting to feel as if you really aren't listening to the community as much as we'd like you to. We're still restricted to this rune, yet what we need as a class is mobility. You've brought down the expedition buffs already, it wouldn't even bring the templar class remotely close to OP if you removed the rune and gave us a 20 second buff along with a 5 to 6 second expedition buff.

I'll compile a list of bugs soon, and I'm still optimistic since this is only the first day of the PTS and that you, @ZOS_GinaBruno and @Wrobel are here to listen to us about the changes you've made and how they can be improved.

Roselle

Breath of Life should still fire off 2 secondary heals. Second should remain nearly half of the main Breath of Life heal (as it is now) and perhaps the third should be 25% of the main. Nerfed, but not as much.

If kept to still only provide one other secondary heal, I believe the magicka cost should be lowered.

UrQuan

Still downloading the PTS patch, so this isn't yet based on any game experience, but from what I read in the patch notes here are my thoughts:

• Blazing Spear: yup, it should have always been like that
• Focused Charge: I hope this bug fix actually works, as I'd love for this ability to work properly
• Piercing Javelin: good change - the range was one of the main reasons why I never slotted this
• Puncturing Strikes: awesome, I love this change
• Radial Sweep: not a big difference, but a good change that makes this a little more viable for tanking
• Radiant Ward: also not a big difference, but a good change that makes this a little more viable for tanking

• Backlash: hmm, I'm undecided. I'll have to try this out before deciding if this change is good or not
• Eclipse: changes sound good - this could make the skill legitimately useful
• Enduring Rays: this amounts to a bit of a nerf to some skills and a buff to others. On balance I like this change.
• Nova: good changes to make the synergy better
• Radiant Destruction: a needed bug fix
• Solar Flare: a helpful change, but this skill isn't typically used for its damage anyway
• Unstable Core: this helps to differentiate it more from the other morph. I'm undecided on whether I think it's a worthwhile skill though
• Vampire's Bane: a good change to make this morph more viable, but not enough to make me want to choose it over Reflective Light

• Breath of Life: this won't make a big difference to how I play, but this will have a serious negative impact on PUG dungeon runs. A straight-up nerf where none was needed
• Cleansing Ritual: sensible changes
• Focused Healing: this change reduces the mobility of the healer, while allowing for more mobility for other members of the group. I'm unsure how I feel about this one, and it will require testing
• Healing Ritual: even with the reduced cast time, I can't see myself ever slotting this skill.
• Radiant Aura: interesting change - it gives us a new tool to support magicka users in our groups. I'm undecided on whether it will be competitive with the other morph, but I like the thinking behind it
• Restoring Focus: a decent change, but not enough to make me choose this over Channeled Focus
• Rite of Passage: hmm, I get that this is kind of a bug fix, but it makes you able to use this in fewer situations. Not a big deal I guess, and it's better than making the channel end prematurely.
• Rune Focus: clearer tool tips are always a good thing.

So on balance I'm happy with these changes. The only one that I would argue against is Breath of Life. I don't see any reason at all for that nerf, or for failing to compensate for it with reduced cost or something else to balance that out.

BRogueNZ

Pretty meh to say the least.

Only thing good I've read so far is the ability to reflect physical projectiles.

I do appreciate the CP changes though, not class specific of course but for the better alterations.

Hymzir

Before this thread popped up I spent considerable time writing up my thoughts on the Templar changes for a post on another thread. But since this is the "official feedback" thread I am just gonna repost the whole thing here since this issues is really important to me, and I am teetering on abandoning the whole game if this goes south. So if I do not make my stand here and now, and these changes go through... Well Let's just hope they wont.

My thoughts on the Templar changes:

Utterly predictable failure from ZOS - instead of fixing the Templar, they made, as people predicted, few token concessions, meaningless changes and nerfed BoL to appease the ganking QQ crowd.

Here's what I gotta say about these changes

Aedric Spear:
- Blazing Spear (Spear Shards morph): This morph now displays a hostile red telegraph if it is cast from enemy Templars.

Oh brilliant, it's already slow as hell and people have been dodging it all the time, supposing that you actually manage to predict where they will run so as to even have a chanve of hitting someone with it. Obviously it needed (along with the slew of past nerfs on damage) to be made more obvious so that poor sneaking NB's can avoid it more easily.

Focused Charge: This ability and its morphs are now more responsive, and will no longer cause you to become stuck in the charge animation.

Yeah, I kinda want to see that in practice before believing this one. Since after all it is exactly the same thing ZOS has said several times before. And note that the way it's worded "more responsive" as compared to what? How it was before, but still less so than other gap closers?

Piercing Javelin: Increased the range of this ability and its morphs to 28 meters from 20 meters.

Well at least it might reach an enemy every now and then. Was funny since wrecking blow, a melee hit seemed to have 15 meter range, that a ranged one would have 20 meter. 28 meters is much better, but it's still a pointless skill since it costs a ton and is fairly weak

Puncturing Strikes: This ability and its morphs no longer knockback and apply crowd control immunity to the nearest enemy on the final hit; instead, they now snare that enemy by 70% for two seconds.

I'd be happy about this if this was not something we have been telling ZOS for over a year now! And after all this time of them claiming it was fine, they finally realized just how stupid it was. Still... no changes about it's aiming, which sucks, the fact that it's a channel which sucks, and the fact that Both Piercing Spears and Burning Light passives are useless against shields... Yeah... not gonna be celebrating about this one either.

Radial Sweep: Increased the radius of this ability and its morphs to 6 meters from 5 meters.

WOW! What an utterly meaningless change. This has gotta be the most pointless change in all of the Patch notes. (Or so I thought, not yet having read the other Templar changes...)It makes a completely useless Ultimate to be still completely useless ability! WOW! The ineptitude just keeps growing.

Radiant Ward (Sun Shield morph): Increased the shield strength bonus from this morph’s shield to 6% per enemy hit from 5%.

