Useful tips from death recap for a Templar

grizzbi · June 2014

- I'm a templar VR4. In medium Armor BUT with Magicka close the the softcap (1719/1888). 1900-2000 HP with food. 1400 stamina. Bow / DW
- Abilities have been carefully chosen. With a few rotations in mind depending on the situation/opportunities.
- After many tests this is one of the most efficient build I've been able to find. I can achieve slightly better results with a shield but I'm currently Bow / DW for testing purpose.

So, I just did a little test:

- I'm facing 3 VR5 Zombies in Bangkorai.
- Let's say I die during this fight. (well...I died)

Here's one of the Death recap useful hint:
" When facing multiple enemies, try to even the odds with Spear Shards"

Spear Shards:
Deals 198 Magic Damage to enemies within target area
Disorients 1 target for 6 seconds
25m range
8m radius.

EASY.

Now let's look at it closer, with numbers.
- Each Zombie has 2500 HP.
- I've 1900 HP / 1719 Magicka.
- Spear Shards IV is a ground targeted spell.
- From the tooltip, it does 198 damage to enemies if they carefully stay in the radius.

Let's say that I want to inflict 1250 Damage to each Zombie (half their life). That's what I would call "even the odds"..

1250 Damage

That's 6 "Spear Shards" (6X198) to get close to that number.
Each Spear Shard cost 308 Magicka. So it would cost me 1848 Magicka.

Conclusion:
- I would need to cast 6 spells targeting the ground, hitting all 3 zombies each time.
- And it would cost me all my magicka (even a little more, in fact).
- During this painful process, I would have to find a way to avoid any damage, to NOT have to use my Magicka to heal me, or use any other skill.
- When finished with the "even the odds" thing, I would still have to find a way to deal 3750 more damage, being out of Magicka.

Of course, it's totally unrealistic. It's just on the paper. Things can not be that bad..

Well, in fact it's worse.

3 zombies combined light attacks hit me for 1000 Damage in less than 1 sec. And if I block and avoid all the heavy attack I'm out of stamina in less than 5 sec.

Result: In any fight against these zombies, I need to use my self heal at least 2 times. If not 3 times. Each "Breath of life" heals me for only 536. And costs me 442 Magicka...
Getting back from 5% to full life needs 3 heals and cost me 75% of my Magicka.

Even with 2000 armor/spell resist from buffs, I'm still taking very high amount of damage.

I can't rely on Templar Ultimates: they are either too low damage wise, not useful enough, or too expensive. I use them as often as I can but they barely help.

I use CC but can't rely on them: Templar only have "blinding flashes". It's very expensive, is 50% random, and last 4 sec in melee range. CC from weapons are single target. Or very expensive and not efficient enough. CC from aedric spear are single target and very expensive.

The only way to get a good CC is to use Volcanic Rune. And I'm not avoiding the light armor/Staff FOTM to have to rely on another OP skill like this one. I just refuse.

SO in order to kill these 3 Zombies, as a melee templar, I need to use the perfect skill rotation, very carefully manage my resources, avoid all the attacks and use absolutely all the tools available to me: sneak attack to begin, free Light/heavy attacks instead of stamina ones half the time, getting some range when possible to use the bow, Crit on heals from crafted potions..etc..

Does it work? It does. But if anything goes wrong I'm dead.
- If I lag 1 sec, I'm dead
- If I don't have any potion left, I'm dead.
- If my weapon swap doesn't work in time, I'm dead.
- If All the 3 zombies use heavy attack at the same time, I'm dead..

Challenging? Sure. But frustrating as hell half the time. Even when I don't die.

TL;DR
- Abilities like Spear Shards don't scale well with the content.
- There are many, many abilities like that when you're a Templar
- No resource management at all hurts the Templar a lot (the only class without any possibility but resto staff heavy attack)
- Non light armor/Staff Templar are often painful to play. Even if you like difficulty.
- Death recap hints are ridiculous. ZOS should remove them in VR content. That's just...embarrassing..

Sorry for the (initially non intended) wall of text and my poor english. I hope it was entertaining...;)

stevenpotter321b14_ESO · June 2014

I bemoaned death recap the first day, back when they accidentally buffed mobs. Was getting things like remember to block, and roll attack, use potions, etc.

At the time I was like, ***** please, what do you think Ive been doing this whole frigging game with my NB. Now I just read the forums and don't sweat the small stuff.

temjiu · June 2014

Only thing death recap did for me was confuse my screen, and mess up my buttons. they switched the default "rez in location" and "rez at shrine' buttons...it made no sense...and took me a few days to get used to it.

And so instead of just dying...I know stare at a huge window that painfully lists out all the huge levels of damage that the mobs did to me...I wish MY skills did as much damage as theirs do. This is the first MMO I've played where the garden variety trash mobs actually have more health and do more damage then the player actually does.

and yes, OP...currently any build but extremes using destro/resto staff, light armor, or a variation of those actually survive VR. anything involving stamina at this point in the game (seriously involving stamina, not these "2h" builds or "DW" builds with a single stamina skill on the bar) are woefully underperforming.

