Official Feedback Thread for Templars

Solariken

My desperate plea for my long-beloved Templar:

Templars need conceptual improvements (class synergy, survivability, and mobility) more than any other class, yet my overall impression from the first round of PTS is that they received more direct nerfs than any other class. I'm not sure how the developers arrived at some of these changes, but others are pretty nice. However, I believe Templars need some crucial adjustments to address some major PvP survivability issues. Here are some very conservative ideas with simple implementation suggestions:

1. Minor Expedition (+10% movement) buff granted at all times while an Aedric Spear ability is slotted. [add to Burning Light?]

This buff would be completely unique to Templars, would fit nicely into the "crusader of light" persona, and would go a long way toward relieving serious mobility woes for both flavors of Templar. It would be a very mild counter to Sorcerers and Nightblades running around with Major Evasion in addition to their powerful escapes. It has also become more important to add this in response to Dk's receiving a true class gap closer.

2. Minor Evasion (+10% dodge chance) buff granted for 4-8 seconds upon activation of a Dawn's Wrath ability. [add to Prism?]

This buff would also be completely unique to Templars, and would in a small way make up for the fact that Templars otherwise have to soak all of the damage thrown at them, whereas other classes have pretty reliable ways to escape damage.


Here are my thoughts regarding changes currently in the PTS build:

1. Sun Shield (and morphs) is still not very viable. It certainly needs an increase in strength, as it is destroyed by any normal DPS ability like Surprise Attack. I feel very strongly that this ability (and the others that are % of health) should be exempt from the Battle Spirit nerf. Would you consider increasing the duration to 8 seconds so that it can at least be used a little more pre-emptively? Also, perhaps replace the %based damage component of Blazing Shield with flat damage equal to Burning Light, since Burning Light already scales nicely, and Burning Light can have its chance to proc on top of it. Overall this suggestion equates to bigger shields but less damage for tanks, but more damage and weaker shields for DPS.

2. Healing Ritual (and morphs) is still in bad shape. To incentivize using a heal with a cast time, would you consider adding a small, short-duration HoT (~25% of initial heal, ~5 seconds) to all morphs? This would at least make it synergize better with other healing abilities and become a viable situational alternative to Healing Springs.

3. Puncturing Strikes should apply the snare on the first strike, such that there is a better chance of landing subsequent strikes especially in PvP. This ability has always missed far too often despite a decent cone size and is too vulnerable to lag. The snare would be much more sensible on the first hit.

4. Radial Sweep needs a radius of 8 meters and the damage should be increased to be comparable overall to Flawless Dawnbreaker (the non-Daedra damage amount). I also believe the duration of the DoT and secondary effects should be increased to 8 seconds for both morphs and that Crescent Sweep should deal physical damage and include an AoE knockdown. I would certainly be willing to concede a cost increase for this ultimate to receive these changes.

5. Eclipse is still too punitive to the Templar with very little reward for using (even strategically). The hard counter is supposed to be purge/cleanse, not break-free. I don't have an objection to allowing the enemy break free IF they receive additional punishment for doing so, such as a hefty damage increase from the explosion or a debuff like Minor Maim for a few seconds. I do still wish this skill would have become a self-targeting ability, such as a suggestion I made recently:

Proposed change to the base skill:

Eclipse
Surround yourself with four lightless spheres that intercept any harmful projectiles for 4 seconds. Each projectile intercepted causes a sphere to explode, dealing X Magic damage to nearby enemies. (8m range)

Proposed morphs:

Total Dark
Surround yourself with four lightless spheres that intercept any harmful projectiles for 4 seconds. Each projectile intercepted causes a sphere to explode, dealing X Magic damage to nearby enemies and healing nearby allies for X.

Unstable Core
Surround yourself with four lightless spheres that intercept any harmful projectiles for 4 seconds and grants Major Evasion (20% dodge chance) for 4 seconds. Each projectile intercepted causes a sphere to explode, dealing X Magic damage to nearby enemies. While slotted, you gain Minor Expedition (10% increased movement speed) at all times.

Additional thoughts:
This suggestion gives Templars a defensive ability that is analogous to Reflective Scale but fits more with the Templar niche. It addresses some Templar survivability problems and adds some needed utility (if you troll my thread with BoL hate I will ram my javelin right up your [snip]). Total Dark might be attractive for PvE tanks and PvE/PvP healers, while Unstable Core might be attractive to stamplars and magicka jabplars.

