Full Heavy Armor Templar+Bow

Rraith · May 2016

Greetings,
I am a new player, recently bought the game. I can see that you can shape your character in many different ways in this game. While technically it is possible to create a character like Dragonhunter profession from Guild Wars, is it viable? I really love the concept of heavy armor+bow+holy spells. Will there be a lot of flame from other players if I choose to play this way?

Sunburnt_Penguin · May 2016

I've no idea of that character you're referring to but you can play the concept you suggested.

However, in ESO, the way damage works is that abilities that require stamina are scaled from weapon damage & max stamina and those that require magicka are scaled from spell damage and max magicka. So the higher your respective damage and resource that's required, the more damage you'll do and as a result people focus on one resource rather than both, when wanting to optimise their DPS.

Light armour is optimised for magicka orientated DPS builds whereas medium armour is for stamina DPS builds. Heavy is based around absorbing damage (although it is getting a nice buff next patch) so P eople often wear some heavy pieces for extra survivability, though.

So in your case, a bow would require stamina whereas holy spells would require magicka. Using these two won't give the most optimum DPS but for a new player the main thing is getting the most enjoyment out of the game and playing how you want to. You'll easily be able to complete most content with the build you suggested.

If you're solely interested in the aesthetics of heavy armour, there are costumes that can be purchased from the Crown store whilst wearing whatever armour you desire underneath (arguably looks better than the random armour you find anyway). You could then aim to wear 5 medium and 2 light armour (as medium gives more resistance) and split your attribute points between stamina and magicka. You can then look to use glyphs to balance your stamina and magicka.

Luckily nothing you do at any level can't be changed via in-game gold, so if you ever get to a point where you want to abandon that build and go for more optimisation through focusing on either stamina or magicka, you can do so without having to start again.

Rraith · May 2016

Thank you for the reply.

What is that "nice buff" which will be implemented in the next patch?

Sunburnt_Penguin · May 2016

Rraith wrote: »

Thank you for the reply.

What is that "nice buff" which will be implemented in the next patch?

These are the changes taken from PTS Patch Notes 2.40 (I believe).

Bracing:
Renamed this passive ability to Wrath.
Redesigned this passive ability so it now increases your Weapon and Spell Damage by 10/20 for 6 seconds after taking damage at Ranks I/II respectively, stacking up to 10 times.
Constitution: Increased the amount of Magicka and Stamina restored from this passive ability whenever you are hit by approximately 275%.
Juggernaut: Increased the amount of maximum health this passive grants per piece of Heavy Armor to 1/2% at Ranks I/II from 0.5/1%.
Rapid Mending:
This passive ability no longer increments its bonuses with each piece of Heavy Armor, and now requires 5 pieces or more of Heavy Armor to be worn.
Increased the healing taken bonus to 4/8%
This ability now increases the amount of resources your Heavy Attacks restore by 25/50% at Ranks I/II.

Edda · May 2016

You should specialize your build to focus on either stamina or magica. don't try to do both. Most class skills are magica. All weapon skills, except for staffs, are stamina. However some class abilities can be "morphed" to use stamina instead of magica. Take a look here, Class Skills.

As you can see templar skills like Javelin, and Puncturing Strikes can be upgraded(morphed) into stamina abilities. And Power of the Light and Repentance also benefits Stamina builds. Other classes also have skills that can be turned into stamina skills.

PS: If you get it wrong don't panic. Skills and attributes can be reset for a bit of gold in the game. Only thing permanent are the class, race and appearance picks you do upon character creation. It's entirely possible to switch from magica to stamina build or change your chosen weapon and armor type, later.
PPS: Buy a horse as soon as you can. Either from the crown store or from a stable (one purchase will unlock for whole account). There is daily training you want to get started as soon as possible

Articulemort · May 2016

I dont know how viable this idea would be at end game group content, but for solo pve it should work fine. I was honestly thinking about doing something similar. Here's what I was thinking.
Stamina Templar
I would pick Bosmer as a race, but any race, especially stamina built races, like khajiit, would work.
Run either bow or two handed til level 15 then have the other as back up (i personally would use two handed as my main). Rally(two handed) is an awesome skill for heals that uses stamina, granted you could probably use templar's breath of life in extreme situations (uses magicka but since you shouldn't be ever using magicka, the magicka would always be there in a emergency).
Puncturing strikes and javelin(which is my favorite skill, don't care if it's the best one) both can be morphed for the templar skills to use stamina and deal out decent damage. These two skills would be your "holy damage" Repentance which has no cost, is a great way to manage resources.
Use 3 pieces of heavy armor, the big ones, chest helms and legs to not only get the looks of heavy but little extra sustainability. Then the rest 4 pieces of armor in medium to get the boast to stamina for better damage.
Like I said, should work great in solo pve stuff, just not sure about group content or pvp, just have to try it and find out.

