The Elder Scrolls Online: 5 Best Templar Builds
The Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) offers a massive world for players to explore, from the icy reaches of Skyrim to the desert dunes of Elsweyr. With a variety of playable classes, one of the most versatile and reliable classes in the game is the Templar. Known for their combination of powerful healing abilities, support capabilities, and devastating damage potential, Templars are an excellent choice for both new and veteran players alike.
The Templar class is divided into three main skill lines: Aedric Spear, Dawn's Wrath, and Restoring Light, each of which can shape your playstyle in a different way. Whether you're seeking to deal high damage, heal your allies, or tank and protect your team, the Templar can adapt. In this article, we'll break down five of the best Templar builds in The Elder Scrolls Online for various playstyles, from solo adventuring to group content like dungeons and trials.
1. The Healer Build (Restoring Light Focus)
Overview:
The Templar healer is one of the most sought-after roles in ESO, especially in group content such as dungeons, trials, and PvP. Templars have access to powerful healing abilities, which make them invaluable to any team. The Restoring Light skill line allows you to heal your allies, cleanse debuffs, and provide buffs to enhance your group's overall performance.
Key Skills:
Breath of Life: A powerful burst heal that can heal multiple allies at once. It's your main healing tool, especially in high-pressure situations.
Rushed Ceremony: An AoE healing skill that heals everyone within range, providing sustained support to your group.
Healing Ritual: A channeling heal that provides strong, consistent healing over a period of time.
Radiant Aura: A great buff that reduces the cost of your allies' abilities, helping with sustainability during long fights.
Restoring Light (Ultimate): This ultimate creates a large healing field that heals you and your allies over time, providing substantial support during large-scale engagements.
Gear and Setup:
Set Bonuses: Equip healing sets like Vestment of the Warlock or Sanctuary, which boost your healing power and grant extra sustain.
Weapons: A Restoration Staff is typically the best weapon for a healer, as it increases your healing output and grants you the ability to use the Combat Prayer ability.
Attributes: Focus on Magicka for your main resource pool, ensuring you have enough Magicka to sustain your healing abilities. Place some points into Health to increase your survivability.
Playstyle:
The Templar Healer is all about keeping your allies alive. Prioritize your healing abilities, always ensuring your team is topped off, especially during high-damage phases of boss fights. Use Breath of Life for quick heals, Healing Ritual for sustained healing, and Rushed Ceremony when your group needs to quickly recover. Keep your Radiant Aura active to reduce the cost of your abilities, and save your Restoring Light ultimate for the most intense phases of a battle.
2. The Tank Build (Aedric Spear Focus)
Overview:
Templars can also serve as powerful tanks, thanks to their ability to reduce incoming damage and support their team through effective crowd control. While the Dragonknight often gets the spotlight as a tank, Templars can be just as effective when it comes to holding aggro and absorbing damage. The Aedric Spear skill line offers several tools for tanking, including the ability to stun enemies and reduce their damage output.
Key Skills:
Puncturing Strikes: A basic stamina-based ability that can be used for dealing damage while also applying a debuff to enemies, reducing their resistance to attacks.
Blazing Shield: A powerful ability that creates a shield around you, absorbing a significant amount of damage. It's a crucial skill for surviving tough encounters.
Radiant Glory: This ultimate ability allows you to deal significant damage while healing yourself, making it great for dealing with large groups of enemies while staying alive.
Solar Disturbance: A ranged AoE that deals damage to enemies and applies a debuff that reduces their healing received.
Restoring Light (Ultimate): The ultimate ability provides a healing area, allowing you to stay alive longer while also supporting your group.
Gear and Setup:
Set Bonuses: For tanking, Ebon Armory and Torug's Pact are both solid choices, enhancing your tanking capabilities and the overall survivability of your group.
Weapons: A Sword and Shield combo or a Two-Handed Weapon for better damage and survivability. Sword and Shield will provide you with block and shield abilities for enhanced defense.
Attributes: Focus on Health to increase your survivability. You can also place some points in Stamina to ensure you have the stamina needed for blocking and dodging attacks.
Playstyle:
As a Templar Tank, your primary job is to absorb as much damage as possible while keeping enemies focused on you. Keep Blazing Shield up for damage mitigation and use Puncturing Strikes to keep your enemies debuffed. Utilize Radiant Glory to deal AoE damage while healing yourself, and save Restoring Light for moments when your group needs extra healing and support. Always ensure you're positioning yourself to protect your allies and interrupt key enemy abilities when necessary.
3. The DPS Build (Dawn's Wrath Focus)
Overview:
Templars aren't just great for healing and tanking — they can also deal significant damage, especially with the Dawn's Wrath skill line. This build is perfect for those who want to play a damage-dealing role in both PvE and PvP. The Templar's ability to channel powerful solar and light-based abilities makes them formidable in terms of burst damage and sustain.
Key Skills:
Radiant Destruction: A powerful single-target skill that deals massive damage, especially against enemies that are below 50% health.
