Are Templar viable tanks? New to the game.

blaineswing_ESO

Or is DK/Warden/Necro the only real options. I keep seeing them mentioned.

Dracane

Yesterday I saw someone claim that Templar is the worst tank class. Was a good laugh.
Dragonknight is by far the best and most versatile, for you will buff your groups damage in so many ways.

But Templars are formidable tanks, always have. If you are looking for maximum potential though, nothing other than Dragonknight can be your choice. Their passives allow for literally immortal pve builds with infinite ressources.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Depends on what you mean by viable. You can tank almost any endgame content on a Templar. Are the they best option? No. I like tanking 4 man stuff on a templar, makes it really easy to go three DPS because you can double as a healer.

Nemesis7884

id say DK, Warden and Necro probably the easiest tanks... but Templar is very viable too...i liked it much better before the change to the Ulti tough that gave you major protection very often...

Faulgor

Dracane wrote: »

Yesterday I saw someone claim that Templar is the worst tank class. Was a good laugh.
Dragonknight is by far the best and most versatile, for you will buff your groups damage in so many ways.

But Templars are formidable tanks, always have. If you are looking for maximum potential though, nothing other than Dragonknight can be your choice. Their passives allow for literally immortal pve builds with infinite ressources.

What's worse than Templars, then? They don't even have a health-based self-heal, let alone noteworthy group support, CC or a pull like Fiery Grip / Frozen Gate / Beckoning Armor.

D0PAMINE

They're harder to play but still viable. My friend tanked vDSA in green gear on his Tankplar.

xaraan

Viable? yes.

To offer Dracane another good laugh, as someone who tanks end game hard mode vet trials and dungeons on all classes Templars are the worst tanks. But that doesn't mean they are not viable. I would just say in some instances surviving on a templar is just a lot more work and takes more focus than on a meta class like DK.

IMO, DK is the best all around tank. Followed closely by Warden and Necro. A sorc tank can feel very personally tanky, but doesn't offer as much to the group outside of maybe unique uses of Negate or some specific skill. And Nightblades grew in popularity, but that was mostly because groups were stacking Necros as DPS and groups wanted the NB passive buffs, not because NBs were awesome. Then I'd rank Templars last. Even if you had a goal of making a heal tank, Warden does a much better job of that than templar.

So it's not the end-all, be-all, class is hopeless sort of 'last place' but when you rank them, it's just the way things fall. Most all the buffs they would offer the group will often come from a healer or templar dps, so that is sometimes moot and they have no solid health based self burst heal like dragons blood, clanfear heal, polar wind, etc. You can use breath but it can often be used by anyone else in your group wounded causing you to miss a needed burst heal and since it scales off magicka it hits like a wet noodle on a tank build and costs a lot for what it offers, so it's an option, just not a great one.

That being said, there has been a lot done to help any class with basic tanking skills in some of the game changes the last year+. The self heal morph of vigor offers a decent dot style burst heal, not as strong as some tank heals, but makes a huge difference now that it's available. And keeping your purify circle down will add more to that. The Fighter's Guild circle of protection changes offer good benefits for a templar, of course you can take the heal version but IMO it doesn't heal as well for the stam cost, so I use it sparingly on tanks and templar can get the minor prot buff from putting up their sun shield. I prefer the fear version on my templar, it gives templars a major thing they are lacking for tanking: crowd control. Same with Silver Leash from FG line, it gives them a 'chain pull' type ability to round up mobs. (Swarm Mother monster set can also help with this) The big thing you will see with all these supplemental skills is that they all use stamina and with stamina used for blocking and not regen'ing while blocking, you have to keep this in mind when creating a build. Maybe making more use of using ice staff to block and use magicka at times for example.

I would also recommend, aside from starter builds, to avoid making up for short comings with your armor sets. If you are at end game, groups are going to want things like Ebon/Alkosh or Yolnokriin/Alkosh and Warhorn ulti, so you may not necessarily have an option to run some selfish sets or an ultimate aimed at survival. (If you aren't doing that sort of end game, then it will matter less).

