Templar today and other game evolutions

Thechemicals · July 2014

Ever seen the punisher arsenal? He has a weapon and device for every situation, kinda like a templar. You can call the Templar a punisher of eso because he really has every other class and build under his thumb. But why, why wasnt this noticed for months? All the complaints of templar weakness and templar tears and "DK's online" and "Sorc Online"....the answer is very simple- min/maxers. Its the first direction of a new game...how high can i crit and how much hard can i hit and how much can i spam a survival skill like say Dragonblood or Bolt escape or Invisibility.

Then comes evolution. People begin to learn counters due to the min/maxers having capped the highest possible damage output and this is when all the awesome classes and builds begin to weaken to counter build players. At the moment, the hardest hitting classes Sorcerer and Nightblade have a real problem on there hands once they have reached that dps ceiling- and its called reflect. A dragon knight reflecting a sorcerer and a Templar eclipsing a nightblade/sorcerer is a death wish when you cast it on their rotation. They get eclipsed and they just stand there hesistating...breaking out means they have even less stamina and i can trade a 300 cost eclipse over and over for a 450+ stamina break out on a sorcerer who likely has less than 1400 stamina. Once they break out enough a simple stun and dps ends them.

So what happened here is that, people didnt wait for the evolution of builds and skills and moaned for nerfs early. Nerfs that could have helped these classes repel the dilema they are in now. So now you begin to hear the creeping threads and whispers about Templar being op and templar winning 1v1 events and templar should not have sunshield improved. So templar may be nerfed in the early future....they have already done so in very quiet ways like capping power of the light for a 2nd time. They also added an internal wait time on biting jabs and now that they claimed to have fixed/restored it...take a real look at how they fixed it. If you watch closely, youll see that spamming biting jabs in quick succession has an ghost strike. Its their to show an animation but not actually applying any damage, just make you think its running smooth and even with that, it still feels clunky. The skill does however output all the damage it says it does correctly.

The ultimate class was always templar and in any game, its always the class that can hard counter everything you geared and specced to max cap. Almost every single skill has a specific and a practical use. The reason for not seeing this sooner is that you cant record dps of an eclipse or a power of the light or a sunshield or the ability to remove debuffs instantly at low cost, Its all counter based. You look at a templar in the field of battle and youll see different techniques- Sunshield+Biting Jabs or Darkflare+Sunfire+Degen or Spearshard+charge or Eclipse+power of the light+Dark flare and so on. But you look at the other classes and they are still doing the same things because they have staple skills they simply cant get rid of. It is hard to find unique Dk's and Sorc and Nb's. A templar right now has really only one staple skill and that is sunshield. A skill that is being improved upon soon and will recieve a lot of bad rage threads for.

Right now,my templar stands inside Dk standards and doesnt even dodge roll out of talons. Its the Dk that ends up backing away. Empowering sweep+Blazing shield. This would not have been the case if DK werent nerfed so many times.

An Assasin night blade ambushes me and as soon as sunshield is up....if hes good- he stops. I purge his debuffs and tries to hide. The Nb's evolution now is bow...many used it before, even more use it now and its a great way to avoid sunshields short range explosion.

A sorcerer eats himself alive when i eclipse him, its not even a challenge. You watch his rotation start then eclipse and he kills himself. The good ones refuse to fight and bolt escape away. No real evolution here, they keep Crystal Sharding and Killing pets with rebate.

Last night, for the first time ever a pug(pick up group-random group- no Ts) i was in killed an entire raid impulse group with 2 templars using Blazing shield+empowering sweep and blocking. We had 3 healers at a range and the impulse group just kept on spamming the damage causing the shields to explode and refreshing empowering sweep over and over every 4-5 seconds. Of course we had ranged bow Nbs and sorcerers on the outskirts delivering essential damage, but the reign of impulse group zergs may be over with the coming of blazing shield and empowering sweep templars. This is a good thing. Its a move away formt he same routine of barrier and then impulse vs impulse. We have a real solid counter to these zergs now.

