Now before flaming starts, this is my point of view and my perception of my class. You may or may not agree but I doubt I’m the only one with this perception. I post it here in the hope that someone from SoE will read it and act on it. However, comments are welcome; even if you want to flame me. I have a 51 templar and after LU13, I feel this class as lost a lot of usefulness. I did not have a chance to prove my point before yesterday. Here is what happened; I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. However, I think I’ll play my alt for a while; I’m too frustrated to play the templar again. Monday, 1 week ago: I have a group of friends that decided to play alts on Monday nights together. We have a nice mix: I have a Bezerker(21). My friends have Templar (24), Ranger (22), Swash (23) , Wizard (26), Ranger (23). Last week, after a couple of weeks of solo grinding to level them, we decide to do armor quests. Most of the mobs were yellow to me. We had 3 group wipes. The reason : when the going got tough, the templar couldn’t keep me alive. The guy with the templar has a level 53 main and also had a level 65 cleric in EQ1. He got pretty frustrated with his char that night. Last weekend, the guy with the Templar decides to scrap the templar and start a fury. With some help (and a few collections), he levels his fury to level 21 by Monday night. So he’s ready to play his Monday night’s alt. We have a no show (a ranger), so we’re only 5. Same mobs at the same levels. Never died once. Not only that, wasn’t even close to die, even when we got multiple adds. He was seldom below 40% mana. Draw the conclusions you want. For me, it only confirmed what I thought. Time to play something else.
Thanks for putting up your opinion and sharing your experience. I personally just hit 47 Templar and I think I've adjusted pretty well. I was in Cazic Thule Saturday night with a 48 monk, 49 Necro, and 41 Bard and had almost no issues moving around in there. One group wipe due to 3 groups of lvl 48 mobs but other than that I had no issues. Am I saying you are wrong and Templars are better than you are making them out to be? Yes. Is that just my opinion? Yes. Are you wrong for your opinion being the way it is? Absolutely not. If you aren't able to play the class and have fun then yeah I guess it might be time for you to switch it up.
I can't disagree with the original poster, because a templar in the 20's is a diffrent game then I've played with my templar since the revamp. I've mentored down to 24 though and grouped with my brother who plays a guardian. We only did solo content and were fine....but maybe the level 20's needs more review. I thought the early 20's would be better off considering there reactive is on a 7 level progression then instead of 14. Although not having a lot of the other key templar spells such as the fate line, and GoC I can see would cause me some issues heh. But I'm willing to wager there isn't enough input in regards to the early 20's, so they may be way out of wack.
Just a couple of questions.. I'm not here to flame.. What class is his level 53 main? is it a Templar? and also.. Having a Level 65 Cleric in EQ1 has nothing to do with how you play a Templar, or any priest for that matter in EQ2. (Just need to state that again for the record, because too many people believe that EQ1 has anything in common with EQ2 other than lore, and some UI features) They are totally different playstyles.. Maybe I'm just suggesting that the Fury fit his style of play better than the Templar did.. Faster casting smaller heals may be what he is able to manage as opposed to slower casting Heals / Reactives and having to plan when to land what and not "over heal". Also, I don't remember when the actual "Hell Levels" are for Templars.. but every class has a couple levels before they receive their new heals about every 15 or so levels that make them much weaker healers compared to the mobs they're fighting. Just trying to get perspective here, not trying to flame. Also, need to know spell quality.. I don't think you listed that in your OP. All Adepts, All App's? it makes a huge difference, especially at the lower levels now.
Exactly. It's entirely possible that if your friend was used to playing a Templar prior to the changes and did not fully adjust post-revamp, then simply starting a new class and playing from level 1 on was enough to help him "acclimate" to a new role. Mileage is certainly going to vary from player to player. Perhaps some playstyles are simply better fitted to a druid than a cleric. Perhaps others should choose shaman. Others still may want to steer away from healing at all.
Totally right. His main is not a templar and EQ1 healers have nothing to do with EQ2. Only pointed it out because I wanted to specify he wasn't a newbie in RPGs. Perhaps that's the problem of my templar. Maybe level 50 - 51 - 52 are Hell levels for templar. I heard from a few friends that once we hit 54 and 58, it's not as bad. I just feel very frustrated because I feel I lost capacity in combat change. The reactives were halved making me more dependent of splash heals that at the same time are on long timers. I thought it was just me but when I saw with my alt that a level 21 fury could do better than a level 24 templar, that's was the last drop. Some time off might help get better perspective. Thanks for the constructive comments. *afrustratedtemplar*
I can say 54 makes the game a lot easier. The new reactive is taken as the Master 2 spell because all other choices are pretty silly. And this new reactive does so much better against the damage your tanks will be taking. I've said this on some other boards, they need to have another reactive issued at level 47, because Greater Intersession is way too weak in the 50-53 game.
