Templar is in a tough spot right now. It used to be a titan in PvE and PvP alike. It was once an irreplaceable healer, now its outclassed by warden, arc, sorc and even necro in some cases. It used to be feared in PvP, now its a cockroach that steals kills with it's beam. Templar has fallen from grace and is not only outclassed, but also outdated. Most of it's skills fall short in the current meta, it's ultimate's generally perform poorly and some it's passives are nearly useless. It seems like a class that ZOS has forgotten about. Thankfully the playerbase hasn't forgotten about the Templar.
In this massive post I go over some changes that I think would help the Plar to be reinstated as one of the best classes, or at least bring it up to speed with the others.
Something important to note is that Templar has some identity issues. I tried to fix this by solidifying their reputation as the "Stand Your Ground" and "Hold The Line" class. many passives and skills have been reworked to encourage Templar to take advantage of
Sacred Ground, which is now more important than ever. The biggest changes have been made to Ultimate abilities and passives, sometimes being complete overhauls with their original functionality being scrapped or moved to other parts of the class's kit.
Here are some things that should be mentioned for the different roles
- Tanking
Templar has never been especially great at tanking, but it's the paladin type class, it should have more tools to work with. The changes made to their tanking kit isn't going to make them top spot, not by a long shot, but the changes will still give it a lot more than what it has right now. With the changes made, they will have access to longer lasting buffs and debuffs, give allies some sustain, pull elite enemies with one of their ultimate's and heal their team while under the effects of a massive unique damage reduction. The Templar Tank can now hold the line and encourage allies to do the same.
- Healer
In my mind Templar should fill a niche that other classes don't. Warden makes their allies tougher, Arcanist and Sorcerer make their allies hit harder and Nightblade can contribute to damage while still healing effectively. Templar should be able to keep their allies in the fight. Just healing isn't enough to do this though, so Templar can now boost allies recoveries, give them armor, unique damage mitigation, a small unique damage buff and longer buffs on top of the copious healing that they are known for. Templar now also has access to a very special buff that is usually quite a mission to obtain.
- DPS
Templar DPS is strange to say the least. Other classes have consistently good DPS, and Templar is behind all of them. Until they get to execute phase where Templar can have best DPS in the game. This design feels wonky and unpleasant to play. You do below-average damage for the whole fight until the boss gets down to 40% and then you start to hit like a truck. It just feels off and is especially noticeable in PvP where Templar usually struggles to get players down to the point where they can Steamroll them with the beam. a few of the changes aim to lessen the gap between the phases of a fight, giving Templar some decent damage up front, while still giving them an edge in execute, but to a lesser degree. Templar DPS now have better sustain, easier access to important buffs, a new way to up the damage of their favorite burst skill and can even give allies some more survivability just for being near them.
- PvP
It's no secret that Templar used to be a nightmare in PvP. Unfortunately they were nerfed and are now mostly relegated to damage sponges, heal bots or beam spammers. Many of the changes made are careful to consider the PvP viability of the class. One of the major issues that Templar has is mobility, they are designed to stay in specific zones after all. The meta has shifted over the years, but being fast and mobile are still a top priority. With some of the new changes made in regards to PvP: Templar now has a proper range spammable, easier access to mobility tools, better cleanses since negative effects are abundant, new and improved jabs, a proper burst tool and can even take their Sacred Ground with them at the expense of healing. They even get a brand new ultimate for the Aedric Spear skill line.
The skill lines have also been more clearly categorized:
- Aedric Spear: DPS/ Tanking skills
- Dawn's Wrath: DPS/ Healing skills
- Restoring Light: Healing/Tanking skills
This clarification has been made to more clearly understand the intentions and purposes of changes made to abilities/ morphs, passives and ultimate's in their respective skill lines.
If I feel like a change needs explanation, clarification or justification the details for the change will be in the Developer Comments. If a skill or passive is not mentioned then it remains completely unchanged
I would also like to give credit to
@Billium813,
@VinnyGambini and
@MEBengalsFan2001 for their suggested changes to the Templar class. Their posts helped to inspire some of the changes and even created the changes themselves in some cases. Their original posts will be linked in the sections where their contributions were used.
With the prelude out of the way, here are the changes:
- Aedric Spear
- Puncturing Strikes
Launch a relentless assault, striking an enemy in front of you three times with your Aedric spear, dealing 889 Magic Damage. Enemies near the initial target take 60% splash damage. Each strike reduces the Movement Speed of the target by 40% for 0.5 seconds.
