Will Templar passives ever get reviewed?

ArctosCethlenn · October 2

Templar has several passive skills, particularly in the Dawn's Wrath line (but also Master Ritualist) that really deserve to be adjusted.

Why are Illuminate and Prism each one half of a DK skill?

Why does Enduring Rays even exist now? Adding one extra tick to solar barrage and vampire's bane feels meaningless, it's basically a weak resource efficiency passive.

Master Ritualist gets less and less useful as players improve, why does Templar's healing line have a passive to more quickly recover from failing to heal someone, instead of a 4th passive that is always effective?

Necrotech_Master · October 2

those are mainly still for class diversity (the minor buff ones)

NB gives a crit buff, but its only weapon crit i think, sorc gives a buff but its only a spell buff, etc

none of those things were "hybridized" when they went through those and they just kind of sit there

as for other passives, yeah im sure they could use some tweaks, especially in the sustain department lol

ArctosCethlenn · October 2

what does hybridization have to do with illuminate and prism each being one half of dk's version of the passive, though. I didn't say anything about hybridization?

MashmalloMan · October 2

ArctosCethlenn wrote: »

what does hybridization have to do with illuminate and prism each being one half of dk's version of the passive, though. I didn't say anything about hybridization?

Yeah i think they missed the point you were making. Although, to their credit, some classes version of that minor group buff passive only do 1 thing, some do 2 things, some are easy to proc from anything, some require a skill within that line. It's really not something that I think was ever meant to be compared 1:1, apples to apples, the entireity of all 12 passives is a better comparison to which I'd argue Templar still shows evidence of being underdeveloped. In fact, comparing the whole kit to another classes kit makes it even clearer. That said, your DK/Templar example still illustrates the problem effectively.

On the topic of Enduring Rays, all passives for classes that added time to their durations usually didn't make any sense because it originally didn't help exceed skill standards, it only helped meet them.

Before ZOS really fine tuned skill standards for cost and duration, a dot usually lasted 10s, however class skills with this passive were arbitrarily shortened to 8s so when the 2s was added it hit the 10s standard. This was the case with DK and the "Searing Heat" passive for a long time. Eventually real standards were made, the passive was looked at, and ZOS decided to tack on extra damage done for the abilities it effected. This was brilliant because the passive basically says "DK has better dots", they don't meet a standard, they exceed them, not just by duration, but by power.

Also, when 10s dots changed to 20s, they increased the duration increase from +2 to +4. +20% duration and +25% damage is substantial, NB/Templar's +10% duration is not, while also not matching their class identity at all. They can just bake in the +2s to the affected abilities if necessary like how they previously handled Shadowy Disguise, then make a completely new passive that actually does something befitting to the class. Another example, NB's Path of Darkness vs Warden's Impaling Shards. Ever notice how Impaling Shards is 12s without a passive?

gariondavey · October 3

this is brought up frequently over the last few years
would be really nice if zos gave templar some attention

MashmalloMan · October 3

gariondavey wrote: »

this is brought up frequently over the last few years
would be really nice if zos gave templar some attention

Uhhh Sun Shield and Focused Charge taunt buffs! That's all the attention this year folks, see ya again next year.

/s

ArctosCethlenn · October 3

Yeah I look forward to seeing how many new templars start accidentally taunting things in dungeons because of focused charge, such a great idea to change a mobility and interrupt skill into a taunt.

Next they're gonna put a taunt on critical charge or something.

boi_anachronism_ · October 3

Yeah the taunt on both morphs was deeply questionable..

huskandhunger · October 5

@ZOS_Kevin

will Templar get a pass through/review of their skill line passives? They are very dated.

Ren_TheRedFox · October 5

given the fact that the Templar is the only class with no recovery passives makes it awful to play them ... the sustain is awful no matter what

Major_Mangle · October 5

The biggest joke when it comes to the templar passives is the master ritualist one. It´s in the same category as the NB ultimate consuming darkness aka completely useless.