The games pvp has evolved. Many other little things have been popping up like the use of impenetrable traits to prevent taking massive crit damage, which shows that something can be done about crit and a nerf to critical hits was never needed and should not have even been mentioned. L2P is a dis and offensive because it calls us inept and incompetant in a game we log into to enjoy. However, it truly needs to be taken at face value and just ignore the offensive part and truly start to L2P. You may not be the next creative build mind but you can read up and meet people who have learned to play. The eso devs need to find nerfs to exploitative actions, not seemingly overpowered skills.

Lastly,we have bad evolutions. Kinda funny stories, but i have noticed some funny builds and tactics coming up that are ridiculously ineffective. One of them was this sorcerer who had a sword and shield and charged me with invasion(which i broke out quickly) and then casted Cystal Shards.....which i interrupted and quickly killed him. Yeah you dont want to close a gap against an enemy and then use a 1.5 cast time spell right in front of him....and if you guys see this-- never forget that you have a whole other arsenal in Interupting that you can use to stop DarkFlare,Crystal Shards,etc.

Another guy, used a resto staff and talons with dragon standard... when it finally came up. He basically used the staff to return magicka while constantly taloning me. The battle lasted almost 14 minutes. He did in fact kill me at the end...great 1v1 build but if anyone showed up during those 14 min, he would be dead and....this wasnt exactly an efficient ap building fight. He sent me a gg, and i laughed and said im just happy i had my destro staff on instead of resto otherwise the fight would have gone on forever.

williamburr2001b14_ESO · July 2014

cool story bro

monkeymystic · July 2014

Thechemicals wrote: »

Ever seen the punisher arsenal? He has a weapon and device for every situation, kinda like a templar. You can call the Templar a punisher of eso because he really has every other class and build under his thumb. But why, why wasnt this noticed for months? All the complaints of templar weakness and templar tears and "DK's online" and "Sorc Online"....the answer is very simple- min/maxers. Its the first direction of a new game...how high can i crit and how much hard can i hit and how much can i spam a survival skill like say Dragonblood or Bolt escape or Invisibility.

Then comes evolution. People begin to learn counters due to the min/maxers having capped the highest possible damage output and this is when all the awesome classes and builds begin to weaken to counter build players. At the moment, the hardest hitting classes Sorcerer and Nightblade have a real problem on there hands once they have reached that dps ceiling- and its called reflect. A dragon knight reflecting a sorcerer and a Templar eclipsing a nightblade/sorcerer is a death wish when you cast it on their rotation. They get eclipsed and they just stand there hesistating...breaking out means they have even less stamina and i can trade a 300 cost eclipse over and over for a 450+ stamina break out on a sorcerer who likely has less than 1400 stamina. Once they break out enough a simple stun and dps ends them.

So what happened here is that, people didnt wait for the evolution of builds and skills and moaned for nerfs early. Nerfs that could have helped these classes repel the dilema they are in now. So now you begin to hear the creeping threads and whispers about Templar being op and templar winning 1v1 events and templar should not have sunshield improved. So templar may be nerfed in the early future....they have already done so in very quiet ways like capping power of the light for a 2nd time. They also added an internal wait time on biting jabs and now that they claimed to have fixed/restored it...take a real look at how they fixed it. If you watch closely, youll see that spamming biting jabs in quick succession has an ghost strike. Its their to show an animation but not actually applying any damage, just make you think its running smooth and even with that, it still feels clunky. The skill does however output all the damage it says it does correctly.

The ultimate class was always templar and in any game, its always the class that can hard counter everything you geared and specced to max cap. Almost every single skill has a specific and a practical use. The reason for not seeing this sooner is that you cant record dps of an eclipse or a power of the light or a sunshield or the ability to remove debuffs instantly at low cost, Its all counter based. You look at a templar in the field of battle and youll see different techniques- Sunshield+Biting Jabs or Darkflare+Sunfire+Degen or Spearshard+charge or Eclipse+power of the light+Dark flare and so on. But you look at the other classes and they are still doing the same things because they have staple skills they simply cant get rid of. It is hard to find unique Dk's and Sorc and Nb's. A templar right now has really only one staple skill and that is sunshield. A skill that is being improved upon soon and will recieve a lot of bad rage threads for.

