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Greetings,
This post will serve as a guide about how to, mostly, tank as a templar based on personal experience and data from other players and online sources. Feel free to contribute your personal findings, i will try and update it as soon as possibly if the information can be confirmed by either myself or other players.
I just also want to state that i do not want to try and claim my post as an ultimate templar guide and overwite the current one that is in the making by Blafa. Instead, i would only be happy if blafa adds information, if he feels it is valuable, to his own post and by doing so successfully making his post a compilation of many templar guides out there.
And as said, i will try to focus mainly on the tanking aspect here of of the templar class.
The post will be updated as much as possible. And first off is a list of the topics in the post, using a standard template of numbers and then a description so you can easily use the ctrl f function (search, different depending on OS's) to search up the corresponding section in the post.
Enough talking, lets go.
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- 1.0 The Templar
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Aggro/Threat - Emnity
1.3 Awareness
1.4 Action
1.5 It's always your fault
1.6 Summary
- 2.0 Glossary
- 3.0 Facts
3.1 Attributes
3.2 Available Weapons
3.3 Available Armor
3.4 Temlar Features
3.5 The Good, The Bad and the Awesome - Pros and Cons
3.6 Elyos vs Asmodian
- 4.0 Strategy
4.1 Tanking Strategy
4.2 Recommended Stigmas
4.3 Tanking Techniques
4.3.1 Survival: Priority Abilities
4.3.2 Threat: Priority Abilities
4.4 Tanking Gear & Manastones
4.5 Rotations
Levels 1-6
Levels 7-9
Levels 10-12
Levels 13-15
Levels 16-18
Levels 19-
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1.0 - The Templar
1.1 Introduction
If you've chosen the Templar class, you have taken a role that requires a little extra responsibilty. You will, generally speaking, always take on the role as a Tank in groups. And as a tank you will be the one tha leads the group forward, for they cannot advance unless you are up there at the front lines taking the beating.
1.2Aggro/Threat - Emnity
In Aion Onlie, to have enemies attacking you, you have to generate emnity towards them. Emnity can be translated into threat, in this post i will not as much refer to emnity as emnity, but instead i will refer to it as aggro, threat etc. Why? Emnity is annoying to pronounce and type out, so you'll have to live with aggro and threat for the time being. More on their full explanations in the glossary section.
Holding aggro is a task in its own, but it generally boils down to just keeping a rotation going. As you level up your basic chain skills you have will develop into much longer advanced ones. A priority system is in place, where some abilities are more important then others to use and put on cooldown early. More on this in the rotation section.
1.3 Awareness
Sooner or later, you will have full control of the aggro rotation, it will be backbone of your tanking. But the true challenge with tanking is awareness. Awareness, if you didnt know what it means, basicly is about you and everything around you. During a alliance raid, or PVP event, you need to be able to know what is going on. Everything from enemies abilities to your friends cooldowns on life saving spells.
This may sound difficult, and sure it might be. But to be a successfull tank you will have to get used to this. But as the aggro rotation theese things will in the end be easy to keep track off.
And also, you do not have to follow everything that is happening around you. You will learn as you play what is important to know and what is not, this guide will assist you with some of this information.
1.4 Action
Right, now assuming you know how to hold aggro, and know what is going on around you. Now suddenly something unexpected happens, now what could that be? There are many things that could happen, theese examples are from being in a group:
* Someone pulls aggro, or you loose aggro
* A new challenger appears, and it might be heading for you healer!
* Someone goes offline
* Soemeone dies
There list could go on for quiet a while, and you get th idea. What are you supposed to do when something like this happens? Sure there are clear objectives to do, like getting the mob off the healer for example.
But what is most important, reference to Guide to the Galaxy time, is to not panic and be calm. Being calm allows you to make better decisions based on the situation. Too many times during my time as a player in MMO's i've seen tanks being too nervous and some times even frustrated and angry when things like this happens. Being either nervous or frustrated does NOT help you solve the problem, and noone likes when the tank starts yelling at people. Theese random problems that may occur is something that WILL occur, and if you ask me this is the true challenge to being a successfull tank.