Developer Comment:
Credit to
@VinnyGambini for inspiring this change, Click
here for original post
This ability has been converted into a single target ability with splash damage (similar to Werewolf Berserker) to counter evasion buffs in PvP. The damage dealt to enemies around the original target was roughly 52% of the original strikes' damage so this change gives it a little more cleave in PvE.
Also bring back the old spear model, Nighthollow was a weird choice.
- Spear Shards
- Sun Shield
Surround yourself with solar rays, granting a damage shield that absorbs up to 4800 damage for 6 seconds. This portion of the ability scales off your Max Health. Nearby enemies take 1742 Magic Damage when the shield is activated. While slotted on either bar, when you block an attack you increase the strength of the shield by 15% stacking up to 4 times. This effect can occur once every second. Shield strength is capped at 45% of your max health.
Developer Comment:
The way the original shield functioned was mostly relegated to trash pulls and defending against multiple attackers, with no real reason to use it anywhere else. This change allows the shield to be more useful for tanks as the new condition can be useful against single targets. The reason that the shield strength is capped at 45% of your max health is due to the fact that Templar already has access to powerful healing when compared to other classes. A Templar with ultra powerful shields like Sorcerer or Arcanist would be busted in PvP. When you reach max stacks the ability will light up, similar to Grim Focus or Crystal Fragments.
- Radiant Ward (morph)
When the shield expires you gain Magicka and Stamina equal to 10% of the damage absorbed by the shield.
Developer Comment:
It's no secret that Templar has bad sustain. This is only one of the changes in the classes kit that helps with it's sustain, although this one is mostly to help tanks.
- Blazing shield (morph)
While slotted on either bar, when you deal direct damage, you increase the strength of the shield by 10%, stacking up to 5 times. This effect can occur once every second. Whenever an enemy deals direct damage to you while the shield is active, 30% of the damage absorbed is dealt to them as Magic damage.
Developer Comment:
This morph is meant to reflect how the Aedric Spear skill line is a DPS/ Tank skill line, giving a more damage-focused character the opportunity to benefit from the shield. The shield scale has also been made so that it can only be increased by up to 50% strength (down from 60% strength) and takes slightly longer to get max stacks.
- Balanced Warrior (Passive)
Increase your Weapon and Spell damage by 3/6% and increase your block mitigation by 5/10%
Developer Comment:
Since Sacred Ground now gives armor while standing in it, this passive gets block mitigation instead
- Burning Light
When you deal damage you generate a stack of Burning Light for 3 seconds. After reaching 4 stacks, you deal 1194 Magic Damage to your target. This effect can stack once every half second and scales off your highest offensive stats.
Developer Comment:
Increased the damage of this passive by roughly 33% to lessen the gap between pre-execute and execute phases of any fight. To compensate for this and other damage changes across the class, Radiant Destruction is getting a slight nerf to it's execute scaling.
- Spear Wall (Passive)
Give yourself and nearby group members Minor Protection for 6 seconds, reducing damage taken by 5%.
Developer Comment:
Credit to
@Billium813 for this change, click
here for original post
The Templar's original class fantasy was similar to that of a Paladin, a staunch protector that holds the line. This change simply gives templar the opportunity to more effectively fill that role and protect their allies better. The radius of the buff would be 5 meters, encouraging players to stay close to the Templar.
- Summon Aedric Spear (Ultimate)
- Radial Sweep renamed Summon Aedric Spear.
- Call on the power of the Aedra to summon a spear of holy light for 10 seconds. While active you heal you for 20% of all direct damage done, your light and heavy attacks deal magic damage, deal an extra 777 Magic damage and have their range increased to 28 meters. Basic melee attacks and melee range weapon abilities have their range increased to 8 meters. When you heavy attack an enemy in melee range, you swing your spear around you, dealing damage to all nearby enemies.
Developer Comment:
The original ability felt lackluster compared to other ultimate's from different skill lines, this complete overhaul aims to give templar a unique offensive ultimate that's worth using. Due to the buffs that the ability has received, it now costs 170 Ultimate to use. For those who still want to sweep, it's still possible, just heavy attack in melee range and the animation will occur, dealing damage in a 360 degree area, just without the effects of the original.
Templar is well known for their love of spears, so why not let them summon one for a little while?
Since the ultimate has pretty much been changed from the ground up, it requires new animations while it is active. In the following wall of text I will detail the animations that I think would be best suited to light/ heavy attacks and various weapon abilities. The skills damage and effects remain the same as the attacks still use the stats of your equipped weapons. These animations are purely visual overhauls. If a skill is not mentioned then it remains unchanged or simply has the spear in place of the weapon.
