Templar PvP Tactics? (Solo)

[Ryzori]

<DIV> <DIV>My Templar is level 35 now, and I've seen quite a bit of PvP with him. In groups, I shine. No need for any advice there. My question is, how does a Templar win a solo encounter? </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Our low dps seems to make winning any fight downright impossible. I can keep myself alive for a good amount of time, but the dps of most enemies is high enough that I have to spend -all- of my time healing myself in some way or my health dips dangerously low. Thus, in most fights, the best thing to do is heal and bail or I'll run out of mana, often before I can really do any damage at all. If the enemy's DPS is high enough, I can't even run away, as I must chain-heal myself and I cannot heal while moving. In these situations, it's really just a matter of living long enough to annoy the opponent before I run out of mana and die. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I know I'm a support character - I knew that when I rolled. And the things I can do for a group are exemplary. But there's gotta be -something- I can do if jumped while solo other than running out of mana and dying. (Btw, I know about OOC healing though I try to avoid it as it seems a bit cheesy. I want to actually be able to fight back). </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>All and any input appreciated.</DIV></DIV>

[Waking]

Solo pvp depends on the class youre fighting,Your potential is maximized when your AA's develop. See Kendrick(e?)'s posts for that.Scouts - Survive the initial spike then melee/cast on them mixing in heals as needed. Hope they feel like fighting/dying.  Get close to rangers and melee/nuke. Cure anything melee on a brigand. Surviving the initial spike usually means casting 2 3 or 4 reactives on yourself, but the fight from then on is even. You'll have a power battle with most troubadors and dirges if you dont knock em down fast enough. Make sure to stop auto attack if you notice you are attacking rapidly and getting procced hits on yourself that hurt too bad. Untill a scout starts using mental breach poison you should be able to burn them out of power and then gain the upper hand even if they are good. <<< Equal to easy fight if you survive the beginning>>>Mage - Boost your resists as high as possible, all of them perhaps save divine should be high. Use your big heals against wizards and warlocks unless you notice fast ticking dots. Against a coercer, do more damage than they do and throw in heals, use your ward/resist Aegis, They use a spendinghealth=lost power ability that shouldnt be a problem if youre paying attention, cure. Necromancer, is going to be hard unless you do enough damage fast enough to take them down. Pets have abilities and combat arts... the necros will drain your health and increase their own.. they can sacrifice pets. Summoners are going ot be a tough fight, but its unlikely that their divine resist will be high. Cure their swarm pets, and fast it will double triple or more their dps. Mage fights come down to resists, cures, and appropriate aggressive damage dealing. <<< Easy win if you have good resists>>>Fighter - Watch out for stifles and stuns on a bruiser but reactives work well, especially benefaction on the initial burst. Continue to melee and nuke as you heal. Hope they dont get in a well timed stifle, do not get into a power battle with them, anticipate the mend. Guardians/Zerkers nuke dot debuff. Melee wont do much. Shouldnt worry about spike damage like a scout but lookout for lack of avoidance on your part, and a berserk/ripostes/other change in dps on their part. <<<Equal to hard fight>>>Other priests - More efficient to not engage, appropriate resists where needed, do not lose the power fight(use melee unless druid procs hurt too bad). Cure dots, cure pets, kill pets if necessary(on shaman) I have yet to successfully and definitively beat an inquisitor in battle. However at the time i wasnt fullly AA'd and I have since respecced into MT cleric less pvp templar. <<<Hard if the priest is good, long but easy if the priest is bad, except against inquisitor>>>Basic analysis, for your level, T6 and T7 are not contiguous in difficulty or strategy with the first 50 levels of the game. This was targetted at your level, less AA.<div></div>

[Ryzori]

<P>First and foremost, let me thank you for taking the time to type out such a helpful post. It was very useful to me, and a great improvement over the "lol ooc heal and run when u run out of pwr" garbage I usually get. =) </P> <P>My biggest problem right now seems to be that I can't find the -time- to nuke and melee, as I'm taking so much damage that all of my time/power is going to trying to stay alive. Based on your advice, I think one of my problems may be an over-reliance on reactives and not enough insta-healing. I think my opponents are outdamaging my heals. Reactive-wise, I've found that stacking the single and group reactive works well (both proc when I get hit for double the healing power), but casting the group reactive's long cast make it difficult to complete in PvP. </P> <P>That leads directly into the next problem - interrupts. My Focus is maxed, but I still get interrupted quite a bit. I just hit level 40, and have recently (39) obtained a 6.1 second stun. I also have the rank 3 Hammer Smite (1.8 second stun/blur/knockdown) ability out of the Sta line. I'm hoping that with practice I'll learn to buy myself more casting time using these 2.abilities. </P> <P>The last issue is of course our low DPS. I try to compensate as much as possible for this, by casting both debuffs (Mark of Princes and Scorn), using the Divine Judgment HO, etc... </P> <P>AA-wise, I plan on doing 4/4/4/8 in both Sta and Int. </P> <P>What do you think?  </P>

[Waking]

OOC healing is kinda lame imo. Ive done it before but the thing is our power to health ratio is way above anyone else's power to damage ratio up until T6+. Your heals are more powerful out of combat but if you cant even chain heal yourself to stay alive with plate armor and resists thats something we should feedback not something we should work around by staying OOC.Youre right though, at your level you wont find time to nuke and melee unless your opponent is stupid and stands next to you. At your level the best you can do against fighters and scouts is to burn them out of power, and hope they dont have mental breach poisons running. When they are out of power hope they feel like dying because we dont have roots, however when you get to the point where you can do 3k spike dps(two hammer swings with yaulp on and a hammer smite in the same second using blackscale maul) stun them and open it all up as they start to flee.<p>I only ever used the group reactive in solo pvp if i had a 5-6 second headstart in the fight. One thing that you really should look into is benefaction, you will get behind on heals, its certain. When you are actually surviving a fight but going down at a steady rate, use benefaction and dont turn it off until you are full health and your enemy is not attacking otherwise let them burn shots on your free reactive. It has 15 procs by the way, thats 3 times more than your single reactive and the cast time is very fast.</p>About interrupts, since we do wear plate and depend less on avoidance and more on mitigation there are some problems with templar focus. From the perspective of taking damage its just a trade off one for the other, however we are casters and our heals are spells. In this respect we really do lose out against other healer types. Getting items with focus and/or using some +defense gear will help you out, but personally I think the issue can be overcome by foresight of damage which is our specialty as clerics. Predict your enemy's next move and answer before hand. This way being interrupted will only put you on level footing when it comes to time management. <p></p>Were I not the only cleric in my guild and raiding were not an issue I would have specced thus for pvp: Agi 4/8/8 Sta 4/8/8 and put the remaining points in whatever you find interesing. This way you can basically nuke with hammer smite, and hit the pause button with wondrous buckling when you feel you arent in control of the fight. These lines give you DPS modifiers as well as crit chance increases. My strategy with these AAs was to turn on yaulp and whack on people (sometimes critting for 1500 double swinging = 3k by itself) which as you might know if added to a hammer smite is enough damage to take down an equal level mage(albeit poorly geared) in literally 1 second. Scouts cant deal with that kind of damage either.Remember to use your deaggro if youre taking heavy heat and dont have any heals readily available. It will force your enemies to drop their targets as well as daze them for a while.If youre quick you can switch gear in combat and use yaulp just like fighers use stances, granted it has a 10 second recast when you turn it off, but if youre turning it off you'll probably be healing or something for that 10 seconds.<div></div>