On a sidenote, the example when someone dies the typical reaction is to assume its a wipe, especially if it happens early on in an encounter. You need to learn as a tank that a group members death, or even your death, doesnt mean it will evolve into a full wipe. Instead, fight on, make a challenge out of it, and strive to successfully end the encounter. You will, from experience, know when someone dies if it actually means a wipe or not, but dont assume that everything you know currently is right, more on this in the next section.
As said, be calm, you might say this hard, but it isnt. I say, just do it.
1.5 It's always your fault
"Wow wait a second, what did he say there?"
Yes thats right, everything that happens thats bad for the group is your fault. Or well, truth is it possibly isnt, but please listen. This is an important aspect of being a good player as all classes.
When someone pulls aggro off your mob, you might automaticly assume he is doing too much damage towards your mob, or that he started dealing damage too early so you couldnt gain enough threat on the mob.
Now it is easily to start typing the chat as the mob goes running towards your DPS'er about how idiotic he is. And you can see how stupid this is, but it is just as stupid to be angry at this person at all.
A decent tank will immediatly understand that he has to act quickly and save the DPS'er. A bad tank will start to blame him as soon as possible, this is fact. Do not ever blame people, let the leaders of your raid blame them, focus on performing your best.
And instead of being angry on him, be angry on yourself, this doesnt mean you should start to punch and cut yourself in order to create some sort of self discipline. What i mean is that you should immediatly, after the issue has been resolves of course, start thinking about what you could have done better. And yes, there is ALWAYS room for improvement, you are never the best tank in the world. It is stupid to assume you are perfect and is doing everything correctly according to a guide somwhere. There is always things to improve, everything from gear to personal performance.
The bottom line with this section is: You are never perfect; dont ever assume you are, instead assume "perfect" is some sort of infinite number that you have to reach to, that is an infinite range away from you.
1.6 Summary
Let's sum it up:
* Hold aggro, use a rotation based on experience and data collected from others online
* Be aware, make sure you know what is going on, this does not only mean knowing where mobs are and if they are attacking you. Look beyond the present and think of things that might happen and ways to solve the problems.
* Be calm, just be calm.
* React and respond, act first(assuming it is not stupid to act first). Do not blame; save any anger (which you shouldnt have, since its just a game after all) for the enemies.
* You are never perfect, aim for improvement always.
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2.0 - Glossary
(*)Example Text(*) Statements, words or whatever that are within theese signs means its an unconfirmed statement, needs confirmation.
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In this section i will most likely go over the top with explaining things, but i do it for the lulz.
mob - in most cases(unless you want to call your friend a mob) an NPC enemy that you usually has a general goal of destoying you and your friends.
emnity - your threat towards a mob. Or a mobs anger towards you. See Threat/Aggro
threat - the more threat you oppose to your enemy, the more he wants to attack you. You build threat using abilities towards him and other factors.
aggro - having aggro means the mob is attacking you.
tank - a tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility and tactical offensive and defensive capabilities. You wish huh? a tank is someone that generates threat, and in turn gains aggro in order to tank mobs. Tanking as a verb then means holding aggro and generating threat, OMG FLEXIBLE WORD.
If you find a word that you dont understand, and feel it is neccesary to put in the glossary, please feel free and post a request.
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3.0 Facts
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3.1 Attributes
The major three, respesenting your overal state of your character:
- Hit Points (HP): The value of your health, suffering too much hit points loss will result in death. To counter this, see Guide to Inviting Healers.
- Mana Points (MP): Value of your mana, mana is used to bring forward the power of magic. If too low on mana you may not be able to peform the awesomeness of certain spells.
- Divine Power (DP): Value of Divinty. This power of gathered over time as you kill enemies. It is then used to power certain skills. WARNING: DP is lost when logging out (you will keep your DP if you return, during a DC, before the server has kicked you out) or when dying.
