New Templar Character Build

GuyNamedSean · October 2015

I know sometime in the next week or so I'm going to be making a new character and I know I'm going to use a Templar and I'm going to tank. As far as I know, however, Templars don't have the kind of raw tanky abilities that my Nightblade has or that a Dragonknight could have. I'm assuming a Templar tank would have to use a fair amount of self-healing, but can anyone clue me in on what skills would be good to invest into?

I know I'll take detours to try out Stamplar DPS stuff and Healer builds, but I've always preferred tanking, so I figure that's what I should really learn.

humpalicous · October 2015

First of all, if you haven't already chosen a race, you need to decide if you're going to run a stamina or magicka based one. Because if you want to make the most out of your character then the appropriate race needs to be chosen for the appropriate build.

Magicka based Templar races:

- Breton
- High Elf
- Dunmer

Stamina based Templar races:

- Redguard
- Imperial
- Khajit
- Wood Elf
- Dunmer

I personally recommend Breton for a magicka based one due to the fact that you get both a reduced magicka cost for abilities and increased max magicka.

For the stamina based version you ought to go with either Imperial or Redguard as they have some great passives that effect stamina management.

When this is done, just experiment the sh*t out of your character until you find a build and play style that suits your needs. Let me know if you need anymore help!

I personally run a Breton Templar, literally spamming Puncturing Sweeps until I reach v16, and it works like a charm

GuyNamedSean · October 2015

I know I'm playing as a Dunmer because I always play as a Dunmer.

mklundub17_ESO · October 2015

I couldn't think of a worst combination of tank+templar+dunmer. Templars only have 1 fire based skill. If you're really wanting to tank, DK is easily the best tank and dunmer is one of the best races for DK.

That said, if you're really set on your combo, then the majority of your tank skills will be outside of the templar skill tree (puncturing strike, heroic slash, defensive stance, immovable, inner fire). The templar abilities you would use as a tank would be:
Empowering sweep (ulti)
Solar prison (ulti)
Channeled Focus
Puncturing Sweep/Biting Jabs
Breath of Life (if heal tanking, or as a backup)
Purifying Ritual (if heal tanking, or situational)

GuyNamedSean · October 2015

mklundub17_ESO wrote: »

I couldn't think of a worst combination of tank+templar+dunmer. Templars only have 1 fire based skill. If you're really wanting to tank, DK is easily the best tank and dunmer is one of the best races for DK.

That said, if you're really set on your combo, then the majority of your tank skills will be outside of the templar skill tree (puncturing strike, heroic slash, defensive stance, immovable, inner fire). The templar abilities you would use as a tank would be:
Empowering sweep (ulti)
Solar prison (ulti)
Channeled Focus
Puncturing Sweep/Biting Jabs
Breath of Life (if heal tanking, or as a backup)
Purifying Ritual (if heal tanking, or situational)

I have two vr7-8 tanks. My current is a Nightblade that's a Vampire Dunmer and hits the damage mitigation cap. Thanks for starting off by telling me what I'm doing is wrong (like those s'wits in Belkarth said about my Nightblade), but I'll go ahead and let you know that a DK is easiest to make a tank with, but is not easily the best considering damage mitigation has a cap and diminishing returns. I'll be making a DK Dunmer tank eventually, but not now.

I'll take your advice, but when someone asks for help with a build, you really shouldn't start off by telling them that their build is completely wrong.

GilGalad · October 2015

Hello,

A dunmer Templar is actually not the worst choice for tanking. If you want to try out stamina DPS you still have 7% max stamina, for healing and magicka DPS you have 9% max magicka. The fire resistance helps in many dungeons no matter what role you play.

For leveling I would recommend you to play magicka based. You can pretty much kill everything with puncturing sweep while it also heals you. The other slots can be used to level abilities and skill lines. Make sure to level the over weapons like dual wield, rest staff and maybe destro or 2h too (weapons with training trait are extremely useful). For the skills:

Tanking:
nova, war horn (if you want to play a bit PVP) and empowering sweep are the most important ultimates
Channeled focus: major resistance buffs, 480 magicka reg
Sun shield (whatever morph you prefer)
Breath of life
Repentance (restoring aura morph): you only stamina management (if your healer or stamina DPS in your group don't use it), also gives 10% more regeneration when slotted
Purifying ritual: cheap purge, hot and heal buff
Mystic Orb (undaunted): tank or healer should always run it)
Reflective light or blazing spear to get initial aggro

All sword and board skills for sure.

Another option would be to go vamp and use mistform for mitigation when your stamina gets low. I play my Breton Templar mostly as tank/heal hybridization light armor for the daily dungeons. You can even tank/heal vet WGT in light armor using mistform like a magicka block (you don't have any magicka regen while in mistform except the one from the channeled focus). It even works in the vet WGT hardmode but you definitely want to be in mistform when Molag Kena performs her hard hits.

