In-depth Templar War God Discussion [Build Guide Update] (WIP)

[Omni]

Intro

Alright, so I'm going to do a much more in-depth guide/discussion of the build that I chose and why.

Skill Points

Ok, so this build is extremely tight. You have to use every point with little to no wiggle room. Once the Squarebit fixes Lightning Companions, I'll probably switch around my build.

Vengeance (Physical)

http://imgur.com/eXW76Lf

Not much to say here, we just simply pick up some juicy max HP and grab our primary form of mobility, Slice.
http://imgur.com/It5SPmn

Wrath (Lightning)

http://imgur.com/3dfU0Ua

This is where we put the most of our points, this is also where we put a lot of useless points. The only important things to grab here are Critical Charge, Rapid Strikes, Alacrity, Effect, Magnetic Orbs, Static Charge, and Wrathful Conviction. All other points can go where ever you wish as long as you can attain the above mentioned. I opt not to go for Static Overload and the rest of its line due to multiple reasons.

1. Doesn't deal respectable damage (Could be a bug?)
   
2. The vacuum interferes with the use of Taunt's vacuum
   
3. Drops frames dramatically when hitting into large packs

Other than that, Magnetic Orbs will be our primary form of attacking and killing things. Using it once will cause four small lightning orbs to circle the Templar and shoot chain lightnings out at nearby enemies when they come into range.

http://imgur.com/l19pyZO

http://imgur.com/jrdCbDv

But the main key is that they can stack. Multiple times.

http://imgur.com/DKxaEJN

With enough CDR and Effect Duration, you can obtain multiple stacks and run around as a mobile tesla coil. Lots of hits per sec which contributes to a lot of things that I will discuss later, but for now lets carry on.
The next big ability which serves both as to give us cooldown reduction, but also a free reset every 3 sec. Alacrity.

http://imgur.com/JAuiKwM

When used, it states it lowers all other cooldowns by 3.5 sec, but I'm pretty sure the tooltip doesn't reflect aura increase %'s from the other trees because when I activate it, it usually reduces everything by about 6-7 sec.

Finally we get into our last extremely important aspect to this build. Wrathful Conviction.

http://imgur.com/5yM5So5

This passive does exactly what it says. It now lets our lightning skills proc Burning Conviction which is just a simple burn. I'll get into why this is such a big deal later, but for now know this is the major key to this build.

Conviction (Fire)

http://imgur.com/mXXFSmP

This is one of the better tree's as every point goes into something useful. Also, we get the next two major components to this build. Burning Conviction, and Condemnation. Oh and Taunt is also great.

First, lets talk about Taunt.

http://imgur.com/4ubUZF0

It's a MASSIVE screen wide vacuum. It's honestly crazy that it pulls the world, assuming they are in line of sight. I would also take note that one of the Lightning skills, Revert, does the same thing, but in a much smaller range (Taunt is 16.3, while Revert is 9.3. Nearly half the distance). This not only vacuums, but also gives a small damage boost for a duration which is nice. It groups everything on the screen into a nice, compact cluster. Which again, we will explain later.

Next on the list is Burning Conviction

http://imgur.com/nJTUhi7

Pretty straight foreward, as it causes all fire skills to apply a burn equal to 80% of the inital damage dealt. Though that burn does 80% of it's damage every second, for a lot of seconds. I'll math this later to show you how crazy this starts to get.

Finally is Condemnation.

http://imgur.com/ZmeNkkO

Now, you may be wondering why I only put 1 point into this. And that is because you only need 1 point for your abilities to be able to apply Condemnation. Also, the base damage on the ability itself is actually really weak, so there is literally no reason to add any more points to this passive. Just know that this the bomb. Literally.

Redemption (Holy)

http://imgur.com/84OtwjM

Just like the lightning tree, this one also has a lot of filler points that you can choose to do whatever you wish with. Just know the important things to pick up here are Prayer, Devotion, Faith's Reach, Grace, Divine Intervention or Ascension.

One of the greatest Aura's is definitely Prayer.

http://imgur.com/OtDxT2W

This is a pretty straightforward aura, but it just gives the Templar two of the best stats, CDR and Effect Duration. Simple and Clean. Is the way that you're making me feel tonight.