When the ultimate is activated, your equipped weapons become sheathed as you summon the spear in your right hand, holding it halfway up its shaft. Your left hand stays empty unless the animation description specifically mentions that both hands are being used. When the ultimate ends, the spear dissipates and you redraw your equipped weapons.
- Ranged Light and Heavy attacks
- Light attacks: just a quick throw of the spear. The spear dissipates when striking an enemy and reappears in your hand thereafter.
- Heavy attacks: An animation similar to a javelin thrower, lining up the shot, drawing the spear back and throwing it. The spear dissipates when striking an enemy and reappears in your hand thereafter.
- Bow
- Melee Light Attacks: a quick one-handed jab with the spear.
- Blocking: Same animation as blocking with a staff, just with the spear in place of a staff.
- Vault (scribing): throw the spear down and jump back. when the jump is done the spear dissipates and reappears in your hand
- snipe: Same animation as heavy attack, just sped up to match the skill.
- Volley: same startup animation as spear shards, but when spear reaches it's apex it splits into tiny shards and rains down at the target location. after launching the spear a new one appears in your hands.
- Scatter shot: same animation as the Piercing Javelin skill.
- Arrow Spray: swing the spear in a small arc in front of you, sending out shards of light.
- Poison Arrow: same animation as the Piercing Javelin skill.
- Destruction Staff
- Same animations for abilities, ultimate's and blocking, just with the spear in place of the staff.
- Melee Light Attacks: a quick one-handed jab with the spear.
- Dual Wield
- Melee Light Attacks: a quick one-handed jab with the spear.
- Melee Heavy Attacks: Swing the spear around you twice very quickly.
- Blocking: Same animation as blocking with a staff, just with the spear in place of a staff.
- Travelling knife (scribing): Flick the spear in front of you, sending out a shard of light that returns to the spear. The shard of light is a replacement texture for the traveling knife effect and does whatever it would do depending on the way that the skill was scribed.
- Flurry: 4 extremely fast, short range jabs with the spear.
- Twin Slashes: hold the spear with both hands and do 2 Quick slices with the tip of the spear.
- Whirlwind: spin around, twirling the spear around your body as you do so.
- Blade Cloak: The startup animation has you holding the spear above your head triumphantly, thereafter the same effects occur with the tiny knives being replaced with sharp shards of light. The visual effect persists until the ability is recast while the ultimate is not active or it expires.
- Hidden Blade: An underhand toss of the spear at the target.
- Flying Dagger: when you activate the ability again to jump at the target you perform the same animation as the Focused Charge skill.
- Shrouded Daggers: The visual effect of the bouncing dagger is replaced by the spear. When you use the skill, a new spear appears in your hand. The spear that was launched dissipates after hitting all of its targets.
- One Hand and Shield
- Melee Light Attacks: A quick jab with the spear over the shield that you have positioned in front of you.
- Blocking: Hold the spear next to your head and over the shield, classic phalanx stance.
- Puncture: turn your torso to the left and perform an underhand thrust with the spear.
- Low Slash: Swing the spear in a low arc from your left side.
- Defensive Posture: Position the shield in front of you and aggressively slam the shaft of the spear into the shield like a drum.
- Shield Charge:Hold the spear back when charging with the tip pointing downward.
- Restoration Staff
Same animations for abilities, ultimate's and blocking, just with the spear in place of the staff.
- Melee Light Attacks: a quick one-handed jab with the spear.
- Two Handed
- Melee Light Attacks: Quickly swipe the spear in a horizontal arc in front of you with 1 hand.
- Blocking: Same animation as blocking with a staff, just with the spear in place of a staff.
- Uppercut: Draw the spear back with both hands and thrust in into the targets chest with an underhand strike.
- Stampede: Same animation as the Focused Charge skill.
- Cleave: Same animation as the melee heavy attack granted by this ultimate, as explained in its description.
- Reverse slash: Spin around while twirling the spear around your body, slashing the target with a diagonal strike when you have finished spinning around.
- Momentum: Same animation, but with the spear in place of the weapon.
- Glorious Spear (morph)
Deas physical damage. While active, you are immune to interrupts, immobilizations and snares
Developer Comment:
This change is meant more to create a Morph that favors Stamplars while still being useful for most builds. Templar's are rather slow in PVP already when mobility is king. being slowed down, interrupted or immobilized are usually death sentences in PvP, even more so for Templars. This change gives them a short window in which they can be very offensive without worrying too much about getting caught in someone's trap
- Everlasting Spear (morph)
Increase duration to 14 seconds.