And templars have it the worst, as most of our spells are mana hogs, and we have no inherent resource regeneration abilities. so its' like taking open wounds (stamina builds) and putting salt on them (templar).

grizzbi · June 2014

temjiu wrote: »

Only thing death recap did for me was confuse my screen, and mess up my buttons. they switched the default "rez in location" and "rez at shrine' buttons...it made no sense...and took me a few days to get used to it.

And so instead of just dying...I know stare at a huge window that painfully lists out all the huge levels of damage that the mobs did to me...I wish MY skills did as much damage as theirs do. This is the first MMO I've played where the garden variety trash mobs actually have more health and do more damage then the player actually does.

and yes, OP...currently any build but extremes using destro/resto staff, light armor, or a variation of those actually survive VR. anything involving stamina at this point in the game (seriously involving stamina, not these "2h" builds or "DW" builds with a single stamina skill on the bar) are woefully underperforming.

And templars have it the worst, as most of our spells are mana hogs, and we have no inherent resource regeneration abilities. so its' like taking open wounds (stamina builds) and putting salt on them (templar).

I'm using 2 stamina skills per bar. I'm not a full stamina build.
And your comparison with open wounds and salt made me smile

Ragekniv · June 2014

I'm surprised it doesn't say "Have you tried re-rolling a Sorcerer or Dragon Knight"

rfpalmerb16_ESO · June 2014

What no one said: "Use silver bolt/shards from the fighters guild line" Yet? Cause you could probably fire off 3 of those with your stamina and completely change the fight to your advantage

<this is sarcasm >

grizzbi · June 2014

rfpalmerb16_ESO wrote: »

What no one said: "Use silver bolt/shards from the fighters guild line" Yet? Cause you could probably fire off 3 of those with your stamina and completely change the fight to your advantage

<this is sarcasm >

It's still a good advice against zombies

I like to adapt and use the right tools for the situation. It's probably better than spamming Spear Shards. Well...not sure ^^

Kahina · June 2014

I created a similar thread bemoaning the recommendations in the death recap screen to "Use Spear Shards".

My character and the relevant skill line at the time were at or under level 15. Spear shards you don't even get till skill level 30.

The death recap screen has some interesting possibilities that are currently lost by the use of boiler plates recommendations.

Garetth · June 2014

grizzbi wrote: »

- I'm a templar VR4. In medium Armor BUT with Magicka close the the softcap (1719/1888). 1900-2000 HP with food. 1400 stamina. Bow / DW
- Abilities have been carefully chosen. With a few rotations in mind depending on the situation/opportunities.
- After many tests this is one of the most efficient build I've been able to find. I can achieve slightly better results with a shield but I'm currently Bow / DW for testing purpose.

So, I just did a little test:

- I'm facing 3 VR5 Zombies in Bangkorai.
- Let's say I die during this fight. (well...I died)

Here's one of the Death recap useful hint:
" When facing multiple enemies, try to even the odds with Spear Shards"

Spear Shards:
Deals 198 Magic Damage to enemies within target area
Disorients 1 target for 6 seconds
25m range
8m radius.

EASY.

Now let's look at it closer, with numbers.
- Each Zombie has 2500 HP.
- I've 1900 HP / 1719 Magicka.
- Spear Shards IV is a ground targeted spell.
- From the tooltip, it does 198 damage to enemies if they carefully stay in the radius.

Let's say that I want to inflict 1250 Damage to each Zombie (half their life). That's what I would call "even the odds"..

1250 Damage

That's 6 "Spear Shards" (6X198) to get close to that number.
Each Spear Shard cost 308 Magicka. So it would cost me 1848 Magicka.

Conclusion:
- I would need to cast 6 spells targeting the ground, hitting all 3 zombies each time.
- And it would cost me all my magicka (even a little more, in fact).
- During this painful process, I would have to find a way to avoid any damage, to NOT have to use my Magicka to heal me, or use any other skill.
- When finished with the "even the odds" thing, I would still have to find a way to deal 3750 more damage, being out of Magicka.

Of course, it's totally unrealistic. It's just on the paper. Things can not be that bad..

Well, in fact it's worse.

3 zombies combined light attacks hit me for 1000 Damage in less than 1 sec. And if I block and avoid all the heavy attack I'm out of stamina in less than 5 sec.

Result: In any fight against these zombies, I need to use my self heal at least 2 times. If not 3 times. Each "Breath of life" heals me for only 536. And costs me 442 Magicka...
Getting back from 5% to full life needs 3 heals and cost me 75% of my Magicka.

Even with 2000 armor/spell resist from buffs, I'm still taking very high amount of damage.

