VR5 Templar - what is a good tank build?

Jimm_ay · June 2014

I see people saying templar tanks are beasts - what is a good templar tank build?
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bobby_nayb14a_ESO · June 2014

Taunt (I personally prefer Inner Beast), Ring of Preservation and Channeled Focus. That is the basis of my tank build. I use Restoring Aura to help with stam management and slot a utility spell appropriate to the fights that lie ahead (Volcanic Rune, Blinding Flashes, Immovable, Vampires Bane, etc...). Taking all passives in the sword and board and all three class trees. I normally wear 5/2 heavy/light, but have a light set as well.

GFK283 · June 2014

Here's the build I personally use, put it together myself.

Gear

I run 7 Light Armor. I see no reason to wear heavy at all. At vet 12, wearing full legendary gear (3 set alessia's bulwark, 3 set Toruggs Pact, 3 set Seducer), and a 600 armor ring, I sit at just under 2000 armor and 2100 spell resist. Along with that, I have a massive magicka pool for all my class skills. Heavy is really lacking imo.

As for traits, I put Reinforced on high armor pieces (head, legs, chest), Impenetrable on shield and one other piece, and divines on the rest. I have the Defending trait on my sword and healing/destro staff. I use the Magicka return enchant on weapon.

Attributes and Stats
0/49/0 for attributes. You get the most out of putting all your points into health and enchanting for other things.

For Enchants, I usually go Health on shield and full Magicka on everything else, but it can be beneficial to put some into stamina for certain fights, such as the third boss in Vet Wayrest sewers where you are required to burn stamina to break out of fear. For nearly every other fight, 1200 stamina is sufficient to keep up Immovable and block heavy attacks.

The Mundus I use most often is The Mage, although if you feel yourself lacking in stamina, you could use The Tower, or if you want more health, The Lord.

Skill Points

Aedric Spear Line:
Empowering Sweep (Radial Sweep Morph)
Biting Jabs (Puncturing Strikes Morph)
Binding Javelin (Piercing Javelin Morph)
Blazing Spear (Spear Shards Morph)
Piercing Spear (optional 2/2)
Spear Wall (2/2)
Burning Light (optional 2/2)
Balanced Warrior (2/2)

Dawn's Wrath Line:
Solar Disturbance (Nova Morph)
Vampire's Bane (Sun Fire Morph)(optional)
Dark Flare (Solar Flare Morph)(optional)
Power of the Light (Backlash Morph)(optional)
Blinding Flashes (Blinding Light Morph)
Enduring Rays (optional 2/2)
Prism (optional 2/2)
Illuminate (2/2)
Restoring Spirit (2/2)

Restoring Light Line:
Remembrance (Rite of Passage Morph)
Breath of Life (Rushed Ceremony Morph)
Radiant Aura (Restoring Aura Morph)
Extended Ritual (Purifying Ritual Morph)
Channeled Focus (Rune Focus Morph)
Mending (optional 2/2)
Focused Healing (optional 2/2)
Light Weaver (optional 2/2)
Master Ritualist (optional 2/2)

One Hand and Shield Line:
All Passives

Destruction Staff Line (optional):
Elemental Blockade (Elemental Wall Morph)
Elemental Ring or Pulsar (Impulse Morph)
All Passives

Restoration Staff Line:
Healing Springs (Grand Healing Morph)
Rapid Regeneration (Regeneration Morph)
Combat Prayer (Blessing of Protection Morph)
Spirit Siphon (Force Siphon Morph)
All Passives

Light Armor Line
All Passives

Heavy Armor Line
Immovable or Unstoppable

Vampire Line (unnecessary but recommended. If you are a Vampire you need a fire resist ring.):
Devouring Swarm (Bat Swarm Morph)
Supernatural Recovery (2/2)
Undeath (2/2, currently broken sadly)
Unnatural Resistance

Fighter's Guild (optional but recommended):
Ring of Preservation (Circle of Protection Morph)
All Passives

Mage's Guild (optional but ALMOST necessary):
Volanic Rune (Fire Rune Morph)
All Passives

Undaunted Line (REQUIRED):
Inner Beast (Inner Fire morph)
Bone Surge (Bone Shield Morph)

All Racial Skills

Bars and Combat

The beauty of the Templar Tank is that it can fill two of the three roles as needed. A good templar tank can tank AND heal a dungeon with three DPS. A good templar tank can also tank while putting out some great damage. Flexibility is great with this class.

