Was talking to my brother who quit playing his baron AT because of how weak it is solo. He proposed a suggestion;

Have harden increase both AV/WV instead of just AV.

Remove endurance cost which can only be stopped on gmoon with very high rest. At max rest an AT still gets a significant drain still with no way to stop it which renders WC totally impossible. So you sacrifice your debuff to get more av yet still get hit? Not a smart idea.

Apparently most ATs don't even use it outside of fringe situations which is pretty sad.

Have Harden cost 100 mana and 100 endurance and last 10 minutes like spells. That way ATs will get the boost in both AV and WV they need.

People tend to think that AT is OP because of how well it benefits from spells but on own spells they suck bad. Testing a baron AT, I can barely do what every other class can solo. I need gpot to do what a seyan/warr/sorc/ah/necro does on own spells no drugs. That is not a good feeling and the reason why we have limited amounts of high rank ATs because they SUCK.

Overall ATs need a mechanic change not just 5 base WV and an increase in spell bonus with translates to less than 5mod power. Harden that has no drain and affects both WV and AV may be the start of a better experience for AT.

Please make it so, please make AT playable solo and enjoyable solo.

I think all of these would be good changes, I might try out an arch templar if they were implemented.

Also, whatever happened to putting better 1h axes in?

+1

I never really used harden. End drain too great early when you could use it, and later on its pointless.

Not sure if harden was ever modified but once long time ago when I used to have a knight AT, it was pretty good for UW penting with FOH equipped but only on those good moons and obviously a gpot or a dpot, the only time when it was possible to sustain it.

But then to be able to hold it as I stated it was only doable with FOH and an Ankh, the lost WV (from not using a 2h sword/Axe or even DW) was not too much but it was very noticeable, once in a while you could shout warcry so the grolms wouldn't regenerate and you could kill them in "less" time but that was every few mins so as not to loose the Harden from over using the remaining END.


So yes, +1 for those changes to having both AV and WV on harden and not having to have crazy endurance plus other drugs and a good moon to maintain it and make it usable.

I might even play again!

Any change to harden is a buff to necromancer, any +WV buff to make temps viable will end up making necros do more damage than seyans.
They just need a new skill with this effect I think.

Call it berserk for AT and keep harden for necros.

Templars have 3 issues. 2 are stats based while the other is mechanic based.

WV/AV is too low on own spells. At Baron AT on own spells, I can get 115/73. My Magen Necro gets more. My Seyan at col had more. People don't realize how squishy AT is until you play one solo. Col skeletons in AT can hit me for 8-12 hp per hit. Isn't that insane? something with 10X less exp can hit me for 8-12 per hit. A change to harden that makes WV/AV boost sustainable would great. End drain is a stupid idea because your main debuff requires end and a lot of it. So make it a big mana spender maybe instead which does not affect our debuff ability.

A lot of people might say but what happens if you get sorc spells + berserk? Well the same god damn thing that happens when a seyan with a base 111wv weapon gets. Higher stats. Being spelled up by a sorc/hara is not a constant or common thing when you pent or do AT which is the most of your game time anyway. It is also not game breaking because everyone can get spells from a sorc/hara. It just gives ATs a chance to play solo without having to do content 10 ranks lower than themselves to have a decent speed.


Now the mechanic issue is that ATs have no god damn mechanic that allows them to kill things faster. You can argue that SH2 does not but you would be wrong. SH2 scales poorly in higher levels and only hits 1/4 of hits on average (this is the rate test it out). Now AH have the best dps skill in the game (Blast II) and we can argue that this is because they are a pure spellcaster. What I think would make AT's issue become resolved is adding a mechanic change to how criticals work.

All you have to do is add a new type of critical (lets say; Savage critical hit). This new critical would be attacked to AXE (why axe? Because AXE is the only "unique" weapon to AT and seyans but lol). When this critical lands (random chance) the mod berserk you have will apply an equivalent Blast II effect. This way, you actually get that extra dps that can actually make it possible to pent at normal speed. Only WV will not fix the terrible speed.

It is my honest opinion that pure classes (AT/AH) should have access to the best dps due to the focus on one thing. With these two changes, easily applied to AT, I can guarantee the class will be played again. It will be fun, it will be faster and that's what people want. Not some soggy piece of shit class that can't do anything better than anyone.

People know how bad AT is. The argument that they are great in 1% of their total game time does not make it ok for them to be shit 99% of the time. Also keep in mind, the toon I am using to base my arguments on is nearly fully maxed out. There is no stat gain possible.

I've been saying this for years, and berzerk is exactly what I've been saying, its' been ignored and hopefully this time it isn't.

What about a skill like lets say "Whirlwind" that acts as blast 2 and uses 150 end like warcry? Maybe another skill that acts as meditate that can reduce the cost of endurance spells so we can actually use harden or warcry or this new skill?

People might say with pvp warcry with reduced cost is broken but who cares man, with the ability to fire 7 warcries normally I can kill anyone anyway. Plus with alchemy that has Greps and pk being so rare anyone can save them for that.

The issue this will also fix is the problem arch Temps have killing anything that can heal. Ever done emerald cave as an arch temp without help?

The proposed change for AT.

Harden skill changed to Berserk for AT.