I can't rely on Templar Ultimates: they are either too low damage wise, not useful enough, or too expensive. I use them as often as I can but they barely help.

I use CC but can't rely on them: Templar only have "blinding flashes". It's very expensive, is 50% random, and last 4 sec in melee range. CC from weapons are single target. Or very expensive and not efficient enough. CC from aedric spear are single target and very expensive.

The only way to get a good CC is to use Volcanic Rune. And I'm not avoiding the light armor/Staff FOTM to have to rely on another OP skill like this one. I just refuse.

SO in order to kill these 3 Zombies, as a melee templar, I need to use the perfect skill rotation, very carefully manage my resources, avoid all the attacks and use absolutely all the tools available to me: sneak attack to begin, free Light/heavy attacks instead of stamina ones half the time, getting some range when possible to use the bow, Crit on heals from crafted potions..etc..

Does it work? It does. But if anything goes wrong I'm dead.
- If I lag 1 sec, I'm dead
- If I don't have any potion left, I'm dead.
- If my weapon swap doesn't work in time, I'm dead.
- If All the 3 zombies use heavy attack at the same time, I'm dead..

Challenging? Sure. But frustrating as hell half the time. Even when I don't die.

TL;DR
- Abilities like Spear Shards don't scale well with the content.
- There are many, many abilities like that when you're a Templar
- No resource management at all hurts the Templar a lot (the only class without any possibility but resto staff heavy attack)
- Non light armor/Staff Templar are often painful to play. Even if you like difficulty.
- Death recap hints are ridiculous. ZOS should remove them in VR content. That's just...embarrassing..

Sorry for the (initially non intended) wall of text and my poor english. I hope it was entertaining...;)

IF NB's are the red-headed stepchild then Templars are the *** red-headed stepchild.

oxylus · June 2014

It isn't suggesting spear shards for the aoe or damage, it's suggesting it for the 6 second cc where the affected target cannot move or attack (as long as you do not attack them). This is generally long enough to burst down one of the 2 you are actually fighting, and then you're down to fighting 2 instead of 3. This is the idea behind the tooltip.

However, here's my advice as a melee templar: use blazing shield. This ability was pointless pre-vet cause you kill enemies fast in comparison to incoming damage. In vet, against a group of 3, there's so much incoming damage you can just activate it repeatedly and it explodes almost instantly (depending on the mob of course), dealing massive damage while simultaneously preventing you from taking damage. This is very magicka intensive though which is the balancer for it, so you'll want to have stamina utilities to clean up afterward if you don't have a lot of magicka.

I do this with 5 heavy/2 light (and it's probably even more effective in less armor because more damage in = more damage out) and generally do not need to eat food or use pots while soloing although i'll pop some as a safety net for boss mobs. I drop in 2-handed abilities or biting jabs/reflective light in between shields depending on the situation and rarely feel threatened. Give it a shot.

Remember, this ability is both effectively a heal and also a high powered damage burst, so you can use it more in a supplementary way rather than a primary ability if you so choose.

nudel · June 2014

Nice post @oxylus‌. It's always refreshing to see real practical advice amidst the sea of complaints that make up these forums. So kudos to you.

oxylus wrote: »

*snip*
This ability was pointless pre-vet cause you kill enemies fast in comparison to incoming damage. In vet, against a group of 3, there's so much incoming damage you can just activate it repeatedly and it explodes almost instantly (depending on the mob of course), dealing massive damage while simultaneously preventing you from taking damage.

This is one of the things I do like about ESO. Some skills which look pointless and crap at low levels can become very useful at higher levels and vice versa.

grizzbi · June 2014

oxylus wrote: »

It isn't suggesting spear shards for the aoe or damage, it's suggesting it for the 6 second cc where the affected target cannot move or attack (as long as you do not attack them). This is generally long enough to burst down one of the 2 you are actually fighting, and then you're down to fighting 2 instead of 3. This is the idea behind the tooltip.

However, here's my advice as a melee templar: use blazing shield. This ability was pointless pre-vet cause you kill enemies fast in comparison to incoming damage. In vet, against a group of 3, there's so much incoming damage you can just activate it repeatedly and it explodes almost instantly (depending on the mob of course), dealing massive damage while simultaneously preventing you from taking damage. This is very magicka intensive though which is the balancer for it, so you'll want to have stamina utilities to clean up afterward if you don't have a lot of magicka.

I do this with 5 heavy/2 light (and it's probably even more effective in less armor because more damage in = more damage out) and generally do not need to eat food or use pots while soloing although i'll pop some as a safety net for boss mobs. I drop in 2-handed abilities or biting jabs/reflective light in between shields depending on the situation and rarely feel threatened. Give it a shot.

Remember, this ability is both effectively a heal and also a high powered damage burst, so you can use it more in a supplementary way rather than a primary ability if you so choose.

