Templars channel the power of the Aedra, summoning divine power to impale foes on burning spears or mend the wounds of allies. Templars are great choices for damage dealing or healing, coming with built in support abilities and a wide range of physical and magical attacks.

Skill Lines: Templar possesses three skill lines to invest in, that can be supplemented with equipment, guild and world skills:

• Aedric Spear: High area-effect damage coupled with crowd-control, and if nothing else you’ll want Puncturing Strikes unlocked – strike and snare everyone in a cone, dealing a big chunk of damage, gaining minor protection from a passive and either a big critical chance boost or a life-steal effect depending on the morph you went with.
• Dawn’s Wrath: Powerful debuff effects can be found in this tree, along with the unique Backlash ability that stores damage you inflict before releasing it in a burst – great for any tough target. The Nova ultimate in this tree also provides good group support and damage.
• Restoring Light: Powerful healing and cleansing abilities are available here, allowing you to keep yourself or your allies in the think of the fight. Do note that several of these powers create an area on the ground you need to stay in if you want to benefit.

Magicka: A Templar focusing on magicka is probably the easiest class in the game to solo with, as they come with pretty much every buff you could want except major sorcery – something you can easily get using the Degeneration morph of Entropy, available early on from the Mages Guild skill line. With amazing self healing and area-effect damage, this is an excellent jump off point for a beginner, allowing you to start weaving in other abilities as you get comfortable with combat.

Magicka focused Templars also have access to a good number of healing abilities if you want to support your group, along with the Spear Shards ability to provide allies with additional resources – they even have Cleansing Ritual to remove negative effects. As such, they can make a great healer right out of the box!

For a simple magicka build to get you started, this could provide a decent mix of damage and survivability:

• Sun Fire: Ranged damage over time that applies a snare and grants you major prophecy.
• Puncturing Strikes (morphed to Puncturing Sweep) Deals high damage in a cone, applies a snare and heals you for 40% of the damage you deal.
• Entropy: (Mages Guild, morphed to Degeneration) Damage over time that grants you major sorcery.
• Wall of Elements: (Destruction) Persistent area-effect damage that can trigger your weapon enchantment!
• Sun Shield: Generate a shield based on your maximum health, and deal a small amount of area-effect damage.
• Radiant Destruction: Execute ability that deals extra damage to wounded foes
• Rune Focus: Generates a rune that restores health and resources while giving you major resolve.
• Cleansing Ritual: Generates an area that can remove harmful effects and either heal or harm.
• Restoring Aura: (Both bars) Passively improves recovery rates, and helps you restore resources.
• Nova: (Ultimate) Creates a high damage persistent area effect that also inflicts major maim.

Combine with light armour and the destruction staff of your choice. Lighting staffs make a good pick as they will make your Wall of Elements concuss enemies and knock them off-balance. If you use potions to get major prophecy and sorcery you should swap Sun Fire and Entropy for other abilities.

Stamina: A touch trickier, stamina Templars still have great access to buffs and a wide variety of skills. Try making use of high damage abilities coupled with Power of the Light to wind up a large damage spike, and remember that you can add major brutality to your toolkit using either Hidden Blades in dual-wield or Momentum in two-handed. You don’t have the passive healing potential of the magicka Templar, but this is still a hard hitting (if rather “one-button”) option. A starter build bow, two-handed and medium armour build could consist of:

• Snipe: (Bow) High damage ranged attack, can be morphed to apply minor breach or minor defile & poison.
• Puncturing Strikes (Morphed to Biting Jabs) Deals high damage in a cone, applies a snare and grants you major savagery.
• Backlash: (Morphed to Power of the Light) Inflicts minor breach and tallies inflicted damage, dealing 20% of it as a magical burst after 6 seconds.
• Focused Charge: Gap closer that can stun targets.
• Sun Shield: Generate a shield based on your maximum health, and deal a small amount of area-effect damage.
• Momentum: (Two Handed, morphed to Rally) Grants major brutality and a heal.
• Rune Focus: Generates a rune that restores health and resources while giving you major resolve.
• Cleansing Ritual: Generates an area that can remove harmful effects and either heal or harm.
• Restoring Aura: (Both bars) Passively improves recovery rates, and helps you restore resources.
• Nova: (Ultimate) Creates a high damage persistent area effect that also inflicts major maim.

Opinion: The templar is a solid class – it doesn’t really seem to have much in the way of weaknesses with the possible exception of mobility, and you do have access to a charge. One thing that you do need to get a handle on is positioning – since so many of your skills are an area effect, figuring out how to hit as many targets as possible will be a priority. In short, this is a very flexible class that can also be very forgiving – but if you get annoyed by the whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of Puncturing Strikes, this class isn’t for you!