Next to talk about is really only the choice of Ulti that you want as a player. Both are amazing, I personally prefer Divine Intervention, but I also really enjoy Ascension.

http://imgur.com/kLoeNZk

Divine Intervention gives a 350% max hp shield to the character. Feel like you need almost 5x more hp? Well now you do, at the press of one button. Every 3 sec. Yeah, I really like this.
Ascension though cuts all cooldowns in half. So throwing an orb every 3 sec, is now every 1.5 sec. It basically just helps speed up your orb stack faster, which is still really good. I just like being more defensive in the higher Anomalies. I really don't like dieing.

Masteries

http://imgur.com/LREOyx4

These are my current masteries, they are based around my gear currently since I use the All for One set. The important things to not here though, are getting 20 pts into upgrading Burning Conviction, maxing the templar aura/reach/effect durations, capping resistances, Overpower, increasing magic damage, and dumping everything else into magnetic orbs.

Gear

http://imgur.com/hmpRYzO

First piece of the War God set, Mandatory

http://imgur.com/Z5iWCAt

Quadruplets as accessory, though you can use anything you want. I would recommend Heart of Grace or Health Injector as strong options.

http://imgur.com/i7eVtDB

Next Piece of the War God set, Mandatory

http://imgur.com/rZeHnXe

Athos, Part of the All for One set. I Highly recommend this as there is little to no competition for a very long time, possibly till at least 1200-1500+ mastery. Outside of that, Amulet of Despair is a decent option. If using Amulet of Despair, I would recommend using a Frost Star Jewel to add chill to all attacks for the slow.

http://imgur.com/PDDusoB

Third piece of the War God set, Mandatory

http://imgur.com/3AanvqJ

Final piece of the War God set, Mandatory. Now you in it to win it.

http://imgur.com/PNyCZnU

I love these shoes. I've gotten flak for these, but I prioritize QoL aspects as much as possible. And this gives all the QoL possible in a nice pair of shoes. You can wear anything else though, users choice.

http://imgur.com/TIlHDvK

Again, I use the All for One set, highly recommended. Otherise it you can opt to use Titan's Ring and change %all element to %knockback. Works decently with Amulet of Despair.

Stats

*Note, Heading to bed soon, will continue this at a later time, just posting some last screenshots. Will discuss all the math later.*

http://imgur.com/M9ieD1S

http://imgur.com/zAci7AX

http://imgur.com/Z0Xp4bw

http://imgur.com/AQcRmDH

http://imgur.com/IQAs9Bz



--------------- Older stuff -----------------------
I made started this build a few months ago, but couldn't do my ideal build until the most recent patch that fixed a few things. The video says it all if you're willing to listen and watch through as I discuss my experiences with the build and showcase the true potential of the build.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zZ7f7zLyWQ&feature=youtu.be

[Arkatar]

I can barely hear you even at max volume, afraid I'll rip my eardrums if I get a Windows notification of some sort...

[Omni]

Yeah, when I tried converting the file from OBS, I guess the audio got really bad. Might mess around with it to try and make it sound better.

[NullPointer]

There were some interesting points made but it really feels like it would have been better in text format rather than video. Easier to structure the information that way, and easier to digest than a 26-minute video. Throw in a dedicated gameplay demo video that shows the full potential of your setup and you'd have a much more viewer/reader friendly presentation that better represents the performance of the build.

The skill and mastery point allocations were well thought out and explained, but there are some other options for the gear that weren't explored. I'll go over them by category:

Equipment
Boots
Fleetstriders is a good choice for pretty much any build that doesn't absolutely require something else in this slot, but Boots of Hermes and Cloudrunners are also good options in general. They don't have the innate phasing effect but Boots of Hermes has a fixed movespeed enchant while retaining the immunity to slows and roots while Cloudrunners has a fixed movespeed on kill enchant, which frees up an enchant slot if you like having that effect.
Another interesting option for this build in particular is Pathmakers. When using Ascension, Slice has zero downtime which means that slows and roots aren't a big problem, so the biggest benefit of Fleetstriders and Boots of Hermes (in my opinion) is not required. By instead taking Pathmakers, the character gains a considerable amount of health and mana regen. Not enough to sustain skill rotations without relying on mana on hit, but enough to help maintain Magnetic Orbs stacks and/or use Slice during the large gaps between packs found in some Anomaly layouts.