1: One Hand and Shield:

1. Inner Beast. This is your taunt. It is magicka based, which frees up your stamina for blocking and immovable. Use it every 10 seconds or so to keep aggro on your current target/boss.

2. Biting Jabs. This is your main damage skill. Use it when you don't need to use your magicka on Bone Surge or on trash.

3a. Volcanic Rune. This is one of your most important spells. It is the best CC in game, and it can turn difficult trash into pathetically easy trash.

3b. Blinding Flashes. Use this on trash if you have a DPS or Healer who spams Volcanic Rune regularly.

4. Immovable/Unstoppable. This is your best defensive spell and it is the only thing you will use Stamina for besides blocking. Stagger this with other defensive spells, or stack it for heavy damage phases.

5.Bone Surge. This is a great armor buff which makes heavy armor nearly useless. With a large magicka pool, you can maintain this buff as long as you need to, and it has a great synergy for your party, too.

6. Empowering Sweep: Decent damage, decent armor buff, cheap.

Now, here's where the Templar's flexibility comes into play. I have three different setups I use for my third bar depending on the group's needs.

2a. Healing Staff (Healing/Support)

1a. Radiant Aura: This is mostly for use when you need to recover some stamina. It's great for when you're running low stamina builds.

1b. Spirit Siphon: The utility in this spell is just immense. You heal the group while increasing magicka return for them and yourself.

2. Rapid Regeneration: Decent HoT that you can spam on yourself and others before and during fights.

3a. Healing Springs: Use this spell when your group is stacked for some great healing. You can cast 3-4 of these at once for burst healing.

3b. Combat Prayer This underrated spell gives you and anyone standing in front of you a great armor and spell resistance buff, a nice big heal and a damage buff. What's not to like?

4. Channeled Focus This is an amazing spell when you can stand still, which is surprisingly often in this game. If you have immovable, bone surge and combat prayer up, cast this and you're basically invincible. You also get some nice magicka regen out of it.

5. Breath of Life: This is your most reliable group heal. Though expensive, it can save lives and turn the tide of battle when your healer runs out of magicka or you're out of range. (Assuming you have a healer, that is

)

6. Remembrance: Nothing like a big free AoE heal to save the day with.

2b. Healing Staff (Single target DPS)

1. Vampire's Bane: This is a great damage spell that does decent damage up front and leaves a nice big DoT on the target,

2. Power of the Light: This is the highest damage spell in the game when used correctly. If your group is putting out enough damage, it will hit for 1600ish every time. Use this as much as possible.

3. Dark Flare: Use this before Vampire's Bane and spam it otherwise. This is your main DPS spell.

4. Channeled Focus: Same great benefits as described above.

5. Breath of Life: It's always good to have at least one heal.

6. Solar Disturbance: This is a very nice AoE ultimate which also reduces damage done by enemies and snares them. It's an all-in-one utility spell. It also has a nice synergy!

2c. Destruction Staff (AoE DPS)

1. Elemental Blockade: This spell was chosen over Unstable Wall because it does comparable damage and you have more of a chance of keeping your enemies within its bigger radius.

2. Pulsar/Elemental Ring: This is your AoE spam spell. It does a lot of damage.

3. Volcanic Rune: You can never have too much Volcanic Rune. If you're going to be tanking in a dress with a staff, you'd best keep control of your enemies.

4. Channeled Focus: This is a mainstay in all three loadouts for a reason.

5. Breath of Life: Same as above.

6. Devouring Swarm: This spell is INSANELY good. It is THE best ultimate for AoE tanking because it works as both an emergency heal and an amazing AoE damage spell. There are a lot of things in this game I could not do without this spell.

So there you have it... I hope this immense wall of text helps you in some way. As an experienced Templar player my goal is to educate others while we wait for stamina buffs!

traigusb14_ESO2 · June 2014

Using heavy armor and Axe and Board.

