While I can empathize with the frustrations many Templars have articulated on these forums, I'm not sure I agree with the more passion-driven conclusions. Looking at things objectively, do we really want to argue there isn't a point in running templar healers? Or that we somehow have a better grasp of the issue than ZoS did after months and months of internal testing?

I hate to say this, but there is a point in bringing a templar healer: they heal and will be able to do the job effectively once Morrowind drops.

It's obvious ZoS wants to limit resource sustain to a degree that prompts us to reevaluate our (perceived) lazy habits of just building for max damage. If Templars kept their exclusive hold on group resource generation, they would circumvent the entire basis of this goal that ZoS deems important. I don;t mean to be the bearer of bad news, but I highly doubt we are getting Repentance back and Shards on a separate cooldown would make Templars double the group sustainers as those classes that relied on Orbs.

ZoS will never admit this, but I'll tell you straight up: major mending is gone because of CP PvP. I play it every night and I heard Rich Lambert on ESO Live. This was as predictable to me as the sun rising in the East. I do think Wardens will have a very high up-time on Major Mending, but I suspect ZoS's adjustment will be more about scaling that back than restoring it for Templars.

Now reading this, you might think I agree with ZoS's direction. I don't. I hate it. But it is what it is. They are convinced that resource management in the game is trivial and that has damaged the integrity of the combat system. The changes they made in the patch notes are consistent with this goal and ZoS can't just revert it because we Templars are worried about becoming obsolete when nobody has played a Warden on the Live server yet.

If you really want Zos to reevaluate the changes they have made, you are going to have to convince them that ramifications of this patch are going to be detrimental to gameplay or the overall health of the franchise. This is going to be a tough sell. Because as much as people have voiced their displeasure over the patch notes, most of those very same people sympathize with Zos's overall goals. I've been on the PTS. Zos can compare my vMA score on Live (490,000) and my vMA score on PTS (420,000) and that would suggest that their goals are indeed being met since I can still complete the content and still get a decent score. I've have been in the new Trial and in just a few days, the bosses are getting killed with Templars healing. This is going to be a *really* tough sell.

All that being said, I do have a concern that I very much would like to hear ZoS's answer. Because I have seen nothing in the Patch Notes, any developer comment, or anywhere that allays my concerns:

It is clear as day to me and everyone else whose main was a Templar from Launch that what made the class distinctive from the others is gone.

• Puncturing Strikes stunned targets and healed for more. Now no more stun (instead just a snare) and it heals for much less.
• Biting Jabs stunned targets and acted as quasi execute. Now it just snares and gives a generic buff available elsewhere.
• Focused Charge was fast, responsive, and managed to hit opponents without the need for unpurgable auto-snare. Now it’s slow, bugs out, and places a snare on my opponents even if they are using a specific ability that makes them immune.
• Spear Shards stunned an opponent, had a longer relative range to other skills before Battle Spirit, and gave me the conscious ability to provide stamina to my allies. Now it doesn’t stun, I do not have a choice what resource it restores, and every other class can replicate this once unique ability via the Undaunted Skill line. Also, this used to tick twice as fast and thus twice as many Burning Light procs
• Blazing Shield was once a functional defense shield for all templars as it was based off health, an attribute the game’s mechanics used to encourage us to invest in. Now it’s a suboptimal choice for all templars excepting niche builds that stack max health.
• The Balanced Warrior passive used to benefit all templar’s damage. Now it only does so for “stamplars”
• Eclipse use to always reflect just about everything in the game for 7.2 seconds and had no targeting restrictions. Now only one morph only reflects projectiles and it only lasts for 3.5 seconds.
• I use to have a skill called Blinding Flashes that gave melee opponents a unique miss chance debuff. It’s now gone.
• The Restoring Spirit passive used to restore magicka when casting a Dawn’s Wrath ability. Now it’s just a generic small cost reduction (that is subject to diminishing returns).
• The Remembrance ultimate morph used to provide my allies with damage reduction. Now it doesn’t.
• Breath of Life once had an additional heal and no targeting restrictions.
• Restoring Aura once provided allies (and the templar) a bonus to their stam recovery not available anywhere else in the game. Now it debuffs six enemies with a generic debuff that restores magicka to my allies if they attack specific target.
• Repentance once restored health and stamina to the templar and her allies from corpses. Right now it is the last of the mechanics in ESO that once reward successful smaller sized groups overcome disorganized masses. On the PTS, this is gone as it’s just a situational AoE heal and only the templar gains stamina.
• Cleansing ritual used to cleanse debuffs and incoming projectiles. Now, no more projectiles and it’s more expensive.
• Focused Healing passive once gave me a unique 30% healing buff to allies standing in my protective circles. Now this is called Mending and gives a 12% buff if I am standing in my protective circles. If I combine it with the new Sacred Ground Passive, I can get an additional 8%. So in total 10% less.
• Mending once passive gave me a higher chance to critically heal a low health target. This is now gone completely.