About Spear shards, it's good on the paper, but the mini CC doesn't help much. You can't choose the target to cc, it's random. If you use the Blazing spear morph, the stun duration is..2 sec. And if you don't, it's a disorient. Any Damage will break it. So you got to loose 1 or 2 sec to see which enemy is CC and move accordingly, and even more time and room to attract the other mobs far enough to be able to use any AOE damage (like blazing shield, reflective light or Biting jabs). That's 3 or 4 seconds of work for a disorient duration of 6. Conclusion: it needs too much work and Magicka for what it does.

About blazing shield. I've been using this a lot in light armor as it's a good well rounded ability. With a light armor/ resto staff build, I can use it efficiently along with other things.

But with Medium armor it's much more questionable since I have slightly less Magicka/ Magicka regen. And - more important - no way to restore Magicka without a resto staff... Also, because of its drawbacks, it has less synergy with my other skills.

In PvP, people can easily avoid to attack you during this limited time frame. Then its wasted Magicka. The visual effect is very easy to notice.

The amount of damage reflected is not based on the attack but on a percentage of your max life. Since it does not take armor and spell resist into account, I suspect that the damage amount exceeding the shield strength hurts me more than without the shield. So using Blazing shield doesn't protect all the time, and you can take huge bursts.

I still test it regularly to see if it needs to be part of my build.

But I don't see how you could use it with 2-handed abilities or biting jabs/reflective light, without food or pots and "rarely feel threatened". How have you spent your attributes? Don't you take damage from the mobs? And in that case how do you heal it since you're using several blazing shields per fight?Are you forced to use a Resto staff to restore Magicka? I'm talking about a build without a resto staff.

grizzbi · June 2014

nudel wrote: »

Nice post @oxylus‌. It's always refreshing to see real practical advice amidst the sea of complaints that make up these forums.

You don't see complaints about light armor/resto staff builds. Because, It's much more easy to use blazing shields in that case. Now try to use it without any resource management skill and give us some detailed feedback about how it works. As I did..

You won't kill a pack of 3 mobs with 2500 HP with only one or two blazing shield. You need to use much more Magicka than you initially have. I just don't see how you can do it without a resto staff.

By the way, your comment is much less constructive than my post.

theyancey · June 2014

LO, good read Grizzibi. I am running several different race/skill temps. Life . .and death . . is an adventure.

novusprimeb14_ESO · June 2014

Blazing shield
Absorb magic ,
honor the dead,
taunt for group play, change this to mages guild degeneration for solo play. blazing spear. skill line 1 sword and board.
mages guild ult. aoe effect or ww with passives trained to gen ult faster,.
Use the vr 5 pots that restore stam hp and magic well worth sp so you can make these.,
17 into hp gives you 2500 min needed for trails. Balance the rest stam magic.
your armor , soul shine buffs healing 5 peace's. seducer I think I run this or twilights, one of these also buff healing, or you can lose that and run lamas I think its called when your below 30 % hp you hit for 300 magic damage and gain hp back great for a tank , especially as a imperial,
You can cap, your hp with white runes.
If you get gold ones at vr12 AND purple soul shine set you can change these for magic or stam ones. you will cap armor and sr like this,
2nd line sword and board run
1)channeled focus , Regains mana,
2)spot heal honor the dead.
3)Run the fighter guild damage buff agist vamps makes your weapon look kewl
4)Blinding if you like this, eclipse is so much better tho.
5) bone wall the undanted skill line buffs your armor buy 2500 for another 8 secs or immovable brute so you don't get knocked around.
Flawless dawn breaker ult. Buffs damage

This you can pretty much solo all the way to vr 7 or 8 ish,
I also run tiger buff, im sure snake or would would work fine 2,
you can get the mundus stone effect for magica if you want, I run speed on mine,

VR10 zone is *** so skip it. npc Trash caster mobs with 9k hp.
2 light armor 2 medium rest heavy with all the passives trained and learned.

grizzbi · June 2014

theyancey wrote: »

LO, good read Grizzibi. I am running several different race/skill temps. Life . .and death . . is an adventure.

ahah, each fight looks like it's the last one!

grizzbi · June 2014

@‌ novusprimeb

Thanks for your detailed answer. It's useful and insightful. You build looks interesting. It looks like an off tank build. Since I like Sword and Board, I could try it. But I can't follow all your advice since I'm still VR4 (Gear/pots/Runes)

novusprimeb14_ESO wrote: »