6. Focused Charge still bugs out and the animation is still VERY punitive. The animation needs some adjustment at the point of impact - this is what players are actually complaining about, not a "global cooldown." We are prevented from capitalizing on the CC of Toppling Charge because of it - the target often finishes their break free and starts rolling or retaliating before you can even start your next attack. That's really screwy. Critical Charge or Shield Charge both allow for WAY more uptime on your target.

7. Radiant/Restoring Aura is a really, really bad skill due to potion conflict. Repentance is a really, really great skill. I'd like the see the Major Regen buffs removed from the base skill and Radiant morph, and I'd like to offer a suggestion for this ability:

Restoring Aura
While slotted, you gain Minor Fortitude, Minor Endurance, and Minor Intellect, increasing Health, Stamina, and Magicka Regeneration by 10%. Activate to share your blessings with nearby group members, granting Major Fortitude, Major Endurance, and Major Intellect (+20% to all regen) for 15 seconds.

Radiant Aura
While slotted, you gain Minor Fortitude, Minor Endurance, and Minor Intellect, increasing Health, Stamina, and Magicka Regeneration by 10%. Activate to become filled with righteous wrath, granting Major Sorcery (+20% spell damage) and Major Brutality (+20% weapon damage) for X seconds.

Repentance remains unchanged.

This suggestion gives three really great options for the skill that the Templar can choose from depending on his/her style of play. This also gives in-class alternatives to Entropy and Momentum, which opens up many more build options. You know how much we players love our build options!

[BONUS suggestion] Backlash should allow the casting Templar to maintain visibility of stealthed/invisible targets while the effect is active. It doesn't make a ton of sense that the only hard counter to Nightblades is a Nightblade skill (Piercing Mark). I think this addition is very reasonable and makes sense considering the target is bathed in penetrating light. Backlash is a very short-duration ability, but this may give incentive to using the ability.

I think I can adjust to the other incoming changes listed in the patch notes. Keep up the good work ZOS, but we need a little more love in the right places. I really hope you consider my suggestions.

DeeBunny

As a Templar who's played casually since launch (taking the last few weeks off b/c I was getting bored), I am totally underwhelmed by these changes.

The feedback for months has been 'templars need some love' (synergy with passives, mobility, a full rework of some active skills, etc.), and I had the impression that this was finally going to happen. I'm disappointed because the only change that appears to be a response to this feedback is the puncturing sweeps & radiant destruction changes (thank you, btw).

Please reconsider your changes before going live (and relegating the class to the same issues it's had for another quarter). Based on what I read today, I didn't see anything to get excited over, and I doubt I'll be returning to the game (as I'd hoped to do).

timidobserver

Enduring Rays: A passive should never negatively impact an ability. It currently negatively impacts the new morph of Unstable Core. There is no benefit in increasing the duration of this ability. Either add a benefit for the duration of this ability being increased by the passive, or make this passive not apply to the new Unstable Core. This is my most critical suggestion. You absolutely need to do this.

Sun Fire: Make this ability provide the Major Prophecy as a bonus for having it slotted rather than only upon ability use just like Magelight.

Radial Sweep: This is an ultimate and unlike soul tether and most other ultimates it is a cone not an 360 degree AoE. Make the radius 10 like Dawnbreaker or make it an 360 degree AoE.

Healing Ritual: Please do something else with this heal other than keep reducing the cast time as you've done the last 2-3 times you've tried buffing it. Have you been into the new trial you created or PvP lately? This heal is not useful for high mobility combat.

Dyride

Am I wrong in thinking that Restoring Focus is now a huge buff skill for tanking or stamplar PVP?

I don't have the PTS downloaded yet, but the changes for Focused Healing to give Major Mending should effect stamina heals.

So Restoring Focus will give Major Mending+Minor Vitality+ Major Resolve/Ward+Minor Protection. Couple that with Empowering Sweep+Minor Maim from Deep Slash+Defensive Stance and you have incredible mitigation.

Farorin

Too many people have already said all the specifics, in general though, I am still unhappy with the state of Templars even after the changes, especially considering the negatives seem to outweigh the "positives".

Joy_Division

bikerangelo wrote: »

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... ... we'll see.
• 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. Not sure what you guys were thinking but I've tried it and it's awesome.
• 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.

