Templar Class Issues - What do we need? (Now updated Post-GU51)

Our fun spells aren't so bad. I still use Faith Respect to make people bow to me, summon Holy Symbols and brandish them at people (they look like a tulip), Holy Aura to glow blue, and Holy Acolyte whenever I feel like having a dumb pet. In fact, the only truly "bad" fun spell we have is detect evil since it doesn't take a spell to tell me that a Necromancer is evil

At the Fan Faire in one of the panels, they mentioned that armour rating (or class (plate, chain, etc)... can't remember) would affect interrupts (so plate would get interrupted less often).

Anybody have any other info about that, or if something's been done, etc? Hazy memory here.

Are interrupts really that big of an issue? I'm level 52 and have never had it be a problem even though my gear is pretty meager. When solo'ing a group encounter, I get interrupted a bit, but it's not that big of an issue. The biggest issue I have is that it's so terribly time consuming to do writs - so bad that I don't even do them at all anymore.

Well... compared to my warden, my templar is getting interupted alot when I'm soloing.
The 3 second spells are the worse, its like waiting forever to get those off and getting three or four interrupted in a row is very unfun. Particularly when you really need that heal spell to land before you die.

For the older folks, it became noticable after one of the LUs where we lost avoidance (Think it was LU13?). Appearently we can't pray and move at the same time. I am assuming you came in after the change so you've never noticed a difference. Before, getting interupted was something that happened like once an hour or so during play. Now it's a few times a fight. Couple that with Fizzle rates and you have a very annoying situation.

Fizzles and interrupts are killing me now.. One out of four spells are interrupted, and I'd bet one out of three are fizzled.

OOC.

Greetings fellow Templars!

We have as a community now had plenty of time to look at and play our class in the post-LU#21 Norrath, and it is time now to relaunch the class balance issues list and discussion in the light of the Norrath as it is today!

This balance thread will cover all styles of play, including solo Templars, small groups, full groups, and raids. It can contain comments on spells, melee, items or AP skills. It will also accept contributions from all levels of play. However, it is specifically targetted for Templar players, looking it things from the perspective of those Templar players.

This thread is not specifically for listing *bugs* (there is another stickied thread covering that) - this is for balance issues vs content and vs other classes.

So, if you have any feedback on our class, good or bad, here is the place to put it!

Please be constructive. Also, please to do criticise the feedback of others, or even comment on it unless they ask for such, whether you agree with it or not, simply state your own feedback on the class.

When this thread gets going (if it does!), I will coalesce the most recurring issues into a succinct list of issues that our community might have. I will use the data it gathers to renew and refresh our stickied thread for Templar balance issues (which I have just renamed to make that more clear).

Felishanna.

OOC.

I will kick this off myself.

In the "dark days" for our class, especially for solo and small group players, between LU#13 and LU#20/21, I had many things to say about how our class was lacking compared to the other healer classes. However, from a personal point of view, I would state that my observation now, that some of the worst problems have been somewhat alleviated, and that our class now is much closer to holding its own in all playstyles than it once was.

That is not to be taken as meaning I believe everything is perfect (well, nothing ever will be perfect, but you get my point). So, here is an opening list of outstanding issues I see our class having :-

1. The Interrupts Problem.

This remains an issue for us (and for some other classes too). It is especially an issue when facing an encounter with multiple opponents. This issue is already presented in the Class Balance thread.
Apparently there were reports from some who attended the SOE Summit, that there was going to be a look at implementing something that links interrupt rate to armour type, but we have had no update on this as yet.

2. Fizzles.

There is still an issue with excessive fizzles (and runs of fizzles) when casting some beneficial spells, that seems out of balance.

3. Linked Heal Timers.

I am hearing some are still saying this is a major problem for them, as listed in the Class Balance thread already, so put this here as a placeholder for anyone who might still be finding this an issue.

That will do for the moment, I may well add to this over time.

Felishanna.

I am also having excessive trouble with fizzles. I've taken to, when I NEED to cast a spell, spamming the key 8 or 10 times in rapid succession to be certain that the spell fires. Since there is no recast delay on a fizzle, this works well, but I cannot queue up a beneficial spell which MUST be cast right away with any degree of confidence. I've played Ranger to 67 and Illusionist to 62 and have not noticed this at all... even with the Illusionist. I understand that the ranger doesn't fizzle combat arts, but the illusionist doesn't have anywhere near the problems with fizzling.

The linked heal timer isn't a big issue with me; Guardians only have 2 direct taunt abilities, we only have 3 direct heal abilities. At my level I've got the reactive, Restoration, and the one from Splitpaw. There is also Involuntary Healer and Mark of Princes, but those are indirect heals. My biggest issue, and maybe it's only a matter of gear, is that my power pool is very small. You can check the link at the bottom of the page to see my gear (the picture is out of date, but the gear should be right) and stats - I haven't spent much money on this character, either, so maybe that's an issue. But I always seem to be nearly out of power after every long fight, because there's nowhere can stop and take a break from casting. I'm constantly tossing out a chain of 8 or 9 spells every fight... which is GREAT, because I'm busy, but I seem to run out of mana quickly too.

Anyway, there's my 2cp. Thanks for starting this thread.