And it keeps getting better! WOW - a whole 1 percent more! For the morph most people won't use anyway. No change in it's duration, no change in it's strength, great job of fixing nothing!

And no changes on any of the passives... yeah. A string of expletives on that.

At the very least you should've given Balanced warrior a Spell damage buff - hell the Sorc got Weapon damage buff to go with their spell damage passive many moons ago. At the very least you should've done the same to Templar. Ditch the spell resistance bonus if you have to, it is weak and meaningless anyway. The meta of this game is focused around damage and Spell and weapon Damage are kings in all all considerations. And Templars need a Spell damage buff passive to be on any kind of equal footing with Sorcs as a caster class.

Okay on to Dawns Wrath...
Backlash: Increased the maximum damage limit for this ability and its morphs by 25%, but decreased their damage stored amount by 66%. In addition, this ability and its morphs can no longer be reflected.

I suppose this has some meaning in PVE, but is meaningless thing in PVP. But not all skills need to be useful in PVP, as long as some are and vice versa. And also LOL wut? Increased it's damage by 25% but decreased it's damage by66%? What?

Eclipse: bunch of stuff

Still mostly useless in PVP and vastly less useful than Wings. Besides anyone who is even remotely familiar with it just purges or breaks it, so it's not really useful as such. Except against some PVE targets...

Even so, I would be happy to leave these things for their niche uses, even though they are some of the most over engineered skills in the game only situationally useful, if the rest of dawns wrath was rock solid. Unfortunately it's not. There is only one skill of any meaningful value in the whole tree and it's jeezusbeam, and it too has been nerfed almost to the ground. All the other dawns wrath skills, including the Ultimate, are tricksy, slow, weak and way too costly to actually use.
Enduring Rays:

This passive ability now only increases the duration of the Sun Fire, Eclipse, and Nova abilities.
Increased this passive ability’s bonus to 15/30% more duration at Ranks I/II from 10/20%.

Cool! Another Templar passive that I have no reason what so ever to invest skill points in. There is close to zero point in using any of those skills, so why then use the passive either? You could have put some sort of resource management boost here, like having a Dawns wrath ability slotted gives you resource management buff. The kinda passive all the other classes seem to have...

Nova:

Reduced the effects and visual light intensity for this ability and its morphs.
Increased the damage from the Supernova and Gravity Crush synergies by 16%.
Increased the activation range for the Supernova and Gravity Crush synergies to 3.5 meters from 2.5 meters.

The reduced glare is welcome - too bad it's the only meaningful hanges. Increasing synergy damage? Really? The number one point of most Templars is that how much they suck as anything else but pocket healers, and what you decide to do in your game where every class was supposed to be able to fill every role? You increase Templars stamp of indentured servitude by boosting their group support skills.

Even, with the boost, it's still far too costly for what it brings to the table, and in PVP, only situationally useful in covering breaches. Meteor still serves the same purpose for less cost and with better passives to boot.

Radiant Destruction: Fixed an issue where the execute bonus damage from this ability would not apply if multiple Templars were channeling these abilities on the same target.

The only meaningful change for the whole tree, and it's not even a buff or a tweak but a fix. And it's something that should've been patched up a long time ago. But since Templars aren't Sorcs - who cares about it when our skills are bugged.

Solar Flare: Increased the damage for this ability and the Dark Flare morph by 12%. The damage of the Solar Barrage morph remains unchanged.

So.. let me get this right... after months of us arguing this one needed a buff, and having heard for months how it's damage was in line with other skills and didn't need any change. You suddenly decide it needs a damage buff? Well, thanks for that I suppose. Not that it makes a licking difference, since there is still no reason to slot it. It is too slow to cast, too slow to reach the target and tends just to be reflected back to you if it hits anyone with a shield or who happens to be a DK. (And with your planned changes to nerf reflects, you no longer can re-reflet the reflected attack... whoopdie doo.)

Also, Sorcs just refresh Harness Magicka and thank you for the magicka, while Night Blades dodge it or vanish. So yeah... What this skill would have needed was less obvious animation, and faster flight time, or some sort of proc to compete with crystal frags. I mean a sorc can be on defensive and spam shields and then suddenly retaliate with an instant frag to the face that stuns. and then either bolt away or execute your ass. That is a versatile and powerful ability. The damage increase is nice, and welcome indeed, but the skill is still just too weak, and fails miserably to the versatility provided by it's Sorc counterpart.

Vampire’s Bane (Sun Fire morph): Increased the damage over time duration for this morph to 9 seconds from 7 seconds.

AT this point the seizures of laughter are starting to get really painful... The useless morph of a useless skill gets a useless tweak. WOW. That one sure required an all new low of missing the point!

9 second DoT in this game is meaningless. With animation cancelling and the kind of spamming the good skills enable, you can finish a rotation of 4 skills twice during that time and still have time to spare. You can execute some of the attack, skill, bash combos over three times while that thing is burning. If there were 12 slotted abilities on each bar, then yeah maybe, but we only have 5 + 1 Ultimate. And there is no way in hell I am going to waste a slot on a skill that has a DoT time of 9 seconds while doing measly damage I can out DPS with a simple Crushing Shock light attack spam. And once again with much better passives to boot.

And that is in PVE. In PVP it is even less useful. No one is going to let it burn for 9 seconds. That thing is gonna get purged immediately. And it's till slow and the initial hit is about as impactful as a throwing shredded tissue paper at someone with your off hand.

And I have tried to use it - a lot. In many different combinations. But the bottom line is always the same - It's not as useful as basic spammable than just about any other option. Even when not going with a Destro staff, the undaunted skill Trapping Web is more useful ability to slot than this. The only use for the skill is in it's Reflective light form and that in grinding mobs while doing PVE leveling.