As a healer you also want to level radiant destruction and maybe dark flare, purifying light, elemental drain (destruction staff), healing springs, combat prayer, rapid regeneration and siphon spirit. As a Templar you can heal every dungeon just with breath of life, so the rest can be support or DPS skills.

I hope this helps a bit!

GuyNamedSean · October 2015

Gil.Galad wrote: »

Hello,

A dunmer Templar is actually not the worst choice for tanking. If you want to try out stamina DPS you still have 7% max stamina, for healing and magicka DPS you have 9% max magicka. The fire resistance helps in many dungeons no matter what role you play.

For leveling I would recommend you to play magicka based. You can pretty much kill everything with puncturing sweep while it also heals you. The other slots can be used to level abilities and skill lines. Make sure to level the over weapons like dual wield, rest staff and maybe destro or 2h too (weapons with training trait are extremely useful). For the skills:

Tanking:
nova, war horn (if you want to play a bit PVP) and empowering sweep are the most important ultimates
Channeled focus: major resistance buffs, 480 magicka reg
Sun shield (whatever morph you prefer)
Breath of life
Repentance (restoring aura morph): you only stamina management (if your healer or stamina DPS in your group don't use it), also gives 10% more regeneration when slotted
Purifying ritual: cheap purge, hot and heal buff
Mystic Orb (undaunted): tank or healer should always run it)
Reflective light or blazing spear to get initial aggro

All sword and board skills for sure.

Another option would be to go vamp and use mistform for mitigation when your stamina gets low. I play my Breton Templar mostly as tank/heal hybridization light armor for the daily dungeons. You can even tank/heal vet WGT in light armor using mistform like a magicka block (you don't have any magicka regen while in mistform except the one from the channeled focus). It even works in the vet WGT hardmode but you definitely want to be in mistform when Molag Kena performs her hard hits.

As a healer you also want to level radiant destruction and maybe dark flare, purifying light, elemental drain (destruction staff), healing springs, combat prayer, rapid regeneration and siphon spirit. As a Templar you can heal every dungeon just with breath of life, so the rest can be support or DPS skills.

I hope this helps a bit!

That is quite helpful.

Do Templars have native abilities to give me my Major and Minor Resistance buffs? I know there's a morph for Nova that causes Major Maim and I was inclined to use that to reduce enemy damage output. What does Empowering Sweep do that would be better than that?

mklundub17_ESO · October 2015

GuyNamedSean wrote: »

mklundub17_ESO wrote: »

I couldn't think of a worst combination of tank+templar+dunmer. Templars only have 1 fire based skill. If you're really wanting to tank, DK is easily the best tank and dunmer is one of the best races for DK.

That said, if you're really set on your combo, then the majority of your tank skills will be outside of the templar skill tree (puncturing strike, heroic slash, defensive stance, immovable, inner fire). The templar abilities you would use as a tank would be:
Empowering sweep (ulti)
Solar prison (ulti)
Channeled Focus
Puncturing Sweep/Biting Jabs
Breath of Life (if heal tanking, or as a backup)
Purifying Ritual (if heal tanking, or situational)

I have two vr7-8 tanks. My current is a Nightblade that's a Vampire Dunmer and hits the damage mitigation cap. Thanks for starting off by telling me what I'm doing is wrong (like those s'wits in Belkarth said about my Nightblade), but I'll go ahead and let you know that a DK is easiest to make a tank with, but is not easily the best considering damage mitigation has a cap and diminishing returns. I'll be making a DK Dunmer tank eventually, but not now.

I'll take your advice, but when someone asks for help with a build, you really shouldn't start off by telling them that their build is completely wrong.

Well I still stand by what I said. If we're talking about group dungeon tanking, then it doesn't matter - they're all cake walks anyways (minus Prison) and have no need to min/max. But tanking trials as a Templar I can tell you without Magma Armor it's increasingly more difficult to tank, say, the Mantikora in Sanctum.

As for the dunmer templar, it's because you aren't going to utilize a bonus to fire damage at all, so throwing a racial passive right out the window from the start regardless of your stam/mag choice. Is it viable? Sure, anything is, but there's no way for me to know whether you're trying to min/max a build and don't realize Templars have only 1 fire based skill or whether you do realize it, in which case just ignore my advice.

You asked for advice, I gave advice, you just didn't like part of it.

GilGalad · October 2015

GuyNamedSean wrote: »

Gil.Galad wrote: »

Hello,

A dunmer Templar is actually not the worst choice for tanking. If you want to try out stamina DPS you still have 7% max stamina, for healing and magicka DPS you have 9% max magicka. The fire resistance helps in many dungeons no matter what role you play.

