ESO Templar Tank Guide

Table of Contents

ESO Templar Tank Introduction

The Templar is a capable Tank in The Elder Scrolls Online, but commonly not used due to their lack of crowd control, sustain and group buffs.

See more: Tank Class Overviews, Skills & Passives Information

ESO Templar Tank Class Skills and Passives

Aedric Spear

Radial Sweep
(Not Needed)

Puncturing Strikes
(Unnecessary)
Use it for solo situations to do some damage.

Piercing Javelin
(Not Needed)

Topping Charge→ Morph of Focused Charge
(Unnecessary)
This can be used alongside the Tormentor set to do AoE Taunting but this is not something that is advised for most content but could be useful for beginner Tanks in dungeons.

Luminous Shards → Morph of Spear Shards
(Situational)
This is a damage skill that provides a synergy to 1 person in your group that restores Magicka and Stamina. One use for this skill as a Tank is to place Olorime on your group from range. So, in situations where you stand out of group, you can provide a great group buff while at the back of a room or not close to your group.

Radiant Ward → Morph of Sun Shield
(Vital)
This is a huge damage shield that scales with Max Health and costs Magicka. Templars have access to a number of healing over time skills but no health scaling burst heal. By using this in combination with those skills you can absorb damage with your damage shield while healing missing health via your healing over time. This is a great survival tool and fortunately it costs Magicka so you can use it a lot. When you do use it, it will also proc the Spear Wall passive that gives you extra mitigation from Minor Protection.

Piercing Spear
(Unnecessary)
Increased damage passive, not that useful for Tanks but you can use it if you occasionally play as a Hybrid Tank.

Spear Wall
(Vital)
When using an Aedric Spear ability you gain Minor Protection which will work nicely alongside the use of Radiant Ward to reduce your incoming damage.

Burning Light
(Unnecessary)
Another damage passive that should proc automatically from Shards or Ward. If you never use Shards or Ward then you’ll never proc the damage but if you want to do some extra free damage then this passive will do that.

Balanced Warrior
(Vital)
Extra resistances, always nice for a Tank.

Dawn’s Wrath

Nova
(Unnecessary)
This causes Major Maim to enemies which can be achieved easily with Frost Clench instead.

Vampire’s Bane → Morph of Sun Fire
(Situational)
You would potentially use this skill if you are Tanking using Encratis’s Behemoth.

Solar Flare
(Not Needed)

Power of the Light → Morph of Backlash
(Vital)
This is not as essential as it used to be since you can now get Minor Breach from using your taunt Pierce Armor. It is still useful however in situations where you are at range, the Main Tank is at range, or you’re taunting with Inner Fire or Frost Clench. So in Sunspire if the Main Tank is range tanking Lokkestiiz you would use this on the Main Boss so your group doesn’t miss 3k penetration. It also procs the Illuminate passive which is the main reason a Templar is needed in a group. If you don’t need the Minor Breach, then use the other morph.

Purifying Light → Morph of Backlash
(Optional)
You could use this in situations where Power of the Light is not needed. You need to be using at least one Dawn’s Wrath skill and this will do a little bit of healing so it’s an option if you don’t have any other skill to use and this morph is better if you don’t need the Minor Breach because it costs Magicka so it will be better for your sustain.

Living Dark → Morph of Eclipse
(Situational)
When dealing with multiple enemies it’s actually a very good heal because it will tick every half a second, so if you are in an add pull and taking a lot of damage, you can pop this for a 3 second heal that will heal you potentially 6 times and so it’s good when you are taking damage and moving.

Radiant Destruction
(Not Needed)

Enduring Rays
(Optional)
Only really worth using if you have Living Dark, it will increase the duration of this. If you don’t this skill then its a bit pointless.

Prism
(Vital)
A good passive to increase Ultimate gain. It will give you Ultimate every 6 seconds so it works well with keeping up Power of the Light when casting that skill, it will return the Ultimate from this passive.

Illuminate
(Vital)
This is the main Templar group buff and the main reason you would even use a Templar. It adds around 2k DPS to each of your Magicka DD’s, won’t help Stamina DDs. It’s easily maintained while you keep the uptime of Power of the Light or any of the Dawn’s Wrath skills.

Restoring Spirit
(Vital)
Important passive to help the sustain on a Templar, very useful passive.

Restoring Light

Rite of Passage
(Unnecessary)

Rushed Ceremony
(Unnecessary)
This is basically your burst heal. Not worth using because the heal is so low as it scales with Spell Damage and Max Magicka so it has a really high cost and real low healing potential. It can also heal someone else and not you so its a very bad option for a self heal. It’s better to rely on Radiant Ward along with your healing over time abilities that do scale with Max Health.

Hasty Prayer → Morph of Healing Ritual
(Unnecessary)
You could use this to provide your group with Minor Expedition.

Radiant Aura → Morph of Restoring Aura
(Vital)
You cast this to provide your group with Minor Fortitude, Minor Endurance and Minor Intellect so it’s a useful group sustain tool, you gain those benefits just by having it slotted. This would likely be the better morph for Trials as it helps your group sustain and you don’t really need the heal from Repentance, the Stamina from the other morph is nice but hard to benefit from in Trials.

