After the extreme nerf to Templars that left PTS players virtually unanimous that Templars can no longer heal endgame content, the issue was bound to come up in the Developer "Ask Me Anything" session on March 20. During that session, developers noted the change, essentially stated that it was working as intended but that they were aware of the "feedback" and were watching it closely. So, there *may* be changes incoming to Templar to improve their ability to heal endgame content.

With early access starting next week, that leaves a lot of players re-thinking their healing class. I've always wanted to play a Templar healer but had second thoughts after all the outcry over their ineffectiveness at ... healing. But the dev comments yesterday are encouraging. Enough so, that I've decided to play Templar after all.

What about you?

Dracomage heals baby! Put points for buffs like Molten Arms and Obsidian Shield in Earth, grab the Magma Shell ultimate and a couple passives then put the rest in Light Armor/Restoration. Use Equilibrium in Mage Guild line to offset mana curve problems, and Blood Altar from Undaunted. So I have one bar that looks like:

Petrify (I just love it as a long CC), Obsidian Shield, Molten Arms, Blood Altar, Magma Shell w/ Resto Staff
Then have all my Resto spells on the 2nd bar to swap in. Grab a couple more Earth Spells just in case I feel like being more straight CC/Support (I have to grab Stonefist anyway).

If it doesn't work out oh well, but I want to play a class I like, not play a cookie cutter mold to make the game as minimally challenging as possible.

Still sticking with my original choice of Nightblade. I remain fairly confident that I can get the job done, and I prefer to play NB over Sorc for solo content.

I think they do have a few tricks which will be useful.

Agreed 100%

Still sticking to the Templar.

With the right build, healing is possible. People who just refuse to change up their tactics, like which is what is going to happen to EVERY class later on, will always cry out "Nerf", or "Over powered!". Seriously, I think people just need to sit down, and actually "look" at their skills, have a somewhat decent brain, and use it. They also nerfed the Templars first skill that was the strongest, and spammed the most. While I didn't like that at first, I soon afterwards changed how I used my skills, and soon became stronger than majority of the classes yet again.

It all comes down to how you play, and build your character.

I will most probably be sticking with Templar as my main healer. Hopefully the problems have been exaggerated or will be fixed.

I think Templar will be ironed out. As it is, I've seen many videos of Templars healing ranked dungeons with no issues. What I got from the devs answer was that they are making changes, but don't want to talk about them yet until they are sure they are going to work. Here's the question and answer:

Alright, so I know this is a tricky one, because the old restoring spirit passive was extremely flexible and powerful. I am very sensitive to the fact that the changes we make can sometimes have an effect on the builds that you spent a long time developing. I promise you we each take balance changes very seriously.

The reason for the change to the restoring spirit had more to do with how it scaled as players progressed through Veteran ranks (especially beyond rank 10) than with how it was performing in the level 1 – 50 experience. We considered a few options for altering that value, but ultimately, we decided on a % reduction to all costs gives the class a lot of flexibility and scales very well in the long term.

I guess that doesn’t answer your specific question: can I speak to the plans for Templar’s Magicka recovery after that change? Short answer is, it’s something I am actively looking at, but i don’t want to speak to specific changes just yet until we are fully confident in the design and implementation. I hate not be able to give you details just yet, but I wanted to at least let all the Templar’s know that I am aware of the feedback and looking into it.

Masterclass All the Way! Sorc ftw

The faith is strong in this one.

I have not decided yet. Templar or Sorcerer, maybe, but I am not sure.

They explained that the Templar change had to be made because it did not scale properly at higher levels. Supposedly the new way scales much better. I'm sure that any perceived weaknesses will be ironed out.

I'm sure they're going to let multiple types of healers be viable. I vote Nightblade, since half of their heals are combined with damage output. Why not do damage and heal at the same time?

Templar FTW!

Sorcerer, because that's the class I'm going to play for everything. Sure, I'll have alts, but I plan to run builds of all types with my sorc main, including healer.

Just the fact that Tamriel Foundry refers to Sorc as the "MasterClass" suggests that this class is headed for, um, "revisiting".

Dragonknight simply because I do not plan on having any alt.

My healer will be a tenplar but I will also use resto staff.

Same, dedi-healer ftw
Are you using any of the resto-staff skills? I wont be XD
Strictly using the staff for passive bonuses like a boss

Probably. Probably gonna unlock all available healing abilities. Dunno which i will actually use yet though.

I asked about this; Restoring Light passives don't help Restoration Staff heals and Restoration Staff passives don't help Restoring Light heals.

Well who'd you ask, because the "increase healing on alies below 30% health" passive certainly seemed to give them full HP when I used Rushed Ceremony - whereas normally it would do a lot...but not full.

Seriously? So if you have a Resto staff equipped and have the Resto Master passives, than a heal done using a Restoring Light ability does NOT benefit?

That's what Mircutio said in another thread. I specifically asked about using Restoration Staff just for the passives, and he said it doesn't benefit.

This. Templars can heal endgame content, bad ones cant.

I swear most of the people complaining haven't even tried to retune their spec. They put all of their eggs in one basket, and were literally the only class that really could do that and succeed to the level they could. The nerf was extreme, but it needed to be. With the level of versatility that exists in this game, you'd think people would learn to mix it up, but they're still stuck on their old spec that no longer works and refuse to adapt.

Yes, Resto staff passives don't affect Restoring Light abilities, and vice versa.

But if you have all of the Restoration and Restoring Light abilities and passives, you get to pick and choose between two sets of fully effective abilities.

Found it.