Build Guide - Templar

Introduction

After surviving Loong Haven, collecting the Dragon Balls and picking up a panda on the way, you are probably wondering where the next stop of our knighthood leads us. Look no further; we are going up in the sky!

In the land of Aethryis, we’ll get more light skills, some interesting buffs and a new job: we are becoming Templars. Compared to the revolution Guardian brought to the knight builds, Templar is a bit more tame, but that doesn’t mean it can't pack quite a punch or add value to your builds!

New Important Skills

Templars get 4 legendary skills, 4 epic skills and 4 rare skills when classing up.

As we mentioned, Templar takes Light builds to the next level, even if they are still missing an affinity boost in their charm slots like Water builds have with Frigid Glint. This will only come in T6 with Skyglow, but it’s still a powerful new build that specializes in AoE damage, so it will be good for dungeons and other solo content. We get to interact more with shields and lastly, we get some useful Damage Reduction buffs for the team and some much-needed offensive charms to supplement the more offensive templars. With how few duelists will remain in S3, you might as well become the offensive sword class!

Going back to the new skills, let’s highlight some of the best ones per tier:

• Dawnburst is a powerful AoE skill that will be great for light builds. Giving us more and more DPS potential. Another powerful skill - that is more for future skill interactions! - is Healing Shift . Being able to transform healing into shields and turning shields into HP at the end of a stage is superb, plus it enables all the charms that require you to be shielded for more consistent uptime. The other legendary skills have their uses, but are not gonna be as important as the two mentioned above. 

• Sacred Rhythm is an amazing charm that fills a very important niche that our builds were missing: damage boosting. Being able to stack dmg boost from the third turn onwards will really scale up your offense, especially on longer stages where you need to deal with bosses that can spawn adds. Holy Recuperation is also a great defensive option, as you will often have setup turns with no skills used. The best part is that it doesn’t require high investment, making it great for smaller spenders or F2P players!

• Iron Slashes deals a lot, A LOT of damage. Physical builds make a comeback with a steel chair in this tier and this skill is one of the main reasons for that. It won’t be a skill that will last you forever, but if you didn’t upgrade your Star Shattering Slash or were looking for some more PvP power, it’s a great skill to invest into.

Builds

Generic Dungeon/4vs4 Build

• This is a build using our friend Pandarial that we hope you picked up!

• You can drop Block Awareness if you have enough Block Rate and add Rebound for some damage, Oath of Vigil for more damage soaking or anything that fits your current build and stats.

Water Templar

• This is a strong build for Chaos Invasion and solo content, capitalizing on the extra damage from being shielded and quick cold stacking.

• For AoE content, you can run Lunarwater Threads and remove Sacred Rhythm for Blade of Lament (more sustain) or Pursuit of Victory. For chaos, you can replace Lunarwater Threads with Frostbite Blossom .

PvP Templar

• The build is very flexible and will depend mostly on your investment on gear and current skills. If your crit rate is high enough you can switch Valor Surge for Boiling Bloodlust.

• If your Block Rate is fine (always check Block Rate vs enemy Accuracy), you can drop Block Awareness for Sacred Rhythm or Physical Mastery (if running Iron Slashes and Star Shattering Slash) if you want more damage or rebound.

• If your Iron Slashes is low, consider replacing it with Light Sword Array .

Light Templar

• Light build offers good AoE damage but lacks the sustain Water build brings.

• Will not really shine until T6, but it’s fun to test around a new playstyle, especially as you get more dupes on the newer skills.

• Highly flexible depending on stage needs - can drop Sacred Shine for example to add in Hamper Strike and remove one of the charms for Iron Will to enjoy a dmg reduction effect.

Stats

Secondary Main Stats

Below are the recommended secondary stats to look out for when gearing up as a Templar. Having the right secondary stats is important for maximizing performance, but significant “power/gear score” upgrades or pieces with better additional stats can overwrite this priority. This is especially important to reach higher power requirements and unlock new difficulties, as it will allow you to progress much faster

Sub Stats

All item slots will roll a number of additional stats on them, which are chosen randomly from a universal pool. Below is roughly the order of priority to look out for on your gear; however, just because an item has great additional stats doesn’t make it the best choice. Make sure to consider the item's overall power and whether it has the optimal secondary stats as well.

