Langeston wrote: »

Drdeath20 wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

[snip]

I won't search for exact patch numbers but I will do so if forced to, this is just last few patches.
Living dark/Unstable core overbuff;
Ritual being cleanse, soft cc, damage and heal tool at the same time while twisting path was nerfed because of being damage and healing skill at the same time;
PoTL/Purifying Light being bugged (in favor of templars) for very long.
Templars as the only ones evading cast time on burst ult.

Many of those things were balanced after some time bringing templars more in line with vanilla classes, that's true, but please stop overreacting.

This patch minor/major tweaks we can see for magblades bring only nerfs, while templars now get unique (very easy) access to minor sorcery, minor breach and all 3 minor recovery's which all got buffed.

Are templars top class? For sure no! Are they bottom class? No way.

[snip] Most peoples recovery is around 500-900. Even if you took 20% of that, its still an awful number. Yahoo my recovery goes up a little but only if i slot repentance and have it front bar'd.

I stopped playing my magplar entirely a few patches ago to play a magblade. It was like switching from a Toyota to a Ferrari. Ranged spammable that is a HoT, shade, options on builds depending on group (cripple for the cheap DoT vs lotus fan for the minor vulnerability), unique buffs in reave and 20% additional damage for 6 seconds after using incap. Nice luxury for also having the strongest burst skill in the game (merciless bow proc). On a test dummy i can get some bow procs around 90k. Works swimmingly with impale too. Pretty easy rotation just count to 4 and light attack bow proc, and the best part it gets easier during execute. The hardest part is managing your potions to best serve your ultimate generation.

At this point i could care less about templars. [snip]

[edited for baiting]

Unless I'm mistaken, it seems like you are talking about PVE here. If that's the case, then I think you're comparing apples & oranges because I'm fairly certain that @Mayrael is focused on PVP. While your post may be correct with regards to PVE, nearly everything in it is inapplicable (or even wrong) in PVP.

For all I know magblade may indeed be a Ferrari in PVE, but they're a 1983 Dodge Omni in PVP.

Langeston wrote: »

West93 wrote: »

Langeston wrote: »

Drdeath20 wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

[snip]

I won't search for exact patch numbers but I will do so if forced to, this is just last few patches.
Living dark/Unstable core overbuff;
Ritual being cleanse, soft cc, damage and heal tool at the same time while twisting path was nerfed because of being damage and healing skill at the same time;
PoTL/Purifying Light being bugged (in favor of templars) for very long.
Templars as the only ones evading cast time on burst ult.

Many of those things were balanced after some time bringing templars more in line with vanilla classes, that's true, but please stop overreacting.

This patch minor/major tweaks we can see for magblades bring only nerfs, while templars now get unique (very easy) access to minor sorcery, minor breach and all 3 minor recovery's which all got buffed.

Are templars top class? For sure no! Are they bottom class? No way.

[snip] Most peoples recovery is around 500-900. Even if you took 20% of that, its still an awful number. Yahoo my recovery goes up a little but only if i slot repentance and have it front bar'd.

I stopped playing my magplar entirely a few patches ago to play a magblade. It was like switching from a Toyota to a Ferrari. Ranged spammable that is a HoT, shade, options on builds depending on group (cripple for the cheap DoT vs lotus fan for the minor vulnerability), unique buffs in reave and 20% additional damage for 6 seconds after using incap. Nice luxury for also having the strongest burst skill in the game (merciless bow proc). On a test dummy i can get some bow procs around 90k. Works swimmingly with impale too. Pretty easy rotation just count to 4 and light attack bow proc, and the best part it gets easier during execute. The hardest part is managing your potions to best serve your ultimate generation.

At this point i could care less about templars. [snip]

[edited for baiting]

Unless I'm mistaken, it seems like you are talking about PVE here. If that's the case, then I think you're comparing apples & oranges because I'm fairly certain that @Mayrael is focused on PVP. While your post may be correct with regards to PVE, nearly everything in it is inapplicable (or even wrong) in PVP.

For all I know magblade may indeed be a Ferrari in PVE, but they're a 1983 Dodge Omni in PVP.

While magblade is still better for solo 1vx than a magplar.

Shadow Image gives so much outplay potential while fighting outnumbered in resource/keep tower, while magplar can only block cast honor the dead and mistform as defense options (which both sucks), darkflare has a hard cast time to land and backlash requires 6 second damage build up which keeps you vulnerable while jabbing and also hits like wet noodle for 2-3k.

Not saying that magblade is perfect, but it does have more outplay potential for solo play than a magplar and is more well rounded class, magplar is only "decent" in group play and "decent" in dueling, but since stonethorn patch changes it really dropped 1 tier down for both dueling and group play.

And if you don't agree, look around at stonethorn pvp tier class for both CP and NO CP, both magplar and stamplar is at bottom tier.

I mostly play BGs at this point and templars are definitely stronger than Magblades in that setting. There's a reason that Magblades are nearly non-existent in high MMR BGs whereas there's still a good number of magplars and stamplars. Stamblades I see more frequently than I used to, but I can go literally days without seeing another magblade in a BG. Magblades are nice because of Shadowy Disguise & Shade, but aside from escaping/repositioning, everything else I can think of off the top of my head is better on a magplar.

I disagree with your assertion that magblade is more well rounded. It's easy to only use class abilities on a magplar, while that's nearly impossible to do on a magblade. (On my current magblade build I have to use 6 non-class abilities to round out the NB toolkit — my magplar build doesn't require any.)

As far as ''outplay potential," you seem to be talking about juking & evading — if that's the case I agree. However if a decent magplar comes across an equally decent magblade in open world or a BG, chances are the magplar wins or the magblade escapes. I don't really consider that a win.

As far as tier lists, to be honest I don't put a whole lot of stock in them at this point. So far, in nearly every one I've come across where the rationale was explained, they seemed pretty biased to me. Regardless, can you link to which ones you are referring to?

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

This entire thread seems to just be saying "nerf warden and necro". While I understand that templar has some critical problems, so do other classes including both warden and necromancer and it feels like you all are just saying that they have everything when they absolutely do not, for example, the common argument said about warden is "they have every buff", well, while we have a significant amount of named buffs and definitely more than I would personally think is reasonable, we legitimately need those to be viable because warden has a lack of quantity and quality class damage skills that don't have much synergy with eachother. Magicka Warden was for the longest time the worst dps before it got more raw damage buffs, meanwhile Stamina Warden as of Stonethorn is still one of the worst dps classes in pve, Warden DPS just generally cannot access it's class specific utility in pve because it's so ingrained to be used by tanks and healers, while additionally our green balance skills aren't used as much by dps in PvP because they underperform a noticeable amount compared to other healing skills and chiefly because of arctic blast's health scaling healing, natures embrace still has rubber band issues that are partly due to how slow the projectile moves.
I can't speak as much for necromancer but it has issues with several bugs and ai issues with it's pets which make it restricted and clunky, and the tethers are still extremely wonky to use, magicka necromancer is still quite bad in pvp.

Yes, stamina warden and necromancer are top tier in pvp, and necromancer has been an issue in pve. and they need to be toned down, but just know that these classes aren't without their issues either. all classes deserve tuning and treatment.

Firstmep wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

This entire thread seems to just be saying "nerf warden and necro". While I understand that templar has some critical problems, so do other classes including both warden and necromancer and it feels like you all are just saying that they have everything when they absolutely do not, for example, the common argument said about warden is "they have every buff", well, while we have a significant amount of named buffs and definitely more than I would personally think is reasonable, we legitimately need those to be viable because warden has a lack of quantity and quality class damage skills that don't have much synergy with eachother. Magicka Warden was for the longest time the worst dps before it got more raw damage buffs, meanwhile Stamina Warden as of Stonethorn is still one of the worst dps classes in pve, Warden DPS just generally cannot access it's class specific utility in pve because it's so ingrained to be used by tanks and healers, while additionally our green balance skills aren't used as much by dps in PvP because they underperform a noticeable amount compared to other healing skills and chiefly because of arctic blast's health scaling healing, natures embrace still has rubber band issues that are partly due to how slow the projectile moves.
I can't speak as much for necromancer but it has issues with several bugs and ai issues with it's pets which make it restricted and clunky, and the tethers are still extremely wonky to use, magicka necromancer is still quite bad in pvp.

Yes, stamina warden and necromancer are top tier in pvp, and necromancer has been an issue in pve. and they need to be toned down, but just know that these classes aren't without their issues either. all classes deserve tuning and treatment.

All classes do deserve treatment, and this is a post about templars.
You know when ppl create these kinds of posts they don't automatically infer that the only class that needs help is theirs.
And yet tons of ppl like you pop in to say: My class too! Completely missing the point of the thread.
If you argued that templars weren't as bad or even godlike or whatever your post would actually be more relevant to the thread than it is now.

