Suggestion for the 'Backlash' Templar skill and Burning Light

Cloudrest

Alright. Let's face it, this ability and morphs are absolutely useless on Templar right now in PvP situations. People are speculating that it's bugged because it's only critting for 5k when fully stacked against targets in Cyrodiil. Templar's also lagging a little bit behind in PvE at the moment due to recent adjustments to burning light and jabs. Templar's not in the best position right now for most areas of content in the game, and it sorely needs some love for Update 37 next year.

Backlash

Let's start with this. Get rid of the copied damage mechanic entirely. It's clunky, has led to several bugs over the years, isn't consistent, and puts pressure on server calculations. It's been a pain point over many years for players who both use and are on the receiving end of the skill. It often felt like you did a ton of damage to player, just for the ability to hit for 5k-- or sometimes it felt like a Templar did absolutely no damage to you and the ability hit for 15k. There was no consistency in PvP settings. Furthermore, there's no counterplay to Backlash: the ability goes through roll dodge and block, so the opponent is forced to eat the damage outright. It doesn't feel good to play against, and it isn't fair. It feels like current Backlash (Update 36, Firesong) is so weak because there's no ability to counter it.

So what do I propose?

Backlash - 4076 Magicka (same cost for Stamina with Power of the Light morph)
Channel the might of the Aedra for 24 seconds, increasing your damage done by 1% with Templar Class Abilities every time burning light damages an enemy, adding a stack of sanctified. When you reach six stacks of sanctified, this ability converts into Aedric Judgement, allowing you to consume six stacks of sanctified to purify your target with divine light for 8475 magic damage.

Purifying Light would have the 2 second heal tick that increases per stack of sanctified on the target lasting for a total of 10 seconds, but Power of the Light would apply minor breach to a target when they begin accumulating stacks of sanctified and would deal physical damage, obviously. The final hit of the ability would still go through roll dodge, but it would be able to be blocked and it would take a GCD to consume the six stacks and purify the target, making it function similar to Merciless Resolve/Assassin's Will. The 6% damage buff should help Templar perform properly in PvE, whilst also providing a meaningful buff to jabs and burning light.

Ideally, this ability would scale directly off of spell damage and weapon damage with a ceiling of around 12500-13000 when fully buffed at around 7000 spell damage, giving it similar power to what it had before whilst removing the copied damage mechanic and allowing for fair counterplay in PvP.

In PvE, the #'s would be doubled, obviously, because there's no Battle Spirit, so 16.95k at base and 25-26k damage fully buffed in PvE, mirroring the numbers as to how it was before.


Burning Light

When dealing damage with any Templar class ability, generate a stack of burning light for 3 seconds. After reaching 4 stacks with burning light, deal 2200 magic damage to your target. This ability can stack every .5 seconds per unique target, up to 4 unique targets.

The idea is to keep Templar's options open for different spammables than just jabs, but also reward the class for playing into the AOE identity it has had for years by allowing burning light to generate more than 1 stack per half second if you are hitting multiple targets. So you'd be able to have 1 burning light every 1 second if you are hitting 2 targets, for example. This would be a burning light every half second like it used to be if you are hitting 4 targets, with it being capped at 4 targets to prevent having a burning light bcoming too insanely strong against packs of enemies/players.

Would love to hear some thoughts on this.

Vulkunne

Cloudrest wrote: »

Alright. Let's face it, this ability and morphs are absolutely useless on Templar right now in PvP situations. People are speculating that it's bugged because it's only critting for 5k when fully stacked against targets in Cyrodiil. Templar's also lagging a little bit behind in PvE at the moment due to recent adjustments to burning light and jabs. Templar's not in the best position right now for most areas of content in the game, and it sorely needs some love for Update 37 next year.

Backlash

Let's start with this. Get rid of the copied damage mechanic entirely. It's clunky, has led to several bugs over the years, isn't consistent, and puts pressure on server calculations. It's been a pain point over many years for players who both use and are on the receiving end of the skill. It often felt like you did a ton of damage to player, just for the ability to hit for 5k-- or sometimes it felt like a Templar did absolutely no damage to you and the ability hit for 15k. There was no consistency in PvP settings. Furthermore, there's no counterplay to Backlash: the ability goes through roll dodge and block, so the opponent is forced to eat the damage outright. It doesn't feel good to play against, and it isn't fair. It feels like current Backlash (Update 36, Firesong) is so weak because there's no ability to counter it.

So what do I propose?