Accessory
Heart of Grace is alright, but as covered in the video the skill it supports it isn't very good. Health Injector as a generic defensive option for this slot is probably outperformed by Heart of Grace due to the cooldown, but it isn't RNG-dependent. Since neither of these will probably save the character from dangerous burst damage, I think Maddoc's Cure as a more offensive option is worth considering. The only thing it really does is provide crit chance as a fixed enchant, but it's still a damage boost not provided by other options in this slot.

Enchants
All damage enchants in combination with All for One actually don't provide as much DPS as Overpower and crit chance/damage past a certain amount of elemental damage. Additional elemental damage boosts stack additively with the already large amount provided by gear and mastery investment, while crit modifiers stack multiplicatively with it. The value of Overpower depends on target resists, but it doesn't hurt to have at least one enchant for it since going from 60% with masteries alone to 85% with one enchant gives a ~15.6% damage boost against a target with 50% resist.
Some calculation is required to determine the best combination of these enchants at a given mastery level, but based on some number crunching I did a while ago replacing an all damage enchant with crit chance/damage when elemental damage goes above 1400% is good enough as a guideline.

Gems
Effect duration on armor pieces is actually very good for increasing maximum DPS and just general quality of life, but it does compete for slots with percent health which is more imporant for minimizing oneshots.
Pickup radius on amulet/ring/accessory is also worth considering since 60% additional elemental damage is rather small when added to the 1000%++ the character already has, though there's not any better options if you don't care about picking up crafting materials.
For the weapon/offhand slots, the +5% chance to stun on hit adds a nice safety buffer of sorts since even with the low chance to trigger, the sheer quantity of hits generated by Magnetic Orbs is enough to pretty much stunlock anything in range even with just one stun gem. Stun prevents pulling with Taunt though, but in my opinion the extra safety is worth slightly slower clearing. It doesn't work well against stag chargers though, so it's not an excuse to ignore defenses.


Well that turned out to be much longer than I expected, but I guess it's probably fine since the thread is for in-depth build discussion.

[Omni]

Originally posted by NullPointer:

Boots
Fleetstriders is a good choice for pretty much any build that doesn't absolutely require something else in this slot, but Boots of Hermes and Cloudrunners are also good options in general. They don't have the innate phasing effect but Boots of Hermes has a fixed movespeed enchant while retaining the immunity to slows and roots while Cloudrunners has a fixed movespeed on kill enchant, which frees up an enchant slot if you like having that effect.
Another interesting option for this build in particular is Pathmakers. When using Ascension, Slice has zero downtime which means that slows and roots aren't a big problem, so the biggest benefit of Fleetstriders and Boots of Hermes (in my opinion) is not required. By instead taking Pathmakers, the character gains a considerable amount of health and mana regen. Not enough to sustain skill rotations without relying on mana on hit, but enough to help maintain Magnetic Orbs stacks and/or use Slice during the large gaps between packs found in some Anomaly layouts.

I agree with a handful of points you make here, but I more so go with Fleetstriders for overall immunity to everything. Just a QoL aspect that I don't have to worry about anything. Its part of the same reason I add Immunity to pull/knockback on my amulet.

Originally posted by NullPointer:

Accessory
Heart of Grace is alright, but as covered in the video the skill it supports it isn't very good. Health Injector as a generic defensive option for this slot is probably outperformed by Heart of Grace due to the cooldown, but it isn't RNG-dependent. Since neither of these will probably save the character from dangerous burst damage, I think Maddoc's Cure as a more offensive option is worth considering. The only thing it really does is provide crit chance as a fixed enchant, but it's still a damage boost not provided by other options in this slot.

I actually planned on talking about this in my video but ended up forgetting about it. I personally think that Health Injector probably a better option in terms of making sure something doesn't burst you fast enough, but I just haven't had much luck finding any new ones lately to roll.

