[Class Rep] Templar Feedback Thread

FrancisCrawford

My biggest pain point is that the Restoring Light skill line has little value in PvE healing.

• Healing Ward is better as a one-time emergency heal than BoL.
• Healing Ward + Healing Springs spam is better than BoL spam for spam healing.
• The purge is only needed in a few high-end dungeons.
• Repentance can only be procced when the fight is going well.
• Rune Focus & the ultimate ... well, they have been discussed above. And if they're not useful, then which passive has much value.

I actually like all of Shards, Reflective Light and Purifying Light on my "DPS" bar. But my healing bar gets little benefit from the class' healing skill line.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

@FrancisCrawford repentance has no place on a healers bar. It is for tanks and Stam DPS.

Coggo

I find myself mourning the loss of so many Templar features of olde as I enjoy the bandaids to the class the Psijic Order skills offers. Once again we have an AoE cc, piercing spear passive has more bite courtesy of minor force and a little extra mobility (that's not wedded to vampirism) is welcome. But it remains true, the joy of leveling a new skill line is tarnished because I have to slot less and less class skills. Therefore my two pain points are:

1: Passives which individually are very situational and require borrowing from many other skill lines to synergize.

2: A reliable AND class unique cc.

FrancisCrawford

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

@FrancisCrawford repentance has no place on a healers bar. It is for tanks and Stam DPS.

Agreed. But that wasn't true back when it was a "stamina battery" skill ... which it should be again.

cpuScientist

1. Repentance team synergy being really bad. Makes it difficult for stamPlars to run together. Either make it so if you repentance other Templars in group also get the stamina or something. But it is really bad.

2. Radiant destruction has been useless for a while now. Do something to it, up the damage but make it start executing at 35-25% whatever.

There is alot more but yeah.

Qbiken

1. Would love to see "Jesus Beam" being brought back to it´s former glory. At the moment it´s a DPS loss to use your execute when a boss is at it´s execute range. Doesn´t make any sense to me. I don´t even see magicka Templars using Radiant Destruction in PvP anymore due to how much it underperforms.

2. Make melee magplar great again. Further improvements on puncturing sweeps are needed.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

@FrancisCrawford repentance has no place on a healers bar. It is for tanks and Stam DPS.

Agreed. But that wasn't true back when it was a "stamina battery" skill ... which it should be again.

Agreed. But the chances of that are almost zilch.

Lutallo

1. Our "House" defence is completely useless, as the current meta revolves around movement speed and the flavour of the month is Major Defile. We need either a good mobility option that isn't vampire or a move away from our useless "stand your ground playstyle. My suggestion would be to make Channeled Focus in line with what the Dragonknight, Sorc and Warden have which is a Major Ward/Major Resolve buff that is self applied, so it actually travels with you instead of having to stand in it with 0 mobility.

2. We need a proper CC back like Spear Shards. At the moment, when we're in our hypothetical house, we don't have an AoE CC to actually protect ourselves with. Plus you can't toppling charge from less than a few metres, so the only option is the javelin CC which is single target, can be blocked, dodged and shuffled.

Aionna

1. As others mentioned sustain -resource moved to passives, I don't want to slot a specific skill.
2. Ultimates: Sweeps always misses and the damage isn't that good, nova too expensive for what it does (other classes have ultimates that do more and are cheaper) and you can not move with Rite of Passage...when all the fights in the game are mobile!

Too many pain points, even as healers Templars have taken a hit. Hope this initiative brings some good changes for the class.

Cage_Lizardman

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Cage_Lizardman wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

SIRPORKCHOPS wrote: »

BohnT wrote: »

Javalin just doesn't synergise at all with the toolkit, templar is About in your face fights but javalin knocks your enemy out of the range of your spammable and your only instant Damage ult.

Change radial sweep and both Morphs to deal 33% more Damage while reducing the extra Damage of crescent sweep to 25% (almost the same as currently) also please increase the range to 8m 6m is just too small

Fix the Bugs and give stamplar some sustain

sry but javelin not synergizing with the kit makes no sense its CC its does what a CC is supposed

javelin knocks the enemy out of our house, how does that make sense?

Works well with crit rush.

So you knock an enemy back and have to use a skill to get back on top of said enemy and you think this is fine for a class that is built around defending your house? You really don't see the problem with this?

