Advise for nooby Templar

adilesarub14_ESO

I'd like some advise to improve my Templar. While I was leveling him I sort of just bought skills that I thought sounded useful, I didnt really follow any kinda plan and now my skills are all over the place, like having too many points in Crafting. But now that I'm finally getting close to what people consider end game (160CP) I thought I should try and redistribute my skill points. Right now only my heals seem to do anything noticeable, which is fine but I havnt really been doing group stuff yet so still need DPS. None of my damage skills, from my class or weapons, seem to do a lot of damage, with the exception being Radiant Destruction when my target has less than 50% health. Compared to all the other players I see running around who can kill enemies in just one or two attacks I seem to be really lacking. Is that just the nature of Templar abilities? Or am I missing something?

I'd like some advise so that I could be a healer when I start doing group stuff, but also have a decent amount of DPS for when I'm solo. I prefer using Staffs, Sword and Shield, and Two Handed weapons when I fight. My worst offense though would probably be how I spent my attribute points, evenly across Health, Magika and Stamina (thats probably gonna make me look the most foolish.) Also, I know there are plenty of builds I could look at, but regardless of what game it is, I never like following builds, they seem to take all the fun out of it.

AcadianPaladin

To be a templar healer, I recommend you consider the following:

All 64 attribute points into magicka - that is where your healing power comes from.
Light armor. This helps your magicka.
Restoration staff on one bar. This allows some of the resto healing skills.
Destruction staff on the other bar. This allows Elemental Drain.

Tinker around with your skills to see what suits your style but remember a healer should have the following bases covered:
Heals over time, targeted healing, burst healing, assisting allies with both stam and magicka, debuffing foes, enough dps to run solo quests.

Actual slotting of skills will vary among healers but here is what I use and it gets the job done:

Lightning staff bar: Elemental Drain, Blazing Spear, Reflective Light, Purify, Sweeps.
Resto staff bar: Extended Ritual, Rapid Regeneration, Healing Springs, Breath of Life, Radiant Glory.

As I said, not every templar healer will slot the same skills. I even have a handful of other good skills fully developed to slot if for particular circumstances if needed (such as Combat Prayer and Blockade of Storms). That said, my slotting listed above covers the healing tasks and does enough damage to solo/defend when needed.

Choose gear sets that help magicka characters. Remember that anything that boosts spell damage also boost your healing.

adilesarub14_ESO

Hmm, switching to light armor will be a challenge. Also, I forgot to ask, are passive skills worth getting? A lot of them, for both class and weapons, have a lot of +1% or +2% bonuses that dont seem all that useful. Are they?

Shadowshire

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

To be a templar healer, I recommend you consider the following:

All 64 attribute points into magicka - that is where your healing power comes from.
Light armor. This helps your magicka.
Restoration staff on one bar. This allows some of the resto healing skills.
Destruction staff on the other bar. This allows Elemental Drain.
....

Your advice is interesting, but if you put all Attribute Points into Magicka, what will the Maximum Health of the character be? Can a Healer have minimal Max Health -- insofar as the Healer is usually affected by the healing spell(s) which the character casts?

Do you glyph Max Health on any armor pieces? Use Jewelry with Health traits and glyphs? Depend upon damage shields, or abilities which buff Max Health? Even the strongest CP160 food buffs only add 6093 to Max Health, without adding to Max Magicka. There are some two-piece "monster" sets for which one piece will add a substantial amount to Max Health, but a character who has the Healer role might not have obtained them yet.

Shadowshire

@adilesarub14_ESO

Ordinarily, the character "builds" that I've studied assume that the character is at least Level 50 CP160. That seems to be a reasonable assumption. However, the Skill morphs, and the Set weapons and armor (including jewelry), often imply that a character which has that "build" has already been there, done that, and has all the T-shirts.

In practice, given the cost of CP160 Legendary gear (with Legendary glyphs), the player must have already made some critical decisions before committing to making the character "legendary". Building a character is a process that starts with Level 1 (in Cold Harbor), or Level 3 (a veteran player can skip the Cold Harbor opening). So a "build" is usually just an example of the goal for developing a character. Figuring out how to get there is the challenge.

Perhaps a healer can survive with less Max Health than 20K (i.e., 20K after eating a food buff). In my experience, a character for any other role entering a group delve, a 4-player dungeon, or a 12-player trial, with less than 20K Max Health is likely to spend about as much time dead and restoring from Soul Gems as they spend fighting. When either the tank or the healer dies, the outcome is usually a "wipe" for a 4-player party as a whole. Even a tank and DPS characters with 20K Maximum Health are likely to need the support of a Healer in 4-player veteran dungeons and in 12-player Trials. For that matter, from what I've read, each character in a Trial group should have an Ability to heal themselves when that is necessary.