And this coming from a guy who really wanted to like this skill. *** used ti long into the Veteran levels because it fit my character so well. And als olooked cool. The Major prophecy it grants seemed like a no-brainer. A basic spammable, thematic to my Templar with a nice snare and a powerful buff? What's not to like. Well, it's weak as a skill can be, useless in PVP, the ancillary effects of other skills are much better than the snare it provides, and since Cyrodiil is such a ganker haven swarming with stealthed Night Blades, I consider it suicidal to venture beyond walls of a keep without having Mage light on. And with that, goes the last reason to use Sun Fire or any of it's morphs.

And let me just end this section by noting that Restoring Spirit needs a buff. It is in no way comparable to the resource management passives other classes have. And since most Templar skills are hideously expensive as is, it only manages to get our casting cost a tad closer to the base line. It was a high time for you guys to address this issue and buff Restoring Spirit, but... you blew it. Again. As usual.

And the tragedy continues with Restoring light...

Breath of Life (Rushed Ceremony morph): This morph now only fires one additional secondary heal, previously two heals.

Are you out of your frigging minds!?!? So the only thing that we templars had, you decided to nerf? Well, I suppose it could have been worse you could have reduced it's power, which you no doubt will eventually do since NB gankers will keep QQ about it until you cave in.

If you are going to cut 25% of it's healing power then at least cut it's price down by 20%. It's expensive as hell already, and nothing annoys quite like when NB players QQ about your OP self heal and the you go to Cyrodiil and die because the Smart Targetting of the skill decided to heal other players and not you...

This nerf is a deal breaker for me. BoL is the bread and butter of the class, and beyond stooping down to mutagen spam, the most consistent way to get AP in Cyrodiil, since we sure as hell can't kill anything. At least we were able to keep others propped up and thus get them to kill our enemies for us. But no... You really are doing everything you can to drive out Templar players from the game.

Cleansing Ritual:

Increased the healing from the Purify synergy from this ability and its morphs by 12%.
Fixed an issue where this ability and its morphs could be used to cleanse projectiles that were mid-flight. It now matches the behavior of the Purge ability.

Why? I get the last one, since that is a bug. Put what on earth for are you buffing this one of all skills? I suppose it makes for longer sieges, and easier breach defenses but, I fail to see how this skill really needed anything done to it. It's jsut the kind of random meaningless change that you are notorious for. You snuffle the deck for no real reason, changing things in arbitrary fashion and end up with just a new set of issues.

Focused Healing: This passive ability now grants you the Major Mending buff while standing in your own Cleansing Ritual, Rune Focus, or Rite of Passage area effects and for up to 2/4 seconds after leaving them at Ranks I/II, instead of granting you 15/30% more healing to allies standing in your own Cleansing Ritual, Rune Focus, or Rite of Passage.

Another example of these arbitrary changes the results of which are hard to predict. On one hand it's cool we finally get Major Mending, after all it was tad daft that the "best healers" in the game didn't have access to this buff. But then you take away the non typed healing bonus for healing people standing in your Cleansing Ritual, which has been a key part of good Templar healing play from the launch of the game. We also lose potential synergy since this is now replaced with a typed bonus, so wont' stack with other sources of said bonus.

You also make us even more sitting ducks by forcing as to sit in our circles of power or lose the buff in a flash. And this change, when a key thing we as a class wanted was more mobility, you make us ever more rooted in place. I guess the poor NB's QQ too much about having to chase us down. So thanks ZOS ,such a good idea to make us even more static. I'm sure they are happy about this change.

Healing Ritual: Reduced the cast time for this ability and its morphs by 25%, and reduced the healing done by 25%.

Yet another meaningless change. A crappy skill with a way too long cast time is still a crappy skill even if you marginally lower it's cast time while also lowering it's power. No one will still use it.

Radiant Aura (Restoring Aura morph): This morph now grants you and your allies the Major Intellect buff upon activation, as well as having an increased radius as a morph effect.

Another change that completely misses it's mark. A pointless buff is pointless if no one ever uses the skill. Compared to Repentance this one is so weak. And gaining major Intellect is meaningless since Templar resource management sucks anyway, and we are constantly drinking potions and have the buff up pretty much constantly as is. But I suppose the classes that are not dependent on potions for resource management are happy to get all the major buffs for free... From their Templar Servants. And besides, other classes get comparable boosts to their resource management via passives, and Templars need to slot an active ability just to compete? Oh yeah, that is so balanced design that it dazzles with brilliance.

Restoring Focus (Rune Focus morph): This morph now grants you the Minor Protection buff, in addition to granting the Minor Vitality buff as a morph effect.

And the trend of meaningless changes continues it's triumphant procession! Minor Protection is such an insignificant buff to a skill no-one in their right mind is going to use anyway, that it borders on insanity. Stamplars have no need for the skil on their limited bars, and no Magplar can take a pass on Rune Focus since our resource management sucks so much. So buffing an already a weak morph with a really weak effect and thinking it matters is just ludicrous.

Rune Focus: Revised the tooltips for this ability and its morphs to indicate that the Major Ward and Major Resolve buffs will stick to you for 8 seconds after leaving the rune, while the morph effects of Channeled Focus and Restoring Focus require you to remain in the rune at all times.

Speaking of which... There was no reason to limit the morph effect to be only applicable when standing still and asking for enemies to come perforate our lateral orifices. This ability was just fine the way it was way back when it still used to be cool. With this update you should've finally made the thing move with the caster. The fact that the effects wore off after 8 seconds of leaving the rune was a big enough a drawback. Other classes get self buffs that last 20 seconds, and they can zap and zip about the battlefield as they want. The fact that rune focus gave you meaningful magicking regen on the run was one of the few saving graces of the class. But no... that would have meant we were not the red headed step childs of ESO that the other classes can use as a punching back. So that had to go.

All in all... So an utter failure. Not only did you not listen to the the people who play Templars, you appeased those who do not by nerfing us, and failed to make any meaningful change. And you did not deliver on teh two biggest key issues - movement and meaningful synergy. The Templar class has no synergy at all. And crappy resource management. So after months and months of constructive suggestions, hundreds of posts offering feedback on dozens of threads, you manage to come up with nothing. At all.

