261 replies to this topic

[Saboteur-6]

So anyone familiar with the class knows how awesome (and often overlooked in teams) the Wrath of Heaven and Spell Purge combo is. It nukes demons and scrubby evil doers alike. As a result, Blessed Blades seems like a solid pick in rounding out your holy trinity of skills but feels a bit lackluster.

Does anyone run anything else skill build wise that might take the place of Blessed Blades? Thanks in advance.

[Saboteur-6]

Really? Nobody experimenting with the Templar? I'm basically trying to figure out if Blessed Blades is worth the slot over another active skill like the single target taunt, Line in the Sand, or any of the attacks.

Is the cooldown bonus noticeable for others? Is the +damage % impactful? Anyone test the numbers?

[Shinnyshin]

I'm playing Templar m'self and am loving the combo...but having huge survivability issues if I'm the primary Warrior.  Running a crit builds and investing in the cooldown bonus for crits is extremely noticeable but I'm...really not liking Blessed Blades.  Next respec I'm probably going to try out the AoE guard generator even though it's rather lackluster--maybe that'll help a bit.

[PurpGuy1]

That's my thought also.  WoH/Purge combo, Guard, but what about that 4th ability.  If Blessed Blades was an aura I'd like it more, but I might exchange it when I promote.  Probably for something tanky.

[Mindtraveller]

Wrath and purge are great indeed, I think the templar is more of a damage dealer/off-tank, legionnaire just does the tanking part better... Blessed blades seems like a decent option if you've got a team who makes use of it, but most of the time I'm either the only one getting the buff or everything dies in a couple seconds anyway.

 

The Templar has a lot of good choices for the 4th slot. Shield bash for another detonator, combat roll for the demon commander and CC, line in the sand for that chokepoint action, or maybe bodyguard if you're playing with a squishy friend who's got dem mad deeps. Unbowed does seem pretty good too.

 

I've also been thinking.. what if you have two templars, they both cast upgraded bodyguards on each other......

[Myala]

Went through perilous in like 5 minutes with a tank speced Templar and an nuke spec Templar and two legionnaires. It was so beautiful. We got over zealous with demon commander and just tried face tanking him with everyone. That was dumb. But I think we almost got half of his health down in two popups.

[Foofad]

Define "Tank specced" Templar? 

 

@OP, Blessed Blades isn't really worth it IMO. It's much better to have additional CC (Payback Strike), a guard break (Shield Bash), and/or some guard builders (Unbowed, Shield Wall). There are some potential applications for Line in the Sand in order to set up better combos against melee, but against archers you're much better off Shield Walling your way in and then praying your stamina regens quickly enough to combo. 

[Myala]

The guy only went through the right tree it looks like. His abilities were shield wall, blessed blades, unbowed, shield bash. He played it like a legioniare basically except with blessed blades. Not my type of build and don't imagine it being a very good one. I have been liking the WoH,Purge combo too much.

[Chaz Darkbane]

After finishing my Reaver guide I was going to work on one for Templar, but honestly have not been able to even beat a threatening run with her without difficulty yet. So far the only redeeming factor of the Templar is the Wrath of Heaven + Spell Purge combo but even then it is nowhere near good enough to redeem the extremely long cooldown on that combo. She simply has no synergy with the rest of her abilities, and unlike heaving well thought out combos and passives like the Reaver does, it seems like she was just thrown some random team passives in there in an effort to make her worth bringing. 

 

So far my thoughts.

 

Blessed Blades: This skill is complete garbage with no justification for it's lengthy cooldown. In order to benefit from the effect your team must be standing in an incredibly small circle for a minor increase in overall damage and the same goes for the perk for it. As of right now, the skill ends up killing your team more than aiding them, deaths caused by teammates huddling together in the small circle only to get destroyed by the Demon Commander aoe, Venatori Fire Wall, or 

Suggestions:

• Make the AoE larger and follow the Templar. This will allow for the skill to be used by the Templar herself at the very least and aid any allies near her. As for size suggestions I would recommend something as big as or larger than the Reaver's Ring of Pain. Ideally this would allow your ranged allies to benefit from standing at the edge of the circle.
• Make it so it is a buffing effect that persists as long as allies were inside the circle on initial cast. This means that it would be a tactical buff used before the team entered the battle and allows everyone to get into position afterwards.
• Tell us how big the bonus against demons is. Right now it just says it increases damage and is better against demons. What does that even mean? It could be 16% to  130% for all we know.
• Make it so this skill reduces the cooldown of all the Templars abilities, not just Spell Purge and Wrath of Heaven.