For leveling I would recommend you to play magicka based. You can pretty much kill everything with puncturing sweep while it also heals you. The other slots can be used to level abilities and skill lines. Make sure to level the over weapons like dual wield, rest staff and maybe destro or 2h too (weapons with training trait are extremely useful). For the skills:

Tanking:
nova, war horn (if you want to play a bit PVP) and empowering sweep are the most important ultimates
Channeled focus: major resistance buffs, 480 magicka reg
Sun shield (whatever morph you prefer)
Breath of life
Repentance (restoring aura morph): you only stamina management (if your healer or stamina DPS in your group don't use it), also gives 10% more regeneration when slotted
Purifying ritual: cheap purge, hot and heal buff
Mystic Orb (undaunted): tank or healer should always run it)
Reflective light or blazing spear to get initial aggro

All sword and board skills for sure.

Another option would be to go vamp and use mistform for mitigation when your stamina gets low. I play my Breton Templar mostly as tank/heal hybridization light armor for the daily dungeons. You can even tank/heal vet WGT in light armor using mistform like a magicka block (you don't have any magicka regen while in mistform except the one from the channeled focus). It even works in the vet WGT hardmode but you definitely want to be in mistform when Molag Kena performs her hard hits.

As a healer you also want to level radiant destruction and maybe dark flare, purifying light, elemental drain (destruction staff), healing springs, combat prayer, rapid regeneration and siphon spirit. As a Templar you can heal every dungeon just with breath of life, so the rest can be support or DPS skills.

I hope this helps a bit!

That is quite helpful.

Do Templars have native abilities to give me my Major and Minor Resistance buffs? I know there's a morph for Nova that causes Major Maim and I was inclined to use that to reduce enemy damage output. What does Empowering Sweep do that would be better than that?

Rune focus (channeled focus) gives major resistance buffs. I think there is no skill with minor resistance buffs.
Every Nova morph causes major maim, helping the whole group, plus a snare or a synergy with knockdown. Empowering sweep reduces the dmg dealt to you by 15% +4% per enemy hit and it's extremely cheap. I always run nova, the reduction from empowering sweep is simply not required in dungeons, you might use it to tank trials...

GuyNamedSean · October 2015

Gil.Galad wrote: »

GuyNamedSean wrote: »

Gil.Galad wrote: »

Hello,

A dunmer Templar is actually not the worst choice for tanking. If you want to try out stamina DPS you still have 7% max stamina, for healing and magicka DPS you have 9% max magicka. The fire resistance helps in many dungeons no matter what role you play.

For leveling I would recommend you to play magicka based. You can pretty much kill everything with puncturing sweep while it also heals you. The other slots can be used to level abilities and skill lines. Make sure to level the over weapons like dual wield, rest staff and maybe destro or 2h too (weapons with training trait are extremely useful). For the skills:

Tanking:
nova, war horn (if you want to play a bit PVP) and empowering sweep are the most important ultimates
Channeled focus: major resistance buffs, 480 magicka reg
Sun shield (whatever morph you prefer)
Breath of life
Repentance (restoring aura morph): you only stamina management (if your healer or stamina DPS in your group don't use it), also gives 10% more regeneration when slotted
Purifying ritual: cheap purge, hot and heal buff
Mystic Orb (undaunted): tank or healer should always run it)
Reflective light or blazing spear to get initial aggro

All sword and board skills for sure.

Another option would be to go vamp and use mistform for mitigation when your stamina gets low. I play my Breton Templar mostly as tank/heal hybridization light armor for the daily dungeons. You can even tank/heal vet WGT in light armor using mistform like a magicka block (you don't have any magicka regen while in mistform except the one from the channeled focus). It even works in the vet WGT hardmode but you definitely want to be in mistform when Molag Kena performs her hard hits.

As a healer you also want to level radiant destruction and maybe dark flare, purifying light, elemental drain (destruction staff), healing springs, combat prayer, rapid regeneration and siphon spirit. As a Templar you can heal every dungeon just with breath of life, so the rest can be support or DPS skills.

I hope this helps a bit!

That is quite helpful.

Do Templars have native abilities to give me my Major and Minor Resistance buffs? I know there's a morph for Nova that causes Major Maim and I was inclined to use that to reduce enemy damage output. What does Empowering Sweep do that would be better than that?

Rune focus (channeled focus) gives major resistance buffs. I think there is no skill with minor resistance buffs.
Every Nova morph causes major maim, helping the whole group, plus a snare or a synergy with knockdown. Empowering sweep reduces the dmg dealt to you by 15% +4% per enemy hit and it's extremely cheap. I always run nova, the reduction from empowering sweep is simply not required in dungeons, you might use it to tank trials...

Thanks!