ArctosCethlenn · October 5

Ren_TheRedFox wrote: »

given the fact that the Templar is the only class with no recovery passives makes it awful to play them ... the sustain is awful no matter what

Yeah, personally I'd replace enduring rays with something sustain related like flat magicka + stamina recovery while a dawn's wrath skill is active.

Or in the spear line make burning light also restore x magicka or stamina when it procs, adapting to whichever resource is lower.

Or merge radiant aura and master ritualist, when you heal someone with a restoring light skill you give them 10s of minor recoveries, alongside the faster rez with more health. Then make repentance give selfish major recoveries, and replace Radiant Aura with something that isn't a joke.

The_Meathead · October 5

Templar passives feel outdated compared to most other classes, particularly Arcanist.

If Arcanist is the new norm, Templar (and anyone else in such tepid condition) should get a tune up.

While we're at it, things like constant Brutality/Sorcery buffs that last on both bars and some sort of combining of "must have" abilities that every single PvP Templar runs on their backbar is similarly overdue. Right now, Templars have to hog up their entire backbar and hit a four or five ability rotation just to be "ready" for combat, while that's hardly the norm for others.

This used to be made up for by Jabs imo, since it was a tremendously strong and all-encompassing spammable. With Jabs as weak as it is ugly (please please revert that animation!), the Templar backbar prep dance is even more imbalanced in comparison to other classes.

Theist_VII · October 6

All I gotta say to this is good luck.

This has been brought up before, and the devs believe that it’s fine because Templar has passives like Lightweaver and Burning Light.

Even though one is conditional and the other is weaker than an enchantment proc.

Billium813 · October 9

Templar has some really bad Passives. Restoring Light in particular needs another look.

Templar
- Aedric Spear
  - Spear Wall (Passive)
    
    Upon activating an Aedric Spear ability. You and allies within 5 meters gain Minor Protection for 6 seconds, reducing damage taken by 5%.
    
    Developer Comment
    
    One pain point for Templar is that they don't provide enough utility in groups. It should be baked into the Templar class to protect allies near them. At the moment, non-Templars have access to Frost Impulse and Circle of Protection, Necros get Bone Totem, Wardens have Maturation. It seems safe to establish Minor Protection as a Templar group buff for nearby allies. Also, making it a small 5m AOE, instead of just all allies, helps to make multiple Templars worthwhile. Whether it be DPS spamming Jabs, Support launching Spear Shards, Tanks using Sun Shield, or even PvP players jumping in to backup their friends with Focused Charge, allies should be rewarded for standing near their closest Templar ally with a wall of protective spears!
- Dawn's Wrath
  - Prism (Passive)
    
    When you cast a Dawn's Wrath ability, you and your group gain Minor Sorcery for 20 seconds, increasing your Spell Damage by 10%. If you are in combat, you also generate 3 Ultimate. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds.
    
    Developer Comment
    
    This change brings Prism in line with Dragonknight's Mountain Blessing Passive. There's no reason a class should have 2 Passives that are functionally equivalent a single Passive in another class.
  - Illuminate (Passive)
    
    Reduce the damage you take from Area of Effect abilities by 15% while a Dawn's Wrath ability is active.
    
    Developer Comment
    
    Since the current Illuminate has now been combined with Prism, a new effect is needed for Illuminate. The Dawn's Wrath skill line is very DPS polarized, so I went with a defensive passive. I went with AoE damage reduction to work in tandem with Restoring Light's Sacred Ground identity and Templars overall Area Denial identity. With this design, Templars are not punished as harshly when AOEs are placed over the area the Templar player has already chosen. This gives Templars an edge in competing AOE damage, as long as the Templar is utilizing their complete toolkit of Skills (Aedric Spear for Spear Wall, Restoring Light for Sacred Ground, and a ticking Dawn's Wrath ability).
- Restoring Light
  - Light Weaver (Passive)
    
    While in combat, whenever you heal an ally with a Restoring Light ability, you grant them 2 Ultimate every 2 seconds for 6 seconds.
    