Normally I dislike it when people quote long quotes, but I literally agree with every single word in this quote.

******

After 1.6 and this patch, it is impossible for me to believe anyone on ZoS's staff plays competitive PvP on a templar.

I understand templars will be better offensively and I do appreciate that. But they took a MAJOR hit to their ability to withstand damage and still have zero for mobility. I don't care if it was deemed inapproriate for purifying to cleanse meteors and projectiles, it was something templars relied on, it was part of the meta, and even with it nobody seriously accused tempalrs as being OP. Now thats gone and nothing has replaced it. We have a tiny shield (worse now that everyone will invest a zillion points in the anti-shield champion star), zero mobility (for real now with the focus change), the radial "ultiamte" still resembles a normal skill, raidant aura still moot because of potions. K, I get it, I can jab-jab-jab-jab-jab-jab-jab-jab. Fine by me, since that's what I already did. But I'd imagine other people more interested in doing templar stuff will find themselves on the wrong end of a lot of Cyrodiil bounty quests.

Dyride

Dyride wrote: »

Am I wrong in thinking that Restoring Focus is now a huge buff skill for tanking or stamplar PVP?

I don't have the PTS downloaded yet, but the changes for Focused Healing to give Major Mending should effect stamina heals.

So Restoring Focus will give Major Mending+Minor Vitality+ Major Resolve/Ward+Minor Protection. Couple that with Empowering Sweep+Minor Maim from Deep Slash+Defensive Stance and you have incredible mitigation.

Just to put that in perspective, that is +30% Healing done +8% Healing received and +16% mitigation from one skill (Restoring Focus).

Soris

Increasing sun shield strength to 40% means 5% buff while in Cyrodil. Not worth it.
Instead..
Remove the battle spirit effect from health based shields and heals. And put diminishing returns on damage you deal with blazing shield after like 35k health so that the stacked max health builds will not be demigods. That's how you fix this skill.

Zedh

Thank you so much for Reflective Light and Vampires Bane buffs in terms of PvE dps, this is exactly what I was hoping for and I love you for the changes.
Also thanks for looking into the execute bug. Finally our raid group isn't limited to one magicka templar at a time anymore, this bug really caused some dispute and misery during the past months.

I'm really not fond of the Channeled Focus change however. Magicka Templars have by far the worst magicka sustain out of all magicka classes. To use this skill in certain situations is our only key to some sustain, without sacrificing damage on the equip.
I'm thinking especially about Maelstrom Arena. You designed the arena in a way that forces the player to move around almost all the time, which is great in general, but now I just can't think of any way to even remotely sustain my magicka, since sticking around in a tiny circle during the fights is just not an option. Please don't force templars to wear cost reduce jewelry while every other class can sustain it's magicka without it.

DKs get resources for placing an ultimate, Sorcs switch to overload and NB skills are so cheap, they wouldn't need a sustain mechanic and have siphoning attacks on top of that. The only thing that we have is this one skill that helps us out in non-healer-supported situations. Limiting the magicka regen to this tiny circle can be considered a major nerf to magicka templars in MA and PvP and they really aren't known to have a tremendously easy time in either of those situations.

Akinos

I feel like not alot changed. They fixed some skills, buffed dark flare and broke/nerfed other skills. Not really feeling these changes, ZOS.

Forestd16b14_ESO

What I don't get is despite all the changes all Templars still do is jab spam.....

SemiD4rkness

Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »

What I don't get is despite all the changes all Templars still do is jab spam.....

It snares now so it doesn't gice almost free cc immunity.

Joy_Division

Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »

What I don't get is despite all the changes all Templars still do is jab spam.....

Because our changes amount to 1% increase to a shield nobody uses, 1m increase to an normal skill masquerading as an ultimate, and a nerf to the class's signature ability.

But we can still jab-ab-jab-jab-jab.

For now...

SemiD4rkness

About the changes I feel like qith the ''buffs'' to the qorst ultimate in the game and worst shield of the game they show how much they care about us templars.

david.haypreub18_ESO

A 1% increase?

A 1m increase?

Are you really asking us to comment on these as serious proposals for fixing terrible skills? I guarantee you this will not fix them.

I can only conclude what seems to be the consensus, that the team assigned to fix Templars has no idea what they are doing, and has not for some time.