It's enough to make a Templar cry.

Now, I'm not claiming the class is nerfed because it's not. It's not so much the power that has been sucked from my class but its soul. Each and every one of those once unique powers that differentiated my class from the others has been taken away because generic, bland, and flat power has been acquired elsewhere in the form of gear, the natural "Power Creep" that accompanies progression games, and especially the Champion System. In effect ZoS has been robbing Peter to pay Paul.

All classes have had to contend with this. Dragonknights more so than us. Sorcerers to a lesser degree. Nightblades I cannot say because I did not play one at launch.

Zos can quantify power so it thinks as long as the classes are roughly equivalent that all is OK. Well ZoS, you can't quantify fun. I'm telling you right now that I do not enjoy that the uniqueness of my class has been torn asunder just to be replaced by the homogenized generic +X% boosts in its stead. What had once made it fun to play a Templar no longer exists.

Here's the thing. I know I have the Healing Ritual spell. I didn’t need to be reminded about it and I most certainly could have done without ZoS dubbing it a “faster healing spammable ability.” It is a terrible spell that is in every way inferior to Healing Springs and in no way fast. What we are going to do is spam Healing Springs just like every other class. We will still use Shards, but it now supports the group just like every other class. I suppose we could use Restoring Aura, but why bother since it provides the same debuff as Elemental Drain and thus its effect is just like every other class. We no longer can reward the success our group with a Repentance stamina refill just like every other class. And please don't tell me it's free; my group has to kill enemies and I actually have to activate the skill with a global cooldown. It is the very last game mechanic in ESO that legitimately rewards one group of players for defeating another. Yes I have Purifying Ritual but everyone has access Purge. Yes I have Breath of Life, but you don’t even need to look to the Warden for other burst heals because there is multi-directional Twilight Matriarch and Steadfast Ward. You can argue that BoL is better, and maybe it is. Who cares? The point here is not that Templars healer can’t do the job or that they are gimped or weaker than other healers. Rather what interesting, compelling, and distinctive function doesa Templar provide a group? That’s gone. Gone the way of the stun from Blazing Spear, the unique CC from Blinding Flashes, the counter-play potential of Eclipse, the viability of Sun Shield, the resource return mechanic of Restoring Spirit, the zerg-fighting potential of Repentance. The Templar body functions, but its soul is no longer there.

And for what? All to reign in that bland generic power that comes from ZoS’s buff system and especially the flat percentage boosts everyone gets from the Champion System. There is so much power beyond our class skill-lines and passives such that ZoS has been forced to strip away our classes in order to maintain some semblance of control. Why do you think every patch update since the Imperial City has been page after page of nerfs? Why do you think ZoS has gone away from its “100% commitment” that PvP and PvE would governed by the same rules? Ask anyone who plays on Azura's Star who has been hit with a siege weapon, inflicted with a resource draining poison, or fought someone with the TrollKing monster set if ESO is "a single unified game where mechanics and abilities work consistently." Remember when we wrote over 80 pages of Templar feedback on the PTS made fun of Eric Wrobel and his Templar "house"? Well, as it turns out Templar Houses were indeed mighty in spite of the nerfs. This is the conundrum the developers must strain their brain on every patch: even when they nerf us, we become relatively stronger.

That’s the problem ZoS. It’s not that Templars are weak, or useless, or over-nerfed, or can’t compete with Wardens. Rather it is clear as day to anyone who has played and cared about a Templar since launch that the essence of what once made the class distinctive and fun is dead. The soulless husks we play now still have more than adequate power to fulfill whatever role is called on them, but there is no compelling game-play reason to use them as the direction you have taken the game has eliminated unique class functions in favor of generic power boosts available to everyone. That’s a terrible change. We are all pretty much the same. It’s boring. I don’t think you ever should have allowed the Champion System to steal the power inherent in our classes. Because you will never ever convince me that some +X major bonus to stamina available to everyone is as awesome, rewarding, stimulating, or fun as the Repentance skill.

I want the soul back on my templar. And it pains me you cannot grant that because of the direction you took ESO.