- Dawn's Wrath
- Solar Flare
Conjure a ball of solar energy to launch at an enemy, dealing 2323 Magic Damage granting you Empower for 10 seconds, increasing the damage of your Heavy Attacks against monsters by 70%.
Developer Comment:
The cast time has been reduced to 0.5 seconds to bring it more in line with other with spammables with cast times. The travel time is now instant. Its light. The fastest thing we know of. Why does it have a travel time?! The Sunsphere buff has also been removed and been made part of the Illuminate passive. SInce it can now be cast faster the damage has been slightly nerfed (2323, down from 2404)
- Dark Flare (Morph)
Applies Minor Defile, reducing their healing received and damage shield strength by 6% for 4 seconds
Developer Comment:
Major Defile shouldn't be on a spammable, with the cast time being reduced and the travel time being made instant, the changes make up for the loss of Major Defile. The skill should now be more in line with other spammables
- Backlash
Summon an expanding beam of pure sunlight to doom an enemy, dealing 1227 Magic Damage immediately and marking them for 6 seconds. After the duration ends, the sunlight bursts, dealing 1412 Magic Damage to the enemy, which increases by 10% each time you deal damage to them, up to 200%. You can have only one Backlash active at a time. While slotted on either bar, you gain Major Brutality and Major Sorcery, increasing your Weapon and Spell Damage by 20%.
Developer Comment:
Credit to
@VinnyGambini and
@MEBengalsFan2001for inspiring these changes, Click
here and
here respectively for their original posts
Slight increase to base damage and the condition to reach maximum damage is now based on how many times you deal damage to the target instead of how much damage you deal to them. This change is designed to make it easier to reach the maximum damage in PvP. Major brutality/ Sorcery are now while slotted buffs. This change is made to give some more versatility to the class, giving healers and tanks the opportunity to get these buffs while still remaining viable
- Power of the Light (morph)
Deals physical damage and each hit of the ability applies the Sundered status effect. When Sundered ends the target is afflicted with Minor Breach, reducing their armour by 2974 for 3 seconds.
Developer Comment:
Sundered already applies Minor Breach, but the debuff falls off after 4 seconds and doesn't stay until the duration of the skill ends. Now minor breach is applied as soon as Sundered ends to keep the debuff on the target when the ability's delayed damage strike and to keep the debuff on the target until the ability can be recast again in a small window of opportunity.
.
- Purifying Light (morph)
After the duration ends, you and allies in the area for 328 Health every second, over 10 seconds. You can have only one Purifying Light at a time.
Developer Comment:
The healing effect now ticks once every second instead of once every 2 seconds and the healing has been increased by 10% to give some more incentive to use this morph.
- Eclipse
Envelop yourself in a lightless sphere for 10 seconds to protect yourself, anytime you take direct damage you heal for 2066 Health. This effect can occur once every half second.
Developer Comment:
The original ability is pretty much useless and only used on one or two super niche builds, so this skill is now cast on you and uses the healing function of Living Dark without applying the snare.
- Radiant Destruction
Burn an enemy with a ray of holy fire, dealing 3120 Magic Damage over 1.8 seconds. Deals up to 450% more damage to enemies below 50% Health. You restore up to 480 Magicka/Stamina per tick, based on the target's missing Health. Cost determined by highest max resource.
Developer Comment:
Templar is usually pushed into the Magicka direction, while Stamina builds are forced to use Magicka skills to remain viable. This change incorporates the resource return aspect of Radiant Glory in the base kill and morphs as well as having its cost determined by your highest resource, this change aims to help Stamina builds stay in the running with their Magicka counterparts. Something that likely jumped out at you was the nerf to the Scaling, going from 480% down to 450%. This is due to the change made with the Burning Light passive, which now deals more damage. The gap between damage done in pre-execute and execute phases has been lessened by these changes, giving Templar more consistent damage.
- Radiant Glory
Burn an enemy with a ray of holy fire, dealing 3219 Magic Damage over 1.8 seconds. Deals up to 450% more damage to enemies below 50% Health. You heal for 17% of the damage inflicted.
- Radiant Oppression
Burn an enemy with a ray of holy fire, dealing 3219 Magic Damage over 1.8 seconds. Deals up to 470% more damage to enemies below 50% Health. The target has their movement speed reduced by 40% for 2 seconds.
