#1 – Poor Active Skills

Killer's Blade Relentless Focus Surprise Attack Siphoning Attacks Incapacitating Strike Veil of Blades (some trials only)

Venomous Claw Noxious Breath Flames of Oblivion Reflective Scale (Maelstrom only) Igneous Weapons (maybe, if you're a cheap-o) Standard of Might Corrosive Armor (Maelstrom only)

Bound Armaments Dark Deal Hurricane Critical Surge Overload (depending on the content) Negate Magic (either morph)

Biting Jabs Power of the Light Repentance Solar Prison (some trials only)

Killer's Blade Ambush Relentless Focus Shadowy Disguise Surprise Attack Aspect of Terror Shadow Image Siphoning Attacks Incapacitating Strike

Venomous Claw Noxious Breath Volatile Armor Reflective Scale Igneous Shield Fossilize Standard of Might Corrosive Armor

Bound Armaments Dark Deal Daedric Mines (Overload bar only) Hurricane Critical Surge Streak Overload Negate Magic

Biting Jabs Binding Javelin Repentance Extended Ritual Restoring Focus

Radial Sweep In PVP , this used to have a place in the Stamina Templar's toolkit, particularly the Crescent Sweep morph. However, with the change of Dawnbreaker to Physical Damage and the addition of Berserker Strike and Shield Wall, this ultimate is completely obsolete. It was never viable for PVE .

Biting Jabs It's sort of the same story for PVP and PVE with this ability, and I've written an entire section below on why this ability is poor. To summarize, this skill's single-target damage is lower than any other single-target spammable, likely because it's an AOE ability. And yet, its damage as an AOE is substandard, likely because it's designed as a single-target spammable. So, it's sort of stuck in this catch-22. It's fair to say an ability with great single-target damage shouldn't have great AOE damage, and an AOE skill shouldn't excel in single-target DPS. A skill that melds these two will always be difficult to balance, and while Biting Jabs was decent in days past, it definitely falls short in its current state. For a more detailed breakdown, check out the section on Biting Jabs, outlined in point #3 below.

Binding Javelin For some PVP builds, this is a decent ranged stun that, for some reason, deals melee damage. The cost is far too high, almost on par with Shuffle. Reduce the cost and make this ability deal something other than melee damage. Irrelevant for PVE .

Focused Charge Not viable for PVP or PVE , as this is a Magicka ability.

Spear Shards Not viable for PVP or PVE , as this is a Magicka ability.

Sun Shield Not viable for PVP or PVE .



Nova Not viable for PVP . This ultimate is useful in trials only for the damage reduction. It really has no place anywhere else. The cost is prohibitively high for use outside of PVE , and the damage is far too low. It feels like this ability was completely balanced around the admittedly powerful Gravity Crush/Supernova instead of the other way around, seriously limiting its usefulness when there's no one around to fumble with that awkward synergy.

Sun Fire Not viable for PVP or PVE , as this is a Magicka ability. Perhaps give this a Stamina morph, similar to Venomous Claw?

Solar Flare Not viable for PVP or PVE , as this is a Magicka ability. Solar Barrage is rarely used, a potential Stamina morph?

Power of the Light Not viable for PVP . This is a good skill to work into a PVE DPS build. Deals somewhere around 3,000 self-buffed, single-target DPS in sustained fights, so it's not bad.

Eclipse Not viable for PVP or PVE , though it used to have some incredibly entertaining bugs.

Radiant Destruction Not viable for PVP or PVE , as this is a Magicka ability. This is a post about Stamina Templar. SELF. CONTROL. This is a post about Stamina Templar.



Rite of Passage This... this ultimate is not viable in any content. We have plenty of area healing that doesn't require the caster to stand in place for the entire duration. Seriously, give this skill some utility. Since Templar is apparently all about placing auras and building houses, perhaps make this summon an area of protection that provides rotating buffs and debuff?

Rushed Ceremony Not viable for PVP or PVE , as this is a Magicka ability.

Healing Ritual This ability suffers from the same problems as Rite of Passage. Grand Healing completely outclasses this skill for proactive healing. Reactionary heals, or in other words, burst heals, cannot have a a long cast time (or a cast time at all) lest they become useless. Plus, Breath of Life already fills the role of a burst heal, and though it only targets two players, it's an instant cast with a much longer range. I know this skill is unrelated to Stamina Templar in its current state, but please rework this ability completely.

Repentance This is an okay sustain skill. The resources this skill provides are, simply put, not as good as the passive sustain from Siphoning Attacks, Battle Roar, and Helping Hands and the burst Stamina from Dark Deal. See section #2 for more details.

