Official Feedback Thread for Templars

BalticBlues

bubblebuttboss wrote: »

so lets wrap this up, the changes to the classes damage was all good and long overdue, the changes to our defense, and our sustain are the biggest nerfs templars have seen since beta. With the changes to the other classes, particularly sorcs, there is no reason other than shards, and repentence, to run a templar.

Thank you @bubblebuttboss, your entire post is brilliant and the wrap up is spot on.
Gina should hang your post over Eric's desk.

I also want to bring your attention to this fine new Elloa video:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=bzoaVPioE-E
(This video has a dedicated thread)

Elloa says that the damage numbers got so high in this game now,
that healing and tanking are not a priority anymore for vet players,
doing insane damage is all that is required to master the content.

As a healer for vet players, Elloa feels reduced to a resource generator.
Because of this, Elloa now prefers healing dungeons for beginners.
I feel exactly the same way, and this is why I prefer healing PUGs.

What is ZOS doing in this situation?
Do they bring the insane damage down again to a healthy level? No.
Instead of limiting the insane damage, ZOS limits the BOL healing.
This way healing will be more difficult again.

Result: While the healing of veteran dungeons could become a little more difficult,
the healing of beginners and PUGs may become very hard or even impossible,
possibly damaging the last content that is really fun for healers in this game.

Once again, instead of addressing the real problem, ZOS nerfs what was not broken.

BlackEar

How I imagine the devs clicking in on this thread

Tonycheung

BalticBlues wrote: »

bubblebuttboss wrote: »

so lets wrap this up, the changes to the classes damage was all good and long overdue, the changes to our defense, and our sustain are the biggest nerfs templars have seen since beta. With the changes to the other classes, particularly sorcs, there is no reason other than shards, and repentence, to run a templar.

Thank you @bubblebuttboss, your entire post is brilliant and the wrap up is spot on.
Gina should hang your post over Eric's desk.

I also want to bring your attention to this fine new Elloa video:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=bzoaVPioE-E
(This video has a dedicated thread)

Elloa says that the damage numbers got so high in this game now,
that healing and tanking are not a priority anymore for vet players,
doing insane damage is all that is required to master the content.

As a healer for vet players, Elloa feels reduced to a resource generator.
Because of this, Elloa now prefers healing dungeons for beginners.
I feel exactly the same way, and this is why I prefer healing PUGs.

What is ZOS doing in this situation?
Do they bring the insane damage down again to a healthy level? No.
Instead of limiting the insane damage, ZOS limits the BOL healing.
This way healing will be more difficult again.

Result: While the healing of veteran dungeons could become a little more difficult,
the healing of beginners and PUGs may become very hard or even impossible,
possibly damaging the last content that is really fun for healers in this game.

Once again, instead of addressing the real problem, ZOS nerfs what was not broken.

Agree. I as a healer, I only use three healing skill (breath, rapid regen, healing ward). Others are for buffing teammates and attack myself. Why? Because the veteran content is basically a dps race. If you cannot kill the storm atronach at molag kena fight, too bad. It is just a dps race, nothing to do with your skill lol.

Husan

BlackEar wrote: »

How I imagine the devs clicking in on this thread

I think my last post is what the majority of templar players would agree upon is needed for the templar class, and is therefore a nice TL;DR / summation of this entire thread.

Husan wrote: »

@Wrobel, @ZOS_GinaBruno quick and concise. Before TG launch include the following to templar changes:

1. empowering sweep morph of crescent sweep deals physical damage
2. biting jabs apply snare on first hit instead of last
3. make rune focus a self buff



Easy fixes. Can be done in a day.
The first two would put stamina templar in a much better place, and rune focus change would help all the drama from "our house" to settle down. If the vision Wrobel has for templars is being an immobile class, punishing people if they enter our house, then we can adress rune focus later and make it non-movable again once templar house builders are a viable playstyle. Implement these 3 simple changes and tell us you are gonna give us some more love come dark brotherhood and I guarantee you will make a lot of templars very, very happy.


