Templar got ninja nerfed to the ground

Koopest · August 2014

As a Melee templar, Puncturing stirkes is the only melee friendly skill templar has.
it's channeling skill ! so that you are vulnerable to big burst dmg or CC while casting it. and usually half of Puncturing strikes doesn't hit the target even if he is in front of me.

In spite of the weakness,demerits of Puncturing Strikes, the reason why i was using this skill was this. " enemy is knocked back on last hit" ,even if enemy is holding block up, dodgerolling, or Immune to CC by Break Free.

but i've noticed that puncturing strikes no longer knock back enemy holding block up, dodgerolling, or Immune to CC by Break Free.

yep, Puncturing strikes is totally useless and Melee templar is a joke now.

Puncturing strikes? just walk sideways.

PVP wise

and again. i've read thread saying that "Evil hunter does not proc on each hit of Pucnturing strikes anymore ".

it's pretty sure that Zenimax is messing up Puncturing strikes again

nerevarine1138 · August 2014

I wasn't aware that fixing a broken mechanic counted as a "nerf".

jrgray93 · August 2014

Yeaaaah it seems to me that is how it should work, as the viability of various Templar DPS tactics is a much more complex issue than whether or not PS knocks back targets taking counter-measures.

Koopest · August 2014

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I wasn't aware that fixing a broken mechanic counted as a "nerf".

yeah i know that knocking back enemy who has CC immunity is broken, but knocking back enemy holding block up, dodgerolling was not that broken cuz Puncturing Strikes is 1.2 sec channeling skill. it's " CASTING " skill

driosketch · August 2014

That's sounds like you're talking about how some templars were stun locking players by spamming it. As someone who has a melee templar, that's not okay and I'm glad they fixed it.

nerevarine1138 · August 2014

Koopest wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I wasn't aware that fixing a broken mechanic counted as a "nerf".

yeah i know that knocking back enemy who has CC immunity is broken, but knocking back enemy holding block up, dodgerolling was not that broken cuz Puncturing Strikes is 1.2 sec channeling skill. it's " CASTING " skill

I can maybe buy breaking through a block. Maybe. But if someone dodges your attack, they dodged it. It makes no sense for them to still be getting penalized for getting out of the way.

Illuvatarr · August 2014

Puncturing Strikes would keep people somewhat perma cced. Necessary change.

jrgray93 · August 2014

Koopest wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I wasn't aware that fixing a broken mechanic counted as a "nerf".

yeah i know that knocking back enemy who has CC immunity is broken, but knocking back enemy holding block up, dodgerolling was not that broken cuz Puncturing Strikes is 1.2 sec channeling skill. it's " CASTING " skill

I guess I just can't follow your logic here. Casting, melee, whatever; it can all be blocked.

MeowGinger · August 2014

" enemy is knocked back on last hit" ,even if enemy is holding block up, dodgerolling, or Immune to CC by Break Free.

Sorry OP, this is not true.

Block has always prevented CCs such as knockback.

It doesn't make sense for an enemy to be knocked back if they dodge rolled out of the last hit (which is the only hit with the knockback).

If knockback doesn't work on an enemy that has CC immunity, then it is working as intended. If it doesn't work on an enemy that has CC immunity from knockback specifically, then that has also "always" been the case.

Full disclosure: I'm a templar too, and Puncturing Sweep rarely ever has a place on one of my bars when I PvP, for good reason.

Koopest · August 2014

jrgray93 wrote: »

Koopest wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I wasn't aware that fixing a broken mechanic counted as a "nerf".

yeah i know that knocking back enemy who has CC immunity is broken, but knocking back enemy holding block up, dodgerolling was not that broken cuz Puncturing Strikes is 1.2 sec channeling skill. it's " CASTING " skill

I guess I just can't follow your logic here. Casting, melee, whatever; it can all be blocked.

when it comes to casting, noone use casting spells in pvp. why? cuz they are not worth casting. come on, does Puncturing strikes worth casting atm without knocking back enemy holding block up, dodgerolling? no.

nerevarine1138 · August 2014

Koopest wrote: »

jrgray93 wrote: »

Koopest wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I wasn't aware that fixing a broken mechanic counted as a "nerf".

yeah i know that knocking back enemy who has CC immunity is broken, but knocking back enemy holding block up, dodgerolling was not that broken cuz Puncturing Strikes is 1.2 sec channeling skill. it's " CASTING " skill

I guess I just can't follow your logic here. Casting, melee, whatever; it can all be blocked.

when it comes to casting, noone use casting spells in pvp. why? cuz they are not worth casting. come on, does Puncturing strikes worth casting atm without knocking back enemy holding block up? no.

