ESO: Templar - Nightblade class, tips, skills ESO guide, tips
Templar: General information, Aedric Spear tree, Dawn's Wrath tree, Restoring Light tree
Last update: 07 July 2020
This page of our guide to The Elder Scrolls Online has all the most important information about the Templar class. We have prepared general information about this class and listed the most useful active and passive skills.
General information
Templar is one of the four classes available to you in the game. For those familiar with the World of Warcraft game, Templar is very similar to the Paladin. He is probably one of the most plastic and adaptable classes in the game - you can turn him into a tank (though not as good as a Dragonknight tank), a damage dealer, raining foes with pain from close up and afar, as well as a healer (who he definitely excels at). Thanks to their versatility, they are perfectly suitable to build a hybrid character - and that's what will be discussed in this guide.
This guide is focused on the description of all the abilities available to the Templar, as well as presenting a build focused on healing (with a little addition of damage and crowd control). There are plenty of ways to build a Templar (as a Tank, or a strict DPS, for instance), but (according to author) the role of tank is better fulfilled by a Dragonknight, and as far as damage goes, the Dawn's Wrath tree of Templar is a better solution, as it allows you to dish out some serious damage from a safe distance.
Like all the classes available in the game, the Templar has access to three, unique to him, skill trees - Aedric Spear, Dawn's Wrath and Restoring Light.
Aedric Spear tree
Below you can find active and passive skills offered by the Aedric Spear, one of the skill trees for the Templar class.
Active skills
Icon | Ability Name | Ability Description and morph |
 | Radial Sweep (ultimate) | You inflict AoE damage to all enemies around you. Empowering Sweep - you gain additional armor for every enemy hit by the ability. Crescent Sweep - you deal additional damage to all the enemies standing in front of you. |
 | Puncturing Strikes | A series of four swift attacks, damaging several enemies in front of you. The last attack knocks back the enemy standing the closest to you. Biting Jabs - increased chance to score a critical hit against enemies with low health. Puncturing Sweep - your attack has a broader reach; the closest target receives 100% additional damage. |
 | Piercing Javelin | You throw a magical spear, inflicting damage and knocking the enemy hit back. Aurora Javelin - the farther the target hit is, the more damage it will receive. Binding Javelin - the duration of the knock-back effect is increased.. |
 | Focused Charge | You charge at the target, inflicting magical damage and stopping their current action. Explosive Charge - you inflict additional damage to the enemies in a close proximity to the target. Toppling Charge - the enemy hit is stunned. |
 | Spear Shards | An AoE attack, damaging and disorienting the target. An ally can pick up a shard, which grants both of you additional damage. Luminous Shards - you regenerate some of your stamina and magicka when an ally picks up a shard. Blazing Spear - surrounding enemies are inflicted with a DoT (Damage over Time) and are stunned (instead of being disoriented) when an ally picks up a shard. |
 | Sun Shield | You summon a magic shield, which protects you from damage and damages the surrounding enemies. Radiant Ward - the shield deals more damage upon activation. Blazing Shield - after the shield effect comes to an end, you reflect 50% of the accumulated damage. |
Passive skills
Icon | Ability Name | Ability Description |
 | Piercing Spear | Increases the critical chance of all the abilities in this skill tree. Additionally, all your spear skills are more effective against blocking foes. |
 | Spear Wall | Your blocking efficiency is increased, if you have at least one skill from this tree on your skill bar. |
 | Burning Light | You have a chance of inflicting additional damage each time an enemy is hit with any ability of this skill tree. |
 | Balanced Warrior | Increases the power of your weapons and your resistance to magic. |
Explanation
The Aedric Spear tree is focused on damaging your foes with magic (Holy and Light) - all the abilities hurt one or more targets. Additionally, some of them are crowd control abilities, stunning, knocking back or interrupting the actual action of the foe(s) hit.
The passive abilities of this skill tree mainly increase the amount of damage you're able to dish out by using the Aedric Spear active abilities, by increasing the critical chance or allowing you to hit blocking foes a lot harder. In addition, they increase the efficiency of your blocks (provided that you have at least one ability from this skill tree on your action bar), as well as your magic resistance.
Unfortunately, they provide no means to heal yourself (or your teammates) and no tanking capabilities (the crowd control effects are very situational and unreliable when the life of your companions depends on your actions), which is why this skill tree is mainly for a solo play, or when you are playing a damage-dealing role in a party. They are perfect if you want to turn your Templar into an enemy grinder, fighting at melee range.
Dawn's Wrath tree
Below you can find active and passive skills offered by the Dawn's Wrath, one of the skill trees for the Templar class.