Fantomon

In S3, Templars get to add a new Fantomon to their collection, Prismora.

It’s mostly a PvP-focused pet for us, but it’s a good addition for players who are invested in 4v4 PvP and want more flexibility for nexus tournaments.

• Armopi : At this stage, if you are still using Armopi, it’s time to retire him in favor of Aegiswing. When materialized, he grants a shield to the owner.  

• Boaro : He remains Boaring, but when materialized, the little fella will knock back the enemy by 1 grid 

• Kels : Escaping from the honorable mentions, Kels is now an actual solid supporting choice. Dealing water damage is great when we can quickly stack our Cold on enemies and bring a 20% DEF down for 2 turns (with a 50% chance) while still being a source of dispel. Good boy

• Nyxarchon : Not a priority to dupe for Materialization, but an amazing choice for support and damage. More of a whale choice if you want to get extra damage while having reliable debuffs

• Aegiswing : Once materialized, he finally gets more wings! After beating the early fraud allegations, Aegiswing is back with a steelchair offering more Taunt sources, debuffs and less damage from taunted enemies. Your priority pet to push to Mythic as a Guardian, meaning you’ll have to buy a dupe.

• Pandarial : CD reduction at stage start, healing, and increased damage taken debuff when materialized. There’s a reason why so many people are looking forward to Panda- all hail the new meta overlord! 

• Prismora: Let's Templars start the battle with one stack of Purity. You also get Reduced DMG taken and a one-time revive that restores 20% of your HP and pushes your action value by 30%. This is a more defensive option compared to Pandarial and is essentially your best way to counter the speed knight meta, as you can plan around cleansing the enemy taunt and use valor on turn 0. Keep in mind that this will only cleanse ONE debuff, so it’s not gonna help against double taunt

•  Any other Legendary pet. They are gonna be slot 2-4 for the stats, so slap here anything you have lots of resources for for free stats.

Gems

Weapon

• Obsidian (Black): The best option due to the DMG Boost% combined with ATK%, but the gem is rarer than others, so it usually costs more on the market. Unless you’re a big spender, it’s better to just sell your Obsidians on the Market and reinvest the currency into your account, as you are more likely to use speed options in dungeons, so this remains a luxury option for chaos and damage-oriented builds.

• Amethyst (Purple): Provides Crit Rate% and Speed - Knights classes have an issue getting reliable crit rate and the speed is crucial to reapply buffs that are provided at the beginning of the turn.

• Ruby (Red): Gives a lot of ATK%, can be useful when running more offensive builds but you will usually prefer having Amethys as a general choice.

Off-hand

• Moonstone (White): The best option due to the DMG Rest% combined with DEF%, but the gem is rarer than others, so it usually costs more on the market. Compared to Obsidian gems, it’s best not to sell these and slowly increase them on the side.

• Sapphire (Blue): Second-best option when it comes to tanks, as having more def% is always important.

• Citrine (Yellow): Provides only Speed, but it’s useful to avoid being too slow in PvP or dungeons. That being said, Amber, Beryl and Obsidian can also be useful depending on the content, but are usually less important.  

Boots

• Amethyst (Purple): Provides Crit Rate% and Speed - Knights classes have an issue getting reliable crit rate and the speed is crucial to reapply buffs that are provided at the beginning of the turn.

• Citrine (Yellow): Provides only Speed, but as stated on other pieces, that’s great for Knights. In general, the speed part is the priority, so you can use the one with the highest tier to maximise your speed potential.

Armor

• Moonstone (White): The best option due to the DMG Rest% combined with DEF%, but the gem is rarer than others, so it usually costs more on the market. Compared to Obsidian gems, it’s best not to sell these and slowly increase them on the side.

• Sapphire (Blue): Second-best option when it comes to tanks, as having more DEF% is always important.

• Beryl (Green): Provides HP%, useful to increase your bulk but secondary to having more defense, as HP won’t influence your shields directly like DEF does.

Helm

• Sapphire (Blue): No Moonstone available in this slot makes Sapphire the best in slot here

• Citrine (Yellow): If you need more speed, Citrine remains your best bet, especially in PvP.

• Beryl (Green): Hard to find situations where this would be better, but if you have a high-tier Beryl or Amber, you could place them here to pad your Combat Power a bit for dungeons.