My feedback and suggestion is to reassign the team tasked with fixing the Templars, and buy a pack of hamsters to type randomly across keyboards. They will undoubtedly do a better job than the current team.

Memo to developers: no class will be effective in PvP as anything other than a pocket healer if it has no AoE CC, no mobility, no source of Major Brutality or Sorcery, a weak shield, and a bunch of slow-casting and channeled abilities. We've known this for close to two years now.

Seriously, this is quite terrible.

Faulgor

acw37162 wrote: »

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

YES! Exactly! That's what I've been saying!

Why does every class except Templars now have access to the most important buff for a DPS? Not only that, but their buffs are so good.

Sorcerer: Critical/Power surge heals you with crits based on your damage, which is absolutely amazing.
Nightbalde: Sap Essence not only heals you, but does AoE damage. Power Extraction is a bit lackluster though.
Dragonknight: Igneous Weapons lasts for freaking 30 seconds, buffs allies (!), and with Mountain's Blessing you not only get Major Brutality but Minor Brutality as well. Absolutely incredible for every conceivable role.

On top of that, some classes have amazing crit buffs (DK: Inferno; NB: Assault tree passives) and regeneration buffs (Sorc: Daedric Protection, Capacitor; DK: Battle Roar; NB: Refreshing Shadows), whereas Templars have fluff all except for the 10% crit damage with an Aedric Spear ability slotted. Why do Sorcs have -5% ability cost and -15% ultimate cost on top of all the other amazing buffs they have, and Templars only have -4%?

There have already been great suggestions here, and I don't want to repeat them. But it seems pretty clear that Templars lack
- In passives
- In synergy between skill lines and passives
- In active buffs
- In active defensive abilities (Blinding Flashes, please)

But all of this seems like wasted breath. If you didn't change anything after all the feedback you got over the last months, why should you change it now.

I have a Redguard Stamina Templar that I wanted to play as a Thief for this DLC. Sounded really exciting, and I was looking forward to the changes to make a stamplar build that would work well with bow and dual wield. There is absolutely nothing here that would make that work. I'd rather play any other class for stamina build than a Templar.

Or, I suppose, you want us to use the new Clever Alchemist set to get our buffs as Templars from potions. Funny.

blabafat

Instead of some stubborn, short comments that serve no purpose in this thread, I'm going to give my point of view, and be as objective as possible.

Most of what I have to say is relevant to PvP.

Main changes and my thoughts:

Puncturing Sweeps - There is a snare now. This is a good change because it helps solve the problem that most people had with this ability - aiming it. However, the stun it had previously was bad by itself. I think it was great in catching people with CC that could be followed with an ultimate or another set of jabs. An idea is to add the stun back, and make the snare occur after the CC is gone.

Radiant Destruction - This ability can't be dodged - rightfully so. If I recall correctly, it was stated that it being dodgeable was unintended. In PvP, the damage MIGHT need to be toned down a bit. Since they increased the damage per tick a couple patches ago, it can tick for really high amounts. This may be a frowned upon suggestion.

Eclipse - This can now reflect physical projectiles. This is a great change. Unfortunately, this ability doesn't reflect ALL single target spells anymore (only projectiles). I don't think that was a necessary nerf, as it's another redundant CC that can be easily taken care of via purge or cc break.

Javelin - Range is now 28 meters. That's really far. I don't think this change is unbalanced. The magicka morph of this ability gives up to a 40% damage increase based upon the range at which it's casted. No change was made to the magicka morph(I believe). It's very weak compared to the stamina morph. Adding extra damage to a CC ability doesn't make sense. The ability is not used as DPS; it's supposed to be used as a CC skill. The stamina morph, providing a 3 second stun after the knockback, is far superior.

Crescent Sweep and Blazing Shield As stated in previous comments, the changes made to these skills are insignificant. Blazing shield will not all of the sudden become viable with the small change that was made. The same goes for Radial Sweep. It is nothing compared to similar ultimates, such as dawnbreaker or soul tether, which cost a little more, but they deal way higher damage and have addition effects.