Champions of the Just: For a passive effect that is required for us to grab this isn't bad, not fantastic but not bad.

 

Maker's Will: Really guys? A 5% chance? I mean I know it is for the whole party but dang, up it to 10% or slap a perk on there that makes it 10% against demons or something.

 

Mage Slayer: Unsure if this applies to passive abilities as well. If it does it would certainly help make Champions of the Just a better passive. Mostly used to apply the bonus damage of Wrath of Heaven to a wider arrange of targets. 

 

There is no Darkness: A decent passive but nothing to make it special, pretty much the sum of the Templar so far.

 

Horn of Valor: Fantastic skill all around. With the Perk it becomes something truly special and one of the few reason to want to bring a Templar along.

 

Spell Purge: Normally this skill is nothing special, you can dispel the barrier off of Venatori Commander but that is pretty much it. When perked and combined with Wrath of Heaven though it creates a powerful combo that can destroy most enemies in a small area around the Templar depending on your weapons damage.

 

The Last Sacrifice: Considering it is something you have to grab, you might as well get it. Your goal in life shouldn't be dying in any situation. But hey if you going down you can at least activate the Horn of Valor beforehand and make your team wreck provided they know what is going on.

 

Wrath of Heaven: This is going to be your main damaging spell and you will use this to combo your Spell Purge for an extremely damaging combo. My only complaints about this skill is that the lengthy cooldown makes it hard to maintain, and for some stupid reason it only has a range of 4 meters. Both it and Spell Purge should have the same range.

 

So in this skill tree I have to say the only thing that Templar has going on for her is the Wrath of Heaven + Spell Purge combo but I feel like I should mention that this does not work on enemies who are immune to being stunned. Which is pretty much every enemy you would want to use it on. 

 

Closing: The Templar feels clunky and unfinished. Unsure of what role she is supposed to maintain. She can pull off decent damage with the afore mentioned combo, but with no method of cooldown reduction she lacks in that role. She can mediocre in the role of a tank as well, using Line in the Sand as a method of protecting teammates, but this skill is buggy and easily worked around. She doesn't have the access to the War Cry taunt, having to rely on the less than awesome Challenge. While she has access to plenty of guard bonus, she does not have a reliable method of generating a large amount of guard outside the lengthy cooldown of unbowed (which makes no sense but whatever). She needs a serious look at, and the largest problem area she has and the thing that could be changed to make he perform well lies with the skill Blessed Blades. With a few changes to the skill it could not only be a useful but essential part of the Templars kit, and make her into something that can be truly unique, and a viable choice of the Legionnaire.

[themageguy]

Id be interested in your Alchemist and Elementalist advice.

Seems you've done a very fair and honest analysis on the templar - and i agree with your points.

[kyhas]

 

Blessed Blades: This skill is complete garbage with no justification for it's lengthy cooldown. In order to benefit from the effect your team must be standing in an incredibly small circle for a minor increase in overall damage and the same goes for the perk for it.

 

As a templar I have noticed the buff icon on me long after i have left the circle so i don't know if it travels with the templar but the team has to huddle?

[Chaz Darkbane]

Id be interested in your Alchemist and Elementalist advice.

Seems you've done a very fair and honest analysis on the templar - and i agree with your points.

Well my next guide I will be putting up will likely be Necromancer as it is another one that has obvious build synergy. But once I get the mats I will likely be doing Elementalist as well. I will have to experiment a bit to find the optimal combos, but it seems you could pretty much go with whatever and still be effective as a ranged damage dealer and at will be at less risk than your melee counterparts.

[Saboteur-6]

EDIT : After reading Chaz's second reply below, I actually DO disagree with his overall assessment. Specifically, he frames Blessed Blades like it's designed to be a party wide cornerstone buff when it's obvious it's meant to be a situational buff for the Templar and whoever else is in melee range with her fighting a high HP target or whatever lived through the nuke. It's not for the back line and there should be no "trying to cluster" for BB That's sloppy teamwork by the players, and not the fault of the class. No matter how you slice it though, Blessed Blades could use some love and a more descriptive tool tip.