Blazing shield
Absorb magic ,
honor the dead,
taunt for group play, change this to mages guild degeneration for solo play. blazing spear. skill line 1 sword and board.
I still don't see how I can have enough magicka to run that build. That's 4 magicka skills. I currently use 3 and already have magicka issues. 1h/Shield block passives is probably a way to rely less on Honor the dead..And the occasional free heal from Absorb magic..I'll test Degeneration again to see if it's better with that kind of build but it wasn't that great when I did a few days ago.
mages guild ult. aoe effect or ww with passives trained to gen ult faster,.
It's sad that there's no Templar Ultimate here..I would probably replace mages guild ult with Solar Prison. For the group damage reduction. Anyway, any Ultimate with a cost higher than 250 is...situational.But I like the idea of the ww passives to gain ultimates points faster.
Use the vr 5 pots that restore stam hp and magic well worth sp so you can make these.,
I can craft them but not use them as I'm still VR4. But soon VR5 so it will help.
17 into hp gives you 2500 min needed for trails. Balance the rest stam magic.
your armor , soul shine buffs healing 5 peace's. seducer I think I run this or twilights, one of these also buff healing, or you can lose that and run lamas I think its called when your below 30 % hp you hit for 300 magic damage and gain hp back great for a tank , especially as a imperial,
You can cap, your hp with white runes.
If you get gold ones at vr12 AND purple soul shine set you can change these for magic or stam ones. you will cap armor and sr like this,
I don't see pieces from these Sets in any of the 5 trade Guild stores which I can use. I'll investigate to see how to get them for later when my level will be high enough to wear them.
2nd line sword and board run
1)channeled focus , Regains mana,
2)spot heal honor the dead.
3)Run the fighter guild damage buff agist vamps makes your weapon look kewl
4)Blinding if you like this, eclipse is so much better tho.
5) bone wall the undanted skill line buffs your armor buy 2500 for another 8 secs or immovable brute so you don't get knocked around.
Flawless dawn breaker ult. Buffs damage
I suppose you use Channeled focus for the armor/spell resist? Because the mana regen is barely noticeable. Does Expert hunter have any useful use beside the fact that it makes your weapon looks cool?

This you can pretty much solo all the way to vr 7 or 8 ish,
I also run tiger buff, im sure snake or would would work fine 2,
you can get the mundus stone effect for magica if you want, I run speed on mine,

VR10 zone is *** so skip it. npc Trash caster mobs with 9k hp.
2 light armor 2 medium rest heavy with all the passives trained and learned.
Any reason to not do a 5/2 build or a 7/7 but instead a 2/2/3?

Thanks again for the tips. I'll try a few things. Anyway, I still don't see how you can have enough magicka to run that build. I suppose that you use your magicka abilities (very) wisely. And mainly attack with light/heavy attacks? If so, would you consider it to be a tank build? What's your main source of damage?

Krovax · June 2014

I quit using the bow once I had the first couple encounters in VR1.

I went to short and board and started using the jabs.

After Craglorn bash and jabs nerf, I added the single dps cast from second line modded to triple target into the rotation.

Skill bar now is: 1) Jabs, 2) Insta heal, 3) Heavy Armor Shield ability (or whatever is good in the fight, spears, radiant light, etc.), 4) single target instant dps spell modded to multitarget and 5) give live for mana from mage guild modded to increase health regen Ultimate is Nova

I can do most encounters with three enemies, if there are casters/archers, I focus my jabs on those to interrupt. If there are more than once caster, I try to open with ultimate when possible, though I rarely use it. Elite mobs take forever but I get them down in time too. I do need to use potions and I use the triple potions that give back all resources (hp, magicka and stamina). I can do all solo dungeons alone, even the bosses. I might die a few times, but in a way I feel more accomplished now than if I could faceroll every fight.

I did a public dungeon with another templar the other day, boy, it felt epic, we had to really give our best and fights took very long. I even did a world boss with another templar alone, we died a few times, but in the end were victorious.

Then I did a group dungeon VR7 with a VR10 mage. Well except the group challenge, I basically pitched in very little as the mage tore apart each and every 6 mob pull and even with the bosses I hardly had to do anything for him...

dodgehopper_ESO · June 2014

Spear shards is an ability that needs a SERIOUS buff. Its a great idea in practice, but like most Templar abilities its all about clicking the ground. Clicking the ground is not a very effective way to fight in dangerous pve or pvp. In pvp its time consuming (bad) and easily avoidable (bad). The aoe is laughably tiny when compared to other aoes, and it only stuns one target. Its an almost worthless ability unless you're fighting one enemy, and plopping it down on them in melee (which is how I've used it).

Other Templar abilities fall prey to this similar problem. The range is often far too small for what it does (in comparison to other classes) and the controls are weak. I'm not saying we can't make Templar to work, but it is a much more difficult class to play right, and much of the abilities are far too situational. Blinding Light could be great for instance, but its only useful at melee range. Its easily avoidable and costly. Its duration is weak. It costs high magicka. Sun Shield again shares this in common, short duration, point blank range, high cost, low return. When compared to Dragon Knight who has massive controlling Aoe's, Powerful Self heals, Reflective Scale (works at any range, fast, decent costs), Long Duration Protections that move with the character, Strong team Buffs, etc. It is easy to see why I'm hoping they look at game balance in this regard. it would not surprise me if we see a lot of our Templar abilities changed in how they function.

grizzbi · June 2014

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

it would not surprise me if we see a lot of our Templar abilities changed in how they function.

