Asardes wrote: »

As I said, Templar is one of the classes worst suited for tanking - and I've played them all, including Templar - so it still surprises me that so many people want to make Templar tanks. Are they relying on outdated guides from years back or is there is another reason?

In any case it's more advantageous to go start off from Stamina Templar to make a Heal Tank since the most useful skill are stamina morphs:
- Power of the Light (Stamina Morph) - unique Templar debuff - Minor Fracture & Breach (-1320 resistance on target)
- Restoring Focus (Stamina Morph) - allows you to sustain stamina while blocking
- Repentance (Stamina Morph) - gives you stamina back and a burst heal for the rest of the group - heal scales on effective weapon damage (weapon damage + maximum stamina/10.5)
- Ritual of Retribution/Extended Ritual - AoE heal, purge, snare and aggro grabber, while this skill uses magicka the heal and damage scales on your highest stat, so even if you're stamina it will heal for quite a bit
If you want an additional AoE heal for the group Echoing Vigor is the best, since it doesn't force you to run Restoration staff on backbar, which would be useless for tanking

Bar setup would look something like this:
Ransack | Heroic Slash | Power of the Light | Radiant Ward | Bone Surge || Replenishing Barrier
Silver Leash | Repentance | Time Stop | Extended Ritual | Restoring Focus || Aggressive Horn

I already mentioned that a Templar with a relatively low effective spell damage (spell damage+max magicka/10.5) has no burst heal - HoD/BoL is very weak with tank specs - so the best way to survive is to keep your health bar topped up and intact as much as possible. So before a big hit you can stack both Bone Surge and Radiant Ward to absorb as much damage as possible, and give the HotS enough time to top you out before the next; both scale to your maximum HP and affected by your resistances so standing on Restoring Focus makes them more effective. The former also gives a shield and increased heals for the rest of the group.

Example: vet HM Bloodroot Forge - at some point in the fight you'll have to tank 3 atronachs which sometimes hit one right after the other, and they hit for ~10K even for a blocking tank with full resistances, also stones fall from the ceiling and those hit pretty hard too, you can't avoid every one. So you can simply stand your ground, replenish your shields so your Ritual can top of your health before the next hit.

You'll need Time Stop for a hard CC on some mobs that are particularly dangerous but you don't have a class one ex. vet HM Moonhunter Keep. Alternatively you can use Turn Evil but it has a smaller radius and can't be aimed at a distant spot. If you pick Turn Evil you can instead use Pierce Armor on front bar to also have Major Breach applied, though if you're running with magicka DDs it's way better to run Destruction staff (ice or lightning) back bar and slot Elemental Drain there instead of another skill that's not important in that fight.

Silver Leash and Repentance work well together, you keep pulling mobs, the DDs kill them, and you get back stamina. In fights where you don't have many adds you can drop repentance, and in boss fights where there are no adds to pull but you need to range taunt use Inner Rage. Alternatively you can use Swarm Mother monster set in conjunction with Inner Rage to pull adds to you.

Finally the ultimate skills. Aggressive Horn is essential for any support build so you'll have that slotted at all times and be the first choice. The other is flexible. In fights where you need more mitigation use Solar Prison, if you need healing, Rememberance, if you need shield Replenishing Barrier etc.

As for gear, you can use any run of the mill tank gear, but I recommend at leas one healing set. For example a good combo would be Battalion Defender & Ebon Armory. For monster sets there are plenty of options, probably the best for group support is Symphony of Blades - since you're healing your group members constantly, you will also top off their resources if they drop under 50% every 18s.

https://eso-sets.com/set/battalion-defender
https://eso-sets.com/set/ebon-armory
https://eso-sets.com/set/symphony-of-blades