The house is useless anyway and I don't use it. The problem there is not javelin.

casparian

Cage_Lizardman wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Cage_Lizardman wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

SIRPORKCHOPS wrote: »

BohnT wrote: »

Javalin just doesn't synergise at all with the toolkit, templar is About in your face fights but javalin knocks your enemy out of the range of your spammable and your only instant Damage ult.

Change radial sweep and both Morphs to deal 33% more Damage while reducing the extra Damage of crescent sweep to 25% (almost the same as currently) also please increase the range to 8m 6m is just too small

Fix the Bugs and give stamplar some sustain

sry but javelin not synergizing with the kit makes no sense its CC its does what a CC is supposed

javelin knocks the enemy out of our house, how does that make sense?

Works well with crit rush.

So you knock an enemy back and have to use a skill to get back on top of said enemy and you think this is fine for a class that is built around defending your house? You really don't see the problem with this?

The house is useless anyway and I don't use it. The problem there is not javelin.

It's not about the house. Jasvelin knocks enemies out of the range of Sweeps, our main source of damage. This is fine for ranged magplars that don't use Sweeps, and it's fine for stamplars who generally have the mobility to close to the knocked-back target in time to get in a Jabs channel. But since melee magplars don't have another good source of CC, people complain (rightly) that there's no synergy in our class kit: our most effective CC makes our main in-class damage source less effective.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

Cage_Lizardman wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Cage_Lizardman wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

SIRPORKCHOPS wrote: »

BohnT wrote: »

Javalin just doesn't synergise at all with the toolkit, templar is About in your face fights but javalin knocks your enemy out of the range of your spammable and your only instant Damage ult.

Change radial sweep and both Morphs to deal 33% more Damage while reducing the extra Damage of crescent sweep to 25% (almost the same as currently) also please increase the range to 8m 6m is just too small

Fix the Bugs and give stamplar some sustain

sry but javelin not synergizing with the kit makes no sense its CC its does what a CC is supposed

javelin knocks the enemy out of our house, how does that make sense?

Works well with crit rush.

So you knock an enemy back and have to use a skill to get back on top of said enemy and you think this is fine for a class that is built around defending your house? You really don't see the problem with this?

The house is useless anyway and I don't use it. The problem there is not javelin.

Then why play a Templar? Go play a sorc or NB if you want mobility like you are talking about. You are just gimping yourself by not trying to play to your classes strengths.

I agree with what @casparian said as well.

Checkmath

Small reminder, that this thread is mainly about your top concerns. I would be glad, if you discuss less in here.

Destruent

Would be also nice to have some active defense-mechanic you can use before the damage occurs. Like wings for DK, shimmering shield for wardens, cloak/teleport for nb and a usefull shield + streak for sorcs. All templars have is blazing shield which is more like a joke than an active defense mechanic.

Minno

Destruent wrote: »

Would be also nice to have some active defense-mechanic you can use before the damage occurs. Like wings for DK, shimmering shield for wardens, cloak/teleport for nb and a usefull shield + streak for sorcs. All templars have is blazing shield which is more like a joke than an active defense mechanic.

We have purge for dots kinda. Wish it wasn't nerfed as many times as it was.

Destruent

Minno wrote: »

Destruent wrote: »

Would be also nice to have some active defense-mechanic you can use before the damage occurs. Like wings for DK, shimmering shield for wardens, cloak/teleport for nb and a usefull shield + streak for sorcs. All templars have is blazing shield which is more like a joke than an active defense mechanic.

We have purge for dots kinda. Wish it wasn't nerfed as many times as it was.

so you can purge before you get the dot? I know, purge is nice...but it's completely different from those mechanics i listed.
Purge/healing (templars defense-mechanic) are reactive, not active.

SIRPORKCHOPS

how do i leave this thread nothing constructive here, just complaints nothing that ZOS can use

danno8

SIRPORKCHOPS wrote: »

how do i leave this thread nothing constructive here, just complaints nothing that ZOS can use

Well why don't you leave your own top 2 pain points like everyone else, rather than just jumping all over other peoples opinions?

That's what the thread is for after all.

Cage_Lizardman

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Cage_Lizardman wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Cage_Lizardman wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

SIRPORKCHOPS wrote: »

BohnT wrote: »

Javalin just doesn't synergise at all with the toolkit, templar is About in your face fights but javalin knocks your enemy out of the range of your spammable and your only instant Damage ult.