For dark brotherhood, I suggest the following:

1. replace enduring rays with a different passive. Do not try to tweak this passive. It does not fit in the dawns wrath tree with the skills we have there.
2. replace or tweak light weaver passive
3. tweak or replace master ritualist passive
4. make balanced warrior passive balanced
5. revisit eclipse and it's morphs
6. buff solar barrage morph of solar flare
7. rewrite the code for toppling charge if you are unable to fix it
8. stamina morph for toppling charge
9. adress how sun shield works in pvp to make it usable again. Either: a) scaling off of stamina/magicka, b) ignoring battle spirit 50% shield reduction, c) make health a viable stat (very hard to do)
10. readress radiant aura morph of restoring aura. It should not give the exact same buffs as a tri-stat potion does

I can give more feedback and more ideas on all of these issues if you want. I know it's not gonna happen in TG, but I sure hope it's something we can look forward to in DB.

With that said, with over 2000 posts in this thread a recognition from a developer would be nice. Just do a quick /lurk so we know you are reading this. Thanks!

Lore_lai

@bubblebuttboss

I agree with everything you've said except one thing - I find that being able to return stam for your team-mates is very useful in PvP too, not just PvE.
Taking that away from Templar as some kind of twisted compromise to buff our defenses/sustain would probably be the last straw for me. Why should we compromise on our class re-balance?
Have we really become that desperate for any kind of positive attention that we would be willing to trade some of our defining skills?

Zenimax should balance the class where it's lacking for that purpose alone and not give with one hand and take with the other. Especially not take away something unique.

I can't cloak, or cast a freakin big shield on myself, or streak, or get resource back on ult, or have major expedition from class skills, or, or... - fine - but then I should have some unique trait too that is built-in my class.

Plus, I've become so disillusioned with Zeni Templar balance that I feel that if they did something like (all classes have this neat skill to give stamina back to others), they would in turn "buff" Templar with something like (0.5 m range increase on Radial Sweep, or - Dark Flare cast time reduced by 0.01 seconds but now you can't move at all while casting it for balance purposes).

Cinbri

Since seems mostly nothing will change here is my last wishes:
Fixes:
1. Add viusal effect to Focused Healing(yellow glowing hand) or for Restroing Focus; while Channeled Focus proc glue glowing for mana restore.
2. Make Sweeps and Glory heal through damage shields.
3. Make Sweeps and Glory heal able to crit.
4. Fix Jabs to able to proc Siphon.
5. Fix Rite of Passage to be uninterruptable by Deep Breath.
Buffs:
1. Allow to pick up own Shards.
2. Remove char disable while channeling Rite of Passage, due to revamped Focused Healing its not fair anymore.(I don't understand why it wasn't done)
3. Increase cap of Eclipse for 2 targets and make Total Dark to restore stamina.
4. Give magicka source of Major Evasion(maybe as Light Weaver that works same as Focused Healing).

Animal_Mother

It's really starting to sound to me that ZOS has dug themselves into a hole that they cannot get out of.

Tanking and healing were once roles that Templars excelled at and both have been greatly diminished. Templars haven't been great at DPS and our abilities reflect that. At the cost of our defense and tanking ability, we gained an execute. To fuel the execute I have to res staff. To protect myself, I have to outheal those trying to hurt me so I run light armor to boost those heals. Because I'm in light armor, I need even more heals. To boost them, I need to stand in little circles on the ground. And the end result will still be DPS conplaining that my heals are too good to bring me down and my execute is too good. Resulting in a 5-25% reduction in heals along with a nerfed execute.

I can run stamina and have better mobility and gap closers that work, but then lack the big life saving emergency heal, the awesome execute, the in class protection.

With all the damage being output in the game, I really don't think I'm playing Elderscrolls Online anymore; it's more like Elder Battlefield Online. Seriously, if we cannot two shot an enemy what good are we now? Todays tactics are run and gun, no real thought to defense and healing.