Focused Charge - This ability was "fixed." Unfortunately, based on my experience on the PTS so far, only part of the problem was addressed. In live, Focused Charge has multiple problems. After landing it, there is a slight delay compared to other gap closers, and you can't use any abilities for about .5 seconds or so. When looked at side by side, the difference is very apparent. The other problem (the most noticed one) occurs after casting the ability. Your character will be locked out of his/her bars and will not be able to cc break, dodge roll, or cast any abilities for an extended period of time. This can be dealt with by using a consumable, however, that doesn't change the fact that it is a nuisance. THIS particular problem was the one addressed in the PTS ( to my knowledge ). The third problem involves not being able to use the ability at all. As far as I know, this was introduced in Orsinium. When this problem is occuring, your character will start the animation of the ability when you attempt to cast it, but the ability will not actually play out. Your character will be in the same spot, as if nothing happened. If you press it repeatedly, you'll see the starting animation very fast. All of these problems should be addressed.

Breath of Life - I see a lot of Templars complaining about the change that was made with this ability. It heals 1 less player than it did before. From a PvP standpoint, this change was necessary. Breath of life was far too powerful, especially since heals go through LoS. The amount that it heals was unchanged.

Solar Flare % Morphs - Damage was increased by 12%. The damage on dark flare was already great. This change is not too drastic. Both morphs hit harder. Nothing too special.

Vampires Bane - About 2 seconds added to the DoT. This is a great change, and combined with elemental expert and magic damage being merged in the CP system, this ability is more than viable in 1v1 situations. However, it still won't take a place on my bar in open world, as a single target, ranged projectile can be easily countered. This is a well balanced change.

Focused Healing Passive - This change is absolutely amazing. Instead of increasing the Restoring Light healing by 30%, this passive now grants major mending. That means the 30% healing buff applies to all heals, including those from Resto staff or stamina abilities. This offers a buff to stamina Templars and incentive to using Resto staff abilities.

Rune Focus - The main change that caught my eye:

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.

If I'm reading this correctly, it states that you MUST be INSIDE the circle at all times to receive the buffs that each morph provides. When I logged onto the PTS today, I was still receiving the magicka while being outside the circle. The magicka gain lasted 18 seconds, just like it does on live. I hope this isn't a bug, as forcing us to be immobile doesn't make any sense. Nobody will use the ability if he/she is forced to stand in a circle that has a 1 meter diameter.

Radiant Aura - This ability now grants major intellect. This is a nice change on paper, however it still defeats the purpose of potions. There is no reason to use this morph if you are using potions. Until the effects that are given upon cast are changed from being major buffs, this ability will be used by few.


Nova synergy got a buff.
Purifying light got a buff...? Not sure lol. Still can't be crit?
Purifying ritual heals for a little more.

Those are alright, I suppose.

DisgracefulMind

I'm extremely disappointed that, instead of fixing the problem of healing in Cyrodiil, you decide to nerf an entire class heal. Please rethink this decision. Just because a player who is completely specced to heal can outheal a 1vXer's damage, does not mean the class needs a nerf. Reduce healing in Cyrodiil, I don't think there are many people who would be upset with that choice, but do not nerf Breath of Life. There is just no reason for it.

I just don't understand how you can give Sorcerers such powerful heals now, yet decide to butcher Templar heals. Makes. No. Sense.

iamnotweakrwb17_ESO

Radial sweep
Needs an 8m radius.

Radiant Ward (Sun Shield morph)
1% shield boost? really?

Rune focus
Needs its radius expanded to 12m given that the player is now expected to stand on it permanently to receive the morph benefits.

Focused healing
Love the change as it is presently a nightmare to get players to stand on my runes or purifying ritual just to heal them properly.

Radiant Aura
I use this morph extensively in PvP. Most people don't use it as pots can do the same job. The intellect buff is appreciated.

Healing Ritual
I'll be blunt. Nobody uses this skill now and nobody will use it with the proposed changes. The ability has 3 core problems. ALL three need to addressed to make it a viable healing ability.

a)It has a long cast time.
b)It snares the caster 50%
c)It has a 12m range

PvE combat in this game requires high mobility and quick escapes from damaging effects. PvP combat adds additional layers of stuns and interrupts.

I'll outline common occurrences with this ability so that you developers can understand the "real world" application of it.

*A group member requires healing. You begin to cast the ability and he moves out of your range before the cast finishes. He then dies moments later wondering why he wasn't healed.

*A group member requires healing. You begin to cast the ability and the boss dumps a big red circle of death on you forcing you to cancel the cast or die. Your teammate then dies moments later wondering why he wasn't healed.

*You're in PvP and a teammate in range is getting beat on and requires healing. You begin to cast healing ritual but are interrupted, losing your cast, and your teammate dies.