It would not surprise me if Templar stay unchanged for a few more months..

Zos_Konk said in the AMA, 2 months ago:

"Alright, so I know this is a tricky one, because the old restoring spirit passive was extremely flexible and powerful. I am very sensitive to the fact that the changes we make can sometimes have an effect on the builds that you spent a long time developing. I promise you we each take balance changes very seriously.
The reason for the change to the restoring spirit had more to do with how it scaled as players progressed through Veteran ranks (especially beyond rank 10) than with how it was performing in the level 1 - 50 experience. We considered a few options for altering that value, but ultimately, we decided on a % reduction to all costs gives the class a lot of flexibility and scales very well in the long term.
I guess that doesn't answer your specific question: can I speak to the plans for Templar's Magicka recovery after that change? Short answer is, it's something I am actively looking at, but i don't want to speak to specific changes just yet until we are fully confident in the design and implementation. I hate not be able to give you details just yet, but I wanted to at least let all the Templar's know that I am aware of the feedback and looking into it.
Cheers!"

Since then, nothing.

I love the last sentence "I hate not to be able to give you details just yet".
Well, ZOS_Konk, we are still waiting...2 months later.

Here's the link:
http://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/20x73q/welcome_to_the_eso_ama

novusprimeb14_ESO · June 2014

main dps aclty comes from blazing shield ,blazing spear combo, spear with the passives from maxed Templar class skills combined focus rune makes it spam able to a extent , also poping a pot before you actly draw argo helps. also I have all the passives from armor skill. ww sloted in the frist line as my ult helps me make dawn breaker spam able. Keep in mind this build requires a bit of 4 thought , While you can use shield to run through or past mobs you prob still die. if you got any? feel free to pm me,

.

grizzbi · June 2014

novusprimeb14_ESO wrote: »

main dps aclty comes from blazing shield ,blazing spear combo, spear with the passives from maxed Templar class skills combined focus rune makes it spam able to a extent , also poping a pot before you actly draw argo helps. also I have all the passives from armor skill. ww sloted in the frist line as my ult helps me make dawn breaker spam able. Keep in mind this build requires a bit of 4 thought , While you can use shield to run through or past mobs you prob still die. if you got any? feel free to pm me,

.

Using 3 armor types and getting the benefits from their passives can help to have a well rounded character but prevents from getting the 5+ pieces bonus which are stronger. But maybe it could help a character who has good and well balanced gear? I couldn't tell myself. Numbers from gear+all those little bonus would be interesting for sure.

I don't see how channeled focus can help to spam any other ability. Because if I check the tool tip in game, and do the math, the magicka returned equal the cost of the skill itself. I've tested it and it was barely noticeable. From what I see, it just make Chaneled focus itself spam able, at best.

As I said, the ww ulti with its passive for gaining ultimate points is interesting. Basically, you sacrifice an ulti slot to be able to use the other one more often? But in that case, don't you have to switch weapon a lot (with the lag in PvP)? And you need to do that with many player beating on you at the same time..

Anyway, I'll keep these things in mind for testing later. Thanks

oxylus · June 2014

grizzbi wrote: »

oxylus wrote: »

It isn't suggesting spear shards for the aoe or damage, it's suggesting it for the 6 second cc where the affected target cannot move or attack (as long as you do not attack them). This is generally long enough to burst down one of the 2 you are actually fighting, and then you're down to fighting 2 instead of 3. This is the idea behind the tooltip.

However, here's my advice as a melee templar: use blazing shield. This ability was pointless pre-vet cause you kill enemies fast in comparison to incoming damage. In vet, against a group of 3, there's so much incoming damage you can just activate it repeatedly and it explodes almost instantly (depending on the mob of course), dealing massive damage while simultaneously preventing you from taking damage. This is very magicka intensive though which is the balancer for it, so you'll want to have stamina utilities to clean up afterward if you don't have a lot of magicka.

I do this with 5 heavy/2 light (and it's probably even more effective in less armor because more damage in = more damage out) and generally do not need to eat food or use pots while soloing although i'll pop some as a safety net for boss mobs. I drop in 2-handed abilities or biting jabs/reflective light in between shields depending on the situation and rarely feel threatened. Give it a shot.

Remember, this ability is both effectively a heal and also a high powered damage burst, so you can use it more in a supplementary way rather than a primary ability if you so choose.

About Spear shards, it's good on the paper, but the mini CC doesn't help much. You can't choose the target to cc, it's random. If you use the Blazing spear morph, the stun duration is..2 sec. And if you don't, it's a disorient. Any Damage will break it. So you got to loose 1 or 2 sec to see which enemy is CC and move accordingly, and even more time and room to attract the other mobs far enough to be able to use any AOE damage (like blazing shield, reflective light or Biting jabs). That's 3 or 4 seconds of work for a disorient duration of 6. Conclusion: it needs too much work and Magicka for what it does.