Developer Comment:
The original only provided some extra damage and is often overlooked in PvP because the healing component of the other morph is usually too good to give up. With the addition of a snare, this ability could be quite handy in PvP, trading off some healing for a better chance to confirm a kill.
- Enduring Rays (Passive)
Increase the duration of debuffs that you apply by 1/2 seconds.
Developer Comment:
The original passive was generic and boring so it was scrapped, Instead, this passive aims to give Templar better uptimes with debuffs. Templar Tanks aren't great. The changes in this discussion do help to give them more to work with, but they still won't be DK or Arcanist levels of great. This change allows them to be a bit better in that role, being able to have slightly better uptimes than other classes. Dps and PvP builds will also be able to benefit from this since Templar usually does do a lot of buff-cycling and being able to keep an important debuff up could make a difference
- Illuminate (Passive)
Casting a Dawn’s Wrath ability while in combat grants you sunsphere, increasing your damage done with class abilities by 5% 6/12 seconds.
Developer Comment:
Since the original function of this passive was moved to the Prism passive, this passive now gives the same bonus that sunsphere used to, but it can proc off of any Dawn's Wrath skill rather than only one. This change was made to open up Templar's kit a little bit and add some more versatility with skills.
- Prism (Passive)
When you cast a Dawn’s Wrath ability, you and your group gain Minor Sorcery for 10/20 seconds, increasing your Spell Damage by 10%. If you are in combat, you also generate 2/3 Ultimate. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds.
Developer Comment:
Credit to
@Billium813 for this change, click
here for the original post.
Dragonknight's
Mountain's Blessing passive has a similar effect to what this passive now does. There is no reason for one class to get 1 passive where another needs 2 to achieve the same effect.
- Nova (Ultimate)
Call down a fragment of the sun, dealing 1452 Magic Damage every 1 second for 10 seconds. Enemies in the target area are afflicted with Major Maim, reducing their damage done by 10%. You or an ally near the fragment can activate the Gravity well synergy, dealing 2607 Magic Damage to all enemies in the area, pulling them in and stunning them for 3 seconds.
Developer Comment:
The original just felt like a worse version of Meteor. It dealt less damage, didn't last as long, cost more and only provided a synergy and an ok debuff. This change increases the aoe damage by 25% (it's a fragment of the sun, it should hurt to be near it), adds a massive pull in the form of a brand new synergy and lasts a smidge longer. The cost has also been reduced to 230 Ultimate because the original cost more than it was worth.
Overall, it still deals slightly less damage than Meteor with the synergy included, The pull aspect of this ultimate was added to give a bit more utility in PvE. It can especially be useful in Trials/ dungeons with massive trash packs (Hel ra, Lucent Citadel, Sanctum Ophidia, Rockgrove etc.) that need to be wrangled. The pull would also be an enhanced pull, meaning that it can be used against some enemies that cant normally be pulled, such as elites, but not bosses/minibosses
- Solar Nimbus (Morph)
- Solar Disturbance Renamed Solar Nimbus
- Call down fragments of the sun to swirl around you. Enemies in the area take 1193 Magic Damage every second for 10 seconds and are afflicted with Major Maim, reducing their damage done by 10%. You can activate the Gravity well synergy by activating the ability again, dealing 5215 Magic Damage to all enemies in the area, pulling them to you and stunning them for 3 seconds. This effect can occur once per cast.
Developer Comment:
Ability is now cast around you, using the same visual effect as the aoe around the sun fragment in the original and other morph. It deals less damage, but the synergy deals more damage to compensate. This morph can be used in PvE to pull enemies toward you or in PvP to set up burst/ bomb combo's
- Solar Prison (Morph)
Radius increased to 12 meters, Enemies in the area have their movement speed reduced by 60%.
- Restoring Light
- Healing Ritual
Focus your spiritual devotion, healing you and nearby allies for 2352 Health and an additional 3162 health over 12 seconds.
Developer Comment:
The original Healing Ritual was very boring, just an aoe burst heal. Its still an aoe burst heal but it has an additional Hot attatched to it so that players can still wander off with the heal . The heal from the initial burst was reduced a bit to make way for the HOT component, which heals for a bit less than other HOT's. The reason for the slight reductions have to do with the buffs that the morphs provide, balancing the skill out.
- Emboldening Prayer
- Ritual of Rebirth renamed Emboldening Prayer.