I was doing dailies in Wrothgar last night and a player asked for heals at Nyx because they were a tank. I believe there was silence at the request.

Soris

Probably not going to happen but i cant help myself, i always wanted this. Can we make jabs instant hit ability and change the animation into some badass move please? Maybe reduce the damage/healing to balance it.

SeptimusDova

Briza

OMG the dinosaur is alive !!!!! Welcome to our sorry state of affairs!!!

the first post in this said and I will quote it here for dissection...

admin
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.



Please let us know how you feel about the changes we made to this class

Zenimax you had 69 pages of Feelings and Thoughts
and by ignoring them you are Insulting all of the posters and disregarding their "Feelings"

so how are they and their wallets supposed to feel?


if you ran into any bugs

lol the same ones they never left for 1.5 years a lot of great ideas were put forth on what could be done in place of this bugged spell.You had no problem replacing blinding flashes.Does ZOS lie to us? And after the way our class has been treated how do we know if we would even get an honest answer to that?



and any other feedback you'd like to give.

Honestly you cannot handle feedback without the mods censoring it or banning people.That is the truth. That is my feedback and you asked for it. So mods an Admin asked for my feedback and she outranks you.

We never asked for anything more than what we were at 1.6 nothing else. Only thing we wanted fixed was toppling charge so we would not have to use Invasion.Everything else was window dressing.

I Feel like I was deceived and that is why me and my household all four accounts have unsubbed. Briza who has a cousin named Brita " The Water Filter" Summed it up nicely. He was late for the show but he did a bang up finale.

This is money that is not coming back.

Hey Templar's let us start a stream called "We Are Templars"

TipsyDrow

Animal_Mother wrote: »

It's really starting to sound to me that ZOS has dug themselves into a hole that they cannot get out of.

Tanking and healing were once roles that Templars excelled at and both have been greatly diminished. Templars haven't been great at DPS and our abilities reflect that. At the cost of our defense and tanking ability, we gained an execute. To fuel the execute I have to res staff. To protect myself, I have to outheal those trying to hurt me so I run light armor to boost those heals. Because I'm in light armor, I need even more heals. To boost them, I need to stand in little circles on the ground. And the end result will still be DPS conplaining that my heals are too good to bring me down and my execute is too good. Resulting in a 5-25% reduction in heals along with a nerfed execute.

I can run stamina and have better mobility and gap closers that work, but then lack the big life saving emergency heal, the awesome execute, the in class protection.

With all the damage being output in the game, I really don't think I'm playing Elderscrolls Online anymore; it's more like Elder Battlefield Online. Seriously, if we cannot two shot an enemy what good are we now? Todays tactics are run and gun, no real thought to defense and healing.

I was doing dailies in Wrothgar last night and a player asked for heals at Nyx because they were a tank. I believe there was silence at the request.

When an MMO makes tanking and healing to much of a pain in the rear, or makes everything a dps race thus making healers and tanks basically obselete instead of using tactics and strategy that MMO dies a slow painful death. ESO will be no different. The vision of the combat team now versus at launch is vastly different and dare I say......detrimental to the long term health of the game.

SeptimusDova

Tipsy Spot on !!!

Ffastyl

Damage over the past 7 months has been increasing uncontrollably and our defensive tools have been taken away. All that's left is to out damage the glass cannons or get out of the way. That's why mobility is so important to everyone.

I... I'm just going to play something else until ZOS can address the blunder of Update 6.
I'll drop the 3700 hours I invested into ESO over 2 years and move on.

SeptimusDova

@Ffastyl

Yes power creep and uncontrolled DPS due to CP. And because hubris is strong ZOS will not address what they were initially told about CP accelerating both of the above.

Zheg

SeptimusDova wrote: »

@Ffastyl

Yes power creep and uncontrolled DPS due to CP. And because hubris is strong ZOS will not address what they were initially told about CP accelerating both of the above.