Active skills
Icon | Ability Name | Ability Description and morph |
 | Nova (ultimate) | You inflict massive AoE damage, as well as decrease the damage of all enemy hit. An ally can activate the synergy, unleashing a second nova, dealing additional damage and stunning the enemies. Solar Disturbance - the ability inflicts all the enemy hit with a Snare effect. Solar Prison - an ally can activate a more powerful version of synergy, dealing greater damage. |
 | Sun Fire | You deal instant fire damage, impose a DoT (Damage over Time) effect dealing additional fire damage, as well as a Snare effect. Reflective Light - the ability can now affect several targets at once. Vampire's Bane - the ability deal greater amount of Damage over Time. |
 | Solar Flare | You deal magic damage to your enemy, and the next attack (or an ability) made against the same foe and nearby enemies will deal additional damage. Dark Flare - all the enemies being under the effect of this ability receive decreased amount of healing. Solar Barrage - the ability no longer requires preparation (1.5s normally - now it is instantaneous) and hurts all the enemies around you. Additionally, the ability deals slightly lower damage than before. |
 | Backlash | The enemy struck with this ability accumulates all the damage inflicted upon him. When the ability ends, the surrounding enemies take additional damage increased by a percentage value. Power of the Light - marked enemy receives additional damage from your weapon attacks. Purifying Light - nearby allies are healed by a fraction of the damage. |
 | Eclipse | Targeted ally reflects all negative, single-target spells (AoE attacks are unaffected by it) back at the caster. Each subsequent cast (reflection) has an increased magicka cost. Total Dark - when the ability ends, the enemy will deal decreased damage for a short while. Unstable Core - when the ability ends, the surrounding enemies receive damage. |
 | Blinding Light | The surrounding enemies struck by this ability have a 50% chance to miss their attacks, as well as a chance to be set off balance with each missed attack. Blinding Flames - the ability has a further reach, hitting enemies in a close proximity to those affected by the ability. Searing Light - besides imposing all of the above effects, the enemy receives damage. |
Passive skills
Icon | Ability Name | Ability Description |
 | Enduring Rays | Prolongs the duration of the abilities from the Dawn's Wrath skill tree. |
 | Prism | Each Dawn's Wrath ability activation awards you with ultimate points. |
 | Illuminate | The enemies being under the influence of any of your Dawn's Wrath abilities deal reduced damage to you. |
 | Restoring Spirit | Each Dawn's Wrath ability activation restores a small fraction of your health. |
Explanation
The Dawn's Wrath skill tree focuses on dealing damage, as well as decreasing the efficiency of the enemies struck. If all you ever wanted was to have access to abilities allowing you to dispose of enemies from afar, this skill tree is made for you.
The ability especially worth noting is the Solar Flare, although the damage of this skill alone is not that important. What is, in fact, significant, is that your next attack (or an ability), inflicted upon the same enemy (or any foe in a close proximity to him) will deal greatly increased damage, which is why you will frequently annihilate a small group of enemies with a single spell (after previously marking them with Solar Flare, of course). What you must remember, is to use your most powerful attack after marking the enemy, to maximize the effect and the damage dealt.
The second ability worth mentioning is Sun Fire, which, additionally, has two, very powerful and useful morphs (you should carefully decide which one you prefer more). It deals a lot of damage, imposing a Snare effect on a struck foe (or foes, with a proper morph), which will make all your fights a lot easier.
The ultimate offered by this skill tree, the Nova, is one of the most powerful abilities in the game. Not only that it deals gigantic damage, it also weakens the enemy for a short while. What is more, the ability is AoE, meaning that it hits multiple enemies! Additionally, an ally can activate a synergy, dealing even more damage and stunning all the enemies struck. If you use your ultimate on a foe marked with Solar Flare, there's practically no chance for him (or them, if there's a group of enemies) to survive.
Investing in the passive abilities of this skill tree is mandatory, because the benefits are not to be underestimated. Enduring Rays prolongs the duration of your abilities and Restoring Spirit allows you to restore some of the magicka used, making all your abilities more cost-efficient. The ability called Prism is particularly useful, as it bestows you with ultimate points with each and every use of your abilities - thanks to that you should be able to use your ultimate abilities constantly.
Abilities in this skill line are useful to solo players, preferring to turn their enemies into dust, as well as in a group, to safely attack from afar, when someone else is attracting the enemy's attention.
Restoring Light tree
Below you can find active and passive skills offered by the Restoring Light, one of the skill trees for the Templar class.