Backlash - 4076 Magicka (same cost for Stamina with Power of the Light morph)
Channel the might of the Aedra for 24 seconds, increasing your damage done by 1% with Templar Class Abilities every time burning light damages an enemy, adding a stack of sanctified. When you reach six stacks of sanctified, this ability converts into Aedric Judgement, allowing you to consume six stacks of sanctified to purify your target with divine light for 8475 magic damage.

Purifying Light would have the 2 second heal tick that increases per stack of sanctified on the target lasting for a total of 10 seconds, but Power of the Light would apply minor breach to a target when they begin accumulating stacks of sanctified and would deal physical damage, obviously. The final hit of the ability would still go through roll dodge, but it would be able to be blocked and it would take a GCD to consume the six stacks and purify the target, making it function similar to Merciless Resolve/Assassin's Will. The 6% damage buff should help Templar perform properly in PvE, whilst also providing a meaningful buff to jabs and burning light.

Ideally, this ability would scale directly off of spell damage and weapon damage with a ceiling of around 12500-13000 when fully buffed at around 7000 spell damage, giving it similar power to what it had before whilst removing the copied damage mechanic and allowing for fair counterplay in PvP.

In PvE, the #'s would be doubled, obviously, because there's no Battle Spirit, so 16.95k at base and 25-26k damage fully buffed in PvE, mirroring the numbers as to how it was before.


Burning Light

When dealing damage with any Templar class ability, generate a stack of burning light for 3 seconds. After reaching 4 stacks with burning light, deal 2200 magic damage to your target. This ability can stack every .5 seconds per unique target.

The idea is to keep Templar's options open for different spammables than just jabs, but also reward the class for playing into the AOE identity it has had for years by allowing burning light to generate more than 1 stack per .25 seconds if you are hitting multiple targets. So you'd be able to have 1 burning light every 1 second if you are hitting 2 targets, for example.

Would love to hear some thoughts on this.

Saying this isn't going to make me any new friends but Radiant Destruction is too powerful.

Yes they messed with Templar Jabs and I hated that too, I know, but that Radiant Destruction is so *powerful* in PvP that certain classes without a burst heals spammable don't stand a chance. Even if you have one, you still might not have enough time to react before this thing kills you and its really frustrating dieing over and over again just because of this one skill and nothing else.

Cloudrest

Vulkunne wrote: »

.

Radiant destruction is too powerful but it isn't the focus of this thread and has been addressed in a variety of others. I'm here to discuss a fix for backlash underperforming horribly in PvP whilst giving a meaningful nudge to Templar's damage in PvE.

gariondavey

@cuddles_with_wroble @dekrypted @Miracle19 @MashmalloMan

Vulkunne

Cloudrest wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

.

Radiant destruction is too powerful but it isn't the focus of this thread and has been addressed in a variety of others. I'm here to discuss a fix for backlash underperforming horribly in PvP whilst giving a meaningful nudge to Templar's damage in PvE.

Right Backlash is under performing in PvP and other Templar dmg skills are a tap on the shoulder.

That's why I mentioned Radiant Destruction. True, it is a different skill than what you're specifically addressing here however, this skill is used heavily because of problems in other areas of the class including Backlash, which is a symptom of the problem. I'm just looking at this on the other side of the Lense.

You should also, I would say, along with discussing Backlash, consider the fact that this will almost certainly lead to a broader conversation of the class anyways, as Backlash is used as part of a rotation. Ergo, the relationship between Backlash and other skills in the class is relevant to the conversation as well. If not specifically from your point of view, but from others as part of how we play the game.

So there is definitely a problem as it seems Radiant Destruction is used excessively with what appears to be no real thought given to the other skills in Templar tool kit as I rarely see those used against me. If nothing else, this validates what you're saying and I have also seen others on here making a similar argument regarding Radiant Destruction, especially since Jabs was nerfed.

Cloudrest

Vulkunne wrote: »

Cloudrest wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

.

Radiant destruction is too powerful but it isn't the focus of this thread and has been addressed in a variety of others. I'm here to discuss a fix for backlash underperforming horribly in PvP whilst giving a meaningful nudge to Templar's damage in PvE.

Right Backlash is under performing in PvP and other Templar dmg skills are a tap on the shoulder.

That's why I mentioned Radiant Destruction. True, it is a different skill than what you're specifically addressing here however, this skill is used heavily because of problems in other areas of the class including Backlash, which is a symptom of the problem. I'm just looking at this on the other side of the Lense.

You should also, I would say, along with discussing Backlash, consider the fact that this will almost certainly lead to a broader conversation of the class anyways, as Backlash is used as part of a rotation. Ergo, the relationship between Backlash and other skills in the class is relevant to the conversation as well. If not specifically from your point of view, but from others as part of how we play the game.