About blazing shield. I've been using this a lot in light armor as it's a good well rounded ability. With a light armor/ resto staff build, I can use it efficiently along with other things.

But with Medium armor it's much more questionable since I have slightly less Magicka/ Magicka regen. And - more important - no way to restore Magicka without a resto staff... Also, because of its drawbacks, it has less synergy with my other skills.

In PvP, people can easily avoid to attack you during this limited time frame. Then its wasted Magicka. The visual effect is very easy to notice.

The amount of damage reflected is not based on the attack but on a percentage of your max life. Since it does not take armor and spell resist into account, I suspect that the damage amount exceeding the shield strength hurts me more than without the shield. So using Blazing shield doesn't protect all the time, and you can take huge bursts.

I still test it regularly to see if it needs to be part of my build.

But I don't see how you could use it with 2-handed abilities or biting jabs/reflective light, without food or pots and "rarely feel threatened". How have you spent your attributes? Don't you take damage from the mobs? And in that case how do you heal it since you're using several blazing shields per fight?Are you forced to use a Resto staff to restore Magicka? I'm talking about a build without a resto staff.

I have about 1.7k magicka and 2k health. I take a little bit of damage at times, but when you have the timing on casting it down there's very little splash into your actual health pool (I also wear heavy, not sure if it's a big difference in survivability versus medium for this strategy). I do not switch from my 2-handed weapon and don't have heals on my bar at all. Magicka regen is meaningless for this strategy since you explicitly do not regenerate magicka while blazing shield is active.

rawne1980b16_ESO · June 2014

The only thing the death recap on my Templar says is "Roll Sorc".

NerfEverything · June 2014

Ragekniv wrote: »

I'm surprised it doesn't say "Have you tried re-rolling a Sorcerer or Dragon Knight"

This is the funniest thing I have read all day.

OP hit the nail on the head though. As a VR Templar, you can play perfectly and still die to 3-mob packs 5 levels under you. This is not an issue with gear, I am VR12 in half gold half purple full enchants and if I make a mistake, I am dead. If I play perfectly, I live most of the time but I still die sometimes. Our skills just don't scale correctly and they don't synergize with any useful weapon skill lines. The whole class needs an overhaul.

Mortosk · June 2014

grizzbi wrote: »

- I'm a templar VR4. In medium Armor BUT with Magicka close the the softcap (1719/1888). 1900-2000 HP with food. 1400 stamina. Bow / DW
- Abilities have been carefully chosen. With a few rotations in mind depending on the situation/opportunities.
- After many tests this is one of the most efficient build I've been able to find. I can achieve slightly better results with a shield but I'm currently Bow / DW for testing purpose.

So, I just did a little test:

- I'm facing 3 VR5 Zombies in Bangkorai.
- Let's say I die during this fight. (well...I died)

Here's one of the Death recap useful hint:
" When facing multiple enemies, try to even the odds with Spear Shards"

Spear Shards:
Deals 198 Magic Damage to enemies within target area
Disorients 1 target for 6 seconds
25m range
8m radius.

EASY.

Now let's look at it closer, with numbers.
- Each Zombie has 2500 HP.
- I've 1900 HP / 1719 Magicka.
- Spear Shards IV is a ground targeted spell.
- From the tooltip, it does 198 damage to enemies if they carefully stay in the radius.

Let's say that I want to inflict 1250 Damage to each Zombie (half their life). That's what I would call "even the odds"..

1250 Damage

That's 6 "Spear Shards" (6X198) to get close to that number.
Each Spear Shard cost 308 Magicka. So it would cost me 1848 Magicka.

Conclusion:
- I would need to cast 6 spells targeting the ground, hitting all 3 zombies each time.
- And it would cost me all my magicka (even a little more, in fact).
- During this painful process, I would have to find a way to avoid any damage, to NOT have to use my Magicka to heal me, or use any other skill.
- When finished with the "even the odds" thing, I would still have to find a way to deal 3750 more damage, being out of Magicka.

Of course, it's totally unrealistic. It's just on the paper. Things can not be that bad..

Well, in fact it's worse.

3 zombies combined light attacks hit me for 1000 Damage in less than 1 sec. And if I block and avoid all the heavy attack I'm out of stamina in less than 5 sec.

Result: In any fight against these zombies, I need to use my self heal at least 2 times. If not 3 times. Each "Breath of life" heals me for only 536. And costs me 442 Magicka...
Getting back from 5% to full life needs 3 heals and cost me 75% of my Magicka.

Even with 2000 armor/spell resist from buffs, I'm still taking very high amount of damage.

I can't rely on Templar Ultimates: they are either too low damage wise, not useful enough, or too expensive. I use them as often as I can but they barely help.