- Grants nearby allies Sunsphere for 12 seconds, increasing your damage done with class abilities by 5%.
Developer Comment:
Templar, following the paladin archetype, needs to be able to inspire their allies. What better way to do that than make them stronger? This change won't have too much of an effect in gameplay since a lot of a characters DPS comes from places other than their class abilities, but a damage buff is still a damage buff. It's also attached to a HOT which will be useful for healers
- Hasty Prayer
Grants Major expedition to you and nearby allies, increasing your movement speed by 30% for 4 seconds. When Major Expedition expires you and nearby allies gain Minor Expedition for 4 seconds, increasing your movement speed by 15%.
Developer Comment:
Minor Expedition can be sourced easily from many places, same with Major Expedition. The original skill was doing nothing special with it's little speed buff. The intention behind this change is mostly PvP focused where Major/Minor Expedition are sought after buffs and being able to get them from one skill is nice, even if the buffs aren't applied together.
- Restoring Aura
Champion the cause of divine glory to apply Minor Endurance, Minor Fortitude, and Minor Intellect to nearby group members for 20 seconds, increasing Health, Magicka, and Stamina Recovery by 15%. Affected allies that stand in your Cleansing Ritual, Rune Focus or Rite of Passage area effects do not gain Minor Endurance or Minor Intellect, instead they gain 1800 armour and regain 160 Magicka and Stamina every second.
Developer Comment:
Restoring Aura was only useful because it morphed into repentance. With arcanist's ring, Warden's mushrooms and Nightblade's path of darkness; this skill is pretty much obsolete, so a few changes were needed to make it viable.
The first big change is that it now requires 2295 Magicka to cast. This change was made because the effects that this skill provide shouldn't be free. The second change is that it no longer grants recovery buffs when standing in your Cleansing Ritual, Rune focus or Rite of passage aoe's, instead they gain what is pretty much Sacred Ground lite. This is the biggest change and is designed to give Templar's an interesting group buff with a little flavor to put it back in the running with other healers. When affected allies leave your aoe's they get the recovery buffs back. The resources returned while inside the aoe's also give more resources than the recovery buffs could. These changes also incentivize players to stay close to the Templar, especially if they are a healer.
Allies can't be affected by more than 1 instance or Radiant Aura (even if it is their own), this is to prevent players from getting both of the effects at once from 2 Templars.
This skill is essentially an invitation to the party at Templar's house.
- Radiant Aura
Duration increased to 1 minute. You and allies within 5 meters of you do not gain Minor Endurance or Minor Intellect, instead gaining 1800 armor and regain 160 Magicka and Stamina every second. While you are standing in your own Cleansing Ritual, Rune Focus, or Rite of Passage area effects you gain the benefits of your Sacred Ground passive instead of the additional benefits of this skill.
Developer Comment:
As with the original, the duration is increased to 1 minute, but the area within a 5 metre radius of the Templar now acts as sacred ground that affected players can benefit from. This change is aimed a little towards PvP where standing still isn't really that great, so you can now take the effect with you to help allies on the move. You don't need sacred ground when you ARE the sacred ground.
The Sacred Ground passive does not proc off of this aoe for you, you gain the effects the other affected players do, but you still need to be standing in your own Cleansing Ritual, Rune Focus, or Rite of Passage area effects to proc Sacred Ground. The additional effects are replaced by Sacred Ground when you meet the proc conditions, essentially replacing Sacred Ground lite with the real thing.
- Repentance.
Consecrate the souls of the fallen, healing you and your allies for 3000 Health and restoring 1800 Magicka and Stamina to you for each corpse nearby. Nearby allies also gain 600 Magicka and Stamina per corpse consumed. While slotted on either bar, you gain Minor Fortitude, Minor Endurance, and Minor Intellect, increasing your Health, Stamina, and Magicka Recovery by 15%.
Developer Comment:
Original skill was great for tanks and Stamplars, but it lacked versatility for other builds. By making the skill restore Magicka and Stamina, the skill can effectively used by Magicka builds too. The amount of resources restored have been lessened since it restores Mag and Stam. Since Templar is being remade to keep allies in the fight, allies get some resources back too. This will especially help in trash packs or massive fights in Cyrodiil.
- Cleansing Ritual
Exalt in the sacred light of the Aedra, cleansing up to 4 harmful effects from yourself immediately and healing you and nearby allies for 422 Health every second for 20 seconds. Allies in the area can activate the Purify synergy, cleansing all harmful effects from themselves and healing for 1912 Health.