Then use a different ability. There's no justification for it ignoring CC-mitigation.

jrgray93 · August 2014

Koopest wrote: »

jrgray93 wrote: »

Koopest wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I wasn't aware that fixing a broken mechanic counted as a "nerf".

yeah i know that knocking back enemy who has CC immunity is broken, but knocking back enemy holding block up, dodgerolling was not that broken cuz Puncturing Strikes is 1.2 sec channeling skill. it's " CASTING " skill

I guess I just can't follow your logic here. Casting, melee, whatever; it can all be blocked.

when it comes to casting, noone use casting spells in pvp. why? cuz they are not worth casting. come on, does Puncturing strikes worth casting atm without knocking back enemy holding block up, dodgerolling? no.

You must be playing a different game than me.

And yes, PS is a big burn on enemy stamina if they block through it, so there's that.

Regardless, PS isn't the only skill Templars have.

Mondo · August 2014

1. Casting in PVP ever heared of crystall shards?
2. Yes it is
3. You want an Ultra Perma CC skill for stunlockkill. Just NO^^

Koopest · August 2014

Mondo wrote: »

1. Casting in PVP ever heared of crystall shards?
2. Yes it is
3. You want an Ultra Perma CC skill for stunlockkill. Just NO^^

noone cast Crystall shard. there's a thing called "Insta proc "

MeowGinger · August 2014

On a related topic, does this CC change affect Dragonknight Talons, too?

Edit: it could be considered a nerf to all classes, as all classes have some form of CC, and at least 2 of the 4 have something spammable.

jrgray93 · August 2014

Koopest wrote: »

Mondo wrote: »

1. Casting in PVP ever heared of crystall shards?
2. Yes it is
3. You want an Ultra Perma CC skill for stunlockkill. Just NO^^

noone cast Crystall shard. there's a thing called "Insta proc "

Yeaaaah, nobody ever casts it in order to get that instant cast proc. It just occurs passively.

DenverRalphy · August 2014

jrgray93 wrote: »

Koopest wrote: »

Mondo wrote: »

1. Casting in PVP ever heared of crystall shards?
2. Yes it is
3. You want an Ultra Perma CC skill for stunlockkill. Just NO^^

noone cast Crystall shard. there's a thing called "Insta proc "

Yeaaaah, nobody ever casts it in order to get that instant cast proc. It just occurs passively.

Crystal Shard doesn't proc itself (though I believe it used to). The sorc has to cast other skills for the insta-cast for Crystal Shard. So they will typically cast other insta-cast skills until they get the Crystal Shard proc.

MeowGinger · August 2014

I just want to point out that (at this time) PvP mostly consists of players holding block constantly while casting "instant cast" skills as opposed to channeled attacks, since you can't run a channel while blocking at the same time (but you can with instant casts). Channels also make you more vulnerable to interrupts and other nasty CC effects (this has also always been the case).

So contrary to what was said earlier... it looks to me like most of PvP involves instant cast abilities as opposed to channels.

Mondo · August 2014

Never ever got hit by stealth castet shards *gough*

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO · August 2014

I ran behind a VR5 Templar just now in Underroot, VR3 Greenshade, who was killing everything in sight in a couple of seconds just by spamming two abilities (Focused Charge and Puncturing Strikes). My poor VR4 NB, which I consider playable and fun, had no chance of keeping up. On most of the mobs I couldn't even get enough hits in to receive loot. That Templar just zipped between mobs and left a trail of destruction for me to run through. I ended up waiting outside until he left and did the solo dungeon at my own sneaky pace instead. Fortunately, his speed run was over in a couple of minutes, so I didn't have to wait very long.

My NB is not super optimized, but reasonably well built and does a fair amount of damage both against single targets and small groups. With some planning and forethought, and the occasional trial and error, I have little problems doing most of the VR zone questing content at its current level of difficulty. I am only stumped on public dungeons and some overworld bosses, and those are not meant for solo play. I can solo many world bosses, though, and I would have said my NB was doing pretty well in PvE before seeing that player. Now, not so much.

I must say that I don't see the fun in having that kind of power. Questing must be utterly boring for him because there is no challenge. There still seems to be a serious problem with balance in this game.

jrgray93 · August 2014

DenverRalphy wrote: »

jrgray93 wrote: »

Koopest wrote: »

Mondo wrote: »

1. Casting in PVP ever heared of crystall shards?
2. Yes it is
3. You want an Ultra Perma CC skill for stunlockkill. Just NO^^

noone cast Crystall shard. there's a thing called "Insta proc "

Yeaaaah, nobody ever casts it in order to get that instant cast proc. It just occurs passively.

