templar audit for future update

Sergykid · March 2023

Classes should be able to do any role and duty, but have an identity and a fundamental way of playing, and this doesn't mean that the power budget of their abilities shouldn't be adjusted.
Templar plays like an oppressive brawler, either melee or ranged, able to support the team, from a housing perspective. This feels mostly correct, as a templar main over the years.
But over time and especially recently, their power budget seems either insufficient or in the wrong direction. Below i will list all their abilities, and try to explain why and how and if they're bad.

As a general rule class abilities have a specific amount of power, passives not included, mitigation abilities (heal or absorb) and cc abilities (stun, fear) have less total power budget, will only discuss morphs since base is not used unmorphed anyway. Tooltips, costs, durations, etc, are taken as general from ESO-hub when comparing with other abilities, tldr at end.

1.0a. crescent sweep - damage, aoe
since it comes with a condition like having enemies "in your path" (whatever this means, better tooltip description needed) it should have this damage extra as default to reach proper power budget.
1.0b. everlasting sweep - damage, aoe
this one has good damage potential with extra duration, but with so low cost user could overlap the effect, cost and damage should be increased to make better use of the increased duration.
1.1a. biting jabs - damage, aoe, slow, buff
the damage has been too much lowered. Three hits are better, four was too cluttery and two would be too few, but damage should have been compensated for this, it should be put back.
the major sorcery buff makes no sense on this ability, should have another better effect.
1.1b. puncturing sweep - damage, aoe, slow, mitigation
as above said, damage should be put back to compensate lost hit. And since it heals it should drop the slow, in which case should heal for more.
1.2a. aurora javelin - damage, cc
ignoring resistances, and potential damage for being at longer range. Both these effects are not full power as they have conditions, you already have some pen and targets may not have much armor left after pen to benefit from the effect. This ability however is the best ranged cc being unblockable knockback, it almost needs a nerf, even though it could use better effects or another one added, it should remain as it is for now.
1.2b. binding javelin - damage, cc
could use better effect or another one added, the longer cc duration is irrelevant for any content and under any relevant circumstances.
1.3a. explosive charge - damage, movement, aoe, potential cc
this one should at least guarantee off balance on your target (still by target cooldown ofcourse), and only aoe damage the others. Still continue to stun any casting enemy in radius, but if target is not casting it should at least set off balance the main target not aoe, and drop the extra damage from morph for this.
1.3b. toppling charge - damage, movement, cc
this one could use either a cost reduction or a small increase in damage
1.4a. blazing spear - damage, aoe, synergy
the synergy is inferior to undaunted orb as it affects just one target, and spamming spear in a group to give it to everyone is unrealistic.
1.4b. luminous shards - damage, aoe, synergy, utility
this one could use something added or buffed, the "double" synergy counting as both resources is not a valid reason to have a full unit, and the utility of reduced cost is not enough.
1.5a. blazing shield - mitigation, aoe, damage, utility
the numbers should be raised a bit, the amount of absorb is lower than other abilities and damage is not threatening.
1.5b. radiant ward - mitigation, aoe, damage, utility
as above said, numbers should be raised a bit, should drop the damage and the cost reduction and instead just have it grant more absorb.