V

I think this is the biggest issue out there. As templars, we are fortuanate enough to receive plate armor. That is great and all, where we can break 4k physical mitigation no sweat, but what good is it?
Sure we can take a beating well, but we lack avoidance; other healers in leather or chain recieve significantly more. To point out the obvious, we can drop down an armor class for more avoidance, but that would take away the advantage we are given. In my opinion, the issue isnt so much we lack avoidance, but we lack focus. Furies, for example, with their high avoidance, ALSO get a focus buff.
I think a self focus buff should be added. This would keep templars with low avoidance, but will be able to actually cast a spell longer then 2 seconds.
Edit: id like to add that this buff should not require any concentration points =)
Group PvP as a templar is HORRIBLE unless you are packin a back up healer, or multiple taunters.
Message Edited by -Priority- on 07-09-2006 05:03 PM

Well my high avoidance isn that high in my full fabled suit my avoidance is around 31% and my mitgation around 2900, also furies DO NOT get a focus buff thats wardens they get a focus+mitig buff on their wolf form furies get sta and agi which accounts for 300 hp and 3% avoidance on our lion buff (so thats not that hot).
Just posted this as clarification, so please post facts.
Message Edited by quetzaqotl on 07-10-2006 09:19 PM

The interrupts need to be clarified as a solo issue. While I respect the plight of soloers and do solo writs, etc myself, I'd hope they'd correct some of the other issues that effect the entire Templar population. It'd be nice to have it looked at though.

The fizzle rate, has anyone ran any numbers on that? Is it a huge issue? In regards to fizzling, I find it odd that my weapon AA abilities never fizzle to my knowledge, but the large AA abilities will on a rare occasion. I'd like to understand that better.

Linked heal timers, I'd hope still aren't an issue. I do have fairly upgraded heals, so maybe that is why I don't have a problem, but I'm interested in seeing more.


I also agree with 3devious. I'm annoyed that other things similar to reactives expire into a heal, but a reactive doesn't. I don't see how this breaks any balance, and would like to see it initiated.

Even though the issue has been raised a million times, I would like to stop getting short changed with my reactives. If the reactive expires without being used up, give my target something. I paid good power for that healing.

I think the biggest disadvantage we have is our cast times. It seems like every time I group with a Fury or Warden I am always beat to the punch on HOs. The group heals are especially bad; I don't know what they are casting, but it seems to be a 2 or 3 second cast on their group HoT and the MT has time to knit a scarf while I'm trying to get off Intercession. :smileymad:

I hope you understand that any reduction in the cast times of our spells will also result in a decreased heal or damage value of those spells. Only one I would argue for a lower cast time with no reduction in power would be, as Descartin mentioned, Dire Intercession - 3.5 to 4 seconds cast time please.

Anyway, my 2 problems -
Fizzles - I'm not sure what the hell is going on here but my fizzles appear to be getting worse, gone from practically never fizzling to sometimes fizzling 3 times in a row, drives me nuts.
Interrupts - I honestly don't have that much problem with this, I don't seem to be interrupted overly much myself, however I feel thats only because I've been lucky, and I know plenty of clerics who do have problems with excessive interrupts.
Message Edited by Raistlan on 07-10-2006 10:08 PM

Wards blocking hits should not use procs from reactives. Or if this is working as intended, at least make the proc heal instead of just vanishing.

My most glaring issue is in raiding situations when dealing with AE's (which even trash mobs are having and hitting harder with) my group reactive just does not compare in real terms with a Group Regen.
For example An AE goes off that hits for say 2 or 3 k my group reactive will absorb roughly 4 to 500 points of this AE per person (and have 3 charges left) while A group regen cast will heal the same 4 to 500 every 2 secs per person for upwards of 1500 HPS for all 8 ticks of their Group HOT. So with one spell, the Group HOT was able to completely heal the AE that was cast after the fact, while my Templar could not completely heal the group for well over 25 seconds. (and at the cost of a whole lot more power).
There is also the fact that our heals take entirely too long to cast. We are the most likely to be interrupted healers and we have by far the longest cast times. If they can do nothing else to fix the situation, lower our cast times to 1.5 and 2 sec cast times, and increase our recasts by the time you deducted from the cast timers. I mean for real 5 second cast times? That needs to be fixed. I bet you a group Hot doesnt take 5 seconds to cast and I KNOW for a fact it has easily the capability of healing a WHOLE lot more then a group reactive.
There is another solution if you wanted to make it more equitable..... but it will be laughed at. Have it so that the group reactive can proc an equal number of times to the Group Hots, so if a group hot heals say 7 times 6 people in the group, a group reactive can proc up to 42 times per cast. I mean that would equalize the Group hot with the group Reactive, and to make it fair make the group ward be able to ward say 80% of that amount with some leak through.

An alternative would be to give group reactives more charges or more hp healed per charge using the current number or lower the cast / recast times.

Dire Intercession's (and all the previous versions) cast time is my only gripe, 5 seconds is a long time for how ineffective the group reactive really is. Sure it sounds good in theory, protecting the group with reactive charges, but we just end up using the spell to channel 9 more charges that stack with Glorious Intercession (and all previous versions) onto a single target.

Not true, interrupts are a universal problem. The whole POINT of the templar class is that we can heal while getting beat on. That's the whole "plate wearing" thing, otherwise, we could just wear grass skirts and vests of live kittens. Yes, you may not ever get aggro in your group. But if you do, or get adds, that's where the templar is supposed to be good. Otherwise we're just druids with bad DPS.

*shrug* I disagree completely. If you get aggro, you have a hate reducer. If your tank or chanter is doing their job correctly, you shouldn't have a problem. If you do, you have a 20 second mez yourself. I also disagree with you on the "point of Templar." I see the point of plate armour increasing my survivability versus other healers. It works imo.