So there is definitely a problem as it seems Radiant Destruction is used excessively with what appears to be no real thought given to the other skills in Templar tool kit as I rarely see those used against me. If nothing else, this validates what you're saying and I have also seen others on here making a similar argument regarding Radiant Destruction, especially since Jabs was nerfed.

Imho, with Radiant overperforming like it is and Backlash underperforming, you make a good point. As it stands, Templar is back to being a healbot that spams beam from the back of a zerg with little to no other power fantasy available to it. In every single fight, I'm being beam spammed again.

But I think there's room to tune down Radiant whilst still keeping it as a good execute option if they add 6% increased damage dealt based on having 6 sanctified stacks under Backlash with my proposal. It'd fix backlash whilst giving them room to make other much-needed adjustments to Templar's kit.

mandricus

Vulkunne wrote: »

So there is definitely a problem as it seems Radiant Destruction is used excessively with what appears to be no real thought given to the other skills in Templar tool kit as I rarely see those used against me. If nothing else, this validates what you're saying and I have also seen others on here making a similar argument regarding Radiant Destruction, especially since Jabs was nerfed.

You don't play a Templar, do you?
They kill you with radiant destruction because it's the only thing they can do at the moment. Just spam Jesus beam and steal some kills, because all the other skills are useless. Take also radiant out, and you won't see Templars DD anymore in PvP, because there would be absolutely no point into bringing into the fight a pillow spammer. Templar in it's current state it's just pathetic.

Cloudrest

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_Gilliam It'd be nice if we could at least get confirmation that POTL/PL isn't working as intended right now in PvP.

Vulkunne

mandricus wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

So there is definitely a problem as it seems Radiant Destruction is used excessively with what appears to be no real thought given to the other skills in Templar tool kit as I rarely see those used against me. If nothing else, this validates what you're saying and I have also seen others on here making a similar argument regarding Radiant Destruction, especially since Jabs was nerfed.

You don't play a Templar, do you?
They kill you with radiant destruction because it's the only thing they can do at the moment. Just spam Jesus beam and steal some kills, because all the other skills are useless. Take also radiant out, and you won't see Templars DD anymore in PvP, because there would be absolutely no point into bringing into the fight a pillow spammer. Templar in it's current state it's just pathetic.

Well we could look at this any of two ways.

One, I do play Templar and thus, understand this phenomenon within the class itself. Or two, this is like as I said before, so your post here is basically the same way I see it so we're in agreement reaching roughly the same conclusion. So now we have a consensus on this matter coming at it from different directions with same conclusions. Note that I don't necessarily place any judgement on players for using Radiant, (in fact I can empathize with them) however its no less become a real issue and in fact a weird game-changer that no one saw coming really.

That said, I think we could also conclude if they fixed the problems with some of the other Templar skills, such as with Backlash, then the problem with Radiant Destruction being overused might also go away. Because it wasn't so much an issue in the past as I recall, especially because I believe a year or two ago they nerfed Radiant. As I said, its not a 'friendly feel good' topic however if something doesn't give then its going to become a thing again.

Cadbury

Dekrypted wrote: »

It's hard to argue with someone who knows plar as well as Cloudrest does.

I'm in favor of anything that moves Templar forward away from its current state. I personally dont even care for Radient Destruction and if a nerf to the execute means the class once again has a viable burst ability it can use just like every other class in the game, I'm all for it.

The class cannot stay in its current state. Period.

What concerns me is that there is a real possibility that the devs will only see how OP Radiant Destruction is, nerf it, and call it a day.

The last thing I want is the devs to just nerf without a comparative buff.

ZOS_Volpe

Hi!

We've gone ahead and moved this thread to a category we think is more appropriate for this topic, Combat and Character Mechanics.

Thank you for your understanding.

Nevidyra

good to see that you are still playing. your name always gets thrown around as one of the best Templars in pvp, so it's hard to argue against your suggestions. I can hope that the devs see this.

Turtle_Bot

Cadbury wrote: »

Dekrypted wrote: »

It's hard to argue with someone who knows plar as well as Cloudrest does.

I'm in favor of anything that moves Templar forward away from its current state. I personally dont even care for Radient Destruction and if a nerf to the execute means the class once again has a viable burst ability it can use just like every other class in the game, I'm all for it.

The class cannot stay in its current state. Period.

What concerns me is that there is a real possibility that the devs will only see how OP Radiant Destruction is, nerf it, and call it a day.

The last thing I want is the devs to just nerf without a comparative buff.

As a magsorc main who is still being punished for the sins of stamsorc abusing an overlooked broken set alongside 1 overtuned ability 2 patches ago, I whole heartedly sympathise with you here.