I haven't played her on Perilous yet but she can hold her own as a frontline on Threatening just fine. She can spawn nuke pretty easily and its really common for her to end the match with a gold medal in team combos because of WoH / Purge. If a team utilizes corner pulling she shines even more.

Again my biggest problem is trying to figure out what to sub out Blessed Blades with and I'm leaning towards survivability in either Combat Roll or Unbowed as I see the benefit of both.

Can anyone answer this: Is WoH > Unbowed > Spell Purge a viable rotation? Do you have enough stamina to max guard and still hit with the spell combo?

[TormDK]

I find that positioning plays a huge role in the ability to generate guard (I play Templar mostly for the sword and board/tank aspect), and while I would love War Cry, positioning can do alot. I don't find myself "Guardstarved" at least.

 

I do agree with your points on some of the perks, and I think they should look at the trees further to split them up a bit.

 

Also, I really really think Bioware should reconsider the stance on not letting us know what the numbers are, all up.

 

How do I know what +25% Max Guard is, when my normal Max Guard isn't listed anywhere. Hiding the numbers to create some sort of "Mystery" is bollocks to say the least.

[SicMirx]

I just drop Blessed Blades back by the Archer/ heathan mage choke points as, if you didn't notice, BB seems to persist constantly on my Templar outside the ring.

[Chaz Darkbane]

I just drop Blessed Blades back by the Archer/ heathan mage choke points as, if you didn't notice, BB seems to persist constantly on my Templar outside the ring.

I did some testing regarding that earlier, while the random nature of damage seems mess it up a bit it would seem that the icon the Templar has for Blessed Blades is not the actual buff itself. I noticed no increase to damage while that icon was up and I was outside the ring, entering the ring gives you the normal icon for Blessed Blades and the damage buff. I believe the icon is there only to indicate that the ring is up, similar to how if Payback Strike is empowered you will recieve and icon indicating it. I certainly noticed no change to cooldowns, but then again .5 seconds is hardly noticeable with how slow weapon swings are.

 

I find that positioning plays a huge role in the ability to generate guard (I play Templar mostly for the sword and board/tank aspect), and while I would love War Cry, positioning can do alot. I don't find myself "Guardstarved" at least.

 

I do agree with your points on some of the perks, and I think they should look at the trees further to split them up a bit.

 

Also, I really really think Bioware should reconsider the stance on not letting us know what the numbers are, all up.

 

How do I know what +25% Max Guard is, when my normal Max Guard isn't listed anywhere. Hiding the numbers to create some sort of "Mystery" is bollocks to say the least.

This annoys me as well. I am waiting on someone to give me a solid answer on how powerful the increase to attributes actually is as well as guard values. How much health does +1 constitution give? How much damage is +1 Willpower? How much Crit chance is +1 cunning? Unless I know these values I will not be prestiging my classes further unless I messed up the build at some point. I do not want to have to prestige my assassin one hundred times to get 1% crit chance for example.

 

 

While I disagree with some of the details of Chaz's analysis, I agree with the overall assessment. Specifically, he frames Blessed Blades like it's designed to be a party wide buff when it's obvious it's meant to benefit the Templar and whoever else is in melee range with her fighting a high HP target or whatever lived through the nuke. It's not for the back line and there should be no "trying to cluster" for BB. No matter how you slice it though, Blessed Blades needs some love.

I haven't played her on Perilous yet but she can hold her own as a frontline on Threatening just fine. She can spawn nuke pretty easily and its really common for her to end the match with a gold medal in team combos because of WoH / Purge. If a team utilizes corner pulling she shines even more.

Again my biggest problem is trying to figure out what to sub out Blessed Blades with and I'm leaning towards survivability in either Combat Roll or Unbowed as I see the benefit of both.

Can anyone answer this: Is WoH > Unbowed > Spell Purge a viable rotation? Do you have enough stamina to max guard and still hit with the spell combo?

I think my biggest issue with the Templar right now is just how extremely gear reliant she is. Without a decent weapon she will not be able to nuke with WoH + Spell Purge, and because all of her bonuses are small (likely to prevent 4 Templar comps from stacking if the passives do stack) she really doesn't seem worth bringing over another character. I blame Blessed Blades because it has the potential to not only be a viable skill, but a skill that makes the Templar really worth having along, but because of how useless it is currently the Templar is being held back. Taking a few of my suggestions into account would make the skill truly something without making it broken. If the circle followed the Templar like an aura effect I could see her working out, but as of right now it is just a waste of a slot to bring it.

