Templar
Templars are the ESO version of the Holy Knight trope - righteous, holy, and very, very golden. But, once you get past the part where every other skill makes you squint, they’re objectively powerful healers with a large range and a focus on damage mitigation and survivability, making them a potent and adaptable class in all scenarios. PvE-wise, they bring a unique group-wide synergy with Extended Ritual and are the only source of Minor Sorcery. Templars can also provide ST Minor Breach and since U35 have been able to provide Minor Intellect and Minor Endurance as well, giving them a much-needed utility edge and establishing them as alternatives to Wardens’ shrooms.
🟨 Aedric Spear 🟨
▫️ Luminous Shards : Templars’ bread-and-butter, color pun not intended. Technically an AoE DoT, we mainly care about the synergy, which restores 3960 Magicka and Stamina back to a single target. This makes it handy to cast at tanks who may not always be near group and may benefit from the dual resource restore and from the shorter travel time of Shards than orbs. Note that this synergy and the one from morphs shares a cooldown with the Combustion synergies from Energy Orbs, so you will likely not need Luminous Shards for too many encounters.
▫️ Blazing Spear : The other morph of Luminous Shards. This morph doesn’t return both resources and instead increases direct and DoT damage dealt. As such, it can be useful for parse-healers trying to maximize their damage output.
🟨 Dawn’s Wrath 🟨
Solar Prison [Ultimate]: An AoE DoT which applies Major Maim to all enemies in the area for the duration. It also supplies a synergy which further damages and stuns all enemies in the area for 5 seconds making this an excellent engagement tool in PvP. Since synergies scale off the stats of the synergy-taker, make sure a DD activates this for maximum synergy damage! Sadly this Ultimate is a bit lackluster for PvE as Major Maim can be sources from other abilities like Frost Clench.
▫️ Vampire’s Bane: A ST DoT. This morph lasts 32 seconds while providing you with Major Prophecy and Major Savagery, leaving a plethora of time free for other casts. Used to be a go-to choice for simple Illuminate (see below) uptime, but since U35 good uptimes require more egregious overcasting than the other morph. Useful as a Zen dot and to keep up the flame portion of EC ST.
▫️ Reflective Light: A DoT on up to three enemies and like its other morph,Vampire’s Bane, gives you Major Prophecy and Major Savagery during the duration. This version only lasts for 22 seconds, when recasting this ability a couple of GCDs before cooldown is great for guaranteeing good uptimes on the Illuminate passive (see below). Still counts as a Zen DoT and also makes keeping up the fire compartment of EC on multiple targets much easier.
▫️ Solar Barrage: An AoE DoT, centered on and following you. Useful for parse-healers trying to maximize their damage with its cooldown lining up decently with Illuminate (see below).
▫️ Purifying Light: A weird but handy skill. The first portion of the skill is personal damage reflection, which can be exceptionally for extra damage return and a counter-burst in PvP. This portion also synergizes well with the Prism passive (see below). The second part is a moderately strong HoT centered on the skill target. This is your main cast to proc Illuminate.
▫️ Power of the Light: The Stamina morph of Purifying Light which adds in ST Minor Breach in case you need to apply that. It can also be used as a Stamina dump skill when wearing MK though its low cost doesn’t make it ideal for this. In recent updates Minor Breach can easily be sources in different ways, taking away the uniqueness of its effect.
Prism [Passive]: Generates 3 Ultimate when you cast a Dawn’s Wrath ability with a cooldown of 6 seconds. The cooldown synergizes well with Purifying Light or its other morph, Power of the Light.
Illuminate [Passive]: Grants allies Minor Sorcery for 20 seconds whenever you cast a Dawn’s Wrath ability. Reflective Light, Solar Barrage, and Purifying Light/Power of the Light are useful skills to slot for this.
🟨 Restoring Light 🟨
Practiced Incantation [Ultimate]: A cheap and powerful HoT Ultimate with a 20 meter radius. While channeling you can’t be stunned or interrupted, and the Light Weaver passive (see below) also ups your tankiness. While the other morph provides Major Protection, the doubled duration of this morph from 4 seconds to 8 seconds is a nice increase in power. This Ultimate isn’t used in PvE, either morph works well in defensive coverage in PvP scenarios. It does make you the center of attention and a prime target though!
▫️ Breath of Life: A ST burst. This morph also heals a second target by a little which can be useful in PvP or very rarely for out-heal scenarios such as vSS/vSE tombs. For group out-heal mechanics, however, Combat Prayer, Blessings of Restoration or any class AoE Burst are far more suitable alternatives as they offer directional-targeted healing.
▫️ Honor the Dead: The other morph of Breath of Life with the same use case but also returns some Magicka, making it a decent option for sustain-tough scenarios like vSS/vSE Tombs and PvP.
▫️ Hasty Prayer: A circular AoE Burst with a 10 meter radius. The other morph heals a single additional target outside the radius, but in practice the radius is so huge that your group will usually be near you. And if your objective was to heal a single target further away a ST burst might be more appropriate. This morph also features slightly reduced cost and provides allies with 10 seconds of Minor Expedition which can be useful for kiting or repositioning in both PvE and PvP.
▫️ Radiant Aura: Provides Minor Intellect, Minor Endurance and Minor Fortitude to allies within 28 meters. For an entire minute!
▫️ Extended Ritual: An AoE HoT with a multi-use purge synergy. Though weaker in scaling than some other class ground HoTs, its enormous 12 meter radius and 30 second duration makes it a staple skill for heal-plars. The synergy allows multiple allies in range to purge all negative effects from themselves and provide an additional heal, making this extremely powerful in both intense PvE and PvP scenarios, especially in combination with the penetration set Roar of Alkosh.
▫️ Channeled Focus: A self-sustain tool that restores Magicka over 25 seconds, giving yourself additional healing (and even more if standing inside your rune!) and Major Resolve. While this skill isn’t used much in PvE besides special scenarios like frontkiting in vAS, this ability shines in PvP for its sustain and defense combo. Its other morph, Restoring Focus, could also be used if you struggle with Stamina sustain.
Sacred Ground [Passive]: Grants you Minor Mending while inside your Extended Ritual, Channeled Focus, or Rite of Passage. Correct placement of your Extended Ritual involves making sure it hits the group, while you’re still in range to benefit from the Mending. This can make dealing with outheal mechanics such as vSS/vSE Tombs, vCR Baneful Mark and vRG curses easier.
Light Weaver [Passive]: Gives you max resistances while channeling Practiced Incantation or the other morph and additional granting allies that you heal when they are under 50% Health 2 Ultimate. A nice bonus for high incoming damage fights but please don’t let your group mates drop that low on purpose!
Master Ritualist [Passive]: Lets you resurrect others faster. Though this can occasionally be helpful, as a general rule of thumb healers only ever do the resurrecting when there is either no DD alive or you know for sure that your HoT’s keep everyone healthy in the meantime.
TLDR:
- Healing Springs vs Illustrious Healing: With recent testing we learned that Healing Springs does not smart target on each single tick, but Illustrious Healing does. With this knowledge Illustrious Healing should always be the preferred morph. Read through <#1248427339008839784> for more information.
- If your partner has group buffs overlapping with you, talk it out to split the work, for example:
- Overflowing Altar only needs to be cast from one support. Either coordinate who casts it or keep it on your bars just in case.
- Minor Intellect/Endurance list of convenience: Arcanist > Templar > Nightblade > Sorc > Warden
Changelog:
- Echoing Vigor added to staple skills.
- Changed Illustrious Healing to preferred morph.