Right now,my templar stands inside Dk standards and doesnt even dodge roll out of talons. Its the Dk that ends up backing away. Empowering sweep+Blazing shield. This would not have been the case if DK werent nerfed so many times.

An Assasin night blade ambushes me and as soon as sunshield is up....if hes good- he stops. I purge his debuffs and tries to hide. The Nb's evolution now is bow...many used it before, even more use it now and its a great way to avoid sunshields short range explosion.

A sorcerer eats himself alive when i eclipse him, its not even a challenge. You watch his rotation start then eclipse and he kills himself. The good ones refuse to fight and bolt escape away. No real evolution here, they keep Crystal Sharding and Killing pets with rebate.

Last night, for the first time ever a pug(pick up group-random group- no Ts) i was in killed an entire raid impulse group with 2 templars using Blazing shield+empowering sweep and blocking. We had 3 healers at a range and the impulse group just kept on spamming the damage causing the shields to explode and refreshing empowering sweep over and over every 4-5 seconds. Of course we had ranged bow Nbs and sorcerers on the outskirts delivering essential damage, but the reign of impulse group zergs may be over with the coming of blazing shield and empowering sweep templars. This is a good thing. Its a move away formt he same routine of barrier and then impulse vs impulse. We have a real solid counter to these zergs now.

The games pvp has evolved. Many other little things have been popping up like the use of impenetrable traits to prevent taking massive crit damage, which shows that something can be done about crit and a nerf to critical hits was never needed and should not have even been mentioned. L2P is a dis and offensive because it calls us inept and incompetant in a game we log into to enjoy. However, it truly needs to be taken at face value and just ignore the offensive part and truly start to L2P. You may not be the next creative build mind but you can read up and meet people who have learned to play. The eso devs need to find nerfs to exploitative actions, not seemingly overpowered skills.

Lastly,we have bad evolutions. Kinda funny stories, but i have noticed some funny builds and tactics coming up that are ridiculously ineffective. One of them was this sorcerer who had a sword and shield and charged me with invasion(which i broke out quickly) and then casted Cystal Shards.....which i interrupted and quickly killed him. Yeah you dont want to close a gap against an enemy and then use a 1.5 cast time spell right in front of him....and if you guys see this-- never forget that you have a whole other arsenal in Interupting that you can use to stop DarkFlare,Crystal Shards,etc.

Another guy, used a resto staff and talons with dragon standard... when it finally came up. He basically used the staff to return magicka while constantly taloning me. The battle lasted almost 14 minutes. He did in fact kill me at the end...great 1v1 build but if anyone showed up during those 14 min, he would be dead and....this wasnt exactly an efficient ap building fight. He sent me a gg, and i laughed and said im just happy i had my destro staff on instead of resto otherwise the fight would have gone on forever.

Finally a *good* player who writes a well written post about this.

Templars IS the ultimate class in terms of utility and they have many abilities that are *all-in-one* abilities. All other classes have this in some way too, but when you combine it with the Templars dispels, spell reflects, range damage spells, blazing shield and the *best* passive in the game "burning light" that procs for 400-450 damage on crits added on top of the original damage, then you end up with something extra compared to the rest.

Sadly very few Templar players that speak on forums are min/maxers, most of those min/maxing players have been active as sorcerers and DKs and managed to get the maximum out of their classes which resulted in LOTS of nerfs, especially on DKs that hurt the casual players the hardest.
I had ZERO problem killing DKs on my Templar before dks got their nerfs, because I knew how easy it was to counter it as a Templar and with the arsenal in Templar abilities, dispels, stuns and utility.