Articulemort · May 2016

@Rraith What do you play on and on what server?
I play on Xbox Na and would be more then willing to help you out in-game, my gt is Articule Mort.

Rraith · May 2016

Thank you all for your insightful replies.

@Articulemort unfortunately I play on PC EU.

It seems that the build is possible to play but I will be over gimping my character if I do so. I really like unique builds. Playing a ranged class as a nightblade wearing medium armor has no appeal for me. I also do roleplay frequently and bond with my characters.

So heavy armor is for tanking, light armor for magicka and medium armor for stamina? And if I try to make a hybrid or something very unique, the build will be near useless right?

Also I see that a lot people combine different pieces of armor (Like 3 heavy/4 medium). I am not a big fan of this idea, I think there should be different bonuses if you wear all heavy, medium or light.

phaneub17_ESO · May 2016

The problem is that for many new players to the game is they try to do too many things at once too early in the game. They end up destroying their own game experience by frustrating themselves with a build spread too thin. You can do well spreading out, but it takes time to build up each path one at a time; don't worry there's enough of the game to go around to max out every skill line and have enough points to fill out a good chunk of it. Take it slow, build one focused side at a time and when they max out, switch to the next path. You can keep your main skills on action bar 1 and then use action bar 2 for leveling new skills on the side via quest turn ins.

Rraith · May 2016

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

The problem is that for many new players to the game is they try to do too many things at once too early in the game. They end up destroying their own game experience by frustrating themselves with a build spread too thin. You can do well spreading out, but it takes time to build up each path one at a time; don't worry there's enough of the game to go around to max out every skill line and have enough points to fill out a good chunk of it. Take it slow, build one focused side at a time and when they max out, switch to the next path. You can keep your main skills on action bar 1 and then use action bar 2 for leveling new skills on the side via quest turn ins.

Thank you for your advice. So it is possible to level all skills in the game to 50 excluding class skills?

Articulemort · May 2016

Hybrids aren't useless, they just require player skill and a deep understanding of the games mechanics, something that personally I don't care to learn. I don't play to make the best build, with all the BiS gear, with the best weapon/spell damage, and blah blah all of that crap. I play to enjoy the game, to have fun, I don't wanna sit in front of a TV and grind through vMA hundreds of times trying to get one specific item(honestly I can't even beat MA on normal) . That is work to me, I don't want my video games to become work. I think this build concept would work and would be a fun and enjoyable way to play, and I don't think it would be difficult or really even much of a "hybrid" class.
And yeah, people use different armor 5 light 1 medium 1 heavy and all of that crap because of the one Undaunted Passive.
You could totally run this build with either all heavy (for the health increase) or all medium (for the stamina increase) and it would work. I just figured running 3 heavy 4 medium would give a decent amount of increase to both health and stamina while achieving the look of heavy armor.
I don't think unique builds are useless, unless you plan on running trials with them. I just think they take a little bit of creativity and patience. I say figure out what works best for you, what you enjoy to play, and make it work. If everyone just played each class to a specific predetermined build set up, this game would get mad boring mad quick.

Brrrofski · May 2016

Puncturing strikes and piercing javelin have morphs that scale off stamina. Thy cost stamina and do damage based on how much you have. They still look like magic though as you magic up spears.

Restoring aura morphs into repentance which let's you such drain health and stamina from corpses.

You also have puryfying Ritual which removes negative effects like snares and damage over time effects.

All great skills as a stamina templar that look/are magic

Jim_Pipp · May 2016

Welcome to the game! If you are new to this and have a vision of what you want to play then do it and explore the game, I'm sure it will be fun.

When I started I wanted to be a sorcerer with pets and a bow, like a ranger. My girlfriend just started and she wants to wear all heavy armor and use fire magic. The good news is that the beginning of the game is quite forgiving, so any build that has a mix of damage, defence and healing can complete it.

In the early game (up to about level 50) a mix of magic and stamina abilities is better, as you can draw on two resource pools. You could probably do a lot of the endgame solo PVE content (including DLC's) with your build too.

But.. this game has some elite players who rule in PVP, and there is some challenging group content. To be competitive at end-game requires choosing a build that weirdly exagerates a single feature (e.g. damage done OR damage resistance). This is called min/maxing, and it is one way to play the game. I find it is more fun to play however you want, and you don't really need to min/max until you are fighting other players or doing group content.

hrothbern · May 2016

Rraith wrote: »

Thank you all for your insightful replies.

@Articulemort unfortunately I play on PC EU.

It seems that the build is possible to play but I will be over gimping my character if I do so. I really like unique builds. Playing a ranged class as a nightblade wearing medium armor has no appeal for me. I also do roleplay frequently and bond with my characters.

So heavy armor is for tanking, light armor for magicka and medium armor for stamina? And if I try to make a hybrid or something very unique, the build will be near useless right?