2.0a. solar disturbance - damage, aoe, debuff, utility, synergy
looks good on paper having many effects, but numbers should be raised a bit. Major Maim is not as strong, cost is high enough for the smaller damage to not have the utility of reduced cost worth it. The utility of lowered cost should be removed and increased the damage instead, and either duration of debuff increased or added one more debuff.
2.0b. solar prison - damage, aoe, debuff, synergy
should have better debuff if not one more added, synergy should be the same for both morphs.
2.1a. reflective light - damage, potential aoe, buff, slow
should be an actual aoe spell at the cost of reduced range.
2.1b. vampire's bane - damage, buff
this one is missing power, should have something added. Also should have more upfront damage.
2.2a. dark flare - damage, debuff, buff
this one is missing power, should have something added. Also the buffs and debuffs are insufficient considering the spell is slow and interruptible since it has a cast time.
2.2b. solar barrage - damage, aoe, buff
this one is missing power, should have something added. Not only that but the buff is too niche and hence insufficient.
2.3a. power of the light - damage, debuff
this one is missing power, should have something added. Also it has the negative of just one target active at a time, maybe should compensate with a unique penetration buff instead of the named one.
2.3b. purifying light - damage, potential mitigation, potential aoe
it has the negative of just one target active at a time but understandable because you don't want the healing aoe stacking up, but should compensate with something here too since that healing aoe also has the negative of control since it depends on the enemy and may not even target anyone.
2.4a. living dark - mitigation, aoe, slow
healing is "potential" but amount is high enough to compensate, it could have it once per second to tick and also get a minor buff, otherwise should remain as it is with maybe the utility of a reduced cost, or get slowing aoe rather than only the attacker.
2.4b. unstable core - damage, aoe, cc
since it has the negative of just one target active at a time, could benefit of an increased damage or radius.
2.5a. radiant glory - damage, potential mitigation
the healing is very small, understandable for an execute ability, could use some other effect but it is fine for now.
2.5b. radiant oppression - damage
good ability overall, it almost needs a nerf, but is fine as it is and should remain as it is for now.

3.0a. practiced incantation - mitigation, aoe, utility
numbers should be raised a bit, the utility of moving and being immune to cc are not enough for an ultimate, could use one more effect.
3.0b. remembrance - mitigation, aoe, buff, utility
numbers should be raised a bit, could use one more effect, major protection buff currently has a value that should be worth a longer duration.
3.1a. breath of life - mitigation
it doesn't have any effect or utility, should drop the reduced healing on another target and fully heal two targets.
3.1b. honor the dead - mitigation, utility
considering that you can heal other players, and hence casting the ability more often than once 6 seconds, the utility should be increased, rather than 18% x3 in 6 seconds it should be 27% x2 in 4 seconds.
3.2a. hasty prayer - mitigation, buff, aoe
comparing with other abilities, this has less heal, bigger cost, and fewer buffs. Should have increased radius, and either cost reduced or healing amount increased.
3.2b. ritual of rebirth - mitigation, utility, aoe
as above said, should have increased radius, and either cost reduced or healing amount increased.
3.3a. radiant aura - utility, aoe
even since base ability it should grant the major buffs to the user while slotted, and this morph could use one more effect since the minor recovery buffs are insufficient.
3.3b. repentance - potential mitigation, utility
as said above, even since base ability it should grant the major buffs to the user while slotted. And insignificantly, change the "consume corpses" phrasing.
3.4a. extended ritual - mitigation, aoe
the synergy should be usable by the caster.
3.4b. ritual of retribution - damage, aoe
maybe could use another effect instead of self cleanse two debuffs once, also could use the aoe slow.
3.5a. channeled focus - mitigation, utility
could use a slightly bigger radius
3.5b. restoring focus - mitigation, utility
as above said, could use a slightly bigger radius

Obviously i may have some things got wrong so do correct me. They rarely consider suggestions, so rather let's pinpoint the problem properly. Kevin, not tagging, recommended (or something like this) a more insightful approach over the templar class kit. But first what do you think over these observations? remember to characterize everything from an objective point of view, to avoid bias or specific niche scenarios.

tldr: templar is missing a bit of damage and most of the abilities are lackluster in healing and utility. Help by objectively pinpointing what is wrong.

Neoauspex · March 2023

Make dark flare good at all and make power of the light a tank buster somehow. Dark flare has bonuses that contradict each other. Deep Breath, Curse, Shalks are basically AoE versions of POTL that you don't need to charge up by damaging the target, no clue how the devs can look at POTL and be like "ya that measures up".

virtus753 · March 2023

Ritual of Retribution is suffering from many things that effectively boil down to a justification that is outdated by years.

We heard from the devs in Update 23 (5.1.5) that this static ground DoT ticks every other second - unlike other static ground DoTs - "due to the multi-faceted operational power this ability boasts."