Once more min/maxers now reroll Templar to check what it's all about, more people will soon see how strong they actually are compared to the rest in PVP.

Some of us has known this for months, including me. I never had a problem playing as Templar in PVP, others have had a really hard time against me ever since ESO release.
I've soloed groups of 5+ VR players many times, and still do.
But since the playerbase managed to trick ZOS into overbuffing certain Templar abilities because they were underperforming against Staff/light armor users in single target DPS, a strong class just became even stronger in PVP.

We already see it with Blazing shield and Blazing spear builds that hit for tons of damage combined with burning light passive procs.

david.haypreub18_ESO · July 2014

This is an interesting and well-thought-out post. I would disagree with a couple of points, however.

Firstly, the OP characterizes the 'evolution' phase as a phase in which DKs and Templars learned to counter NBs and Sorcs. This to me is not accurate, since DKs were what needed to be countered... really, Cyrodiil has been full of them for a long time, and they were recognized as very powerful right from the start.

Secondly, to see the DK as a counter class overlooks the fact that the DK is one of the easiest classes to play-- or at least, the standard combination of Invasion/Talons/Standard is easy to play and not in any way really a counter. That's what makes it effective in a zerg and effective in general.

The counter, on the other hand, is an inherently harder mode of play. It involves not just spamming offensive skills, but rather waiting for an opening and developing the counter to it. It involves delayed gratification: you have to wait, you can't just spam your attacks.

Also, I would not say that Templars have tricked anyone into buffing them. Due to the inherent strength of the DK abilities and the inherent difficulty of counter-play (as opposed to spam), the DK ruled. You can say the Templars were actually as strong when played well, but most people don't play well. So DKs ruled (and in terms of numbers, still rule over Templars, and that's not even close). There was no trick here... ZOS had the numbers to show that DKs were doing far better than Templars, at least in the Zerg.

Furthermore, the buffs to Templars are mostly NOT what the Templars were asking for. The one universal request from Templar players was for better resource management, especially mana replenishment. Instead, ZOS decided to buff the Templars best skills (Biting Jabs, Sun Shield). Tempars didn't trick ZOS into doing this... ZOS decided to go against the main request of Templar players and buff Templar skills that were already good. So please don't blame the Templars... we just wanted to be on par with other classes in terms of mana management.

The decision to nerf Templars' mana replenishment in beta is looking worse and worse every day. I'm not saying it didn't need a nerf, but to nerf it by 95% not only wrecked the class, it clearly contradicted ESO's stated 'slow and steady' approach to class balancing. That's the root of the problem. You can't have a slow and steady approach to balancing SOME classes but a fast and brutal approach to balancing others. That seems to me the real root of the imbalance.

So far, then, it seems to me that ZOS has had two strikes in its swings at balancing the Templar:

--Firstly, during beta, Templars said not to nerf their mana replenishment by 95%. ZOS went ahead and nerfed it into oblivion anyway. (Seriously, maybe a 50 or even 75% nerf would have avoided a lot of heartache).
--Secondly, during the current round of Templar buffing, virtually all Templars have asked for better mana replenishment. ZOS so far has refused to do that (though saying they heard the message), and instead buffed some of the Templars' best individual skills.

Will they strike out a third time? Only time will tell.

david.haypreub18_ESO · July 2014

A couple final points to consider as well:

One complicating factor has been the supremacy of light armor. In a game where light armor and magicka rule, the class with the worst magicka management (Templars) fell quickly behind. The metagame hasn't just been about maximiziation followed by evolution/counters. The maximization of magicka has not yet faced a counter... and still doesn't, at least until heavy armor is revamped.

Finally, the game has been out for more than three months, and Templars (and to some extent NBs) have been on the bottom of the heap for the entire time. Even if TEmplars and NBs were buffed to be the best classes for the next three months solid, you could pretty much still call things about even. Certainly, it would take three months of DKs and Sorcerors being refused groups for trials to equal the collective frustration felt by the other classes. So there is that to consider. Do Templars and NBs deserve at least a few weeks in the sun? Many would argue yes. We'll see if that happens-- if the changes being made really will lead to Templar supremacy-- but even if it did for a few weeks, that would hardly even the score that has been built up over the last three months.