It's not just the CP, it's also the itemization. IC gave us powerful assault, spell power cure, and molag kena undaunted. TG will let you stack alchemists on TOP of those if in a group and you can still fit in 5 piece vicious death. It was clear when trials first came out and almost the entire run was devoted to dps checks rather than mechanics that combat in this game is meant for damage and damage alone. They just don't know what they're doing. They used to justify the vet level increases every 2 months as "players wanting to feel more POW!erful" and I think they're still under that false impression. I don't want to be oneshotting everything and having that be the only viable option for gameplay, whether pve or pvp. I don't care how hard dark flare hits, I spend 5+ hours pvping everyday and for the majority of the time the lag is bad enough that using that skill usually results in my death. I've played all four classes extensively in pvp and though I love my templar, it is by and large the most frustrating class to pvp with simply because of the derptacular mechanics of our skills and how they function in lag.

On Live right now, there is so much bombard spam going out that even when I hit purify and nothing but purify I'm STILL rooted in place. And now templars will be getting the shaft more than any other class with the rapids nerf which is our one means of mobility survival if not a stamplar running shuffle. We will see yet MORE bombard next patch because of the meta, and have less mobility and healing (cue fasalla's guile in every major fight). It's almost comical how utterly oblivious @Wrobel is; he probably legitimately thinks these are fantastic and exciting things.

Cinbri

Couple days and we will see what final patch will bring.

Zheg

Cinbri wrote: »

Couple days and we will see what final patch will bring.

We're not lucky enough for it to bring wrobel's reassignment or termination. I know what City State Entertainment is bringing me soon though.

vyndral13preub18_ESO

Ffastyl wrote: »

Damage over the past 7 months has been increasing uncontrollably and our defensive tools have been taken away. All that's left is to out damage the glass cannons or get out of the way. That's why mobility is so important to everyone.

I... I'm just going to play something else until ZOS can address the blunder of Update 6.
I'll drop the 3700 hours I invested into ESO over 2 years and move on.

What is funny gw2 a game that doesn't have healers or tanks with their last expansion realizing that a pure meta based only on fast damage, making all gear choices and play styles uniform, is boring and trying to move away from it. And a game with healers and tanks moving into the only dps meta.

skarvika

Joy_Division wrote: »

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

@Soris @bikerangelo @Hymzir @timidobserver @tinythinker @david.haypreub18_ESO @dodgehopper_ESO @BalticBlues @eliisra @Zinaroth @AfkNinja @Zheg @booksmcread @nagarjunna @Cinbri @DHale @Husan @MissBizz @Chelos @Deltia @puffy99 @Essiaga @AriBoh @Sallington @Kaliki @SeptimusDova @technohic @Faulgor @Islyn @Alcast @lots of people I missed. I do not and will not claim to speak for you as these are my assessments. If I missed something point it out please. If I write something that makes sense to you, let the Devs know what is here is not a lonely voice in the wilderness.

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.

I'm gonna quote this just to bring attention to it for folks who didn't see it earlier and don't want to read through the whole thread. Awesome post.

SeptimusDova

It is an Awesome post. Those who have been maining a Templar can agree and attest to the slow degradation of our class.Maybe if my production schedule allows for it, I may log onto my Templar for one last day of pug heals before the Templar class is destroyed for good. I will see if I can compose a quick, deep and sorrowful song in tribute to our demise.

Razorback174

SeptimusDova wrote: »

It is an Awesome post. Those who have been maining a Templar can agree and attest to the slow degradation of our class.Maybe if my production schedule allows for it, I may log onto my Templar for one last day of pug heals before the Templar class is destroyed for good. I will see if I can compose a quick, deep and sorrowful song in tribute to our demise.

"A Templar's Last Rites"

Fungy148ub17_ESO

While it's great that ZOS has a vision for what our class should be, i.e. a carpenter, I think it's apparent that our toolkit doesn't have the necessary tools to actually build a house and protect it. So here is what i think could be changed in order to fulfill this role.

