Templar Tank

fanailloach · January 2015

Morning all,

I've recently returned to ESO after a lengthy time of not playing and am now levelling a Templar I plan to tank with however not sure if I should be focusing on points more into Magicka or Stamina as Blocking seems to rely on stamina for a Templar tank should I be focusing more on a larger stamina pool for being a reliable tank or magicka instead?

Also armour wise are Templar tanks using heavy/and light armor mixes or heavy/medium for the stamina regen bonus from the medium armor?

Dagoth_Rac · January 2015

I use 5 Light + 2 Medium. All attributes in Health, Magicka enchants on light, Stamina enchants on medium. I find spamming Blazing Shield for it's 1000+ damage shield (and 500+ AoE damage) is the key to effective Templar tanking. Channeled Focus is important, too, for the armor/spell resist buff and magicka regen boost. You can slot/use Radiant Aura to boost your (and your allies') health and stamina regen. Without light armor and without magicka enchants, it is hard to keep rotating through those skills without running out of resources during extended boss fights. And with current softcaps on health/armor/spell resist, it is hard to make yourself sturdy enough to just stand there and take a beating. You need the skills above to increase your survivability.

I am an Imperial though, with boosts to Health and Stamina, so it may be easier for me to get away with this than other races.

At least that is my experience. I do see people tanking in all kinds of armor, with all kinds of classes, and all kinds of races. Tanking is quite flexible.

Also, the new Update coming in about a month or so will change everything. No more health/armor/resist softcaps and light armor will be much weaker. Might be necessary to go medium/heavy armor and all health for both attributes and enchantments. Time will tell.

likewow777 · January 2015

I use a 5/2 heavy/light setup, which I find works well. Like @Dagoth_Rac‌ mentioned, I've found the key to a Templar tank is Blazing Shield. To use it well, you really need to maximize your health, and I mean really maximize. With food, and Alliance buffs if I have them, my health is over 3500, giving me the 1000+ point damage shield. All attribute points are into health, small armor enchants are magicka and large armor enchants are health. I also run with the full Seducer set and 4 piece Death's Wind. Seducer gives magicka regen and reduction to spell cost, which when combined with jewelry, puts my magicka regen a couple points shy of the cap. Stamina regen comes in the form of Restoring Aura and health regen comes from Ring of Preservation. When all of that is combined, every regen stat is either close to or beyond the soft caps. What that usually means is I can cast Blazing Shield as it pops without worrying about magicka, as the high regen means I've gotten back the cost before I need to cast it again. Ring of Preservation is stamina based, but it lasts for 20 seconds, so you can cast and forget. Plus, I might skip it, since it's mainly there for the health regen buff, which I don't need if I'm doing things properly, and Restoring Aura boosts it anyway. If I'm feeling good about things, I might even swap bars to my resto staff while Blazing Shield is up and pop a heal or any other utility spells I have. Having Shield up means you can be a little more forgiving with not having your block up, but it's still a risky move. Lastly, I cast Empowering Sweep whenever I can. It costs 72 ultimate and if I can do something to decrease damage I take, I'm gonna do that thing.

That was a mouthful of text, I know, but it's what tends to work for me. Keeping an eye on resources and having Shield up. My playstyle is very magicka oriented, so I've focused on having a decent pool, and made up deficits in stamina via Aura. You could try going with a stamina oriented build, and I've heard people play Templars that way and be very successful, but to me it seems more risky.

All that said, I've played the 1.6 update on PTS a little and things are different. There are no soft caps, actual values are different (I have 21k health on 1.6), and Restoring Aura is MUCH less effective (30% boost, I believe, rather than 80%). I'm thinking I might switch to a heavy/medium setup, since light armor is much less effective. More testing is necessary, though, to really get a feel for how things work. For now, I wouldn't worry about 1.6, since it's only just come out and I'm sure things will be tweaked. Plus, we're supposed to get an automatic respec, so you don't have to worry about going down the wrong path too much.

fanailloach · January 2015

Both valuable and informative information thanks guys, but leaves tough decision too. So restorative aura isn't as effective in next patch coming out for stamina and health regen my character is a Nord and I notice he seems to have HP regen while in combat as well as once higher up a 6% damage reduction which isn't really a lot but itd still add to overall mitigation.

So with the new patch coming it may be necessary to be going with a heavy/medium armour build for stamina regen and maybe focusing more points into Stamina or should I just focus on health and magicka and use stamina and health enchants to make up for the deficit in stamina?

likewow777 · January 2015

Actually, I read someone was reporting Aura wasn't working on the caster at all, only everyone else. I think that's probably just a bug on PTS, not intended functionality because it seems to work for me. I'm still keeping the skill on my bar and using it for now. Before 1.6, soft caps mean when you hit them you get diminishing returns. So Aura can give you 80% regen and overcharge you, but you would never actually feel the full 80%. But on 1.6, you theoretically have infinite stats, and giving everyone 80% extra health/stam regen is a LOT, if there's no cap. I can see people saying that it's OP. That's my theory for why it's different, at least. As long as in practice it still works reasonably well, I think it can remain a good skill.

I've been back and forth on the medium armor thing, to be honest. I finally decided to try out the Champion point system rather than recraft medium set pieces, and found that there is actually a lot of mitigation and cost reduction that can be done there. After putting some points into reduce spell cost, reduce stamina cost, reduce cost of block, and increase health/magicka/stamina regen, I found I wasn't as strapped for resources, despite still wearing 2 light and 5 heavy. As a High Elf, my magicka stats are naturally high, so I also reenchanted all my gear to give stamina. All my attribute points are still in health, I have two rings from the Grace of the Ancients set, which give magicka, plus they're Arcane and increase max magicka and are enchanted to reduce magicka cost. Necklace is enchanted with magicka reduction and Arcane as well. Lastly, Channeled Focus now has a 40% cost reduction, so the magicka return you get FAR eclipses the cost. It's actually so cheap, my magicka regen is at least 2.5 times higher than the cost.

All in all, I had to rethink things, but at the end of it, I could run through Spellscar alone, like I used to, pull multiple mobs and be fine. The new ultimate generation means you can light attack ANYTHING and get more. It's mean, but you can even kill deer and foxes, non-enemies, and you'll start the ultimate tick.