So, thinking about all those hugely touted big improvements you had planned for the Templar, and the promises of delivering class balance, all I can think of is hearing Gordon Ramsay say:

Troneon

Ashamray wrote: »

Channeled Focus morphs should work not only in circle! This game is about moving, sprinting, dodging! If you want make us stand, give real purpose to stand inside small circle!

Worst change, how the hell you expect us to just stand still for entire fights?

You just made that skill worthless...

Reorx_Holybeard

A little underwhelmed by the changes even without considering the nerf to BoL.

• Radial Sweep -- Don't tease us with a 1m extension. Needs a much larger range or more damage/utility.
• Radiant Ward -- A 1% increase seems pointless for this skill. How this skill works really needs to be changed completely or replaced with a different one.
• Backlash -- I don't understand the change here but it seems like a huge net loss for this skillline (from 45% extra damage to 22%). Did you change the healing portion of Purifying Light as well (looks like the duration decreased from 7.2 to 6.0 sec)?
• Enduring Rays -- Its unclear from the patch notes but does this ability actually increase damage for the affected skills now?
• Balanced Warrior -- No mention of adding spell damage to this passive?
• Vampire’s Bane -- Did you just increase the DoT duration or the duration and damage? Typically it seems whenever you increase DoT duration you actually lower the DoT damage ticks.
• Unstable Core -- So is this just another Magicka Detonation now? If so it needs more damage as it doesn't have the built-in increase when hitting multiple players (6000 compared to MD's 10000-20000).
• Breath of Life -- I'm not sure why you'd make such a significant change to a class defining spell. I wouldn't mind if we got something significant in exchange for it. I liked this skill for 4-man PVE content as if I can keep from being damaged (which is a lot of the time) then one BoL will heal the entire party.
• Healing Ritual -- The changes really do nothing for this skill line. You should remove the cast time and change the skill completely to something we'd use.

There's a few nice changes there but they seem relatively minor overall. I can finally use Focused Charge safely, no more stun on PS is good for PVP but was nice in PVE, the change to Focused Healing is probably the biggest (and nicest) change.

Thinking about how this all might change my playstyle for solo/group PVE and I can't think of any positive change. I'll have to adapt to a weaker BoL and probably won't bother using Backlash the little I did use it. Thinking about vMSA runs and there's no change that really helps me unless I completely change my playstyle (which might be a good in the end).

NewBlacksmurf

I don't understand any and all the healing changes to the class?

=especially where you removed 1 person from the morph to not heal 3 ppl.
ZOS, I personally play this class because I like to heal and enjoy having better heals than the healing staff.

If you're going to continue to reduce the healing effectiveness of Templars, please add hella benefits to any and all healing staff passives and actual healing staff skills.

Any heal that requires the group to stand close together is useless as we cant target heal....change all healing to at least 40 as far as range and do not reduce the effectiveness...I understand in PvP things may work differently so in dungeon, trial, or PvE mode...add a group bonus or something IDK but please stop reducing the effectiveness of healers overall.

Tanks are on the axe list it seems....if you continue the game will just be all DPS and self heals. if that is what you want...adjust the classes and DPS skills to heal and create shields.

THanks

GhostwalkerLD

Hymzir wrote: »

Before this thread popped up I spent considerable time writing up my thoughts on the Templar changes for a post on another thread. But since this is the "official feedback" thread I am just gonna repost the whole thing here since this issues is really important to me, and I am teetering on abandoning the whole game if this goes south. So if I do not make my stand here and now, and these changes go through... Well Let's just hope they wont.

My thoughts on the Templar changes:

Utterly predictable failure from ZOS - instead of fixing the Templar, they made, as people predicted, few token concessions, meaningless changes and nerfed BoL to appease the ganking QQ crowd.

Here's what I gotta say about these changes

Aedric Spear:
- Blazing Spear (Spear Shards morph): This morph now displays a hostile red telegraph if it is cast from enemy Templars.

Oh brilliant, it's already slow as hell and people have been dodging it all the time, supposing that you actually manage to predict where they will run so as to even have a chanve of hitting someone with it. Obviously it needed (along with the slew of past nerfs on damage) to be made more obvious so that poor sneaking NB's can avoid it more easily.

Focused Charge: This ability and its morphs are now more responsive, and will no longer cause you to become stuck in the charge animation.

Yeah, I kinda want to see that in practice before believing this one. Since after all it is exactly the same thing ZOS has said several times before. And note that the way it's worded "more responsive" as compared to what? How it was before, but still less so than other gap closers?

Piercing Javelin: Increased the range of this ability and its morphs to 28 meters from 20 meters.

Well at least it might reach an enemy every now and then. Was funny since wrecking blow, a melee hit seemed to have 15 meter range, that a ranged one would have 20 meter. 28 meters is much better, but it's still a pointless skill since it costs a ton and is fairly weak

Puncturing Strikes: This ability and its morphs no longer knockback and apply crowd control immunity to the nearest enemy on the final hit; instead, they now snare that enemy by 70% for two seconds.

I'd be happy about this if this was not something we have been telling ZOS for over a year now! And after all this time of them claiming it was fine, they finally realized just how stupid it was. Still... no changes about it's aiming, which sucks, the fact that it's a channel which sucks, and the fact that Both Piercing Spears and Burning Light passives are useless against shields... Yeah... not gonna be celebrating about this one either.

Radial Sweep: Increased the radius of this ability and its morphs to 6 meters from 5 meters.

WOW! What an utterly meaningless change. This has gotta be the most pointless change in all of the Patch notes. (Or so I thought, not yet having read the other Templar changes...)It makes a completely useless Ultimate to be still completely useless ability! WOW! The ineptitude just keeps growing.

Radiant Ward (Sun Shield morph): Increased the shield strength bonus from this morph’s shield to 6% per enemy hit from 5%.

And it keeps getting better! WOW - a whole 1 percent more! For the morph most people won't use anyway. No change in it's duration, no change in it's strength, great job of fixing nothing!