But yes, they are viable. This wasn't to scare you off from trying a Templar tank, just to explain some of the issues and warn you that in some instances it may feel like more work and some groups may not even be interested in having a templar tank if you run into a very meta group. Templars are my favorite class, I would definitely main a templar tank if I felt it was as solid as DK, Warden or Necro; unfortunately it's just not in that place. But like I've said, I've tanked every hard mode in the game except the final boss of SS in hardmode on my templar tank (I was on dps when we cleared it and I'm on my DK now that we are working on it again for a diff group b/c we lost one of our tank options), it just felt noticeably more difficult is all.

Mancombe_Nosehair

If you are doing trials, then dk's are preferred. However, for everything else, you can tank with any class.

I love tanking on my own Templar.

LadyNalcarya

Faulgor wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

Yesterday I saw someone claim that Templar is the worst tank class. Was a good laugh.
Dragonknight is by far the best and most versatile, for you will buff your groups damage in so many ways.

But Templars are formidable tanks, always have. If you are looking for maximum potential though, nothing other than Dragonknight can be your choice. Their passives allow for literally immortal pve builds with infinite ressources.

What's worse than Templars, then? They don't even have a health-based self-heal, let alone noteworthy group support, CC or a pull like Fiery Grip / Frozen Gate / Beckoning Armor.

Maybe they meant pvp tanks.

xaraan

LadyNalcarya wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

Yesterday I saw someone claim that Templar is the worst tank class. Was a good laugh.
Dragonknight is by far the best and most versatile, for you will buff your groups damage in so many ways.

But Templars are formidable tanks, always have. If you are looking for maximum potential though, nothing other than Dragonknight can be your choice. Their passives allow for literally immortal pve builds with infinite ressources.

What's worse than Templars, then? They don't even have a health-based self-heal, let alone noteworthy group support, CC or a pull like Fiery Grip / Frozen Gate / Beckoning Armor.

Maybe they meant pvp tanks.

That was my thought was well, you'd build very differently for PvP vs PvE and have different challenges to face, but they can be very tanky in PvP.

CompM4s

Pvp - yes, specifically to set up novas.
Pve- not so much, dk/necro/warden are much better options

Ratzkifal

Templar tanks are certainly tough enough for all content. But organized groups still don't like to run with Templar tanks because they don't offer anything to the group (*that the templar healer doesn't already).

But for certain 4man content Templars are actually better tanks than DKs because their shields allow them to take much bigger hits and dying adds means free healing for the group and stamina for yourself, so you can keep block up for longer than a DK without having to ult.

It's also relatively easy to recover a fight with them thanks to their increased resurrection speed and the shields allowing them to drop block for a bit.

So, I definitely recommend going with a templar tank if you don't like being DK.

Danksta

Yes. You can complete all content on any class for any role. Templar tank isn't going to make it any easier for you though and finding groups willing to take a Templar tank may be difficult as well.

D3N7157

if you want to make a tank that people will want in your group and you want to learn make a DK

Kamchuk

Templars are the "Swiss Army Knife" of classes. They can heal and they can tank. Other classes are better at tanking or healing depending on their build and armor sets, etc. But the Templar does it all. With the proper build, armor sets and CP they are very competitive in PVP. (As a Magplar, I can solo all but a couple Group dungeons in PVE).

Silent99

It is definitely viable even in endgame pve, especially if there are no other templar in the group. You can provide minor sorcery buff and even use power of the light to help increase group dps. That being said dk , nb, necro ,warden are probably better tanks for most situations.

Sanguinor2

It is viable, as in you can technically clear all Content with it. It is however the worst tank in Terms of self healing, every other class has much better self healing compared to a templar tank. You can have good Group Utility with ritual, potl and shards, becomes redundant as soon as there is a templar healer tho.