Templar Tamed: Reducing Core Sustain and Damage

The Elder Scrolls Online’s Patch 45 introduces targeted balance changes designed to address long-standing power imbalances, primarily focusing on reducing the dominance of the Templar class while boosting the underperforming Nightblade. The Templar has been a pervasive force in both PVE and PVP due to its unmatched sustain, burst healing, and ease of rotation.

Key factual assumptions for the Templar nerf:

  • Sustain Reduction: The primary focus is likely a nerf to a core Magicka or Stamina return mechanic. This could involve reducing the resource return on abilities like Repentance or increasing the cost of key offensive abilities like Puncturing Sweeps (or its Stamina morph). This makes maintaining resource pools more challenging.
  • Burst Damage Adjustments: The high burst damage potential, often derived from abilities like Radiant Oppression (Execute), may have been adjusted. This could mean reducing the damage coefficient or slightly increasing the cast time, making the execution phase less overwhelming.

The developers’ intent is to reduce the Templar’s “jack-of-all-trades” power, forcing players to make clearer choices between offensive and defensive resource investment, and thereby creating space for other classes.

Nightblade Rises: Stealth, Survivability, and DPS

Conversely, the Nightblade class—which often struggled with survivability outside of specific PVP scenarios and lacked consistent damage compared to other classes—received meaningful buffs.

Key factual assumptions for the Nightblade buff:

  • Damage Over Time (DOT) Improvement: Abilities central to the Nightblade’s rotation, such as Crippling Grasp or Merciless Resolve’s proc, likely received an increase in base damage or scale factor. This boosts the sustained damage output of the class in PVE environments.
  • Survivability/Utility Boost: The class’s reliance on stealth and tricky mechanics is often penalized by high-damage content. Buffs may target survivability, perhaps by increasing the healing on abilities like Siphoning Strikes or enhancing the damage shield values provided by the Shadows skill line.

The goal is to make the Nightblade a more appealing choice for both veteran and newer players, ensuring its damage output is competitive in high-end PVE content.

Community Reaction: Templar Outrage vs. Nightblade Hype

The community response is highly polarized, typical of any major class rebalance.

  • Templar Outrage: Templar mains expressed significant frustration, particularly if the nerf targeted core rotation abilities. Complaints often center on the fear that the change will make their class unusable for farming or lead to massive drops in their previously achieved DPS numbers. The sentiment is that the class was targeted too broadly.
  • Nightblade Excitement: Nightblade players are highly enthusiastic. For a class often seen as having a high skill floor with mediocre rewards, the damage buffs are a major victory. Theorycrafters are already testing new rotations and set combinations to push the Nightblade into higher DPS rankings, hoping for true meta viability.

The Patch 45 class rebalance successfully achieves its primary goal: shaking up the meta. By reducing the Templar’s overwhelming power and giving the Nightblade a much-needed boost, the developers have ensured a shift in build construction, demanding that players adapt their strategies for the content to come.