AcadianPaladin

A non-tank character should be fine buffed up on food with about 17-18K health and that is very comfortable for me. I get there by using two 'boosts' to health (one health enchantment on a big piece of armor and another health boost from an armor set bonus) and then using crafted blue food that boosts magicka and health. With some crafting passives, that food lasts 80 minutes and is cheap and easy to make - so there is no reason not to adventure always buffed by it. My healer currently fights with about 18.5K health and I may well trade that down a bit for some more magicka.

A light armor magplar healer's primary defense is her own healing. I normally have two heal-over-time effects active and, when up close, sweeps heals as you fight. I also judiciously use block and dodge roll instead of magical shielding because I find the 6 second magical shields too magicka costly and distracting when stuck in melee and really needed. Using dodge/block frees a slot and keeps me focused on 'reading' the enemy so I block or dodge at just the right time (conserving stamina).

Shadowshire

adilesarub14_ESO wrote: »

Hmm, switching to light armor will be a challenge. Also, I forgot to ask, are passive skills worth getting? A lot of them, for both class and weapons, have a lot of +1% or +2% bonuses that dont seem all that useful. Are they?

For every Skill line: each of the passives that affect an Ability which you want to be available for your character to use, are worthwhile, and you should eventually maximize the rank of each such passive. The benefit numbers may seem low and insignificant. However, the character will potentially benefit frequently and repeatedly from such a passive. So the relative value of the invested Skill Points is recovered throughout the course of playing the game.

• Generally speaking, expending Skill Points to acquire Abilities, Ultimates, and perhaps some morphs, takes priority over expending Skill Points for passives. Nonetheless, there are many passives that a player should unlock, and judiciously increase the rank, before all of the corresponding Skill Line's Abilities are unlocked. Choose one or two skill lines of the character's Class, and choose one primary Weapon Skill line to develop first. Just remember that your character doesn't need to have every Ability in every Skill Line (don't go overboard on the Weapon Skill lines, in particular).
• One priority is the Soul Trap Ability in the World Skill Line, with which you only need the "Soul Lock" passive (the third one). Just use Soul Trap until you can unlock Soul Lock and maximize its rank. Morphing Soul Trap is optional. After Soul Lock is maxed, maintain an adequate stock of unfilled Soul Gems on hand. Then you should not need to use Soul Trap unless your supply of full Soul Gems is not being replaced fast enough by Soul Lock (i.e., your character is dying a bit too often).
• Always maximize the rank of the character's Racial passives as they become available. Armor passives should also have a higher priority, for example, than morphing most active Abilities.
• Recognize passives which have universal effects regardless of whether any Ability in their Skill Line is acquired or used. Two examples are the Fighter's Guild passive which enables a character to intimidate NPCs, and the Mages Guild passive which enables a character to persuade NPCs (they are essential for saving time while pursuing a Quest).
• Some passives with benefits that go beyond supporting active Abilities in the same Skill Line require the character to acquire and use one or more of those Abilities, in order to gain the Skill Line Rank to unlock them. Eventually, if the player doesn't want to continue using the Abilities, then the expended Skill Points can be recovered (for a "donation" to Akatosh). Afterward, the player can re-invest Skill Points in the unlocked passive(s), without also investing in an active Ability in that Skill Line.

Crafting is a useful and profitable aspect of TESO to pursue. However, it will require a significant percentage of all the Skill Points which are available in the game, i.e., for a character to become a Master Crafter. Developing a crafter will preclude spending those Skill Points for other alternatives, such as acquiring Restoration Staff Abilities and passives so that a DPS or Tank character can serve as a "side healer" or backup healer. That said, the strategies and tactics for developing a crafting character are beyond the scope of this discussion. Be aware that playing crafting character(s) can also consume a significant amount of time that the player might prefer to spend doing other things instead, like writing messages on TESO forums.

adilesarub14_ESO

Thats a lot of info I'm gonna need to try and process correctly. I know crafting is useful but I decided Im just gonna work on two schools per character, that should free up a bunch of skill points on my Templar. I guess I'll take another look at the passives and see what I want. Lastly, how much DPS is average for a Templar? Wanna compare to what I'm doing now which I think is only around 2 or 3k

doslekis

If your looking to be a healer role don't worry too much about dps.

Pick one or the other and design your build around that.

If your trying to do more damage then your gear probably needs some work. Do you have a 5 piece set bonus? Jewelry? Weapons? Try and find sets that give you spell crit and maybe penetration and you should see those numbers go up.

Also those 1 or 2 percent passives are worth a lot more than you think.