And no changes on any of the passives... yeah. A string of expletives on that.

At the very least you should've given Balanced warrior a Spell damage buff - hell the Sorc got Weapon damage buff to go with their spell damage passive many moons ago. At the very least you should've done the same to Templar. Ditch the spell resistance bonus if you have to, it is weak and meaningless anyway. The meta of this game is focused around damage and Spell and weapon Damage are kings in all all considerations. And Templars need a Spell damage buff passive to be on any kind of equal footing with Sorcs as a caster class.

Okay on to Dawns Wrath...
Backlash: Increased the maximum damage limit for this ability and its morphs by 25%, but decreased their damage stored amount by 66%. In addition, this ability and its morphs can no longer be reflected.

I suppose this has some meaning in PVE, but is meaningless thing in PVP. But not all skills need to be useful in PVP, as long as some are and vice versa. And also LOL wut? Increased it's damage by 25% but decreased it's damage by66%? What?

Eclipse: bunch of stuff

Still mostly useless in PVP and vastly less useful than Wings. Besides anyone who is even remotely familiar with it just purges or breaks it, so it's not really useful as such. Except against some PVE targets...

Even so, I would be happy to leave these things for their niche uses, even though they are some of the most over engineered skills in the game only situationally useful, if the rest of dawns wrath was rock solid. Unfortunately it's not. There is only one skill of any meaningful value in the whole tree and it's jeezusbeam, and it too has been nerfed almost to the ground. All the other dawns wrath skills, including the Ultimate, are tricksy, slow, weak and way too costly to actually use.
Enduring Rays:

This passive ability now only increases the duration of the Sun Fire, Eclipse, and Nova abilities.
Increased this passive ability’s bonus to 15/30% more duration at Ranks I/II from 10/20%.

Cool! Another Templar passive that I have no reason what so ever to invest skill points in. There is close to zero point in using any of those skills, so why then use the passive either? You could have put some sort of resource management boost here, like having a Dawns wrath ability slotted gives you resource management buff. The kinda passive all the other classes seem to have...

Nova:

Reduced the effects and visual light intensity for this ability and its morphs.
Increased the damage from the Supernova and Gravity Crush synergies by 16%.
Increased the activation range for the Supernova and Gravity Crush synergies to 3.5 meters from 2.5 meters.

The reduced glare is welcome - too bad it's the only meaningful hanges. Increasing synergy damage? Really? The number one point of most Templars is that how much they suck as anything else but pocket healers, and what you decide to do in your game where every class was supposed to be able to fill every role? You increase Templars stamp of indentured servitude by boosting their group support skills.

Even, with the boost, it's still far too costly for what it brings to the table, and in PVP, only situationally useful in covering breaches. Meteor still serves the same purpose for less cost and with better passives to boot.

Radiant Destruction: Fixed an issue where the execute bonus damage from this ability would not apply if multiple Templars were channeling these abilities on the same target.

The only meaningful change for the whole tree, and it's not even a buff or a tweak but a fix. And it's something that should've been patched up a long time ago. But since Templars aren't Sorcs - who cares about it when our skills are bugged.

Solar Flare: Increased the damage for this ability and the Dark Flare morph by 12%. The damage of the Solar Barrage morph remains unchanged.

So.. let me get this right... after months of us arguing this one needed a buff, and having heard for months how it's damage was in line with other skills and didn't need any change. You suddenly decide it needs a damage buff? Well, thanks for that I suppose. Not that it makes a licking difference, since there is still no reason to slot it. It is too slow to cast, too slow to reach the target and tends just to be reflected back to you if it hits anyone with a shield or who happens to be a DK. (And with your planned changes to nerf reflects, you no longer can re-reflet the reflected attack... whoopdie doo.)

Also, Sorcs just refresh Harness Magicka and thank you for the magicka, while Night Blades dodge it or vanish. So yeah... What this skill would have needed was less obvious animation, and faster flight time, or some sort of proc to compete with crystal frags. I mean a sorc can be on defensive and spam shields and then suddenly retaliate with an instant frag to the face that stuns. and then either bolt away or execute your ass. That is a versatile and powerful ability. The damage increase is nice, and welcome indeed, but the skill is still just too weak, and fails miserably to the versatility provided by it's Sorc counterpart.

Vampire’s Bane (Sun Fire morph): Increased the damage over time duration for this morph to 9 seconds from 7 seconds.

AT this point the seizures of laughter are starting to get really painful... The useless morph of a useless skill gets a useless tweak. WOW. That one sure required an all new low of missing the point!

9 second DoT in this game is meaningless. With animation cancelling and the kind of spamming the good skills enable, you can finish a rotation of 4 skills twice during that time and still have time to spare. You can execute some of the attack, skill, bash combos over three times while that thing is burning. If there were 12 slotted abilities on each bar, then yeah maybe, but we only have 5 + 1 Ultimate. And there is no way in hell I am going to waste a slot on a skill that has a DoT time of 9 seconds while doing measly damage I can out DPS with a simple Crushing Shock light attack spam. And once again with much better passives to boot.

And that is in PVE. In PVP it is even less useful. No one is going to let it burn for 9 seconds. That thing is gonna get purged immediately. And it's till slow and the initial hit is about as impactful as a throwing shredded tissue paper at someone with your off hand.

And I have tried to use it - a lot. In many different combinations. But the bottom line is always the same - It's not as useful as basic spammable than just about any other option. Even when not going with a Destro staff, the undaunted skill Trapping Web is more useful ability to slot than this. The only use for the skill is in it's Reflective light form and that in grinding mobs while doing PVE leveling.

And this coming from a guy who really wanted to like this skill. *** used ti long into the Veteran levels because it fit my character so well. And als olooked cool. The Major prophecy it grants seemed like a no-brainer. A basic spammable, thematic to my Templar with a nice snare and a powerful buff? What's not to like. Well, it's weak as a skill can be, useless in PVP, the ancillary effects of other skills are much better than the snare it provides, and since Cyrodiil is such a ganker haven swarming with stealthed Night Blades, I consider it suicidal to venture beyond walls of a keep without having Mage light on. And with that, goes the last reason to use Sun Fire or any of it's morphs.