VR9 with mixed stats (21 16 12) and blue armor with ~purple glyphs. (saving my good mats for VR 12)

Using hist armor as my 5 slot (chance to dodge while blocking) and I sometimes use whitestrake's or twilight's embrace fro my 3 set set and a couple of block cost reducers, I can hold block in a pack of 4 melee mobs my level indefinitely. Casters require extra resources to kill / not be killed by.

Skills depend on who i'm tanking for and what they bring. I almost always slot Radiant aura for health and sta regen. And I usually use ransack as my taunt unless it is a kiting boss, then I use inner beast.

The rest will vary based on dungeon, or boss fight.

It is key that you unlock/ level a lot of skills in the temp lines (plus passives), plus your weapons, and any interesting guild lines you like.

Flexibility is your friend, and Temps have lots of good skills. You can load up a 2nd bar with skills/ weapons you aren't using, and switch to it just before turning in a quest and level them that way.

Templars have buckets of skills that are awesome in very specific cases, and people argue over morphs. I tend to take healing/buff choices, reduction of cost choices, then AOE choices. Sometimes there is overlap with other lines and you can go several ways at the same time

For example. I have Unstable Core from Dawn's Wrath, ranged magicka spell that causes enemy casters to hit themselves with basic spell attacks for 6 seconds, then it blows up hitting them and other people). It is kind of expensive and magicka based, depending on the baddie, you may get 2-3 self-hits before it goes away... very useful vs single bosses with light attacks (does not work for all boss default spells)

I also have Absorb Magic from the 1 h and shield line which will heal me for 115% of the damage of a basic spell attack that hits me. (just slotting it also gives me + 8% mitigation and lowers block cost by 8%) this is pretty cheap, uses sta, and last 30 secs or until you get hit by a spell, then you have to recast. This started as a reflect and could have been morphed to a reflect, but now I have a tool to keep me standing if getting hammered by a lot of random caster adds. I don't have to cast expensive unstable core on all of them. (awesome if you are 4 manning dolmens)

Both skills can let you plow caster VR mob groups while leveling.

I tend to use blazing spear rather than any of the jab lines. It will stun 1 baddie, has a small dot. and it can be used to replenish team mate's sta. it is a ranged cast so I can use it to shut down baddies i'm not near. I always bring it when I'm not tanking so the tank can get sta back really fast.

Ultimates are all good, I tend to use empowering sweep for AC, it is cheap and comes back fast. Solar prison lowers baddie damage, but is way more expensive and isn't always available (it has a nice team trigger on it though). They are changing sweeps from AC to % reduction of damage soon though, so it should be even better soon.

Templars always have great tools for whatever baddies may be around.

BTW, I can stand there and solo VR9 storm astronarchs, so anyone that says that heavy temps can't tank are full of it.

GFK283 · June 2014

Heavy tanks can take a hit, but they're not going to excel at doing a whole lot else. The purpose of wearing Light Armor is to have the spell cost reduction, regen, and superior spell resistance to do things BESIDES taunt and block. Light armor's only downfall is lack of armor, which can be completely offset by an armor ring or two. It doesn't make any sense to not AT LEAST wear two pieces.

traigusb14_ESO2 · June 2014

GFK283 wrote: »

Heavy tanks can take a hit, but they're not going to excel at doing a whole lot else. The purpose of wearing Light Armor is to have the spell cost reduction, regen, and superior spell resistance to do things BESIDES taunt and block. Light armor's only downfall is lack of armor, which can be completely offset by an armor ring or two. It doesn't make any sense to not AT LEAST wear two pieces.

Depends on the boss. Most of the time, bosses have 2-3 attacks that they spread out (unless you are soloing the dungeon). So they aren't just wailing on the tank. They are doing untauntable attacks like a ranged knockback on someone out in the field, or dumping a lot of power into a ground circle or cone. Heavys have plenty of time/ resources to pop a few attacks in there.

The only time I sit there and just get hit for a whole fight is usually one where the boss casts a lot of melee adds (10,000 skellies). Even then I'm throwing taunts and a few AOEs.