Firstmep wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Firstmep wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

This entire thread seems to just be saying "nerf warden and necro". While I understand that templar has some critical problems, so do other classes including both warden and necromancer and it feels like you all are just saying that they have everything when they absolutely do not, for example, the common argument said about warden is "they have every buff", well, while we have a significant amount of named buffs and definitely more than I would personally think is reasonable, we legitimately need those to be viable because warden has a lack of quantity and quality class damage skills that don't have much synergy with eachother. Magicka Warden was for the longest time the worst dps before it got more raw damage buffs, meanwhile Stamina Warden as of Stonethorn is still one of the worst dps classes in pve, Warden DPS just generally cannot access it's class specific utility in pve because it's so ingrained to be used by tanks and healers, while additionally our green balance skills aren't used as much by dps in PvP because they underperform a noticeable amount compared to other healing skills and chiefly because of arctic blast's health scaling healing, natures embrace still has rubber band issues that are partly due to how slow the projectile moves.
I can't speak as much for necromancer but it has issues with several bugs and ai issues with it's pets which make it restricted and clunky, and the tethers are still extremely wonky to use, magicka necromancer is still quite bad in pvp.

Yes, stamina warden and necromancer are top tier in pvp, and necromancer has been an issue in pve. and they need to be toned down, but just know that these classes aren't without their issues either. all classes deserve tuning and treatment.

All classes do deserve treatment, and this is a post about templars.
You know when ppl create these kinds of posts they don't automatically infer that the only class that needs help is theirs.
And yet tons of ppl like you pop in to say: My class too! Completely missing the point of the thread.
If you argued that templars weren't as bad or even godlike or whatever your post would actually be more relevant to the thread than it is now.

You actually miss my point, my comment is in response to people who either say or imply that the blame is on the "pay to win" classes for why their class is doing badly. What I'm trying to say is that these people aren't thinking about the people who actually play these classes that are "pay to win" and thus either ignore or don't know about the issues these classes have. Just suggesting that they need to be nerfed in a thread about, as you said, templars, isn't the place to discuss that. But it's also just inconsiderate.

I mean, you look at some of the tools of those classes and it looks like like Zos was trying give them tools that templars had access to, only better.
Warden in particular, has a better version of nova, has major mending(which was taken away from Templar not long before warden got released), a better healing skill line that actually benefits both mag and stam.
Necro has a better self purge, stronger burst, better passives(by far).
Anyway warden needs nerfs in pvp period, regardless of what templars have, but I agree that they also need some love in other areas like their spammable improved and better cc options.

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

Tip for struggling Stamplars this patch:

Run Crescent Sweep for your Ult. You'll have to make sure you have gear that increases its power, but with it ticking along with jabs, you can still consistently burning light, and still have a decent power of the light burst.

Cinbri wrote: »

Langeston wrote: »

Firstmep wrote: »

Langeston wrote: »

West93 wrote: »

Langeston wrote: »

Drdeath20 wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

[snip]

I won't search for exact patch numbers but I will do so if forced to, this is just last few patches.
Living dark/Unstable core overbuff;
Ritual being cleanse, soft cc, damage and heal tool at the same time while twisting path was nerfed because of being damage and healing skill at the same time;
PoTL/Purifying Light being bugged (in favor of templars) for very long.
Templars as the only ones evading cast time on burst ult.

Many of those things were balanced after some time bringing templars more in line with vanilla classes, that's true, but please stop overreacting.

This patch minor/major tweaks we can see for magblades bring only nerfs, while templars now get unique (very easy) access to minor sorcery, minor breach and all 3 minor recovery's which all got buffed.

Are templars top class? For sure no! Are they bottom class? No way.

[snip] Most peoples recovery is around 500-900. Even if you took 20% of that, its still an awful number. Yahoo my recovery goes up a little but only if i slot repentance and have it front bar'd.

I stopped playing my magplar entirely a few patches ago to play a magblade. It was like switching from a Toyota to a Ferrari. Ranged spammable that is a HoT, shade, options on builds depending on group (cripple for the cheap DoT vs lotus fan for the minor vulnerability), unique buffs in reave and 20% additional damage for 6 seconds after using incap. Nice luxury for also having the strongest burst skill in the game (merciless bow proc). On a test dummy i can get some bow procs around 90k. Works swimmingly with impale too. Pretty easy rotation just count to 4 and light attack bow proc, and the best part it gets easier during execute. The hardest part is managing your potions to best serve your ultimate generation.

At this point i could care less about templars. [snip]

[edited for baiting]

Unless I'm mistaken, it seems like you are talking about PVE here. If that's the case, then I think you're comparing apples & oranges because I'm fairly certain that @Mayrael is focused on PVP. While your post may be correct with regards to PVE, nearly everything in it is inapplicable (or even wrong) in PVP.

For all I know magblade may indeed be a Ferrari in PVE, but they're a 1983 Dodge Omni in PVP.

While magblade is still better for solo 1vx than a magplar.

Shadow Image gives so much outplay potential while fighting outnumbered in resource/keep tower, while magplar can only block cast honor the dead and mistform as defense options (which both sucks), darkflare has a hard cast time to land and backlash requires 6 second damage build up which keeps you vulnerable while jabbing and also hits like wet noodle for 2-3k.

Not saying that magblade is perfect, but it does have more outplay potential for solo play than a magplar and is more well rounded class, magplar is only "decent" in group play and "decent" in dueling, but since stonethorn patch changes it really dropped 1 tier down for both dueling and group play.

And if you don't agree, look around at stonethorn pvp tier class for both CP and NO CP, both magplar and stamplar is at bottom tier.

I mostly play BGs at this point and templars are definitely stronger than Magblades in that setting. There's a reason that Magblades are nearly non-existent in high MMR BGs whereas there's still a good number of magplars and stamplars. Stamblades I see more frequently than I used to, but I can go literally days without seeing another magblade in a BG. Magblades are nice because of Shadowy Disguise & Shade, but aside from escaping/repositioning, everything else I can think of off the top of my head is better on a magplar.

I disagree with your assertion that magblade is more well rounded. It's easy to only use class abilities on a magplar, while that's nearly impossible to do on a magblade. (On my current magblade build I have to use 6 non-class abilities to round out the NB toolkit — my magplar build doesn't require any.)

As far as ''outplay potential," you seem to be talking about juking & evading — if that's the case I agree. However if a decent magplar comes across an equally decent magblade in open world or a BG, chances are the magplar wins or the magblade escapes. I don't really consider that a win.

As far as tier lists, to be honest I don't put a whole lot of stock in them at this point. So far, in nearly every one I've come across where the rationale was explained, they seemed pretty biased to me. Regardless, can you link to which ones you are referring to?

If we are talking bgs i hope you know that magplar self healing is pretty trash, on top of that without procsets that class has no offensive pressure.
Last update they pretty much neutered the entire templar offensive toolkit, and it takes time for people to realise how bad the class is.
As for seeing more magplars than magblades, i play in high mmr bgs on pc eu and neither are very well represented atm, and even fewer stamplars.
The class just doesnt bring anything to bgs outside of providing purify syenergy every so often.
Right now wardens /nightblades(well stamblades anyway) and sorcs(both stam and mag) are probably the most often seen ones, with quite a few dks as well(leap is a fantastic tool for bgs).
And there is a good reason for that.

If you think magplar's offensive toolkit is bad, imagine if literally all of it were dodgeable. (Most magblade abilites are reflectable too.) There are BGs where feel like the only thing I see the entire match is "DODGE DODGE DODGE" — combat text might as well be turned off. Now that I think about it, this is likely almost the entire reason magblade overperforms in PVE vs PVP — mobs don't roll dodge a whole lot.

I'm not saying Magplar is top tier right now or anything, but better self healing paired with the fact that it's burst combo is nearly entirely undodgable is a huge advantage over a magblade's truly abysmal self healing & 100% dodgable burst combo. With the exception of mobility skills, magplars just have stronger and/or more reliable versions nearly every magblade ability, and in many cases there's just no comparison. The stun on Toppling Charge is huge and that alone makes it much better than Lotus fan, Sweeps does more damage and heals for more than Swallow Soul/Concealed Weapon, Radiant Oppression is much easier to land and can do much more damage than Impale (which I don't even bother to slot), I have nothing that compares to Javelin so I'm forced to use Flame Clench which is absolute garbage by comparison, Purifying Light & Merciless are difficult to compare but PL is definitely more reliable and thus in the long run likely does a lot more damage...the list goes on. I also cannot overstate how nice it is to not be forced to use a resto staff on my back bar. It's literally a game changer.

Don't get me wrong: Shade & Cloak are definitely strong, and they are so much fun — they're almost the entire reason I love playing magblade — but magplar simply has a stronger, more cohesive toolkit than magblade. I kind of feel like the class is incomplete and I have to piece my build together from scraps.

As far as class representation in high MMR BGs, apparently PC NA is apparently to EU, however we also have a ton of stam necros as well.