Active skills
Icon | Ability Name | Ability Description and morph |
 | Rite of Passage (ultimate) | The surrounding allies receive healing, each 0.5 second for a duration of 4 seconds. You can't move while channeling the ability. Practiced Incantation - prolongs the duration of the ability. Remembrance - after the effect of the ability ends, affected allies receive decreased damage for a short while. |
 | Rushed Ceremony | You heal a nearby, wounded teammate. The ability marks an ally with the lowest percentage of health. Breath of Life - the ability now heals a maximum of three allies - the main target (with the lowest percentage of health) receives the full healing, while the two additional targets receive 50% of that value. Honor The Dead - the ability restores magicka to you, if you heal an ally with a low amount of health (below 20%). |
 | Healing Ritual | You heal all your surrounding allies, as well as yourself (the self-heal effect is increased by 30%). Lingering Ritual - after 8 seconds, all the allies affected by this ability will be additionally healed. Ritual of Rebirth - the self-healing effect is increased (from standard 30% to 50% after morphing the skill). |
 | Restoring Aura | If the ability is on the action bar - it increases your health and stamina regeneration by 15%. If the ability is activated - it increases health and stamina regeneration of nearby allies by 80%. Radiant Aura - the ability has now a wider reach. Repentance - the ability no longer requires magicka to use, absorbing nearby corpses instead. |
 | Cleansing Ritual | You remove a negative effect from yourself. For 12 seconds nearby allies receive healing, in a 2-second intervals. Allies can activate a synergy (called Purify), getting rid of all their negative effects and receiving additional healing. Extended Ritual - prolongs the duration of the ability. Purifying Ritual - decreases the ability cost and allows you to cleans more than one negative effect at once. |
 | Rune Focus | You create a protective area, increasing your armor and magic resistance for 12 seconds. While standing in it you are immune to interruption effects. Channeled Focus - you restore magicka while standing in the area. Restoring Focus - you receive additional healing while standing in the area. |
Passive skills
Icon | Ability Name | Ability Description |
 | Mending | After using an ability from the Restoring Light tree, the affected allies receive an additional critical chance, based on their missing health points - the more they lack, the higher the bonus (to a maximum of 15%). |
 | Focused Healing | After using an ability from the Restoring Light tree, the allies in the range of Rite of Passage, Cleansing Ritual and Rune Focus receive increased healing (15%). |
 | Light Weaver | Prolongs the duration of Restoring Aura and decreases the cost of Healing Ritual ability. What is more, you receive additional armor and magic resistance while casting Rite of Passage. |
 | Master Ritualist | Decreases the resurrection time by 50%. Resurrected allies respawn with more health points (50%). Additionally, you have a 50% chance to receive a soul gem after resurrecting an ally. . |
Explanation
The Restoring Light skill tree is exclusively focused on supporting yourself and your allies. All the abilities allow you to restore health (or regenerate stamina, in some instances) of one or more friendly targets, as well as increase the efficiency of defense (armor and magic resistance).
Healing Ritual will be your bread and butter in this skill tree. It lets you heal all the nearby allies (unfortunately, on quite a short range), healing yourself in the process as well. As always, you can upgrade (morph) this ability in two, quite different ways, although the Lingering Ritual morph is the better solution - it gives you access to an additional, delayed healing, making your job (keeping all your allies alive) a lot easier, as well as helping you conserve some magicka. There's hardly any point in investing in the other morph, as this ability already heals a decent amount of your health without it.
Rushed Ceremony is a typical "sheet anchor". In contrast to Healing Ritual, it does not need a preparation time, as it is instantaneous, and it automatically targets an ally with the lowest percentage of health, allowing you to save someone in a critical situation without much effort. The morph, you should be interested in, is the Breath of Life, allowing you to heal three targets instead of one (the two additional targets will be healed with 50% of the main target heal value), which comes in handy in a situation, when your group just received a lot of AoE damage. The second morph might have been interesting, because it refunds a significant amount of magicka cost (60%), but the ally must be at below 20% of his / her maximum health for the effect to kick-in, meaning that you can simply be too late to heal someone to get any refund, as you ally would be simply dead.
Restoring Aura passively increases your health and stamina regeneration, as well as offering a possibility to a gigantic increase of regeneration of those supplies to your allies, which is why it is beneficial to have that skill on your action bar, if you have place for it. Cleansing Ritual comes in handy while fighting those nasty enemies, which spam abilities affecting you (or your teammates) with various negative (and painfully annoying and dangerous) - but your allies will have to activate a synergy to get rid of them.
The ultimate, Rite of Passage, is a tempting ability, as it allows you to heal a great deal of health points, and, with a proper morph, additionally decrease the damage received by your allies, but it has a single, major drawback - you have to be stationary to use it, which may end up bad for you. That is precisely why it is greatly advised that you put a different ultimate ability on your action bar - but, as always, if you want, you can still use it.
The passive abilities of this skill tree increase the efficiency of your active abilities (basically allowing you to heal for greater amounts), empowers your allies and makes your resurrections more powerful. If you want to play as a healer, there's no arguing that you must invest in them.
This skill thee, given the fact that it has no offensive abilities, is mostly suitable as a secondary skill set (the first action bar would be an offensive one, like the abilities from the Dawn's Wrath skill line, and the second would be Restoring Light, giving you the ability to heal yourself in between fights), or while fighting in a group, when your sole purpose is to keep your party alive at all times.