[Saboteur-6]

Chaz I promise you the Templar is "worth having along" outside the use of BB. Your synopsis, while accurate in some areas is short sighted, reductive, and borderline misinformation in others. The burst damage capability of her spawn nuke and her passives make her an asset, even when she's the sole warrior. Granted it's based off of weapon damage % but it's not like the combo requires a lvl 20 weapon to be effective. I was doing it on Routine with a lvl 12 common axe and on Threatening with a lvl 16 common. All this with the combo becoming available by lvl 9 if you go straight for it.

So help me if people start with elitist "Templar doesn't belong in teams" nonsense I'll drop a Wrath of Heaven / Spell Purge on this whole damn forum. Just because her playstyle differs from the Legionnaire doesn't make her unviable. Diversity among classes is a GOOD thing.

She mitigates damage in the form of Stun and just straight up disintegrating trash enemies through burst where the Dwarf facetanks the alpha strike from the whole spawn and relies on teammates for taking out the trash.

[Myala]

My first templar was an amazing damage dealer. My second was a rounded one with challenge and shield wall. My next will have WoH, Purge, the Horn, and Sheild Wall. In perilous the Shield is needed for those ranged attacks and the Horn is amazing with leveled reavers and nechromancers, and assassins. Who the the hell wouldn't want someone constantly giving you 50% bonus damage?

[Saboteur-6]

My first templar was an amazing damage dealer. My second was a rounded one with challenge and shield wall. My next will have WoH, Purge, the Horn, and Sheild Wall. In perilous the Shield is needed for those ranged attacks and the Horn is amazing with leveled reavers and nechromancers, and assassins. Who the the hell wouldn't want someone constantly giving you 50% bonus damage?

Thank you. Out of curiosity, what were your active skills on your damage dealing build?

[Myala]

I was using blessed blades with upgrade, shield wall, and the WoH,Purge combo. With the passive that decreases cool downs by one second, smacking on people in blessed blades, and an axe that gave me stamina for every kill, it would really shorten my time between spamming the combo.

Edit: my axe is 190 though so that helps.

[TormDK]

I have a 232 dps common 1h weapon on my templar, but I'm not going after the WoH/Purge combo this time (already prestiged her once) because I found it drains way too much stamina and got me in trouble alot more trying to set it up than it did if I play it a little safer and spend my stamina on guarding.

[Saboteur-6]

I have a 232 dps common 1h weapon on my templar, but I'm not going after the WoH/Purge combo this time (already prestiged her once) because I found it drains way too much stamina and got me in trouble alot more trying to set it up than it did if I play it a little safer and spend my stamina on guarding.

Were you turtling behind Shield Well approaching groups slowly then trying the combo because that's a bad idea as the stamina chip will throw off your timing.

[TormDK]

No, not at all, but the combo itself takes more than a full stamina bar if you want to use Blessed Blades to reduce cooldown again as soon as it is fired.

 

Of course it's nice to see those 3000+ damage per mob numbers that the combo can pull, but if I am not killing the mob in question with it (Due to misfiring or missing due to the small radius, as I don't abuse pillars with the PuGs I'm in) then I'd rather not be left right open with no stamina to block with.

[Myala]

Shield Wall is best used as a parry. Deep reserves helped when I was doing the damage one.

Sometimes the combo isn't the best use of Woh or dispell. Stunning the mob and then aggroing the non stunned can save stamina. Let your team detonate. Dispell is also works with other teams combos.

[HellKnightX]

 

Blessed Blades: This skill is complete garbage with no justification for it's lengthy cooldown. In order to benefit from the effect your team must be standing in an incredibly small circle for a minor increase in overall damage and the same goes for the perk for it.

 

Wrong. Blessed Blades' perk does not require you to stand in the circle, which is why it's good. You activate the skill and carry on with your business, and each attack reduces your cooldowns on your #1 combo. Don't believe me? Cast Blessed Blades, watch your buff bar, and walk out of the circle. You will lose the 15% damage boost, but the perk will remain for the full duration.

 

It's a very meh skill, as you say, but don't discount it as total garbage. WoH + Spell Purge is the highest damage nuke Templars have and the Blessed Blades perk directly boosts your DPS by reducing their cooldowns. It's practically essential to a combo build.