The basic six:
- Power: This attribute represent your characters physiccal strength, and as such affects physical damage inflicted n enemies
- Health: The more health, the more hit points you gain and also you gain higher hit point recovery
- Agility: Adding agility increases your chance to evade, parry or block enemy attacks
- Accuracy: This attribute represent a character's ability to hit, and also their chance to critically hit an enemy
- Knowledge: The more Knowledge, the more spell damage and spell accuracy
- Will: This attribute represents a character's basic mana points and mana point recovery
Important stats to judge a characters ability to reduce or avoid incoming damage:
- Physical Defense: Ability to mitigate melee and ranged physical damage. The more PD the less physical damage you take
- Evasion: Abilty to dodge attacks. In contrary to other MMO's, the only way to fully avoid damage that is coming at you is to evade/dodge it.
- Block: Ability to block and reduce damage from attacks. To block you must have a shield equipped.
- Parry: Ability to defend yourself with a weapon. Like block, parrying will reduce damage of an incoming attack
- Magical Resistance: Ability to resist incoming damage and debuff spells
- Fire Reistance: Ability to reduce incoming fire damage
- Wind Resistance: Ability to reduce incoming wind damage
- Water Resistance: Ability to reduce incoming water damage
- Earth Resistance: Ability to reduce incoming earth damage
3.2 Available Weapons
- Swords: One-handed sharp weapons. These weapons have high accuracy and parry rating, in additon they have mderate physical crit rating.
- Maces: One-Handed blunt weapons, usually designed for classes with magical abilities. They have high accuracy, moderate parry rating, and low physical crit rating. To counter thoose low stats they offer magical boost and magical accuracy.
- Greatsword: Two-handed sharp weapon, usable only by Templars and Gladiators. They have moderate accuracy and parry rating, low physical crit hit rating and slower attack speed.
- Shield: a Templars shield is not only a defensive tool, but also an offensive weapon. It give physical defence and damage reduction, in additon it allows for blocking which in turn activates certain Templar abilities.
3.3 Available Armor
- Plate Armor: Strongest armor available for any class in the game. Plate armor is usable only by Templars and Gladiators. It offers high defence rating.
- Chain Armor: Secon strongest armor available, Templars will use this type of armor early on in the game. It is generally designed for spell users as it offers not only evasion, but boost to magical abilities aswell.
- Leather Armor: Second weakest armor available, leather is designed for light defence and great evasion and mobility.
- Cloth Armor: Weakest armor in the game, cloth armor is designed for magical users since it offers high magical boost, in turn it has very low defense.
3.4 Templar Features
- High base defense as well as skills that increase defense further
- Has the ability to increase defense even further with Plate Armor
- Uses skills to utilize a shield to incur damage and other effects such as stun and knockback on opponents.
3.5 The Good, The Bad and the Awesome - Pros and Cons
- The Good
It is obvious due to the nature of the Templar having Heavy Armor like Plate and skills and abilities that increases their defense and even hit points that they are very durable in combat. In PVP this will make you survive longer not only because you suffer less damage, but also because you are not a primary kill target.
The true goal of the Templar is to tank. If you love tanking this is the class for you. But take note as a Templar you are expected to be expert at tanking.
- The Bad
Having high defense means Templars do less damage. It is why ,while leveling especially, will take longer tim to kill mobs. In PVP you are more usefull as a tool rather than a damage dealer, using stuns and interrupts to harass the enemy.
Templars have few to none ranged attacks. This means Templars are forced to often close the gap and head into melee range in order to perform at their best.
- The Awesome
Shield + Sword = Possible eruption of SPARTA emotions, thus epic win. The Win is then empowered by amazing sword slashes and shield slams, the win is transformed into Awesome.
3.6 Elyos vs Asmodian
Aside from appearance differences there is one thing:
Elyos Templars - Divine Chastisement
Asmodian Templars - Chastisement of Darkness
The Chastisment's is a racial ability given pretty early into the game. They are activated using DP, and since it uses quiet a lot of DP (which already takes long time to charge up) it must be used wisely. PVP NOTE: As long as you do not die during PVP Combat DP will charge faster than it would in PVE, allowing you to use your chastisement alot more frequent.
Here is the difference between the two racial abilities
Aion Armory Spell - Allow the Elyos Templar to block all incoming attacks for 15 seconds, could possibly mean (if the shield will block enough) a 15 second immunity. A shield is required for this skill.
