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OK, so I'm trying to spec my character Alix for combined Heals and DPS. He's a Breton, almost v8, and I want to use a build whereby he has Resto Staff on one bar and Dual Wield on the other. However, I don't intend to use my swords at all except for light attacks - I'll have something like 2 x Torug's Pact swords for extra Spell Damage, and otherwise just use spells.

Current stats are 45 Magicka, 10 Health, 0 Stamina. Will be intending to add all additional attribute points to Magicka.

He will be played entirely in PvE. I don't enjoy PvP enough to force another character through it right now. He will also mostly play in groups.

A lot of the Templar skills have changed since the last time I played him seriously, so I have a lot of questions about morphs.

Aedric Spear
1. Puncturing Sweep / 2. Aurora Javelin - chosen since I am a Magicka build and the other morph is for Stamina builds.

3. Explosive Charge vs Toppling Charge. I need an Interrupt if I'm not running Crushing Shock on a Destruction Staff. Explosive Charge has an AoE but only interrupts enemies who are casting. Toppling Charge attacks a single enemy but always interrupts. Which will be more useful?

4. Luminous Shards - chosen as it's more useful as a support spell.

5. Radiant Ward vs Blazing Shield. Not sure that either of these are much good for anything with only 6 seconds. Radiant Ward costs slightly less and is guaranteed to produce 1065 Magic Damage, Blazing Shield costs a little more and radiates 52% of the damage absorbed.

Dawn's Wrath
1. Vampire's Bane vs Reflective Light. Vampire's Bane does more damage but Reflective Light has an AoE. Both are instant-cast, both have the same range, both cost the same. It's really a case of which is more useful, higher single-target damage or the AoE.

2. Dark Flare vs Solar Barrage. Dark Flare has a 28 metre range but 1.1 second cast time, Solar Barrage is instant cast but only has an 8 metre range. Dark Flare also casts Major Defile, and I'm not aware of anything else that does for Templars.

I feel like these two morphs have to be considered together. It doesn't seem worth having 2 different AoEs which cause lower damage, and I intrinsically dislike spells with cast time. I'm tempted to go Vampire's Bane and Solar Barrage, using Solar Barrage to replace my usual Destro Staff AoE (Elemental Ring or Pulsar) - not least of all because I can cast 2 Vampire's Bane in the time it takes to cast one Dark Flare, so I'm not really missing out in terms of damage. What do you think?

I've never used Backlash and am under the impression that it's not very good - am I right?

I've used Eclipse and its morphs extensively in the past, but at the level I am now, I'm not sure if there's any use whatsoever in keeping it, considering that you can only have one Eclipse running at a time. If I can't spam it at all the mage NPCs in the area, then what use does it have? I believe it mostly fails on bosses anyway - is this true? I guess it has a use in PvP, but I'm not speccing for that.

5. Radiant Glory vs Radiant Oppression. I'm a healer anyway, so Radiant Oppression's increased damage clearly wins over Radiant Glory's ability to heal me.

Let me know what you think!

Aedric spear:
3: I'd go toppling. Places where, as a healer, I feel the need to interrupt are few and far between. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking vFG and HRC. In the former, you'd need toppling, and in the latter, sure they're casting but an aoe would be useless, but I think they might be immune to stuns anyway so I dunno. Also remember that you can use a shard to stun non-bosses.
5: I prefer blazing. It's good in situations that feel hopeless because you're horribly swarmed, the idea being that you spam it as the shield constantly drops because you're taking such huge damage, but in the end the explosions do enough aoe dmg to your attackers that you get some breathing room.

Dawn's wrath:
1. Reflective light, always. Its dps is great. I always cast it at the start of pulls while I'm healing, which lets me keep the crit buff up and gives everybody in the group minor sorcery, which means I can do decent dps without slotting inner light (which in turn lets me slot another skill, since I don't need inner light on both bars).
2. Dark flare. If you need an instant AOE then grab a destro staff and use impulse + morphs. Dark flare has functionality that is hard to get elsewhere. Also the flaming basketball of doom looks cool. And speaking of destro staves, I use a destro staff on swap even when healing, because casting lots of elemental drain on everything will help out your group a lot. You can keep drain up on multiple targets at once, and it doesn't even cost magicka anymore.
5. You're right about why you should pick oppression.