I use CC but can't rely on them: Templar only have "blinding flashes". It's very expensive, is 50% random, and last 4 sec in melee range. CC from weapons are single target. Or very expensive and not efficient enough. CC from aedric spear are single target and very expensive.

The only way to get a good CC is to use Volcanic Rune. And I'm not avoiding the light armor/Staff FOTM to have to rely on another OP skill like this one. I just refuse.

SO in order to kill these 3 Zombies, as a melee templar, I need to use the perfect skill rotation, very carefully manage my resources, avoid all the attacks and use absolutely all the tools available to me: sneak attack to begin, free Light/heavy attacks instead of stamina ones half the time, getting some range when possible to use the bow, Crit on heals from crafted potions..etc..

Does it work? It does. But if anything goes wrong I'm dead.
- If I lag 1 sec, I'm dead
- If I don't have any potion left, I'm dead.
- If my weapon swap doesn't work in time, I'm dead.
- If All the 3 zombies use heavy attack at the same time, I'm dead..

Challenging? Sure. But frustrating as hell half the time. Even when I don't die.

TL;DR
- Abilities like Spear Shards don't scale well with the content.
- There are many, many abilities like that when you're a Templar
- No resource management at all hurts the Templar a lot (the only class without any possibility but resto staff heavy attack)
- Non light armor/Staff Templar are often painful to play. Even if you like difficulty.
- Death recap hints are ridiculous. ZOS should remove them in VR content. That's just...embarrassing..

Sorry for the (initially non intended) wall of text and my poor english. I hope it was entertaining...;)

Just use the only ability in a melee dps templar's kit that is worth using. Biting jabs. Spam it 4 times and pray the mobs don't move or scatter so you can kill them before you run out of magicka on the 4th cast. Then wait 15 seconds for your slow out of combat magicka regeneration and take on the next pack. Be sure and use a shield and heavy Armour though, because if you don't they will tear through your armour like it was paper mache the second the biting jabs stun wears off. Oh wait, they do that anyway even against 1800+ armor. Nevermind. Anyway, don't forget to pre-block before casting the 1.1 second channel for biting jabs though. There's nothing you can do to mitigate the damage you take while it is channeling but at least your shield will block the damage between casts while you wait for the 0.5 second GCD. Oh, and if you happen to fight a mob that casts aura of protection (the green glowing tree like totem thingie) like a lot of 3 packs in east march do, be sure and kill that first or you won't be able to block and if you do only the first jab will go off before the spell is cancelled. It's a fun new and exciting bug/challenge they added to 1.1.3.

grizzbi · June 2014

Mortosk wrote: »

Just use the only ability in a melee dps templar's kit that is worth using. Biting jabs.

Sorry but no. That's the worst advice. Templar deserve way better than such a poor gameplay/strategy.

grizzbi · June 2014

oxylus wrote: »

I have about 1.7k magicka and 2k health. I take a little bit of damage at times, but when you have the timing on casting it down there's very little splash into your actual health pool (I also wear heavy, not sure if it's a big difference in survivability versus medium for this strategy). I do not switch from my 2-handed weapon and don't have heals on my bar at all. Magicka regen is meaningless for this strategy since you explicitly do not regenerate magicka while blazing shield is active.

I'm not sure that Magicka regen is always useless with Blazing shield. It depends on how often you use it. Most of the time it will take less than 2 second to explode. If you time it, it can explode almost immediately. So during a fight of 10-15 sec, you could still benefit from a few sec of Magicka regen. It's almost nothing with a natural non enhanced Magicka regen, but it can help a little with specific long lasting builds.

You seem to use blazing shield more regularly,. And it seems to work for you (good synergy with brawler). I've had quite good results trying this build too.

Mortosk · June 2014

grizzbi wrote: »

Mortosk wrote: »

Just use the only ability in a melee dps templar's kit that is worth using. Biting jabs.

Sorry but no. That's the worst advice. Templar deserve way better than such a poor gameplay/strategy.

I think the sarcasm may have been lost on you.

grizzbi · June 2014

Mortosk wrote: »

grizzbi wrote: »

Mortosk wrote: »

Just use the only ability in a melee dps templar's kit that is worth using. Biting jabs.

Sorry but no. That's the worst advice. Templar deserve way better than such a poor gameplay/strategy.

I think the sarcasm may have been lost on you.

Oh then I'm sorry. Next time I'll read your comment twice before getting too serious. My bad!

Mortosk · June 2014

grizzbi wrote: »

Mortosk wrote: »

grizzbi wrote: »

Mortosk wrote: »

Just use the only ability in a melee dps templar's kit that is worth using. Biting jabs.

Sorry but no. That's the worst advice. Templar deserve way better than such a poor gameplay/strategy.

I think the sarcasm may have been lost on you.

Oh then I'm sorry. Next time I'll read your comment twice before getting too serious. My bad!

Really do wish there was a viable melee dps build for templar.