Templars

[Gorycory]

So, I saw someone complaining saying Templars are bad, personally I find them to be one of the best classes added in WotC. I mean, they're all good in their own ways, but my Templars really annihilate everyone, and the fact that you can melee and then run and hide is amazing. My question is, if I equip an AmpBooster to my Templar does that amplify all his abilities ? Or give him base damage? Or what does it do... the item itself is a bit ambiguous, it seems like a perfect synergy? But, honestly, i'm not sure so I just figured i'd ask.

A little information for anyone curious, I am currently replaying through for the 3rd time, the last time I played I killed 2 out of the 3 chosen but I didn't end up beating the game and on my first play through before WotC came out I didn't beat the game then either. This time I am deadset on finishing it, so I decided to go gun-ho and play on the hardest difficulty. I've also added a myriad of mods, mostly cosmetic and of course some that make the game less annoying (like STOP WASTING MY TIME) I've also increased the challenge a bit by adding harder units, because I feel like sometimes the vanilla units are a bit lacking... like the Advent officers for instance.

I know my original question is being lost here... but think of this more as a general discussion if anyone is interested. The random encounters with the Chosen can be SO annoying. You're fighting like a group of Advent, and they show up, and all they do is run up punch you in the face, stun you, and run away. It's the most ♥♥♥♥♥-like tactic I can think of, lol.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Gorycory:

My question is, if I equip an AmpBooster to my Templar does that amplify all his abilities ? Or give him base damage? Or what does it do... the item itself is a bit ambiguous, it seems like a perfect synergy? But, honestly, i'm not sure so I just figured i'd ask.

There is no item called an Amp Booster in an unmodded game so don't know what to tell you.

[patrick]

There's the psi amp and it's upgrades, but that's for psi operatives, not templars. Those are different, although they can sometimes have the same skills (templars can get psi operative skills in their xcom tree, in my current game i have a templar with fortress and sustain for example).

Personally, i like templars. But i think it might have something to do with the ingame and modded difficulty setting. Lots of people increase pod sizes, pod counts, and heavily buff their enemies for more of a challenge. Parry is very powerful in normal game settings, but the more enemies you have, the more you're concerned with dealing as much damage as possible over being able to tank an attack.

[talemore]

Amplifiers directly upgrade perks. In theory a skill shared from psionic should gain the benefit of the amp. All wotc class can be the worst or the best depending on what perks available.

If there were no pods think what happen when an advent officer tell every advent trooper on screen to hit a single target. Not randomly selecting the best target available but actually trying to kill tactically by defeating the most vital threat. The officers purpose is to break up the AI's selection, the advent officer is simulating a player. The ability shouldn't take up actions cause it's not a supporting or offensive. The game describe advent officers to be copies of the commander.

[red255]

no, the chosen are filling the roll of the commander.

the officers are just more capable than the grunts.

[sandman25dcsss]

I don't see how templars can be good middle/late game on legendary provided you attack those archons/andromedons etc. from distance because you don't want to activate another pod or two.

[Eggy]

Originally posted by sandman25dcsss:

I don't see how templars can be good middle/late game on legendary provided you attack those archons/andromedons etc. from distance because you don't want to activate another pod or two.

you answered your own question. it is all down to playstyle like alot of things in xcom2.
if your not playing the long range game then a templar is great.
They can run in and do damage to a group of enemies and then negate/reflect alot of that damage. if your using there stasis, invert and ghost skills this gives you alot of control over the fights.
yes if your trying to stay at range and pick enemies off, then a templar is a waste of a spot, but if you get lucky and end up with bladestorm, fortress and lightning reflexes they can be the backbone of your entire playthrough.

[sandman25dcsss]

Originally posted by Eggy:

Originally posted by sandman25dcsss:

I don't see how templars can be good middle/late game on legendary provided you attack those archons/andromedons etc. from distance because you don't want to activate another pod or two.

you answered your own question. it is all down to playstyle like alot of things in xcom2.
if your not playing the long range game then a templar is great.
They can run in and do damage to a group of enemies and then negate/reflect alot of that damage. if your using there stasis, invert and ghost skills this gives you alot of control over the fights.
yes if your trying to stay at range and pick enemies off, then a templar is a waste of a spot, but if you get lucky and end up with bladestorm, fortress and lightning reflexes they can be the backbone of your entire playthrough.

Playstyle is not a given. Yesterday I attacked an UFO with 4 snipers, specialist and grenadier, the supposed play style was to kill everyone at range. I killed 6 aliens flawlessly indeed and approached the target preparing to disable it on next(last) turn with specialist. My last soldier moved to have target in range and activated 8 aliens( a serious mistake, I just didn't expect them to be where they were). I had to evacuate next turn, holding an unconscious soldier and having 2 other soldiers at 2 HP each, standing in acid and surrounded by almost adjacent enemies. Now replace one of those snipers with templar and you risk activating those pods even earlier. XCOM is full of timed missions, playstyle is not always selected by you but by timer. And that's despite I had "+2 turns" and "enemies lose an action if activated during your turn" bonuses.

[talemore]

Originally posted by red255:

no, the chosen are filling the roll of the commander.

the officers are just more capable than the grunts.