It doesn't matter what someones playstyle is if they have managed to get a templar to level 53. Clearly, before the upgrade his playstyle was suited to a templar and if the bloody upgrade has made it so that people dont want to play any more then it has to be acknowledged that in some way it has failed. I loved this game but since DoF came out the gaps between me logging in have widened to the point I havent played in a week. I've now just resigned from my guild and cant see myself logging in for a long time. In the past Ive been as big a fanboi as the next man but there is seriously a problem with what has been done to the game. My guild has lost 15 active players since the upgrade, 3 of them templars. Now I know this isnt the kind of empirical data you are looking for Kendricke but having read most of your recent posts, frankly I dont think any data is going to convince you. However, you may like what has been done in the combat upgrade but there are a lot people who don't and they are quitting this game slowly but surely. It's time for the likes of you and Radar-X to stop defending what has been done (in a really patronising manner I would add, as if you are the only people who can play the class "properly") and at least acknowledge that there are problems and if something isn't done to address them soon then this game is going to wither away. Bigmak raised a lot of good points in his thread, as have others. Now I accept that the way he posts is going to attract flames, but the content is generally sound. Templars are now a very boring class to play, on the whole and people are leaving the game faster than they would have done otherwise. The heady days of EQ1 where it didn't matter what SOE did as there was no competition is gone. Vanguard, DDO, Guild Wars, hell WoW are going to eat into that subscription base until there are just the fanboi's left. And Asherons Call 2 amongst others have shown that that is just not a viable model for the long term.
I think there are two seperate issues people are confusing. One is the class balanced and playable. The other is how enjoyable the class is to play. One is universal the other is personal preference. The first we can disagree with but the second is different for every person. Pretty hard to convince somebody they are having fun when they aren't. I think Templars are relatively balanced and definately playable. I got into some tough situations last night and survived with only a few deaths and one one wipe. This was against stuff I considered tough before the combat changes. I really felt for the first time since the changes that I was playing above average and beyond the normal class of play. I am currently 53 and I keep hearing how it is easier to heal at 54. I know at 51 and 52 I was having lots of trouble. Still I have to say I am not playing as much as before. I think some of it has to do with the expansion and some with the changes in the class. So I am not having as much fun, but I can play the charactor. Something about the game isn't the same, I wish I could put my finger on it but I can't.
I think this is a good take on the situation. Unlike some here, I have no complaints about my templar's (40) soloing ability. Seems to me he solos very well. Is it slower than some classes. Yup. Does that seem appropriate to me. Also yup. Is my templar pretty well balanced overall. Yup ...... and /yawn I prefer my largely non-soloing EQ cleric in every other respect, and he lasted me from 1999 until I "retired" in 2004. I felt like a cleric there. Healing was challenging and great fun. There is something wrong in EQ2. Some of it is simply related to game mechanics, zones, and such, and I won't address it here in the templar forum. But some of it directly relates to class design. I don't know what I am in EQ2, but it sure doesn't feel like a cleric. It feels like some peculiar hybrid of many classes. The entire templar healing scheme in EQ2 is simply weird and screwy. I don't want all these oddball heals. Combining all these peculiar spells to get a healing scheme working is not amusing. You feel like a smoke and mirrors artist. Oh, let me see ... let me cast Spell A which has a 5% chance of Effect B happening when Event C happens. Then I will add Spell D which does Effect E when Event F happens. Give me a break. I'd trade every one of them in for Remedy in a heartbeat. I also don't want mez spells, miscellaneous debuffs, and odyssey. Those are not cleric abilities - never were, never will be. Give them to who they should belong to and give me back my heals, fear, root, and undead abilities. Stop trying so hard to be NOT EQ and do things that make sense. And stop trying to make everyone equal. All this striving for equality is going to kill this game. In what world is anyone equal. This is supposed to be a world. Let it be like one - not some totally artificial game environment created by the EEOC. Despite it's problems at least EQ felt like a world. And if you want to be a cleric then be one and be given the powers that a cleric should have. If you want to be a druid or shammy, ditto. Clerics, druids, and shammies SHOULD be different, and the whiners who pick one and then whine to be another should simply be told to pick the class they prefer and shut up about it.