Extended Ritual This skill is incredibly powerful for survivability in PVP , perhaps too strong, but it doesn't grant the same flexibility the other classes have. It's not a weak ability by any measure, but it's sort of a rock-paper-scissors skill that doesn't warrant itself to skillful use. Stamina Sorcerers can take advantage of their mobility in a multitude of ways, engaging and disengaging almost at will, a Shadow-Image-teleporting Nightblade likewise. By contrast, there's really only one way to use Cleansing Ritual, which is irksome. The most complicated part about cleansing is pushing the button when bad things show up on your debuff tracker. This is definitely a picky point, because this is by far and away the best Templar skill for PVP. Not viable for PVE .

Restoring Focus This is a good ability for PVP . It provides the standard Major armor buffs, and extra damage mitigation and healing from the Minor buffs are nice. Why does this have to be a placeable aura rather than a self-buff like every other skill of its type? Not really needed for PVE .



#2 – Outclassed in Every Way

#3 – Biting Jabs is a Bad Skill



The original skill (Patch 1.0-1.5) The original skill (Patch 1.0-1.5)

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: » Puncturing Strikes Biting Jabs (morph): This ability can now scale off stamina and weapon power, and now also provides the Major Savagery buff.





Unique critical chance buff is no more (Patch 1.6-2.2) Unique critical chance buff is no more (Patch 1.6-2.2)



The death knell of Jabs' Major Savagery The death knell of Jabs' Major Savagery

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: » Puncturing Strikes: This ability and its morphs no longer knockback and apply crowd control immunity to the nearest enemy on the final hit; instead, they now snare that enemy by 70% for two seconds.



Generic Weapon Critical buff, generic snare (Patch 2.3-present) Generic Weapon Critical buff, generic snare (Patch 2.3-present)

Replace the Major Savagery buff with a unique buff that increases Weapon Critical by up to X % depending on the missing health of the target(s), like the skill used to behave.

% depending on the missing health of the target(s), like the skill used to behave. Make Biting Jabs a targeted ability and adjust the damage accordingly.

Make Biting Jabs an instant cast ability, remove the area damage portion, and adjust damage accordingly.

Make the snare less effective but increase its duration. Or replace it with some other debuff, because honestly, there's more than enough snare out there.