A Strong Foundation

Currently, the benefits from standing in our house of runes and rituals simply match the benefits other classes have but at the expense of our mobility. Take for example rune focus which grants us major resolve/ward and a secondary effect. The other classes sources of major resolve/ward are spiked armor, lightning form, and shadow barrier. Spiked armor and lightning form also provide secondary effects in addition to lasting as long or longer than rune focus and allowing you to move with the effect. Shadow barrier doesn't last as long but it has the benefit of being a passive that doesn't need to be cast explicitly.

Now one might argue that the secondary effects of the templars rune outpaces the benefits of the other abilities (although I don't believe this to be the case) but even if so, are they strong enough to restrict you to standing in a tiny circle? Movement is incredibly important in this game as a form of damage mitigation and resource sustain that in order to give it up the benefits need to be strong.

I feel both morphs need to share a form of defense (in addition to ward/resolve), and then have another effect distinguishing them in order to really justify sitting in it (the magicka restore for one and something else for the other). This shared defense could be something such as evasion, or copying the effects of restoring focus to channeled focus and giving restoring focus another effect.

Basically I feel forced to use channeled focus in order to make up for the lack of sustain from passives or other abilities, so it feels like an inferior armor buff with no other effect. I suppose if we had improved sustain in our passives then the existing morphs would be strong enough, letting us couple more sustain on top of that or go the more defensive house route.

A Security System

So now we have a house built, but we need to be able to protect it. Enemies should fear coming close and stepping into our house, and I think blazing shield served this role well in the past. I think this ability has been talked about enough and we are all well aware how pathetic it is in its current state but its important to reiterate that this ability needs to be brought back to usefulness. To me this was the most iconic templar ability for so long and now its been left by the wayside. Something as simple as allowing it to bypass battle spirit would go a long way towards making this a key tool for templars again.

Protection from the elements

We now have stronger defense when in our house, and we have a good ability to repel invaders, but we need a way to contest with those outside of our walls. Eclipse should be able to serve this role, but it just falls flat in its current state. And with purifying ritual no longer purging projectiles its incredibly important that eclipse be brought into line. With an improved blazing shield, the change from eclipse reflecting spells to reflecting projectiles could be a boon, but currently this is just diminishing the usefulness of an expensive, breakable, purgeable, target limited reflect whose saving grace was that it uniquely reflected any single target spell. Not to mention the change to double reflect is removing its usefulness as a scales counter. Many suggestions have been made to how this skill can be improved, I just want to reiterate that improving this skill in some way, be it adding a lingering effect like maim, making it affect multiple targets, etc, is important to templars being able to fulfill the vision for their class.

Other miscellaneous thing

Piercing javelin and it's morphs don't make sense to me. The superior CC option, binding javelin, is useless for a magicka build because their limited stamina is needed for break free/roll dodge, and while useful on a stamina build, stamina templars don't have a lot of things they can dump their magicka on. Making binding javelin the magicka morph would allow it to be useful for magicka and stamina templars as a form of cc. Its damage could even scale from the higher of stamina or magicka to make sure everyone can use it.

As for aurora javelin, I think it should be changed to stamina and given a dot effect that also scales based on distance from the target. Ranged stamina is currently limited to bow abilities and cant compete with melee. Having one class able to include a class skill into a ranged stamina rotation would be very nice. But as it stands right now, aurora javelin is too expensive to be cast as a spammable damage ability, especially if not at max distance, and the knockback is weaker than a normal cc without the benefit of knocking you back like magnum shot.

nagarjunna

If you want to find the Sorc'ror
I know where he is, I know where he is, I know where he is
If you want to find the Sorc'ror
I know where he is
He's pinning another medal on his chest
I saw him, I saw him
Pinning another medal on his chest

If you want to find the Nightblade
I know where he is, I know where he is, I know where he is
If you want to find the Nightblade
I know where he is
He's sitting in comfort stuffing his bloody gut
I saw him, I saw him
Sitting in comfort stuffing his bloody gut

If you want to find the DK
I know where he is, I know where he is, I know where he is
If you want to find the DK
I know where he is
He's drinking all the company rum
I saw him, I saw him
Drinking all the company rum

If you want to find the Templar
I know where he is, I know where he is, I know where he is
If you want to find the Templar
I know where he is
He's hanging on the old barbed wire
I saw him, I saw him
Hanging on the old barbed wire

nagarjunna

Only another 31 pages till the magic 100 pages of being ignored feedback.