You are not right about backlash. It's great on trials bosses. Feel free to leave it unmorphed, since the heal sucks.

I don't know where you got the idea that you can only keep up one eclipse. I'm pretty sure I've thrown it on multiple targets.

Deandra wrote:1. Reflective light, always. Its dps is great. I always cast it at the start of pulls while I'm healing, which lets me keep the crit buff up and gives everybody in the group minor sorcery, which means I can do decent dps without slotting inner light (which in turn lets me slot another skill, since I don't need inner light on both bars).

Oh nice! I hadn't noticed that.

Deandra wrote:2. Dark flare. If you need an instant AOE then grab a destro staff and use impulse + morphs. Dark flare has functionality that is hard to get elsewhere. Also the flaming basketball of doom looks cool. And speaking of destro staves, I use a destro staff on swap even when healing, because casting lots of elemental drain on everything will help out your group a lot. You can keep drain up on multiple targets at once, and it doesn't even cost magicka anymore.

I always use a Destruction Staff on swap but I'm trying to do something different. Often in a group there's someone else already using a Destruction Staff and that person can cast Elemental Drain if necessary.

Deandra wrote:I don't know where you got the idea that you can only keep up one eclipse. I'm pretty sure I've thrown it on multiple targets.

From the tooltip. "You can only have one eclipse active at a time". Same for Total Dark and Unstable Core. I know I used to spam it before 1.5 (which is when I last seriously played Alix), but it definitely looks like you can't any more.

A few suggestions and comments from what I play with...

Toppling Charge/Explosive Charge: I always choose Toppling for the guaranteed stun but be aware of a current bug with this skill which makes you unable cast any skills (see http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en ... charge-bug).

Radiant Ward vs Blazing Shield: I always go Blazing but I almost never use it as other skills are better DPS. Can be good for a tanking build though.

Vampire's Bane vs Reflective Light: I always go Reflective Light as I fight multiple mobs a lot more than just one and Vampire's Bane is not that much more damage anyways.

Dark Flare vs Solar Barrage: I always go Dark Flare for the Major Defile which can be useful in PVP and some boss PVE fights, though I don't really find I use very often. Solar Barrage is a good AoE as well with a slightly larger range than Impulse (8m vs 6m) not to mention the Empower buff. I can see either being useful as a DPS though for AoE I usually prefer Puncturing Sweeps as its more DPS and has self-heals (but has a cone AoE).

Backlash: I've tried the Purifying Light morph which is good for single target DPS along with some extra healing. Works well either as a DPS or Healing build with the only problem being not enough slots to use it most of the time.

Eclipse: Has its uses in both PVE and PVP but I almost never use it.

Radiant Glory vs Radiant Oppression: Never tried anything other than Radiant Oppression. Templars have enough healing options anyways and not enough damage ones.

The problem I have in both DPS and Healing modes is figuring out which skills make it into my bar. A lot of good options and some skills that work well only in some situations.

Typical DPS skills on my main bar (DW) are:

1. Puncturing Sweeps (main DPS/self-healing)
2. Structured Entropy (Major Sorcery Buff)
3. Radiant Oppression (Execute)
4. Flex (Harness Magicka, Toppling Charge, BoL, Reflective Light, Dark Flare)
5. Inner Light
6. Ultimate: Meteor, Dawnbreak, Empowering Sweep

and off-hand Restoration or Destruction Staff DPS bar:

1. Flex (Purifying Light, Luminous Shards, Elemental Drain, Siphon Spirit)
2. Flex (Harness Magicka, Toppling Charge, BoL, Reflective Light)
3. Channeled Focus (regen/defense buff)
4. BoL
5. Inner Light
6. Ultimate: Nova

For Healing my main bar (DW) looks like:

1. Luminous Shards
2. Structured Entropy
3. Radiant Oppression
4. BoL
5. Repentance
6. Ultimate: Clouding Swarm (for 10% Magicka Regen)

and Restoration Staff off-bar:

1. Flex: Harness Magicka, Healing Springs, Purifying Light, Mystic Orb
2. Compbat Prayer
3. Channeled Focus
4. BoL
5. Flex: Purifying Ritual, Harness Magicka
6. Ultimate: Nova