Change radial sweep and both Morphs to deal 33% more Damage while reducing the extra Damage of crescent sweep to 25% (almost the same as currently) also please increase the range to 8m 6m is just too small

Fix the Bugs and give stamplar some sustain

sry but javelin not synergizing with the kit makes no sense its CC its does what a CC is supposed

javelin knocks the enemy out of our house, how does that make sense?

Works well with crit rush.

So you knock an enemy back and have to use a skill to get back on top of said enemy and you think this is fine for a class that is built around defending your house? You really don't see the problem with this?

The house is useless anyway and I don't use it. The problem there is not javelin.

Then why play a Templar? Go play a sorc or NB if you want mobility like you are talking about. You are just gimping yourself by not trying to play to your classes strengths.

As far as I'm concerned, javelin is the strongest ability a stamplar has.

Luigi_Vampa

1. Repentence making multiple templars fight for the same corpses. Skills should help the group, they shouldn't cause lack of group cohesion.
2. Radient Destruction is an execute that causes a loss of dps in execute phase which makes it useless.

TheNightflame

radiant destruction causing you to lose dps in execute is a big thing for me, also magplars getting more dps from not using sweeps... point 1 is definitly our class's signature things being weaker than universally available things.

point 2 is the nerfs to healing/support. we have a slightly better healing ward, and a debatably better burst heal than obsidian shard (180 vs enemy needed) but we don't give too much in the way of buffs. radiant aura and morphs (is that already a morph? idk) need to be reworked, but keep the passive regen or move it to a passive.

akredon_ESO

@Khivas_Carrick Duuuude i want 5) Biting Jabs as someone already mentioned should be condensed to 3 hits instead of 4, and channeled over .8 instead of 1.1 seconds. This would help greatly in PvP and help a little in PvE.

Why does this sound so delicious like sweet baby jesus

Khivas_Carrick

Don't credit me, I didn't mention it, merely repeated it. It's somewhere on the first page I think

Mist_Walker

Luigi_Vampa wrote: »

1. Repentence making multiple templars fight for the same corpses. Skills should help the group, they shouldn't cause lack of group cohesion.
2. Radient Destruction is an execute that causes a loss of dps in execute phase which makes it useless.

These would be my two. The state of these two skills makes it feel like we're being trolled by ZOS for playing Templar, seriously. If I were to add a third, it'd be how worthless every single Templar class Ultimate is.

Though as noted in this thread, the problems with the class are too fundamental to be properly addressed "a little at a time." Anyone at ZOS whose role has anything at all to do with mechanics, balance, or class design should have JOY_Divisions thread (on how the original intent behind the Templar class makes absolutely no sense in ESO's current state) posted on their workspace.

Ishammael

1. Improved class ults -- Nova and Radial are really, really bad.
2. Re-worked outdated passives.

Templar toolkit is kinda nice right now, especially with PotL and Eclipse. The Psjic skill line adds the extra CC and move speed that Templars needed. It is difficult to understate how good purge is.

cazlonb16_ESO

While there has been plenty of mention of cast times and channels, let's not forget about travel times. In PvP they are as much of a problem. In the current ultra mobility environment, landing even Vampire's Bane/Reflective Light is a challenge and you can just forget about Dark Flare.

Soris

Late to the party. My top 2 pain points for templar from stamplar perspective as follows:

1- Lack of sustain. Mainly stamina, as well as magicka sustain because of very high cost of magicka abilities such as purify. Most magicka utility skills and some of the stamina skills such as javelin should cost lot less.
As for repentance, it is not the right way of providing in-combat stamina sustain. Radiant aura or restoring focus should grant some stamina over-time even while blocking.

2- Defence mechanism. This one has few branches.
A) The idea of stationary skills aka templar house is outdated and NOT working anymore. At least rune focus should be sticky on character like spiked armor and last for minimum 20 seconds as most other armor buffs last for 20 seconds.

BUT, if you insist on keeping the templar house, than make it worth the effort building the house every few seconds. Give some nasty negative effects to whoever enters The House! For example, make purify snare 70% for the first 3 secs like caltrops morph and if you stay inside for over its half duration, you get an unblockable undodgeable aoe hard stun in the face similar to that new psyjic skill timefreeze. OR, 30% snare at first but over time snare percentage increase slowly to the point of complete root at the end.