Originally posted by NullPointer:

Enchants
All damage enchants in combination with All for One actually don't provide as much DPS as Overpower and crit chance/damage past a certain amount of elemental damage. Additional elemental damage boosts stack additively with the already large amount provided by gear and mastery investment, while crit modifiers stack multiplicatively with it. The value of Overpower depends on target resists, but it doesn't hurt to have at least one enchant for it since going from 60% with masteries alone to 85% with one enchant gives a ~15.6% damage boost against a target with 50% resist.
Some calculation is required to determine the best combination of these enchants at a given mastery level, but based on some number crunching I did a while ago replacing an all damage enchant with crit chance/damage when elemental damage goes above 1400% is good enough as a guideline.

In my video you can see that I have 85% overpower from the innate stat from Wargod's blade. I originally opted to go for 95% with a 10% gem, but I didn't see much different overall. Also I believe that Reach has more value than Effect Duration in this build once Effect Duration is high enough to maintain 100% uptime.
Also talking about Crit, is that DoT's can't crit (*atleast not off your % chance). And from some of my rough testing it also seemed that crits that proc burning conviction don't do any bonus damage compared to non-critical strikes, thus making Crit have less than half that value since most of the damage is offloaded into the burn damage. Ideally I would probably drop the crit from my acc to pick attack speed or health until this maybe be changed.
Another point is at the moment, All for One set is giving me around 1100% to Lightning. without it, I have roughly 750%. Until another 500+ masteries, All for One will probably be the strongest 2 piece. After that though, something like Despair+Titan's ring with 75% knockback will be better.

Originally posted by NullPointer:

Gems
Effect duration on armor pieces is actually very good for increasing maximum DPS and just general quality of life, but it does compete for slots with percent health which is more imporant for minimizing oneshots.
Pickup radius on amulet/ring/accessory is also worth considering since 60% additional elemental damage is rather small when added to the 1000%++ the character already has, though there's not any better options if you don't care about picking up crafting materials.
For the weapon/offhand slots, the +5% chance to stun on hit adds a nice safety buffer of sorts since even with the low chance to trigger, the sheer quantity of hits generated by Magnetic Orbs is enough to pretty much stunlock anything in range even with just one stun gem. Stun prevents pulling with Taunt though, but in my opinion the extra safety is worth slightly slower clearing. It doesn't work well against stag chargers though, so it's not an excuse to ignore defenses.

There isn't very many strong options for gems (Would be amazing if there was an all% ele gem). The purpose was more for the fire stack incase there is any funky math scaling the burns additionally with fire damage (I mention that I'm too lazy to test that). Pick radius is a farm stat. Maybe for players starting out and need funds, but for anyone who reaches 1000+ anomaly, its not an issue in any sense of the word.
The stun chance is a really cool idea though. I never really bothered with those things originally, but the concept sounds pretty nice as it adds an extra layer of defensive capability. The main reason why I got +60% hp is simply for burst (*cough* Stags *cough*). I once tried the accessory Quadruplets for the fear proc, but the moment they get feared, they almost immediately break it upon taking damage. So the best it ever really did was simply interupt the target.

[NullPointer]

Hm, so like half of the wall of text I typed out was already covered and I just failed to digest the info from the video... I'll just take that as an additional argument for putting it down in text format so that idiots like me don't end up asking about things that were already discussed hahahah

Maybe I'll do some testing with crits and bonus fire damage affecting the DoT. I just figured it should and shouldn't respectively, since Burning Conviction specifies "impact damage", but it seems that it's not that simple.

[Arkatar]

Originally posted by NullPointer:

Maybe I'll do some testing with crits and bonus fire damage affecting the DoT. I just figured it should and shouldn't respectively, since Burning Conviction specifies "impact damage", but it seems that it's not that simple.

It's actually rather simple. If the fire damage multiplier affected Burning Conviction, that would be double-dipping, and Squarebit is very keen on avoiding double-dipping. And since DoTs can crit (see link below), using crit impact damage and not base impact damage would be (sort of) double-dipping on the crits. In any case, I know from discussions about Berserker's Burn passive that the "impact damage" doesn't include bonus crit damage.

That being said, now that Bursting Boils (Warlock) crits, I believe Condemnation should also crit to be consistent. The skills are somewhat different, I'll admit, but I dunno, seems like the same mechanic to me.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/375480/discussions/0/135510669605880290/#c135511027315698981