And let me just end this section by noting that Restoring Spirit needs a buff. It is in no way comparable to the resource management passives other classes have. And since most Templar skills are hideously expensive as is, it only manages to get our casting cost a tad closer to the base line. It was a high time for you guys to address this issue and buff Restoring Spirit, but... you blew it. Again. As usual.

And the tragedy continues with Restoring light...

Breath of Life (Rushed Ceremony morph): This morph now only fires one additional secondary heal, previously two heals.

Are you out of your frigging minds!?!? So the only thing that we templars had, you decided to nerf? Well, I suppose it could have been worse you could have reduced it's power, which you no doubt will eventually do since NB gankers will keep QQ about it until you cave in.

If you are going to cut 25% of it's healing power then at least cut it's price down by 20%. It's expensive as hell already, and nothing annoys quite like when NB players QQ about your OP self heal and the you go to Cyrodiil and die because the Smart Targetting of the skill decided to heal other players and not you...

This nerf is a deal breaker for me. BoL is the bread and butter of the class, and beyond stooping down to mutagen spam, the most consistent way to get AP in Cyrodiil, since we sure as hell can't kill anything. At least we were able to keep others propped up and thus get them to kill our enemies for us. But no... You really are doing everything you can to drive out Templar players from the game.

Cleansing Ritual:

Increased the healing from the Purify synergy from this ability and its morphs by 12%.
Fixed an issue where this ability and its morphs could be used to cleanse projectiles that were mid-flight. It now matches the behavior of the Purge ability.

Why? I get the last one, since that is a bug. Put what on earth for are you buffing this one of all skills? I suppose it makes for longer sieges, and easier breach defenses but, I fail to see how this skill really needed anything done to it. It's jsut the kind of random meaningless change that you are notorious for. You snuffle the deck for no real reason, changing things in arbitrary fashion and end up with just a new set of issues.

Focused Healing: This passive ability now grants you the Major Mending buff while standing in your own Cleansing Ritual, Rune Focus, or Rite of Passage area effects and for up to 2/4 seconds after leaving them at Ranks I/II, instead of granting you 15/30% more healing to allies standing in your own Cleansing Ritual, Rune Focus, or Rite of Passage.

Another example of these arbitrary changes the results of which are hard to predict. On one hand it's cool we finally get Major Mending, after all it was tad daft that the "best healers" in the game didn't have access to this buff. But then you take away the non typed healing bonus for healing people standing in your Cleansing Ritual, which has been a key part of good Templar healing play from the launch of the game. We also lose potential synergy since this is now replaced with a typed bonus, so wont' stack with other sources of said bonus.

You also make us even more sitting ducks by forcing as to sit in our circles of power or lose the buff in a flash. And this change, when a key thing we as a class wanted was more mobility, you make us ever more rooted in place. I guess the poor NB's QQ too much about having to chase us down. So thanks ZOS ,such a good idea to make us even more static. I'm sure they are happy about this change.

Healing Ritual: Reduced the cast time for this ability and its morphs by 25%, and reduced the healing done by 25%.

Yet another meaningless change. A crappy skill with a way too long cast time is still a crappy skill even if you marginally lower it's cast time while also lowering it's power. No one will still use it.

Radiant Aura (Restoring Aura morph): This morph now grants you and your allies the Major Intellect buff upon activation, as well as having an increased radius as a morph effect.

Another change that completely misses it's mark. A pointless buff is pointless if no one ever uses the skill. Compared to Repentance this one is so weak. And gaining major Intellect is meaningless since Templar resource management sucks anyway, and we are constantly drinking potions and have the buff up pretty much constantly as is. But I suppose the classes that are not dependent on potions for resource management are happy to get all the major buffs for free... From their Templar Servants. And besides, other classes get comparable boosts to their resource management via passives, and Templars need to slot an active ability just to compete? Oh yeah, that is so balanced design that it dazzles with brilliance.

Restoring Focus (Rune Focus morph): This morph now grants you the Minor Protection buff, in addition to granting the Minor Vitality buff as a morph effect.

And the trend of meaningless changes continues it's triumphant procession! Minor Protection is such an insignificant buff to a skill no-one in their right mind is going to use anyway, that it borders on insanity. Stamplars have no need for the skil on their limited bars, and no Magplar can take a pass on Rune Focus since our resource management sucks so much. So buffing an already a weak morph with a really weak effect and thinking it matters is just ludicrous.

Rune Focus: Revised the tooltips for this ability and its morphs to indicate that the Major Ward and Major Resolve buffs will stick to you for 8 seconds after leaving the rune, while the morph effects of Channeled Focus and Restoring Focus require you to remain in the rune at all times.

Speaking of which... There was no reason to limit the morph effect to be only applicable when standing still and asking for enemies to come perforate our lateral orifices. This ability was just fine the way it was way back when it still used to be cool. With this update you should've finally made the thing move with the caster. The fact that the effects wore off after 8 seconds of leaving the rune was a big enough a drawback. Other classes get self buffs that last 20 seconds, and they can zap and zip about the battlefield as they want. The fact that rune focus gave you meaningful magicking regen on the run was one of the few saving graces of the class. But no... that would have meant we were not the red headed step childs of ESO that the other classes can use as a punching back. So that had to go.

All in all... So an utter failure. Not only did you not listen to the the people who play Templars, you appeased those who do not by nerfing us, and failed to make any meaningful change. And you did not deliver on teh two biggest key issues - movement and meaningful synergy. The Templar class has no synergy at all. And crappy resource management. So after months and months of constructive suggestions, hundreds of posts offering feedback on dozens of threads, you manage to come up with nothing. At all.