A tiny snare is only laughable nowadays. And guess what, that tiny little snare is completely negatable for stamina enemies who use major expedition and shuffle/f.momentum. 100% of medium armor builds are using them btw.

As you may noticed, templar house nowadays have to be OP af to be an effective hold-your-ground type of gameplay. This alone proves it is an outdated mechanic.

B ) A secondary way of defense is appreciated. This could be done by some of the old fashioned skills to be updated to the point of usefullness, such as blazing shield and/or blinding flashes. Blazing shield maybe give some flat stamina similar to dk shield. I like the idea of health based shield as it allows it to be used for both magicka and stamina builds. But with the battle spirit and generally low health pools, 15% health sheild is not worth even slotting. It needs to be much bigger shield, patch 1.5 style. Updated version would be solid additional defence to the house and would also be good on a mobile stamina build. So when you are low on stamina, pop shield, get some stamina back and let vigor ticks heal you while the shield absorbs the damage.

C) Inconsistency and lack of synergy between class passives and other non class skills and passives. Mending and burning light mainly. Mending should boost stamina heals, period. Burning light should proc off all melee/ranged attacks. The synergy between dunmer dk passives and fire damage skills/procs are great example for this, it boosts all fire dmg in game.



Some more others that i couldn't fit in the top 2:

-Unable to hit fast moving targets with jabs. The range and aoe cone should be larger and the snare should proc off first strike.
-A class based way of taking major brutality/sorcery buff.
-Unblockable/undodgable hard cc.
-AoE cc/root.

Finally I'm glad that most of the suggestions and pain points in this thread and others are all similar. This proves that the main problems are pinpoint-able from anyone who can see them. Great minds think alike! Hopefully this time with the help of reps, we can get some love and fix templar for good!

Riddari

I would say honestly just 1 point: figure out as a developer what direction you want the class to go. I feel like this class has no identity outside of the healing skill line.

You want a "house"? Go for it, but ACTUALLY go for it. I feel like there is maybe 1 or 2 skills that could be relevant to the "house" theme.

Really there should be 1 skill tree for using divine energy to heal/buff, 1 skill tree for using divine energy to protect, and 1 skill tree for using divine energy to smite your foes with dps/debuffs (with a healthy amount of stamina morphs).

If they could manage that along with some passives/sustain work the class would be amazing.

Also, on a side note, I honestly think they should just take the spear/javelin animations and make a new weapon. Use the javelin assets already in the game and give templar a different skill tree. Give us the crater smash the order of the hour templars have for the ultimate or make a new one. Honestly the whole "spear" thing just seems out of place to me and not cohesive with a templar/paladin or the "house" theme.

I'll probably get a lot of flack for that idea but it's just a thought.

AcadianPaladin

PVE healplar here.

1. Channeled Focus. Trying to stay in or frequently 'tag' it is too often thwarted by highly mobile fights. Would love for it to travel with me so I can adjust my position better. Extended Ritual radius is big enough but Channeled Focus could use some love to improve mobility some.

2. Restoring/Radiant Aura. Won't use it in present form since it is so inferior EleDrain (aggros, cost, no debuffs). Would love to use it though so I could put it on either bar, unlike EleDrain that has to go on my destro staff bar. This skill NEEDS to lose the aggro to even consider using it. Further improvements would be at least one of the following features: Add the same debuff that EleDrain has. Add 'stamina steal' while keeping magicka steal to help the stam dps'ers I'm supporting.

tinythinker

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

The purpose of this thread is to give you a place to post your current top two pain points with the Templar. Our new Class Representatives will be keeping a close eye on this thread, and will utilize it to gather additional feedback for the notes they’re currently compiling for their first meeting with the Dev Team next week. Please be sure and keep your post clear and succinct, and focus more on what is currently frustrating you rather than potential solutions. Thanks!

It's too late for a meeting this week, but for future reference I'll chime in. Things like sustain, sustain, sustain, buggy skills, sustain, and overly nerfed/weak skills, oh yeah, and sustain, have been listed ad nauseam so those are well-covered and I suspect are seen in threads for other classes, too. Speaks to overall design as much as class balance. I won't repeat those concerns.