Just use bit of logic instead of feelings.
1. Offensive toolkit: nb atleast have toolkit.
A. First of all nb didnt suffered from its entire skillines were blatantly nerfed by "dot nerf" because class was always burst. While templar was similarly to dk - playable by stacking dots yet unlike dk he didnt recieved 33% passive boost to damage. On top of that 90% of nb toolkit is not hardcountered by evasion buff that literally every stam build use.
33% less damage on allmost all skills and on top additional 25% reductuon not even near as fair as trade for undodgeable.
B. You have range spammable that apply strong hot. Fact it being ranged and hot by default making it super strong booster of defense because you can easily spam it at range without endangering yourself into melee and this require to waste less gcd on defense, HoT grant even bigger survivability as it keep ticking even when you ended your dps rotation snd went defensive mode.
Meanwhile templar spammable is melee that byitself apply higher risk of incoming damage and unlike ranged spammable it literally unable to land on any high mobile target that literally every stam build coz it being channel. Yes, it cant be dodged on paper but on practice it means it also cant even connect its full 4 ticks on any target that is not target dummy. I posted back in time quite a few gifs showing how hard jabs desyncing literally not be able to hit target inside hitbox. Its apply heal not hot so as soon as you going defensive, and you will go defensive in melee range alot coz templar simply dont have proactive defense - it stop providing its defensive capability. And when nb Surprise Attack got rulebreaking buff to stun people simply coz nb addicted to some old bug, templars Sweeps heal got nerfhamnered while zos just saying that they will monitoring how class will perform. This turned theoretical strength of sweeps to get at least nice heal against stacked group unexisting.
C. Burst skill - apart from spammable you need either strong-hitting dots or burst heal and nb atleast does have strong burst skill. It not as good as p2w blastbones or shalks but at least it there.
Meanwhile templar has no choice. Like I mentioned before its entire dot kit that was main damage source got blatantly nerfed. And on top of it its burst got neutered too.
Burning Light "change" you can see in main thread how it killed passive in pvp.
Backlash got killed too, you also can read its problems i posted i think in this thread, when burst skill deal like 1k damage because zos decided for some unknown reason simply kill it.
D. CCs - once again nb atleast have roots or aoe cc, they got nerfed too to promote p2w classes, but still better than nothing.
Meanwhile templar lost its aoe snare and unjustly lost its root; only root remained within Unstable Core that noone use coz it horribly bugged skill and despite i detsily reporting it for over year now - not a single fix for this skill. So now templar sit in situation where melee spec cant even control opponent movement simply because forum whiners became unhappy that templar suddenly could decrease their mobility by Eclipse.

2. Defensive toolkit: not gona bother write wall of text again, will just mention couple points.
A. Range playstyle that bydefault means higher survivability.
B. Easier uptime of defensive buffs. For example press Cloak- get minor protection for full duration of hot. Meanwhile on templar you have to spam jabs to get protection and guess what - you will do it minority of time because in melee playstyle where you recive more damage, on a class with no proactive defense - you will simply spam heals instead of your spammable, making protection passive uptime even lower than 70%.
C. And most important Reposition capability. Its main source of survivability in pvp on every class byfar superior to brainless brawling abilities and everyone knows it. Guess why noone use Ironblood set with its high boost of survivability - because reposition >>> facetanking.
Nb have one of the best repositioning tools meanwhile templar has access to RAT or Mist but not a single class feature that helps with it, most of time just hold block and spam heal till out of stam and inevitable death, that forcing them to play into more brawling playstyle, i.e. gut their almost unexisting offensive toolkit further.

TL;DR: a super simple logic.

Since you started off talking about Puncturing Sweep & Swallow Soul, we'll use them as an example:
(I'm going to ignore Concealed Weapon, since that skill is only viable over Swallow Soul on a magblade in relatively niche builds.)

Puncturing Sweep

Swallow Soul

No CP was used, both toons are Breton and identically equipped — 5 Innate Axiom, 5 War Maiden, 2 Balorgh, Prismatic glyphs on armor, SD glyphs on arcane jewelry, Artaeum Fish Bowl food, and the Apprentice Mundus. Only buff is Major Sorcery.
[Note: both builds would likely need more sustain to be viable, but the magblade would definitely need even more. This equates to even less damage on a viable magblade build.]

Puncturing Sweep: 13,168
Burning Light: 4,712
Sweeps + Burning Light: 17,880
Swallow Soul: 8,386

Even if Burning Light doesn't proc, Puncturing Sweep does 57% more (1.57x) damage than Swallow Soul. (Put another way, Swallow Soul only does 66% of the damage that Sweeps does — again: without Burning Light.) You also heal for 40% of the damage done, rather than the 36% you get on Swallow Soul. Not to mention the fact that you also get Minor Protection.

Add in burning Light and the results become comical: the Sweeps/BL tooltip is 17,880, or 113% more (2.13x) than Swallow Soul.

So without taking Major Evasion into consideration, there is clearly no comparison between the two. Let's see what it looks like with Major Evasion:

Puncturing Sweep: 13,168 - 20% = 10,534
Burning Light: 4,712
Sweeps + Burning Light: 15,246
Swallow Soul: 8,386

Sweeps still does 26% more without BL, and 81% more if it procs. On your first hit, BL is almost guaranteed to proc considering you're typically going to open with Toppling Charge, thus all 4 ticks should land and if you've already applied Purifying Light like you're supposed to, that's another guaranteed proc. (This is where class toolkit cohesiveness comes into play, like I mentioned in my post.w) I won't get into Crescent Sweep or Radiant Oppression, both of which are also undodgable.

TL;DR: If you think magblades have a combo that's even half as reliable as magplar, then you've obviously never played the class before.

As far as your other points:

Major Evasion: saying "literally every stam build uses" it is a straight up falsehood. Only medium armor builds or builds using Dual Wield have that option, and I don't even know if you can say the majority of stam builds fit that description. 2H/Bow & Heavy is extremely common, especially right now. Against Light Armor builds, obviously there is simply no comparison whatsoever.

Range: if you think that's a significant advantage (or indeed, an advantage at all) in this meta where nearly everyone is running a gap closer and/or can dodge you every single time, then you haven't even tried to play ranged magblade. (Not to mention the fact that it's impossible to play fully ranged in the first place unless you use a non class ult.)

Burst skill: Merciless is completely unreliable, is not available on demand, and has a loud AF "you're being attacked, dodge now!" warning sound. As weak as [you feel] Purifying Light is, you're at least guaranteed some damage.

CCs Crippling Grasp isn't worth slotting on it's own. The only decent CC is Fear, and even that isn't worth slotting on most builds (the range kinda sucks & all it does is stun.) Fear Traps can be good in group play. In any case, most magblades I come across use Flame Clench which is just a worse version of Javelin.

Defensive toolkit:Personally, I don't think there is a clear cut winner with regard to defense. I do agree with some of the points you make here, (for instance Shade is a strong skill) however it isn't the end-all be-all that you seem to think it is (ex: in BGs half the time you port straight to your death.) You're also glossing over all of the defensive capabilities that templar has, not the least of which is much more reliable healing, and you're not required to use a Restoration Staff. You don't realize how good you have it being able to have Destro or S/B on your back bar. Cloak is basically broken right now (not in a good way) and in fact I am currently looking at replacing it with Mist Form. As I said, I don't know that there is a clear cut winner here.

Langeston wrote: »

Cinbri wrote: »

Langeston wrote: »

Firstmep wrote: »

Langeston wrote: »

West93 wrote: »

Langeston wrote: »

Drdeath20 wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

[snip]

I won't search for exact patch numbers but I will do so if forced to, this is just last few patches.
Living dark/Unstable core overbuff;
Ritual being cleanse, soft cc, damage and heal tool at the same time while twisting path was nerfed because of being damage and healing skill at the same time;
PoTL/Purifying Light being bugged (in favor of templars) for very long.
Templars as the only ones evading cast time on burst ult.

Many of those things were balanced after some time bringing templars more in line with vanilla classes, that's true, but please stop overreacting.

This patch minor/major tweaks we can see for magblades bring only nerfs, while templars now get unique (very easy) access to minor sorcery, minor breach and all 3 minor recovery's which all got buffed.

Are templars top class? For sure no! Are they bottom class? No way.

[snip] Most peoples recovery is around 500-900. Even if you took 20% of that, its still an awful number. Yahoo my recovery goes up a little but only if i slot repentance and have it front bar'd.

I stopped playing my magplar entirely a few patches ago to play a magblade. It was like switching from a Toyota to a Ferrari. Ranged spammable that is a HoT, shade, options on builds depending on group (cripple for the cheap DoT vs lotus fan for the minor vulnerability), unique buffs in reave and 20% additional damage for 6 seconds after using incap. Nice luxury for also having the strongest burst skill in the game (merciless bow proc). On a test dummy i can get some bow procs around 90k. Works swimmingly with impale too. Pretty easy rotation just count to 4 and light attack bow proc, and the best part it gets easier during execute. The hardest part is managing your potions to best serve your ultimate generation.