    Developer Comment
    
    As written, the condition of needing an ally to drop below 50% is far too harsh for the mediocre profit of 2 Ultimate. In every combat log I've looked at where Templar was Support healer (the best chance of procing this), it almost NEVER procs! Ever! It literally punishes you for being a good healer and keeping players topped up. Also, I dropped the special Rite of Passage interaction since it doesn't make any sense for this to be on a passive instead of just ON the Ultimate ability to begin with. Add it to the Ulti Skill level progression if you care that much.
    
    For this new passive, I wanted to create something that would work for all the skills in the Restoring Light Skill line. Restoring Light heals tend to be for large, one time burst heals: Repentance absorbing 10 corpses, Rushed Ceremony and Healing Ritual often being for over 10k health in one go. Even Rite of Passage tends to drop large heals that give no real benefit for overhealing by such a large margin. This design also works well with Cleansing Ritual as an AOE HOT. While the ally is in the Cleansing Ritual, they receive Ult generation as the timer auto updates on each 2 second heal if the ally is taking damage. If the enemy leaves the circle, then the timer can just run out and stop. This helps give a balance of returns between the expensive one time heals, and allies standing in the long duration AOE Extended Ritual.
    
    Additionally, notice that this design does not proc off overhealing. The ally needs to take damage and then be healed by a Restoring Light Skill. This can help increase the skill ceiling on this design since it doesn't reward allies just standing out of danger at range. It rewards allies that get in there and take damage, at least once per 6 seconds. On top of that, it incentivizes Templar Healers to spec more into Restoring Light Skills and less into generic skills. It gives them a REASON to make sure it's a Restoring Light Skill doing the healing. It tells players they need to stand in the Templar healing circle and that healers need to move that circle around to put players in it.
  - Master Ritualist (Passive)
    
    Increase your Magicka Recovery by 129 for each Restoring Light ability slotted
    
    Developer Comment
    
    The current Master Ritualist design is just too 2014. A bit faster resurrection and Soul Gem interaction are almost totally useless. Kagrenac's Hope & Hanu's Compassion 5 piece bonuses are better AND still some of the worst effects in the game. It's just too sad to have a totally pointless passive in modern ESO design.
    
    I went with Magicka regen only, instead of including Stamina, due to the overwhelming Magicka costs in the Restoring Light Skill line. Magicka sustain is a common issue for Templar Tanking and Support as well; this is mostly due to the high Skill costs. Cleansing Ritual, Living Dark, Sun Shield end up dumping a lot of Magicka and even more if they have to be recast. Having Master Ritualist improve Magicka regen would really help Templar Support and is still worse then Wellspring of the Abyss...

Turtle_Bot · October 9

Billium813 wrote: »

Templar has some really bad Passives. Restoring Light in particular needs another look.
Templar
Aedric Spear
Spear Wall (Passive)

Upon activating an Aedric Spear ability. You and allies within 5 meters gain Minor Protection for 6 seconds, reducing damage taken by 5%.

Developer Comment

One pain point for Templar is that they don't provide enough utility in groups. It should be baked into the Templar class to protect allies near them. At the moment, non-Templars have access to Frost Impulse and Circle of Protection, Necros get Bone Totem, Wardens have Maturation. It seems safe to establish Minor Protection as a Templar group buff for nearby allies. Also, making it a small 5m AOE, instead of just all allies, helps to make multiple Templars worthwhile. Whether it be DPS spamming Jabs, Support launching Spear Shards, Tanks using Sun Shield, or even PvP players jumping in to backup their friends with Focused Charge, allies should be rewarded for standing near their closest Templar ally with a wall of protective spears!

Dawn's Wrath
Prism (Passive)

When you cast a Dawn's Wrath ability, you and your group gain Minor Sorcery for 20 seconds, increasing your Spell Damage by 10%. If you are in combat, you also generate 3 Ultimate. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds.

Developer Comment

This change brings Prism in line with Dragonknight's Mountain Blessing Passive. There's no reason a class should have 2 Passives that are functionally equivalent a single Passive in another class.

Illuminate (Passive)

Reduce the damage you take from Area of Effect abilities by 15% while a Dawn's Wrath ability is active.