NadiusMaximus · July 2014

So why not min max a Templar. List the bis, for a great build.
I'm still trying to build a list, but the jack of all trades has me switching decks to often, and in pvp there's no time to switch to the power needed in that one case.

I need one more button, or a third deck to use.

Any Templar guilds out there? If so pm me.

Vatter · July 2014

hahahhahahaha. I don't know what campaign your playing but there are some serious flaws in your post.
1. eclipse is removed by CC break and the player gains immunity against a re-application of eclipse as well as any stun. A good sorc will simply hold block until you get close then bolt and bombard you with crystal shards. then just rinse and repeat.
2. I wanna see you stand in a bat swarm while rooted multiple times by a DK who is holding block and spamming impulse. you will not survive. period.
3. night blades are underpowered just as much as templars so as long as you don't get the knock down bug where you can't cc break, you should do fine against them.
4. Templar dps is a joke. that is why you are passed up every time for raids as a dps. and don't try and say that templar dps is just as good as any other. thats simply not true.
5. templar skills are easily avoided. the slow moving vampires bane and high arc of dark flare are avoided by a simple roll dodge from any distance. eclipse and javelin cannot be applied to a target with cc immunity, and biting jabs does have that ghost move and sometimes misses all together.
6. People try saying "oh well you have an entire line dedicated to healing. No one else has that!" Well thats true but if i'm doing nothing but healing I'm not inflicting damage am I? I can use blazing shield but what if they are ranged? Not to mention my magicka will burn out faster then lindsay lohan's career.
Templars and Night blades have a long way to go to be on par with sorcs and dk's. well dk's are light years ahead of all other classes.

NadiusMaximus · July 2014

Vatter wrote: »

? Not to mention my magicka will burn out faster then lindsay lohan's career.

Atleast she made the news. The only way a Templar can make the headline is if a Dragon Knight falls asleep during his lava whip rotation and we get a lucky shot in, waking him up and making him spill his soda on his keyboard, allowing us a follow up shot while he's cleaning up, and then finishing him off while he's looking for a towel in the other room.

It's on YouTube. I swear that's what happened.

Mojomonkeyman · July 2014

OP is in my opion the single best post on this forum regarding pvp. It deserves a sticky. It`s lengthy but definetly worth the read, so much truth, so much experience speaking here, listen to this guy!

@david.haypreub18_ESO

I disagree with your assessment that the reactive player has it more difficult. In my experience the burden of aggression/putting the pressure on is far outweighing the first strike.

That`s because as soon as the first strike (which will become predictable the more experienced players get) is landed, there is, in most cases, just one obvious answer - the counter. I always found, as soon as I learned to read my opponent and his class, playing reactive and counterbased is very relaxing and definetely easier in comparison.

The aggressor on the other hand has to find a way to counter the counter most effectively before applying the first attack to have a shot at winning.

Battles between good players in games that exist for a while can often be predicted move by move, because counters become clear and obvious. Then it will be all about execution and outthinking the opponent.

Kcttocs · July 2014

quit giving away our secrets... next Templars will get nerf

Brandoid · July 2014

Great posts so far. All have great points with only some exaggeration.

Thechemicals · July 2014

Thanks for the feedback all. I just rolled a new class last night....another Templar hah. I'm going imperial for the max health. Redguard is nice but imperial is almost the same but does it better.

david.haypreub18_ESO wrote: »

A couple final points to consider as well:

One complicating factor has been the supremacy of light armor. In a game where light armor and magicka rule, the class with the worst magicka management (Templars) fell quickly behind. The metagame hasn't just been about maximiziation followed by evolution/counters. The maximization of magicka has not yet faced a counter... and still doesn't, at least until heavy armor is revamped.