At this point i could care less about templars. [snip]

[edited for baiting]

Unless I'm mistaken, it seems like you are talking about PVE here. If that's the case, then I think you're comparing apples & oranges because I'm fairly certain that @Mayrael is focused on PVP. While your post may be correct with regards to PVE, nearly everything in it is inapplicable (or even wrong) in PVP.

For all I know magblade may indeed be a Ferrari in PVE, but they're a 1983 Dodge Omni in PVP.

While magblade is still better for solo 1vx than a magplar.

Shadow Image gives so much outplay potential while fighting outnumbered in resource/keep tower, while magplar can only block cast honor the dead and mistform as defense options (which both sucks), darkflare has a hard cast time to land and backlash requires 6 second damage build up which keeps you vulnerable while jabbing and also hits like wet noodle for 2-3k.

Not saying that magblade is perfect, but it does have more outplay potential for solo play than a magplar and is more well rounded class, magplar is only "decent" in group play and "decent" in dueling, but since stonethorn patch changes it really dropped 1 tier down for both dueling and group play.

And if you don't agree, look around at stonethorn pvp tier class for both CP and NO CP, both magplar and stamplar is at bottom tier.

I mostly play BGs at this point and templars are definitely stronger than Magblades in that setting. There's a reason that Magblades are nearly non-existent in high MMR BGs whereas there's still a good number of magplars and stamplars. Stamblades I see more frequently than I used to, but I can go literally days without seeing another magblade in a BG. Magblades are nice because of Shadowy Disguise & Shade, but aside from escaping/repositioning, everything else I can think of off the top of my head is better on a magplar.

I disagree with your assertion that magblade is more well rounded. It's easy to only use class abilities on a magplar, while that's nearly impossible to do on a magblade. (On my current magblade build I have to use 6 non-class abilities to round out the NB toolkit — my magplar build doesn't require any.)

As far as ''outplay potential," you seem to be talking about juking & evading — if that's the case I agree. However if a decent magplar comes across an equally decent magblade in open world or a BG, chances are the magplar wins or the magblade escapes. I don't really consider that a win.

As far as tier lists, to be honest I don't put a whole lot of stock in them at this point. So far, in nearly every one I've come across where the rationale was explained, they seemed pretty biased to me. Regardless, can you link to which ones you are referring to?

If we are talking bgs i hope you know that magplar self healing is pretty trash, on top of that without procsets that class has no offensive pressure.
Last update they pretty much neutered the entire templar offensive toolkit, and it takes time for people to realise how bad the class is.
As for seeing more magplars than magblades, i play in high mmr bgs on pc eu and neither are very well represented atm, and even fewer stamplars.
The class just doesnt bring anything to bgs outside of providing purify syenergy every so often.
Right now wardens /nightblades(well stamblades anyway) and sorcs(both stam and mag) are probably the most often seen ones, with quite a few dks as well(leap is a fantastic tool for bgs).
And there is a good reason for that.

If you think magplar's offensive toolkit is bad, imagine if literally all of it were dodgeable. (Most magblade abilites are reflectable too.) There are BGs where feel like the only thing I see the entire match is "DODGE DODGE DODGE" — combat text might as well be turned off. Now that I think about it, this is likely almost the entire reason magblade overperforms in PVE vs PVP — mobs don't roll dodge a whole lot.

I'm not saying Magplar is top tier right now or anything, but better self healing paired with the fact that it's burst combo is nearly entirely undodgable is a huge advantage over a magblade's truly abysmal self healing & 100% dodgable burst combo. With the exception of mobility skills, magplars just have stronger and/or more reliable versions nearly every magblade ability, and in many cases there's just no comparison. The stun on Toppling Charge is huge and that alone makes it much better than Lotus fan, Sweeps does more damage and heals for more than Swallow Soul/Concealed Weapon, Radiant Oppression is much easier to land and can do much more damage than Impale (which I don't even bother to slot), I have nothing that compares to Javelin so I'm forced to use Flame Clench which is absolute garbage by comparison, Purifying Light & Merciless are difficult to compare but PL is definitely more reliable and thus in the long run likely does a lot more damage...the list goes on. I also cannot overstate how nice it is to not be forced to use a resto staff on my back bar. It's literally a game changer.

Don't get me wrong: Shade & Cloak are definitely strong, and they are so much fun — they're almost the entire reason I love playing magblade — but magplar simply has a stronger, more cohesive toolkit than magblade. I kind of feel like the class is incomplete and I have to piece my build together from scraps.

As far as class representation in high MMR BGs, apparently PC NA is apparently to EU, however we also have a ton of stam necros as well.

Just use bit of logic instead of feelings.
1. Offensive toolkit: nb atleast have toolkit.
A. First of all nb didnt suffered from its entire skillines were blatantly nerfed by "dot nerf" because class was always burst. While templar was similarly to dk - playable by stacking dots yet unlike dk he didnt recieved 33% passive boost to damage. On top of that 90% of nb toolkit is not hardcountered by evasion buff that literally every stam build use.
33% less damage on allmost all skills and on top additional 25% reductuon not even near as fair as trade for undodgeable.
B. You have range spammable that apply strong hot. Fact it being ranged and hot by default making it super strong booster of defense because you can easily spam it at range without endangering yourself into melee and this require to waste less gcd on defense, HoT grant even bigger survivability as it keep ticking even when you ended your dps rotation snd went defensive mode.
Meanwhile templar spammable is melee that byitself apply higher risk of incoming damage and unlike ranged spammable it literally unable to land on any high mobile target that literally every stam build coz it being channel. Yes, it cant be dodged on paper but on practice it means it also cant even connect its full 4 ticks on any target that is not target dummy. I posted back in time quite a few gifs showing how hard jabs desyncing literally not be able to hit target inside hitbox. Its apply heal not hot so as soon as you going defensive, and you will go defensive in melee range alot coz templar simply dont have proactive defense - it stop providing its defensive capability. And when nb Surprise Attack got rulebreaking buff to stun people simply coz nb addicted to some old bug, templars Sweeps heal got nerfhamnered while zos just saying that they will monitoring how class will perform. This turned theoretical strength of sweeps to get at least nice heal against stacked group unexisting.
C. Burst skill - apart from spammable you need either strong-hitting dots or burst heal and nb atleast does have strong burst skill. It not as good as p2w blastbones or shalks but at least it there.
Meanwhile templar has no choice. Like I mentioned before its entire dot kit that was main damage source got blatantly nerfed. And on top of it its burst got neutered too.
Burning Light "change" you can see in main thread how it killed passive in pvp.
Backlash got killed too, you also can read its problems i posted i think in this thread, when burst skill deal like 1k damage because zos decided for some unknown reason simply kill it.
D. CCs - once again nb atleast have roots or aoe cc, they got nerfed too to promote p2w classes, but still better than nothing.
Meanwhile templar lost its aoe snare and unjustly lost its root; only root remained within Unstable Core that noone use coz it horribly bugged skill and despite i detsily reporting it for over year now - not a single fix for this skill. So now templar sit in situation where melee spec cant even control opponent movement simply because forum whiners became unhappy that templar suddenly could decrease their mobility by Eclipse.

2. Defensive toolkit: not gona bother write wall of text again, will just mention couple points.
A. Range playstyle that bydefault means higher survivability.
B. Easier uptime of defensive buffs. For example press Cloak- get minor protection for full duration of hot. Meanwhile on templar you have to spam jabs to get protection and guess what - you will do it minority of time because in melee playstyle where you recive more damage, on a class with no proactive defense - you will simply spam heals instead of your spammable, making protection passive uptime even lower than 70%.
C. And most important Reposition capability. Its main source of survivability in pvp on every class byfar superior to brainless brawling abilities and everyone knows it. Guess why noone use Ironblood set with its high boost of survivability - because reposition >>> facetanking.
Nb have one of the best repositioning tools meanwhile templar has access to RAT or Mist but not a single class feature that helps with it, most of time just hold block and spam heal till out of stam and inevitable death, that forcing them to play into more brawling playstyle, i.e. gut their almost unexisting offensive toolkit further.

TL;DR: a super simple logic.

[snip]

Since you started off talking about Puncturing Sweep & Swallow Soul, we'll use them as an example:
(I'm going to ignore Concealed Weapon, since that skill is only viable over Swallow Soul on a magblade in relatively niche builds.)

Puncturing Sweep

Swallow Soul

No CP was used, both toons are Breton and identically equipped — 5 Innate Axiom, 5 War Maiden, 2 Balorgh, Prismatic glyphs on armor, SD glyphs on arcane jewelry, Artaeum Fish Bowl food, and the Apprentice Mundus. Only buff is Major Sorcery.
[Note: both builds would likely need more sustain to be viable, but the magblade would definitely need even more. This equates to even less damage on a viable magblade build.]

