Learn all about the Templar.

The Templar is the defensive power house of the warrior archetype. Unlike the gladiator, the templar relies more on defensive skills and survivability as opposed to a mix of defensive and offensive-based skills. With skills such as “Armor of the Empyrean Lord”, the templar is able to walk into many battles and outlast his foe through sheer defensive force.

Strength:

• Very strong defensively and has a lot of complementary skills that increase survivability.

Weakness:

• The templar doesn’t pack a great punch offensively. While the templar can hold his own and outlast many enemies, he can’t finish them off too quickly.

Templars take a different approach to tanking than gladiators. This class is built more for defensive oriented skills that increase its survivability, making it a prime candidate for the main tanking position. If you want a tank capable of taking a beating and then asking the enemy in a Wolverine-like manner, “what else ya got?” then the templar is for you.

Unique Ability and Divine Power Templars also gain a race specific Divine Power skill. The Elyos get “Divine Chastisement” (deals level-based damage to the target and you can block all attacks by using shield defense for 15 seconds.) and the Asmodians get “Chastisement of Darkness” (deals level-based damage to target and creates a shield for you that absorbs 50% of damage and reflects level-based damage for 15 seconds.) Both races have a very useful skill and one that can help make them a very effective tank. Divine Power (DP) is built up as you kill enemies that give experience. Once you have 2000 DP, you’ll have one shot of your special ability ready to fire. This skill can come in handy for tanking hard mobs, bosses, or on raids.

While this skill isn’t as graphically flashy as the gladiators DP skill, it still provides a very useful resource to use when dealing with harder encounters. DP comes slowly so make sure you save you it for when it counts.

Combat If you plan to tank the world alone, make sure you don’t leave the safety of the Sanctum without your trusty shield. Many of the templars early skills use a shield. Skills such as Shield Bash can leave your enemy stunned for an opportune moment to dish out some major damage. Templars also gain access to many skills that specialize in drawing the enemy’s ire, solidifying their position as main tank.

You get a couple of decent combos between levels 10 and 19 as a templar, but for the most part you will still be using your old warrior combos pretty frequently. Two of the five combos the templar has are reactive and dependent on a successful block before they can be executed, so in the way of combos, things are pretty thin for the templar until they reach level 19 when they get the new combo of Ferocious Strike – Robust Blow – Desperate Strike.