So I have lost all confidence in ZoS and now know that they will never fix the many many many exploits and bugs that infest this game simply because they just don't know how to or simply don't care.

I mean lets face it, its a better decision to ignore the current player who has already paid the $60+ and is now only paying the $15 a month and focus on the new player who has to pay $60 to start up. That's 300% more profit. Best part is who cares if you quit. Zos doesn't have to refund any of your money. That's why you get the generic "thanks for playing, come back soon!" message. ZoS as a company has 0 liability.

Thats why we are seeing the same old bugs and exploits patch after patch after patch. ZoS doesn't dedicate the man power to fix them or even test their patches. Their strategy is to milk as much money as possible before taking it ftp. It's a very popular business model we are seeing with mmo's.

So that being said, The end game content cyrodiil has become a free for all with who has the best exploits and who can take advantage of the bugs currently in the game. I've seen people exploit since launch and have had no action taken against them. So i thought i'd share some things to my fellow templars that will help you survive cyrodiil against these broken mechanics.

survivability is a key problem we are experiencing because of the damage bugs with lethal arrow, fragments, etc. People are exploding from 100% to 0% in less then 3 secs due to a combo of lag, animation desyncs, health bar desyncs, buffed damaged bugs and macro animation cancels. So trying to stay alive while inflicting damage is your biggest problem.

But I have a solution for you. Here is my build.

High elf vampire templar

49 points in magicka (because it improves your spell damage and healing abilities)

7 light armor ( the passives for magicka reduction cost and regen are important)
- 5 pieces of warlock set (for the magicka regen and magicka infusion)
- 5 pieces of the seducer set (for magicka regen and 8% magicka cost reduction)

Restoration staff for both bars (for the +10% damage, +5% healing and magicka regen while blocking)

Bar #1
1. toppling charge (its an awful skill because it stuns you for as long as it stuns your target. but its a gap closer. I'll explain why this is important later)

2. Blazing shield (gives you +30% health and returns 58% of damage taken to nearby players)

3. Harness magicka ( gives you a shield, reduces incoming spell damage by 50% and gives magicka back based on how many pieces of light armor you are wearing)

4. Elusive mist (reduces 75% of incoming damage. the invulnerability to control effects is broken but you get a speed boost)

5. Aurora javelin (knocks down target and damage is increased by up to 40% depending on distance from target)

Ultimate - Devouring swarm (on top of doing massive aoe damage you get massive health back for each target hit)

Bar #2
1. Puncturing sweep (its broken. but you get 40% damage done returned as health and at the end the target is knocked back and it doesn't trigger a stun immunity. so spamming this will lock people in place. I don't recommend spamming this though and I'll explain why later.)

2. Spiked bone shield (gives you +2500 armor and returns damage to melee attackers.) mine is only at II and returns 34% damage.

3. Breath of life (instant heal that heals multiple people if there are any around you)

4. Purifying ritual (removes 5 negative effects at rank IV and gives a 75 point light heal every 2 secs)

5. Blazing shield (see bar 1 for info)

Ultimate - Devouring swarm (see bar 1 for info)

Enchantments -
All pieces of armor are health enchanted. (doing this should give you 2500+ health with food outside of cyrodill if you have the emperor buff and you will be above 3k health inside cyrodiil. this is important because this means your blazing shield will give a 900+ point shield. very important)

Necklace - kuta fire resist (as a vampire you take +50% more fire damage. this reduces it to 25%)

Ring 1 - kuta armor enchant (+600 armor)
Ring 2 - kuta armor enchant (+600 armor)
(the armor is to help with your melee damage mitigations. light armor is weak in this aspect so its really important to have these. With these enchants you get 110% more armor I'll explain why its so important later)

Food - is +health and +stamina (need stamina for breaking free and sneaking. With the vr5 food your stamina will be at 1500)

Mundus- the mage for the +5% magicka

At this point you will be over the soft cap for armor and spell resistance and close to the soft cap for magicka and magicka regen.

Bar #1 is your ranged bar
Bar #2 is your melee/heal bar

You may ask why I have some of the same skills on both bars. Its because the weapon swap in this game is pure trash and doesn't work half the time.