Aion Armory Spell - Allows the Asmodian Templar to absorb half the damage of all incoming damage, and also reflecting a set amount of damage back towads the attacker. The Asmodian racial if therefor alot more offensive than the Elyos counterpart, since it puts the attacker under pressure. A good thing to note is that CoD does not require a shield, making it ideal for Asmodian Templars who plan to use greatswords in PVP.
Both skills increases threat towards the target attacking you. In summary, for a pure PVE tank, the Elyos Templar offers a greater racial. For PVP both racials are valid, yet the Asmodian version is more offensive and offers the chance to change weapons without disabling the racial ability.
4.0 Strategy
4.1 Tanking Strategy
Use Marks: This is essential to both have your group work as one and to make it easier for you. There are many options as to how to use theese symbols, one way would be to assign the kill order to 1-2-3 etc and then to assign your CC (Crowd Control) to different numbers if need be.
Announcing your entire Marking table to your group before you enter your instance/engage a boss is something i advice. You can easily macro a message that send information to the group chat with the kill order and CC assignment.
4.2 Recommended Stigmas
Regarding Recommened Stigmas. I have yet to fully confirm this list but after some carefull thinking i believe theese are the best. In order of importance:
Normal Stigma:
* Aion Armory Spell: When using this ability on a friendly target, you will absorb 100% damage they will take over the next 30 seconds. 2 min CD
* Aion Armory Spell: For 10 sec, you reflect 46 damage back to the enemy within a 5m radius that All Attackss you.
1 min CD
* Aion Armory Spell: Taunts up to 4 enemies within a 10m radius of you to increase their threat towards you, and puts them in the fear and movement speed reduction states for 4 sec.
* Aion Armory Spell: Pulls the enemy to right in front of you, if within a 15 min radius, and increases your threat towards the target. Also decreases its movement speed for 10 seconds.
* Aion Armory Spell: Taunts up to 5 enemies within a 10m radius of you to increase your threat towards them.
Greater/Advanced Stigmas:
Aion Armory Spell: Increases the Maximum HP of you and that of up to 6 allies within 10m radius of you by 1000 for 2 min
Aion Armory Spell: Recovers your HP by 2181. A lifesaver, also called OH ****-Button
Aion Armory Spell: Inflicts 952 magical earth damage on a target within a 25m radius and also stuns the target for 2 sec. Does not generate any additional threat, but it is usefull due to the stun.
4.3Tanking Techniques
Your overall goal pre-combat is to balance your gear between threat generation and survival. This also continues in combat, you have to choose whenever to use that threat generating ability or that shield block ability. Again this is about awareness, knowing whenever the mob hits hard or not, and how capable your healers are.
The general your focus should be first on Holding Aggro then to Survive and finally to Deal Damage.
Survivability comes from two factors, gear and abilities. Gear is the major factor, and there wil be more information on that in a section below. But first here is a priority system on which abilities to put on cooldown first.
4.3.1 Survival: Priority Abilities:
Aion Armory Spell: Reduces all incoming damage by a certain number for a few seconds, ofc if you suffer too much damage the shield is removed. In addition, when the shield is up abilities like Knockdown/Knockback be resisted if the damage from the abilities themselves are fully absorbed.
Aion Armory Spell: Use this ability when all other skills are on cooldown, it will then allow you to trigger the shield block/bash skills, use this ability also if you know much damage is incoming and you feel you have enough threat on the target.
Aion Armory Spell: Use this abilty often, but with wisdom. If you know a strong hitting mob is coming up, it is not wise to use this abity on the weaker mob before that. But when pulling several mobs, use this ability early too ease the pressure on your healer.
Now for the threat generation. In general you should focus on using skills that does extra Emnity first.
4.3.2 Threat: Priority Abilities:
Aion Armory Spell: Use whenever it comes available. Provoke STACKS, meaing everytime you use this ability on the target your threat is increased.
Aion Armory Spell: In conjuction with Provoke you should use this ability, to use this ability first or not depends on when the mobs come to you. For example if a single mob comes in before the large masses, it is most wisely to use Provoke first and the Provoking Roar.
Aion Armory Spell: After the above abilities, use this when it comes available through a successfull block.