Developer Comment:
The cleanse aspect is mostly for PvP, but can be used situationally in PvE too. The problem is that negative effects are abundant in PvP and 2 effects aren't enough to deal with all of the effects. The "Cleanse" doesn't really cleanse much so now it cleanses 4 negative effects upon activation instead of 2. The healing tick rate has also been reduced to 1 second while keeping the total healing roughly the same because the 2 second delay makes the ability feel wonky and slow.
- Extended Ritual (morph)
Increase the duration to 30 seconds and cleanses 6 negative effects when activated. Every 5 seconds the area removes 1 negative effect from you and allies when standing in it.
Developer Comment:
As stated previously, negative effects in PvP are abundant so the amount of negative effects cleansed has been increased to 6, up from 5. The area now removes negative effects from you and allies standing in the ring once every 5 seconds over the duration. This change is just to give Templar a little more to give to the group in PvP as well as keep themself safer
- Ritual of Retribution (morph)
Exalt in the sacred light of the Aedra, cleansing up to 4 harmful effects from yourself immediately. While in the area, enemies take 435 Magic Damage every 2 seconds for 20 seconds which increases by 12% per tick. Allies in the area can activate the Purify synergy. cleansing all harmful effects from themselves and healing for 1912 Health.
- Rune Focus
Create a rune of celestial protection and gain Major Resolve for 24 seconds, increasing your Physical Resistance and Spell Resistance by 5948. While the rune is active you heal for 319 Health every 1 second, scaling off your Max Health. Standing within the rune increases the healing done by 200%. Cost determined by highest max resource.
Developer Comment:
The base skill remains mostly unchanged apart from that the radius is now 4 meters (Templar is supposed to build their house, not their shack) and that it's cost is determined by highest max resource. This change is to let Mag or Stam builds benefit from either morph since the resource recovery was moved to Sacred Ground.
- Restoring Focus (morph)
No longer restores resources over the duration.
Developer Comment:
Before anyone gets up in arms about the change, the resource recovery has been moved to the sacred ground passive to give Templars some more versatility. DPS and healers don't usually run this skill so being able to get the resources back from any area that grants Sacred Ground would help a lot with their usually poor sustain.
- Channeled focus (morph)
Conjure runes of celestial protection around you and gain Major Resolve for 24 seconds, increasing your Physical Resistance and Spell Resistance by 5948. You heal for 619 health once every second, scaling off your Max Health.
Developer Comment:
Templar is designed to be a "Stand your ground" kind of character, but that limits it's mobility a lot, especially in PvP and solo content. This change makes it so that you conjure protective runes around your body, essentially allowing you to take Sacred Ground with you at the expense of healing. The cost has also been increased to 2700 Magicka/Stamina to bring it in line with other similar skills since it doesn't need to be recast as much.
- Sacred Ground (Passive)
While standing in your own Cleansing Ritual, Rune Focus or Rite of Passage area effects and for up to 5 seconds after leaving them you gain 1300/2600 armor and recover 121/242 Magicka and Stamina over the duration.
Developer Comment:
The original Sacred Ground was just ok, and only gave a little incentive to utilize it properly. Sacred ground should be a core part of Templars identity as the "stand your ground" or "hold the line" class. As such, it has recieved a major overhaul. It's original features were distributed to other passives (Balanced Warrior and Mending) so that the class doesn't lose those aspects. Instead, the new Sacred Ground gives armor and resource recovery. Since the armor was taken away from the Balanced Warrior passive you now get it from sacred ground. The resource recovery aspect was taken away from the rune skills to give Templar some versatility with build options. It also helps with Templar's notorious sustain issues. Due to the importance of this passive, it is now the first one you unlock in the Restoring Light skill line, swapping places with Mending.
Templar no longer builds it's house, it builds it's fortress.
- Mending
Increase your healing done by up to 4/8% in proportion to the severity of the target's wounds. When you cast a Restoring Light ability you gain Minor Mending for 6/12 seconds, increasing your healing done by 8%.
Developer Comment:
The original passive granted a 6/12% increase to the effectiveness of your Restoring Light skills in proportion of your Targets wounds, but the restriction of only being able use Restoring Light skills was a little too restrictive. Now it increases your effectiveness by 4/8% with all healing, not just class heals. You also gain Minor Mending for 6/12 second after casting a Restoring Light ability. The passive is literally called "Mending", why wasn't Minor Mending on this originally?
- Light Weaver
When you heal yourself or an ally under 50% health, you grant them 1/2 ultimate This effect can occur once every second.