Crystal Shard doesn't proc itself (though I believe it used to). The sorc has to cast other skills for the insta-cast for Crystal Shard. So they will typically cast other insta-cast skills until they get the Crystal Shard proc.

I was being sarcastic, but it turns out that ability just has a really misleading tooltip and doesn't proc off of itself. So I was wrong. Still, I see people cast it all the time.

Koopest · August 2014

Mondo wrote: »

Never ever got hit by stealth castet shards *gough*

dude, Crystal shard is even Ranged casting spell. and 90% times, Cyristal shard is only used when insta proc pop up. Zeni knew that even ranged casting spell would have been useless in pvp so that they gave insta proc.

ThisOnePosts · August 2014

Shards is not something that can really be abused... if you are talking about stealth casting and "hoping" for a 2nd insta proc which has less chance to happen than it does not to happen, good luck relying on that. If you are doing that slow cast mid battle it is very obvious. You could take a sip of your water and then interrupt, etc.. before it goes off.

Emeliana · August 2014

This is one of the Templar skills that once got me enchanted and infact made me wanting to level up a Templar character. When the game was launched it was almost instant and a very good melee-skill for close combat.

Sadly it was nerfed several times mostly because all the bot-trains were using it when farming mobs en masse. Power was reduced incremently on it together with other class-skills, making Templars the underdogs in regards of combat-power.

It was logical to remove the knockback that disregarded block, roll and cc-break, but the extra delay of 1,1 seconds put on it, have more or less ruined the skill. It goes out of sync with the npc-enemies attacks/blocks. Worst is in solo-dungeons where it often 'miss' one of its cycles so in the end you actually have to wait twice as long - 2,2 seconds for it to trigger. This also results in the sound coming long after, often when your foe is already dead. Then comes yet another attack with PS which obviously had been in que - this is lame and looks silly.

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO · August 2014

Still, my dungeon delving with a bow-wielding NB was like hitting the mobs with a wet rag compared to what a Templar could do. "Steamrolling mobs" is a fitting description for what he did with Puncturing Strikes. I don't think that particular ability needs to be any stronger than what it is.

Renuo · August 2014

This is funny because templars are amazing right now (in PVP).

Koopest · August 2014

Renuo wrote: »

This is funny because templars are amazing right now (in PVP).

yep, maybe with light armor + harness magicka + blzaing shield + vamp etc.

and every class can be amazing with that build.

i know how to build my templar to be great for pvp, but i don't do that for Roleplaying reason.

JaJaLuka · August 2014

couldn't read through all of the comments... sorry if it covers the same thing.

- crystal shards = can be blocked
- talons = can be rolled out of
- whatever it is that NB use (lol I don't have one) = can be broken

I have only ever been hit by the Puncturing Strikes exploit once, and I was extremely close to reporting the player. There is no way that any class should have that much control. It makes a fair fight not possible.

EDIT: I didn't know about the trigger time though, that is rubbish and should be reversed (unlikely though as it is).

Koopest · August 2014

JaJaLuka wrote: »

couldn't read through all of the comments... sorry if it covers the same thing.

- crystal shards = can be blocked
- talons = can be rolled out of
- whatever it is that NB use (lol I don't have one) = can be broken

I have only ever been hit by the Puncturing Strikes exploit once, and I was extremely close to reporting the player. There is no way that any class should have that much control. It makes a fair fight not possible.

EDIT: I didn't know about the trigger time though, that is rubbish and should be reversed (unlikely though as it is).

yeah, it's somewhat annoying not being able to get out of that spear jabs but it wasn't impossible to get out of PS range. after Zeni put delay on PS, there's a moment you can escape from them. usually it's rly hard to hit enemy walking sideways or moving around with Puncturing strikes

Renuo · August 2014

Koopest wrote: »

Renuo wrote: »

This is funny because templars are amazing right now (in PVP).

yep, maybe with light armor + harness magicka + blzaing shield + vamp etc.

and every class can be amazing with that build.

i know how to build my templar to be great for pvp, but i don't do that for Roleplaying reason.

Every class can't be amazing with blazing shield... because only 1 class has it.

Just realised you are probably the one who laughed at my comment also (i.e. down-voted it). You're in no place to do so after your OP. I hate to say this but this is a L2P issue...

je25ffb14_ESO · August 2014

I have a VR2 templar in full heavy armor. The best thing I can do is use spell reflect and blazing shield and charge (I forget the proper name right now) for CC. I can survive a major onslaught and hope I get focused and people around me can nuke the other side.