#4 – Bad PVE DPS and Conclusion

With a prospective balance patch coming sometime in the near future, I've outlined some issues with Stamina Templar in this post, providing suggestions for improvement throughout (General Discussion section since this is very broad). While a Stamina Templar can certainly complete any and all content in this game, the class has the lowest single-target and AOE PVE DPS out of any spec, Magicka or Stamina. The class also struggles in PVP due to its limited utility and poor sustain.In terms of skills, Templar's options are too limited, and what little the class has is overshadowed by the other classes in almost every sense. The root of the problem is this: Templar just doesn't have enough by way of in-class Stamina utility. Just look at the class abilities you'll find on a typical end-game PVE Stamina DPS build's bars, sorted below by class:So, the Stamina Templar really only has three in-class abilities that are worth slotting for most PVE scenarios: Biting Jabs, Power of the Light and Repentance. While there are plenty of universal skills to fill the remaining 8 or 9 slots, it's problematic that so many class skills are simply not useful incontent. Unfortunately, it's kind of the same story for PVP – the other classes just have more viable skills to choose from. Check it out:Build diversity, especially viable weapon types in PVP, is seriously limited by how few in-class options Templar offers. Templar is the only class that must rely on outside sources for Major Sorcery and Major Brutality. And it goes much further than missing these fundamental buffs, as outlined by this ability-by-ability breakdown, sorted by class tree:I'd rather not delve into the class' passive skills because it's much of the same story. But even the valuable ones, like Balanced Warrior (6% Weapon Damage), are outclassed by passives like Nightblade's Pressure Points (3% Weapon Critical per Assassination ability on bar = huge), Sorcerer's Energized (5% more Physical Damage) and Expert Mage (2% Weapon Damage per Sorcerer ability slotted), and Dragonknight's Mountain's Blessing (5% Weapon Damage in the form of Minor Brutality and 3 Ultimate in parallel with Helping Hands' 5% Stamina return). Another decent Templar passive, Restoring Spirit (4% Magicka, Stamina, and Ultimate cost reduction), is a bit of a joke when compared to Sorcerer's Power Stone (15% Ultimate cost reduction) and Unholy Knowledge (5% Magicka and Stamina cost reduction)...In terms of sustain, compare the mechanics of Templar's Repentance to the equivalent abilities of the other classes. Repentance is a free cast, unlike Sorcerer's Dark Deal, Dragonknight's Helping Hands and Battle Roar, and Nightblade's Siphoning Attacks. However, this is not as advantageous as it may seem, as Repentance is limited to work only on nearby corpses no more than once, while the others convert Magicka or Ultimate,, into Stamina. This makes Repentance subpar at best unless there's a constant stream of fodder dying at the caster's feet. Give Templars some way toregenerate Stamina outside of Repentance, perhaps from a passive or an active skill. Something like, after using Biting Jabs, increase resources returned from heavy attacks by% for 10 seconds.Giving credit where it's due, Stamina Templar has good healing. Not the best, mind you, as the class of mediocrity's healing is outclassed by that of the Dragonknight. Both classes have Major Mending, but thanks to the Burning Heart passive (12% healing received), Dragonknight has slightly better healing. (And yeah, technically Dragonknight, like Templar, has Minor Vitality from Coagulating Blood, but does that really count?)In terms of damage, as previously mentioned, Templar really only has two skills for dealing damage. One of which is so bad, I've written an entire section (#3) on it below.This ability has suffered its fair share of negative changes the past two and a half years, and it shows – it's an unfortunately lacking ability. In days of yore, when there were no "Stamina morphs" of class abilities, Biting Jabs was an imperfect, but interesting skill.The knockback on the final hit was admittedly buggy. For a long time, it wouldn't grant CC immunity and would hit through dodge roll, likely because the ability's damage was entirely undodgeable at the time. My point is, the skill had a unique mechanic that ramped up the caster's critical chance. This was, and still is, unlike any other anything in the game. However, since patch 1.6:Biting Jabs was converted to a Stamina ability and given Major Savagery, a generic 10% Weapon Critical buff. This was a poor change, as this buff is easily obtained from crafted potions, which are practically required for high-end content. Worse still, Biting Jabs is not even a reliable source of Major Savagery, making this part of the ability wholly irrelevant in PVE.Since patch 2.3, the ability was changed to have a comically short snare:Perhaps comparing Jabs to some other abilities will provide some perspective. Compared to Surprise Attack, Biting Jabs costs more, deals less single-target damage, and the Major Fracture debuff is arguably far more useful than Major Savagery, particularly in PVP and solo PVE. The first two points are easily explained by, "Jabs is an AOE, and AOE abilities shouldn't deal more single-target damage than non-AOE abilities." Fair, but why is Jabs an AOE, again? It's not even a good one, at that. Compared to Steel Tornado, Biting Jabs only affects a cone in front of the caster, which is extremely unreliable against fast-moving targets and completely neuters the ability when the caster is rooted or heavily snared. Furthermore, Steel Tornado has a bigger radius and a built-in execute all for roughly the same cost. And no, Burning Light does not make up for the difference in damage in either of these comparisons because of its internal cooldown and low damage.And don't forget, unlike Surprise Attack and Steel Tornado, which are instant cast abilities, Biting Jabs has a cast time. Consequently, Jabs cannot be cast while blocking and cannot be canceled with bash. Additionally, roll dodge canceling and swap canceling will cut the ability short.This isn't the post to outline this in length, but instant cast abilities are much more pertinent the way the game plays today. In PVP, even if Biting Jabs had more overall damage than Surprise Attack, the Nightblade's fast, instant burst damage would still win out over the Templar's slow, staggered hits because Surprise Attack is just that. Instant pressure that doesn't lock the caster into a channel. And don't forget, Major Resolve, Major Ward,Major Fracture just for casting Surprise Attack, a skill that also increases max Health while slotted and has a built-in hard CC synergy with cloak. koolPlease consider any the following:Make no mistake, a Stamina Templar can complete any content in this game. This notwithstanding, Stamina Templar has the lowest single-target and AOE PVE DPS out of any spec, Magicka or Stamina, rendering them an undesirable melee DPS in trials. This is the sum of the points previously outlined in this post, and Maelstrom scores are living proof of this. A low DPS main spammable, no in-class execute, and unremarkable damage from supporting abilities cause that 10,000+ difference between the top Stamina Templar scores and the other classes. Improve the damage of Biting Jabs or introduce additional Stamina morphs to help the class along. Skills like Crescent Sweep and Solar Barrage are rarely used, making them prime candidates for such a change.Thanks for reading, and post your (constructive) thoughts below.