Developer Comment

Since the current Illuminate has now been combined with Prism, a new effect is needed for Illuminate. The Dawn's Wrath skill line is very DPS polarized, so I went with a defensive passive. I went with AoE damage reduction to work in tandem with Restoring Light's Sacred Ground identity and Templars overall Area Denial identity. With this design, Templars are not punished as harshly when AOEs are placed over the area the Templar player has already chosen. This gives Templars an edge in competing AOE damage, as long as the Templar is utilizing their complete toolkit of Skills (Aedric Spear for Spear Wall, Restoring Light for Sacred Ground, and a ticking Dawn's Wrath ability).

Restoring Light
Light Weaver (Passive)

While in combat, whenever you heal an ally with a Restoring Light ability, you grant them 2 Ultimate every 2 seconds for 6 seconds.

Developer Comment

As written, the condition of needing an ally to drop below 50% is far too harsh for the mediocre profit of 2 Ultimate. In every combat log I've looked at where Templar was Support healer (the best chance of procing this), it almost NEVER procs! Ever! It literally punishes you for being a good healer and keeping players topped up. Also, I dropped the special Rite of Passage interaction since it doesn't make any sense for this to be on a passive instead of just ON the Ultimate ability to begin with. Add it to the Ulti Skill level progression if you care that much.

For this new passive, I wanted to create something that would work for all the skills in the Restoring Light Skill line. Restoring Light heals tend to be for large, one time burst heals: Repentance absorbing 10 corpses, Rushed Ceremony and Healing Ritual often being for over 10k health in one go. Even Rite of Passage tends to drop large heals that give no real benefit for overhealing by such a large margin. This design also works well with Cleansing Ritual as an AOE HOT. While the ally is in the Cleansing Ritual, they receive Ult generation as the timer auto updates on each 2 second heal if the ally is taking damage. If the enemy leaves the circle, then the timer can just run out and stop. This helps give a balance of returns between the expensive one time heals, and allies standing in the long duration AOE Extended Ritual.

Additionally, notice that this design does not proc off overhealing. The ally needs to take damage and then be healed by a Restoring Light Skill. This can help increase the skill ceiling on this design since it doesn't reward allies just standing out of danger at range. It rewards allies that get in there and take damage, at least once per 6 seconds. On top of that, it incentivizes Templar Healers to spec more into Restoring Light Skills and less into generic skills. It gives them a REASON to make sure it's a Restoring Light Skill doing the healing. It tells players they need to stand in the Templar healing circle and that healers need to move that circle around to put players in it.

Master Ritualist (Passive)

Increase your Magicka Recovery by 129 for each Restoring Light ability slotted

Developer Comment

The current Master Ritualist design is just too 2014. A bit faster resurrection and Soul Gem interaction are almost totally useless. Kagrenac's Hope & Hanu's Compassion 5 piece bonuses are better AND still some of the worst effects in the game. It's just too sad to have a totally pointless passive in modern ESO design.

I went with Magicka regen only, instead of including Stamina, due to the overwhelming Magicka costs in the Restoring Light Skill line. Magicka sustain is a common issue for Templar Tanking and Support as well; this is mostly due to the high Skill costs. Cleansing Ritual, Living Dark, Sun Shield end up dumping a lot of Magicka and even more if they have to be recast. Having Master Ritualist improve Magicka regen would really help Templar Support and is still worse then Wellspring of the Abyss...

I'd keep master ritualist res/soul gem interactions, but then also add on to it your recovery bonus to update it.

It has always been fun on my plar with kags to have a near instant res (this passive + kags + res near keep passive is like barely a 1 second res timer). I know it's a niche build, but its fun to catch people off guard when you can res allies faster than they can drop them (or before they even see you ressing them) and it's definitely something that could remain at its full strength while also getting some additional effects added to it to modernize it for other uses.

Theist_VII · October 9

Agree with pretty much everything @Billium813 suggested, but got lost at tanks using Sun Shield in a description.

People would rather slot Blazing Spears or now Explosive Charge for the Aedric Spear passives than Sun Shield currently with all of the better multi-purpose Scribing wards that not only protect yourself, but your entire group.

Skulptro · October 9

these were the best patch notes I ever saw.