Wreuntzylla

Elloa I am a pug group with me for fun!

SeptimusDova

OK I managed to put together some old Tracks I had from several projects that we never finished except for one song I used in Star Citizen Videos.You guys are free to use them in any of your Templar videos! I am putting them on you tube. Maybe music with the feedback will win them over. Daedra like music.

7 tracks total going over our time line as a character

1. Vestige Awakens
2. The dawn of the Templar
3. Duel with Molag Bal
4. Battle Lull
5. The last Battle
6. Starshine Samurai
7. The end is Nigh

Most of these were works I had previously submitted for various considerations and were never works for hire so you can use the poop out of them. This does not apply to ZOS. I still hold Copyright, these are being tendered to my fellow Templars for personal non commercial use.

It is titled Templar Symphony

It is a sorrowful musical rendition of our fate.It is the best way that I can give my feedback to Zenimax.Feedback they asked for.It tells our story, Our journey,our time on Nirn. Heh we were doomed from the start.I put a lot of time into my character and a lot of time into this game.It pains me to see that we get the leper treatment.This I will not forget.

https://youtu.be/NghjAtFXpUw



that is the link to the video as I don't think I can link anymore on this archaic forum site.

The video they are attached to is a black draw screen you can rip from it easy.
at ZOS

I really would like for you to acknowledge that you are at least reading our feedback.It is not good to Yo-Yo on class powers and spells like you have been in the past. This leads to a constant state of player confusion.

puffy99

awesome feedback and posts guys!
get those rusty resto staffs ready because it is going to get ugly in these Vet dungeons...

Dredlord

Cinbri wrote: »

Also regarding Solar Barrage:
when you hit enemy with Dark Flare all enemies near got "flash" visual that symbolize "Trauma" -affected by healing debuff.
When you hit enemies with Solar Barrage you proc on them same "flash", but skill not applying any debuff. So either it should get any debuff or remove this flash visual to increase perfomance.

That flash is from the old method they used to empower the ability, it wasa debuff that made the next ability from any player do more damage. Then they brought in the major/minor debuffs and turned it into a self empower.

SeptimusDova

Dredlord I do not feel empowered. Maybe I need a potion

Wreuntzylla

Ffastyl wrote: »

Same issues PC had after launch: Population is primarily inexperienced. After a year, the majority shifts to experienced players and issues will align across platforms. The only thing a controller cannot do as well as mouse & keyboard is snap pivoting. And controller will always have a one-up on keyboard for freedom of movement (joystick vs wasd).

PC will always have a year of experience over console due to the release date delays and with a lack of third parties to get certified by, PC also gets Updates and patches several weeks prior to console. So, I would not say ESO on console is slower, but rather the population has less experience.

Console players sometimes weave but there is a distinct lack of the light attack-ability combo having unerring consistency no matter what the player is doing. Damage is also not timed to stack as well. In general, the variety of attacks is also less. The top end of console player dishes damage like upper middle PC players. So yes, as a general rule, damage comes much slower on console than on PC. If you play both console and PC you would know this...

It's also not an experience issue. Console has as many hardcore players as PC, including the players that live in Cyrodiil. Console players are also not inherently slower learners than PC players either... I'm not sure what it is, internet connection, console processor or what, but you simply don't find the players that jump rock to rock, sinning for los and light attack-ability-bashing like on PC.

SemiD4rkness

Just your daily reminder that eclipse is still buged and you've done nothing about it.