Skill adds WV and AV.
No endurance drain.
Large mana cost, ie. 75.
Lasts 10 minutes.

Skill also enables the use of Savage criticals.
When using an axe, ATs get a chance to land this new critical hit to sh2 range.
The critical has the same effect as Blast II and is based on mod berserk.

Discussion.

Arch Templars have been the laughing stock of this game for many years and for many reasons. Primarily because ATs have never been able to solo as well as other classes in terms of kill speed, functionality and sustainability.

Kill speed, with a whopping 115/73 score of wv/av at baron. The templar I test was subpar having difficulty killing monsters fast enough in pents or in AT. The 2 main sources of experience in the game. By no means is it impossible but the experience rates are so inferior that it isn't even fun anymore. It isn't even a chore, it is just a waste of time. It is so bad that even other players are turned off by ATs in pents. I have often seen players just recall out of pents when a templar came in because the speed would become incredibly slow. ATs have the lowest wv of all melee classes on own spells and to be honest, AH can almost surpass them. What that means is that the kill extremely slow. The kill speed issue is so significant that FDM AT skeletons respawn before the room is cleared (very often).

Now to give you an example, my knight seyan gets 158/123 wv/av and that is without any spell set just normal items I have equipped. That is a 43wv difference. If I would use the best weapons a templar can in terms of WV, it would still be 27wv higher. TWENTY SEVEN with nearly 20m less exp. My AV is 50 points higher. FIFTY! The issue here is that templars are not good at anything when compared to other classes. Warriors get similar mods but have stun/curse and more wv/av. Seyans and Necros have more dps and functionality as well. My necro hits 115/73 AV at early MAGEN. 48M less than my templar and same wv/av? LOL.

Lazy was telling me that he saw no problem with her low level AT but that is exactly it, the power you gain up until warlord is so minimal compared to every other class that while Templars being acceptable at col/brig, they do not rise in power as every other class does and remains weak and slow well into warlord.

Almost every other class (except warriors) hit 100av on own spells on noble or high officer. Not AT and you could argue that they do with harden but that is a half truth. Yes harden gets you AV but it is so hard to maintain that it cannot hold 100% uptime. It is so bad that most templars will max harden well into noble as many other skills are more crucial including rest. This is adds to the issue that templars are the only race to have to switch weapon skill for max dps. Most templars will start with AXE and then transition into sword/dw for max dps followed by staff for meditate. That is 4 weapon skills that need to be max/raised high. What other class does that? Not any class needs to focus on 4 different weapon skills. Champion templars are lucky and don't need to grab sword. If that doesn't sound bad enough for you, while templars have the highest base res/imm, most classes can hit 275+ now efficiently which also takes away the most unique tankiness they had. Not to mention that necromancers have become even more tanky than ATs even post nerf.

The only area where an AT excels is warcry but even that is garbage when you look how every other class can sustain debuffs. The only class to need potions or rest time is AT who either uses harden or WC. There is literally nothing that AT excels at solo.

They do shine when spelled by a sorc/ah but that is a rare occurence which cannot be done in solo pents or AT. They could use ishtar scrolls but still would not be able to do what every other class can on own spells. They are so bad in fact that no one plays them anymore. Looking at noble ranks. 2 warlords last seen 14 & 167 days ago. 2 earls, 5 barons, 6 knights. 15 noble arch templars in a server over 4 years old. They are a small fraction of total noble population and there is a reason. They are unplayable. When professions and arch skills got released, ATs got the same buffs as everyone, keeping a status quo while they already needed work.

Surround II hits for a fraction of the damage only 25% of the time. It is not possible to my knowledge to make it hit 100% of the time. It is so bad in fact when coupled with low WV that it is barely noticeable. DW crits do help but not enough to make a significant difference as poison is already subpar.

We recently got a spell bonus and 5 ew base. Resulting in a boost of 2 wv on own spells. Impressive change. Is is so flavorless that there is barely any difference.

Many people including most of the staff, do not understand just how terrible ATs perform at high ranks so much so that Lazy told me to stop exaggerating when I said that he could get exp at 4x the rate of templars in pents at same rank. It isn't to say he doesn't know it is more an indication of how bad they are so much so that people don't believe how bad they are. Making a max of 500k per hour in UW barons is common for solo ATs. And that is a significant problem. They are so slow that they cannot even rank at the same pace making the new wonderful feature of rebirth nearly not achievable for most players. At minimum a templar pents 2x as slow and it goes up to 4x slower than the mega penters (AH/Sorc).

Players need a reason to play a class. Necros/Seyans have unique features. We assume that pure classes have also an increased proficiency in their field like AH has BII but AT has nothing that is worthwhile. Nothing that is better than others and that makes it laughable and useless. People play templars to get to seyan. Isn't that sad?!

I beg you fix this class, at least implement these changes and test/tweak. It has been asked and discussed over years and nothing has been done except for a barely noticeable buff that means nothing in overall dps or function.

I said I know they have issues but I don't play templar enough, never said I had no issues playing mine.(also my AT is gen, not quite low level.)

You said your champion AT was fine. I didn't copy paste our entire discussion. It only served to prove a point, ATs work OK but significantly degrade the higher they go.

Any update on this?

I will look into this, i have some ideas to help ATs.

Way to go Motoko! <3