Solar Barrage: A ranged AoE skill that deals heavy damage to enemies within its radius.
Reflective Light: An ability that deals damage to enemies and applies a debuff that reduces their resistance to incoming damage.
Solar Flare: A powerful AoE ability that applies damage over time (DoT) effects to enemies, making it great for group encounters.
Empowered Solar Prison: A great ultimate ability for crowd control and AoE damage, perfect for large-scale fights against multiple enemies.
Gear and Setup:
Set Bonuses: Julianos and Mother's Sorrow are excellent choices for a Templar DPS build, increasing your spell power and maximizing your damage output.
Weapons: A Destruction Staff (preferably Fire or Lightning) will give you access to powerful AoE abilities and additional damage boosts.
Attributes: Max out Magicka to ensure you have enough resources for your abilities. You can also invest in Critical Chance and Spell Damage to increase your damage output.
Playstyle:
As a Templar DPS, your goal is to dish out as much damage as possible while ensuring that your debuffs are up on enemies. Prioritize Radiant Destruction as your main damage ability, especially when enemies are below 50% health. Use Solar Flare to keep up a damage-over-time effect and Solar Barrage for AoE situations. Position yourself carefully during boss fights and use Empowered Solar Prison for crowd control and high AoE damage.
4. The Stamina DPS Build (Aedric Spear Focus)
Overview:
While many players associate Templars with magic-based builds, the Templar can also excel as a stamina-based damage dealer, especially with the Aedric Spear skill line. This build allows you to deal significant single-target and AoE damage using physical-based abilities, making it a great option for both solo and group play.
Key Skills:
Javelin: A ranged, single-target skill that deals heavy damage and applies a debuff, reducing the target's resistance.
Spear Shards: An AoE ability that deals damage to multiple enemies in a radius, great for clearing trash mobs in dungeons and group content.
Biting Jabs: A multi-hit ability that deals sustained damage while increasing your stamina regeneration.
Radiant Destruction: As mentioned in the DPS build, this ability is also excellent for stamina-based builds and helps with high burst damage.
Solar Flare: Useful for applying a DoT effect to enemies, helping with sustained damage.
Gear and Setup:
Set Bonuses: Hundings Rage and The Reckless are solid sets for stamina DPS, increasing your damage output and boosting your weapon abilities.
Weapons: A Dual Wield or Two-Handed Weapon will provide excellent damage output and increased sustain. Two-Handed is ideal for burst AoE damage.
Attributes: Focus on Stamina to enhance your abilities, with some points in Health for survivability.
Playstyle:
As a stamina DPS Templar, your playstyle revolves around dealing quick, sustained damage while maintaining stamina. Biting Jabs will be your go-to for sustained DPS, while Spear Shards helps with AoE damage. Use Javelin for single-target damage and Solar Flare for DoT effects. Keep your stamina pool in check, making sure you have enough resources to execute your abilities consistently.
5. The Hybrid Build (Dawn's Wrath + Restoring Light)
Overview:
The Hybrid Templar build combines both damage-dealing and healing abilities, making it a flexible choice for solo content or smaller group engagements. This build allows you to deal decent damage while also being able to heal yourself and your allies, offering a balance between offense and support.
Key Skills:
Radiant Destruction: For high burst damage.
Breath of Life: A self-heal that can also heal your allies in emergency situations.
Rushed Ceremony: A quick AoE healing ability, perfect for keeping yourself topped off during encounters.
Reflective Light: Provides both damage and a debuff for increased damage taken.
Restoring Light (Ultimate): Provides a healing area that can benefit both you and your allies.
Gear and Setup:
Set Bonuses: Julianos for spell damage and Sanctuary for healing, providing a good balance of both offense and support.
Weapons: A Destruction Staff or Restoration Staff, depending on whether you prefer more damage or healing. A Sword and Shield can be an option if you want some tanking potential as well.
Attributes: Focus on Magicka with some points in Health to ensure you can sustain both damage and healing.
Playstyle:
As a Hybrid Templar, your job is to balance both healing and dealing damage. Use Radiant Destruction for damage and Breath of Life or Rushed Ceremony for self-heals. You can adjust your role in different encounters, switching between healing and damage-dealing depending on the situation. This makes it a versatile choice for solo players or smaller groups.
Conclusion:
Templars in The Elder Scrolls Online are one of the most versatile and adaptable classes, able to fill multiple roles depending on your build and playstyle. Whether you're healing your team, tanking the hardest bosses, or dealing massive damage, Templars offer a range of powerful abilities that make them excellent choices for both solo and group content. The 5 best Templar builds require a lot of ESO Gold. MMOexp can provide services and guidance online 24 hours a day. I wish you a happy game.
By experimenting with these five builds — Healer, Tank, DPS, Stamina DPS, and Hybrid — you can tailor your Templar to fit your preferred playstyle and maximize your effectiveness in any encounter.
MMOexp Elder Scrolls Online Team