TheDoomsdayMonster

adilesarub14_ESO wrote: »

I'd like some advise to improve my Templar. While I was leveling him I sort of just bought skills that I thought sounded useful, I didnt really follow any kinda plan and now my skills are all over the place, like having too many points in Crafting. But now that I'm finally getting close to what people consider end game (160CP) I thought I should try and redistribute my skill points. Right now only my heals seem to do anything noticeable, which is fine but I havnt really been doing group stuff yet so still need DPS. None of my damage skills, from my class or weapons, seem to do a lot of damage, with the exception being Radiant Destruction when my target has less than 50% health. Compared to all the other players I see running around who can kill enemies in just one or two attacks I seem to be really lacking. Is that just the nature of Templar abilities? Or am I missing something?

I'd like some advise so that I could be a healer when I start doing group stuff, but also have a decent amount of DPS for when I'm solo. I prefer using Staffs, Sword and Shield, and Two Handed weapons when I fight. My worst offense though would probably be how I spent my attribute points, evenly across Health, Magika and Stamina (thats probably gonna make me look the most foolish.) Also, I know there are plenty of builds I could look at, but regardless of what game it is, I never like following builds, they seem to take all the fun out of it.

IMHO you should target:

Atleast 20k Health: You don't want to be too squishy; IMHO a Healer should always have 'some' damage soak as a dead Healer is a worthless Healer...

Atleast 35k Magicka: This is a decent amount, but if you can get more, alls the better...

Atleast 12k Stamina: I think this should be your unbuffed target (obtainable by slotting triple stat glyphs in all your armor) as you need it for dodge rolling, blocking, and breaking Crowd Control (especially in PvP)...

As for damage dealing, the combo of Puncturing Sweeps, good Spell Power (atleast 2k), and good Spell Crit (atleast 50%) on your back bar is a good place to start...

AcadianPaladin

As far a s dps goes, when my healer does her full rotation that includes much more support than damage, it only generates about 3k dps on the target dummy. When she cuts the heals out of her rotation and focuses on just dps (without changing any skill slotting), she flirts with 10k dps. Even the latter doesn't sound like much but she easily solo delves, public dungeons and all quests. She can carefully solo dolmens. She can even solo a fair number of world bosses.

The same focus on magic that gives her great heals, also makes her few dps skills hit very hard. And the same healing that keeps others alive does a great job keeping herself alive when solo. That is, her primary defense is healing through any damage.

adilesarub14_ESO

doslekis wrote: »

If your looking to be a healer role don't worry too much about dps.

Pick one or the other and design your build around that.

If your trying to do more damage then your gear probably needs some work. Do you have a 5 piece set bonus? Jewelry? Weapons? Try and find sets that give you spell crit and maybe penetration and you should see those numbers go up.

Also those 1 or 2 percent passives are worth a lot more than you think.

I know that DPS isnt important for a healer, but I dont want to be a strait healer because I still have 80CP to go before I hit 160, so I've a lot of solo questing ahead of me still.

Thanks for all the info, this game is a lot more complex than I thought. Hopefully by the time I reach 160CP I'll have an idea of what I need to do, as well as getting my Blacksmithing maxed, cause that seems the simplest way to get decent gear to start doing group stuff.

Magdalina

What no one seems to have mentioned is simply the fact that your skills scale with corresponding max resource, among other things. Magicka costing skills(including heals) scale with max magicka, spelldamage, spellcrit and spell penetration(the latter being useless for heals obviously). Only exception is magicka shields which only scale with max magicka and don't crit. Speaking of which, get Annulment(light armor active skill), use it and love it. It's your pocket immortality.

You want sets buffing max magicka, spelldamage, spellcrit etc. Julianos/Seducer are good crafted options. While you're not cp 160, make sure to keep your gear as close to your level as possible as its effectiveness drops significantly when you outlevel it.

You only need like 17-20k health(with food, use either blue health+magicka one or Witchmother's Brew for extra regeneration buff too). You can achieve that by putting some attribute points into health, using health enchants or healthy jewelry/set bonus, up to you.

You definitely want light armor with maxed out passives, they're crazy strong. On side note, there's also a great passive in Undaunted skill tree(leveled up by completing group dungeons achievements) that increases all your stats based on number of armor types you wear. So with that maxed out and wearing 5 light 1 medium 1 heavy you'll get +6% max magicka, stamina and health.

I would recommend checking out those builds for some sort of guideline on skills setup

adilesarub14_ESO

Wait, your Max Magika increases spell damage? THAT is something I would have liked to know from the beginning -.-
I just checked in-game, looks like Stamina increases Physical Weapon damage. Thats important info.

Magdalina

adilesarub14_ESO wrote: »

Wait, your Max Magika increases spell damage? THAT is something I would have liked to know from the beginning -.-
I just checked in-game, looks like Stamina increases Physical Weapon damage. Thats important info.

Well your max magicka doesn't increase your spell damage stat but it does increase your magicka costing skills' damage/heals/shields