I hope they do look at redistributing some of the power they consolidated into beam out into other class skills to allow for beam to be brought down to a more appropriate power level without killing the class entirely like they did to sorc in the early pts weeks of U35.

Overamera

Templar is in a sad state right now. Only thing they should have nerfed was backlash. Now all templar can do is spam beam, such a boring playstyle now.

ketsparrowhawk

Vulkunne wrote: »

That said, I think we could also conclude if they fixed the problems with some of the other Templar skills, such as with Backlash, then the problem with Radiant Destruction being overused might also go away. Because it wasn't so much an issue in the past as I recall, especially because I believe a year or two ago they nerfed Radiant. As I said, its not a 'friendly feel good' topic however if something doesn't give then its going to become a thing again.

Radiant Destruction received a 23% buff with the U35 update and it is absurdly overpowered. It was already extremely strong before the buff, but jabs was so strong at the time that most 'plars didn't feel the need to waste the bar space on an execute.

POTL is no longer on my bar. I replaced it with a basic dot and I'm getting better results with that. Makes me sad. Zos pls fix.

Baconlad

Yeah radiant is too much...they brought it up for PvE purposes, but it's overperforming in cyrodiil.

Good thing there aren't many templar in cyro these days!

On my setup, I've got a 22k tooltip on it. It's hitting players for 12k for the full cast at full health, pepper in a dark flare at 8k crit on the same toon and a javelin use got urself a powerfully combo.

But...no one plays templar in cyro, you'd think if radiant was really that good more players would use it, but the truth is that when you play a traditional build with balanced sustain and defense you have yourself a very pitiful execute. I don't remember the last time I died to radiant destruction...most players don't have the heart to bring a glass canon magplar into cyrodiil, they'll never see numbers I do.

MurkyWetWolf198

I like Cloudrest's Idea. However, it might be too similar to a NB merciless resolve. Functionally there'd be no difference other than burning light vs LA proc conditions. Stacks increase damage until consumption, which is a big damage proc, and the proc isn't used in exe, cause the bonus percent is worth more then. Functionally the same.
Also, burning light is an aedric spear passive, and ZOS doesn't like having passive from one skill line affect abilities in others in that way
Idk anything better though, maybe just fix server performance so the damage copy stuff actually functions properly?

Alchimiste1

I think what you propose is a well thought out change. As others have said as long as they tone down radiant destruction your proposed backlash change would be great.

Cloudrest

MurkyWetWolf198 wrote: »

I like Cloudrest's Idea. However, it might be too similar to a NB merciless resolve. Functionally there'd be no difference other than burning light vs LA proc conditions. Stacks increase damage until consumption, which is a big damage proc, and the proc isn't used in exe, cause the bonus percent is worth more then. Functionally the same.
Also, burning light is an aedric spear passive, and ZOS doesn't like having passive from one skill line affect abilities in others in that way
Idk anything better though, maybe just fix server performance so the damage copy stuff actually functions properly?

Burning Light would still be proccing every 2s against a single target, meaning you'd only be able to sanctify someone every 12 seconds under optimal conditions. Realistically, we're looking at a burst every 13-14 seconds that you could hold for another 7-8 seconds until the ability expired to look for a window to use it.

You'd be able to sanctify much faster (every 6s when burning light is cleaving two targets, 3s when burning light is cleaving four), meaning Templar has some variance and strength when it comes to PvE encounters that need cleave.

Compare that to a potential Assassin's Will every 5-6 seconds from a nightblade with optimal ability weaving against a single target, it's a bit different in terms of playstyle.

I wanted to build it around burning light as Nightblades already use Light Attacks to stack their burst ability-- what else do Templars have? With the proposed changes to burning light, it'll bring the passive back into a good place concerning the meta, too. ZOS is forcing Stamdens and Magdens to both use Ice Staves now based on a class passive. I don't think it's unreasonable tbh.

Irregardless, the ability sorely needs some love. I'd be happy if they took my suggestions on board, but I'll also be happy if they simply fix the class and make it work properly in PvP whilst keeping it relevant in PvE.

mmtaniac

I can't play pvp right now ,never liked j beam ,without jabs templar is boring on pvp and not feel the same. Still make Third templar character and slowly level it up.

Captain_Devildog

Templar.. oh man i could cry about what they did to the Jabs after 8 years..Disgusting animation..

huskandhunger

Great ideas for backlash! I too wish the clunky copied damage was removed and they just kept it a certain amount

Armanie

Ngl new backlash skill looks even worse than the grim focus minigame
Problem in pve = burning light and jabs, not backlash
Just fix pvp bug for current backlash... assuming it can be fixed t.t