Scenario #1
pesky ranged players are the ones doing the most damage now a days. skirt and staff or leather and bow are the most popular. Using bar #1 is the best way to go.

they will be afraid of your blazing shield. it's a popular tactic to move away from a sunshield templar. funny part is if no one is there to absorb the damage it just stacks. for example. a macro sorc fully crit powered and glass cannon build tries to range mow me down. I keep blazing shield up while i throw javelins and heavy attacks. the shield explodes over and over. no one is there taking the damage. after about the 5th or 6th explosion I pop it one more time and hit toppling charge. the gap is instantly closed and when the shield explodes its does 3k+ damage for a one shot kill no more sorc.

the same can be done with bow players as well

Scenario #2
Dragon knights are the most fond of exploiting the eternal root or knockdown bug. Or you might just go against one who is playing sword and board or have a ranged player switch to sword and board or simply get jumped by a night blade. In this case bar #2 is the best.

Example - I'm in cyrodiil doing the dailies to max out skills when this dual wield night blade jumps me. I immediately cc break (as long as you don't get bugged out) pop blazing shield and spiked bone shield. then emoted /laugh. Why? because the combo of these 2 skills returns 92% of the damage he inflicts on me back to him. They usually throw marked target on you which bypasses your mitigations but it also bypasses theirs. He literally killed himself.

Dragon knights are usually sword and board. they will shield bash knock you down then talon root you then spam whip. happens 99% of the time. If this happens simply CC break, hit blazing shield for the extra health, hit purifying ritual for some extra heals and cleanse of the talons. then use a combo of light attacks and puncturing sweep. the sweep will return 40% damage inflicted back as health and with the +10% damage to blocking targets he won't be able to keep up with you.

If at any point i am low on health during these types of fights I just hit my breath of life and with the passives from resto staff and temp healing line and no debuffs I heal to 100% health. If I see that I am debuffed I just hit my purifying ritual and hit breath of life again. back to 100%.

Scenario #3
Your there, fighting a straggler who wandered to far from the zerg and here they come. the impulse noob train. a block of players who couldn't cut it solo so they banded together and wander around spamming impulse and holding block. No problem. Bar 1 works just fine.

Pop harness magicka and elusive mist. they stack your mitigations goes through the roof and you get a speed buff to try and slip away. you will get taloned. you will get impulsed. You might need to hit the elusive mist a few times but 1 of 2 things will happen. 1. the zerg train will swallow you up and sh*t you out the back. in which case you will be able to slip away. or 2. they stop to focus on you and hopefully get murdered by the gaggle of noobs behind you.

Scenario #4
You get stuck fighting ranged and melee at the same time. It happens. with small gank groups roaming around it is inevitable that you will run into these. best bet is bar #1.
you will need to alternate between harness magic and blazing shield while using your javelin to give you breaks and dps. This will be a magicka burn. Thats why the passives from light armor and the warlock and seducer set are best.

If at any point you are running low on magicka. pop harness magicka and elusive mist and let them light you up. Because the 2 stack, any non fire spell damage is mitigated 100%. The melee attacker is what will wear down your harness magicka shield. That is why you have the armor enchants to mitigate this damage so you can regain as much magicka back from the shield as possible. with the magicka regen you get from your armor AND passives AND the harness magicka, doing this just once will return 70-80% of your magicka (based on a magicka pool of 2500)

If it gets where you can't win, just pop harness magicka and spam elusive mist for the mitigations and speed buff until you get away. Occasionally you will get a sorc who streak follows you. just spam elusive mist until your at a safe distance from the other enemies then see scenario #1. delicious.

I would avoid the following skills as a templar in pvp.

1. spamming puncturing sweep. this skill has a cast time and leaves you open to cc. I have noticed a lot of times it will miss the target completely or while i cast it the target will simply roll away.

2. dark flare or any morph of it - its a nice 40% healing debuff but the skill is broken and the +55 weapon and spell power doesn't work.

3. evil hunter or any morph of it and puncturing sweep or any morph of it. puncturing sweep doesn't proc the evil hunter bonus damage. Same goes for spear shards. This is a great example of why you will never be able to be on par with other dps classes who run trials without switching to a destro staff.

4. spell symmetry - the mage guilds "might of the guild" passive doesn't work properly. it also nerfs your resto passive damage buff because it eats your health

In general -
I wouldn't use vampires bane, dark flare, or spear shards because they are slow and can be easily avoided.

I wouldn't use unstable core either because if the target has cc immunity the ability will not be cast on them.

I wouldn't use anything that has a long cast time or requires you to stay in one place. (thats the easiest way to get murdered)

I hope this thread helps my struggling templar brethren. Any questions just ask.

-Doc