Puncturing Sweep: 13,168
Burning Light: 4,712
Sweeps + Burning Light: 17,880
Swallow Soul: 8,386

Even if Burning Light doesn't proc, Puncturing Sweep does 57% more (1.57x) damage than Swallow Soul. (Put another way, Swallow Soul only does 66% of the damage that Sweeps does — again: without Burning Light.) You also heal for 40% of the damage done, rather than the 36% you get on Swallow Soul. Not to mention the fact that you also get Minor Protection.

Add in burning Light and the results become comical: the Sweeps/BL tooltip is 17,880, or 113% more (2.13x) than Swallow Soul.

So without taking Major Evasion into consideration, there is clearly no comparison between the two. Let's see what it looks like with Major Evasion:

Puncturing Sweep: 13,168 - 20% = 10,534
Burning Light: 4,712
Sweeps + Burning Light: 15,246
Swallow Soul: 8,386

Sweeps still does 26% more without BL, and 81% more if it procs. On your first hit, BL is almost guaranteed to proc considering you're typically going to open with Toppling Charge, thus all 4 ticks should land and if you've already applied Purifying Light like you're supposed to, that's another guaranteed proc. (This is where class toolkit cohesiveness comes into play, like I mentioned in my post.w) I won't get into Crescent Sweep or Radiant Oppression, both of which are also undodgable.

TL;DR: If you think magblades have a combo that's even half as reliable as magplar, then you've obviously never played the class before.

As far as your other points:

Major Evasion: saying "literally every stam build uses" it is a straight up falsehood. Only medium armor builds or builds using Dual Wield have that option, and I don't even know if you can say the majority of stam builds fit that description. 2H/Bow & Heavy is extremely common, especially right now. Against Light Armor builds, obviously there is simply no comparison whatsoever.

Range: if you think that's a significant advantage (or indeed, an advantage at all) in this meta where nearly everyone is running a gap closer and/or can dodge you every single time, then you haven't even tried to play ranged magblade. (Not to mention the fact that it's impossible to play fully ranged in the first place unless you use a non class ult.)

Burst skill: Merciless is completely unreliable, is not available on demand, and has a loud AF "you're being attacked, dodge now!" warning sound. As weak as [you feel] Purifying Light is, you're at least guaranteed some damage.

CCs Crippling Grasp isn't worth slotting on it's own. The only decent CC is Fear, and even that isn't worth slotting on most builds (the range kinda sucks & all it does is stun.) Fear Traps can be good in group play. In any case, most magblades I come across use Flame Clench which is just a worse version of Javelin.

Defensive toolkit:Personally, I don't think there is a clear cut winner with regard to defense. I do agree with some of the points you make here, (for instance Shade is a strong skill) however it isn't the end-all be-all that you seem to think it is (ex: in BGs half the time you port straight to your death.) You're also glossing over all of the defensive capabilities that templar has, not the least of which is much more reliable healing, and you're not required to use a Restoration Staff. You don't realize how good you have it being able to have Destro or S/B on your back bar. Cloak is basically broken right now (not in a good way) and in fact I am currently looking at replacing it with Mist Form. As I said, I don't know that there is a clear cut winner here.

Like I said in my previous post, I'm not trying to say magplar is OP or top tier — but to say that it's weaker than magblade is simply absurd. Either you don't fully understand how magblade works, you're not being honest with yourself, (or me) or it's a case of the grass being greener on the other side.

[Addendum] If you want to get into PVP tier lists, they apparently agree that magplar is stronger in 4 of 6 categories, — every case outside of solo play. This can almost 100% be attributed to the fact that magblades are simply better at escaping due to Shadowy Disguise/Shade. If you want to try playing a build that uses Dark Cloak instead of Shadowy Disguise though, I think you'll wind up wishing you were on a magplar. Shade without Shadowy Disguise simply prolongs the inevitable in the same way spamming heals does, and your damage output is even worse.

Langeston wrote: »

Cinbri wrote: »

Langeston wrote: »

Firstmep wrote: »

Langeston wrote: »

West93 wrote: »

Langeston wrote: »

Drdeath20 wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

[snip]

I won't search for exact patch numbers but I will do so if forced to, this is just last few patches.
Living dark/Unstable core overbuff;
Ritual being cleanse, soft cc, damage and heal tool at the same time while twisting path was nerfed because of being damage and healing skill at the same time;
PoTL/Purifying Light being bugged (in favor of templars) for very long.
Templars as the only ones evading cast time on burst ult.

Many of those things were balanced after some time bringing templars more in line with vanilla classes, that's true, but please stop overreacting.

This patch minor/major tweaks we can see for magblades bring only nerfs, while templars now get unique (very easy) access to minor sorcery, minor breach and all 3 minor recovery's which all got buffed.

Are templars top class? For sure no! Are they bottom class? No way.

[snip] Most peoples recovery is around 500-900. Even if you took 20% of that, its still an awful number. Yahoo my recovery goes up a little but only if i slot repentance and have it front bar'd.

I stopped playing my magplar entirely a few patches ago to play a magblade. It was like switching from a Toyota to a Ferrari. Ranged spammable that is a HoT, shade, options on builds depending on group (cripple for the cheap DoT vs lotus fan for the minor vulnerability), unique buffs in reave and 20% additional damage for 6 seconds after using incap. Nice luxury for also having the strongest burst skill in the game (merciless bow proc). On a test dummy i can get some bow procs around 90k. Works swimmingly with impale too. Pretty easy rotation just count to 4 and light attack bow proc, and the best part it gets easier during execute. The hardest part is managing your potions to best serve your ultimate generation.

At this point i could care less about templars. [snip]

[edited for baiting]

Unless I'm mistaken, it seems like you are talking about PVE here. If that's the case, then I think you're comparing apples & oranges because I'm fairly certain that @Mayrael is focused on PVP. While your post may be correct with regards to PVE, nearly everything in it is inapplicable (or even wrong) in PVP.

For all I know magblade may indeed be a Ferrari in PVE, but they're a 1983 Dodge Omni in PVP.

While magblade is still better for solo 1vx than a magplar.

Shadow Image gives so much outplay potential while fighting outnumbered in resource/keep tower, while magplar can only block cast honor the dead and mistform as defense options (which both sucks), darkflare has a hard cast time to land and backlash requires 6 second damage build up which keeps you vulnerable while jabbing and also hits like wet noodle for 2-3k.

Not saying that magblade is perfect, but it does have more outplay potential for solo play than a magplar and is more well rounded class, magplar is only "decent" in group play and "decent" in dueling, but since stonethorn patch changes it really dropped 1 tier down for both dueling and group play.

And if you don't agree, look around at stonethorn pvp tier class for both CP and NO CP, both magplar and stamplar is at bottom tier.

I mostly play BGs at this point and templars are definitely stronger than Magblades in that setting. There's a reason that Magblades are nearly non-existent in high MMR BGs whereas there's still a good number of magplars and stamplars. Stamblades I see more frequently than I used to, but I can go literally days without seeing another magblade in a BG. Magblades are nice because of Shadowy Disguise & Shade, but aside from escaping/repositioning, everything else I can think of off the top of my head is better on a magplar.

I disagree with your assertion that magblade is more well rounded. It's easy to only use class abilities on a magplar, while that's nearly impossible to do on a magblade. (On my current magblade build I have to use 6 non-class abilities to round out the NB toolkit — my magplar build doesn't require any.)

As far as ''outplay potential," you seem to be talking about juking & evading — if that's the case I agree. However if a decent magplar comes across an equally decent magblade in open world or a BG, chances are the magplar wins or the magblade escapes. I don't really consider that a win.

As far as tier lists, to be honest I don't put a whole lot of stock in them at this point. So far, in nearly every one I've come across where the rationale was explained, they seemed pretty biased to me. Regardless, can you link to which ones you are referring to?

If we are talking bgs i hope you know that magplar self healing is pretty trash, on top of that without procsets that class has no offensive pressure.
Last update they pretty much neutered the entire templar offensive toolkit, and it takes time for people to realise how bad the class is.
As for seeing more magplars than magblades, i play in high mmr bgs on pc eu and neither are very well represented atm, and even fewer stamplars.
The class just doesnt bring anything to bgs outside of providing purify syenergy every so often.
Right now wardens /nightblades(well stamblades anyway) and sorcs(both stam and mag) are probably the most often seen ones, with quite a few dks as well(leap is a fantastic tool for bgs).
And there is a good reason for that.

If you think magplar's offensive toolkit is bad, imagine if literally all of it were dodgeable. (Most magblade abilites are reflectable too.) There are BGs where feel like the only thing I see the entire match is "DODGE DODGE DODGE" — combat text might as well be turned off. Now that I think about it, this is likely almost the entire reason magblade overperforms in PVE vs PVP — mobs don't roll dodge a whole lot.