Aion Armory Spell: Use this skill when all above abilities are on cooldown (or if PSC, Provking Shield Counter, did not activate)
As stated, after focusing on threat and then survival, you should focus on dealing damage. Do this when all above abilities are on cooldown. Interrupts/Stuns are welcome when needed to provide survivability.
4.4 Tanking Gear & Manastones
4.4.1Armor:
As a Templar Tank, you want to get the best armor available at any level. Wearing the best armor available is the major factor in increasing incoming damage. On the armor you want the following stats to appear:
High Physical Defense: Reduces Phys Damage Taken
Hit Points: Increaes Health
Agility: Increases the thee major stats you want, Shield Defense, Parry and Evasion
Shield Defense: Increases your block
Parry: Increases Parry
Evasion: Increases Evasion
4.4.2Weapons:
For weapons you have two choices, to use a sword or a mace. Swords are generally designed towards tanking, but make sure you read the stats for maces might have better accuracy or defensive stats than an same sword at the same level.
Shields, being classed as a weapon in this section, is also important. A shield should have high PhysicalDefense and BlockRating.
4.4.3Manastones:
The most important mana stone you can put in your gear is Shield Block. This is because most of your important skills are activated when you block, so increases the chance of passive block chance is important.
For remaining slots, you have two options of either going offensive or defensive. This all depends on your experience when tanking, do you take too much damage or do you produce low threat?
When leveling, going offensive sure is much better for the obvious reason that enemies dies faster. This also allows you to tank mobs easily since you should in theory generate much more threat aswell. You should then use manastones that provide Physical Crit and Accuracy. Accuracy is the important manastone since it increases your hit chance, a missed emnity skill could mean the death of a member in your group.
When going defensive, use manastones for Parry and Evasion. Both manastones are valid for survivability.
4.5Rotations
This section will be split into level ranges, since as you level you gain more abilities and longer chain skills.
Levels 1-6
Not much choices to make it, generally its just about mashing you head against the keyboard.
Ferocious Strike -> Robust Blow -> Shield Defense (and then autoattack until FS becomes available)
Levels 7-9
Between theese levels you will now have 2 possible options after FS. The rotation will look like this:
Weakening Severe Blow -> Ferocious Strike -> Rage -> Weakening Severe Blow -> Ferocious Strike -> Robust Blow
At level 9 you will gain Shield Counter, use this ability whenever it proccs and when weakening severe blow is on the target. Generally it should look like this: WSB -> FS -> RB -> (Block activated through either Shield Defense or passive block) Shield Counter. Do NOT use Shield Counter inside a chain skill, it will stop the entire chain, only do this when an interrupt is outmost neccecary.
Levels 10-12
Now you gain so much skills that you need to be ready to use skills that suits the situation.
Your basic rotation will remain as it was in levels 7-9. Shield Bash is always available since it doesnt require a lock to activate, save this ability for interrupting (since it does a small knockback) or when all other threat generating skills are on cooldown.
Provoke becomes available in this level range, use whenever possible, since again as explained above it stacks, generating threat everytime it is used.
Levels 13-15
At level 13 you will gain Shield Blow. This skill activates whenever you block, same as Shield Counter. But Shield blow causes extra threat, and shield counter stuns the enemy. Use Shield Blow first when tanking, and save Shield Counter for interrupts or extra damage.
Armor of the Empyrean Lord is also learned in this level range, when activated it heals you for 25% HP and also grants a large HP buff that lasts for 3 minutes. Due to the fact that the ability has a 6 minute cooldown you have to be careful when using this ability. This ability is most recommended to use on bossfights since it will most likely last the whole fight.
Levels 16-18
Two new attacks during this level range, Shining Slash and Taunting Severe Blow.
Shining slash is an a attack that does extra physical damage on the target. It is outside of any chain skill and thus usable at any time, if not on cooldown.
Your rotation should look as this:
Weakening Severe Blow -> Shining Slash -> Ferocious Strike -> Rage -> Weakening Severe Blow -> Ferocious Strike -> Robust Blow
Taunting severe blow is a threat increasing attack, that does low damage. Save for tanking duties or when all other abilities are on cooldown.
19-
The following levels are yet to be discussed, i only reached level 19 on the BETA.
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This post has been edited by Aetius: 23 September 2009 - 05:37 PM
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