All these things happen so frequently it renders the ability utterly unreliable as a healing source. This is why BOL is the heal of choice for all templars. BOL is instant cast, it has a 28m range and it doesn't snare you! We don't need healing ritual to become another breath of life. We need it to become something useful. Templars lack a heal over time. A heal over time would be useful!

Backlash
Will still be useless if it can be purged.

Eclipse
Will still be useless if it can be purged or broken out of via CC break.

maxjapank

blabafat wrote: »

Rune Focus - The main change that caught my eye:

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.

If I'm reading this correctly, it states that you MUST be INSIDE the circle at all times to receive the buffs that each morph provides. When I logged onto the PTS today, I was still receiving the magicka while being outside the circle. The magicka gain lasted 18 seconds, just like it does on live. I hope this isn't a bug, as forcing us to be immobile doesn't make any sense. Nobody will use the ability if he/she is forced to stand in a circle that has a 1 meter diameter.

What!? I thought that having to remain in the circle for the buffs from the morphs was always the case. The Major Ward and Major Resolve only lasting for 8 seconds after leaving the circle was always the case. A bit short. But you could always run back over your circle and get another full 8 secs. Not very mobile. But you could still move around the circle area.

But the Magicka regen from Chanelled Focus always required you to remain in the circle. You didn't receive the magicka regen once you left the circle. If this wasn't the case, then I've been benefiting from maigicka regen that I didn't realize I was getting.

Magicka regen for 18 seconds sounds amazingly too good to be true. I'd settle for even the 8 seconds like the unmorphed buffs. If only.

timidobserver

blabafat wrote: »

Purifying light got a buff...? Not sure lol. Still can't be crit?

I tested this tonight. It is technically a buff, but depending on how much Magicka you have, you have to be putting out fairly decent dps to get the full affect. I had to be putting out around about 17-20k dps to get the full affect depending on whether warhorn was up or not.

dodgehopper_ESO

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:








I'd post something, but for this I'll just say 'I Agree'. I'm frustrated as well, though I try not to get quite as hostile here, but I agree. The only thing I'd like to add is that until they remove the CC problem from Eclipse it'll never be worth using. I have no idea what ZoS was trying to say regarding Backlash, its just unclear but sounds like 1 step forward 2 steps back if I'm understanding properly. The lack of good cc on the Templar class is glaring, and everything you said about resource management @Hymzir is spot on. Like DK, Templar has no mobility to speak of, but unlike DK our skills actually DEMAND that we stand in place and take a beating. If any class should have extra tanky skills and passives it should be Templar more than anything because of the simple fact we are only allowed to turtle our way around the battlefield, channeling and slow-casting and self-snaring and sitting in our tiny little glow-circles. There were a couple of good changes but I definitely think they have more work to do. I'm in agreement with you as well on the matter of Rune focus, I don't understand that morph they are offering, and I can't imagine why (nor have I ever) that skill only functions in its tight little confines, particularly when you compare to the awesomeness of Boundless or Razor Armor.

kaalmoth

the more I think of it the more I see it as a missed chance of really be creative. Who still got the guts to erase a skill/passive to replace it with something totally different?
I think my biggest disappointment so far goes to rune focus, followed close by sun shield "buff".
The patch will be released in nearlly 2 monthes on PS4, by the time it gets out, some games like the division, or dark souls 3 will be out or closed to be out... So yeah I was expecting a little more to keep me playing.

Kaliki wrote: »
I'm also not quite content with the Backlash buff.
They increased the possible damage by 25 %, but I would rather have it scale with weapon/spell damage and be able to crit.
Scaling-wise it's a very boring skill, requiring you to stack only magicka to do decent damage.


I don't get how the skill works, so I don't know if it's a plain buff or a nerf with the "but decreased their damage stored amount by 66%". If you get it I'd like it if you explain it to me plz

All in all I think the patch provides fixes we asked ages ago, and massively lacks creativity. It hurts, especially when we compare to DK changes. Btw is sun fire the only skill that wasn't change to give the crit bonus when slotted?


on a side note, can we still use eclipse on a winged dk so he can take the reflected spell, or was it hit also by the reflect nerf?