I'm not saying Magplar is top tier right now or anything, but better self healing paired with the fact that it's burst combo is nearly entirely undodgable is a huge advantage over a magblade's truly abysmal self healing & 100% dodgable burst combo. With the exception of mobility skills, magplars just have stronger and/or more reliable versions nearly every magblade ability, and in many cases there's just no comparison. The stun on Toppling Charge is huge and that alone makes it much better than Lotus fan, Sweeps does more damage and heals for more than Swallow Soul/Concealed Weapon, Radiant Oppression is much easier to land and can do much more damage than Impale (which I don't even bother to slot), I have nothing that compares to Javelin so I'm forced to use Flame Clench which is absolute garbage by comparison, Purifying Light & Merciless are difficult to compare but PL is definitely more reliable and thus in the long run likely does a lot more damage...the list goes on. I also cannot overstate how nice it is to not be forced to use a resto staff on my back bar. It's literally a game changer.

Don't get me wrong: Shade & Cloak are definitely strong, and they are so much fun — they're almost the entire reason I love playing magblade — but magplar simply has a stronger, more cohesive toolkit than magblade. I kind of feel like the class is incomplete and I have to piece my build together from scraps.

As far as class representation in high MMR BGs, apparently PC NA is apparently to EU, however we also have a ton of stam necros as well.

Just use bit of logic instead of feelings.
1. Offensive toolkit: nb atleast have toolkit.
A. First of all nb didnt suffered from its entire skillines were blatantly nerfed by "dot nerf" because class was always burst. While templar was similarly to dk - playable by stacking dots yet unlike dk he didnt recieved 33% passive boost to damage. On top of that 90% of nb toolkit is not hardcountered by evasion buff that literally every stam build use.
33% less damage on allmost all skills and on top additional 25% reductuon not even near as fair as trade for undodgeable.
B. You have range spammable that apply strong hot. Fact it being ranged and hot by default making it super strong booster of defense because you can easily spam it at range without endangering yourself into melee and this require to waste less gcd on defense, HoT grant even bigger survivability as it keep ticking even when you ended your dps rotation snd went defensive mode.
Meanwhile templar spammable is melee that byitself apply higher risk of incoming damage and unlike ranged spammable it literally unable to land on any high mobile target that literally every stam build coz it being channel. Yes, it cant be dodged on paper but on practice it means it also cant even connect its full 4 ticks on any target that is not target dummy. I posted back in time quite a few gifs showing how hard jabs desyncing literally not be able to hit target inside hitbox. Its apply heal not hot so as soon as you going defensive, and you will go defensive in melee range alot coz templar simply dont have proactive defense - it stop providing its defensive capability. And when nb Surprise Attack got rulebreaking buff to stun people simply coz nb addicted to some old bug, templars Sweeps heal got nerfhamnered while zos just saying that they will monitoring how class will perform. This turned theoretical strength of sweeps to get at least nice heal against stacked group unexisting.
C. Burst skill - apart from spammable you need either strong-hitting dots or burst heal and nb atleast does have strong burst skill. It not as good as p2w blastbones or shalks but at least it there.
Meanwhile templar has no choice. Like I mentioned before its entire dot kit that was main damage source got blatantly nerfed. And on top of it its burst got neutered too.
Burning Light "change" you can see in main thread how it killed passive in pvp.
Backlash got killed too, you also can read its problems i posted i think in this thread, when burst skill deal like 1k damage because zos decided for some unknown reason simply kill it.
D. CCs - once again nb atleast have roots or aoe cc, they got nerfed too to promote p2w classes, but still better than nothing.
Meanwhile templar lost its aoe snare and unjustly lost its root; only root remained within Unstable Core that noone use coz it horribly bugged skill and despite i detsily reporting it for over year now - not a single fix for this skill. So now templar sit in situation where melee spec cant even control opponent movement simply because forum whiners became unhappy that templar suddenly could decrease their mobility by Eclipse.

2. Defensive toolkit: not gona bother write wall of text again, will just mention couple points.
A. Range playstyle that bydefault means higher survivability.
B. Easier uptime of defensive buffs. For example press Cloak- get minor protection for full duration of hot. Meanwhile on templar you have to spam jabs to get protection and guess what - you will do it minority of time because in melee playstyle where you recive more damage, on a class with no proactive defense - you will simply spam heals instead of your spammable, making protection passive uptime even lower than 70%.
C. And most important Reposition capability. Its main source of survivability in pvp on every class byfar superior to brainless brawling abilities and everyone knows it. Guess why noone use Ironblood set with its high boost of survivability - because reposition >>> facetanking.
Nb have one of the best repositioning tools meanwhile templar has access to RAT or Mist but not a single class feature that helps with it, most of time just hold block and spam heal till out of stam and inevitable death, that forcing them to play into more brawling playstyle, i.e. gut their almost unexisting offensive toolkit further.

TL;DR: a super simple logic.

[snip]

Since you started off talking about Puncturing Sweep & Swallow Soul, we'll use them as an example:
(I'm going to ignore Concealed Weapon, since that skill is only viable over Swallow Soul on a magblade in relatively niche builds.)

Puncturing Sweep

Swallow Soul

No CP was used, both toons are Breton and identically equipped — 5 Innate Axiom, 5 War Maiden, 2 Balorgh, Prismatic glyphs on armor, SD glyphs on arcane jewelry, Artaeum Fish Bowl food, and the Apprentice Mundus. Only buff is Major Sorcery.
[Note: both builds would likely need more sustain to be viable, but the magblade would definitely need even more. This equates to even less damage on a viable magblade build.]

Puncturing Sweep: 13,168
Burning Light: 4,712
Sweeps + Burning Light: 17,880
Swallow Soul: 8,386

Even if Burning Light doesn't proc, Puncturing Sweep does 57% more (1.57x) damage than Swallow Soul. (Put another way, Swallow Soul only does 66% of the damage that Sweeps does — again: without Burning Light.) You also heal for 40% of the damage done, rather than the 36% you get on Swallow Soul. Not to mention the fact that you also get Minor Protection.

Add in burning Light and the results become comical: the Sweeps/BL tooltip is 17,880, or 113% more (2.13x) than Swallow Soul.

So without taking Major Evasion into consideration, there is clearly no comparison between the two. Let's see what it looks like with Major Evasion:

Puncturing Sweep: 13,168 - 20% = 10,534
Burning Light: 4,712
Sweeps + Burning Light: 15,246
Swallow Soul: 8,386

Sweeps still does 26% more without BL, and 81% more if it procs. On your first hit, BL is almost guaranteed to proc considering you're typically going to open with Toppling Charge, thus all 4 ticks should land and if you've already applied Purifying Light like you're supposed to, that's another guaranteed proc. (This is where class toolkit cohesiveness comes into play, like I mentioned in my post.w) I won't get into Crescent Sweep or Radiant Oppression, both of which are also undodgable.

TL;DR: If you think magblades have a combo that's even half as reliable as magplar, then you've obviously never played the class before.

As far as your other points:

Major Evasion: saying "literally every stam build uses" it is a straight up falsehood. Only medium armor builds or builds using Dual Wield have that option, and I don't even know if you can say the majority of stam builds fit that description. 2H/Bow & Heavy is extremely common, especially right now. Against Light Armor builds, obviously there is simply no comparison whatsoever.

Range: if you think that's a significant advantage (or indeed, an advantage at all) in this meta where nearly everyone is running a gap closer and/or can dodge you every single time, then you haven't even tried to play ranged magblade. (Not to mention the fact that it's impossible to play fully ranged in the first place unless you use a non class ult.)

Burst skill: Merciless is completely unreliable, is not available on demand, and has a loud AF "you're being attacked, dodge now!" warning sound. As weak as [you feel] Purifying Light is, you're at least guaranteed some damage.

CCs Crippling Grasp isn't worth slotting on it's own. The only decent CC is Fear, and even that isn't worth slotting on most builds (the range kinda sucks & all it does is stun.) Fear Traps can be good in group play. In any case, most magblades I come across use Flame Clench which is just a worse version of Javelin.

Defensive toolkit:Personally, I don't think there is a clear cut winner with regard to defense. I do agree with some of the points you make here, (for instance Shade is a strong skill) however it isn't the end-all be-all that you seem to think it is (ex: in BGs half the time you port straight to your death.) You're also glossing over all of the defensive capabilities that templar has, not the least of which is much more reliable healing, and you're not required to use a Restoration Staff. You don't realize how good you have it being able to have Destro or S/B on your back bar. Cloak is basically broken right now (not in a good way) and in fact I am currently looking at replacing it with Mist Form. As I said, I don't know that there is a clear cut winner here.

Like I said in my previous post, I'm not trying to say magplar is OP or top tier — but to say that it's weaker than magblade is simply absurd. Either you don't fully understand how magblade works, you're not being honest with yourself, (or me) or it's a case of the grass being greener on the other side.

[Addendum] If you want to get into PVP tier lists, they apparently agree that magplar is stronger in 4 of 6 categories, — every case outside of solo play. This can almost 100% be attributed to the fact that magblades are simply better at escaping due to Shadowy Disguise/Shade. If you want to try playing a build that uses Dark Cloak instead of Shadowy Disguise though, I think you'll wind up wishing you were on a magplar. Shade without Shadowy Disguise simply prolongs the inevitable in the same way spamming heals does, and your damage output is even worse.