If you can prove it. With the exception of the assassin the other two are random test objects, one is described to be a reaper. If them were commander them wouldn't be different from each other. Each three have a personality who reflect the three factions. The assassin represent the Skirmishers, warlock for the Templars and the hunter to the Reapers. The advent officer represent the commander because by reading the lore in the game advent was xcom before the aliens infiltrated their infrastructure. Because xcom failed so miserable a new order was made named advent who defeated the aliens but politicians wanted to diplomacy with the aliens. Xcom2 takes place where the war have changed the communities into police states and if it wasn't for the failure of xcom there wouldn't be xcom2. The three elders were never chosen because commander was allowed to win.

[Wolf505]

A Templar with Bladestorm, Fortress and Shadowstep, in addition to the typical Templar skills is just plain ridiculous. You can run into the middle of an unactivated pod and basically be a human grenade as they all run away and get Bladestorm procs. Or take out entire pods solo with Reaper and carefully placed Arc Waves. Even with base Templar skills like Ionic Storm you can do some massive damage. Or switching places with an enemy or ally to put them in a better spot. A well built and well played Templar is the most OP class in the game, by far.

[sandman25dcsss]

It is weird to see "well built" when those bladestorm and fortess are random, doubly so when it is optimal to get fortress from an item instead of skill.

[Mr. Nice]

Originally posted by sandman25dcsss:

It is weird to see "well built" when those bladestorm and fortess are random, doubly so when it is optimal to get fortress from an item instead of skill.

I agree about good Templar "builds" being quite reliant on good luck with the XCom abilities, and that you can get env protection from a vest makes that element less random reliant,
but why is it more "optimal" to get fortress form a vest instead? Note that in theory with a helluva lot of luck, Faction Heroes can get an XCom ability at every rank above squaddie, so it's not as simple as fortress "taking the place" of something else, since that's just not how the XCom branch works for Heroes.

[sandman25dcsss]

Originally posted by Mr. Nice:

Originally posted by sandman25dcsss:

It is weird to see "well built" when those bladestorm and fortess are random, doubly so when it is optimal to get fortress from an item instead of skill.

I agree about good Templar "builds" being quite reliant on good luck with the XCom abilities, and that you can get env protection from a vest makes that element less random reliant,
but why is it more "optimal" to get fortress form a vest instead? Note that in theory with a helluva lot of luck, Faction Heroes can get an XCom ability at every rank above squaddie, so it's not as simple as fortress "taking the place" of something else, since that's just not how the XCom branch works for Heroes.

Maybe I was not clear enough. I meant that a templar who does not have a chance to learn fortress because it got something like lightning hand instead is more powerful than one with it. I mean a great extra skill and the "fortress" vest is better than fortress skill and any item. Some skills are superior to any items, even for templar

[Bilateralrope]

When talking Hazmat vest vs Fortress, remember that Fortress provides immunity to explosions. The hazmat vest does not.
Fortress means that a Purifier can do nothing to the soldier. A hazmat vest means that the purifiers grenades and death explosion can still hurt.

According to the wiki[xcom.wikia.com] Templars have 8 possible skills the game chooses from.

So lets calculate the chances of getting Bladestorm, Fortress and Shadowstep. I'll use this calculator[stattrek.com]:
- Using n=8, r=4 it calculates that there are 70 possible combinations of 4 skills from those 8. I am ignoring the order the skills show up in.
- There are 5 combinations that include those three skills.
Thus the probability of getting Bladestorm, Fortress and Shadowstep on a Templar is 5/70 = 1/14 = 7.1%

[sandman25dcsss]

Good point about explosions.

[Mr. Nice]

Originally posted by Bilateralrope:

So lets calculate the chances of getting Bladestorm, Fortress and Shadowstep. I'll use this calculator[stattrek.com]:

If you want to do the maths, then here's the low down on how Hero Xcom branches are actually constructed. They actually choose a random ability from their deck for every rank above squaddie, but their deck is padded with some "blank" entries, so they are very unlikely to actually get 6 abilities. So as I said, getting any particular ability at a rank does not make another ability less likely anymore than getting a blank at that rank does...

[edit]

RandomAbilityDecks=(DeckName="TemplarXComAbilities", \\
					Abilities=((AbilityName="Sustain", ApplyToWeaponSlot=eInvSlot_PrimaryWeapon), \\
							   (AbilityName="TemplarBladestorm", ApplyToWeaponSlot=eInvSlot_PrimaryWeapon), \\
							   (AbilityName="Fortress", ApplyToWeaponSlot=eInvSlot_PrimaryWeapon), \\
							   (AbilityName="Reaper", ApplyToWeaponSlot=eInvSlot_PrimaryWeapon), \\
							   (AbilityName="Shadowstep",  ApplyToWeaponSlot=eInvSlot_Unknown), \\
							   (AbilityName="Quickdraw"), \\
							   (AbilityName="Faceoff",  ApplyToWeaponSlot=eInvSlot_SecondaryWeapon), \\
							   (AbilityName="LightningHands",  ApplyToWeaponSlot=eInvSlot_SecondaryWeapon), \\
							   (), \\
							   (), \\
							   (), \\
							   ()))

So the Templar deck has four blanks as well as the 8 abilities.