Also I see that a lot people combine different pieces of armor (Like 3 heavy/4 medium). I am not a big fan of this idea, I think there should be different bonuses if you wear all heavy, medium or light.

@Rraith ,

In endgame, being part of a Group that aims for min-max speed runs on everything, the current game mechanics favors a focussed build like some posts mention.
The HA does not "make" you necessarily a Tank. It gives more damage sustain. If you expand on that direction, you have made a tank. But it leaves also more room for other choices to aim for someting else.

However.
A Heavy Armor Paladine Templar with a Bow will be very much ok to go through the PVE questing content , where hybrid use of Stamina (bow) and Magicka abilities are no hindernis at all to perform good enough and enjoy the content in the role you like

The recent changes with the HA buff, and also the Potion & Poison choices, increase the viability of more hybrid choices and I hope that the changes to come in the next two quarters will further favor mixed combo's and very unique niche builds "out of the box" compared to the current meta chosen by many players.

I did that with my first made character. I started as pure Heavy Armor Stamina Bow. I switched a while to using much more Magicka / Puncturing Sweeps by using 5 HA/1LA/1MA with the crafted Armor set Seducer, that gives a lot of Magicka Resource sustain (also the Mundus Atronach). And developed all my skills.

Rraith · May 2016

I really appreciate all of your opinions on this topic and it is really nice to see that this game has a friendly, helpful community.

Since I am completionist and will try to max out every skill I can, I will try to build my character the way I want to. If things do not go as I hope then I will simply just change my build.

NBrookus · May 2016

Rraith wrote: »

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

The problem is that for many new players to the game is they try to do too many things at once too early in the game. They end up destroying their own game experience by frustrating themselves with a build spread too thin. You can do well spreading out, but it takes time to build up each path one at a time; don't worry there's enough of the game to go around to max out every skill line and have enough points to fill out a good chunk of it. Take it slow, build one focused side at a time and when they max out, switch to the next path. You can keep your main skills on action bar 1 and then use action bar 2 for leveling new skills on the side via quest turn ins.

Thank you for your advice. So it is possible to level all skills in the game to 50 excluding class skills?

Yes, you can.

dodgehopper_ESO · May 2016

Rraith wrote: »

I really appreciate all of your opinions on this topic and it is really nice to see that this game has a friendly, helpful community.

Since I am completionist and will try to max out every skill I can, I will try to build my character the way I want to. If things do not go as I hope then I will simply just change my build.

Everyone uses both magicka and stamina abilities. If you're primarily focused on magicka you'll use stamina abilities primarily for things like dodge rolling, breaking free, or blocking. If you're stamina focused you'll use magicka abilities for utility. An example here would be to use cleansing ritual, rune focus and possibly blazing shield, all while firing a bow. It is worth noting some medium pieces have a 'heavy' look to them so you might be able to keep the overall style you want even by mixing in some medium.

failkiwib16_ESO · May 2016

Tbh. if your character is level 1-10 then wear full heavy armor, because you lack both skillpoints + you haven't unlocked passive skills to benefit much from light or medium

heavy armor protects you the most in the start.

Armor types in this game have a 5 piece bonus that is really awesome
-there are benefits of wearing 7 pieces of the same type of armor.
-there are benefits of wearing 5 pieces of the same type of armor, and 1-2 other types.

Considering how much the chest and legs cover the visuals, many players choose to have chest and leg pieces made of the types of armor they like the most - and then have the remaining 5 pieces in the type of armor that benefits them the most.

For example, in your case it would be 5 medium (head, shoulder, feet, hands and waist) and 2 heavy (chest and legs).

Btw. my v16 templar have all skills + morphs levelled. - with exception of Thieves Guild skill line, because my gaming time is limited at the moment... so I expect to level those passives up sometime in June.

Edda · May 2016

It's good to wear at least one of each type or armor (light, medium, heavy) when you level up so that you keep gaining levels in all 3 armor types. That way if you change your mind or if something gets nerfed to oblivion you already have a good head start to switch to a different armor weight class.

Acsvf · May 2016

failkiwib16_ESO wrote: »

Tbh. if your character is level 1-10 then wear full heavy armor, because you lack both skillpoints + you haven't unlocked passive skills to benefit much from light or medium heavy armor protects you the most in the start.

I would suggest against full heavy. You can't level light or medium if you don't have them equipped.

Curragraigue · May 2016

OP if you want to try a heavy armour and bow build try the DK. A stamina DK in heavy makes a good tank and you could use your bow for DPS. The DK has a lot of good skills both for tanking and defence.

hrothbern · May 2016

Curragraigue wrote: »

OP if you want to try a heavy armour and bow build try the DK. A stamina DK in heavy makes a good tank and you could use your bow for DPS. The DK has a lot of good skills both for tanking and defence.

haha
seen from the perspective of an effective combo, you are right @Curragraigue

however
the Lawful Good Paladine role can only be a Templar