Here are my two chosen pain points with no recommended solutions in sight:

1. Lack of coherence/synergy within the class.

Click for elaboration:

There was an original design plan for Templars that emphasized healing and tanking with enough damage to contribute some dps (like any tank or healer class in an MMO), with things like miss chance, strong tank shield, and lots of magicka recovery (the magicka recovery was nerfed at launch 2014, slowly got better, then relapsed in 2017). The stun from Shards and the knockback from Spear fit right in with this vision of the Templar, though the Luminous morph never made sense as it immediately gave a form of CC that breaks when the target takes damage, yet it worked as a DoT. Miss chance was traded for a powerful ranged attack, but as a damage dealer magicka Templar has lots of slow abilities and channels, which work at range, yet also key abilities that work best in melee (like Puncturing Strikes and its morphs).

It's fine to support all options -- ranged damage dealer, melee damage dealer, healer, and tank -- but how do they work together? Am I supposed to be able to switch from ranged DD to melee DD and back again? If so, how do the current skill functions allow that? Javelin seems the obvious "move the enemy back out to range" ability, but it doesn't seem to do enough in the regard compared to Sorcerer's Streak or Nightblade's Cloak. I could make some suggestions regarding distance target knockback, CC length, possible simultaneous retrograde movement of the caster, etc., but I'm trying to focus on the "what" of the issue and so that the combat team can worry about the "how". Similarly, Charge could be switch from ranged to melee if the pathing wasn't so susceptible to bugging out. This ready-switching capacity would make the Templar kit more coherent as an enemy could effectively be kept at range for long-distance abilities. (This switch is a little easier for Stamplars who use a Two-Hander or a Sword and Board.) As for melee combat, there isn't much to keep enemies in range or in front of the Templar for key abilities like Puncturing Strikes. Lots of ways to fix that I'm sure.

The other noticeable issue of synergy is chaining or "combo-ing" abilities, so that ability X sets up or buffs ability Y. This kind of thing has been best achieved in Sorcerer and second best for Dragonknight, with Nightblade a close third. If Javelin had more oomph as said that would set-up ranged abilities as mentioned, but without ways to reduce or pause enemy movement channeled abilities and slow-cast abilities are an issue (though the "chase the target" capacity of Sun Fire and the Summerset changes to give some value to using the slow-moving Dark Flare are helpful). But even beyond active abilities some passives seem to be outdated in the current combat system, and also need to synergize better with the Templar's kit.

So that's what I mean when I say, "Lack of coherence/synergy within the class." It isn't meant to be a way to sneak multiple concerns into a single pain point. I gave a few examples to highlight a larger issue with the class that cannot be addressed piecemeal but rather as part of an overall class design review. The combat team may not wish to have a "melee/ranged quick switch" focus to help build that consonance, but a coherent vision -- with good skill synergy supporting that vision -- is essential to making it feel good to play Templar; so that it feels like your unpacking the secrets of how to play the class effectively. All skills need to feel like they are part at least one or two good combos or builds/build strategies.

2. Poor compatibility with current combat emphasis (weapon attacks & mobility).

Click for elaboration:

Puncturing Strikes was designed to be channeled spammable (and it's fun to spam over and over), but the emphasis on weaving heavy and light attacks interrupts this. Radiant Destruction (the once mighty execute) is in the same boat, as is Dark Flare with its cast time. Ditto Dark Flare's twin, Solar Barrage and it's awkwardness. There are good DoTs, but no real discrete (non-channeled) spammable that is quick-cast and cost effective (think Crystal Shard, Cliffracer, Strife, Lash). This means having to go destruction staff for Force Shock, which isn't the end of the world, but what do (magicka) Templars get for the tradeoff? The point isn't to "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" here for a discrete spammable for Magplars. But having a better fit with the current development focus would be nice, whether it means buffing or expanding existing active and passive abilities or changing how some of them work.

Another option is making weapon attacks less "necessary" for Templars. If (magicka) Templars are going to be slow cast speed spell, channeled attack, and DoT users, fine. (Look to something like Warlock in WoW as an example.) But make it work. I wouldn't mind standing out from the overall combat themes and metas if it felt like there was a payoff. Maybe add more elements to how combat scenarios works to give a (better) place to longer cast time spells and channeled abilities. Have Templars stand out in a cool and workable way, using class fantasy as the inspiration.

(Same logic for mobility -- however you make it "work" to have cast times and channels and DoTs should account for this as well.)