So, thinking about all those hugely touted big improvements you had planned for the Templar, and the promises of delivering class balance, all I can think of is hearing Gordon Ramsay say:

Was going to type my input change by change.. but you said it way better.

Especially that change to Breath of Life. What. The. Fluffing. Fluff. So, we're "the healer" class (that's what everyone says when we complain that we can't tank or DPS... "You're a healer! STFU you shouldn't be able to do damage/tank anyway! L2HEAL"), we even are the only class with a dedicated healing/support class skill line.

Apparently you, ZOS, don't want us to be any better at healing than any other class with a Resto staff.

My main is a templar. I've played since early access and I've sat through nerf after nerf after nerf after nerf of a class that has been universally scorned as 'broken,' 'weak,' and underpowered. The only thing we were ever decent at, was healing. Breath of Life, the ONLY instant-cast heal in the game, was and is a class-defining skill.

Fine. I've supported this game for a while, I've enjoyed it, and the friends I've made here, despite your actions. But if this is a preview of what you really want the Templar class to be, I'll be just another lost subscriber off to find another MMO to play and support.

I'll give it until the release of the Thieves Guild DLC, and then I'll make my decision.

*sigh*

Ffastyl

I have to say... I was expecting a buff to active defenses. Templar would get some form of evasion or a Stamina morph to a class heal. What we got was a number of offensive improvements. While nice and undeniably buffs... they missed the mark. While some abilities may be more useable, like Binding Javelin and Biting Jabs, Templars are still missing a solid form of active defense. We have an armor buff (Rune Focus), a wonky reflect (Eclipse), an underwhelming damage shield (Sun Shield), and class healing only accessible to Magicka or Hybrid builds. Having some ability grant Major Evasion or be replaced with one that does would help. Bringing back Miss Chance debuffs in a weakened state would be a helpful alternative, allowing Templars better crowd control against, well, crowds. A 20% or 15% Miss Chance would be acceptable, the former to match Major Evasion or the latter to compensate for the AoE debuff nature.

Either way, Templar has lacked the defense I enjoy since Update 7, when the Damage stacking started to hit critical mass. The active defenses were removed and/or crippled over the course of Update 6 and 7.

Strong inclass healing has compensated for this... but that healing is only strong for Magicka builds.


I'd write a more detailed post, but it's too soon to formulate some objective thoughts and suggestions and reiterate on them. For now I needed to put down my immediate feelings on the matter.

AriBoh

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

AriBoh

Wait, wait. I wasn't finished. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Morathras

THE *** GCD ON TOPPLING CHARGE IS STILL THERE!!!!!!

acw37162

So now every class except Templar has access to major sorcery and major brutality in its class trees, just not Templars.

I'm not a video game balance expert, at all but three out of four classes have access to most important DPS buffs in the game be they magic or stamina based on except Templars.

So now Dragons knights have at least some mobility with leap and major sorcery and brutality in a class skill they were most likely already using freeing up a load out spot, joy

Dread_Guy

Morathras wrote: »

THE *** GCD ON TOPPLING CHARGE IS STILL THERE!!!!!!

leaves*

imredneckson

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for the Templar. Please let us know how you feel about the changes we made to this class, if you ran into any bugs, and any other feedback you'd like to give.

Thank you for the nerfs now we Templars will be as useless as magicka DKs in PvP. Time to reroll AGAIN to the only TWO viable classes left.

Hiero_Glyph

I think ZOS forgot to include the stamina morphs for Templar in the patch notes. Please add them next update.

timidobserver

@Wrobel

Thanks for the undocumented buff to healing ritual.


EDIT: To see this buff put on a Xivken costume and turn up your volume. Then use healing ritual. Listen closely. This makes the skill useful now.

Mos-De-Atmo

It's been said but I too was hoping for a bigger improvement to Radiant Ward. The bonus to Blazing Shield is obviously the damage so I always got the impression that Radiant is supposed to be the more "defensive" of the two options. The extra shield strength on hit attempts to address this but in situations where the shield is gone in one hit (often) this is of no benefit.

What about making it act a bit like that new item set (can't remember the name) in that it gives you a damage shield of perhaps lower value but it refreshes every 2 seconds for 6 seconds. Another way to go might be to simply increase the shield value for the Radiant morph, to 40% or 45% or something?

tinythinker

Initial feedback for @Wrobel and team.

Taking stock we have...

Many clearly good changes:
-Puncturing Strikes trades knockback for snare (I and other asked for this -- thanks)
-Enduring Rays passive modified to not be a nerf to some Dawn's Wrath abilities (I and others asked for this -- thanks)
-Focused Healing passive no longer requires my allies to be inside the radius of Cleansing Ritual to get increased healing from me
-more damage with Dark Flare
-increased Javelin range (I asked for that, so thanks)
-fix for Focused Charge, assuming it works this time (many asked for this, thanks and fingers crossed)
-buff to Nova
-buff to Vampire's Bane

Some changes that may be good or may be kind of a net zero:
-changes to Backlash
-changes to Eclipse
-changes to Healing Ritual

Some changes that are too small to matter:
-changes to Healing Ritual (yeah, it's on two lists)
-changes to Radial Sweep
-changes to Sun Shield
-changes to Radiant Aura

A change that has ticked a lot of Templars off:
-nerf to Breath of Life

This is based *solely* on patch notes and my experience as a Templar. I will post a follow-up comment or edit this one once I get more playing time on the PTS.

Despite how pessimistic many players are, I do welcome the clearly good changes and the possibly good changes. I am underwhelmed by the changes too small to matter.

For the underwhelming/too small changes, Radial Sweep has always been fine for tanking and solo play. It isn't a priority for me. If you want to buff it or make it better, my old recommendation stands.

The Empowering Sweep morph works for being tanky in PvE on large pulls because of the damage reduction, so I use it when fighting large groups of mobs while solo adventuring. I just collect them and use Empowering Sweep, Blazing Shield, Puncturing Sweep. You can go all day like that because of the low ult cost with as many trash mobs as you want, the more enemies the better. I wouldn't use it in PvP. It also works if you're an actual tank in group play.