Repentance → Morph of Restoring Aura
(Optional)
This gives you the same recovery passives as Radiant Aura but not the group recoveries. It will give you 3000 Stamina and you and your group 3000 health for each nearby corpse you absorb. This would be a great way to heal and sustain but the issue is that it’s usually boss fights where sustain becomes more difficult and you are unlikely to have any corpses available to repent on a boss fight. This morph would be excellent for 4-Man content as you’ll get a group heal plus Stamina for yourself.

Extended Ritual → Morph of Cleansing Ritual
(Vital)
This is one of the primary skills for a Templar Tank. It provides a group synergy to purge and cleanses negative effects. You can also use this to proc gear sets like Symphony of Blades and more because it covers a huge area and has a long duration you just place it on the ground and leave it to proc the sets. The heal will be a small heal over time but it works really well combined with other healing over time, and because it’s such a large healing area you dont need to keep replacing it, it will usually cover your full combat area.

Restoring Focus → Morph of Rune Focus
(Vital)
This is your main tool for Stamina sustain and healing. It’s a very cheap skill to cast and you gain Stamina even while blocking and you don’t need to be stood inside the rune which is nice. You also gain Major Resolve, and when you are stood on top of the rune you also gain a heal over time that scales with your Max Health. This is a really nice heal and works great if you are stacking different healing sources. If you need Magicka Sustain you can use the Mage Guild skill Spell Symmetry alongside this which is the other morph of Balance.

Mending
(Vital)
Quite a vital passive, since you are relying on healing over time. Restoring Focus and Extended Ritual heals will be increased up to an extra 12% healing depending on how low your health is.

Sacred Ground
(Vital)
Another good Tank passive increases the amount of damage you can block plus increases the healing you do with all healing abilities by 8%. You need to be stood inside one of your Restoring Light abilities which should be easy since you’ll usually be inside both your Ritual and Rune for the Healing and the Resources/Resistances.

Light Weaver
(Vital)
Will give Ultimate to all allies, a small boost that you will likely proc from your Extended Ritual.

Master Ritualist
(Optional)
Allows you to resurrect people quicker and with full Health, might as well have this passive but you should almost never be resurrecting people as a Tank.

ESO Templar Tank Overview

Templar Tanks are an unpopular choice but can be a decent option for a Dungeon Tank in The Elder Scrolls Online.

There have always been quite a few obstacles for Templar Tanks, the biggest one has always been the lack of burst-healing, this has kind of been resolved now with the addition of multiple heals over time that scale based on Max Health although these are still not as effective as burst healing, Templar Tanks are much stronger at healing themselves now.

Crowd control was also another issue that was improved but this has been reverted now that Frost Blockade no longer causes an immobilisation.

Templar Tanks have never been super useful for Trial content since they offer very little to a group and can be tricky to play. A large number of groups have always had a Templar Healer meaning they cover all the benefits of the Templar, and another Templar is unnecessary.

Nowadays damage dealers are hybridised and will stack either Weapon Damage or Spell Damage so the one unique buff the Templar has with the Illuminate passive offering Minor Sorcery, might not be needed if you are in a group that stacks Weapon Damage.

In 4-person content Templar Tanks are actually really strong and they are good at Tanking along with supplying additional group healing and support. They don’t have buffs and benefits as strong as the Arcanist or Dragonknight but they have this additional passive option to provide some group healing.

Sustain on a Templar is ok with the Restoring Focus skill and Restoring Spirit passive. When you get into 4-person content you also have the option to use Repentance which is a huge Stamina sustain skill for fights with a lot of add corpses to use.

The group benefits of a Templar Tank are basically just one passive, but you also have various other group utility for specific situations with the option to provide a Group Purge/Synergy, Group Minor Endurance, Minor Fortitude, and Minor Intellect and Minor Breach from range or when not using Pierce Armor/ One Hand and Shield.

In general, the Templar Tank is fine for 4-person content and for organised Trial groups who need a Templar and don’t already have one.

ESO Templar Tank Strengths, Weaknesses & Group Buffs

Strengths

  • Sustain can be decent with the reduced ability cost passive and Restoring Focus allowing you to gain Stamina back every second, even while blocking.
  • Magicka cost, Health based, Class Damage Shield.
  • Some group utility with Minor Sorcery, Purify Synergy and increase recoveries for the group.
  • Works as an Off Tank/Support role if no other Templars in group.
  • Built in Minor Protection passive.

Weaknesses

  • No good burst healing, rely on Damage Shield and Healing over Time.
  • Not usually needed in larger groups due to Templar Healers being popular.
  • Magicka sustain can be a big problem as you need to use expensive Magicka skills.
  • Only 1 unique group buff.

Group Buffs

ESO Templar Tank Conclusion

It’s honestly not worth investing a lot of time into a Templar Tank with the current game meta when basically every other class has better and more group buffs and utility and they are better at crowd control and Tanking enemies overall.

While one can be used for 4-person content and they play well in this environment, even then it would be far better using any other class.

ESO Templar Tank Videos