Chelos

I never thought I would do this but what the hell:
OK @ZOS_ALL IF YOU DON'T WANT TEMPLARS IN YOUR GAME JUST REMOVE THEM AND BE DONE WITH IT
I am so fed up with you just trashing this class bit by bit.
Yeah, I get it you love to play NB's and SOR.

Damned, I hoped I'd feel better afterwards...

BalticBlues

ESO Templar 2014 - not the fastest, but robust and fit for all terrains


ESO Templar 2015 - redesign for better PvP balance


ESO Templar 2016 - redesign for best PvP balance


ZOS, you really think it will be fun driving PUGS through dungeons with the new car?
What happens in vet dungeons like Darkshade with the bosses toxic air?
25% less receivers for BOL? The blame will be on us drivers, not on the crippled car...

Sorry, I feel betrayed. The 2016 Templar is not anymore what was sold to us.
Therefore, ZOS, please offer all Templars a free class change. Enough is enough.

Eas007

Ok, read the patchnotes last night before I went to bed and slept on it a night. Or rather lay wake on it a night
Here's my 2 cent.

*Aedric Spear:
- Blazing Spear: I understand the red circle but the animation should be speed up then. To easy to avoid as it is, we'll hit noone in PvP if they get additional warning.
- Focused Charge: Well overdue!
- Piercing Javelin: Good call although the dmg may be a bit higher too.
- Puncturing Strike: Finaly listened to the community, gg! @ZOS_GinaBruno : Does it actualy hit dmg shields now? Or am I still forced to take WB over Biting Jabs?
- Radial Sweep: Nice to increase the range, but still to low imo. At least for an ulti. If you don't want to increase the range further at least increase the dmg part then.
- Radiant Ward: Useless buff. If you wanna fix the shield let it scale of max magicka/sp or max stamina/wp instead of hp (maybe even from the highest stat so both morphs are available to both magplars and stamplars). But as it is now both morphs are practicly useless.

*Dawn's Wrath:
- Backlash: Can it crit now?
- Eclipse: Looks good on paper.
- Enduring Rays: A passive that decreases your dmg output? Glad you had some attention for that. But as it stands, it still lowers dps output and I still won't waste 2skillpoints on that.. Sun Fire lasting longer means less dps.... Don't know why that should be a good thing....Again for a passive class ability? *sigh*
- Nova: Looks good.
- Radiant Destruction: Needed fix.
- Solar Flare: Not complaining here.
- Unstable Core: so we get a curse now?
- Vampire's Bane: Same dmg on longer duration is dps loss, why the nerf? Not needed imo.

*Restoring Light:
- Breath of Life: Unneccessary and uncalled for. If you do go through with it (who am I kidding) at least lower the cost to compensate having to cast it more.
- Cleasing Ritual: So you nerfed the only skill templars realy had going for them in PvP? gg! Again uncalled for.
- Focused Healing: Finaly some healing love for stamplars. Listened to the community here and it looks great.
- Healing Ritual: No opinion.
- Radiant Aura: Not worth the skillpoints. Buff gets overriden by potion. Fix this pls!
- Rune/Channeled Focus: So all templars are crying for more mobility and you force us to stay in one spot? Let the effects follow us for a limited time. Give us Maj Exp buff. Give us some mobility don't strip the little mobility we have!!!
Loving the Min Vit on Rune Focus though. Think it will help out stamplars in the healing departement.


* Things you forgot
- Balanced Warrior: add SP bonus pls!,
- Restoring Spirit: buff the cost reduction to 3-6%. Will put us more in line with other classes.

Sleep724

How bout making burning light proc when using any class or weapon skill?

Islyn

Morathras wrote: »

Skills are still not good
BoL nerf was not needed.

This.

Also please stop with Healing Ritual. Just delete it and make something else.

Islyn

Akinos wrote: »

I feel like not alot changed. They fixed some skills, buffed dark flare and broke/nerfed other skills. Not really feeling these changes, ZOS.

And yet Dark Flare us supposed to be a 1.1 second cast but the first cast takes 1.7 seconds and only subsequent casts are 1.1.

Lettigall

Stamina templars need some damage buff and mobility. Stamplars have one of the worst DPS but there are no damage buff anywhere. Changes to jabs are awesome but outside PVP it won't matter. You can't CC bosses anyway.

Javalin needs Mayor fracture and/or Mayor Breach. Jabs need damage boost, it's a channeled skill that requires aiming. It should hit harder. Make damage to closest enemy 170%!