Crescent Sweep is meant to be a small burst+dot focusing on enemies in front of the player (33% more damage to enemies in front of the caster on the initial hit). It's more like a really strong AoE regular skill than an ultimate but that is probably tied to it being relatively cheap. Adding in something like a debuff to those caught in the +33% strike would be nice though and might make it better for PvP as an opening hit. Either major breach (significantly reduced spell resistance) since it does magicka damage or both minor breach+minor fracture (moderately reduced spell + physical resistance) would be nice. Just pop Cresent, hit your morph of Puncturing Strikes, and enjoy. Either that or up the damage on the initial hit to those standing in the frontal cone area of effect to 50%.

As for Sun Shield, again, my prior suggestions are still relevant. This ability I would like to see made more valuable, and is more important to me on the priority list than Radial Sweep.

Increase shield strength to 40% of caster's health for Sun Shield and its morphs. Double the damage on activation for Radiant Ward while either Stunning or Knocking Back those caught in the blast of the activation. Add Disorient (same as Stun but also ends if target takes damage) or Knock Back to enemies in range of the AoE damage effect when Blazing Shield explodes.

Radiant Aura? I don't know. I never use it. Never did. Not sure why I would.

Healing Ritual still has that cast time, so, lowering the cast time a little but also lowering the healing done doesn't make it more attractive. I get having something that snares you as a penalty for how good the healing is, but, this game isn't forgiving of a lack of mobility. This ability could be: made into a great choice for healer/tanks (it was almost there in it's current version on live, i.e. 2.2x), have protection/mitigation added for regular healers so they don't die casting it, or turned into a mobile AoE HoT but with some debuff to damage for a certain period of time after casting.

As for the most controversial change, I can understand there are balance and gameplay concerns. If Templars have an easy button on healing and also get some damage buffs, maybe some of you devs think something has to give. OK, let's go with that for the sake of argument. Yet, Breath of Life still beats both Healing Ritual and morphs as well as its twin Honor the Dead. Its instant cast and lack of snare make it hands down a better choice than Healing Ritual, and the fact that it still hits more targets than HoD means that A.) it's more likely to heal the caster and B.) it helps the group more. Unless a player is having serious sustain issue, there is no reason to slot HoD.

If you are going to keep the changes to BoL, which I can live with if it comes to that, you still need to do something good and something clever with HR and HoD. Maybe if HoD gives back 80%-90% of its cost, or gives back 60% in half the time it currently takes to do so, it would be more attractive since either change makes it super cheap to cast. Or, maybe HoD keeps the current rebate size and recovery time but tosses bigger heals. Those are simplistic ideas with no real attempt at being creative (I'm in a hurry to get back to the PTS). I am sure you devs can do better. But as things stand, why would anyone want to trade more/faster healing for less/slower healing?


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EDITED: FURTHER OBSERVATIONS
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OK, well, after trying a few things, the changes to Eclipse have good intentions and an OK start but miss the mark. The problem with Eclipse has, from the very beginning, been about cost-benefit.

When it *only* worked on single-target spells and you could spam it on multiple targets in PvP, you still had to hope one of them was a magicka-based caster who you just caught off guard in mid-cast of a single-target spell. In PvE, many bosses were immune and why slot Eclipse on the off chance you might run into a single-target spell spamming trash mob? So people complained.

Changed were made that let you be healed for each reflected spell in one of the morphs (Total Dark), but, the same problems listed above still applied.

More changes were made so you couldn't spam it. Above listed problems became worse.

And now...?

Now, it works against all projectiles, spell or physical, but not all single-target spells. That sounds like a fair trade, but it isn't. Unlike other reflective abilities, it only works against a single target that you have to be aware of and that you must target via line-of-sight. Plus, people can Break Free with no penalty and gain crowd-control immunity. So, you could have it reflect every ability in the game, which would be OP for PvE, but in PvP it would still be a bust. Literally. Get it?

Sooo... as I've repeatedly suggested, please, whether Eclipse reflects single-target spells, or all projectiles, or abilities that begin with the letter R, add in a penalty for Breaking Free. Have the target take 2.5-3x the normal end of bubble damage so that there is a reason to not just Break Free and gain CC immunity. Make it a strategic decision, not an obvious and risk-free choice.

As for the changes to Unstable Core, I am rewriting this part a bit. After more testing it's more useful than I thought it was, for PvE at least, but the mobs often don't stay close enough for the AoE to hit each other. Taking time to tag multiple mobs is more work than just hitting them and killing them with other abilities. Maybe add something like a small snare, or a loss of some modest amount of magicka and stamina upon detonation, or a short stun upon detonation, or something.

SeventhCelestial

Before we start re-rolling characters let's remember that this is the PTS, and changes can happen from this.

Heh.

Anyways, I cringed when I heard Templars got Nerfs, not buffs. I mean. What. . .? What the actual what?

Baconlad

Undo the nerf through battle sport just for health based shields...congrats you've just buffed the shields, they could also use a minor buff anyway to shield strength. Blazing shield should absorb 10k minimum with even 20k health. Also increase the shield duration, 6 seconds is bad. Biggest issue would be health stackers in cyrodil would be getting like a 20k shield with 10k NON CRIT damage AOE. So...but the shield, nerf the damage, make radiant last longer or some

FizzOnly

TL;DR: Delete your Templars.

Alabyn

"Focused Healing: This passive ability now grants you the Major Mending buff while standing in your own Cleansing Ritual, Rune Focus, or Rite of Passage area effects and for up to 2/4 seconds after leaving them at Ranks I/II, instead of granting you 15/30% more healing to allies standing in your own Cleansing Ritual, Rune Focus, or Rite of Passage"

This is great! No longer do the DPS need to stay within the purifying circle for me to give them the major mending 30% buff. Only I need to stay in that circle now.

This, combined with the improvement to essence drain giving major mending after heavy attacks is a nice boost the Templar healing.