That was back when Ritual healed as well as did damage. It has not healed since Update 27 (6.1.5), when the healing was removed in favor of ramping damage. It is no longer "multi-faceted." (The synergy doesn't count, otherwise many other static ground DoTs would need to be on this cadence too.) Therefore the justification for its atypical cadence and duration is obsolete. What's left is the downsides without any of the upsides, meaning the skill is no longer in line with the devs' thinking back in 5.1.5.

This is particularly problematic given the devs' own comments and the nature of the changes to the skill in Update 35, where all other static ground DoTs were initially changed to this 2-second cadence with longer timers. The developers noted in subsequent weeks during U35 PTS that this was not a good direction for ground DoTs. Midway through U35 testing, the devs reverted all those changes, saying that static ground DoTs would now again tick every second and last between 10 and 15 seconds. They kept Ritual, however, at its obsolete every-other-second cadence and 20-second timer.

Even worse, they halved the initial tick's damage and made the scaling factor much larger, which severely exacerbates the exact same issues they explicitly acknowledged were harming all the other static ground DoTs when they tried out the longer every-other-second change at the beginning of U35.

There are three major problems here, two of which Gilliam described as pertaining to static ground DoTs in general back during U35 PTS: "The first is the loss of reactive gameplay with ticking Area of Effect-based abilities, where delayed tick rates make them feel far less reactive to their surroundings and further punish their lack of mobility as such. The second is how the extension of durations on Area of Effect-based abilities actively harms their effectiveness since their power has been stretched out over a longer period, further increasing their risk of targets not staying in the area."

This was the justification for returning static ground DoTs to their 10-15 second timers and once per second tick rate. But they neglected to update Ritual, even though those two issues apply just as much to this skill as to the DoTs they reverted during U35 PTS.

Those two issues apply to all ground DoTs, but they are compounded enormously by Ritual's scaling, which became even more onerous with the changes in U35. If we have to recast Ritual early, or if we have to move it, or if enemies step out of it (which they do often even with its large radius), we lose an enormous amount of damage. The skill is obscenely backend-heavy. Even one lost tick in the back half of the skill, especially the last few, hurts the value of the skill immensely. And with the 20-second duration, it's often an extremely difficult proposition to get the full value of most casts. We do not have time to sit there calculating whether it's worth it to recast Ritual based on where we think the targets will move or when they might die, and we shouldn't have to. Based on the comments Gilliam made (quoted above), the devs don't expect us to do that for static ground DoTs, but their refusal to update Ritual implies the opposite, that they do expect templars to deal with those difficulties, plus the effect of the extreme scaling.

Why is it that this one skill should continue to suffer from these issues but none other?

Sergykid · March 2023

Neoauspex wrote: »

Make dark flare good at all and make power of the light a tank buster somehow. Dark flare has bonuses that contradict each other. Deep Breath, Curse, Shalks are basically AoE versions of POTL that you don't need to charge up by damaging the target, no clue how the devs can look at POTL and be like "ya that measures up".

ye in pve the spell is useless because if you want to play heavy attacks templar build i don't think u will pick this spell as source of empower, and there's no reason for both morphs to grant empower, and defile useless.
and in pvp this spell having a cast time makes it miss most of the times, empower is useless, defile is good but not worth the disadvantages.

as for potl, a morph has aoe healing if you want it to compare, and the other morph applies a debuff, but the other spells have other effects added too. There's a difference in damage too without being conditioned by buildup.

virtus753 wrote: »

[...] If we have to recast Ritual early, or if we have to move it, or if enemies step out of it (which they do often even with its large radius), we lose an enormous amount of damage.[...]

well, any aoe loses its damage the moment you have to move or recast it earlier. But ritual has a bigger aoe for these movements. I don't find that one thing wrong particularly, maybe damage is not enough but the other effects are self cleanse and a cleanse synergy, which might be a good hybrid kind of ability offensively and defensively, but they changed the healing from this just because of that.

maxjapank · March 2023

Solar Disturbance was nicer when it had a 70% snare on it. Think it was removed when Wardens were introduced, bascially giving them the same ultimate in the form of Permafrost.