Can we finally get the Templar passives reworked?

MalakithAlamahdi · April 2018

Alright, I think it's been said by quite some people before but since nothing changes i'd like to shed some light onto this topic again. If I made a mistake or oversight feel free to correct me. I just wish that this class gets some love for ones and a big part of that should be the passives. Ill go trough them all one by one.

Dawns Wrath:

Enduring rays
Increases duration of your Sun Fire, Eclipse and Nova abilities by 30%.

It sounds like a great buff, having your skill hit for longer. Only thing is that it buffs up the duration of skills like Sun Fire but doesn't actually scale up it's damage right. So for example, instead of doing 5k damage over 10 seconds you'll now do 5k damage over 13 seconds. I get that the crit bonus stays for longer now, but what passive nerfs the damage of skills?

Prism
Activating a Dawn's Wrath ability grants 3 additional Ultimate. This can only occur once every 6 seconds.

Doesn't sound too awefull. Execpt that DK's pretty much have this passive + the next one in the list turned into 1 passive, and they don't need to cast anything for the ulti regen which is exactly 3 ulti every 6 seconds passivly as well. Besides that, our ultimates are pretty lackbuster overall. Using an ultimate gives no other bonusses on Templars like Battle Roar so this will most likely make very little difference for most people and will barely be noticed.

Illuminate
Grants Minor Sorcery to you and your group, increasing Spell Damage by 5% for 20 seconds.

Pretty good passive imo. But why isn't this included into the previous passive like it's done with DK's? Overall it's quite decent so I don't have that many complains about it. It is pretty useless for stamina players though, giving it a 5% weapon damage increase would be nice as you need to actually cast a skill for it (power of the light?).

Restoring Spirit

Reduces Magicka, Stamina and Ultimate ability costs by 4%.
Can't really complain about a cost reduction as Templars have one of the highest skill cost already with this passive. Maybe have it restore a little stamina/ magicka every 10 seconds or something as a passive while in combat (to group maybe?), this would help both classes greatly with the substain issues both Mag and Stamplars have. It also helps tanking in PvE a bit for this class.

Aedric Spear:

Piercing Spear
Increases your Critical Damage done and your damage against blocking targets by 10% while you have an Aedric Spear ability slotted.

Would be great if you didn't have to slot a skill for it. Now you'd have to make sure you have at least one Aedric Spear skill slotted to have some use for his. Since most skills from this skill line aren't that great you'd have to suffer a skill slot just to use this passive. Focused Charge is still buggy and has no stamina morph, Aurora Javelin throws people out of your range even though you're the lowest class in the game, Shards doesn't stun anymore and Sun Shield is bad if you don't have 50k+ hp.

Spear Wall
Increases the amount of damage you can block against melee attacks by 15%.

Funny how it's given to the class with the most channels in the game. Should I say more?

Burning Light
When you deal damage with an Aedric Spear ability, you have a 25% chance to deal an additional [x] Physical Damage or [y] Magic Damage, whicever is higher. This effect can occur once every 0.5 seconds.

I like this one, seems to be one of the few good passives.

Balanced Warrior
Increases Weapon Damage by 6% and Spell Resistance by 2640.

Why doesn't it increase spell damage?

Restoring Light:

Mending
Increases the healing effects from your Restoring Light abilities by up to 12%, in proportion to the severity of the target's wounds.

This should be applied to ALL heals. Three of the skills don't/ barely heal already. So the only skills that benifit from it are Rite of Passage, Rush of Ceremony and Healing Ritual. Healing Ritual has a long cast time (I know it will be removed next patch), which is rather funny since it will only apply to people with low health, so who can't wait 1.5 seconds for a heal.

Sacred Ground
While standing in your own Cleansing Ritual, Rune Focus, or Rite of Passage areas of effect and for up to 4 seconds after leaving them you gain Minor Mending, increasing your healing done by 8%. Enemies standing in your Cleansing Ritual, Rune Focus or Rite of Passage areas of effect have their Movement Speed reduced by 30%.

Should be turned into Major Mending again imo. Templars got a whole skill line dedicated to healing and with how strong Defile is you'll barely notice a difference. The snare is alright but I personally don't notice it. Epecially since you'll be on the move pretty much all the time anyway.

Light Weaver
Increases the duration of Restoring Aura by 20%. Healing Ritual grants 2 Ultimate to allies under 60% Health. Channeling Rite of Passage grants 16500 bonus to your Armor.

Restoring Aura is a terrible skill now besides the passive, and Repentance doesn't benfit from thing. The 2 Ultimate is nice but it should give it all the time while staying in "your house" not just when you're half dead. And the armor is really situational. Would be nice if it gave Minor Resolve and Ward for everyone in your Healing Ritual. This would suit the stand your ground style they want this class to be and make it usefull outside of a stationary ultimate.

Master Ritualist
Increases resurrection speed by 20%. Resurrected allies return with 100% more Health. Gives you a 50% chance to gain a soul gem after each successful resurrection

Seems fine for a healer. It's pretty powerfull in openworld PvP and usefull in PvE.

That's it for me really. Please let me know your idea's and let's have a conversation about this again.
@Joy_Division
@ZOS_GinaBruno

Joy_Division · April 2018

I don't disagree with most of your assessments. In general, I think looking into passives (all, not just templars) is long overdue as the game has changed pretty significantly since Launch and many old ideas and assumptions don't hold true anymore.

Unfortunately, I think ZoS is nervous to buff these because of the power creep that has entered into the game (new gear sets, the CP system, new skills lines like Psijic, etc), so I would not count on these getting revisited, even if some like Light Weaver add next to nothing to the class.

I do think we should continue to let ZoS know that we'd like our classes and points we spend in the passives to be meaningful; perhaps with enough customers saying so, they will look into making some changes.

MalakithAlamahdi · April 2018

Joy_Division wrote: »

I don't disagree with most of your assessments. In general, I think looking into passives (all, not just templars) is long overdue as the game has changed pretty significantly since Launch and many old ideas and assumptions don't hold true anymore.

Unfortunately, I think ZoS is nervous to buff these because of the power creep that has entered into the game (new gear sets, the CP system, new skills lines like Psijic, etc), so I would not count on these getting revisited, even if some like Light Weaver add next to nothing to the class.

I do think we should continue to let ZoS know that we'd like our classes and points we spend in the passives to be meaningful; perhaps with enough customers saying so, they will look into making some changes.

I could also have commented about the actual skills and how they don't work. But you've already made a huge post about it (multiple times) and they've done nothing with it. Overall this class needs a lot of tweaking, with one of the things being the passives that haven't been touched in ages.