I guess it's SoE's definition of what a Templar is that many of us don't enjoy (while others enjoy the changes after the CU). For some reason, I am not having fun playing my Templar anymore. My overall feeling is that healing now seems more like a race of button smashing than trying to determine what heals work best with which mobs. Unless fighting ^^^, I find it useless to cast debuffs ... I have defeated solo encounters within the same timeframes with and without my debuffing. I did not notice any change in my fight times with Adept I spells. The only conclusion I have put together is Adept III and Master I spells are the wave of the future ... with each costing 2+pp a pop. Now, I do have some money to purchase spells. I only question why have AppI-IV at all? To me, Adept I now feels like an AppI spell from the past. Plate wearing class without parry and crappy mitigation ... Yes, we can concentrate on Mitigation or Stats but not both. I have not found many decent pieces that will add to our wisdom, intelligence, and mitigation ... which is what a Templar (in my opinion) should concentrate on. I find it useless that we are able to wear plate. Why not just give us light armor instead of pretending we are offensive healers by allowing us to equip plate? I feel I am more of a pure caster these days with my constant spamming of heals and waiting for timers to refresh. I am no longer comfortable taking hits because when I take hits in this day and age, either I or my tank usually ends up dead. Dunno, I just feel something is missing or perhaps I just haven't found the right combination to make a Templar an enjoyable healing class. I was hoping players would not need to endlessly harvest rares for months just to equip their Templars so they can be average (average today now equals AdeptIII spells). Always improve those weaker than you ... nerfing only makes things worse across the board. Sorry but this line came to mind.
You have my backing 100% Kend! I am in full agreement with you here. Too many Templars are having a hard time adjusting to the combat changes, cry that their class sucks and start something else from scratch and gloat how much better it is... When it comes to plate tanks, Templars remain the best suited class to handle them.
i started my templar just befor combat change so i dont have the same bases of old to new that many of you do. However I enjoy playing templar very much, being only level 30 though. At this stage in my templars life I have little problems keeping others alive, and in fact I end most fights with more power to spare then any healer i have played yet (Mystic and Fury). I think it comes down to the fact that the reactive heals are more in line with my game style and the tank i play with compliments that. One thing i do agree with though on what i have read about many classes after combat change is that if its not fun to play then dont play it. I for one am here to have fun, and if a class is more of a strugle with little or no reward for me i will move on and wish those that enjoy it well. I do see however the frustration of getting a class to a high level then having it change on you, leaving you in that situation.
I understand what you are saying but would you not agree its at least a bit more challening? Determining types of heals in situations used to involve single reactive + group reactive = Tank is healed. As for Adept 3 and Master 1's being the "wave of the future" I have to disagree and would ask you to look again. Now granted I don't know what server you play on or your level range (on my server its near impossible to find spell upgrades for high levle 40's sometimes) but I do know they jacked up the rare drop rate. Adept 3's should be dropping in price and its been noticeable even on my server so just be a little patient with it. VikodiN you are also one of the "old school" Templars coming from deep rooted time in this game and have been here since launch. I respect that you aren't having fun and honestly thats enough reason to try something else but I encourage you to try some different techniques and maybe avoid soloing whenever possible to increase your fun ratio.
I was level 25 before the combat changes and took a break from the game for a couple of months and recently returned. I've leveled up to 34 now and have adjusted to some of the changes made. Mind you, at my level there wasn't much to adjust to other than rearranging my hotbars Anyhoo, I was in a group of mid-30's killing feral blightrats in Rivervale last weekend. At the time I was only level 32. I kept them alive. There were times where people died, but it was because they grabbed aggro from overnuking and only god himself could have healed that player quickly enough. Though I kept them alive, I STILL had to burn an entire bar of mana each pull. I tried different tricks to help ease the mana drainage though and that helped... primarily buffing the entire group with a reactive heal while the tank ran back with the pull.
I think part of the problem is that you Have to use all of your power in some situations.. Before the revamp it was easy for most priest classes to solo heal a group against very hard targets, and only use a quarter of their power bar.. That to me states that something is wrong.. if you are fighting challenging targets, there's no reason why you should not be using your entire power bar to end the fight.... there's nothing more frustrating than having a group with 2 healers in it, and one is constantly OOP, and the other barely puts a dent in their bar.. That's how it was before the revamp.. Clerics, and Wardens could hit the hardest targets possible, and barely put a scratch in their power bar, where as Shamen, and Furies would burn through their entire bar for 50% of the fight, and then watch their groupmates die.. It's not as easy as it was before, but I personally think it's more enjoyable to have to fight to keep a group alive, as opposed to being in "happy safe land" all the time wth 98% power and never having to think about power management unless in a long raid situation. It does make for more skilled players in the long run as you have to think about what you're doing every time you go to cast a spell.
There were situations where I had all my heals on timers and had to cancel focused benefaction because the named was hitting stronger than the heal given by focused benefaction. All my heals are adept 3 or master 2 (single reactive). I strongly beleive from what I saw here the problem is on the scaling of spells. The single reactive I use at level 51 is the same than the one at 44. When trying to heal a tank 55 that's getting hit by a named 57, the 44 spell is just not cutting it. The spells need to either scale more as you go up or give an upgrade of the reactive heals every 5 levels instead of 10.