Developer Comment:
The original passive was too restrictive with it's requirements, so now it procs off of any healing (HOT's included) so long as the target being healed by you has less than 50% health. Allies can only be affected by 1 instance of Light Weaver so as to prevent crazy ulti-gen with multiple Templars.
- Master Ritualist
Increases your resurrection speed by 20%. Resurrected allies return to life with 100% Health. Increase the duration of buffs you apply by 1/2 seconds.
Developer Comment:
Templar can still res allies quickly because it fits with their theme of keeping allies in the fight, but the part with the soul gem interaction was scrapped since it was useless. Now you increase the duration of buffs you apply by 2 seconds. This will help Templar keep good uptimes on group buffs. Note that the extra time is added after effects that increase buff durations, for example: an 8 second buff would be increased to 11 seconds when using Jorvald's guidance [8*((100/100)+40)]. this passive would increase the duration of the buff to 13 [8*((100/100)+40)+2] seconds not 14 [(8+2)*((100/100)+40). This passive would also only apply to named buffs]
- Right of passage
Channel the grace of the gods, healing you and nearby allies for 2090 Health every second for 10 seconds. You and affected allies take 5% less damage for the duration.
Developer Comment:
Lets see what other classes get for their "Healing ultimate"
- Dragonknight: limits damage to 3% of their max health and give allies a damage shield equal to their entire health bar.
- Nightblade: Good burst heal with HOT component, Major Vitality and a damaging synergy that heals them for the damage caused.
- Sorcerer: Healing field with negate, nullifying enemy aoe's.
- Warden: super cheap healing zone that bursts the lowest health target up by a considerable amount, their passives also grant allies healed 10% extra max health.
- Necromancer: straight up resurrect players.
- Arcanist: strong healing zone that gives allies weapon and spell damage. Major Protection too.
Meanwhile templar just gives a strong HOT while unable to do anything else. The version that heals half as much does give Major protection, but only to the caster and doesn't allow them to move at all. It's been talked about to death that this ultimate is bad. Everyone knows that it's situationally useful at best and falls behind almost all other class "Healing" ultimate's. The only saving grace is that its relatively cheap.
Now it has a few changes to make it a bit more viable. The first change is that it has had it's healing reduced to 75% of it's original value. This is to make way for the unique source of damage reduction (the second change) and the fact that you can move eround and still act normally while the ability is doing it's thing (third change). ESO has an action-combat system so taking a players action out of the combat is weird to say the least. The fourth change is that you no longer have immunity to disabling effects. The strong HOT, damage reduction and the fact that you can act normally while the ultimate is active should be more than enough.
The final change is the animation. Since you can now do things other than channel this ultimate, it needs a new animation. You can't just exude balls of light from your praying hands anymore. Instead, this ultimate has been given a 0.6 second cast time. In that time you perform an animation similar to the original, putting your hands together in the air while praying. When the cast time is complete, a single ball of light will travel to each of your allies within range and start to heal them over the duration. while active, you and allies gain a glowing effect around their bodies like the effect that was applied to the templar while channeling the original.
- Protective incantation (morph)
Channel the grace of the gods, healing you and nearby allies for 1527 Health every second for 10 seconds. You and affected allies take 10% less damage for the duration. If cast with 170 or more ultimate, you gain 50% damage reduction for the duration.
Developer Comment:
The healing is reduced to 55% the value of the original, but you and allies now gain 10% damage reduction rather than 5%. This morph is intended to be the more tanky morph with higher damage reduction for you if cast with 170 or more ultimate.
The extra ultimate cost involved to get the additional buff cannot be reduced in any way.
- Inspiring Incantation (morph)
You and affected allies gain Major Force for 8 seconds if cast with 220 or more ultimate.
Developer comment:
This morph is designed with healers in mind. Having a Templar healer on your team can potentially open up an ultimate slot for the tank if they are using Warhorn, giving them more options and strategies. Major Force is a relatively rare buff but is essential for almost any fight and having more ways to get is a win in my book.
The ultimate cost involved to get the buff is less than that of Warhorn, but Warhorn also gives more max resources, increasing damage further. the difference shouldn't be too noticable. With the Master Ritualist passive the duration of Major force would be increased to 10 seconds.
The extra ultimate cost involved to get the additional buff cannot be reduced in any way.
Congratulations if you made it through all that. Constructive criticism is welcome and appreciated, this is still a first draft kind of idea that requires refinement.