Finally, the game has been out for more than three months, and Templars (and to some extent NBs) have been on the bottom of the heap for the entire time. Even if TEmplars and NBs were buffed to be the best classes for the next three months solid, you could pretty much still call things about even. Certainly, it would take three months of DKs and Sorcerors being refused groups for trials to equal the collective frustration felt by the other classes. So there is that to consider. Do Templars and NBs deserve at least a few weeks in the sun? Many would argue yes. We'll see if that happens-- if the changes being made really will lead to Templar supremacy-- but even if it did for a few weeks, that would hardly even the score that has been built up over the last three months.

Light armor is king yes. However, I don't think the masses have seen how powerful a heavy armor set with impenetrable +unstoppable can be though. 5 hvy and 2 light is still viable and effective in pvp. The very first clues of impenetrable trait seeped out a month ago in reddit and already we are seeing community members upset and threads of nerfing. From their perspective, they have a point only because its so hard to find spell damage in gear. Even the new sets seem lackluster for spell power and damage. They should have an angle to bypass impenetrable defense by use of spell damage and power, but not by just nerf-weakening a good trait because they want to be able to crit an acceptable amount of times against someone in full battle rattle impen.

RangerChad · July 2014

PvE and PvP are very different things, thanks for your time, but it was wasted because it means nothing but there are smart players to play against.

Brandoid · July 2014

Thechemicals wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback all. I just rolled a new class last night....another Templar hah. I'm going imperial for the max health. Redguard is nice but imperial is almost the same but does it better.

david.haypreub18_ESO wrote: »

A couple final points to consider as well:

One complicating factor has been the supremacy of light armor. In a game where light armor and magicka rule, the class with the worst magicka management (Templars) fell quickly behind. The metagame hasn't just been about maximiziation followed by evolution/counters. The maximization of magicka has not yet faced a counter... and still doesn't, at least until heavy armor is revamped.

Finally, the game has been out for more than three months, and Templars (and to some extent NBs) have been on the bottom of the heap for the entire time. Even if TEmplars and NBs were buffed to be the best classes for the next three months solid, you could pretty much still call things about even. Certainly, it would take three months of DKs and Sorcerors being refused groups for trials to equal the collective frustration felt by the other classes. So there is that to consider. Do Templars and NBs deserve at least a few weeks in the sun? Many would argue yes. We'll see if that happens-- if the changes being made really will lead to Templar supremacy-- but even if it did for a few weeks, that would hardly even the score that has been built up over the last three months.

Light armor is king yes. However, I don't think the masses have seen how powerful a heavy armor set with impenetrable +unstoppable can be though. 5 hvy and 2 light is still viable and effective in pvp. The very first clues of impenetrable trait seeped out a month ago in reddit and already we are seeing community members upset and threads of nerfing. From their perspective, they have a point only because its so hard to find spell damage in gear. Even the new sets seem lackluster for spell power and damage. They should have an angle to bypass impenetrable defense by use of spell damage and power, but not by just nerf-weakening a good trait because they want to be able to crit an acceptable amount of times against someone in full battle rattle impen.

They haven't experienced

spell pen

yet! shhhh...

ExiledKhallisi · July 2014

Min/Max Temp/vamp 2h/resto wearing 2 heavy 5 light here... I eat EP for breakfast. When played right we are a powerhouse in PVP. But our DPS stills sucks in PVE and our Resource management is still bad. We have insane burst potential, but lack in sustained damage. We hold the position of best healer in game though hands down.

In a 1v1 Scenario I almost never lose. But in group play I often find myself low on resources. In PVE, Our single targete DPS is a complete joke I have tried every build/weapon combination. We can do pretty damn good AOE dps though. I think maybe even higher than Impulse spamtards. Take note in these pics... insane AOE burst to 0 magicka in seconds.

Thechemicals · July 2014

Nice. Heres me in Cyro last night. Aedric Spear at 50 sec.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4gNebHf5nc