[edited for baiting]

Firstmep wrote: »

Langeston wrote: »

Cinbri wrote: »

Langeston wrote: »

Firstmep wrote: »

Langeston wrote: »

West93 wrote: »

Langeston wrote: »

Drdeath20 wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

[snip]

I won't search for exact patch numbers but I will do so if forced to, this is just last few patches.
Living dark/Unstable core overbuff;
Ritual being cleanse, soft cc, damage and heal tool at the same time while twisting path was nerfed because of being damage and healing skill at the same time;
PoTL/Purifying Light being bugged (in favor of templars) for very long.
Templars as the only ones evading cast time on burst ult.

Many of those things were balanced after some time bringing templars more in line with vanilla classes, that's true, but please stop overreacting.

This patch minor/major tweaks we can see for magblades bring only nerfs, while templars now get unique (very easy) access to minor sorcery, minor breach and all 3 minor recovery's which all got buffed.

Are templars top class? For sure no! Are they bottom class? No way.

[snip] Most peoples recovery is around 500-900. Even if you took 20% of that, its still an awful number. Yahoo my recovery goes up a little but only if i slot repentance and have it front bar'd.

I stopped playing my magplar entirely a few patches ago to play a magblade. It was like switching from a Toyota to a Ferrari. Ranged spammable that is a HoT, shade, options on builds depending on group (cripple for the cheap DoT vs lotus fan for the minor vulnerability), unique buffs in reave and 20% additional damage for 6 seconds after using incap. Nice luxury for also having the strongest burst skill in the game (merciless bow proc). On a test dummy i can get some bow procs around 90k. Works swimmingly with impale too. Pretty easy rotation just count to 4 and light attack bow proc, and the best part it gets easier during execute. The hardest part is managing your potions to best serve your ultimate generation.

At this point i could care less about templars. [snip]

[edited for baiting]

Unless I'm mistaken, it seems like you are talking about PVE here. If that's the case, then I think you're comparing apples & oranges because I'm fairly certain that @Mayrael is focused on PVP. While your post may be correct with regards to PVE, nearly everything in it is inapplicable (or even wrong) in PVP.

For all I know magblade may indeed be a Ferrari in PVE, but they're a 1983 Dodge Omni in PVP.

While magblade is still better for solo 1vx than a magplar.

Shadow Image gives so much outplay potential while fighting outnumbered in resource/keep tower, while magplar can only block cast honor the dead and mistform as defense options (which both sucks), darkflare has a hard cast time to land and backlash requires 6 second damage build up which keeps you vulnerable while jabbing and also hits like wet noodle for 2-3k.

Not saying that magblade is perfect, but it does have more outplay potential for solo play than a magplar and is more well rounded class, magplar is only "decent" in group play and "decent" in dueling, but since stonethorn patch changes it really dropped 1 tier down for both dueling and group play.

And if you don't agree, look around at stonethorn pvp tier class for both CP and NO CP, both magplar and stamplar is at bottom tier.

I mostly play BGs at this point and templars are definitely stronger than Magblades in that setting. There's a reason that Magblades are nearly non-existent in high MMR BGs whereas there's still a good number of magplars and stamplars. Stamblades I see more frequently than I used to, but I can go literally days without seeing another magblade in a BG. Magblades are nice because of Shadowy Disguise & Shade, but aside from escaping/repositioning, everything else I can think of off the top of my head is better on a magplar.

I disagree with your assertion that magblade is more well rounded. It's easy to only use class abilities on a magplar, while that's nearly impossible to do on a magblade. (On my current magblade build I have to use 6 non-class abilities to round out the NB toolkit — my magplar build doesn't require any.)

As far as ''outplay potential," you seem to be talking about juking & evading — if that's the case I agree. However if a decent magplar comes across an equally decent magblade in open world or a BG, chances are the magplar wins or the magblade escapes. I don't really consider that a win.

As far as tier lists, to be honest I don't put a whole lot of stock in them at this point. So far, in nearly every one I've come across where the rationale was explained, they seemed pretty biased to me. Regardless, can you link to which ones you are referring to?

If we are talking bgs i hope you know that magplar self healing is pretty trash, on top of that without procsets that class has no offensive pressure.
Last update they pretty much neutered the entire templar offensive toolkit, and it takes time for people to realise how bad the class is.
As for seeing more magplars than magblades, i play in high mmr bgs on pc eu and neither are very well represented atm, and even fewer stamplars.
The class just doesnt bring anything to bgs outside of providing purify syenergy every so often.
Right now wardens /nightblades(well stamblades anyway) and sorcs(both stam and mag) are probably the most often seen ones, with quite a few dks as well(leap is a fantastic tool for bgs).
And there is a good reason for that.

If you think magplar's offensive toolkit is bad, imagine if literally all of it were dodgeable. (Most magblade abilites are reflectable too.) There are BGs where feel like the only thing I see the entire match is "DODGE DODGE DODGE" — combat text might as well be turned off. Now that I think about it, this is likely almost the entire reason magblade overperforms in PVE vs PVP — mobs don't roll dodge a whole lot.

I'm not saying Magplar is top tier right now or anything, but better self healing paired with the fact that it's burst combo is nearly entirely undodgable is a huge advantage over a magblade's truly abysmal self healing & 100% dodgable burst combo. With the exception of mobility skills, magplars just have stronger and/or more reliable versions nearly every magblade ability, and in many cases there's just no comparison. The stun on Toppling Charge is huge and that alone makes it much better than Lotus fan, Sweeps does more damage and heals for more than Swallow Soul/Concealed Weapon, Radiant Oppression is much easier to land and can do much more damage than Impale (which I don't even bother to slot), I have nothing that compares to Javelin so I'm forced to use Flame Clench which is absolute garbage by comparison, Purifying Light & Merciless are difficult to compare but PL is definitely more reliable and thus in the long run likely does a lot more damage...the list goes on. I also cannot overstate how nice it is to not be forced to use a resto staff on my back bar. It's literally a game changer.

Don't get me wrong: Shade & Cloak are definitely strong, and they are so much fun — they're almost the entire reason I love playing magblade — but magplar simply has a stronger, more cohesive toolkit than magblade. I kind of feel like the class is incomplete and I have to piece my build together from scraps.

As far as class representation in high MMR BGs, apparently PC NA is apparently to EU, however we also have a ton of stam necros as well.

Just use bit of logic instead of feelings.
1. Offensive toolkit: nb atleast have toolkit.
A. First of all nb didnt suffered from its entire skillines were blatantly nerfed by "dot nerf" because class was always burst. While templar was similarly to dk - playable by stacking dots yet unlike dk he didnt recieved 33% passive boost to damage. On top of that 90% of nb toolkit is not hardcountered by evasion buff that literally every stam build use.
33% less damage on allmost all skills and on top additional 25% reductuon not even near as fair as trade for undodgeable.
B. You have range spammable that apply strong hot. Fact it being ranged and hot by default making it super strong booster of defense because you can easily spam it at range without endangering yourself into melee and this require to waste less gcd on defense, HoT grant even bigger survivability as it keep ticking even when you ended your dps rotation snd went defensive mode.
Meanwhile templar spammable is melee that byitself apply higher risk of incoming damage and unlike ranged spammable it literally unable to land on any high mobile target that literally every stam build coz it being channel. Yes, it cant be dodged on paper but on practice it means it also cant even connect its full 4 ticks on any target that is not target dummy. I posted back in time quite a few gifs showing how hard jabs desyncing literally not be able to hit target inside hitbox. Its apply heal not hot so as soon as you going defensive, and you will go defensive in melee range alot coz templar simply dont have proactive defense - it stop providing its defensive capability. And when nb Surprise Attack got rulebreaking buff to stun people simply coz nb addicted to some old bug, templars Sweeps heal got nerfhamnered while zos just saying that they will monitoring how class will perform. This turned theoretical strength of sweeps to get at least nice heal against stacked group unexisting.
C. Burst skill - apart from spammable you need either strong-hitting dots or burst heal and nb atleast does have strong burst skill. It not as good as p2w blastbones or shalks but at least it there.
Meanwhile templar has no choice. Like I mentioned before its entire dot kit that was main damage source got blatantly nerfed. And on top of it its burst got neutered too.
Burning Light "change" you can see in main thread how it killed passive in pvp.
Backlash got killed too, you also can read its problems i posted i think in this thread, when burst skill deal like 1k damage because zos decided for some unknown reason simply kill it.
D. CCs - once again nb atleast have roots or aoe cc, they got nerfed too to promote p2w classes, but still better than nothing.
Meanwhile templar lost its aoe snare and unjustly lost its root; only root remained within Unstable Core that noone use coz it horribly bugged skill and despite i detsily reporting it for over year now - not a single fix for this skill. So now templar sit in situation where melee spec cant even control opponent movement simply because forum whiners became unhappy that templar suddenly could decrease their mobility by Eclipse.

2. Defensive toolkit: not gona bother write wall of text again, will just mention couple points.
A. Range playstyle that bydefault means higher survivability.
B. Easier uptime of defensive buffs. For example press Cloak- get minor protection for full duration of hot. Meanwhile on templar you have to spam jabs to get protection and guess what - you will do it minority of time because in melee playstyle where you recive more damage, on a class with no proactive defense - you will simply spam heals instead of your spammable, making protection passive uptime even lower than 70%.
C. And most important Reposition capability. Its main source of survivability in pvp on every class byfar superior to brainless brawling abilities and everyone knows it. Guess why noone use Ironblood set with its high boost of survivability - because reposition >>> facetanking.
Nb have one of the best repositioning tools meanwhile templar has access to RAT or Mist but not a single class feature that helps with it, most of time just hold block and spam heal till out of stam and inevitable death, that forcing them to play into more brawling playstyle, i.e. gut their almost unexisting offensive toolkit further.

TL;DR: a super simple logic.

[snip]

Since you started off talking about Puncturing Sweep & Swallow Soul, we'll use them as an example:
(I'm going to ignore Concealed Weapon, since that skill is only viable over Swallow Soul on a magblade in relatively niche builds.)

Puncturing Sweep

Swallow Soul

No CP was used, both toons are Breton and identically equipped — 5 Innate Axiom, 5 War Maiden, 2 Balorgh, Prismatic glyphs on armor, SD glyphs on arcane jewelry, Artaeum Fish Bowl food, and the Apprentice Mundus. Only buff is Major Sorcery.
[Note: both builds would likely need more sustain to be viable, but the magblade would definitely need even more. This equates to even less damage on a viable magblade build.]

Puncturing Sweep: 13,168
Burning Light: 4,712
Sweeps + Burning Light: 17,880
Swallow Soul: 8,386

Even if Burning Light doesn't proc, Puncturing Sweep does 57% more (1.57x) damage than Swallow Soul. (Put another way, Swallow Soul only does 66% of the damage that Sweeps does — again: without Burning Light.) You also heal for 40% of the damage done, rather than the 36% you get on Swallow Soul. Not to mention the fact that you also get Minor Protection.

Add in burning Light and the results become comical: the Sweeps/BL tooltip is 17,880, or 113% more (2.13x) than Swallow Soul.

So without taking Major Evasion into consideration, there is clearly no comparison between the two. Let's see what it looks like with Major Evasion:

Puncturing Sweep: 13,168 - 20% = 10,534
Burning Light: 4,712
Sweeps + Burning Light: 15,246
Swallow Soul: 8,386

Sweeps still does 26% more without BL, and 81% more if it procs. On your first hit, BL is almost guaranteed to proc considering you're typically going to open with Toppling Charge, thus all 4 ticks should land and if you've already applied Purifying Light like you're supposed to, that's another guaranteed proc. (This is where class toolkit cohesiveness comes into play, like I mentioned in my post.w) I won't get into Crescent Sweep or Radiant Oppression, both of which are also undodgable.

TL;DR: If you think magblades have a combo that's even half as reliable as magplar, then you've obviously never played the class before.

As far as your other points:

Major Evasion: saying "literally every stam build uses" it is a straight up falsehood. Only medium armor builds or builds using Dual Wield have that option, and I don't even know if you can say the majority of stam builds fit that description. 2H/Bow & Heavy is extremely common, especially right now. Against Light Armor builds, obviously there is simply no comparison whatsoever.

Range: if you think that's a significant advantage (or indeed, an advantage at all) in this meta where nearly everyone is running a gap closer and/or can dodge you every single time, then you haven't even tried to play ranged magblade. (Not to mention the fact that it's impossible to play fully ranged in the first place unless you use a non class ult.)

Burst skill: Merciless is completely unreliable, is not available on demand, and has a loud AF "you're being attacked, dodge now!" warning sound. As weak as [you feel] Purifying Light is, you're at least guaranteed some damage.

CCs Crippling Grasp isn't worth slotting on it's own. The only decent CC is Fear, and even that isn't worth slotting on most builds (the range kinda sucks & all it does is stun.) Fear Traps can be good in group play. In any case, most magblades I come across use Flame Clench which is just a worse version of Javelin.

Defensive toolkit:Personally, I don't think there is a clear cut winner with regard to defense. I do agree with some of the points you make here, (for instance Shade is a strong skill) however it isn't the end-all be-all that you seem to think it is (ex: in BGs half the time you port straight to your death.) You're also glossing over all of the defensive capabilities that templar has, not the least of which is much more reliable healing, and you're not required to use a Restoration Staff. You don't realize how good you have it being able to have Destro or S/B on your back bar. Cloak is basically broken right now (not in a good way) and in fact I am currently looking at replacing it with Mist Form. As I said, I don't know that there is a clear cut winner here.

Like I said in my previous post, I'm not trying to say magplar is OP or top tier — but to say that it's weaker than magblade is simply absurd. Either you don't fully understand how magblade works, you're not being honest with yourself, (or me) or it's a case of the grass being greener on the other side.

[Addendum] If you want to get into PVP tier lists, they apparently agree that magplar is stronger in 4 of 6 categories, — every case outside of solo play. This can almost 100% be attributed to the fact that magblades are simply better at escaping due to Shadowy Disguise/Shade. If you want to try playing a build that uses Dark Cloak instead of Shadowy Disguise though, I think you'll wind up wishing you were on a magplar. Shade without Shadowy Disguise simply prolongs the inevitable in the same way spamming heals does, and your damage output is even worse.

[edited for baiting]

Well then:

I just love it when ppl try to compare puncturing strikes to other spammables, and then i realise they have 0 flipping clue on how the skill works.

Your whole idea of comparing swallow soul to puncturing strikes is disingenuous from the begining.

Puncturing sweeps is a melee ability, swallow soul is ranged. Ranged spammable do less damage by default than ranged ones, for a good reason.

Second the healing portion of puncturing strikes requires you to actually land the skill, and keep hitting with it.

Once you land swallow soul you continue to receive healing from a single cast for 10! seconds, and you can be doing anything in those 10 seconds, you will still receive the healing.

Also puncturing strikes is a channeled ability which leaves you much more open to counter attacks than any ranged attack.

With how much speed most people run these days, you really need to match it to be able to land those jabs on people, and even then its a melee skill and you put yourself in harms way a lot more than a ranged ability would.

You mentioned spectral bow being hard to land:

It better flippin be, its one of the hardest hitting ability in the game, doing much more damage than many ultimates.

In comparison, backlash right now is horribly buggy, it doesnt scale with a lot of % modifiers(but gets mitigated by them), doesnt scale with weapon or spell damage, and just in general hits like a wet noodle.

On top of it when you put backlash on someone in pvp, you pretty much have to commit to that target, and you also put a big flipping shiny sign on their heads saying: Hey ima go absolute ham on you. Guess what most ppl do? Play defensive.

With spectral bow at least you have to option to switch targets, or hold onto it for a whopping 10% critical damage and healing for your other abilities. You cant do that with backlash, in fact for purifying to heal you back the effect actually has to end before you receive any additional bemefits from it.

Then we have defenses:

In no cp, with how rampant dot procs are, shadowy disguise is probably one of the best defensive tools you can have to deal with them, since it supresses all dots.
In comparison Extended ritual has a base cost of like 5k magicka, and removes 5 negative effects, many of which could be non-dot effects.
Yes cloak has been known to be buggy and gap closers do break it(which should absolutely be fixed), but quite a few issues are there with templar abilities as well, like jabs causing animation clipping, toppling charge can disable you from using skills etc.

Crescent sweep is nowhere as good as it used to be, beacuse the damage from the skill is more delayed than even its cast time, giving your opponents a lot of time to move out of it.

Is magicka nightblade better than magicka templar? When it comes to the current meta, cloak blades can deal with it better 100% and playing melee magicka in bgs, i mean good luck.

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

Solariken wrote: »

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

Tip for struggling Stamplars this patch:

Run Crescent Sweep for your Ult. You'll have to make sure you have gear that increases its power, but with it ticking along with jabs, you can still consistently burning light, and still have a decent power of the light burst.

I've been experimenting with this using Innate Axiom, but I'm not convinced so far that it's any better than running Dawnbreaker, especially because losing the aoe stun means you have less ability to control multiple enemies and less group ult dump synergy. 1v1 it's a fine ult but it's not so great in BG.

I run NMA (nerfed I know) with 2H sword front bar. The burst is Potl-javelin-crescent sweep-jabs. Because power of the light is single target anyways, I don't primarily focusing my burst on one target. You just have to be careful with positioning to not get overwhelmed by a group.

The good thing is, even with the increased cost from NMA, crescent sweep is so cheap you have it up for almost every encounter.

Edit:
Innate axiom seems like it could work really well, but I just really felt the loss of a fully buffed Executioner.